Ryuuji and Taiga walked their familiar path up to the school, traipsing along at an average pace for high school students. Their breath was visible in the cold morning light, and they shivered when they had to stand still at a traffic light.
If you looked at them from a distance, you'd probably think they were just up to their usual antics, passing the time of their daily commute with a round of bickering about nothing. If you got a little bit closer, though, you'd realise that there was a tension between them that could be cut with a knife.
The train whooshed past them as they stood at the crossing. The lights blinked back and forth as they both looked at the ground, wondering which one of them would speak first.
"D-d-d-d-do you… want to try holding hands?" Taiga said.
"Urp!" Ryuuji said. "Y-Yeah! No big deal, right?
He looked down at the delicate, doll-like features of Taiga. He had held that hand so many times over the last few days, so why did it seem so intimidating now? That tiny, elegant hand seemed like some sort of weapon that lingered in the air between them, one that threatened to detonate and turn the whole area into rubble.
"Right!" she exclaimed, steeling herself with determination. "Let's do it!"
"Mm!" Ryuuji grunted, pumping his fist. The lights clicked off and the boom gates lifted up, clearing the way for them to start moving again. They continued walking up the street silently, their hands no closer to touching than before they had made this bold proclamation.
Taiga's eyes narrowed slowly, and her face contorted into a grimace.
"W-Why aren't you grabbing my hand?" she said.
"Ah!" Ryuuji shouted, pulled out of his thoughts. "W-W-Why don't you grab mine then?!"
"Y-Y-You spineless…" Taiga muttered, clenching her fist.
"Me?!" Ryuuji spluttered. "It was your idea, you… you chicken!"
"TAIGA!" a voice cried out.
"Minorin!" Taiga shouted as she turned around and saw the grinning face of her best friend. She ran over to the red-haired girl and jumped into her arms.
"Taiga! I was so sosososo worried about you! I'm so glad you're ok!"
"Minoriiiiin!" Taiga cooed. "I missed you so much!"
The two of them played around, Minori patting Taiga as if she were pet in their usual style, before they settled down and continued on their way. The first thing that Minori noticed was that, unlike before, Taiga naturally ended up walking next to Ryuuji instead of her. Also new to the situation was the unbelievably thick air of tension between the two of them, as well as a shared crimson hue on both of their faces.
"Oh ho hooooo" Minori said. "Today is a day full of tension, hmm?"
"Eh?" Taiga said. "What do you mean, Minorin?"
"Hmmm, what it could be, Taiga? The world is full of… mysteries…" Minori felt the energy leaving her as the sentence came to an end. Lately it had been getting harder and harder for her to keep up her usual façade. After all, these two had been spending months pretending they didn't have feelings for each other. Based on the hospital and the way they were acting now, it was pretty obvious that things had changed for them. She found herself wondering why they hadn't just come out and said something about it from the get-go. Was it supposed to be some sort of secret? Did they think that people were as oblivious to them as they were to each other?
"Minorin… is everything ok? You look annoyed."
"Ah! Nothing, nothing. I was just trying to remember where I left my bald cap… ah haha…" She hadn't even realised the frown that had come over her face as she had been thinking about all of this. "Anyway… how are things with you, Takasu?"
"Uh? Me?"
"Yeah!" We were all worried about you too, you know? After all, you ran off with Taiga in the ambulance, and then you stayed in the hospital with her."
"Ah, yeah… uh, sorry to worry all of you like that." Ryuuji said nervously, putting his palm up apologetically.
"I'd love to hear the story!" She said, smiling at them. I'm sure it was an… eventful time?"
"Ah, well" Ryuuji said, as Taiga looked away, blushing. "Well, you know, just a lot of waiting around and stuff… you know how hospitals are…"
Minori sighed. Why don't they just say it, she thought to herself. There was no reason to keep hiding it. Why do they have to keep hiding it all this time? Why? Even now it was so obvious to her. the way the two of them were blushing and looking everywhere but at each other. It was so obvious that something had happened. It had even looked as if they were about to hold hands before she showed up.
Minori was getting tired of it all. Tired of playing the good friend, tired of being the one who just took it all on the chin, tired of being the one who stayed in the background silently and cheered for everyone else. Didn't she deserve some happiness too?
Maybe Ami had been right, after all. It was really all was so very tiring, she realised now. She felt like she wanted to go back to bed and sleep, and they hadn't even gotten to school yet.
"What's with you two…" she mumbled to herself.
"Hmm? What'd you say, Minorin?"
"…nothing" Minori replied, the cracks in her visage starting to appear. Taiga shot back a look at Ryuuji. He had caught it too, there was definitely something up with her. But they were trapped here on this path. They couldn't do what they wanted to do, which was run off and analyse the situation together, and then come up with a plan and approach it as a united front. So they were stuck improvising, and that wasn't exactly their biggest strength. Taiga was a natural klutz, after all, and Ryuuji spent a lot of time being selectively oblivious.
"Ah, so… Kushieda, how's softball team going?" Ryuuji said, trying to take an upbeat note in his voice.
Minori sighed. It was getting harder and harder to push through and go back to her cheerful persona. Something had shifted in her, and it was seeming as if she wouldn't be able to go back to the way she was.
"Sorry, you two…" she said in a low voice. "I just remembered I had to do something. I'm going ahead!" she had started running before she even finished the sentence.
"Ah! Minorin, wait up!" Taiga yelled after her, stretching out a hand to the disappearing back of her friend. Ryuuji scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
"What was that all about?" he said to her, a weirdly anxious feeling creeping up in him. It seemed as though something was starting to slip away from them. When they left for school that morning, they had both been thinking that they would ease into the public side of their relationship gradually, and not make a big thing out of it. They both felt a little guilty about the idea of running around the school and bragging about it, given that they had spent so much time trying to push each other onto their respective best friends. It just didn't seem right to come out and announce it like that.
But once again, they felt like they had missed the mark completely, and something else had been brewing while they were lost in each other's worlds.
"Why does everything feel so different?" Taiga said to Ryuuji. "What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know… Ryuuji said.
They continued walking along the path. Though neither of them could find any words to share, their hands managed to find each other, and the warm comfort of that held the fear that was creeping up in both of them at bay, preventing them from being swallowed whole by it.
The morning classes seemed to go by pretty quickly, and before they knew it, it was lunch time. Taiga and Ryuuji still felt afraid of what was going to happen, but they found themselves grabbing their desks and combining them with their friends, setting themselves up in their usual pattern.
The five of them sat around in a circle, eating lunch together. They all did their best to catch up as normal, but the tension in the air just wouldn't seem to dissolve.
The longer it went on, the more it became obvious that the two of them were hiding something.
Minori, for her part, had regained some energy by sleeping through the second class with her drawn-on eyeballs that fooled nobody. Deciding to make another push to pull the truth out of them, she transformed into her trademark 'energetic girl' persona once again.
"Hmmmmm…" she said, staring back and forth between Taiga and Ryuuji. The new couple were sitting next to each other., which seemed to be making things worse for them. It was clear they felt really uncomfortable around each other, which was about as big a red flag as you could get with this pair. Normally, the two of them were practically on top of each other, being as familiar as two people could be. They'd shove each other, bump into each other, lean on each other, all the while carrying on, arguing, joking, and being completely absorbed in their own world. It was this complete absorption with each other that helped convince the class that they were an item.
But now, sitting here, they seemed a world away from that behaviour. They were oddly stiff and formal, and they were actually making a concentrated effort to keep a few inches between themselves.
Minori made a point of staring them down, adding to their unease.
"Taiga!" she shouted suddenly, making half the class jump. "I just realised something!"
"W-W-What is it, Minorin?" Taiga said, shaking slightly.
"You haven't insulted Takasu once the whole time we've been sitting here! Isn't that strange?!"
"Ngh" Taiga said. "A-Ahh… that is strange isn't it? Ha ha… maybe I hit my head harder than I thought?"
Minori narrowed her eyes and pointed her chopsticks at Ryuuji, striking a Kung Fu pose. "What say you, Takasu? Enjoying the vacation? Or… could it be you miss those regular tiger outbursts, hmmmmmm?"
Ryuuji blushed, putting a hand up to the back of his head. "Y-Yeah, um… who knows? I guess I didn't really notice either… it's been a long few days, with everything that happened. I guess— I'm feeling kinda tired?"
Ami sighed. She looked up at the two of them, staring down Ryuuji first, and then moving over to Taiga. While Ryuuji had at least been able to return her gaze sheepishly, Taiga had immediately looked away. I guess that settles it, Ami thought thinking back to the conversation she'd had with Taiga long ago, back before any of this started up.
"You know, you keep asking me to back off for Minori's sake, but I know that you're in love with him too."
"AHH!"
"So I'm not going to back off. It's a fair fight, between the three of us. Whoever gets there first gets there. No complaining about the outcome.
"Fine!" Taiga had said, sticking out her hand to shake on it. "It's a fair fight then."
Except it never was a fair fight in the first place. The deck had always been stacked in Taiga's favour when it came to Ryuuji. Ami had known that when she'd egged her on, and on some level, Taiga knew it now. Which is why she can't even look me in the eye…
Silence settled over the table, and an awkward feeling started to descend upon the group.
"Hmmm… I suppose it has been quite the turbulent time, after all" Kitamura said, coming out of his own world and joining in on things. "Hey, Takasu? What did end up happening up there in the hospital?"
Both Taiga and Ryuuji stiffened, turning red in the face and the earlobes.
"I was so surprised when you just up and leapt into that ambulance, Takasu! That was really something!" Kitamura laughed.
It was becoming more and more anxiety-inducing for the two of them. Even if they didn't really understand the depth of everybody's feelings or know their perspective fully, they knew that they had left quite a bit of mess around them over the past few months. It wasn't as if they had just stayed amongst themselves, way back when Ryuuji had said that he would stay by Taiga's side as her equal. They had kept playing these games, both afraid the other wouldn't return their feelings.
"Takasu?" Kitamura said, looking at Ryuuji's awkward face.
"Ah well… the thing is, we… kind of…" Taiga started to turn the same shade of red as her blazer, and steam came off of hr head. Her eyes turned into cartoon spirals.
It wasn't that they didn't want to share their happiness with their friends. But how could they? How could they celebrate their own relationship when there were so many leftover feelings from the whole debacle that needed to be acknowledged?
"Oiii, Yusaku" Ami said, the irritation rich in her voice. "Give it up, already. You're never going to get any blood out of these two stones." She picked at the omelette in her lunchbox with her chopsticks. A sigh escaped her, filling up the space between everyone, sitting like a lead weight on top of the desks.
"A-Ami…" Taiga said, in a low voice.
"Wow!" Ami laughed, "No 'dumb chihuahua' even? Seriously, you two… just give it up alr—"
At that moment, the lunch bell rang, freeing the couple from their prison.
"Bathroom" Minori said, darting out of the classroom with her face hidden from view.
Taiga watched her best friend leave. She knew that Minori was hurting. She knew that she was in pain.
She really, really, truly had wanted to give Ryuuji to her. She wanted the girl who was her best friend and the dragon who had decided to stand by her to find happiness, because they both deserved that. But, somewhere along the way, she had come to do the one thing she had promised herself she wouldn't: allow herself to want something. And she had gotten it, too. But now…
Ami sat there, watching the various expressions wash over Taiga's face as she thought over these things. She packed up her lunch as the rest of the crew got up and started shifting the tables back into place.
"Seeeee?" she said to Taiga, as she put her chopsticks back into her lunchbox. "It just gets worse and worse, the longer you put it offfff." Taiga finally made eye contact with her. Her eyes were wide with fear. "I…I"
"Forget it" Ami said, getting up and grabbing her chair, dragging it noisily back into place. The classroom organised itself back into its teaching setting, and another opportunity for Taiga and Ryuuji to come clean disappeared.
The rest of the day dragged on for everyone involved. Kitamura's thoughts wandered, trying to make sense of the situation. Minori retreated into herself, feeling saddened that her friends couldn't tell her what was so obviously going on between them. And Ami seethed in rage, annoyed by their spinelessness. Taiga and Ryuuji had started messaging each other after lunch break, trying desperately to come up with some sort of plan.
-That was so bad-
-I know-
-I wanted to tell them-
-me too-
-But I just kinda froze up-
-same! It was too much-
-wha the hell are we going to do, anyway-
-I don't know!-
When the final bell of the day rang, Kitamura ran off to a student council meeting. Minori stayed in her seat, looking down at her hands. Ami was nowhere to be found, having left the classroom already. the two of them looked over at Minori, and then back to each other. What can we do? they pleaded at each other with their eyes.
They decided to make a run for it. They got up without a word between them and walked out of the classroom together, craning their heads around in the opposite direction of Minori, as if this would somehow make them invisible to her
.
This wasn't how I wanted to do things, Ryuuji said to Taiga with his gaze. Me neither, her eyes replied. But… I just can't find the words to explain it all to them.
They walked down the hallways and rounded the corner, hoping to see the staircase that would lead them to the outside world.
Instead, they came face to face with a tall, blue-haired girl who was standing in the hallway, crossing her arms.
"Alright, you two" Ami said sternly. "Enough is enough."
They wandered back to the vending machines, a familiar haunt for the members of the group. Ami put a coin in the machine and pressed the button for a strawberry milk.
"So…" she said, pulling the straw and stabbing it into the carton. "I was just curious about one thing. Do you think we're all idiots or something?"
"What?!" Taiga exclaimed, waving her hands frantically. "No, Ami, it's not like that, it's—"
"It's what?" Ami snapped. "Do you honestly think that we can't tell what's going on with the two of you? Why won't you just come out and say it? What's the big deal? What's so hard about that?!"
"I-It's… just…" Ryuuji started awkwardly.
"Spit it out already!"
"We feel bad!" Taiga shouted. "Ami… we…"
"Oh, now you feel bad?! How many months have all of us been watching the two of you fumble around, trying to pretend that you don't have feelings for each other?"
"Ami…. I'm sorry…"
"Don't you cry" Ami said, turning away from Taiga. "You're not the one who should be saying that to me." She looked over at Ryuuji, pain sweeping across her face, mixing with the rage, threatening to break her expression in half. Ryuuji looked at her, his face red, but then he quickly looked away. He couldn't fully comprehend the mixture of emotions in Ami's expression, but the pain and the hurt mixed in with the burning rage was terrifying to him. He was overcome with the sense that he had made some fatal error along the way to where he was now, and he had been completely oblivious to the fallout from it.
"Seriously, Takasu…" Ami muttered as she walked past them. "What a waste of time."
"Kawashima!" Ryuuji called out. "Wait!"
She didn't.
"Taiga, Taiga and I…" he clenched his eyes shut, balling his hands up into fists. "We're dating!"
She turned back around to the two of them..
"I-I-I love Taiga!" he shouted at her.
"AGH!" Taiga chirped, her stiffness and colour change turning her into a fire hydrant in a school uniform. Ryuuji had turned the same shade of red, but he continued to stare at Ami, meeting her vicious frown head-on. He kept looking at her with that ridiculous face of his. Beads of sweat covered his forehead, and his lower lip was twitching. He had no idea how to read the face of the girl across from him as it ticked away, calculating something that was completely beyond his comprehension. He wondered if she'd just turn away and walk off in a huff. Or maybe she'd place her bag calmly on the ground, unzipping it and removing a hammer and a giant wooden stake, before charging over and driving it through his heart, turning him into ash. He was starting to think that maybe this was his fantasy, rather than his fear. it would be less painful than what had been happening today.
Her faced started to soften, somewhat. The anger that creased her foehead vanished, but the pain and sadness in her eyes stayed put.
"I know that… you idiot." She sighed and shook her head, looking over at the small girl who was partially hiding behind Ryuuji. She almost wanted to laugh, seeing her so subdued like this. Almost.
"You're not telling me anything I don't already know" she said, looking back at Ryuuji. She waited, giving the boy one more chance to say something, anything, that acknowledged he had any idea what it was she was actually wanting to hear. Of course, she was met only with the stare of a lost puppy, cocking its head quizzically at her, waiting to be told what he should do.
But she wouldn't do that. It would be meaningless if she did.
"When you figure out the rest of it, you know where to find me" she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she turned her back on them and walked away. "That's the last piece of hand-holding you'll get from me, Takasu Ryuuji."
"I… Kawashima…" the small voice that escaped from Ryuuji couldn't reach the girl who had already walked out of earshot. He hung his head down, feeling defeated. He hadn't wanted any of this. it wasn't supposed to go this way.
A small hand reached up to his and gripped onto it. The two of them stood there, fingers intertwined, as they watched Kawashima Ami walk down the hallway.
"Ryuuji… it'll be ok" she said to him.
"I hope so" he said. "I feel like I really screwed up."
"Well" Taiga said, looking up at him, "I have a bit of information that can fill in the gaps for you."
Down at the other end of the hallway, Ami had stopped at the door to their classroom. She peered her head in and seemed to be talking to someone.
"That would be helpful" Ryuuji said, as they both watched Ami from a distance. "Why don't we head home and make some dinner?"
Ami pulled back out of the doorway, but she didn't leave. She stood there, staring at the wall as if waiting for something.
"Sounds good" Taiga said. "I could really use a nice meal after everyth—"
Taiga's words were cut off as she saw Minori come out of the classroom, meeting the waiting Ami. She smiled at her, nodding gently as Ami said something to her that they couldn't hear. They saw Minori look downwards, scratching the back of her head, followed by Ami reaching a hand out, patting her on the shoulder compassionately.
Then the two of them walked off together, chatting quietly. Both Taiga and Ryuuji stood there in stunned silence, their mouths open as they tried to compute what they had seen.
"I don't suppose you could fill in that gap?" Ryuuji said, pointing towards the empty hallway the two new friends had previously occupied.
"Uh-uh" Taiga said, her eyes unblinking. "That's beyond my comprehension."
"Mine too."
"Ryuuji" she said, looking up at him. "Are we too young to take up drinking?"
"I don't know…" he replied, his brain feeling fuzzy. "I feel like I've aged a decade in the past week."
"There you two are!" came the voice of Ms Yuri, their eternally single homeroom teacher. They jumped, both startled by her sudden approach and mortified by the realisation that they were about to deal with one more thing today.
"Ah, Ms Yuri, we were just about to head home" Ryuuji said, starting to turn towards the hallway. She grabbed onto both of their bags, stopping them in their tracks.
"Not so fast, you two!" she exclaimed. "Let's go for a little walk to the lecture room."
"W-What for?!" Taiga said, grimacing.
"Look, I know you two are completely absorbed in your newfound romance…"
"GAH!"
"URK!"
Are we really that obvious, they thought simultaneously.
"But there's still the little matter of your career preference forms!"
"UGGhhhghghh" Taiga groaned. "Actually, Ryuuji, forget the drinking. Could you do me a favour and just kill me already?"
"Only if you kill me first" he replied in a monotone voice as he slumped over.
They went limp and deflated, turning into two-dimensional paper printouts of themselves. Their homeroom teacher dragged them along the ground and threw them into the lecture room, and, sitting down opposite to them, prepared herself to make the small, dust-covered space live up to its name.