Toradora! - Volume 3 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

“This class is excellent. Most of the first years were drowsy after they were done swimming.”

The teacher looked down from the top of the platform at the students of class 2-C with a broad grin. Everyone’s eyes were wide open; they didn’t seem like they’d just come from swimming at all. The teacher didn’t notice the strange tension running through the silence like an electric current.

Of course, Ryuuji’s eyes were wide open, and he wasn’t following along with the textbook or anything else at all. His composure had been stolen, his focus blurred, and all he could think of was what had happened earlier.

How had it become such a big deal? Why had he gotten wrapped up in this?

Ah. He bit the end of his pencil. 

“Hm?”

Someone threw a folded note over his head. It hit the back of the chair of the person in front of him and dropped with a plop onto Ryuuji’s desk. From behind him, he heard a small groan of, “Ah, oh no…” They had probably tried to skip Ryuuji by throwing the note to the seat in front of him but blundered. Ryuuji, who was a kind soul, poked at the back of the person in front of him and tried to pass it to them. Then, he noticed the writing on the front of the note.

“Can I take a look, too?”

It said, “Pass to everyone in class 2-C!” I’m part of the class, too, aren’t I? He propped up his textbook to hide the note and opened up the B5-size sheet of paper. His sanpaku eyes lit up.

“The First Takasu Cup Opening Competition! Ami-tan vs. The Palmtop Tiger, 500 yen each! Note: Pass around to everyone except Ami-tan, Tiger, Takasu, and Judge Kushieda.”

“What is this?”

His softly glinting eyes swiveled around the class. 

“Who was the klutz?!” someone murmured. 

“Ahhh! That idiot!”

Everyone avoided Ryuuji’s gaze and awkwardly looked away.

How terrible!

This was just too much. Ryuuji bit his thin lips; they had made him into the butt of a joke.

Several people had also left comments expressing their participation on the loose-leaf note. There was a line drawn down the middle; on the left, someone had written “Ami-tan” and on the right they had written “Tiger.” Apparently, each person was supposed to write their name in the column under who they thought would win.

So far, everyone had bet on Ami. Taiga’s column was stark white. 

On top of that, there were several comments scribbled on the note:

“Is this actually worth betting over?”

“If it’s a swimming match, Ami’s it for sure. ★ Tiger will sink.”

“But if it were a fight, it’d be Tiger.”

“Tiger’s odds of winning are zero, right?! She’s bound to lose!”

“Takasu-kun suddenly became popular, right? Why?”

“That’s just because he’s the pawn in Ami-tan and Tiger’s bid for political power!”

“Ami-tan’s not actually hanging out with him for real.”

“Yeah, you’re right. In the end, Ami-chan will win, and they probably won’t even go to the villa or anything. That’ll be the end of it.”

“Tiger and Takasu are serious. But Ami’s a shoo-in.”

“Are you stupid?”

“No, Ami-tama is my waifu.”

“Only in your dreams.”

“Ami-chan’s mine.”

“I’m super hungry -> Is lunch here yet ->”

“I want girls to fight over me, but how do I do that?”

“Ami’s mine, so sorry you @arl.”

“Did you mean to write ‘@all?’”

“Aren’t you in trouble if you can’t even write ‘all?’ @Haruta”

“Did you like, bribe your way into this school? @Haruta”

Haruta are you…? No, this wasn’t the time for that.

“What is this?” Ryuuji muttered. “They’re just writing whatever they want.”

This was awful. Ryuuji’s eyes, sullen like his father’s, grew bad-tempered. He didn’t like scaring people for no reason, but he hated being the butt of something like this as much as he disliked being underestimated.

Just look at the comments the girls had left:

“Despite his face, Takasu-kun is actually really indecisive, that’s why he can be used like this (lol)”

“Yeah, I agree. Takasu = pushover (lol)”

“He seems like he’d shut up and go along with anything (lol)”

“It seems like he’s really been supporting Taiga-chi (lol)”

They were horrible. Absolutely horrible. He hadn’t realized the girls thought he was so pitiful. They must have been joking (lol), but it gouged Ryuuji’s heart.

“Damn it,” he whispered. “I’m not just pitiful.”

Just watch. Ryuuji took out a wide marker, letting it squeak as he wrote his own name in large letters in Taiga’s column. He would bet six shares. That was three thousand yen—a whole three thousand.

It was unlikely anyone knew, but a dragon and tiger came as a set. On top of that, Ryuuji was a pretty good swimmer. They still had time until the showdown. Taiga could begin her intense training now. If anything, Taiga had potential; she could improve. She could take on Ami.

“If that happens, I’ll get the whole pot,” he growled in a low voice, intimidating them even further. Maybe Taiga was rubbing off on him. Ryuuji skillfully refolded the paper into an airplane, turned, and aimed at a diagonal to his back. He sent it flying in a straight line.

“Hey, Taiga?”

“Hm? What is this?”

Eep! Someone shrieked quietly. Of course, Aisaka Taiga, also known as the Palmtop Tiger, quickly grabbed the paper airplane that whizzed through the air. She opened the note slowly with her small, pale hands and muttered, “Huuuh…”

And that was it.

But that one word was cold. Her tongue, redder than blood, licked her fiercely smiling lips, which were ominously contorted into the savage smile of an animal. The color rose on her cheeks, and her white throat quivered in excitement.

“So then, someone please come to the front and work on this problem,” the teacher said. “Oh, how rare. Well then, Aisaka.”

Taiga stood, her eyes as predatory as a wild beast’s, glimmering as if not a scrap of reason were left in them. She looked ferociously at each of her classmates.

“A-Aisaka?” said the teacher. “You don’t need to march around inside the classroom. Ah, well, um, I guess you can march, but just solve the problem, okay?”

Instead of heading to the teacher’s podium, Taiga walked along the lines of desks as though examining them like a two-ton tiger. 

The entire class felt the intense pressure of seeing the bloodthirsty tiger stalk them. Here and there, shaking voices begged for their lives. “Eek,” “Sorr…” Only when she passed by Ryuuji did she grin knowingly to confirm her bond with her comrade. The next moment, she tripped on the foot of someone’s desk, but as she was falling, Ryuuji grabbed her by the waist of her skirt and her grin came back to life. As she tried to get onto the podium, she tripped again, grin still in place. She was definitely a klutz.

Then Ami, noticing the strange atmosphere even though she didn’t know the circumstances, said, “Huh? What happened? Why is she so angry?” She blinked her eyes and tilted her head quizzically.

Then, just one person, just Minori, who sat on the hallway side seat, remained silent.

“Zzz…zzz…”

If you looked really, really closely, her eyelids were closed, but she had drawn eyes on them with sharpie and white out.

“Taiga, I’m gonna give you all of my support, okay?” Ryuuji said. “Don’t you go and lose.”

“Of course I won’t. I’ll make that Chihuahua girl look like a beat-up old rag in front of the whole class.”

While flipping through a magazine that read, “Aim to be the swim speed king!” on the cover, Taiga glared at Ryuuji, who was still holding cooking chopsticks.

“And of course you’d help me,” she said. “If I lose to the Chihuahua, you know what’ll happen to you, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I’d be locked up in Kawashima’s villa for the summer, right? That’s no joke. Who’s going to do the laundry, clean the bath, cook, make payments, and do everything else? Look, help out a bit. Mix the vinegar miso.”

Ryuuji handed Taiga a glass bowl containing the seasoning and a spoon before busying himself with wiping the table with a dishtowel.

“What are you putting it on?” Taiga asked.

“Udo root and wakame seaweed.”

“Bleh. I don’t like that much.”

“It’s good for you, so eat it. It’ll make your boobs grow.”

“You lying, stupid uggo.”

“U…ug…uggo…”

Though she easily wounded Ryuuji, Taiga also began mixing and helping him. Like a child, she sat on the ground, pouting. “I think you should already know this, but—”

“Ahhh, yes, yes.” Fed up, Ryuuji busily moved to stand and spoke over Taiga. “I got that loud and clear. You’re going to say you don’t care where I go or who I go with anyway, right? I know that. What you don’t like is that Kitamura is going, too.”

“No. Of course there’s Kitamura-kun, but I actually don’t want to let you go. Not to that girl’s villa.”

“Huh…”

Taiga’s cheeks swelled up with a peevish expression as she mixed the vinegar miso. 

Ryuuji looked at her profile. Huh, a small doubt formed in his mind. Maybe that was…? Maybe, just as Ami said, Taiga thought of me as…

“What would you do for food?” he asked. “If you’re willing to come here three times a day from the villa, it’d be a different story.”

“Oh, right. Sure, sure, I get it.”

“Self-absorbed,” he muttered.

“Ryuuujiiiiii?” She may have heard him. Putting the vinegar miso down with a clack, she thrust the miso-covered spoon at Ryuuji’s nose. Taiga spoke slowly, as if he were a child. “Do you have any idea what you are? You’re a dog. My dog. Now, say that the purpose of your life is to do as I say. Say that for the sixteen years up until you served me, you were good as dead, you male mutt!”

“Huh?! I’d never say that!”

“You say it if I tell you to say it, you say it.”

Her eyes were like black voids. Taiga smiled. “You saw my breasts, didn’t you?” she said. “You touched it, didn’t you? How embarrassing. What a mistake. Whenever I think about it, I feel like my heart is going to squeeze out of my nose. You did that. Even if you offered up the remainder of your life, it wouldn’t be enough. I’m the one who gets anything you’ve got to spare. Got that?”

Ryuuji was tongue-tied. What could he possibly say to that?

“Y-you saw my chest, too, didn’t you?!” he finally managed. “Isn’t it the same?! And when I saw it, it was in the water and I was all flustered, and I had no idea what was going on either.”

“Haaah?! Your chest?! Are you talking about those pitch-black, trash raisins?!”

“Trash raisins?!”

Ryuuji’s legs buckled. Her abuse was far too innovative. This was possibly the worst thing she’d ever said to him. 

Taiga made a face as if she wanted to spit at him and then went back to her work mixing the vinegar miso.

“Wah!” She put too much force into mixing and the spoon flew out of her hands. It smacked into Ryuuji’s temple as he hung his head.

“Ow! You…devil klutz!” The thick vinegar miso ran down Ryuuji’s sorrowful cheek. 

“Oh, deary dear, is dinner not done yet?~”

Finishing her preparations for her night shift, Yasuko came into the living room. 

As Ryuuji rubbed away the vinegar miso, he said, “W-wait a sec, it’s done.” He retreated to the kitchen like a bashful bride.

As Ryuuji prepared the soup, a scene unfolded behind him.

“Ahhh~ Taiga-chaaan, you’re so great for dressing the vinegar miso~ You’re such a good girl for helping~”

“Y-you think?”

“I love udo root~” Her childish face prettily made up as usual, Yasuko smiled with not a lick of maliciousness. If anything, she looked strangely happy as she took the position opposite of Taiga.

“Um, you know, I think I’d be okay showing this to you, Taiga-chan,” Yasuko said.

“Huh? What is it?”

Ryuuji, who had poured the miso soup and loaded sides into bowls, was bringing them to the table. Yasuko had turned her back to her son, and was facing Taiga, so he was unaware of what was happening. 

“Here you go! Taiga-chan, because you kind of seemed like you wanted to see them~”

His mother pulled her clothes right up past her breasts.

“Huh?”

Luckily for her son, who had dropped the bowls, only saw her white back. Taiga, who was sitting with her legs folded under her, opened her eyes wide and collapsed straight onto the floor.

Miii, he heard Taiga shriek faintly and pitifully. She sounded like an abandoned kitten. Maybe she was terrified of giant breasts.

***

The two of them didn’t have time to be shocked by giant breasts or anything else.

The next day was their second swimming class of the year. It was hard to say if the slightly cloudy weather was ideal for the pool.

“There. We’re doing it, Taiga.”

“Here I go, Ryuuji.”

Taiga and Ryuuji came to the poolside. Their eyes flashed blue-white, feverish and bloodthirsty. Or maybe it was just determination. They had their arms folded over their outthrust chests (though one was fake) and looked strong and imposing. The atmosphere around them suddenly changed. This wasn’t a friendly, bustling pool, this was the beginnings of a serious showdown. Their guts and their pride, their entire summer, were on the line.

First, Ryuuji went into the pool, and then Taiga followed. People drew back as if the two had spread poison in their wake. No one talked to them, but they could hear the surrounding whispers and feel the numerous gazes that feigned nonchalance.

I get it, Ryuuji thought as he squinted one of his eyes. They were wondering how he would get Taiga, who couldn’t even swim, to a point where she would be able to face Ami on an equal level. He turned his back to them.

“Let’s start practicing,” he said.

“Right, let’s start.”

He looked Taiga in the eyes as she nodded in vehement agreement. Let them say what they wanted. Using her physical strength, Taiga could easily get to a point where she could swim twenty-five meters.

“Okay, Taiga, let’s start by just kicking the wall and floating.”

“Ryuuji?”

“Yeah?”

“If I’m going to kick the wall, that means I have to let go of it, right?”

“That’s right.”

Taiga firmly gripped the pool’s edge and looked quite earnestly into Ryuuji’s face. The rippling water reflected blue light on her fair cheek.

“If I let go, I’ll drown.”

“…”

“And my feet can’t touch the bottom.”

Maybe they needed a few more fundamentals first. So she couldn’t reach the bottom with her feet… Hmmm. He tapped his forehead, reconsidering his plan for a few seconds.

“Okay,” Ryuuji said. “Let’s start with dunking your face in. Put your face in the water. You can do that, right?”

Taiga laughed loudly. “I’m not an idiot! Of course I can do something like that. Look.”

Oh, good, that’s a relief. Ryuuji breathed in. “T-Taiga? Th-that’s…?”

Taiga really did put her face in the water. She stretched her arms all the way out, and still holding the pool’s edge, gradually sank in to just under her nose. Her large eyes looked around, and she fluttered her lashes cutely.

“Bwah! See? I did it, right?”

Hmph! She pushed out her padded chest. 

Ryuuji clapped a hand to his forehead and took another few seconds to think of how to explain it to her.

“Uhhh…you dunk your head basically…like this.”

Ryuuji grabbed the edge of the pool in the same way she had and properly put his face into the water. He counted out three precise seconds.

“Bweh… Right? It’s different, right, from what you were doing? Hey, watch me!”

He accidentally hit Taiga’s elbow as she was looking away.

“That hurt!” she cried.

“Were you watching?! Can you do what I just did?!”

“What?! Ah! Yeah?”

Although her spirits were high, Taiga’s gaze wandered nervously, and she didn’t meet Ryuuji’s eyes at all. 

Uh. A sinking feeling filled Ryuuji’s chest. “Ah! So you can’t do it,” he said. “You can’t dunk your head in.”

“What?!” Taiga shamelessly turned away. She tried to whistle but wasn’t able to make a noise. The terrible feeling became reality. It wasn’t just a matter of whether or not she could swim; it seemed he had to start this one off with getting familiar with the water.

Hand already pressed to his forehead, he temporarily lost focus, unable to go into deep thought. Ryuuji bopped Taiga on the head to raise her spirits. She told him not to be so chummy about touching her and brushed him off.

“A-anyway, for today, you’re going to just master dunking your head in the water,” he said. “Unless you can do that, we can’t move forward.”

Though he didn’t emphasize how important the basics were as he spoke to her, they could hear the peanut gallery’s whispers and gossip from beyond them.

“Hey, they’re starting out with dunking her head.”

“Isn’t that way too easy?”

“That’s something you do in the first year of elementary school, right?”

“Shouldn’t she be able to do that already?”

Her pride seemed to have been wounded. Taiga’s brow rapidly wrinkled, and the color of blood rushed to her cheeks.

Ryuuji tried turning and stopping the originators of the gossip from saying anything more, but it seemed he was too late.

“I-I can dunk my head under the water, so I’m not going to do that,” Taiga pouted, her small nostrils flaring. Face still red, she added vehemently, “That’s too easy, so I’m skipping it.”

“A-are you sure that’s okay?!”

“It’s fine!”

Then, foolishly, she let go of the pool’s edge and grabbed Ryuuji’s arm. To keep her face from touching the water, she desperately elongated her body and floated, thrashing, her legs fluttering.

“Pull me!” she said. “If I just get my body used to how it feels to swim, it’ll be fine!”

“Right! Is that right?”

“It’s fine, do it!” she shouted like she was nipping at him. 

Going backward, Ryuuji reluctantly pulled Taiga forward.

“Upuh! Upuh!”

Half of Taiga’s face was in the water and she continued to desperately kick with her eyes still mostly closed. But Ryuuji was a little skeptical—Does this actually count as practice? Taiga, gripping him, wasn’t floating. He was fully supporting both of her arms. If he didn’t, her fluttering legs would sink further and further into the water until she wouldn’t even be splashing.

“Upuh…mwha ha ha ha!” Taiga said. “It’s going great! I can do it, I can do it, I can do it! Swimming. Is. So. Easy!”

To Taiga, it may have seemed like she was swimming. Though her expression was desperate, her spirits were incredibly high. She began laughing painfully as she raised her chin.

Then, Ryuuji suddenly remembered the time he learned how to ride a bike. When he had been in his first year of elementary school, he had taken off his training wheels for the first time. He couldn’t find his balance at all and kept falling over. At that point, Yasuko had said, “I’ll run with you and support you, Ryuu-chan, so just focus on peddling as hard as you can.” She grabbed his bike from behind. When he pedaled, with Yasuko supporting his bike, he somehow went forward without the bike falling over. Feeling brave, he kept going faster and went forward just fine. 

At some point, he suddenly realized Yasuko hadn’t been behind him. He had been riding the bike all by himself. Yasuko had tripped and fallen when she began running, several meters back. She had been sticking out of a hedge with her two legs poking straight up just like Sukekiyo from The Inugami Family movie.

That’s it, I’ll do a Sukekiyo, Ryuuji thought. He would let the strength leave his hands and, in the end, he would let go of Taiga. “Huh?! I’m swimming?!” she would say, and he’d reply with, “You did it, Taiga!” Like that. Okay, just like that.

“Gwah cough.”

“Wahhh!”

He had only slackened the strength in his hands for a moment. Taiga simply sank into the water.

“A-are you okay?!”

Taiga coughed. “Wh-what just happened? Where am I? Who am I? Who are you…”

Even her memories had been robbed from her. After a moment of panic and gasping, she cried, “You let go, didn’t you?! You traitor!”

Splash! She slapped her hand on the water and splashed Ryuuji’s cheek. Oh, that was good, her memories had returned and…

“Huh?! You’re floating!”

“What? Huh? No way?!” Both of Taiga’s hands were completely free. They were near the center of the pool where her legs wouldn’t have touched the bottom, and Taiga’s face was above the water.

“Uwah, I did it! I can swim!”

“You’ve already as good as won!”

Without thinking, the two of them tried to high five.

Of course, that wasn’t what happened.

Blub blub blub blub. From behind Taiga, Minori emerged like Poseidon rising from the deep. One of her arms was wrapped around Taiga’s torso.

“Takasu-kun,” Minori said, “did you drop this normal Taiga in the water? Or, was it this golden Taiga you dropped?”

Minori had been supporting Taiga from within the water.

“I-It’s this Taiga.”

“That’s right. This Taiga, who would sink as well…”

After pushing Taiga to Ryuuji, Minori once again sank into the water with a blub blub blub. She swayed as she swam, and Ryuuji wondered where she was going.

“Wh-what?!”

“I’m unbiased,” Minori said. “Because I helped Taiga, I also have to help Amin…”

“Minori-chan, what’s wrong?! You look like Poseidon! No, that tickles!”

Minori had grabbed Ami, who had been playing beach ball with Maya and the others, from behind. 

Ryuuji felt like she was somehow off base.

“As expected of Minorin. She’s the paragon of a fair judge and sportswoman,” Taiga said. And if Taiga said it, she probably was. 

Ryuuji looked at the dazzling, wet skin of Poseidon and vigorously nodded in reply.

Then, for the time being, he firmly grasped Taiga’s arm and walked through the pool to get back to the edge.

“Oh dear, this is really bad.”

“There’s no way she’ll win in that shape.”

“Tiger didn’t have the sense to know how to swim in the first place.”

“You can’t compare her to a mermaid like Ami-tan.”

The two were once again surrounded by exasperated whispers. Taiga tensely bit down on her lip.

“I-I’m frustrated!”

“Owowowowow!”

Her nails pierced Ryuuji’s shoulder.

“They’re just saying anything they want!” she exclaimed. “They’re saying I can’t do it at all, that I don’t have the sense to… Uuuh… I feel like giving up!”

“Don’t pay attention to them!” Ryuuji said.

“I know, but I’m frustrated! I’m embarrassed! I don’t want this anymore, I don’t want anyone to see me like this!”

“Damn it. They’re all betting on Kawashima. They’re trying to embarrass us and make it so we can’t practice.”

Ryuuji looked around, beginning to think of all his classmates, who should have been familiar to him, as enemies. Then, something even worse happened.

“Oh, how are you, Aisaka? How are you feeling?! Make sure to work hard with Takasu and give it your all!” It was Kitamura, yelling cheerfully at them from the side of the pool.

Taiga groaned and made an indescribably strange face. She couldn’t even reply to him. The harder Taiga worked with Ryuuji, the more Kitamura would misunderstand her relationship with him. From the outside, it could only look like Taiga was after Ryuuji too.

Ryuuji, unable to do anything, took in a breath and made his decision. “Okay. Let’s not practice in the school’s pool. We’ll practice a ton somewhere else and surprise them.”

“There’s a heated pool on that side of the station, isn’t there?” Taiga asked.

“Right, we’ll use that.”

And then, as if right on schedule, a single drop of rain hit the water. Another cold drop hit the tip of Taiga’s white nose. 

Unanimously, the class said, “It’s cold!” “Was that rain?” and rushed to get out of the pool…

…which ended swimming class.

“Right, to start, Matsumoto Seichou is chosen as an Olympic flame runner. But suddenly, a strange shadow appears! Hah, it’s you, Dazai Osamu! Oh nooo! He’s stealing the flame! Like I’ll let you! Seichou gathers his gumption and hits Dazai! Dazai nimbly throws himself into a jump to avoid him, and then, BWASH! Wounded wings emerge from his back.”

“What is this? A literary battle?”

“Isn’t it obvious?! It’s the title sequence for that dumb Chihuahua’s imitation DVD fan club. She’ll have to perform it at the opening ceremony when I win.”

“Seichou or Dazai, which is she supposed to do?”

“Both. One person with two roles—she has enough skill to do that.”

“D-does she now…?”

“I helped her blossom.”

Taiga, who was strangely excited, swayed her umbrella up and down happily as they made their way down the sidewalk in the night rain. Though he grew tired of it as he followed her, Ryuuji was in a good mood, too. Even though they’d just swum at school, they had gone to the heated pool in the outskirts of the city after dinner. He’d been able to dry their swimsuits with Taiga’s strong dryer.

After the sun went down, it had begun to pour. When Taiga swayed her lavender umbrella, the spray of rain pelted Ryuuji. He skillfully avoided it with his own umbrella.

“First is definitely dunking your head,” he said. “Then, we’ll float you with a kickboard and practice kicking.” Ryuuji recalled what he’d learned in swim class when he was younger. He was serious about Taiga’s practice schedule.

They still had days to practice, so from then on, they would go to the heated pool every day and…

“Huh?”

At Taiga’s voice, he looked up and fell silent.

“Huh? Wait, you’ve got to be kidding me!”

The gate that should have led to the heated pool was firmly closed with an iron padlock. They had come in such high spirits—how could it be closed? Then Ryuuji looked toward the building and was even more shocked. 

There stood two bulldozers, motionless now because of the rain or the time of day. They had stopped in the middle of demolishing the buildings on either side of the pool into rubble.

“Huuuh?!” Taiga exclaimed.

He noticed a plate lying at Taiga’s feet and picked it up as she raised her voice. There were words written in sharpie on it.

“Thank you for your long patronage,” he read in amazement. “‘We have decided to close our heated pool. The year after next, it is to become a library.’ A library?”

“We don’t need a library!” Taiga’s voice shook.

Ryuuji imagined his plan crashing down and adding to the rubble before his eyes.

Taiga can’t even dunk her head underwater.

Taiga can’t practice at the school’s pool.

Taiga can’t swim

Taiga is going to lose.

Then Ryuuji would be taken to Ami’s villa for the summer. Which meant…

“Oh ho ho ♥. Won’t it be fun? It’ll definitely be fun. Now, have some fruit ♥.”

Leaning on him, her white body boldly straddling Ryuuji’s legs as he sat on a sofa in the resort, a swimsuit-clad Ami offered him fruit.

“Here, say ‘ahhh’ ♥. It’s ripe pineapple I got from my villa ♥. Have a bite.”

Wait, no, don’t come that close to me. But she was in a swimsuit, and he was hesitant to touch her skin to push her off. Ryuuji had no choice but to open his mouth. And then…

“Takasu-kun, you have to let me play, too! Taiga’s not here, and I’m bored! Hey, let’s play softball? Takasu-kun, what’s your favorite position? First base? Or second? Or maybe third?”

Of course, Minori was wearing a swimsuit and had a glove on one hand. She stood in the doorway, beckoning Ryuuji. It was paradise. Out of instinct and desire, he was about to wander that way and go toward her, but…

“Nooo, Takasu-kun, let’s eat pineapple.”

“No, no, Takasu-kun, come play second base with me.”

“Come have tropical fruits with me.”

“Do a bullet liner with me.”

No, no, no, no! I have people waiting for me. People in a gloomy, two-bedroom apartment where the sun doesn’t shine. What did I do about their food? Oh no, I didn’t even set the rice cooker. They must be hungry. Somehow untangling himself from Ami and Minori’s arms, Ryuuji began running. He sprinted to the second floor of the rental and opened the entryway door, but it was already too late.

On the floor were three corpses. A parakeet, Taiga, and Yasuko. Yasuko had written “She starves by the seashore” on the tatami mat: Her final words.

Wait, what is this?!

“Hey. That’s gross.”

“Huh?”

“Your face!” Taiga cried. “You’ve been grinning and tearing up, and it’s gross!”

Standing before the demolished main gate of the heated pool, Taiga’s yelling brought him back to reality. Right, he couldn’t do that. No matter what, they needed to win.

But.

“Ahhh, what should we do?!” said Taiga. “We really can’t practice anywhere except the school’s pool!!”

“That’s all we can do now,” Ryuuji replied. “We’ll need to be serious with everyone looking at us.”

“I can’t! Kitamura-kun will be watching.”

Ryuuji didn’t know what to say to that.

***

The pouring rain continued for a full two weeks.

Naturally, all their swimming classes were cancelled. Taiga was still completely unable to swim and couldn’t practice. That she had to practice at the school’s pool wasn’t even a concern.

“The rain hasn’t stopped.”

“If it keeps up like this, will the Takasu-cup be canceled because of the rain?”

Even though it was afternoon, it was dark outside. The classroom was bright with fluorescent lighting. They should have been at swimming class right now but had settled into boring self-study instead.

In whispers around them, there were voices raising concern about the arena Taiga and Ami would compete in.

“I can’t concentrate.”

“I’m worried.”

Taiga raised her gaze from her image training; she had been looking down at an athletic magazine with a feature on swimming. Ryuuji was pretty much taking on the role of a coach.

“If it comes to this,” he said from his seat in front of her, “you just have to rely on the strength of your mind in the match.” He thumbed through a back issue of the same magazine in front of Taiga, who was in a sullenly bad mood.

“It’s not like I’ll learn how to swim by reading this,” she said.

“It’s better than twiddling your thumbs. And you’re also practicing flutter kicking every day at home.”

The flutter kicking practice involved lining up sitting cushions on the tatami, Taiga getting on her stomach, and moving her feet earnestly as if she were kicking. “That’s it, that’s the spirit! Do it stronger! Faster! Wow, they say there’s a hamburger steak place in Asakusa people line up for. Whoa, that looks good,” he’d said. 

“Why are you watching TV?!” she had shouted.

And then, “Owowowowow!” When her kicks hit his back, he verified firsthand they hurt a lot.

“That’s not real practice,” Taiga said.

“Aren’t you practicing in the tub, too?”

“I am. Well, right, that might be helping the results along.”

She grinned as if she had self-confidence. Incidentally, that practice only consisted of her filling the bathtub with water, going underwater, opening her eyes, and holding her breath.

“Now I can open my eyes without panicking, too,” she said.

“Whoa, that’s amazing!” 

“Hee hee hee, I can hold my breath. For three whole seconds.”

“You’ve as good as won!”

Yay, yay. The fellow kindred spirits forcibly psyched themselves up and tried to high five, but their hands slipped past each other and missed.

“Ahhh, how useless,” said Taiga. “I want to actually practice in a pool. Why did the heated pool close down?”

“I know…”

Coming back to their senses, they looked up at the ceiling, exhausted. In the distance, someone whispered in a small voice, “They’ve already definitely lost, right,” and even though they heard it, Taiga pouted; she couldn’t even yell. 

Then, a bundle of paper dropped onto Ryuuji’s upturned face.

“Hey.”

“Uh!” Ryuuji exclaimed. “What? Oh, it’s you.”

Kitamura smiled broadly at him. 

BAM! Taiga flipped over in her chair.

“What, of course it’s me,” Kitamura said. “Now, how are you feeling? Your swimming match with Ami is coming up, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ryuuji said. “We can’t practice like this. Right?”

Taiga blushed faintly and nodded. Trembling slightly, she righted herself in her seat. She tried to fix the position of her desk and was swallowed up by an athletic magazine avalanche. “Ahhh.”

“You wouldn’t with this weather,” Kitamura said. “I don’t know if you can use those, but it’s a gift from me.”

“By those you mean…these?”

Ryuuji looked at the papers that had been dropped on his face: They were admission tickets for a public pool.

“My mom sells insurance,” Kitamura said. “She hands these out complimentarily, and she had leftovers. There are two of them. Use them. I actually bet on Aisaka.”

“Huh.” Taiga’s eyes went wide, and her voice went soft. Surprised, she looked up at Kitamura.

“Earlier when I saw the betting sheet, I saw you were so full of confidence when you bet on Aisaka, Takasu,” Kitamura continued, “so I was like, yeah, I’ll do that, too. After that, a lot of other people switched over to Aisaka. You’re to blame, Takasu.” Pushing up his glasses, Kitamura laughed heartily deep in his throat. 

Taiga, flustered, cleared her throat several times and sputtered, “Y-you…bet on me? You think I might win?”

“Yeah.”

Buwah! Like a person who had an allergic reaction, Taiga’s face became an even more brilliant red.

“Aisaka, you’re the type who’d suddenly develop super strength in a crisis. At the very, very end, you seem like you’d turn everything on its head. If I were to compare you to a superhero, you’d be Kinnikuman. Not the second generation, though.”

Was that supposed to be a compliment? Ryuuji tilted his head.

“Ah… The prince… The leading role…”

Taiga lowered her bright red face and her cheeks loosened into a grin. 

What, she’s happy?

“Exactly like that,” Kitamura said. “But Ami, she’s the type who’s bad in the heat of the moment. No one knows which way the match will go. At least, that’s what I think.”

“Don’t you think these could be split like this?” Ryuuji turned and held out one pool ticket to Taiga and the other to Kitamura. 

As he did that, Taiga’s eyes went round. She didn’t wait for Kitamura to react.

“Daaah!” she exclaimed in a strange voice. She forcefully seized Ryuuji’s arm and snatched the ticket he was holding out to Kitamura. She clutched it to her chest, and with a face so red it seemed as if it could burst into flames, looked up at Ryuuji. 

Seeing that, Kitamura said, “Well, in that case, give it your all when you practice. It’d be nice if the rain stopped.” He laughed, grinned broadly without even the slightest indication he felt bad about what happened, put up one hand, then left. 

Ryuuji looked down at Taiga. She contorted her face as if she were about to cry. She averted her eyes.

“Aaah. You idiot.” Without thinking, he gave her a fake punch with his fist on her soft, full, and hot cheek. Taiga didn’t complain. She stayed silent, her eyes averted, his fist still on her cheek.

Sighing, he took the pool ticket from her small hand.

“If you keep them, you’ll lose them anyway. This is for the next weekend. Hopefully the weather clears up. I’m thirsty so I’m buying juice. You want anything?”

Taiga just shook her head.

“Oh.”

“Hey.”

It kind of felt like déjà vu.

Two people stood in front of the vending machines when they were prohibited from being used.

“Takasu-kun, are you skipping?~”

“Look who’s talking.”

Crouched along the wall, Ami was drinking milk tea by herself. “Over here,” she said after Ryuuji bought his iced coffee. She pressed him to sit next to her.

“Why are you by yourself in a place like this? You’re such a dark person.”

“Look who’s talking.”

In the end, they were birds of a feather, crouched side by side along the gloom of the wall. “Upsy daisy,” he accidentally said, and Ami let out a laugh.

“Seriously, are you sleepy or something?” she asked.

“Of course I’m tired. Because of a certain person, I’m tired.”

“Huh? Are you saying it’s my fault?”

“Of course I am. Seriously, whenever you go around doing strange things, I’m the one who pays the price.”

“Strange?~ I have no idea what you mean.”

“You know what? You can do that for however long you like, until your face spasms.”

Ami’s expression broke free as she laughed. She threw off her pure, good girl mask, and her miraculously beautiful face clouded with a veil of spite and cool wickedness.

“I’ve got to tip my hat to you,” he said.

Realizing she hadn’t brought anyone with her and was stuck in this place by herself even though it was self-study time, Ryuuji lightly toasted his can against Ami’s. 

Her clear, amber eyes blinked as if she were surprised. “Huuuh?” Then they immediately narrowed, as if he’d made a joke. “What a rare thing for you to do today, Takasu-kun,” she said. “You usually don’t approach me. What’s wrong? Oh, did the Palmtop Tiger bully you or something?”

“That’s enough. That’s normal. Do you know just how insistent Taiga’s been about blaming me since seeing you with me?”

She laughed like a dove. “That’s cute. The jealous tiger.”

“It’s not cute, and she’s not jealous,” he said. “She just gets mad that you’re provoking her because she doesn’t like you. She would have been angry in the same way even if the one you were with was Kushieda instead of me.”

“Of course she wouldn’t be. Takasu-kun, are you stupid? Do you really think if that child saw me chumming it up with Minori-chan in the same way she’d actually treat Minori like she treats you?”

“Don’t call me stupid. That’s—you’re… It’s that, right? You’re both girls, and they’re close friends so…”

“Ah, sure, sure, right,” Ami said. “You’re saying that’s not jealousy. Ha ha, it’s like you’ve been talking with her about it. ‘You got jealous, didn’t you?’ ‘This isn’t jealousy.’ You repeat what she says. This is fuuun.”

Ami lightly tossed her empty can and got an amazing hole in one into the trash can. She didn’t spill a single drop, didn’t drop the can, and didn’t miss. He hadn’t needed to deploy the pocket tissues he used to combat klutziness.

“It’s not fuuun,” he said. “Stop provoking Taiga. It’s making trouble for me, more than anything. And anyway, what’s with the villa? You didn’t actually plan on inviting me from the start, so what are you planning to do if you win? If you’re planning on pretending nothing happened, Taiga won’t let me go out of spite.”

Ryuuji walked over to throw away his empty can.

“I don’t intend to pretend like nothing happened.”

At her unexpected voice, he automatically turned back to Ami.

Ami was still sitting along the wall and smiling as she looked at Ryuuji—her angel act was on. “I plan to win for real,” she said. “I’m going to win and spend my summer with you, Takasu-kun. Embarrassing Aisaka Taiga is fun, but more than that, I’m really, actually thinking about my prize. What’s with that face? Are you surprised?”

Ryuuji didn’t know what to say; he couldn’t tell if Ami’s words were part of one of her bad jokes or not. 

Ami, still grinning broadly, pointed at herself and Ryuuji with her thin fingertips. “I think it’ll be fun, though. Because, see—we get along pretty well.”

“W-we don’t!”

“Aha, you’re mad!”

“Listen here! Seriously, stop teasing people. Look, if you’re done with your tea, go back to the classroom.”

“I’m going to stay here. Why don’t you go back, Takasu-kun?’

“I will but not because you told me to.”

Ami frivolously waved her hand at Ryuuji with a, “Then bye.” Even though she didn’t have anything to drink, she stayed where she was, between the vending machines.

She really may have been an extremely dark person.

***

“The match is tomorrow. It came before we even realized it.”

“…”

“The weather’s kind of so-so. At least it’s not raining.”

“…”

“According to the forecast, tomorrow’s supposed to be cloudy.”

“Pwah! Ryuuji, did you see that just now?! Hey, hey, were you watching?!”

It would be difficult in his position to say he hadn’t because he’d been watching the weather instead, so Ryuuji just nodded at her.

“Hee hee! That was pretty amazing, right?! I definitely just put my face in the water for ten whole seconds!” Taiga proudly thrust out her faux breast pads as she held the edge of the kiddie pool. She’d been dunking her head the entire time.

“Ahhh, yeah, your face was in the water, it really was,” he said from the edge of the pool.

“Gah! It’s a scary guy!”

“No, Ah-chan, you can’t go near him!”

He was scaring the nearby women with her kids for no reason other than his looks. This wasn’t even a kiddie pool, it was an infant pool. The water only came up to Ryuuji’s knees.

“Oh. Hey, Ryuuji, don’t I look like I’m swimming?” Taiga let go of the side of the pool and put her hands on the bottom and pretended to be an alligator, walking toward him.

“Wapuh!” Her hands slipped and she bubbled as she sank. She flailed, splashing until she finally resurfaced, gasping and choking.

“Oh dear! Ah-chan, no!”

Little Ah-chan dribbled water over Taiga’s already sopping head with an elephant watering can. 

“Oh no, I’m sorry for her behavior! Ah-chan!”

“Ahhh.”

Ah-chan made her exit, held by her young mother. 

Taiga, with an unspeakably strange expression, got up, splashing as she walked back to Ryuuji.

“Even I was helpless against that pure evil.” In an extremely rare moment, the Palmtop Tiger proclaimed her defeat.

“In any case, high schoolers aren’t supposed to be in the kiddie pool.”

“Was that the source of Ah-chan’s wrath?”

The day the rain finally stopped, they used Kitamura’s public pool admission tickets.

It was a Sunday. The public pool was twenty minutes away by bus. Ryuuji and Taiga eagerly came all this way, but the clouds hadn’t let up, and the sky was a dull silver. The temperature was still low, and the water was cold. Because of that, there weren’t many customers, and no joyous voices reverberating around the four pools.

“Taiga, let’s go to that big pool over there,” Ryuuji said. “They could have built a water slide at least.”

“Or a wave pool. There’s one that barely flows. Wah, they’re stupid, aren’t they?”

Leaving behind small, wet footprints on the ground, Taiga laughed at the junior high student pretending to sit zazen cross-legged style like in a religious ritual in the “waterfall pool.” He was acting as if he were under an actual waterfall. Ryuuji should have told her that Kitamura had done it, too, but he noticed an abandoned, free-to-rent swim ring that had been conveniently left on the ground before them.

“Here.”

“Geh! No way! What is this?!”

He slipped the swim ring over Taiga from above. “You’ve got to. If you don’t want to drown, hold onto that. Anyway, your feet don’t touch the bottom. See, let’s go to the flowing pool.”

“Geeeh… it’s ugly…”

The circle-shaped pool seemed kind of like it was struggling because of its slow flow. Ryuuji jumped in feet first, while Taiga timidly tried not to get her float caught as they got in.

“Uwah, wah!” Taiga cried. “My feet actually can’t touch the bottom here.”

“As long as you have your tube, you’re fine. When you need to get out, I’ll pull you up.”

Ryuuji held onto Taiga’s inner tube as she bobbed down the stream. 

“Beginning to learn the crawl now is probably impossible,” he said. “We’ll just have to use an inner tube or a kickboard tomorrow.”

“No way! Ahhh, that’s so uncool! Why has it come to this?!”

“We can’t do anything else, right? If you say, ‘I’m not doing it because I couldn’t learn how to swim,’ that’s exactly what Kawashima is aiming for. It’s not a front crawl match in the first place, either. It’s actually ‘freestyle,’ so a kickboard is probably fine.”

“Freestyle, right. I wonder how free I can make it…”

“Look, stop smiling like you’re planning something evil. Try flutter kicking a little like that. There’s a current, so it should make it easier for you.”

“Ugh…”

Ryuuji let go, gave the inner tube a small push, and tried to keep up with her with a breaststroke.

“Like this?” Taiga asked.

Splash splash splash splash! Columns of water rose into the air. Taiga’s kicks, with the advantage of buoyancy, were impressive. Even though there was a current, her speed was outrageous. He couldn’t keep up with her bursts of speed and had to switch from breaststroke to sidestroke just to follow her.

“W-wait a sec!”

The columns of water subsided and Taiga bobbed along in her inner tube, turning with the stream as it changed directions. She looked at Ryuuji quizzically as he caught up.

“Huh? I’m actually fast at swimming? It’s obviously because it’s a flowing pool.”

“N-no, you’re pretty fast. I’m also being pushed forward. Uwah, wai… I’m out of breath…”

“You think?” Taiga said. “I wonder. Then this time, I’ll give it my all and you give it your all following me.”

Splash splash splash! Once again, she began her flutter kicks at full blast, building speed. Normally, people with an inner tube couldn’t go that fast.

“No way!” Ryuuji already couldn’t keep up with a sidestroke and finally gave it his all with a front crawl. He had thought, until that day, that he was a pretty good swimmer. Someone in an inner tube shouldn’t have been able to outpace him.

“U-unbelievable!”

He fell farther and farther behind Taiga’s wake. The current should have made him faster, but he couldn’t keep up with her at all.

Then, the splashing subsided, and Taiga stopped swimming, turning to Ryuuji as if she were bored. “You really are a lazy dog. Come to think of it, maybe I’m just really amazing? Maybe I could win like this.”

“Don’t get…cocky! You’ve got a…stream…pushing you!”

Ryuuji was completely out of breath. When he finally caught up to Taiga, he held on to her inner tube.

“No! Don’t pant on me! You pervert!”

“I’m out of breath…haaa… Can’t help it…haaa… It hurts…”

For a while, they drifted with the stream until he caught his breath again.

“Ahhh,” Ryuuji said. “I really pushed myself swimming for the first time in a while.”

As Taiga was trying to say I see, a yawn escaped from her open mouth. “Hwaaah…” A tear that had collected in the corner of her eye ran into the rest of the water. Ryuuji, also feeling hazy and relaxed, watched it in a stupor.

He felt strangely calm as they bobbed and drifted. It might have been because of the sound of the water, or being gently jostled around, but the two of them fell silent, bodies going with the flow.

“It kind of…feels like I could sleep right here…”

“No, no, we came here to practice, and the competition is tomorrow… Ugh, hwaaah…”

Led along by Taiga, Ryuuji yawned, too. An old man floated past, laid out still on a mat, leisurely bobbing along. An infant who looked like his grandchild rode in a round duck inner tube next to his grandfather.

Not a single person in this pool was moving forward using their own propulsive strength. They had all abandoned themselves to the current, completely, totally relaxed.

“Ahhh… This pool we came to is kind of peaceful…”

“I feel super sleepy…”

“Me, too…”

That would be the case. Because of the weather, they had been on standby watching the forecast since seven in the morning and had finally decided to leave the house at eight.

Then after that, they hadn’t been able to remember whether or not they had given Inko-chan her food. Her expression had been ugly when she woke up. Yasuko had woken up grumbling with a hangover. Taiga had forgotten her hair tie at her house, and by the time they were done fussing and made it to the bus, it was nine. It was ten by the time they changed and made it into the pool.

Ryuuji felt like they had used their physical strength just getting to this spot.

“I wonder how the weather will hold up tomorrow?”

“I bet the pool will close because of rain.”

Nngaaah. They both made lazy faces. Still holding on to the inner tube, they looked up at the gloomy sky. Then, as if even looking up had become bothersome, Taiga put her cheek on the inner tube like a sleepy cat.

“After doing this, I kind of…feel like…I want that to happen…” She sounded lethargic. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand how she felt.

“Don’t say that. Kitamura bet on you. Aren’t you happy? Say that.”

He was trying to light a fire under Taiga using the only fuel guaranteed to work. He waited for the flames of love to start burning in her eyes, but…

“Nnngh…”

“What was what? What do you mean ‘nnngh?’”

With her cheek still smooshed against the inner tube, she gazed blearily at the pool. The water on her long eyelashes glittered as it spilled onto her slender wrists. 

Ryuuji pursed his thin lips without realizing what he was doing. “We came all this way, and Kitamura is cheering you on. I don’t think that’s a good attitude.”

She didn’t reply. The strands of her hair drifted along with the water, and she closed her eyes. She actually seemed like she was beginning to not care how the match would go.

Ryuuji, somehow still sullen, recalled Ami’s words: Sorry, but I actually plan to win for real. I’m planning on winning and spending my summer with you, Takasu-kun.

As he bobbed and swayed alongside Taiga, Ryuuji considered something for the first time: Taiga may lose. She may already be losing in spirit. Other than the handicap of her being unable to swim, she also couldn’t give it her all for Ryuuji in front of Kitamura. Taiga herself probably wanted to win, but she was also falling into a lethargic trap.

If Taiga was in the same state the next day and lost, he would…

“Uh. I think I felt a drop just now?”

“No way.”

As Taiga raised her face, another cold raindrop fell in front of her nose.

It was almost afternoon. They ate yakisoba from a stand for lunch while they waited for the good weather to return.

“It kind of looks like everyone’s giving up and going home,” Taiga said, pausing as she twirled her yakisoba.

They were under a parasol, which made for a slightly chilly rain umbrella, and still in their swimsuits.

“People do what people do,” said Ryuuji. “Once the rain stops, let’s go to a pool that doesn’t flow this time.”

“Yeah… But your lips are blue.”

“You’ve got blue aonori seasoning all over you.”

Taiga didn’t seem worried by the aonori around her mouth at all. She furrowed her brow as she stretched out her hand, watching the passing shower outside the parasol. Her frown deepened.

“It’s raining really hard for some reason,” Taiga said.

“Has it really started coming down?”

“It’s getting colder, too.” Taiga showed him the goosebumps prickling her white arm. The wind chilled their bare skin without mercy.

“It wouldn’t be good to catch a cold,” Ryuuji said. “Guess we just have to go home after we finish eating.”

At that suggestion, Taiga, who had been listless, became attentive. “We’re going home?” Her expression was strangely innocent and slightly peeved. She looked at Ryuuji with some dissatisfaction.

“You’ve got goosebumps, haven’t you? And my lips are blue. Are you okay?”

“That’s true, but… But I haven’t practiced at all yet. We just floated around earlier.”

She stuffed her cheeks with yakisoba, adding a stubborn sounding, “Damn it!” Though she’d been hesitating earlier, she seemed to have changed direction now that the weather had worsened and didn’t want to go home.

“You don’t want to go home?” Ryuuji asked. “It’s gotten colder, but do you still want to practice? I think it would be better if you did.”

“Yeah. I’m still going to practice. It’s cold. I’ll get distracted. I’ve gotten distracted and there are a lot of other things happening, but I’m definitely going to try harder.”

She was a moody person. Oh right, Ryuuji thought, tilting his head. Love had fueled her earlier. Maybe it had finally begun circulating through her body.

“Right,” Ryuuji said. “Kitamura went out of his way to give us these tickets. That’s Kitamura cheering you on. It’d be terrible to let them go to waste.”

“It’s not like that! It’s not like that at all. The reason why I’m saying I’m going to try, the reason why I decided that… Never mind. There’s no point trying to talk to a dog, anyway.”

“What was that?”

“Never mind.”

She slammed together the empty packs of yakisoba and roughly threw in the disposable chopsticks. He didn’t know what had rubbed her the wrong way, but it seemed her mood had unexpectedly soured, meaning trouble for Ryuuji, which was annoying.

“I have doubts, too,” she said. “You understand that, right? That Kitamura-kun might misunderstand our relationship if I try too hard. But…but I’m going to try my best. I’m going to. That’s because…basically…you…”

Ryuuji met Taiga’s gaze.

Below the parasol under the gloomy sky, Taiga’s eyes were bright.

Normally, he could meet that brightness head on, and work painfully hard to indulge Taiga, trying to figure out what she was actually trying to say, or what her true intentions were, or how to fix her mood so she would feel better. Ryuuji was helplessly kindhearted to begin with, but he also shared meals from the same pot as Taiga and had come to think of her as something like a little sister or a comrade at arms. It was also because he knew how clumsy Taiga was and how bad she was at speaking.

But he couldn’t do that now.

“But it doesn’t have aaaaaanything to do with you!” she said—as usual—and forcefully turned her face away to give him a cold side-eye.

Ryuuji was more than annoyed.

Why is that?

Was it because of the cold? Was it because he was tired? Was it because the yakisoba wasn’t any good? Or maybe it was because the countless words of pity their classmates had written on the betting sheets actually hurt him?

Or was it something simpler? Was it because he was always concerned for Taiga, but Taiga always, always, always, always, always, at every available opportunity, said, “I don’t care about you, Ryuuji?”

“Oh, is that so?” he said. “Fine. You don’t have to try. You’re not really motivated anyway.”

Or maybe it was because everything that had happened that day sat in his stomach like a stone?

At Ryuuji’s harsh voice, the color of Taiga’s eyes changed.

“What was that? Who said I’m not motivated? I’m the one who’s saying we should practice. I said we’re not going home. I’m still going to practice.”

“You don’t have to push yourself,” Ryuuji said. “You don’t care about me anyway, right? In that case, you can just give up on the match tomorrow. There isn’t any reason for you to try hard. That way Kitamura would know you don’t care about me at all, right? And I’ll tell Kawashima not to invite Kitamura. And not to invite Kushieda. Then you’ll have something to celebrate, right? Isn’t it great that you don’t have anything to be upset about? You’ll eat convenience store food all summer long. The delivery from the Chinese place in front of the station’s pretty good, too.”

Taiga became quiet and still as she stared him down. Her eyes glinted. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean exactly what I said. There’s no practice. There’s no match. That’s fine, right? As long as Kitamura doesn’t go to the villa and you don’t have to worry about your food, nothing else matters to you, right? Because you don’t have any reason or right to complain about where I go or who I go with, right?”

“Oh, I see!” A sound like a laugh spilled from Taiga’s colorless lips. “Your true colors have come out! It would have been better if I had noticed from the start! Then I wouldn’t have suffered like an idiot!”

“Huh?! What do you mean by ‘true colors?!’”

“You want to go, don’t you?! To ‘Kawashima Ami-chan’s villa.’ It’s hilarious! You want to spend your summer with a cute girl?! Of course you would. Spending your precious summer with me is such a waste, right?! You should have said from the start you wanted to go! Oh, or maybe, of course! You used me! You used my feelings as an excuse because going around saying you want to go while wagging your tail wouldn’t do, so you pretended like you didn’t want to go and couldn’t do anything about it! How stupid are you?!”

“You…” Ryuuji paled from anger. He wanted to scream. Why did it always have to be like that? Why had he bothered checking the weather with her every day? Why was he practicing flutter kicks with her? Why was he going to a place like this with her when she was going to say stuff like that? Do you care about me at all? he wanted to say.

“You girls just don’t understand aaaaaanything!”

“That’s what I want to say!”

Their voices were like blows, but Ryuuji couldn’t understand what Taiga meant. Maybe she didn’t understand him either, but still annoyed, still angry, they just continued their exchange.

“It was like that before, too!” Ryuuji shouted. “You’re always like that! You always say you don’t care about me, and you interpret things as if I did something bad, and you make me out to be the villain and attack me! Why is it always like that?! I’m the one who provoked Kawashima, according to you—what is that?! Why is it I have to be blamed for every little thing?!”

“You’re going back to talking about that?!” Taiga snapped.

She got up, kicked the table over, pulled out the parasol, and threw it. The wind whistled. The rain fell by the quiet, deserted poolside.

“Why?! Why won’t you understand?! I’m not angry! I’m not! I told you that from the start! It’s just that other people misunderstand me.” Taiga hit her own heart firmly with her fist. Her voice went hoarse from the screaming.

“You just pretend like you know!” she continued. “I don’t want that, it makes me angry! You think I’m angry at you?! You want me to say that you’re mine?! What… What is that?! Who actually knows what I think of you?! Who’s supposed to know?! No one should know because I haven’t told anyone! Because I don’t know either!”

Ryuuji could barely hear her even though she was shouting. He had gotten stuck in the kiddie pool when dodging the parasol. 

Frantically, he crawled out, coughing. “What did you say?!”

“So I’m not going to do that match anymore! Go wherever you want!” Rubbing her eyes, she ran toward the girls’ changing room.

How should I know, you idiot? he thought. He half-expected her to do something klutzy, anyway. She’d trip or drop something important, and, in the end, she would have to rely on Ryuuji to help her out. Then, he would sigh and say, “You’re such a klutz,” and everything would go back to normal. It should have gone back to normal, at least.

Instead, Taiga went home ahead of him in a taxi.

She also didn’t come to eat dinner.

Ryuuji didn’t go to get her. It seemed he and Taiga had had a real fight.

“I’m not wrong, right?” he asked Inko-chan that night, without meaning to, in the quiet Takasu household.

Inko-chan, almost like a regular parakeet, only said back to him, “Chi chi chi.” She wouldn’t look Ryuuji in the eyes.