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"I haven't forgotten about the shoes, you know. Let me help you find some this weekend." Toriko said to me over the phone one day in late May.
That's how I found myself shoe shopping in Ikebukuro on a Saturday afternoon. Toriko and I were arguing back and forth about a pair of dress shoes.
"Definitely not."
Toriko had found a pair of black ankle-high boots made with a matte faux leather. A thin brown feather edge ran around the sole. It laced up through small silver studs, and two belts with small silver buckles stretched from the front of the tongue of the boot down towards the midsole to complete the look. The boots had a heel, not excessive - only about 4 cm tall - but enough to make me think they would be uncomfortable.
"Why not?" She asked. "They'd look good with just about everything you keep in your wardrobe."
I'm not entirely sure why I had refused out of hand. They definitely looked cute, but I somehow had a feeling that I wouldn't do them justice if I was wearing them.
Toriko looked at me like she had a question. Feeling a bit shamed, I started thinking that maybe as uncomfortable as I felt about the shoes, I should just tell her.
"It's not that I don't trust you on this…but I feel like I'm back in the Mayoiga. You get really excited about these things, but none of what you hand me feels like…me."
Toriko shifted a little bit in her seat beside me, but stayed quiet. I couldn't tell if she was uneasy, so I kept talking.
"I just have a hard time getting excited about these things in the same way. I'm starting to feel a little tired."
There was a long pause.
"Eighty points, Sorawo."
"Huh?"
"That's for honesty. Saying that helps a lot, actually. I didn't know you that's how you felt, so of course we'd have a hard time finding something that you like."
She leaned back in her seat and stretched out her legs like a cat as she thought a little bit. I looked down and caught a glimpse of the outline of her legs in the skinny jeans she had worn today. No wonder she was a stamina monster. I quickly forced myself to avert my gaze in the other direction.
"That's just how it is then. Tell me, if I picked something, would you trust me when I say it looks great on you?"
"I always have."
Toriko blushed a little bit. "Okay, so I'll look for a few pairs in styles that might work. Just tell me if they're comfortable in case we end up in the other world by surprise. We'll get the pair you liked most."
I nodded. "You're not mad? You seemed to be really into this."
Toriko shook her head vigorously. "Of course I'm not mad! It is kind of fun shopping for you. Seeing your eyes light up when I finally find something you like makes me happy. But if you're feeling picky today I can just treat it like we're gear shopping."
"Wait, who are you calling picky?"
Toriko stuck out her tongue as she got up to browse. I thought Toriko was going to be upset I had wasted her time this afternoon, but I guess she had been having fun all along. Thinking back again to the Mayoiga, it made sense. She had been really into it. Even if her enthusiasm hadn't rubbed off, it did make me really happy to see her happy. I slumped back into my chair, relieved.
I ended up getting a pair of ankle high black boots similar to the ones I had shot down. The heels were a little lower - I was so used to sneakers at this point that I was probably never going to feel comfortable in anything with heels - and it didn't have the buckles. All in all, they were a plain, sturdy pair of dress boots. I couldn't say I felt blown away, but Toriko had picked well.
After we finished, we got a late lunch at a little yakitori spot near the station. As usual, Toriko ordered too much, expecting me to finish. We had a little extra wine to help wash everything down, and as the meal threatened to turn into a drinking expedition, Toriko leaned across the table.
"What changed?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You've been more direct with me recently."
So she had noticed. It shouldn't have surprised me, since Toriko kept figuring out what I was thinking before I could even put words to it, but it was still a bit of a shock. Someone who could look into your soul like that, especially one as ugly as mine could be, was a little scary.
"I…I guess I realized I wasn't being fair to you. I knew how you felt about me, and that scared me, because I didn't know how I felt about you."
Toriko looked a little surprised by that statement. My eyes started darting around as I quickly tried to figure out how to continue without upsetting her. "I-I-I mean I liked being around you, but I didn't know if I could return the feelings you had. I realized I at least had to try."
Toriko's surprise had turned into a more complicated expression. I could tell that I had stirred up something, even if I couldn't tell what that something was. Then, as if pushing all those thoughts aside, a delicate smile bloomed on her soft lips.
"I think you have been returning those feelings, Sorawo." She took the last sip of wine from her glass. "I wasn't sure how you felt for the longest time. You would say something really romantic, but then you'd act scared of me. I kept on having to ask myself, what is this? But now, I have an idea of how you feel."
So that's why she kept asking herself if she was crazy. I guess I didn't need my eye to have that effect on people. "Sorry."
"It's okay. I think." She let the silence hang for a moment. "Look…I know we were probably about to go out on the town, but…" She turned a little red as she looked at me intently. "Would you…if, um, it's okay with you…"
She had gotten shy all of a sudden. What is this?
"...would you want to come back to my place this evening when we're done?"
I was speechless. Even when I was dealing with the phenomena next door, she couldn't bring herself to ask me. Now out of nowhere she was asking without much hesitation. Maybe she thought I wanted the same things she did now? Did I? My mind shut down as I flailed around for a response.
"It's okay if you don't want to…" She gave me an odd look as she said that. It was almost as if she was trying to watch my thought process in a way that didn't put pressure on me. That look was weirdly reassuring. Whatever she wanted, I didn't feel like she was going to be as overbearing about it as she had been in the past.
With that, I suddenly found my confidence. If Toriko could push through her discomfort like that, I could too. We had already spent nights together on the surface world. Nothing had happened then. Tonight would just be spent together somewhere Toriko was more comfortable.
I nodded once. "Okay."
Toriko let out a squeal that almost made me regret it.
Our evening ultimately involved very little drinking. We ended up walking around a park near Toriko's apartment and watched the sun set over the pond. It wasn't the abbreviated sunset we usually encountered on the Otherside, so we had a chance to enjoy it together in silence. Still, I couldn't help but feel a chill run down my spine when the sun reached the horizon. At the exact same moment, I felt the same jolt of nervy energy through Toriko's hand too.
We tried to put the thought out of our mind, so on the way back to Toriko's apartment we picked up a 750 ml bottle of shochu. When we reached the door of her apartment, she asked me if I was okay. I had been to her apartment once back when she ran off after Satsuki, this was my first time seeing the inside. Back then I had seen an ultrablue void. A light touch on my forearm brought me back to reality. Through the open door, I saw a tidy Western style apartment with a small entrance hall leading into an open area with a small couch and TV, and a couple of doors leading off to the side.
We had spent a lot of time making small talk in the living room as we sipped shochu, but our appetite for alcohol was surprisingly low. The atmosphere in the apartment was light, and for some reason we felt much more comfortable than when we normally went out to drown our fears. It seemed we both wanted to talk more than drink. We only made it about a little more than a quarter of the way into the bottle before we decided to go to her bedroom around 10 pm.
Toriko had a queen size bed which filled most of the small room. I almost wondered how she had fit it in here in the first place. We both sat with our backs on the headboard. Toriko sat cross-legged, dressed in a t-shirt and jogger shorts, while I sat with my legs curled in, dressed in a borrowed t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. Here the size differential worked against me - I was practically swimming in her clothes, bathed in her scent. It had been almost too much.
"Sorawo…I'm so happy to have you here."
"Yeah…"
I didn't know what to say. I was sharing a bed with Toriko and it felt…normal, in a way? I had been afraid of what would happen when we got to this point, but she had remained surprisingly restrained this evening.
"Ten points."
"Huh? Huh?"
"Any time I tell you how I feel about you, I get a response like that. You said earlier that you didn't know how to return my feelings, and I accept that, but…"
Tears began to well in those indigo eyes of hers. She wore a vulnerable expression, and I realized just how deeply she hurt over this. I had been trying to acknowledge her feelings, but what she had really been asking was for me to return them.
I thought back to Kozakura yelling at me about something I had said something that was apparently insensitive, You birdbrain, what you mean to say and what you actually tell people are wildly different. You'd realize that if you'd bothered with even the barest minimum of social graces! At the time, I thought Kozakura had been going off on another one of her inexplicable tirades, but I suddenly understood what she meant.
I leaned over and laid my head on Toriko's shoulder before she could continue. "I'm sorry, Toriko." I felt her shoulders tense up for a moment, then relax. Her head rolled over to rest on mine. "I enjoy being around you. I don't know if I can call it love. But when I'm around you, it's the happiest I've ever been."
"Yeah, same. Most of the time, at least."
"Most of the time?"
Under the sheets I felt her searching for my hand. Taking it, she said, "You aren't the most tactful person around. Some of the things you say are pretty awful, actually."
"I guess they are."
"There's no guessing about it. Like with Satsuki-"
She's bringing up that woman again, even after we had put her to rest? I felt my hand clench in hers. I started opening my mouth to give her a piece of my mind about her precious Satsuki before she cut me off.
"Before you say anything, let me finish, Sorawo." Her voice was firm and cold. I had started to recognize what that tone meant, so I slowly closed my mouth and tried to make myself okay with whatever she was going to say. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be, though. "I know you have strong feelings about that woman." Of course I do, that woman tried to kill both of us! "But the way you get when I try to talk about her makes me wonder if you even care about my feelings at all."
My face darkened. "So you still have feelings for her after all this, huh."
"That's exactly the problem with you. I do have feelings about her. But didn't you have feelings about the Red Person even when it was trying to take you away?" Oh. "She was a ray of light in my life when I was in a dark place. Now I know that she was up to some absolutely awful things even while I knew her, and just how badly she treated everyone. But she's the reason I'm still here, and she's the reason I met you."
She paused for a moment, weighing her words. "I love you, Sorawo. I would follow you to the ends of the earth. I've felt that way ever since you dealt with the Kotoribako. But when I learned you were hiding that you could see Satsuki from me…it was like, she doesn't trust me to talk about this. And so, I was afraid to bring my feelings up about her, or how they had changed, at all."
Waves of emotions roiled through me. I didn't really know how to respond, so I just said the first thing that came to mind. "You and Kozakura were always like Satsuki this, Satsuki that. It was like you two were totally obsessed with her…but after I encountered her in Oomiya I understood why, I think. I'm sorry. It only scared me more. How could I be sure you wouldn't run away again? How could I compete against that?"
Toriko's hand escaped my grip and wrapped its way around my back. I hesitantly returned the favor. Toriko gently replied, "I guess neither of us are great at talking to one another, huh?"
"Guess not."
We sat there in silence for a few minutes, half hugging each other in a heavy silence. Small butterflies jumped in my stomach, and I felt an almost electric sensation on my skin. Somewhere deep in my chest, I felt a strange aching.
"Sorawo, could you tell me more about how you feel? About us?"
"I don't know if I have the words for it. I'm only a child when it comes to these things…"
Toriko's firm embrace drew me tighter. "Then can I tell you what I know?" Taking my silence as agreement, she continued. "You keep risking your life to protect me. You got incredibly jealous any time Satsuki was mentioned. You stare at me all the time like you'll never see me again. I think that's a kind of love."
I returned Toriko's embrace. "I guess it is." I pulled away again and turned to look her in the eye. "You're the most beautiful person I've ever seen. It makes me so angry sometimes, that I can't look away."
Toriko pulled away and gave me a wide-eyed look before bursting into laughter. "You get mad? Ahaha, so that explains the intense look you get when you stare at me sometimes!"
I felt a tick of annoyance creep in. "If you're going to ask how I feel, at least take it seriously!"
"Ahaha, that's the Sorawo I know. Come here." She pulled me tight into her chest. I instantly felt the anger start to dissipate, even though she was still giggling about something I told her in confidence. I guess she found it endearing, which helped me endure it.
I felt the giggles subside a bit before she whispered into my ear. "Seventy five points."
What? I thought I had been exceptionally open with her tonight. Hadn't she just gotten an honest statement out of me and then laughed at it? The nerve Toriko had sometimes.
Then I stopped to think. Was Toriko seeing an aspect of me that I didn't notice? I mean, I wouldn't put it past her to see through to what I was really thinking - I had learned that lesson well enough - but this time I had shared what I was really thinking??
As I paused to rephrase, I looked up to Toriko to gauge how she was feeling, only to catch the last parts of a smile on her soft lips harden back into a serious face. I looked at her, dumbstruck. I hadn't imagined that, right?
Oh.
I see your game, Toriko. You jerk.
Well, if she was going to bully me while I was trying to open up to her emotionally, I could do the same. I kept up the awkward stare and let the pause hang for a moment, just long enough for Toriko's eyelids to droop in worry.
"Toriko, you asked about how I felt. It feels like every fiber of my heart is yelling that I love you, but sometimes…"
"Sometimes…?"
"Sometimes I wonder that maybe you're not fully honest with me, either."
Toriko's expression softened, and she gave me a knowing smile. Not letting her take the upper hand again, I started pulling away from her. She tried to keep me in her arms, but I wriggled out of her grasp and sat down cross-legged at the foot of the bed.
She pushed herself forwards to follow me, coming to rest in a loosely cross-legged posture just in front of me. "Sorawo…", She pleaded, but I put my hand up to stop her.
I leaned forward, staring as directly as I could without focusing my right eye on her. "For example, when we were at DS Labs, you never answered me." I said, easing my voice slightly lower. "You have a thing for low voices, don't you?"
Her eyes shot wide open and a serious blush started to come up on her face. Oh, she did. She definitely did. After a moment of looking shocked, she finally stammered, "Wha-What is this out of nowhere? But, y-yes?!"
"I'm glad you gave me an honest answer, but…" I trailed off, hoping to lure her in a little closer.
"But…?" She gave me a look that was half-pleading.
"But you hesitated. Fifty honesty points."
"That's not faaaaiiiir~!" She whined. Well, that's too bad. Turnabout is fair play, after all. Whenever Toriko got pouty she would puff her cheeks out a little bit. It was a really cute look. Feeling emboldened, I leaned in a little closer. "What did you pause for, I wonder?"
She gulped.
This was going to be fun. I leaned in closer. My face stood directly in front of hers, close enough that I could feel her gentle breath on my cheeks. I could almost feel the heat radiating from her blush.
"You know, you say I keep important information from you, but aren't you doing the same right now? I'm worried, Toriko...what are you afraid to say about my low voice?"
She screwed up her eyes as she rushed to come up with an answer. "I l-love your voice. When you use it it makes you s-sound like you're in c-charge of the situation! It makes me feel safe…" She looked down, as if digging deep. "...and when you talk to me with it, I feel like I'm being surrounded by a comfortable presence."
I put my index finger under her chin and brought her face upwards to mine. She was blushing furiously, and her breath was a little unsteady. Her deep indigo eyes locked onto mine.
"Is that really what you think of my low voice, huh?"
She nodded vigorously. I ran my finger along the soft skin on her jawline, slowly spreading my palm into a caress. I leaned over to her ear, and whispering with the lowest voice I could manage, I said "seventy points". She gasped and let out a small squeak.
Before she could reply I pushed her backwards and crawled above her. I reached my right hand up to her face, and she responded by wrapping her left hand around my wrist. The cold touch made me briefly break eye contact with her as I looked down at her semi-transparent hand. I felt my chest tighten as I saw a fractal shimmer trace the outline of her palm against my skin. I could look for hours, but when I glanced back up at her face I broke out of my reverie.
Looking down I was struck by the expression on Toriko's face. It was an intoxicating look, half confusion and half adoration. Her blonde eyebrows stood out against the flush on her face. I could seriously get addicted to seeing it…and you know, it should honestly be illegal how pretty she looked in that moment. It actually made me a little mad, and my wavering resolve to keep bullying her returned.
"Toriko, I gave you seventy points because that's definitely not the face you were making when I was trying to comfort you a few minutes ago."
I leaned down towards her ear. Her grip around my wrist tightened as I did. I whispered again, "is it?"
Toriko had an almost dreamlike expression on her face. For a moment I doubted she could even reply from the state she was in, then suddenly she reached up and pulled me down on top of her.
Like every time she pulled me into a hug, I could feel her muscles under a layer of soft fat. She was seriously cozy. I could feel the soft rise and fall of her chest against mine, the rapid thump-thump-thump of her heart. Resisting her attempt to charm me, I raised my head and made sure to look into her eyes.
She returned my gaze, looking a bit uncertain now. "Sorawo, when I told you how your body made me feel, you pulled away from me for a long time…"
Ah, yes. The hot spring. She had been way too forward with me, though, especially since we'd been in a public place. It was really embarrassing, and it had definitely taken us in a dangerous direction, but hadn't I shown her I was more comfortable around her now? After all, I hadn't I offered to go to the public baths with her as much as she wanted? I was definitely over it.
As if sending my confusion and uncertainty, she continued. "I'm worried that if I told you how your low voice really made me feel, you would never talk to me again. I want you here with me."
So it was like that. The weird butterfly feeling in my chest came back. Whatever, I could take it. Probably. "I'm not going to leave you, Toriko. I never want us to be apart."
Toriko made another squeaking noise before pulling my head into her shoulder. She was warm and soft. So warm. So soft. I felt her head turn to face my ear.
"You've got some serious gap moe, Sorawo. You can be a giant nerd, but then you get all serious and bring out that seductive voice. When I hear it I would do anything you say."
Who the hell was she calling a nerd?! I inhaled sharply, and felt Toriko freeze up. No. I had given her permission to say that. That was on me. I exhaled slowly. "One hundred points."
She relaxed before pulling me tighter. I felt one of her legs wrap around mine as she rolled us onto our sides. "I love you, Sorawo."
I nuzzled into her a bit. She could be a giant pain sometimes, but I loved her in more ways than I could count. After taking a moment to calm myself in the scent of her shampoo, I replied, "I love you too, Toriko."
"One hundred points."
I felt a cold hand slide up my shirt. That night, we gave each other full points over and over again.