Wouldn't It Be Nice (A Toradora Soulmate AU)

1: Everybody Loves Somebody

Exactly two months and six days before Ryuuji Takasu's sixteenth birthday, he wakes up with two things stuck in his head: the aforementioned countdown, and the first day of school. He needs no alarm to wake him; stepping out of bed and crossing a day off his calendar has become habitual. His home is quiet at this hour, as always. His mother works day and night to support herself and Ryuuji, and although she's home, she uses this time to catch up on sleep. Before grabbing his bag and heading out, Ryuuji prepares lunch for his mother Yasuko, knowing she wouldn't have time to make one herself later. He leaves it in the fridge with a note on the door: "Lunch is on the second shelf, with rice in a separate dish, just how you like it. Make sure not to overwork yourself. Love, Ryu"

He leaves and shuts the door quietly, making sure not to wake Yasuko. It's pleasant outside, and Ryuuji takes his time walking along the road to school. There's no need to rush anyway, since it starts at 7:10 and it's only 6:40. He doesn't live too far from the school; It's about a twenty minute walk at his slowest, but he can pull fifteen if he speedwalks. He walks nearly halfway there--approaching the entrance to Tamaishi Bridge--when he checks and finds that there is a lack of phone in his back pocket. He glances at his watch, it's 6:49, and high tails it back home.

After retrieving it and stepping back outside, he sees a girl walking just ahead of him that he doesn't know. She doesn't look unfamiliar, as if maybe he had seen her in passing in the hallway, or flipping through a yearbook, or something equally mundane. She's wearing our school uniform, so she could be in my class, Ryuuji thinks, but I don't know how I haven't ever walked by her before. He thinks no more of it as he follows her along the path he knows well.

Exactly four months and fourteen days before Taiga Aisaka's sixteenth birthday, she steps outside the apartment where she lives alone, locks the door, and starts making her way to school. She isn't exactly a morning person, so 'stumbling' is probably the best way to describe the way she's moving. She hasn't had to get herself up for school in a long time, but since her dad remarried and she left the household, she had to figure out the basics pretty quickly.

As Taiga begins to approach the school, she heads straight to the softball field, where she knows her best friend will be. She hurries over, seeing Minori right away even through the hoard of students rushing in to see which class they made it into. Nobody else would be so excited to start softball that they stand on the fence looking into the field longingly. "Minorin!" Taiga calls when she's within earshot. She jumps off the fence and runs over to greet her friend and inform her that they had been placed in the same class. Taiga grins, wondering who else will be there too.

She drags Minori over to see the class lists with her. As she approaches, she hears whispers of "the palm top tiger" and "Takasu" and something about their meeting being fated. She gives anyone who mentions anything further about the topic a menacing glare. The crowd glides around her, easily letting her up to the paper with her class list. She scanned it.. Aisaka Taiga...Kitamura Yuusaku...Kushieda Minori... and.. Takasu Ryuuji. That must be the guy everyone's talking about. "Everyone's talking about him and I meeting... what's his deal?" She asks Minori. Minori replies saying she doesn't know, but that they'll soon find out.

Ryuuji joins the herd of people in scoping out his class. He's soon joined by Yuusaku Kitamura, his best friend. Yuusaku cheerfully lets him know that they're in the same class this year, and offers to show him where it is. He takes up the invitation, and they start climbing the stairs into the school. He doesn't pay much attention to the people around them, but he can't help but notice the worried glances cast up at his face or that those that give them pick up their pace right afterwards. There's also the whispers that follow him through the halls, referring to him as a delinquent and talking about someone named the "palm top tiger." Ryuuji brushes it off, used to this kind of treatment. He has a very unfortunate mixture of features, mostly inherited from his father, that when put together make him look much tougher than he really is. "It's fine, they'll learn soon enough." Yuusaku says, knowing exactly what Ryuuji is thinking about.

Just as they're about to reach the classroom, Ryuuji sees Minori Kushieda walking down the hall. He steals glances at her without staring, until she is almost right in front of him. He looks straight ahead, convincing himself to pretend she isn't there. He's almost past her, almost ready to let down the act, when -THUMP- he pauses and looks down. There's a small girl standing there with her head facing down, the top of it against his stomach. He hears a collective gasp from students standing around them, everyone looking their way to see what's going to happen next. He hears them say "I didn't think they would meet this early!" and other such things. Ryuuji steps backwards. "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention--" The girl slowly looks up at him with a scowl. He can see how she earned her nickname. "I'm Takasu Ryuuji, you must be the palm top tiger?" Ryuuji says this with all good intentions; he really does not know her name. She yells "Don't call me the palm top tiger!" and socks him.

Ryuuji reels backwards. She may be small, but her punch actually hurt. That scowl was nothing, this has got to be the real reason people call her that nickname. A nickname that I will never make the mistake of calling her again. The bystanders watch expectantly, maybe waiting for Ryuuji to hit her back? But Ryuuji was no fool, and didn't want a fight in the first place. Before he has a chance to do anything though, the girl scoffs and walks into the classroom. Ryuuji has no choice but to glance at Kitamura, who for some reason doesn't look shocked, and drag him inside behind her.

The rest of the day goes by without incident, though he did hear a lot more about "the tiger" than himself being called a delinquent, so hopefully his interaction with the girl revealed his true personality to everyone else.

Ryuuji walks home alone after school. Sometimes he can walk halfway with Yuusaku, but since he's in student council now, he has many more after-school responsibilities. When Ryuuji gets home, Yasuko surprises him by being home.

"Hey mom, are you not feeling well?" She usually works this time of day, not getting home until dinnertime.

"I'm great! I just took today off at the restaurant so that I could hear about your first day! Did you... meet anybody interesting?" She grins, wishing for something about Ryuuji's possible soulmate. Ryuuji obliges, telling her about the people he found are in his class. "Maybe one of them is your..." She leads hopefully. He chuckles. His mother is such a romantic. "Well, it's almost your birthday. You should start thinking of things like that!" She was right, it almost was his birthday. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had never asked his mom what her sixteenth was like.

"Well, you've never told me mom, what happened on yours?" Yasuko smiles, but it doesn't look like she's all that happy to recall the memory.

"Well," she begins, hesitating at first, "on my sixteenth birthday, around noon, the sentence appeared on my arm almost like a tattoo. I went to show my mom, and she explained to me that she couldn't see it, because the only person that can is the person it appeared on. I didn't know who had said the words yet.--"What if the person never says the words?" Ryuuji asks--They will, and it always happens before your eighteenth birthday. Also, the words are said directly to you, so that way you'll never grow up without knowing who you're meant to be with."

"Was my father.. your soulmate?" Ryuji inquires tentatively. He's never known his father, who left his mom when he found out she was pregnant. He found it hard to believe that a soulmate would abandon their SO.

"No, he wasn't my soulmate," Yasuko confirms. "Some people aren't meant to have a soulmate. The words that appeared on my arm were said by a boy a few months later, but another girl also had his words on her arm. I suppose that left him to make his choice, but it wasn't really his choice after all. The other girl said his words, and I'm sure they're happily married to this day. I fell in love with your father years later, and found out that the girl who said his sentence had tragically died in a car accident. We loved each other, but it just wasn't meant to be." Ryuji hugs his mom. She had never shared that with him before, but it put the pieces together in his head. He had never heard of that before though, people not meant to have soulmates. He hoped he wasn't one of them.