yet another little drabble courtesy of the yuri shipping olympics! the prompt this time was 'I can't believe you talked me into this'. I'm bringing back an old favourite to appease my 16 year old self, and basically nobody else. aminori enjoyers if you are out there...
summary: minori is certain that she can finally see a crack in ami's cool facade; and all it'll take is a ride on whimsiville's supersonic rollercoaster: Vertigo! a flawless scheme which will certainly not backfire. not at all...
banner: screencap from Toradora ep. 6 "True Self"
pairing: minori kushieda / ami kawashima
no warnings required!
1,423 words!
'I cannot believe you talked me into this' Ami Kawashima, model student, model model, and model melodramaist huffs.
It does not surprise Minori - at least not a great deal - that the way in which her face scrunches with distaste is still beautiful; the sort of righteous disdain you'd see in a fancy book of fancy artpieces that cost an arm and a leg and weighed about as much too, and all without running the risk of a lasting wrinkle.
There's a hint of the unimpeachable to her which promised any attempt to test this stoic unrufflability would yield nothing but frustration.
Perhaps, were she one of those rational types, Minori would recognise this as the omen of futility that it was. It would be better, really, for everyone if she did.
But Minori was dedicated, and all she could see in those finely crafted features was a provocation. Ami was a challenge, or she was issuing a challenge, and Minori didn't stop to mull over the distinctions between the two. She was a bit more preoccupied with attempting to pry loose an expression which hadn't been made for TV from Ami's habitual smirk.
'What's wrong Amin? Scared of a bit of height?' She asks, opting to accentuate the extent to which she too, was entirely cool-headed and unbothered by the other's presence by slinging an arm over her shoulder.
Ami had opted for a breezy summer dress that day, with thin straps, and thus no fabric to shield her from Minori's totally casual arm-slinging. There was nothing to prevent her from feeling the way her exposed shoulder hardened into a taut tension under the skin.
Woah. Had she developed inadvertant powers of petrification in the last minute? Before she could inspect Ami's shoulder for any stray pieces of stone, however, her arm was smacking limply into her side; a consequence of its unceremonious dislodgement from its resting place. 'Ow!' She says, as if it had hurt, 'What gives?'
'I am not Taiga, I don't need to be encumbered with any extra limbs.' She says, and there's a familiar flash in her eyes and ah geez, she's totally about to- 'Whilst I'm sure that little terror could benefit from the additional weapon when she inevitably has another tantrum, I prefer words to brute force.' There it was.
Why did she always turn to Taiga? More importantly, how come she knew, with a precision that frankly unsettled Minori, just what to say to send an indignant blush a-blazing in her cheeks, and as an adendum to that, what malicious God had perfected her in the art of setting Minori's heart pumping anyway?
On second thought, perhaps a God was too pure a boon-granter for someone like her. A deal with the devil for quick wit, unshakeable smarminess, and perfect hair was decidedly not off the table. She wouldn't put anything past Ami.
Instead of responding with something that would have been, no doubt, utterly devastating, Minori opts to take the moral high ground and pictures the way that smug self-assurance would melt away soon - in approximately 3-5 minutes time, if the sign posted outside the start of the queue was anything to go by.
Ooh, maybe she'd even scream! Perfect, beautiful Ami Kawashima, shrieking as she hurtled across the track at world-record-creating speeds.
'What's the stupid smile for?'
'Hmm...?'
'Hey, snap out of it fluff-for-brains, we're nearly at the front.'
Curses! She'd been so caught up in envisioning her victory over Ami's snide professionalism that she'd almost forgotten to be present for the main event! Get your head in the game Kushieda - you're playing for keeps here!
'Aw, oopsie! I must've gotten distracted.'
They were nearly at the front now, which meant a first-class view of terrified fairgoers being lowered into Vertigo, screaming as they were whipped past at speeds that made Minori dizzy, just from looking, and sickly aftermaths: the victims of Whimisiville's finest, fastest rollercoaster.
Taiga had flatly refused. Takasu had muttered something about 'winning Inko-chan' from a stall that contained a bunch of slightly squashed looking bird plushies and disappeared. Kitamura was long-lost. It was just the two of them. Minori, Ami, and the terrifying rollercoaster. She had to make the most of it.
Especially when it had been so easy to convince Ami to come along with her for the ride. Who knew when this sudden fit of good-will would strike Her Imperious Majesty next? All it had taken was a few insinuations of cowardice here, a sprinkle of guilt tripping there…!
She was almost disappointed that she hadn’t been called upon to deploy her patented ‘Please-I-Have-Never-Wanted-Something-More-in-My-Life-and-if-You-Say-No-I-Will-Hold-You-Personally-Responsible-for-the-Lack-of-Fulfillment-that-Will-Plague-My-Every-Waking-Hour’ eyes! Although, perhaps that was for the best. She didn’t know if her heart could take her special-est of special moves quailing under Ami’s cold disapproval.
Better to just be thankful for the chance to absolutely squander whatever warm feeling had prompted this agreement as quickly as possible, right? She almost felt bad, meeting what could well be an olive branch with this. Almost.
‘Heeeey Ami.’ She turns to her victim, attempting to stifle a giggle. Really, it was all her fault: she should never have let slip to Minori that this was her first time in Whimsiville when they’d run into her by the shooting gallery.
Taiga had been less than pleased by the chance encounter but Minori was nothing if not optimistic. Or was that opportunistic? The possibility of getting a reaction out of a brick wall in the body of a high school student was just too tempting! ‘Did I mention that this thing can go 200 km/h and has three loop-de-loops?’
‘You did not.’ Ami says, glaring. Having made it past the barrier now, they're scoping out a free cart in tandem with the portion of the crowd who have finally escaped the drudge of the queue. They settle unanimously for a carriage towards the back. It’s neon yellow, with flaking flames painted on the side and there isn’t enough space for them to sit entirely apart from each other.
Instead, their knees keep grazing each other, and Minori jumps each time it happens, sending their legs flying away from each other like two magnets stuck facing identical poles. ‘But don’t worry, I’m used to compensating for your particularly severe case of scatterbrain.’
‘Hey!’ Minori leaps to her own defense, and it seems her knee also has something to say because it leaps too - settling firmly next to Ami’s who continues on, apparently unaffected.
‘For instance, I do know that you tend to get motion-sick.’
Huh? Since when had Ami been keeping such close tabs on her? That was confidential information, which required a Taiga-level clearance, and she referenced it as easily as if she had been there on that lazy afternoon when she’d been regailing Taiga with the misadventures of her family trip to Kyoto! Well, she supposed that technically she had been there, it had taken place in the classroom, but that was even more shocking!
Had she, Ami Kawashima, been eavesdropping? Surely not! The only eaves that were supposed to be dropped around here were by Minori, the super-sleuth!
Really, was there no integrity to be found in the subtle art of getting one over on someone? At least Minori, in her schemes, was willing to put her own body on the line - she was sacrificing her stomach so she could see Ami’s smug expression get turned inside out by this high-speed death trap!
‘And,’ Ami whispers - whispers! - as she draws closer to Minori, her breath warming the outside of her ear - what was that bit called again, the shell? Minori finds in that moment that she doesn’t really like the comparison. Shells were so hollow, a pale imitation of the setting which formed them, a memory of something distant, and displaced. Ears were much less nostalgic, surely. They didn’t hear only what they wanted to hear, right? - Ami was being very quiet all of a sudden. Minori bites down the urge to yell at her. What, what?!
‘Did you know that before we’d met, I had ridden Vertigo five times over? I’m a big fan of the part with the 50 meter drop!’
Click.
The bar that would keep their bodies from slamming into the ground below as they were shot along at really, very high speeds (and Minori, in all her arch genius knew that this speed was 200km/h precisely) snapped into place with the finality of a death sentence.
my biggest flex is that i kin minori kushieda, nagito komaeda and ash lynx and my s/o kins ami kawashima, hajime hinata and eiji okumura. you guys could never
update 19/02/2021: i kin atsushi and they kin akutagawa
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Fandom: Toradora!
Ship: Ami x Minori
Summary: After graduation, Minori drags Ami on a beach adventure to search for mermaids; Ami has a feeling that their abrupt trip has less to do with imaginary sea creatures, more to do with Taiga, and everything to do with escapism. She's only partially right.
