Toradora! Vol. 8

  Chapter 1

  It was twelve past eleven in the evening.

  In forty-eight more minutes, the day would end.

  As his breath fogged white, Takasu Ryuuji looked up at the night sky through his still-open window. That night, the moon and the stars were hidden behind the inky clouds. His already gloomy mood darkened.

  That night was particularly cold. The below-freezing wind pricked at his skin. His body, clothed only in a parka and tracksuit bottoms, trembled slightly, and he felt like his teeth had been chattering forever. His dry lips were stiff, his toes were numb, and his heart—well, it had frozen over long ago.

  Ever since that night on Christmas Eve.

  Since that night, Ryuuji had been wandering in the darkness of absolute zero.

  “I hope…tomorrow never comes…”

  With the lights still off in the room, he sat clumsily on the window frame. The sliding frame of the window steadied his back as he breathed a long sigh. He pushed up his now grown-out bangs and hugged one of his knees to himself. He pulled his parka over his cold and smarting ears to protect them from the wind and then narrowed his eyes. He held his breath, mostly unconsciously, and gritted his chattering teeth.

  The new year had come and gone a week ago.

  Tomorrow, they would start a new semester at school.

  Once they started a new semester, then he basically couldn’t avoid seeing her. Whenever he thought about that, whenever he imagined it, Ryuuji’s heart seemed to grate to the point it seemed close to breaking. No matter how deeply he breathed in, there wasn’t enough air. He was suffocating. Every morning, every day, every night, without warning, his mind would revive her form and voice. His brain would vividly and mercilessly replay out his thoughts from spring, summer, fall, and the events of that night.

  “What expression am I even supposed to have when I see her…?” he groaned in a low voice. His empty eyes wandered through the air. Even in his thoughts, he couldn’t meet her eyes. He didn’t know how he could see her face-to-face when she was real.

  He held his head and bit his peeling lips. The taste of blood spread lightly over his tongue. His pupils were as wide as they could go, and he had bags under his eyes that were dark enough to look like someone had jokingly drawn them on his face. Ryuuji hadn’t been able to sleep for days now, and it had reduced his face to that of someone just waiting for their arrest. It was easy to visualize. One day, out of nowhere, the police would make their way up into his house, coming in without even taking off their shoes. They would have been tipped off by the neighbors. His hands would be restrained behind him. The police would be yelling.

  “The kitchen looks fishy!”

  “Oh! I found something! We got some white powder in here!”

  …No, that’s just potato starch!

  “Ha ha ha…ha ha…ha…”

  Idiotic.

  As he laughed emptily, his thoughts drifted far away. Even if it’s because of a misunderstanding, if I were to get arrested, at least I wouldn’t have to go to school. He was half-serious.

  He pushed at the dirt caught in the window’s frame with unconscious fingertips. It happened a little after that.

  “Uh…”

  The window of the condo across from him lit up with blinding light. The inside of the room, which was left bare by the drawn-back curtains, was easy to see into. He also saw the shadow of a petite person cut across the room.

  That person, of course, was the owner of the place next door that had been silent until now. It was Aisaka Taiga, with her unmistakable long, fluffy hair and her pale white face. In light blue pajamas with a white cardigan layered on top, Taiga walked through her bedroom, which was about as large as the Takasus’ whole apartment. Then, she seemed to notice Ryuuji’s eyes on her and turned to face him.

  “Yo…Taiga.”

  He got up a bit and lightly raised a hand to her—just as she exclaimed, “Wha?! What are you doing?!”

  Ugh!

  This is the worst.

  Why’d I have to get spotted by someone so annoying?

  Or so Taiga’s face very clearly said. Okay, I’ll just ignore him. Pretend I never saw him. Her expression was so obvious, he could even glean that much. Their eyes had clearly met, but she flipped her hair around, turned her back to him, and hid herself in a corner of the room Ryuuji couldn’t see. She even harshly pulled the curtains closed.

  Had he done something wrong? Feeling the empathy of an honest person, Ryuuji reflexively put his hand to his chest and tried to think over his own actions until that day, but he couldn’t come up with a single reason why Taiga would be coldly ignoring him.

  “What is it with you…? Why are you suddenly ignoring me…? Taiga! I saw all of that! Why are you ignoring me?!” he shouted without thinking.

  He’d completely forgotten about the neighbors. This was just too much, after all. Taiga knew his circumstances. She was being this cold to him when he was in a spiritual crisis. And it wasn’t just this time, either. He hadn’t been able to get a grasp on her attitude for the last few days.

  “Hey! Open that up a little! There was something I’ve been wanting to tell you!”

  No response. She must have heard him, though.

  “Taiga! Damn it… Is this the silent treatment? I can’t believe you’d do that to me! Just watch!”

  Silent curses overflowed from every pore in Ryuuji’s body. He oozed with dark feelings as he glared over at the window. The negative emotions that had gathered awakened his evil face. I’ll wipe this planet from the Milky Way! it seemed to say.

  With his face like that, he made his way to the entrance and back, bringing the deck brush with him. He braced his legs around the window and, hanging onto the sash, leaned out with the brush in his free hand.

  “Taiga! Taiga! Hey, let me see your face! I know you heard me! Taiga!”

  Bang bang bang bang bang thud bang bang thud bang bang bang bang bang! BANG! He banged the long brush’s wooden handle against Taiga’s bedroom window in succession. He was hitting it almost hard enough to break it.

  Normally, he wasn’t allowed to do this. It would have damaged the glass, and he had once hit Taiga hard in the face doing this in the past. But, this night, he would use his last resort.

  Vibrations stronger than any alarm clock rang out through the silent night.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?!”

  Of course, even Taiga couldn’t ignore that. She threw open the curtains completely with a terrific force, and their faces met for the first time in a while.

  “Eek!” Ryuuji was taken aback. Her face, which was made up beautifully like a French doll’s, was contorted terribly.

  “Don’t…” Her unpleasant mood now fully exposed by the fully open window, Taiga grabbed the end of the deck brush that was pointed at her. Then, with ridiculous strength, she pulled it toward herself.

  “…get carried…”

  “Ah, wha, whoa?!”

  Ryuuji lost his balance. He reeled forward and started to fall face-first towards the ground several meters below.

  “Naaaaaaaaah!”

  —Or at least, he had just been about to.

  Stars blinked in front of his eyes. “Gah!” By the time he realized it was his own voice that had shouted, he was already falling backwards onto his bed. He had been whacked right in the face with the deck brush just as he began to fall forward.

  “Keh! You pig!”

  Slam! The windows closed, and he heard the noise of the curtain prickling his skull.

  Then he was left alone in the silence.

  “Te…”

  Terrible. That was just too horrible.

  “T-t-te…”

  His eyes, which had been scrubbed by the brush, reflexively s
tarted to overflow with tears, and snot ran down to his mouth.

  “Te…te-te…”

  Still on the bed, he held his face, with no idea anymore if he was crying or smiling. The voice in which Taiga had spat “Keh! You pig!” at him still distinctly stabbed at his ears. A pig, he thought. So I’m a pig. With his own swinish nature thrust into his face, he arduously made his way back up and clung to the window. He latched on to the curtains.

  “Terrrr-te-te-te…!”

  He glared at the window across from him. That was the Palmtop Tiger for you. She would resort to brutal means and do so spectacularly. After wounding his soul with one bite, she had completely shattered it. Even though he couldn’t form his admiration into words, he kept trying to convey his feelings to her.

  “Could you shut up?! What do you think—”

  “Eiiiie, te-te-te!”

  “Gyaaaaaaaah!”

  Taiga opened the window again out of irritation and then yelled as she saw Ryuuji laughing and crying. She fell back onto her butt—Ryuuji saw her feet fly into the air. Eeek?! Without thinking, he thrust out a hand that wouldn’t reach her.

  “A-all you are is an actual troublemaker! When you tempt the gods, you invite cruel outcomes like these… How frightening! Ryuuji, your face goes beyond human reason!” Finally getting back up, Taiga spoke as his outstretched arm scratched at empty air.

  “Th-that’s the first time in my life that someone has said anything as terrible as that to me!” said Ryuuji. “No, actually, more importantly, how could you scratch my face with a deck brush?! Do you know where that brush goes?! I retired it from washing the bath to washing the entrance and the outside passage and the outside stairs! The drain got super clogged with garbage, and I scrubbed it like this first when it was dry and then scraped it when it was wet—”

  “Enough with the chitchat. It’s time to sleep, you freak! Tch, you’re too loud… You’ve got a face like a dog that would come at you in Resident Evil…”

  “What did you call me?! If you hadn’t been ignoring me in the first place, we wouldn’t have gotten in this mess! Oh, and right… How…how dare you ignore me! You know that I’m heartbroken right now, too! I-I can’t believe that you-you would—”

  “Like I care!”

  “What?!”

  After giving him that shockingly direct reply, Taiga haughtily stuck out her chin and looked down upon Ryuuji’s face with arrogance. She snorted, her large eyes as emotionless as if they were looking at dog crap by the roadside.

  “I’ve got things to do. I can’t always be entertaining you.”

  “Wh-what did you just say?! There’s no way you could have anything to do. You’re always bored to tears!”

  “You can say whatever you want. You don’t have to understand. There’s no way someone with such a small and poor measuring stick as you could measure the ideals behind the actions of someone as large and as rich as me.”

  “Who’s going on about being large and rich when you’ve got a grain of rice for a face?!”

  The moment he returned her poison, he heard a sound.

  Ring ring ring. Ring ring ring ring.

  “Oh. Time’s up.”

  The idiotic Caramell melody came from the cell phone Taiga was holding. At that weak tone, Ryuuji’s strength also disappeared. He didn’t know what it was time for, but…

  “Well, that’s how it is. The new semester starts tomorrow, so why don’t you go to bed soon? Rather than complaining at me, you can think over the mountain of things I’m sure you need to do.”

  How cold. The chilliness permeated through him. He looked back at Taiga’s face in spite of himself as she quickly tried to close the window and cloister herself in.

  “So that’s how it is…”

  “What?”

  At the words Ryuuji let slip out, Taiga’s cute face formed a heartfelt scowl. How could she act like another human being was such a chore?

  “So you actually couldn’t care less about it, then…”

  Taiga had cried, at first, when he told her what happened on Christmas Eve. Ryuuji bit his lip as he looked at her in shock. Were the tears from that day fake?

  “You’re not lying, right?”

  “I can’t believe Minori would reject you—you’re kidding.”

  It had happened while he had been hospitalized for the flu at the end of the year. It had been three days since the party. Once Ryuuji regained the use of his mouth, he had completely opened up to Taiga about what happened on the night of Christmas Eve. He told her what happened after she sent him off.

  Taiga, whom Yasuko had sent to him with a change of clothes, started to cry after she heard that. She sobbed to the point she couldn’t even hide it under the large mask she had been required to put on.

  “Why did this happen? That can’t be true.”

  Taiga had covered her eyes with her little hands and, still sitting by his bedside, cried for a while. Lying there, Ryuuji couldn’t stand it, and his sanpaku eyes had pitifully teared up, too.

  Regardless, Ryuuji had felt just a little bit better at Taiga’s tears. He was thankful for the miracle of having someone by his side who received sadness with sadness and who cried together with him when he was hurt. He just couldn’t believe he had someone who understood that he had been hurt and who would be sad with him. He still couldn’t believe it.

  But where did that all go?

  “Could you stop venting at me because Minorin rejected you?”

  Deep wrinkles appeared on Taiga’s forehead. She stuck her finger into her ear and fished around with it.

  “I said I’ve got something I need to do. Ahhh, look…because you’ve been meaninglessly chattering away, it’s probably gotten all soggy.”

  As she said that, she brought it over to the window from where she had placed it on a desk nearby. She heartily pried off the top.

  “I-Is that what you needed to do?!” Ryuuji said.

  He was so taken aback, he couldn’t say anything more. The reason Taiga had so gloomily ignored him was…

  “Tch, you’re such a loudmouth. I’ll eat it here, okay. Hmph, I’m digging in.”

  Sl-slurpppppppp! It was cup ramen.

  “You…you…you really are…”

  “Mm, delicious! What?”

  She looked like she was in heaven as she ate a mouthful of noodles, slurping them up energetically. At Taiga’s carefree face, Ryuuji’s heart splintered and ran to waste.

  “I don’t care anymore. It’s nothing.”

  He clammed up.

  “I see.”

  Sl-sl-sl-sluuuuuurp!

  “I hope you bloat up. I hope your face puffs up in a hurry for the new semester.”

  Dark Ryuuji had emerged. His raised sanpaku eyes flickered repulsively with murky fire.

  However, Taiga just half-laughed, “Heh. Fine by me. I already know what I’m getting into by eating ramen at this time of night.”

  She cradled her ramen as she arrogantly stuck out her flat chest. On her white cardigan were droplets from her spoon that formed the shape of the big dipper. She hadn’t noticed.

  Ahh. What kind of fate had led the rental and condo to be next to each other? Ryuuji and Taiga’s rooms faced one another, just two meters apart. They were both on the second floor, with eye-to-eye south-facing and north-facing windows.

  Ryuuji stood speechless next to the window in his bedroom and simply watched Taiga’s cheeks as she happily slurped her ramen. He looked like he wanted to fill her mouth with firecrackers—but not really. He’d lost sight of the earlier melancholy that had filled his mind. His mental landscape was currently that of a wandering ghost ship, roaming the sea of spirits. They were incompetent at navigation, the passengers had been annihilated, and the captain was a skeleton.

  “Is that all you’re eating for dinner?” the ghostly crew member, Ryuuji, asked her in a low voice from the ship’s deck.

  “Nooo. Around nine I ate a meat bun, mayo corn bread, and an éclair. This is a midnight snack.
”

  “That’s the worst menu ever. You had to have gotten it all from the convenience store.”

  Taiga still had her chopsticks in her mouth as she turned away, playing dumb. She said neither yes nor no, so Ryuuji had probably been on the mark.

  “What is it with you… Seriously.”

  Creak, creak, creak. The ghost ship screeched on the haunted sea, pulled into a dark whirlpool of grudges and curses that even the rudder couldn’t break through.

  “You don’t come over… You stuff yourself with that stuff…and don’t even eat your vegetables…”

  “What about it? Oh, you must have wanted to have ramen, too. Wow, how greedy you are.”

  “I don’t want any! You’re seriously getting on my nerves! You really are… You just push my buttons!”

  As he groaned, Ryuuji scratched at his head. He writhed and howled at the night sky. His already dangerous-looking yakuza face started to transform perilously into something he couldn’t reveal to others. It was sharp, treacherous, and vulgar.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while! Why won’t you come over?! Plus, why have you been ignoring me like you just did earlier?! What’s going on with you?!”

  Dark curses came steaming from each and every one of the pores on his body, and he knew it. In the opposite window, Taiga scrunched up her face as though she had seen something unpleasant. Mood killer. He knew that she was mouthing those words with her rosy lips, but he was ticked off and couldn’t help it.

  “What is it with you?” she asked. “I told you not to take things out on other people.”

  “I’m not taking anything out on you! I’m actually mad at you!”

  He was going against the most dangerous living being in the world, the Palmtop Tiger. Ryuuji brandished his murder weapon of a face as he spat at her.

  “I-Is it because I’m too annoying for you now that I’ve been hurt?! Is that it?! Is it because I’m too depressing for you to talk to?! Am I wrong to think that?! Am I just a nuisance now that I’m a mess?! Am I just in the way?! You were sympathizing with me to start with! What was that?! What was it?! It’s not like I asked you to keep moping around with me! I didn’t ask you to console me! But you could at least be as close as you were before, like normal!”