Toradora! Vol. 7 Read online

  “Why would it? I don’t really care. I don’t like people sticking their noses into other people’s romantic lives… It’s just weird and I don’t like it, that’s it…that’s all.”

  “Oh…”

  Looking at Ryuuji’s face as he mumbled, the malicious glitter in Ami’s eyes returned.

  “Aha. ♥ You’re kind of acting like a father giving away his bride?”

  “Like that’s true. I’ve never had a daughter, and even if I have a dad, I’ve never seen him.”

  “You’ve got a little girl, and you’ve been minding your own business and taking care of her forever. You make sure she doesn’t fall over, or get any cuts, or cry, you make sure she hasn’t gotten hurt or sick or died, and then some other guy comes along and tries to steal her away. A guy who you’re not even sure will take care of her and treat her like you’ve been. You’ve been treasuring her, and she’s just become pretty, and a guy who you’re not even sure has the power to protect her is pulling her out of the nest. Dads don’t get rewarded for anything, do they? No matter how much you hate it and how little you get in return, it’s not like you can keep her. You know the reason why? Fathers get older faster. They lose their strength and die. You’re instinctually afraid of leaving your daughter alone in the world after you die, so even though you hate it, you entrust her to a guy who will live longer than you and who is healthier than you.”

  “Huh?”

  What even is that?

  Taiga’s actual father wasn’t nearly that admirable. He was unbelievably selfish and didn’t have any issues with leaving his immature daughter to live by herself. Ryuuji wasn’t Taiga’s father, either. Like he’d have a daughter at seventeen who was practically the same age as him. And speaking of which, there were plenty of girls without husbands who were living away from their fathers. There was Koigakubo Yuri-chan and Takasu Yasuko-chan. They weren’t weak maidens who had been left behind. They were adults making their way through the world with their own power and wits. Even though it seemed like they had a mountain of problems, that was just how they lived.

  “What you just said is pretty sexist. It’s problematic. You’re someone’s daughter, too, so don’t look down on your sisters.”

  “It’s not what I think. I’m just acting as a spokesperson for what all the fathers—what you— are thinking in your hearts. I’m just making it easier to understand.”

  “I’m not thinking that. Don’t just say whatever you feel like.”

  He dismissed Ami’s words with a snort and focused his attention on the line and bells. He gently pushed the line through the small hole on the bell but missed and clicked his tongue at it. It wasn’t going well.

  “But you can’t be enjoying this, right? Seeing Yuusaku and Tiger together? I can tell just by looking at your face. So that’s why you’re in such a bad mood. How perverted. You’re not even her father, and you’re not going to get old faster than her or die earlier, but you’ve been taking care of her and decided no one else can touch her. It’s like you’re even pretending you’re married with a wife. It’s like the three of you are playing house and each of you know your roles as the father, mother, and child.”

  “Gaah! Really!”

  The bell slipped right out of his hand. He pushed back his hair and automatically glared at Ami. He really might have been venting his anger.

  In response to his glare, Ami’s gaze was quiet, without sarcasm or even spite.

  “Hey. What are you going to do?”

  “…”

  Her deep brown eyes were a little cold and looked as though they saw through everything. They looked straight through him to the point he couldn’t even move a muscle. Ami looked deep into Ryuuji. It was as though she were looking deep into the bottom of his heart and stepping into it.

  “But actually. If Tiger and Yuusaku get together, what are you going to do, Takasu-kun? That wouldn’t bother you? Is it that you don’t care about her as long as you’re also with Minori-chan?”

  He blinked. He licked his dry lips and forgot to even breathe when faced with Ami’s stare. Finally, he remembered—he didn’t have to answer Ami’s question. It wasn’t like he was under any obligation to. But when he tried to turn away, Ami grabbed his chin as though he were a girl about to be kissed. She kept him captive with an unexpected strength and fixed her stare on him at point-blank range. As she looked at him with eyes so big they were frightening, she asked him one more time:

  “Are you fine with that? Hey, why are you playing dad for her? When did that start? Was it like that from the beginning?”

  “Like I said, I don’t remember ever being anyone’s dad or anything.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re putting your heart into the role.”

  Even if he averted his eyes, even if he brushed aside the hand that held his chin, he couldn’t run from Ami’s voice.

  “The relationship between you and Tiger is way too unnatural. It’s super weird. You should stop playing house like children. I think you must have been wrong to start playing it in the first place. Open your eyes before you really get hurt. Even the playing field. Then you can start again from the beginning. Let me in from the start, too. Make it so I’m not some outsider who came into your relationship after it had already started. Count me in as someone there from the start. If you could do that then I could…then I could also…then I—”

  What could I do? Ami also stopped talking. Then, in a small voice she said, “I don’t know.”

  She turned her face to the side, but in the next moment, a smile came over her lips. “Forget I said any of that,” she whispered with the smile of an angel.

  He couldn’t forget it, but he could try to pretend he had. Ryuuji still couldn’t decide what to say next, and he still couldn’t move his hands now that he had stopped them, so he looked back at Ami’s smile. Ami finally picked up the line and bells. She undid the line she had once tied and the bell dropped to her knees. It was a lot easier to tie fresh line than to undo what had already been done. As she was doing that, she said to herself in a low voice, “In the end, it’s hardest to understand yourself.”

  That was it. Her face was hidden by her drooping hair, so he couldn’t really see it. The others were busily going back and forth, their hands full with their own work, so they didn’t notice the words of the faux angel on the mat.

  Even the shadow of the doughnut-haloed, limited-edition seasonal angel wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  ***

  It was the last day of the end-of-semester exams.

  They finished all their exams in the morning, so the end-of-day homeroom was filled with commotion. Though anyone would have been dead tired after three continuous days of testing, their young bodies had perked right up from the sense of liberation. They were up and already ready for winter break. Christmas was etched into their hearts. There were even some students grinning with the prospect of their New Year’s presents coming in the next month.

  “Come on! I said to quiet down! Are you listening?! When you go home, don’t take any detours and don’t loiter anywhere! You have normal classes tomorrow and the next day, so you can’t get carried away by winter vacation! Are! You! Listening?!”

  The single homeroom teacher (age 30) raised her voice, but it wasn’t like anyone would obediently settle down. They had finally been released from studying for the exams, and even if they had regular classes, they would just be getting back their scores and going over them. All that was left after that were the closing ceremonies—in other words, the Christmas Eve they were waiting for, and the huge party that most of the class would go to in the gym. Not a single seventeen-year-old in the entire world would be able to sit quietly in their seat under these circumstances.

  But Kitamura got them all to finally stand and do their end-of-day dismissal. Right when that ended, the class broke into conversation.

  “Yaaaaaaahoooooooo! Our exams are ooooooveeeer!”

  “We did it~! We did it~! Winter break~! We’re o
n break~! I’m gonna have so much fun~!”

  “What should I go eat? Where should I go before going home~?! Kyaaaaaaaah~!”

  The thirty-year-old could only smile painfully as the jubilant voices made all of class 2-C vibrate. The other classes must have been making the same commotion, too. The sound of laughter and high-pitched conversations echoed all around the classroom. Finally, as though vying against each other, the children pushed out into the hallway. They all tried to get out even a moment faster, as though they were breaking out of the jail that was school.

  Ryuuji put his bag on his desk after he finished preparing to go home. He stretched out his stiff shoulders and back. He thought he did better on the exams than he ever had before. The points concisely summarized in the patriarch’s notes came up so often that he almost had fun with it.

  “Phew! Good job! How ’bout we go out to lunch together already~? Raaamen!”

  “You don’t have any prep committee work today, right?”

  Haruta and Noto, who had benefited from the patriarch’s notes like he had, hit him on the back.

  “Right, well, today’s not great…”

  What?! they said in unison. He scratched his head and mumbled through his lie.

  In actuality, he wasn’t really sure what would come after “Today’s not great…” but he turned them down in the hope that he would have something to do. After declining his friends’ invitation, Ryuuji stared to his right. Because he hadn’t slept, his evil eyes were bloodshot as he cursed—wait, no—as he prayed. His eyes were glued intently on two girls in the middle of conversation.

  One of them was Taiga. Her long hair was still clipped up for the exams. She had forgotten to undo it as she talked. The other girl was Minori. Her bangs were also still tied up—probably for the exams, too—but she looked like the doll on the Kewpie mayonnaise bottles (and particularly like the doll from the Daigoro collaboration). Her hair stuck straight up as she listened to Taiga.

  Yeah yeah. Minori shook her head, crossed her arms, and finally closed her eyes with a meek expression on her face. Please just nod, please say yes, Ryuuji quietly encouraged her. He formed his sweaty hand into a fist. Maybe it was because of the dry air, but his lips were peeling, so he licked them with his tongue. Because of his nerves, he also breathed raggedly.

  “Ew, Takasu-kun looks way too excited.”

  “He’s probably just imagining New Year’s cleaning or something.”

  “Yeah, but it’s kind of scary.”

  “Yeah, he does look kind of dangerous.”

  Ryuuji was oblivious to the gazes of the scared girls around him as he huffed and puffed and continued to wait for Minori’s response.

  In the end, his encouragement hadn’t been enough.

  “Sorry! I’ve got practice coming up!”

  Sooorry! Minori suddenly said to Taiga four times in a row. The conversation went like a sumo match. Minori had forced Taiga out of the ring with the brute force of her arms.

  Ryuuji didn’t even have a sitting cushion to throw at the end of the match. From a slight distance away, his shoulders drooped. As if to add insult to injury, Taiga conspicuously turned to Ryuuji. She made a face that looked something like a strangled corpse and stuck out her tongue as she used her thumb to mime cutting her own throat—okay, maybe it wasn’t that conspicuous, but anyway, it was her signal that things hadn’t gone well. He didn’t need it though, since he had already heard everything.

  The angel Taiga had been suggesting that the three of them, including Ryuuji, get lunch together that day. That was what she was inviting Minori to, but their mission was a failure. Forced out of the ring, Taiga dejectedly retreated back to Ryuuji.

  “Oh well, Minorin said she had softball stuff…”

  “I got it. I got it. I heard the whole thing.”

  “Gweh!”

  “I said I got it.”

  Maybe she wasn’t fully confident that he had understood, because she mimed cutting her neck again. If anyone nearby were watching, it really didn’t look good. He apologetically averted his eyes when it happened.

  “Oh. Sorry, I’m really sorry I can’t go even though you went out of your way to invite me.”

  “Yeah. No, um, it’s not really, like—y-you and Taiga haven’t really had a good chance to take some time to talk in a while, so I thought…”

  “Well, I’ve really gotten on the bad side of my coach, so the practices have been really tough.”

  For days, he had missed Minori by chance… Well, it wasn’t actually just by chance. Now Minori’s voice was close to him. Minori laughed as though embarrassed and her tied-up bangs bobbed slightly.

  “Those…bangs. Are you okay leaving them like that?”

  “Huh? My bangs? What about them? Oh?! Gyaaaohh!”

  It seemed that she had forgotten that they were tied up. Once Ryuuji pointed them out to her, she touched them, noticed she looked like Daigoro, and pulled off the elastic band in a fluster.

  “Why didn’t you say anything, Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta—oh, I got it off!” She hit Taiga’s unguarded forehead with both her hands and Taiga simply fell over without a sound.

  “Weeeell, that was close! I was about to go to softball like that! Ahh, that was way too embarrassing, and now my hair’s poking out at a weird angle… Oh no!”

  Her bangs splayed out in weird directions. She held them as her face turned red. Ryuuji sputtered. Her weird bangs were funny, but it was Minori’s cute embarrassment that had really gotten him.

  “Kawashima probably keeps hair mousse or something in her locker?” he said.

  “It’s fine. It’s fine. Water will do the trick. This is terrible. I know, I’ll put this on.”

  Minori shook her head wildly back and forth. Then she put on her uniform cap, which had been in a pocket of her sports bag. She pulled it low as though to cover her face.

  “Yeah, that works. I thought you were about to pull out your bald cap…but if you put a cap on indoors, you might actually go bald.”

  “If I said I don’t mind! A shock for you! Baldness falls upon me! In order to protect my thick and luscious hair…ah, I’m having trouble singing today, ah well! See ya tomorrow!”

  Then, without even giving him enough time to wave, she turned around and left. She was as fast as the wind and didn’t even say goodbye to them.

  Even after he lost sight of her, he still wanted to talk with her more. In the end, Minori hadn’t used the patriarch’s notes for the test, so he wanted to talk about how helpful they were, and to tell her that the prep for Christmas Eve was going steadily forward, and that most of the class was going to the party so she should go, too—he wanted to talk to her about stuff like that.

  The next opportunity he had, he definitely wouldn’t let her escape. With anguish pulling at his face, he closed the front button of his school jacket. He wasn’t trying to cover his intestines, which were spilling out of his stomach after having been gutted…and he definitely wasn’t laughing it off. In the first place, something like that wouldn’t have been funny. No, he was just motivated and high-spirited. Next time, he would definitely, definitely not let her escape. He still had a chance the next day, and the day after that, when they had normal classes.

  In order to be rewarded, in order to have a happy Christmas, he would definitely invite Minori out to the Christmas Eve party. In order to see Minori’s real smile, he would wholeheartedly invite her.

  “Ahh, that was a surprise… Is blood spurting out of my forehead?”

  “If it were…I don’t think you’d be okay right now.”

  Taiga, who had been hit in the head and flipped to the ground, finally stood up. She rubbed at her head as she sighed regretfully.

  “Minorin ran from us again.”

  “She said she had softball, so she couldn’t do anything about it. It’s fine. There will be other opportunities.”

  “Ahhh…it’s like you give up too easily and she senses it coming… I was thinking of trying to get you two alone
together, though. I was going to go with you up to the restaurant and then when we got to the front, I would have been like, ‘Oh! I remembered I had something I needed to do!’ or something like that.”

  “Wow, you’re so passionate, angel Taiga-sama. You even had such a thoughtful lie ready.”

  Ryuuji, who had ended up being free, looked around the classroom. He didn’t expect Kitamura, who was very busy, to be around, and it seemed that Noto and Haruta had already gone to eat their raaah-men. He didn’t want to eat alone after finally being liberated on the last day of exams, but he didn’t have anyone to eat with. No, he did have someone to eat with. She was right in front of his eyes.

  “Ah well, let’s eat something on the way home. We can even think through our next plan.”

  “I can’t. I actually have something I need to do for real. Not a lie.”

  What?! Like a child, Ryuuji stared at the top of Taiga’s head as though shooting a beam from his eyes.

  “What do you mean you have plans?!”

  “I need to go to the post office really quick. Once I’m done with that, I’ll eat somewhere.”

  “What do you mean? You could go to the post office really fast and then come with me to eat. I can even make stuff at home.”

  “I need to go home first and get the stuff ready. Actually, what’s with you, you’re depres…”

  “I’m depres-what? Yeah, finish what you were saying. Santa and I are listening.”

  “Depressing…not. But sometimes, I-I-I can’t not not not not not not stand being near you…?”

  “…?”

  She probably didn’t even know what she was saying. Taiga scowled and slowly tilted like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Ryuuji, who was listening to her, also tilted. Together, they both tilted about thirty-five degrees like mirror images.

  “There you are, Takasu-kun! Hey hey hey hey! Are you busy?! You’re not right! I had something I needed to ask you. How about you come with us to lunch?! You’d be the only guy, but that’s okay, right?! Right?!”