Toradora! Vol. 8 Read online

It was the first day of the school trip.

  Riding on six separate buses, the second years were heading to their final destination: the ski resort. However, the highway’s incredibly boring scenery made people start to get carsick, so they had pulled out a mic in order to try doing karaoke, just to discover the machine only had ballads. In a fit of desperation, all of class 2-C started playing a game of limited shiritori to amuse themselves. They each went around saying a word that started with the last letter of the previous word that was said.

  It really wasn’t that great, and they could hardly say everyone was in a great mood, but it was leagues better than just watching the seemingly endless gray walls and gray roads.

  “‘B’…something that starts with ‘B’ and is bitter…”

  Receiving the mic, Minori sat at her window seat with her knees drawn up. Wrinkles appeared on her forehead, and she groaned. Incidentally, the one who lost would have to sing their best karaoke ballad by themselves.

  “Isn’t Kushieda about to run out of time?”

  “Okay, let’s start the countdown! Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One…”

  As students started to clap their hands to the numbers, Minori suddenly took in a breath and went cross-eyed.

  “BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!” she yelled, veins throbbing on her forehead. The mic made a sound that was even past a screech, and it echoed unnecessarily in the bus.

  “My ears!”

  “Shuddup!”

  “You think you’re Moguro?!”

  The students were in agony. Without minding them, Minori took the mic in her right hand as her left trembled.

  “Right then, I felt a shock hit me like a wall of pressure, and for some reason, I have no idea why, but my eyes opened wide and I couldn’t say anything. But why? But why was it here?”

  She was channeling who knows what. Her voice was like the footsteps of a goblin scrambling past you in a corridor, and she breathed heavily into the mic as she blurted out words.

  “Why…is…it…here? But didn’t I just throw it away? I even offered a memorial service at the temple. I even put my hands together and begged for forgiveness. But then why is that doll back in my room? I would never bring that thing back, but there it is, right before my eyes! I put my hands together in spite of myself and started to pray, ‘Please don’t come back anymore. You don’t belong here. You don’t need to protect me anymore.’ When I did that, the doll’s empty eye sockets were too terrifying for me to look at, and in that moment, I felt like it was definitely looking back at me. I was in a panic. Stop. Please stop. Please, please. Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop! Don’t look at me! No no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! DON’T LOOOOOOOK!”

  When she shook the seat in front of her as part of her passionate performance, the girl sitting there started to scream. Next to her, Taiga’s eyes were full of tears. Even Ryuuji gulped, scooting away with his hand on his mouth like a little grandmother. He was speechless. Sure, I wanted to ask you what your true feelings were, but no one asked you—

  “‘YOU ARE THE ONE WHO DOES NOT BELONG!’”

  “AHHHHHHH!” “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  —for a friggin’ ghost story.

  In the pandemonium and agonized screams that ensued, Ryuuji squeezed his eyes tight. Taiga let out a little “Eek…” and covered her ears.

  “Your story isn’t scary! You’re just scary with your voice and how you act!” Kitamura declared. Ryuuji was on the same page as he looked at Minori. However, she didn’t seem to have a single regret as she stuck out her tongue and grinned in satisfaction.

  “So, your letter is ‘G.’ Here, Ahmin.”

  “How was that bitter?!”

  “That was a bittersweet, true story about my doll.”

  She stood on her knees in her seat and handed off the mic to Ami, directly behind her. It probably wasn’t because of the story, but Ami was currently in a bad mood. She roughly brushed up her long hair as she took the mic. Her lips twisted spitefully.

  Ami had actually tried to skip the school trip, but when she told the bachelorette (age 30) that she would be taking an absence for work, she was apparently breezily rejected because, “You’re a student, so your school trips are top priority!” Because she had already used work as an excuse, she didn’t have any other way of ditching and had to come in the end.

  “‘G,’ huh?! How about ‘Guess what my mood is right now’! Here, Maya! You’ve got ‘W’!”

  Good letter! Nice answer! You’re always the best, Ami-chan! There was applause, but something as little as that couldn’t fix Ami-chan-sama’s mood. Still looking sour, she stuck her face into the curtain that hung on the window and sulked.

  “What?! ‘W’…wooly mammoth boiled in absinthe.”

  “Kihara…what do you mean, ‘What?!’ Your thing is weirder!”

  “Maybe that warrants a countdown?!”

  Maya wailed, “You mean you’re okay with Kushieda’s ghost story and Ami-chan’s mood, but my wooly mammoth doesn’t count?!” However, there was no fair judge around for her. No one, not even Ryuuji, wanted to give the mic back to Minori, and they were all privately in agreement that that no one wanted to provoke Ami when she was overflowing with irritation, plus…

  “I wanna hear your solo, Maya-sama! Heh heh heh!”

  A lot of guys nodded at Haruta’s words, which he practically sang as he crinkled his nose.

  “What?! That’s not even funny! Besides, people probably did boil mammoths in absinthe! They probably did?!”

  The bus went into a tunnel. Nuh-uh! Ryuuji tried to retort at Maya’s nonsense, but his ears popped, and he scowled.

  The tunnel was short. They immediately caught sight of a point of light ahead that grew as they approached it.

  “What?!” The first person to exclaim was Maya, who still had the mic.

  Ryuuji saw white as the strong rays of light showered him. He tried checking to see what it could have been but had to swallow his breath at how blinding it was.

  “No way! It’s snow! Snow! Look, snow! Why are we playing this game?! This is amazing!”

  At Maya’s loud screams, even Ami opened her eyes wide and jumped up. Ryuuji and the others stood up from their seats, and with one look at the scene beyond the window, began exclaiming like children, “Whoa, cool!”

  So far, they had seen grayish-black snow built up under the dirty guardrails, but this wasn’t anything like that. Ryuuji and Kitamura were cheek to cheek and pressed up against the window. They were exclaiming like girls.

  “Cool, cool, cool! What’s that glittering there?! It’s sunny out, so it can’t be snowing—”

  “Precisely! That is snow! Whoa! It’s suddenly like Snow Country! Amazing!”

  The scene beyond the windows was magnificent.

  They bustled around, exclaiming at how amazing it was, and the ones with window seats opened their windows one after another. The cold but refreshing air suddenly filled the bus, and they breathed it in. Their eyes glittered as though they were coming back to life.

  Beyond the tunnel, everything everywhere was white, white, white. It glittered, like a world cast from silver. The light from the snow was dazzling, a scene outside of their normal lives.

  “Whoa!” Taiga yelled. “This is the first time I’ve seen anything like this!”

  She stuck her face out the window with Minori. This is Taiga we’re talking about, Ryuuji thought. She might just tumble right out. But Minori had a firm hold of the back of Taiga’s jacket. He saw that and felt relieved.

  “It’s soooooo pretty! Whoa, I feel so excited!”

  “Isn’t it kinda hot for being a snowy mountain?!”

  “This is snow country! It really is!”

  “Whoa! Those mountains over there are all white! Cool!”

  “Ahhhhhhhh! Gotta get a picture! Let’s take one together!”

  The mountain range that the boisterous class’s bus was heading towards was white
and glittered divinely. It looked gallant with its crown of snow. The remarkably tall summit, piercing the heavens, was bathed in golden sunlight.

  What? It’s better than I thought! This is completely fine! It’s super great! The hearts of everyone in 2-C had become one.

  Without hesitation, the bachelorette (age 30) sitting in the very front turned around in excitement and pointed at the peak as she proclaimed, “Now everyone, are you finally excited now?! We’re heading to that mountain! Ready?!”

  YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  Their voices and hearts were one. They cheered and applauded as the bus driver mumbled incoherently, “We’re not going to that mountain…”

  ***

  “This is so unfair… How do you look so good in that?”

  “You think I look good? Me? Well, I guess I’m the type of person who just looks good in anything that looks like a tracksuit.”

  At the gathering area, Kitamura was checking out his own rental gear as Noto looked at him with obvious jealousy. Rather than normal purple or any sensible color, the shade of his ridiculous top and bottom was something that one could really only describe as “flamboyant purple.” On the chest of his top and the hem of his pants, there were lines in lightning designs that really couldn’t be called gold so much as “flamboyant yellow.” That was the kind of snow gear he had on. On top of that, the material seemed satin-like… Well, because it was satin.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, all of them even had competition bib numbers on their chests. Were they white, you ask? Ridiculous. They were turquoise, naturally. It seemed that turquoise was the color of class 2-C. The other classes that gloomily passed by them were dealing with their own ordeals and had numbers that were in green, maroon, and crimson.

  How does he look like that even in ski gear like this? Ryuuji thought. Kitamura, who stood in his rented boots on top of the packed down snow path, looked pretty slick. It might have been because of his physique or because of the PE blood that raced through him, but he made the uniform look as though it could actually have belonged to a real competitive ski team. It was scarily believable. If anything, Ryuuji and Noto were in agreement—Kitamura was unfair.

  The moment they arrived at the hotel, they were each given one of those cruel outfits and put in rooms that were divided by gender. (Those rooms were also beyond description, though to put it simply, they were Japanese-style rooms that would make Minori drool.) They got changed and were made to gather as a class at the entrance to the ski slopes, which was near the entrance of the hotel.

  “Takasu, you kind of look ridiculous…”

  “Don’t say it. I know.”

  At Noto’s look, which was apologetic, Ryuuji bit his lip. If he smiled, he was a devil. If he cried, he was a demon. If he opened his mouth, he was a wanted criminal. There was no way gear in these insane colors would ever work with the face he had. It was like he was a doll with an interchangeable head. The closest anyone could get to describing it was “like a Thai drag queen hitman whose makeup has completely come off by the end of a battle.”

  Incidentally, Noto looked like a worn-out ventriloquist’s doll used to explain traffic safety.

  “Hah! I’ve figured out why Kitamura looks so good in it! It’s the knit cap and the goggles he’s got around his neck! Noto, Taka-chan, we’ve got to copy him!”

  Haruta, who had started a meaningless tirade of serious nonsense, looked like a fashionable boy who had accidentally been sent to juvie. It was pretty tragic. But somehow, just as the idiot had said, when they all put on the hats they had brought with them and put their goggles around their necks…

  “…”

  “…”

  “…”

  Each member of the trio frowned at how the others looked. Something was wrong. There was something so evidentially different between them and the girls’ favorite, Maruo-kun, but hurting each other wouldn’t help anyone.

  It was fine. Even if they looked lame or scary, it wasn’t as though they were trying to pass themselves off as cool in the first place. Ryuuji turned away and took in a deep breath of the chilly mountain air. The air was fresh, as expected. The cold and clear chill felt good in his lungs, and he felt like the carsickness that had faintly followed him cleared up, like taking a Quickle Wiper to the floor.

  There was a pile of snow about as tall as a person by the wall that held the entrance to the slopes. The other guys in the class were making a big deal out of trying to eat it, and he saw skiers who seemed to be locals unable to stop themselves from laughing, “That stuff’s as dirty as the rest of it.”

  They were embarrassing even though they were high school students—though if no one were looking, Ryuuji would have tried eating the snow, too.

  Actually, there wasn’t any point in pretending this wasn’t the first time Ryuuji had gone skiing. Of course, he hadn’t seen such huge masses of snow before, either. He hadn’t known that snow could be so blinding.

  The scene, without complaints, was grand. He swore on the mama’s boy star that he wouldn’t forget to take a picture later to show Yasuko.

  Around that time, the girls also started wandering in, and Ryuuji and the rest of the boys forgot what they looked like as they pointed and laughed.

  “Bwah!”

  “Ha ha ha, what’re you wearing?!”

  “This is the worst…”

  “Bwah ha!”

  Taiga appeared in front of Ryuuji’s eyes with her long hair in braids. She looked angry enough she could die, and Ryuuji finally let out a laugh.

  It was mind-numbingly pink…no, it was hot pink! Plus emerald green that made one want to just pinch their eyes shut…no, it was EM-ER-ALD! GREEN! As though trying to elicit the feeling of speed, each of the girls’ uniforms had a curved line that went from left shoulder to right foot. Of course, the material was kind of satiny… Well, it was actually just satin. On top of that, all of class 2-C had their turquoise numbers.

  The boys’ uniforms were something, but this was just a debacle. It was a modern jumpsuit design, and the waistline, well, was an abomination. On top of that, Taiga’s already petite frame meant that she was practically swimming in her gear, and she was about seventeen times larger than normal. If a strong enough wind came by, she’d probably float right up into the mountains like Mary Poppins. That would be an unexpectedly mournful way to part.

  The year’s school trip gear was in such bad taste that the gods of the distant mountain ranges might be pointing and laughing at them.

  “Hee hee hee hee! That’s so…hee hee hee!”

  “What’re you laughing about?! This isn’t a laughing matter!”

  Taiga was already on the verge of hysterics. She stamped her feet.

  “How do they expect us to snow ski on the ski snowpes—the ski swopes—the ski soaps—how do they expect us to go out on the snow hills while retaining our dignity in this?! Is this going to be preserved in a group picture?! If I’m involved in a crime in the future, is this insane outfit going to be televised all over the country and published in newspapers and magazines and conserved for eternity?! Urgh! Just putting it into words is terrifying! Ahhh!”

  “Don’t commit that crime, then…”

  “Victims end up in the news, too! If the world suddenly sees me like this…huh?! What are you wearing?! You’re…bwah ha!”

  Taiga looked at Ryuuji and burst out laughing as she collapsed. Laugh all you want—Ryuuji was serene. Taiga looked just as ridiculous, and so her laughter didn’t hurt him. Plus, the air was nice. The scenery was amazing.

  The blue sky didn’t have a single cloud.

  The slope started where the entrance to the stops was, and they could see a large lodge halfway down. It was connected to a slow-moving lift, and the descending skiers and boarders left beautifully meandering lines behind them in the white snow.

  The slopes, which were mostly deserted, glittered brightly.

  “Hey, you guys! Don’t underestimate the mountain! And don’t be charme
d by a mountain boy! Whoa?!” Minori, who followed after Taiga, was speechless at the boys’ attire. “Whoa! The boys are in colors that make my eyes bleed, too…ahhh!”

  Ryuuji, and everyone else, were rendered speechless as Minori slipped and fell right over. She hadn’t even fallen because the packed snow had turned to ice and gone slippery.

  “Ouch! Hey! Who was eating the banana?!”

  At her feet…or rather, at her butt, was a banana peel.

  “Minorin, are you okay?! Can you stand?! Are you hurt?!”

  Then Taiga tried to lend her a hand, and it probably wasn’t just Ryuuji who was waiting for the next thing to happen.

  “Oh no, Minorin’s butt is broken…ahh!”

  “Ahhhh…”

  Trying to get up at the same time as Minori, Taiga, who was basically guaranteed to do something klutzy, slipped. They tumbled magnificently to their butts at the same time and began to slide right down the icy slope while screaming at the top of their lungs.

  “Wait! Wait! Wait! No way! Get away, get away, get away!”

  “No, stop! That’s dangerous!”

  Taiga and Minori careened into the trio of beautiful girls who had been standing ahead of them, sending them flying into a soft snowdrift, and then came to a halt.

  “T-Tiger and Kushieda! What do you think you’re doing?!”

  “Ugh! This is embarrassing and cold…”

  “S-s-s-s-sorry Maya-sama and Nanako-sama! Please, take my hand! I’m so sorry, Ahmin! Are you okay?”

  Minori bent down to lend a hand to the three. Maya and Nanako, covered with snow, hoisted themselves up.

  “Ahmin? Hey, what’s wrong?”

  There was one girl who did not get up.

  Face smushed directly into the snow and her butt sticking straight up, Ami didn’t so much as twitch.

  “Dammit, she’s dead, Jim,” Taiga muttered, and Haruta beside her shrieked, “PEEE-KYAAA!” He wasn’t letting a lightning bolt loose. It seemed he just thought it was funny.

  “Oh no. Ami might not be able to stand because she’s lost the will to live!” Maya said as she stared at Ami’s butt. Nanako also nodded.

  “It’s ’cause the clothes are so lame. We even had to carry her here.”