Toradora! Vol. 9 Page 12

  “Actually, don’t I look exactly like a scammer in this outfit?”

  “Hmmm…exactly like one…yeah.”

  From a slight distance, Taiga looked at Ryuuji and knit her eyebrows together as though in a conundrum. The part-time uniform the owner had lent him was a pure-white cook’s coat—it was one of those white outfits that pâtissiers wore in the kitchen. Selling chocolates while looking like this made it seem as though Ryuuji himself had made the chocolates at the store. But if anyone were to look at the price stickers stuck to the chocolates, it said in small lettering that the chocolates had come right from a production plant.

  “Your outfit looks better.”

  “You think so? It looks okay? I wonder if it does. Could you take a picture for me?”

  Taiga was in an aproned black velour dress. She pushed her cell phone at Ryuuji after she pulled it out of her pocket. Yasuko might have worn the same outfit, too. With her wavy hair in pigtails, Taiga really did look like a cute French doll.

  “Take one for you? If we get caught, he’ll get angry. We’re in the middle of work.”

  “I’m not working. I’m just hanging around. Here, take it.”

  “Well, I’m working!”

  “It’ll just be a second! This is all I want.”

  Taiga fluffed up her dress a bit and struck a pose. Unable to do anything, Ryuuji hid the phone under the wagon and took a picture of her like that.

  “Lemme see…”

  He had thought Taiga would just check the picture, but she quickly turned the phone at Ryuuji. By the time he realized it, it had already made an idiotic noise, bing-koo-ring, and the shutter had gone off.

  “Wow. This picture packs a punch. I got you making a really silly-looking face.”

  “I’ll tell the guy to fire you.”

  “Like I said, I’m not working.”

  This girl… Ryuuji breathed out white breath and glared at Taiga for her juvenile attitude.

  “Excuse me! Do you have smaller chocolates? Something with three pieces in it?”

  A customer who seemed to be a local housewife started talking to them, sticking up three fingers. Ryuuji practically sprung up.

  “Uh? Umm, we have the six-piece and twelve-piece ones…”

  He answered indistinctly as though there were gravel in his mouth. Actually, he almost felt as though he hadn’t really answered her question.

  “I see. Hmmm…milk chocolate.”

  The person who talked to them looked at the chocolates for a bit and, in the end, seemed to lose interest. She put back the box she had in her hand and simply walked away.

  “Ahhh. She left…”

  “Whoa, I got pretty nervous. I just act too suspicious.”

  “You have to be more like, ‘Welcome!’ Maybe that’s how you should say it?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  He nodded to Taiga, and tried to rearrange the boxes of chocolates so they were easier to see in their pile on the wagon.

  “Oi, you proletariats!”

  “Huh?! W-welcome… Wait, it’s you!”

  He felt like falling onto the register. The one standing there with a carefree grin on his face was none other than the familiar, lovable idiot, Haruta. Ryuuji had told Haruta that he was starting work that day, but he hadn’t asked him to stop by.

  “This isn’t fun and games! Go home already! Get back before you get hair on the merchandise!”

  Taiga used both her hands to shoo Haruta away. Her fingers slapped him right in the nose, but Haruta didn’t even stop laughing.

  “Don’t say that, Tiger. I came here to buy chocolates.”

  “We don’t have chocolates for caterpillars like you! Now, get home!”

  “I’m not the one buying. Right?”

  Haruta turned behind him, and a girl smiled back at him. She looked to be a college student. No, that wasn’t the issue. What? Ryuuji opened his eyes wide. Taiga too. They exchanged looks for a moment with their mouths half-agape.

  “Haruta-kun, do you want a big one or a small one?”

  “This is the point in the story where if I say that I want the big one, I’ll be in trouble later, won’t I?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then the big one~! Whoo~!”

  I’d like that one. The girl pointed at the larger box. Under a knit cap, her long, pretty hair grew past her chest. She wore a light grey coat on her thin frame.

  “Th-That’ll be five hundred eighty yen…please…”

  “Okay. I’m sure I had a five hundred yen coin…umm.”

  She pulled a strangely wide wallet from her bag. As she tried to pull out change, receipts, hundred yen coins, and a gold turtle meant to bring good luck fell onto the ground. Haruta picked those up.

  “Aw, you’re so messy. Here.”

  He intimately put the items into the girl’s pocket. If they weren’t really close, Ryuuji couldn’t think Haruta would be able to do something like that. In other words, what that meant was—

  “You…had a sister?”

  They had to be related.

  Ryuuji asked the question to confirm his suspicion as he handed over the receipt and her twenty-yen change. If they weren’t, then what were they? Taiga didn’t move a muscle. Apparently even her mouth no longer worked.

  “She’s not my sister! Hee haw! She’s my girlfriend!”

  The girl beside Haruta smiled.

  It’s got to be a lie. I can’t believe it. No matter how Ryuuji tried to deny it, there was a special sense of closeness in the eyes of the girl who looked up slightly at Haruta’s face.

  He stared intently at the pale hands that accepted the chocolates he handed over. She was a normal—or actually, a rather pretty—girl and older, wasn’t she?

  “Th-th-th-thank you so much!” Taiga lowered her head, and Ryuuji also did the same in a fluster.

  After they left, Haruta jogged back to Ryuuji alone.

  “I like her. I wanted to show her off to you without hiding anything, Taka-chan,” he whispered into Ryuuji’s ear. He giggled as though embarrassed, smiled, and followed behind the girl who had gone off ahead. Since Ryuuji had shared his unrequited love troubles during the school trip, Haruta must have decided to settle things with the girl he liked.

  “How?! The world must be crazy…”

  He couldn’t help but agree with Taiga. No, Haruta was definitely a really great guy, and Ryuuji liked him (though that was gross to admit), but what kind of trick had that guy used to snag such a pretty girl like her? How did he even meet her in the first place?

  “I can’t accept it unless Haruta met her by like, passing by and helping her while she was drowning…! Damn it, welcome! We’re selling Valentine’s chocolates! Would you like some?! Welcome!”

  Ryuuji was mostly jealous as he squeezed his voice out from the bottom of his gut. As though they had unexpectedly been ensnared by that, three people in a row bought chocolates. The third one even bought four boxes all at once.

  Ryuuji cut and threw away the receipt that had grown long and unruly as he watched the customer take the scrap of paper and leave. He never thought his face was compatible with the service industry, but it seemed he was getting a pretty good start. The shock from Haruta disappeared from his head instantly, and his mouth loosened up.

  “Hey,” said Taiga. “I was thinking about it, but I think it’s better when you don’t smile. How about you make that same face as earlier, like you were the captain of a pirate ghost ship?”

  “S-since when did I look like the captain of a pirate ghost ship…?”

  “I mean that face you made when you were looking jealous while you watched that idiot caterpillar walk away with his pretty girlfriend. Right, that face.”

  “My face looks like this because you phrased that in a hurtful way…”

  “Okay, and cross your arms. Close your mouth and stand up straight. Look sulky.”

  He crossed his arms and silently stood behind the wagon just as she told him. Then, a pair of
women who looked like they were coming from an office passed by.

  “Oh, look. The pâtissier himself is selling chocolates…”

  “Whoa, he looks so young but moody…”

  “But you kind of feel like you can expect a lot out of up-and-coming workers like him and their chocolates.”

  “Maybe I’ll buy some for my boyfriend.”

  “I’ll buy some for myself.”

  He didn’t know what they had associated him with, but as they approached, a passionate, continental melody came from their mouths, “Te te teeelelee rele rereleleelelee.” He didn’t know what to do when they asked, “These are handmade, right?” He didn’t have the confidence in himself to lie.

  Without realizing it, Ryuuji had turned into a stone guardian dog… No, he opened his eyes wide like the hellhound Cerberus itself as he watched the two approach. It wasn’t that he’d decided to curse them for stepping into his hellish domain. I’ll sink you office ladies in a freezing bath of dirty blood and earth!

  The two saw his face, and though they were slightly frightened, they pointed at the chocolate boxes.

  “I’d like a big one.”

  “I’d like a small one.”

  Ryuuji put the chocolates in a bag and handed them over. “Thank you very much,” he said in an intentionally low voice, and the two of them accepted it seeming satisfied. We bought some! They left.

  “See. You sold some.”

  “I really did… Actually, can I really do that? The box says wherever processing plant it comes from right on the bottom… Can’t they see…!”

  “We’re not actually lying or anything.”

  Ryuuji felt like karma would catch up with him eventually. Maybe the sale had just been a coincidence, because customers stopped coming over right after that. Though they were approaching dinner time, and the number of people moving through the streets had increased, those types of customers might not have been the type to buy chocolates from the packed wagon.

  “Takasuuu, Tigeeer, how’re you doing?”

  Ryuuji looked up when someone called out to him. Noto, who appeared in his personal clothes with a grin on his face, contrarily made Ryuuji’s face strangely leaden and clouded over.

  “I just ran into Haruta with his girlfriend over there…and he said you two were bored, so I came to window shop a little…ah ha…what’s with that…he has a girlfriend…a girlfriend!”

  “Oh dear, oh my, seems we’ve come across a pitiful bespectacled boy.”

  When she saw him all by himself, Taiga put her hands unpleasantly over her chest.

  “That long-haired caterpillar and his gal were friendly enough to buy chocolates and to go on their merry way. Now that you’ve stopped here, you’re at least going to buy one box, right?”

  “No way I’d ever do that! That’d be way too miserable! Takasu, did you have a clue?”

  “Nope, I found out just now.”

  “Right! Actually, what’s with that?! I can’t believe how much he’s accomplished right under my nose… Ahh, I hate this, ugh, what am I even doing… Has anyone else come by? Like the master?”

  Ryuuji shook his head. Kitamura was probably still at the student council at school right around then, and Noto should have known that, too. What could he actually want to know?

  “Umm, what about Ami-chan or Nanako-sama?”

  At that moment, it clicked with Ryuuji. Oh, maybe he’s doing it so I don’t realize how his heart is racing.

  “Kihara hasn’t been here.”

  He tried to prod and casually draw out what was actually on his friend’s mind.

  “Huh?! No, I don’t really care about her! It’s just I was thinking about something! I was thinking Kihara was making a big deal about something again and maybe she’d try giving chocolates to the master or something! I was just like, what if that happened?! I don’t really care though! I don’t care, but like, doesn’t it bother you Taiga?! That she might be doing something like that?!”

  “What about that is supposed to bother me? Actually, why have you got to make a big deal out of it if Kihara Maya gives Kitamura-kun chocolates? Oh, I see. So you like Kihara.”

  Whoa. Ryuuji looked at Taiga from the side of his eye. He saw eye-opening cruelty, like someone taking a giant paintbrush and daubing over the delicate subtleties of the ever-changing heart without consideration. Poor Noto’s face turned a fierce and terrible red.

  It was certainly true that Noto’s “support” of Taiga was probably an annoyance to her. He’d gone along with the mood and teased her, which was probably why she was attacking him now. Nothing less could be expected of the Palmtop Tiger. She was especially sensitive to the smell of blood coming from the wounded.

  “While you were fighting, you realized that you liked her…so that’s what this is. Hmmmmm. You know what—it looks like that friendly hairy idiot did just fine for himself. So why don’t you get your glasses dirty and put some elbow grease into it, too? I think you two would look pretty great together. How should I know, though?”

  “Whaaat?! Wh-wh-wh-wh-what are you saying?! If you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, then maybe you should keep your mouth shut! You’re strange, Tiger! There’s something wrong with you!”

  “Oh, now you’re all flustered. Looks like I hit the bullseye. Your face is all red.”

  “Actually, seriously stop! Don’t say weird things!”

  “It’s not in the least bit weird. It’s a very natural thing to happen. A guy’s stamen and a girl’s pistil—”

  “You idiot! There’s something wrong with your head! Whoa!”

  “Now then, Kihara Maya is going to be in the same class as you tomorrow and the day after. I hope you’re painfully aware of the weird sense of distance between the two of you every day. I hope you worry about it! And suffer!”

  You were just as miserable from your own love issues; I can’t believe you’d do this to someone else, Ryuuji thought.

  “So, why’s your face red, too?”

  “Huh?! R-Red?! Am I red…?!”

  Wasn’t he the person Taiga liked? Wasn’t he the one who was worried and suffering? When Ryuuji thought about it again, he felt shaken for some reason.

  “Th-th-th-that’s enough! Damn it! Mister! They’re not actually working!”

  At Noto’s roar, the owner inside the shop raised his head, looking concerned. We’re working hard! Ryuuji shook his head and, in that opening, Noto ran away.

  The shop owner probably hadn’t taken Noto seriously, but he came out to the front, and his face clouded when he saw how many chocolates were still left on the wagon.

  “It’s almost six. Having this many left by now is bad. I know that you can’t help having school friends come by, since you’re selling outside, but if that’s going to happen, at least call over friends who will buy more.”

  Ryuuji and Taiga awkwardly exchanged looks. Of course, if this was all they could sell, the profits would be eaten up simply by their own wages.

  “Well…even though I’m just hanging out here, I feel some responsibility over this. In that case, it’s time to call in the lethal weapon.”

  As though Taiga had thought of something, she opened her cell phone and started calling someone from her address book.

  “Geh. You weren’t alone?”

  Ami glared at Ryuuji, who was still trying to stand haughtily like a fake pâtissier.

  “I’m going home.”

  She turned around.

  She was out of her uniform, in casual clothes consisting of a down jacket, jeans, and a cap with fake glasses. Ami’s disguise was to no avail, as some passing boys turned to her, saying, “That girl’s cute.”

  “I wonder if she’s a model? She’s tall, too.”

  Her thin frame and the smooth, beautiful hair that spilled from her cap made it obvious she wasn’t just any normal person.

  “Well, you did come all the way here. Here, Dimhuahua, take this.”

  Taiga brought up her hand from below the wa
gon and extended her arm out to Ami, whom she had called. After looking around carefully, she handed Ami five chocolates in a stack.

  “Huh? No way. I don’t want you doing anything weird to me. I’m so beautiful, I stand out more than I want as it is.”

  “Okay, okay, yeah, you’re so beautiful, Dimhuahua. You stand out so much. That’s why I called you here. Now, take this and then say in a really loud voice, ‘I love this place’s chocolates!’”

  “What? Are you telling me to be a plant?!”

  “Well, more or less.”

  “No way! Why would I do something lame like that?! Actually, what’s this guy doing here… This isn’t funny!”

  “Yo…” Though it was a bit awkward, Ryuuji tried raising his hand to her slightly. “How’ve you been?”

  So, she hasn’t left school yet.

  Ami’s response was just her clicking her tongue and then, “Disappear.”

  Ryuuji resigned himself to her cold act. The way he was acting might have been similar to the believers of the ramen shop who lusted after the boiling hot droplets. He might have been fulfilling his masochistic wishes for the stamp of submission, like a bottomless pot of insatiable greed. Ryuuji was the type of masochistic dog who felt an illogical need to respond to the beautiful girl’s coldness and to end up passionately burning with emotion in contrast…not.

  He wasn’t just going to conveniently disappear from Ami’s sight. He wouldn’t let Ami manipulate him and get rid of him because he had made a mistake. Unexpectedly, even Ryuuji had complex, unmanageable emotions about that. He felt stubborn and competitive about her acting as though she was the only one who understood things.

  He didn’t know what would happen next, and he didn’t want her to think of him as a failure who had given up. Basically, he might just want to be praised by Kawashima Ami.

  Taiga cocked her head curiously as she compared Ryuuji and Ami’s faces. A strange, disquieting air lingered between them.

  “I had no idea you didn’t get along to that extent, Dimhuahua and Ryuuji. Are you being so unfair to Ryuuji now because I told you not to be so friendly with him before the school trip?”