Toradora! Vol. 8 Page 13

  “I wanted to say something a looooooong time ago, but Noto, all you do is get in my way! What’s your problem?!”

  “I’m not in your way! We just want our friend to be happy! Right, Haruta?! Isn’t that right?!”

  “Yes!” Haruta also joined the fray. He wrapped his arm around Noto’s shoulder and stuck his tongue out at Maya.

  “Sorry, but you guys’ plan isn’t working for us!” said Maya. “It’s super shady, plus it’s mind-numbingly boring!”

  “What?!” said Noto. “I don’t really care what happens to your mind when you’re an idiot!”

  “Ahhh, let’s stop! I said stop! What’s going on?!” Minori got between the three of them, trying to mediate. “Let’s all get along! C’mon, we’re on a school trip! Now, this is the end of your fight! Hand it over to me for safekeeping!”

  Noto stubbornly pushed Minori back.

  “What good’s it gonna do if you get involved?! All you do is joke around, Kushieda! Sorry, but I’m gonna say what I want today! It’s really, really gotten to me!”

  “That’s what I want to say!” said Maya.

  Maya and Noto glared at each other with even darker expressions. Minori wailed, “I’m not messing around!” However, Noto and Maya weren’t listening.

  Kitamura, also looking troubled, quickly seized their poles.

  “I don’t get what’s going on!” he said. “How did this happen?! Anyway, let’s cool down! Calm down!”

  “Oh dear… We’ve got another idiot on our hands.”

  Kitamura turned around to look at his childhood friend, who had whispered that in a sugary-sweet voice. He couldn’t hide his irritation. “You talking about me?”

  “If you didn’t know, then isn’t it obvious? Ahh, I hate this. Hey, Yuusaku, are you so thick because you’re oblivious? Or do you know what you’re doing?”

  “What are you trying to say?! Don’t hint at it! Just say it!”

  This time, it was Kitamura and Ami’s turn. It might have been because they had known each other so long, but Kitamura’s voice was three times louder and pricklier than usual as it echoed across the slopes. However, Ami’s was more than five times pricklier.

  “You want me to tell you exactly what it is?” she said. “You want me to tell it to you straight, but then you’ll be all innocent, like, ‘Oh, I had no clue!’ And then you’ll just be able to act surprised and not take any of the blame, because you’re in the safe zone. That’s such a nice position to be in. You’re always like that, aren’t you, Yuusaku? Even when we were kids.”

  “What?! What are you talking about?! How am I always in a safe zone?!”

  “You’re serious? You seriously don’t know? You don’t know why they’re fighting?”

  Exasperated, Ami faced the heavens. Kitamura looked back at her indignantly. That’s the type of guy Kitamura is, Ryuuji thought. Noto and Haruta also exchanged knowing glances. That was the kind of guy Kitamura was. Why were the girls bringing it up now?

  Nanako, who had stuck to not getting involved, whispered, “Ugh, is Maruo-kun seriously that oblivious? This is, like, violent…”

  “Waaaaaah!” Maya started crying. Nanako and Ami ran to her and hugged her.

  “Are you okay?! Don’t cry, Maya!”

  “Poor thing… Noto-kun, you’re seriously horrible. I think you said too much. You should apologize to Maya.”

  “I should?! Why?! You think this was me?! You think it’s me in the end?!”

  Faced with Maya’s crying, and Ami and Nanako’s cold stares, Noto muttered, “I’m the one who wants to cry…” He didn’t look cute at all, but he looked exactly like an otter. Without thinking, Ryuuji stepped towards Noto and patted him on the back. Don’t worry about it.

  “You’re terwible, too, Takasu-kun! Waaaaaaah!”

  “Am I the villain now?!”

  Maya cried even harder, glaring at Ryuuji. “Weren’tweartners?! Weren’tweoneachothewr’ssides?! Then why? Whywouldn’tyoohewlpmeatahll?! Whyreyoosidingwihhim?! WAAAAAH!”

  Weren’t we partners?! Weren’t we on each other’s sides?! Then why? Why wouldn’t you help me at all? Why are you siding with him? Waaaaah.

  Perhaps because he had to decode what Yasuko was saying every day, Ryuuji understood what Maya was trying to say to him.

  “L-Like I said! You fundamentally misunderstood!”

  Ami, still holding the sobbing Maya’s shoulder, glared at Ryuuji. Nanako glared at him, too. Taiga, being Taiga, turned her head away from him for a different reason as she snorted, “Hmph!”

  The girls grouped up together, Minori and Taiga awkwardly sidling over to Ami and the rest. At least Minori didn’t glare at him.

  Ami seemed strangely satisfied as she nodded. “Now everyone!” Taking point as the girls’ leader, she opened up her arms. “Let’s get Maya to the bathroom! You guys are soooo terrible!”

  Moving as one, with Maya in the middle, the girls left. Nanako turned around in the end and only had one thing to say.

  “Ganging up on a girl to make her cry… You’re the worst.”

  Watching the affair from a distance, people from other classes were shoulder to shoulder and passing their own commentary, delighted.

  “What happened?!”

  “Apparently it’s a fight!”

  “They made a girl cry!”

  “What?!”

  The boys, who had been left behind, turned to each other and nodded.

  We’re not wrong at all.

  We won’t apologize to the girls.

  Because we didn’t do anything wrong.

  Communicating through telepathy, they stuck their hands out and put them together. “Okay!”

  When something like this happened, who cared about skiing? Staying together as a group? They cared even less about that. The four of them grabbed each other’s hands, immediately got grossed out and let go, and then climbed onto the beginner’s course lift.

  It wasn’t that they wanted to play on sleds or make snowmen. They wanted to talk about how they really felt without the girls being able to hear.

  Chapter 5

  “Wait a second! You got in a fight with the girls?”

  “You made Ami-chan and the other girls mad? What were you doing?!”

  “Stuff happened. To sum it up, you’re outta your mind if you think you can be friends with girls. They think they can make guys do whatever’s convenient for them. They see us as their pawns. All they can think about is how to justify themselves for it. You’ll never be able to be on an equal footing as friends.” Noto pouted as he nibbled at his pickled vegetables.

  “Well, that’s probably enough,” Kitamura admonished him.

  Ryuuji washed down the last of his rice with miso soup and looked at the table where the five girls from their group had congregated. It looked like the situation was about the same over there—the girls were also talking to other people from Class 2-C.

  Even with the heating, the dining room was sprawling and freezing. Filled with the groups of high school students, it bustled like a poked bee’s nest under the fluorescent lamps. They’d finally been released from their terrible ski gear, free to wear tracksuits or their own clothes as they pleased, while they ate from the same menu.

  Enjoying a good meal with everyone else should have been fun, but…

  The girls had huddled together and were talking about something. They definitely had to be badmouthing the boys. Maya looked unhappy and sullen, and absolutely would not look at them. Looking a little troubled, but still trying to smile, Minori was talking brightly with Maya, but it seemed that she wasn’t getting any results.

  Under circumstances like these, Ryuuji couldn’t ask how Minori actually felt, talk to her, or even approach her. It seemed like the trip might even end without him ever being able to. He hadn’t even gotten in a fight with Minori, but given the situation, the other girls probably wouldn’t let him talk to her.

  Just how had they ended up in this boys-versus-girls scenario? Next to Mino
ri, Taiga also looked troubled as she gripped her chopsticks and looked at a giant, dried-out, boiled fish. Normally, her gluttony couldn’t even be subdued by a full serving of rice.

  He and Taiga were both probably about as disappointed by how things had turned out. Ryuuji didn’t think to question why Taiga would be upset—they had had a fight, after all. The back of his head still hurt from her hitting him with the sled. She had hit him over and over again, and he was just upset that he hadn’t been able to get her back even once.

  “Heey, Taka-chan, you wanna swap? Can I eat the rice you’ve got there?”

  Ryuuji shook his head and gave Haruta the rest. Taiga wasn’t the only one put off by the bland boiled fish. Regardless, Ryuuji still used his chopsticks to skillfully separate the meat from the bone so that it looked prettier.

  “You don’t have much of an appetite. You’ve just been poking at it and not actually eating anything.”

  Kitamura, who was sitting next to him, peeked at his hands. Ryuuji stopped.

  “Hm? What is it?”

  “No, nothing…”

  Looking at Kitamura’s face, Ryuuji wanted to put down his chopsticks. He’d just realized something.

  It wasn’t just Taiga who hadn’t told him about going shrine visiting during New Year’s—Kitamura hadn’t, either. Now that he thought about it, the reason why Kitamura hadn’t asked what happened to Taiga when she left the Christmas Eve party was probably because they met with each other behind Ryuuji’s back.

  Of course, Kitamura didn’t need to tell him everything that had to do with Taiga! It was just a little strange that he hadn’t said anything. It felt as though Taiga and Kitamura had colluded to keep something from him. What would he call this feeling? Was it alienation? Basically, was he just sulking?

  There are things I don’t tell you, Taiga had said to him. The world was still turning, even if he didn’t know it. There were people living in places he had no clue existed, and they were doing as they pleased—why did it shock him to realize something so obvious as that now?

  “You don’t look too happy. In the afternoon…you and Aisaka had some sort of fight while we were out skiing. Is it that?”

  “No…my stomach is upset. Sorry, I know it’s dinner.”

  Even though he was super oblivious about his own stuff, Kitamura was strangely sharp when it came to how other people were feeling. In order to escape from that, Ryuuji stood up. He felt the presence of Kitamura’s ever-watchful eyes on his back as he left the dining area alone.

  Beyond the corridor with the cheap-feeling carpet that wasn’t really to his taste, there was a dim lounge-like area that was a little worse for wear but had a bathroom in a corner.

  Perhaps because it was cold, there weren’t many people around. Ryuuji sat down on one of the sofas and breathed in. If someone asked him where he went, he wouldn’t be lying if he said it was the bathroom.

  Beyond the large window was the broad scenery of snow. The sky was already dark, but there were visitors going out night skiing, and the lights reflected off the slope.

  At some point, powdery snow had started falling. It looked beautiful enough for him to want to take a picture, but he didn’t really feel like doing it at that moment. Ryuuji closed his eyes.

  “Ahhh…”

  “I’ve caught a sigh!”

  He practically jumped as he turned around.

  Gotta catch ’em all! she said and gave him finger guns. Minori was standing there. Her black fleece jacket was zipped right up to her chin, and she was wearing casual cargo pants tied at the waist with a rope.

  “You can’t do that,” she said. “Don’t sit around sighing by yourself.”

  Her wide smile scrunched up her face as she turned to Ryuuji, who was so shocked he couldn’t breathe.

  “Why’re you here…oh. The bathroom…sorry, I’ll hang around over there instead so you can go in without worrying about me. Do your best.”

  He didn’t know why he was doing it, but he gave Minori a fist pump, expecting her to go.

  “Noooo! I saw you leave, Takasu-kun, so I told everyone I needed to go to the bathroom and left, too!”

  “Huh…”

  “Secrets should stay hush-hush, shush-shush.”

  Minori went around, putting a table between them as she sat down on a sofa. She looked him straight in the face. He could see her eyes light up. Ryuuji’s heart felt like it was being squeezed.

  What are you trying to say this time? he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t move the way he wanted it to. What came out instead was “What say you…?” It made him sound like an old nobleman, but Minori seemed to get what he meant.

  “Actually,” she said, “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity for a while. Look, I have my hands full with Maya-chan still being like that, and you probably have to deal with Noto-kun, too. That was my thought process.”

  “Y-yeah…”

  I was waiting for an opportunity, too! The thought felt like it was being squeezed out from the bottom of his gut. Ryuuji nodded his head up and down like a puppet. His neck felt stiff, and his whole body shook almost comically. He tried to move around so that Minori wouldn’t notice and crossed his legs, but he couldn’t stop trembling. He couldn’t stop fidgeting, either.

  He wanted a chance to ask Kushieda Minori how she really felt.

  He wanted a chance to get a different answer.

  Was this it? This might be it.

  Trying to find words to say, he writhed as he faced her. However, Minori spoke first.

  “This all turned into a fight, didn’t it? I want to find a good way to settle it.”

  She looked serious, her forehead wrinkled. She hadn’t even come close to broaching the subject about what was going on between them.

  Gwah! Ryuuji choked on his own breath.

  It’s fine, he thought. This isn’t anything to get worked up about. Do it slowly. It’s fine if it’s slow.

  “H-how?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. This school trip is supposed to be fun, after all. I really don’t want it to end with everyone fighting. I want them to patch things up and go back to how we were.”

  “I do, too…right. That’s what I was thinking, too.”

  I might even want the fight to end sooner than you. He didn’t say that part out loud. Minori was scowling slightly as she nodded. She took her slippers off and put her hands on her folded knees as she sat with her feet ungraciously on the spongy sofa.

  “I wonder if there’s a good way to fix things? Basically, well, in the end…Maya-chan is all mixed up about Kitamura-kun, and that’s the problem. That’s one of the things that led to this.”

  “…” Ryuuji froze even further. His vital functions were going to stop, and he was going to turn to stone.

  “So that’s related… But actually, what happened was Noto-kun said some stuff that started the fight. And then everyone started saying the stuff they were already kind of thinking. Hmmm, this is going to be difficult…”

  Minori hadn’t even noticed that he’d turned to stone. As the dizziness closed in on him, Ryuuji thought, How can you talk about people’s love lives in front of the guy you rejected?

  “I wonder if you know, Takasu-kun?” Minori brought her defenseless, completely oblivious face even closer. “The reason why Noto-kun is trying to get in the way of Maya-chan’s romance is because, well…he’s got the wrong idea that Taiga-chan likes Kitamura-kun. Apparently, he’s trying to cheer Taiga on, so he clashed with Maya-chan…”

  Ryuuji knew he didn’t have the right, but he couldn’t help but feel something impatient and almost irritated rise up in him at her obliviousness. What even is this? he wanted to say. Just how little did she know? She was Taiga’s best friend and didn’t even know Taiga’s feelings.

  “Are you sure he’s actually got the wrong idea?”

  Ryuuji’s voice was suddenly prickly. Minori’s eyes went wide.

  “There are things you don’t know about Taig
a, too, right Kushieda? Taiga might actually like Kitamura and just not have told you.”

  “There’s no way… I try to know everything about Taiga.”

  You’re saying that again… Ryuuji thought about telling her about Taiga and Kitamura going shrine visiting, but he just barely stopped himself. Spreading that around wouldn’t help anyone. It was just an unshakable fact that Minori wasn’t aware of.

  Minori didn’t know, and she didn’t know she didn’t know.

  “Anyway,” he said, “the situation is way more complicated than you think. But I agree with you about wanting to make everything better.”

  “It’s complicated… You’re right, it might be. It might be more complicated than either of us think. That might be true.”

  She pouted a little and pushed up her hair as though it were bothering her. The sound of the not-very-useful heater was the only thing that echoed through the lounge. Ryuuji was uneasily silent, and Minori was, too.

  They definitely both had things they couldn’t say to each other. Minori was acting as though she hadn’t rejected Ryuuji. Ryuuji could tell that she didn’t want to talk about it, but he didn’t feel the same way. He couldn’t forget what had happened. In fact, he wanted to try it again.

  I used to be able to talk normally to her about things like this, he thought. So why couldn’t he talk to her now?

  “I wonder what we should do… Like really.” Minori hummed in a low voice.

  Realization dawned on Ryuuji at last. There was only one way to cancel out the discord between them, and that was for him to join her in pretending that she hadn’t rejected him and that he hadn’t been rejected by her. The two of them were like gears within the same mechanism that refused to bite and that resisted adjustment. They were starting to grate disharmoniously. If this kept up, the mechanism would break down.

  If he wasn’t able to follow along, pretending to be an oblivious part of Minori’s nothing-happened-at-all world, their gears would never turn together.