Toradora! Vol. 1 Page 15

  The one Noto had called out to was Kushieda Minori, who had just been passing by—she was the one and only person who should have understood the Palmtop Tiger. But the sun-like smile that she always had was missing.

  “Oh…right, Takasu-kun. Ummm, I wanted to…”

  With a quiet gaze, as though she were thinking about something deeply, she searched the depths of Ryuuji’s eyes. She was trying to say something. But…

  “…Minorin. Don’t say anything uncalled for. I will get angry, even if it’s you,” Aisaka said, grilling her from behind with a hard voice. “I want you to speak to Takasu-kun—tell him that you understand that what happened yesterday was a misunderstanding. Say it out loud. Honestly, I don’t care about what anyone else in the class thinks. The one opinion that matters is yours, Minorin.”

  “…Taiga.”

  “Say it, Minorin,” Aisaka commanded vehemently, like a child, her lips formed into a line. Without removing her eyes from Minori, never once looking at Ryuuji, she furrowed her brow intensely.

  For a while, Minori silently took in that stare. Then, as though she had been worn down, she said, “I got it,” and once again turned to face Ryuuji.

  “Takasu-kun. Sorry for the misunderstanding yesterday.”

  “Ah, it’s okay! That… that’s not something you need to apologize for…”

  “Taiga told me to.”

  Ryuuji’s secret crush had a slightly bewildered look in her eyes. Even as she faced him, she looked like she didn’t really believe what she was saying.

  “…Taiga really wanted me to say that. I’m supposed to tell you it’s all a misunderstanding. But…the only reason Taiga would go this far is…”

  Her mouth formed the word probably—but then at the same moment, something disturbed the precarious balance.

  “Whoa! What is this mess?! Does morality just fall by the wayside when the class representative is late?”

  Kitamura had arrived at school and was making a fuss. Minori shut her open mouth and cut off what she was going to say. She pivoted her heels, so that her back faced Ryuuji, and patted Aisaka’s head.

  “Don’t make that face,” she said in her usual airheaded voice and headed straight to her seat.

  Then, at the clueless Kitamura’s direction, they started cleaning up the overturned desks and chairs.

  “Hurry up, hurry up! If Koigakubo-sensei sees it like this, the shock would make her even more of a spinster than she already is!”

  Ryuuji watched as Aisaka stepped toward Kitamura, right in front of him. Then, standing on her tiptoes, at a volume only Kitamura could hear, she whispered something.

  Kitamura’s expression looked mysterious for a moment, but he immediately nodded at Aisaka with his usual carefree expression.

  In Ryuuji’s eyes, Aisaka’s lips seemed to move, as though saying, “There’s something I want to tell you after school.”

  Without mucking it up, without stuttering from nervousness, without falling over or doing anything wrong, and without help from a certain dog, Aisaka had successfully spoken to Kitamura.

  ***

  Another day in the second-year class C had ended, though the situation was still pretty tense. In fact, Ryuuji hadn’t been able to peel his eyes off of Aisaka and Kitamura.

  After the bachelorette (clothed in a fashionable outfit that was soft pink from head-to-toe and totally didn’t fit her age) walked off after ending ceremonies, the class went into a commotion all at once. Some people went to clubs, some to their committee meetings, while others asked each other to walk home together. There were also those who stayed behind to keep talking—the ones who signaled to each other with their eyes and left the classroom together.

  Unconsciously, Ryuuji kicked the bottom of his own seat, then got up and followed after Aisaka and Kitamura. He took long strides, while still trailing slightly behind them.

  It might have been in bad taste, but…that thought only troubled him for a few seconds. But, but, but, he kept thinking, doing his best to keep from breaking out into a run, or letting his footsteps make too much noise.

  This was Aisaka, after all. He didn’t know what kind of blunder she might make. She might trip. She might fall down the stairs. She might get nervous and tongue-tied and start crying. Whatever the blunder, he had to go along because Aisaka was a super-epic klutz—and also because he was the only one who knew that truth.

  Because of that—because he was worried, because he couldn’t take his eyes off her, because…

  Because?

  “…Tch.”

  As he followed along behind the two, watching them recede down the stairs, his feet came to a sudden stop.

  Ryuuji questioned himself anew.

  Because. What did that word mean to him, really? So Aisaka was a klutz, and that worried him, sure. But what he could do about it? Help her? But why?

  What kind of relationship did he and Aisaka—no, what right did he have to save Aisaka or do anything else? They were pretending everything up until now hadn’t happened. Aisaka had said they would return to their relationship from before the love letter happened.

  That meant he should have also made himself forget about the Aisaka that only he knew. He ought to think about everything from a more realistic perspective and avoid getting sentimental. Even if she messed up trying to confess her love to the guy she liked, what kind of help could he even give her? Would he jump out in front of her and say, “Don’t worry! I’ll protect you!”

  Man, what was he thinking? It wasn’t even funny.

  His eyebrows scrunched. His eyes narrowed into a terrible squint, glinting perilously. But he wasn’t angry. He wasn’t going out to settle a debt or choke somebody he didn’t like. It wasn’t that… No one would understand, but he wasn’t like that, either.

  “Huh,” he breathed out heavily. “…I should go home.”

  He put his strength into his feet and changed direction. He turned his back to the two of them as they left and returned to the after-school classroom. Although no one noticed, it seemed the back he turned on them had grown by several centimeters over the previous few days.

  Noto, as well as Haruta—who had come to speak to him lately—invited him to go somewhere, but he rejected them and went back to his seat. For some reason, he couldn’t put himself at ease. He couldn’t work up the will to hang out with friends before going home. Yet, he didn’t feel like going straight home, either, so he decided to head out on his own and stop by a bookstore.

  Once he finished getting ready to leave, he started walking down the hallway to visit the bathroom. He passed by someone who had just finished wiping his hands. They left, leaving Ryuuji alone by himself. The empty bathroom returned to cold silence. Only the fragrance of an especially strong air freshener tickled his nose.

  Once he finished, he headed to the sink, washed his hands, and glanced at his face inside the mirror. It wasn’t any different from usual—it was still his customary, humorless expression. It wasn’t a reflection he would suddenly start admiring. Really, he’d grown tired of it. Because of that…really, no matter what he did…

  The focus of Ryuuji’s thoughts weren’t on his face. He thought about something else entirely. He mulled it over.

  “…She made such a ridiculous expression…”

  He was thinking about the Palmtop Tiger. Somewhere, right at that moment, she was giving it her all.

  That whole day, during class and at their breaks, Ryuuji had obliquely stolen glances to see how Aisaka was doing. With the passage of time, Aisaka’s face went through a bewildering evolution of colors. Just earlier in the middle of homeroom, it had looked exactly like a Noh mask. It had gone past red and blue to stark white.

  She was going to be confessing, so it would have been better if her face had been cute. She really was such an awkward person.

  And speaking of awkward—that morning’s commotion. She had rampaged through the classroom, even turning that ferocious expression on Minori. Actually, it was probably exa
ctly because it was Minori that she’d used such a grim look.

  In other words, Aisaka had caused all that chaos for him—for Ryuuji and his unrequited love for Minori. She had done it so that Minori wouldn’t misinterpret his intentions. Aisaka’s rampage must have been entirely for that purpose.

  Now that he thought of it, Aisaka had never made such a commotion over him before. Which meant she must have done it to fix Kitamura’s misunderstanding of her, as well. But Kitamura hadn’t been there that morning when Aisaka had been rampaging.

  In other words, it had been genuine. For Ryuuji, Aisaka had…

  “…Really, now…”

  With a sigh, the words escaped him. Awkward, stupid, a klutz…those words couldn’t properly convey what she was.

  She didn’t have to do anything like that. There were better ways she could have gone about it. Instead, she’d used the most disastrous method available. She really was—to a pitiful extent—a kind person. In his heart of hearts, he really believed that. Aisaka was a genuinely kind girl. The word seemed laughably ill-suited for the Palmtop Tiger, but he couldn’t help but believe it.

  She had told Ryuuji that he was kind, and then cried that she couldn’t be kind to others—but she was the kindest of girls. You wouldn’t know it unless you were by her side, but it was definitely the truth. Maybe it didn’t mean much, but it was true for Ryuuji.

  “Whoa!”

  At the sudden voice, he snapped around. A guy had come into the bathroom from another class, but froze with a yell on his face when he saw Ryuuji looking at him in surprise.

  The guy stepped back and shouted, “Uh, sorry for causing you trouble!!” and left. It seemed he had been startled by the unexpected sharpness of the gaze Ryuuji turned on him. By reputation only, he was still feared on the same level as the Palmtop Tiger.

  In the hallway, people were now surely spreading word that Takasu had holed himself up in the bathroom, that it was dangerous to go in. That meant no one would come in for a while. The situation perfectly fit his delicate mood; he didn’t want to see anyone.

  As obsessed with cleanliness as ever, Ryuuji went into the back to fling open the window, figuring that if no one was coming in for a while, he might as well let in the breeze. Humidity contributed to bad odor, after all.

  He turned the latch, opened the window—and then froze.

  “Kitamura-kun! Kitamura-kun, I… Kitamura-kun I… Um… Well…”

  “…What?!” Ryuuji muttered and held his head, still motinoless. This can’t be a hallucination and, uhhh, that means…

  He was hearing Aisaka’s voice perfectly, clearly—completely.

  The men’s restroom was on the second floor, as the restroom on the first floor was for guests. Outside the school building—or rather, between the restroom window and a stand of trees—there was a clearing. Still finding it hard to believe, Ryuuji looked down. His last hopes of being somehow mistaken were crushed.

  In that indiscreet location, Aisaka and Kitamura stood together. If they had put even a little thought into it, they would’ve realized that they could be overheard by anyone using the toilet.

  “Of all the places…why would you ever choose the place behind the bathrooms…?” Ryuuji said under his breath.

  What a klutz.

  Still clutching his head, Ryuuji gave a low moan. He slid down to sit beneath the window. The place was deserted, but the reason why…was, frankly, because of the smell.

  He crouched underneath the window he’d flung open and buried his head in his knees until he no longer had air to breathe. In the end, Aisaka really was a klutz. First of all, if someone else had come here and opened the window like him—then what would have happened? The sight of the two of them would have most likely been completely out in the open, and there would have been nothing they could do about it.

  For that very reason, Ryuuji decided to stay where he was for the time being. If someone came, he would glare horribly at them and make them leave. He’d serve as a guard, just like that.

  First, however, he would close the window so that their voices wouldn’t reach his ears, either. That in mind, he started to get up.

  “Wait a second.” It was Kitamura.

  At the sound of his voice, Ryuuji found himself unable to move.

  “I think I more or less understand where this conversation is going. But it’d be fairly embarrassing for everyone if I misunderstood, so before I hear you out, let me confirm one thing… I’ll just come straight out and say it. You’re dating Takasu, right?”

  Ryuuji’s heart jumped with a start. He couldn’t just go around eavesdropping—no, eavescrouching. He knew that, but once he heard his own name, he just couldn’t block it from his ears. No, you can’t do this, hurry up and close the window. If not that, then run away…!

  “T-Takasu-kun is…”

  He knew he should close the window, but he couldn’t move. Aisaka’s voice, probably so shrill from nervousness, wrapped itself around Ryuuji’s body as though trying to squeeze him.

  “Takasu-kun is, is… is, is… is…”

  She couldn’t get past “is.”

  You idiot, what are you doing? What are you hesitating for? You have to deny it, don’t you—what do you think you’re standing around the back of the restrooms for…?! Ryuuji shouted inside his head, still crouched, unable to make a sound, in pure agony. But Aisaka couldn’t continue.

  The silence just piled on. In the end, she couldn’t even say “is” anymore. If Kitamura were a normal guy, this would be the point where the tension got the better of him, and he’d say, “Well, if you’ve got nothing else to say, I guess we’re done here.” Even Kitamura—no, actually, Kitamura was much busier than the average guy. Surely, if it continued like this, he would leave. Without knowing what Aisaka’s feelings were, Kitamura would leave.

  Hurry up and say it. You have to! Ryuuji gripped his hands together hard and gritted his back teeth. He forgot to breathe, yet Aisaka couldn’t bring herself to make a sound. The silence seemed like it lasted an eternity, getting heavier and heavier.

  It might have been impossible for her from the start. Confessing her love for someone she couldn’t even call out to in class might have been a rash plan. That was it, then. Closing his eyes, Ryuuji gave up.

  But just as he did, Aisaka said, “What happened with Takasu-kun was just a misunderstanding by Minorin! Kitamura-kun, I…”

  The wind blew.

  “…I like you…”

  …Ah.

  Gradually, the strength left his legs. His butt almost reached the floor, but he saved himself from reaching that dangerous destination.

  Ryuuji’s breath stopped again. He felt like some sound might escape him, so he kept his lips firmly closed. Eventually, he held his mouth shut with both hands. You’re amazing. The words surged through his heart, over and over.

  Kitamura was someone Aisaka couldn’t even talk to and she had been about as nervous as could be—yet she had still confessed. She’d told Kitamura her feelings. Ryuuji didn’t think he could ever do something like that. Even if someone told him to confess to Minori in just the same way, he doubted he would have gone through with it. He had cheered Aisaka on irresponsibly, but what Aisaka was doing right that moment was impossible for him. He could never be that straightforward.

  The words continued to vibrate in his chest. Even though Ryuuji wasn’t part of the scene that was transpiring, Aisaka’s determination and courage pierced through his heart like a light. Surely her feelings had pierced straight through Kitamura’s heart, as well. They must have—and then swept him away. It must have transported him somewhere.

  Yes, that was how it should be. If he had any heart at all, it must have been moved. Everything was going the way it was supposed to.

  Ryuuji felt as though something had been stolen from him, but surely he was mistaken.

  “So, you like me,” Kitamura said, “and the stuff about Takasu was all a misunderstanding. So, Kushieda’s impression of you and Tak
asu…was just a misconception…?”

  “…That’s right. No matter what I said, Minorin wouldn’t believe me, so…”

  As if thinking things over, Kitamura paused. Eventually he seemed to come to an understanding.

  “I see. In that case, allow me to apologize. It seems I had completely the wrong idea. Kushieda’s really strong-willed, too. I understand. Yes, I understand completely.”

  “…Yeah.”

  Kitamura’s voice was gentle.

  Aisaka’s voice, even now, was so hoarse it sounded like it might disappear.

  And finally, there was Ryuuji’s breathing, as he held his hands to his mouth to keep from making noise.

  All three sounds quietly and slowly crossed through the empty men’s restroom. Ryuuji’s surroundings vibrated with the gentle noise as he crouched there alone, trying to muffle any sound he might make.

  He tried to shake off the feeling of vibration that continued to resonate in his chest and breathing. He shook it off and stood up, but as he tried to close the window and go home, Aisaka burst out, saying, “B-b-b-but! But you see!”

  Outside the window, her voice was high and jumpy.

  “But, it’s not like I dislike Takasu-kun!” she said. “He’s not that bad at all! When I’m with him, it’s easier to breathe! Well, it’s always hard for me to breathe, but…even though I thought that…Takasu-kun… Ryuuji always makes me the best fried rice! Whenever I need someone, he’s always there for me! Even when I lied to him, he made me feel better! I want to be with him as much as I can! I even wish he were here right now! Without Ryuuji, I almost feel torn, I almost hurt, because Ryuuji…I always, always—even now! Because he would always be there! It’s because of him that I can do this now…!”

  Dumbfounded, Ryuuji’s whole body was frozen.

  What are you doing? Just what kind of mess are you making now?

  Even now, she sounded like she was about to start crying. What was she doing making pronouncements like that? Aisaka…

  “…I’ll never stop liking him, not ever. To me, Ryuuji is… Ryuuji is…”