Toradora! Vol. 8 Read online

  “I wonder… It’s a mystery.”

  Maya and Nanako were getting excited, but next to them, Minori inhaled and said, indifferently, “Ahmin…I wonder why you would say that…”

  Ami replied, “Because you were acting so airheaded all the time. I can’t believe you’re pretending everything is fine.”

  Her words and voice were terrifyingly true to her nature. She came directly at Minori, targeting her weaknesses, spoiling for a fight.

  “Takasu-kun likes Minori-chan, not Tiger, it turns out. But, Minori-chan rejected him. But now she’s acting all oblivious, like, ‘We all need to get along!’ and ‘Don’t you wanna be like this forever?’ Like…what? Do you really think someone can stay friends with the girl who rejected him? You were obviously clinging to him on purpose when we were skiing. You were just trying to show him how oblivious you are, right? Just how cruel are you?”

  The team in the closet and the one in the room both swallowed without thinking. No one could say a word…

  “When did you see me acting fine? Did you really see that? What do you know about me? Can your eyes see through to my heart? Actually, this doesn’t have anything to do with you, Ahmin. Don’t stick your nose into this.”

  …other than Minori, that was.

  “So this doesn’t involve me, huh? Oh, I see. Sorry. But…when I heard that you rejected Takasu-kun, I had this thought that you might be acting out of a sense of guilt. I guess it doesn’t involve that…”

  “I told you already. It has nothing to do with you. I don’t know what you’re trying to say. If you think I’m doing fine, then that’s great. Just leave it alone.”

  “Oh, good. I’m so relieved it doesn’t have anything to do with me. And that it doesn’t have anything to do with the guilt, either. Oh, what a relief—so Minori-chan and Takasu-kun clearly aren’t as upset as I thought. See, I thought you’d rejected Takasu-kun because of guilt over a certain someone, Minori-chan, but I guess you just really genuinely hate him? I’ll tell Takasu-kun that tomorrow. I’ll tell him you rejected him because you hate him. It’s much kinder not to string him along, like you are now. You should just tell him exactly what you think and break things off.”

  “Do what you want…”

  “Okay, I get the message. Oh, maybe I’ll go tell him right now?”

  “I said you could do what you want.”

  “Your face looks pretty great on the surface…”

  “What’re you even saying?”

  “I wonder what I mean…”

  “Get a hold of yourselves!” Maya sounded resolute as she intervened. Time, which seemed to have frozen over, finally started to creak forward again.

  “Ami-chan, what’s gotten into you, too? Let’s stop. We’re on a nice school trip and fighting among girls is just so—I don’t want to know any more about this! It’s Noto we should be angry at! Isn’t that enough? Kushieda, you too, okay? Let’s just move on from this, please!”

  “I think it’d be really hard on Tiger if she came back and she saw you two still fighting,” Nanako said. “Tiger’s parents are divorced, aren’t they? I only have one parent at home, so I get it. When you see your friends fighting, you remember your parents and how the house felt. But…you said too much just now, Ami-chan. Please just apologize and let it end here.”

  There was a bit of a pause.

  “Sorry, Minori-chan. I said way too much. Could you forget it all?”

  Ami lowered her head slightly. Seeing that, Minori slowly and loudly clapped her hands together once.

  “There! It’s a deal. Okay, I’ve forgotten it!”

  Finally, the air in the room relaxed.

  “Actually, where is Tiger? How about we look for her for a bit?” Maya said in a much brighter voice. Everyone, probably wanting to change the mood, nodded to each other and left the room.

  The sliding door of the closet fwooshed open.

  “I feel like we saw something we really weren’t meant to see!”

  The first one to fall out was Kitamura. Noto and Haruta also rolled out after him.

  “Actually, Miss Kushieda is kinda…like how do I put this…I’m really, really glad that I didn’t ask her anything weird, now.”

  “Am I the only one who didn’t get the point of their fight at all? How is Ami-chan involved in this? Taka-chan, what’s going on?”

  “That’s what I want to know! Really! Everyone…everyone is just…” Disoriented, Ryuuji crawled from the closet.

  “You…you…you baaaaaastaaaaaaaaards…”

  Her wet hair disheveled, her face red from wrath—among other things—Taiga was breathing heavily as she got up. It stood to reason. He had done all of those things to the Palmtop Tiger. He had asked for this.

  Ryuuji closed his eyes and waited in silence. He prepared himself for a slap with the weight of her whole body in it, but Taiga’s right hand just passed limply through the air. She drifted to the ground, sat with her legs folded to the side, and pitifully hid her red face in her hands.

  “This is just too awkward! What is this… Why did you have to involve me in something like this?! It doesn’t hurt you—you can just go back to your rooms and be fine! I have to pretend that I don’t know anything for two more nights and pretend to be upbeat when Minorin and Dimhuahua are so on edge! I need to put on an act…”

  “Oh, right, that’s pretty hard.”

  “Shuddup, you brainless, hairy caterpillar! But, but, really what is this… Why are Minorin and Dimhuahua fighting? Maybe I shouldn’t have told Dimhuahua everything…”

  There wasn’t a single person who could answer Taiga’s question. The boys could only look at each other uneasily, still overwhelmed by the fight that they shouldn’t have seen.

  “Anyway…” Kitamura said in a low voice, his glasses still halfway down his face. “We didn’t see anything. Aisaka met Takasu on the way back to her room and was talking to him in the hallway. When she came back, it seemed the girls had been there but had gone somewhere again. That’s right…right?”

  Taiga somehow nodded, though her face was still hot.

  “We really did something stupid, getting carried along like that.” Kitamura lightly smacked his own head. Ryuuji didn’t know what he meant by that, but the words didn’t seem to be meant for him.

  The closet perverts had successfully made their escape. Left alone by herself in the girls’ room, Taiga, who had to pretend not to know anything for two days, watched them leave with an endlessly resentful gaze. “Actually, what did you guys come here for…?

  Chapter 6

  The fair weather from the day before had transformed, and that morning’s sky was covered with heavy snow clouds. The weather forecast predicted a storm before noon. There was no wind at the moment, but light snow was already falling on the ski slopes.

  “How are your hands, Takasu-kun?”

  Turning around at Kitamura’s voice, Ryuuji waved his glove-covered right hand.

  “All good. Just stinging a little.”

  During breakfast, he had gotten a light burn—or more like, been burned by Taiga, that unrivaled klutz. In the dining hall, Taiga had been getting a second helping of miso soup when he asked her in a low voice, “So how’d it turn out?” The girls were intent on ignoring the guys that day, too, and he was trying to be inconspicuous.

  Taiga’s answer was, “Whaaa?!” Then she spilled her miso soup, which she’d greedily filled to the brim, on Ryuuji’s hand.

  “I’ve realized something… Never get close to Taiga while she’s holding something dangerous.”

  “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Why don’t you forgive her?”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying the same thing as Taiga… ‘It wasn’t on purpose! It was an accident! Oh no!’ She didn’t even apologize.”

  “There was all that stuff that happened yesterday. A lot’s going on.”

  Just let it go. Kitamura’s mouth twisted, and he raised his palms up in the air. Ryuuji just raised his eyebrows slightl
y in response.

  The morning was their free time.

  He could see people laughing as they started to practice skiing and began falling over. There were even some people in the process of making snowmen. Noto and Haruta were probably long gone up the lift, headed to the courses.

  “You don’t have to hang around with me. You can go to the courses.”

  “I was planning on teaching you how to turn today, Takasu.”

  “It’s fine. I’m okay.”

  Kitamura wouldn’t be able to enjoy skiing with Ryuuji around, and knowing how intense Kitamura could get about teaching, he wanted to be spared the lesson.

  “No matter what I do, I can’t get a feel for it. Taiga’s staying back, too. She’s probably pulling her sled over there, anyway, so I’ll join her.”

  They waved at each other as Kitamura went off towards the lift, and they parted ways. Ryuuji walked towards the gently inclining edge of the slopes.

  Whether Taiga had stayed behind or not, there was something he wanted to think about on his own. His head was so muddled that there was no way he could have fun skiing with his friends.

  The snow sucked at his boots as he walked. It was a lot colder than the day before, and his face stung. He slowly advanced towards the lodge that acted as a rest area at the bottom of the slopes, doing his best not to fall.

  Asking about Minori’s true feelings, or even knowing what her true intentions were, didn’t amount to anything. He felt like his heart had been knocked right out of him, like a disastrous game of Jenga, and other pieces of himself were collapsing into the spot where it had been. He was helpless, in pain, and it didn’t seem relief was coming anytime soon.

  Ryuuji inhaled and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t slept much the day before. He knew that thinking about it wouldn’t do anything and that Minori’s feelings wouldn’t change no matter how much he thought about it, but the fight he’d witnessed had kept going around and around in his mind all night.

  He had a vague feeling that there was something that Ami and Minori had both agreed on not saying out loud in that fight. There was something that Ryuuji didn’t know about, and it was eating away at him.

  If that were the case, then there was something that even Ami was hiding from him.

  He breathed out white as he thought about it. There was something that Minori, Ami, Taiga and Kitamura all couldn’t talk about, but at the same time, desperately wanted to say. If they’d just come out with it, the gears might turn without disharmony or deception.

  But no one said it. They couldn’t say it. They were scared that exposing everything might bring them to a point of no return. They were nervous, and so they swallowed their words. They’ll get it even if I don’t say anything, right? They’ll understand, right? We’ll understand each other, right?

  But of course, they still wanted to talk about it. And sometimes it would show itself like a needle, poking at them.

  He looked around at the gaudy gear of the people scattered across the slopes and found Taiga. She was with Minori. They were riding a sled together, laughing. He didn’t have any reason to intrude on them when they were like that, so Ryuuji turned around.

  His eyes came upon Ami.

  “Oh,” he said. “What are you doing in a place like this?”

  “My ankle hurts a little bit, so I’m resting.”

  Squatting down in the soft snow few people made their way to, Ami was gloomily building a snow mountain by herself. He was taken aback by her reply—she had been crabby and spiteful, telling him that she hated him because he was stupid for so long, after all.

  Plus, there was all the stuff that happened the day before. Ryuuji was a little uneasy as he walked towards her.

  “Did you fall down…?”

  Ami had stuck her rental skis and poles up in the snow behind her. “Yeah. I’m tired, and I can’t even go to get coffee at the lodge because I forgot my wallet.”

  “So now you’re making a mountain by yourself?”

  “It’s not a mountain. This is supposed to be Kamakura—like the city in the mountains.”

  If that’s supposed to be Kamakura, it’s sort of doomed. Even Ryuuji, an absolute amateur when it came to snow, couldn’t help but think that as he watched Ami’s gloved hands pat the small, fragile mound.

  “Aren’t you supposed to start out by rolling a snowball like you’re making a snowman instead of making a giant pile of snow?”

  “I’m fine with this.”

  Ami stayed stubbornly crouched down and continued to build the mountain. She placed the snow she scooped up with her gloved hand on the mound and patted it down. No matter how long she did that, it wouldn’t end up becoming the Kamakura she wanted.

  I understand, even if you don’t say anything, Ryuuji thought as he watched her face, which seemed to be reflecting the white snow. The previous day’s dispute with Minori had gotten to Ami in the end. That was why she was alone here, meaninglessly gathering snow to pass the time. It was like she was churning through her own messed-up mind.

  “Oh, hey!”

  “I’m just helping you.”

  He sat across from her and started to pile up more snow. He didn’t intend to try to comfort her, or get more information about the fight, or anything of that sort. He hadn’t forgotten that she’d said she hated him because he was stupid, either.

  It was just that Ryuuji was also alone. No matter how much time passed, it wasn’t as though Ami’s Kamakura would be done. It wasn’t as though he felt like he could leave her alone there as she vainly packed together the snow. Plus, if Ami really thought he was in the way, she would have told him so.

  “Hey, you have to make sure you compact it…”

  “…”

  “C’mon, do it. You put so much effort into piling it up when it’s just gonna keep collapsing.”

  Ami’s hands stopped, causing an avalanche above the snow Ryuuji had piled up. It started to collapse, and resigned, Ryuuji stretched out his hand to pat it down.

  “Oh?!”

  Ami stuck her head face first into the mountain. She did it with the energy of the drunkest person at a party sticking their face into a cake as a joke.

  “What the heck are you doing?! Isn’t it cold?! Is this some kind of beauty treatment?!” Ryuuji exclaimed. She stayed like that for a few seconds. “Excuse me, but—”

  Finally, Ami lifted her head. Snow stuck to her eyelashes and eyebrows. Her cheeks and nose had flushed bright red from the cold.

  “There’s something I need to tell you, Takasu-kun…”

  “Hey, I get it, I get it. There’s probably a lot you’ve got to say. For starters, how about you apologize for calling me an idiot?”

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s not…that.”

  Ami rested her chin on the peak of the collapsed snow pile and quietly closed her eyes. She took a breath through her nose, held it for a while, and then took another.

  “It might be my fault that Minori-chan rejected you…” she said.

  Ryuuji just looked at Ami’s face. Wha? he mouthed without a sound.

  “Earlier…when you weren’t around, I said something nasty to Minori-chan. I don’t even know why I said it, but I can’t take it back. I think Minori-chan’s been thinking about it for a long time, and that’s why she rejected you.”

  He couldn’t understand what she meant. “Uhhh…well anyway…what was it that you said?”

  “Are you angry? Ha ha. I guess anyone would be angry.”

  “Well, it’s not like I can say anything about it if I don’t know the details.”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  There it was. Another thing no one could talk about.

  “Plus, yesterday, I started a fight with Minori. I said some nasty things I regret, but I still get annoyed whenever I look at her face. I can’t help it. There are a lot of things that annoy me, but the main thing is that she absolutely won’t talk straight to anyone. No matter how much I tried to start a fight, I couldn’t get Minori-
chan to actually say what she was feeling.”

  Her long eyelashes cast down, Ami slowly extended her hand.

  She smashed the mountain of snow violently. She chopped at it until it was utterly destroyed. Then she took a breath.

  “I don’t like you because you’re an idiot…”

  “That again…”

  “I hate myself because I’m an idiot, too. I—”

  As though she’d exhausted herself, she sat down in the middle of the mess of snow she had made. She brushed away the ruins of the snow mountain with her hands, breaking it down, scattering it around, and then looked up at the dull, silver sky.

  “Hey, Takasu-kun.”

  It was starting to snow harder, and the slivers of ice adhered to Ami’s hair. Ryuuji could only look at her, hung up on finding the words he should have said.

  “Apparently Taiga’s been trying to become independent recently. Minori-chan just straight out rejected you. They’ve both let go of your hands now, and I was thinking that maybe, I’d grab your hand instead. Actually, this all went exactly to plan. I’ve always been thinking of trying to ask you out. Because I like you. What would you do if I said that? None of it is true, though.”

  She said it all faster than he could understand.

  “You said that way too fast! You didn’t even give me a chance to be surprised before you turned everything around!”

  Trying to gain control over his leaping heart, Ryuuji desperately rubbed at his own face. His snow-covered gloves made his already freezing nose grow even colder.

  Ami didn’t even smile as she simply stared at Ryuuji.

  “But none of it’s true, anyway. If you believed that, it wouldn’t be according to plan. I didn’t want it to end up this way. But, well…I really did stick my nose into something I shouldn’t have.”

  Her mouth touched the snow. It melted as it was touched. The faint smile that finally came over her lips vanished just as quickly.

  “I’m racked with guilt… I’m self-destructing, too. This is what happened because of all my mistakes.”

  “This is what happened… By that, do you mean Kushieda rejecting me? I don’t want you to take the blame for that. I don’t know what happened between you and Kushieda, but I’m not the kind of person who blames other people for being rejected.”