Toradora! Vol. 1 Read online

  Ryuuji’s father was probably serving time behind cold iron bars. That was what his son thought.

  “Yo, Takasu! Morning—sure is a nice day!”

  Ryuuji noticed the voice behind him and turned around to raise his hand. “Yo, Kitamura. Morning.”

  There’s no helping it, Ryuuji thought, as he stopped to wait for Kitamura Yuusaku, his close friend and classmate for another year, to catch up. From an outside standpoint, his eyes glared at Kitamura, as if saying, “I’ll get that guy!” But, of course, that wasn’t the case. He was just thinking calmly as he watched him approach.

  There was no helping the misconceptions people might have about him. If another one happened, he’d just clear it up. After all, even if it took time to win them over, there were always some people like this guy who would figure it out eventually. He didn’t like it, but…it was the only option, so what else could he do?

  He looked up at the sky and squinted at its radiance. The day was beautiful, without even a breeze. The sakura petals fell without a sound, gently landing in Ryuuji’s hair.

  Still carrying all that stubborn, painful, mental baggage, he took another long step forward in the loafers he’d shined the night before.

  It was wonderful weather for the opening ceremony.

  ***

  “Yikes.”

  “I’m in the same class as Takasu-kun.”

  “He’s as tough as they come.”

  “It’s a little scary.”

  “Someone talk to him.”

  “No way, take it from me—that’s impossible. You go.”

  “Hey, don’t push me.”

  And so it went, on and on.

  No matter what they say, Rjuuji thought, I am the way I am. I won’t be bothered by it.

  Ryuuji accepted the surrounding stares of his new classmates with indifference. Still seated at his desk, he turned his back slightly, causing people to avert their eyes. He quietly licked his parched lips. His jittering leg was an unconscious fidget. From the side, he looked like a predator, impatiently awaiting feeble prey. But that was just appearances.

  “As always, it looks like a bunch of guys here totally have the wrong idea about you,” Kitsamura said. “Well, that’ll be fixed before long. I’m with you, and there’s quite a few people from the original class A mixed in here, too.”

  “Yeah. It’s fine, I don’t mind it,” Ryuuji replied with a thin smile.

  The muttering from his classmates still hadn’t let up. “I’m telling you,” someone said. “He’s in a good mood. Look at him—definitely licking his lips in cruel anticipation, stalking the prey in front of him.”

  In actuality, he felt like shooting out of his seat like a rocket, while grinning from ear to ear. And naturally, that feeling wasn’t just from being in the same class as Kitamura. Something like that only warranted a smile and a, “We’re together again, Kitamura.”

  The thing that made him so happy he wanted to jump for joy was—

  “Hey, Kitamura-kun! We’re in the same class this year!”

  Because of her.

  “Hm?” Kitamura said. “Huh, so you’re in class C, too, Kushieda!”

  “What, you only just noticed? You’re so cold! It’s a brand-new year; you could at least check the registry.”

  “Sorry, sorry. What a coincidence, though! I guess the meetings of student club presidents will be easier than ever.”

  “Ha ha, that’s right! Oh, you were…Takasu-kun, right?” she asked, as she turned to Ryuuji. “I wonder if you remember me? We’ve had a few near misses, what with both of us hanging around Kitamura-kun.”

  Ryuuji said nothing.

  “Uhhh? It’s okay to call you Takasu-kun, right?” she said.

  “…Ah, ye…kay.” He fumbled for his words but was too taken aback by the sudden spectacle of a goddess assailing him. Her smile dazzled him, bursting out like the sun. It was as warm as the stolen light that once shined through his southern window, a warmth that suffused his vision all at once with radiant beams. The overflowing particles of light clung to him until Ryuuji could no longer keep his eyes open.

  “Kushieda Minori, right?” he said.

  Ah, if only, if only, if only! The sound of his own brusque voice made Ryuuji want to shout out loud. Why could he only answer like that, why couldn’t he have said something more suave—

  “Oh, hey! You remembered my whole name! Awesome—that sure makes me happy! Uhm, uh-oh, I think someone’s trying to get my attention over there. Well then, Kitamura-kun. After school, we’re having this year’s first meeting for new second-years. Make sure you don’t forget! See you later, too, Takasu-kun!”

  Just about at his limits, Ryuuji tried raising a hand in courtesy…at her turned back. He was too late. She probably didn’t even see.

  But.

  She said she was happy… She said she’d see me later…

  Kushieda Minori had said that to him.

  She said she was happy… She said she’d see me later…

  Kushieda Minori, who he had prayed would be in his class, had said that.

  She said she was happy… She said she’d see me later…

  About me. About me!

  She said she was happy!

  “Takasu?”

  “…Yeah?”

  Suddenly Kitamura drew incredibly close, until Ryuuji bent away from him in his chair. “What are you grinning at?”

  “Uh, n-nothing.”

  “I see.” Kitamura pushed up his glasses with his center finger, and Ryuuji couldn’t avoid feeling a certain admiration for Kitamura. The guy was probably the only person in the world who could detect one of Ryuuji’s grins.

  That wasn’t the only thing Ryuuji admired him for, though.

  “Kitamura,” he said. “You’re, like…really good at…talking to girls.” (He meant Kushieda, of course.)

  “Huh? What makes you say that?” Peering over his lenses, Kitamura’s eyes showed no trace of humility—only genuine surprise. Somehow, he was completely unaware of his talent. Confronted with such a thick-skulled guy, Ryuuji held back his answer.

  Kitamura’s casual conversation with Kushieda Minori just a moment past had been more than successful—and it wasn’t just that conversation, either. Ever since they were first-years, Kitamura was able to have pleasant conversations with Kushieda Minori, who was in the same softball club. Meanwhile, Ryuuji toiled endlessly, pitifully hard to earn leftover smiles and passing greetings. In soccer terms, he was the sweeper—though he’d never had a chance to play offense.

  The reason Ryuuji started to think Kushieda Minori was cute, the reason that he liked her and wanted to become closer to her in the first place, was because he was constantly right there, getting to see how fun her conversations with Kitamura were.

  It wasn’t just that, though. It was because of her bright, ever-changing expressions. Her flexible body and exaggerated gestures. Her easygoing smile. Her unclouded voice.

  Even though everyone else was afraid of him, from the start, she had been cheerfully broadminded and never deviated in that attitude toward Ryuuji.

  He liked everything about Kushieda Minori. To him, all the elements that composed her seemed radiant, as though she were made from fragments of the sun. She was wholesome and straightforward—in his mind, she was nothing less than the perfect girl.

  But even so.

  “Don’t be stupid. No way am I good at talking to girls. I bet you don’t even know what all the girls call me, do you?”

  Unconsciously, Ryuuji released a deep sigh. Despite how jealous he became while watching Kitamura’s conversations—so jealous that he thought his eyes might bleed—his friend continued, unaware.

  “I’m terrible with girls,” he said. “I doubt I’ll ever pull off dating one.” That was his remark.

  “I…don’t think…that’s the case,” Ryuuji said. Looking up at such a dazzling gentleman, he again decided to swallow any other words he had. No matter how many times he said it, this guy definite
ly wouldn’t understand. And that made Ryuuji feel miserable.

  It was true that the girls called Kitamura “Maruo-kun.” This was because he looked exactly like a certain character from a famous manga, an obnoxiously serious honor student. His intense glasses, straight-laced personality, outstanding grades, and frivolous fashion sense all put him distinctly apart from the norm. He was such a spitting image of Maruo that whenever he said the word “precisely”—the character’s trademark phrase—the class would practically go into an uproar. On top of that, last year he’d also been the class president, and more recently had become the vice president of the student council. On top of that, he was also serving as the unofficial new president of the softball club. It was only fitting that he’d wind up as the subject of a joking comparison.

  Still, he wasn’t bad looking. No, in fact, if you looked closely, he was surprisingly handsome. Plus, he didn’t have any two-faced qualities to his personality. He had a great sense of humor, and really, there just wasn’t anything to dislike about him. And because of that, even though the girls targeted him for teasing, it wasn’t mean-spirited.

  Ah, that’s right. Ryuuji understood. Whatever Kitamura might say, the girls did like him. It wasn’t just Kushieda Minori. He could talk naturally to any girl. The girls would act like they were close and say, “Awww, I’m with Maruo again this year!” In response, he would make a light remark like, “What, you’re unhappy about that?”

  When you act like that, how can you say that you’re bad with girls? You’re not even hated like I am. Just as he was thinking this, he heard a voice say, “Y-yikes…”

  There it was again.

  When he overheard that word, he turned his gaze down and let the speaker go past. He felt like he could handle anything anybody might say about him. He was over the moon about being in the same class as Kushieda Minori; they’d never shared a classroom before.

  But people kept talking.

  “It’s really amazing… You can tell just looking at him that he’s not someone you should mess with.”

  “Yeah, those eyes are intense. Be careful—if he lost his temper, you’d be a goner.”

  And the spell was broken. Although the whispering voices probably harbored no ill will, the sheer number of them was starting to get to him. Until the new homeroom teacher came, hiding out in the restrooms might be the best thing for his peace of mind. With that thought in mind, he stood up. But the moment he headed for the hallway, something bumped lightly against his stomach.

  “Oof…?”

  It sure felt like he’d hit something, but he saw nothing in front of him. How strange. Ryuuji restlessly glanced around the vicinity. But what he saw was the faces of his classmates as they murmured all around him…

  “Oh, man. Just as expected of Takasu-kun… He’s made the first move.”

  “It’s the ultimate showdown already… I knew this class would be trouble the moment I saw the registry.”

  They were probably going on about the look in his eyes.

  “It’s the battle that’ll decide who’s in charge…the clash of the delinquents!”

  “It’s like an amazing card just hit the table…”

  They were acting strangely. A battle? The delinquents? An amazing card? What are they talking about? He turned his head to try and better grasp the situation—and then it happened.

  “So, you run into someone, and you can’t even apologize…?”

  He heard a quiet voice from somewhere nearby. The speaker sounded strange, monotone, emotionally contained to an extreme degree—but it felt like they were just barely keeping the lid on an unparalleled explosion.

  The voice’s owner was nowhere to be seen.

  “Uh…?”

  Feeling a bit like he’d wandered into the Twilight Zone, Ryuuji slowly looked to his right. No one there. He looked to his left. No one there, either. Apprehensively, he looked in the scariest direction—up. Good, no one there.

  “Which means…”

  Sure enough, there she was. Way, way below his line of sight—far below even Ryuuji’s chest—was the crown of someone’s head.

  His first impression of her was that of a doll. Any way you sliced it, she was small. Small, and enveloped in a long, cloud-like shroud of hair—it was the Palmtop Tiger.

  “…The Palmtop Tiger?”

  Without thinking, those enigmatic words suddenly popped into his mind and spilled right out of his mouth. He felt like he’d heard them from someone else, murmuring from far off.

  The Palmtop Tiger. Is that her…?

  “Who…?”

  Is that supposed to describe the doll I see in front of me? Sure, palmtop works, but what makes this girl a tiger? On and on, his mind continued in this way.

  “Who…exactly is supposed to be a ‘Palmtop Tiger,’ anyway?” Taiga asked.

  It was no time to ponder the question. The “tiger” raised her chin slightly, then both her eyes.

  “………!”

  Her stare lasted about three seconds. Ryuuji thought she had been scared stiff, but he was woefully mistaken.

  A momentary vacuum had exploded like a bomb and had only just passed. Hearing was slow to return to Ryuuji’s ears. When he came to, he was on his butt. It wasn’t just Ryuuji. Several others had also collapsed close by, whimpering. Some were even trying to crawl away.

  What just happened?

  Then he understood.

  Nothing had happened.

  It was just—the girl in front of him.

  “…You’re irritating,” she said.

  All she had done was glare at Ryuuji with her two huge eyes. That was all. And yet, during those brief seconds of tension, Ryuuji had been simply overwhelmed. Completely overwhelmed. His mind had gone blank. Tension had immobilized his body, and he literally collapsed, right there.

  He’d been so taken aback by her glowering stare—or more accurately, by the intensity it contained—that he had fallen right on his butt.

  What had happened was way out there. It was on a completely different level. He had totally and completely lost. Ryuuji, who had never been bested when it came to his intimidating eyes, had lost by a country mile.

  For the first time in his life, he understood. A truly savage gaze had a violent—no, murderous—weight to it.

  “Hmph.” After a few endless seconds of her gaze, which seemed to unwaveringly pierce right through his heart, she finally looked away, filled with contempt. “‘Ryu,’ is it? Like a dragon… How lame.”

  Her lips were like flower petals turned up by the wind. Her words struck like bullets and were just as child-like as she was.

  She tousled her fluffy hair with an unbelievably small hand. Her eyes, their murderousness subdued, were now half-hidden by soft eyelids. They resembled the stare of a glass-eyed doll. Those transparent, hollow eyes reflected nothing at all as they gave Ryuuji a final once-over.

  She was cute. She was terrifying.

  Her milky white cheeks, her long, hazy ashen hair with its mysterious color, her delicate limbs and slender shoulders, the eyelashes that softened her gleaming eyes—she was cute as candy filled with lethal poison and as dainty as a flower bud with a deadly fragrance.

  But, in the moment she glared at him, Ryuuji had seen a shape in her eyes. The form of a carnivore, bearing down on him. It was just an illusion, of course, but it had seemed more real than reality. Ryuuji had felt a weight of several tons pressing on him. His blood shuddered at the predator’s roar; he felt it breathing down his neck. It seemed to say, I can kill any of you any time I want.

  Its sharp claws and giant fangs had loomed close. The smell of blood and the beast had filled the room. The illusion, many times the size of the small girl, was none other than a tiger.

  “Uh, uhhh…uh, uhm, uh… Yup yup yup yup…” Instinctively, Ryuuji nodded his head up and down. He clasped one hand against the other. Right, of course. The Palmtop Tiger. He didn’t know who’d come up with that, but, “It fits perfectly, doesn’t it…” />
  It had a certain flair. He admired whoever had coined the name.

  Then he realized why she’d muttered Ryu along with her contemptuous gaze.

  Either when he fell on his butt, or maybe while the illusory tiger tore him apart, his jacket zipper had opened. And so, his shirt was completely exposed—the shirt Yasuko had so enthusiastically bought him. The shirt with a gimmicky dragon on it, exactly the kind a delinquent would wear. It wasn’t as though he’d worn that shirt, which sent totally the wrong message, because he wanted to. It was just convenient to use during laundry day, and he had figured no one would see it, anyway.

  Intense embarrassment flashed over him as he quickly zipped his jacket. He was still slumped disgracefully on the floor, like a damsel just roughed up by hoodlums. Then someone briskly crossed in front of his gaze and said, “Taigaaa, you’re late! You skipped out on the opening ceremony, didn’t you?!”

  “I woke up late. More importantly, I’m glad I’m in the same class as you again this year, Minorin.”

  “Yeah! I’m glad, too!”

  It was Kushieda Minori herself.

  Minori laughed as she touched the Palmtop Tiger’s hair, as though they were close. She had endearingly called the tiger “Taigaaa,” much like the Palmtop Tiger had called her “Minorin.”

  While Ryuuji watched, dumbfounded, he heard someone whisper. “In their first match, victory goes to Aisaka, the Palmtop Tiger.”

  “Now that you mention it, Takasu just looks scary. He doesn’t really act like a delinquent at all.”

  “Huh? You think?”

  “That’s because he’s no match for the Palmtop Tiger. At any rate, she’s the real deal.”

  “Takasu-kun, are you okay? Aisaka lashing out at you on day one was really unfortunate.”

  It seemed that the misunderstandings were likely to be fixed faster than Ryuuji thought.