Toradora! Vol. 7 Read online

  Taiga was peeling up Ryuuji’s upper lip as though she were about to pluck it away. She was doing her best to tear it right off. The part connecting his gums to his lips seemed like it could tear at any moment, and he was afraid she would flip his face right off. Ryuuji automatically turned his head up and stood on his tiptoes.

  “What do you mean she wouldn’t go to the meeting spot, you idiot?! Idiot! Idiot! Idioooot! You think you’re on standby?! What do you think you’re doing?! You think you’re Hachiko the dog?! Did you think that if you just waited silently and without doing anything Minorin would just conveniently ask you to meet?! Oh my, my, my, what an unbelievable person you are! Why, it’s terrifying! What a travesty!”

  “Ahhheeek~!”

  “I leverage capital punishment on your passive nature! You can continue waiting for Minorin in the afterlife!”

  “Ahhhhheeeeeek~!”

  Help me! he thought.

  At the genuine threat to his existence, he closed his eyes, before which his life started to flash. Kindergarten…peeing his pants at the graduation ceremony…his elementary school entrance ceremony…being the only one with a second-hand backpack…going on a trip his second year…Yasuko sleeping in and forgetting to make his lunch…and right around then…his nickname, “prodigal bastard,” being cemented in place…

  “Oh.”

  At the same time as that small sound, Taiga’s fingers unexpectedly let go of his lip. He staggered after being released from the force hoisting his head up. He opened his eyes, which were wet with tears.

  “Whoa!”

  Ryuuji grunted, too. The people around them had also stopped and raised their voices all over the place at the scene, “Whoa!” “Amazing!”

  A belt of light had lit up in front of the stores that sandwiched the road.

  The illuminated displays that had probably been made to order by the neighborhood association switched on all at once. The yellow, glittering lights traced loops and waves as though crawling along the eaves and continuously blinked on and off. There was a blue, blinking arch of brilliant lights that stretched as far as the eye could see. In a moment, the sky of the store-filled streets had become a too-vivid planetarium as the pale stars of the evening disappeared.

  The beauty of those lights.

  Jingle jingle jingle. Starting with the sound of bells, background music began pouring through the speakers. Smiling Santas and red-nosed reindeer clung to the imitation fir trees that hung from the streetlamps, flashing brightly. A speech bubble-shaped light blinked, “Merry Christmas!”

  “Right… Oh, right! It’s almost Christmas!”

  In the glittering lights, Taiga extended her arms widely and looked up to the heavens. She wore an innocent smile he had never seen her use before as she did a full turn to face Ryuuji. Then her voice rang out, “It’s amaaaa…zing! Oh, how beautiful this is! How lovely! We didn’t have lights like these last year!”

  He saw the LEDs twinkle in her eyes, gleaming like brilliant gems.

  “I wonder if there’s a tree somewhere, too?!”

  At Taiga’s behavior, Ryuuji forgot the pain in his upper lip and smiled despite himself.

  “Yeah,” he said, “they put a lot of spirit into this year’s decorations. Christmas, huh, it really is coming up, now that you mention it.”

  “You know what, I loooooo…”

  Taiga closed her eyes tight, formed her hands into fists, and crouched. “…oooove Christmas!” she yelled, and like a firework, did a silly hop into the air and stretched out all of her limbs. That kid’s super excited, someone in the crowd mumbled. Even some people they didn’t know were smiling at her. As she enthusiastically spread her arms to the sky and threw her head back, Taiga’s eyes glittered all the more. They were wet, almost as though she were about to cry.

  “Ahh, I’m so looking forward to it! I have to be a good girl for a while! I need to be a good girl! He’ll be approaching the skies in Japan soon!”

  “Who will?”

  “That’s obvious. Santa is! Santa Claus!”

  There was no embarrassment or fear of others’ judgment in her yell. Taiga gave him a full-faced smile.

  “Give me one. I’ll carry one of your bags.”

  She stole one of the ecobags from Ryuuji’s hands. Ah, he thought, she’s snatched it… Wait, no. His actions were automatic.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” said Taiga.

  “Don’t die on me, Taiga!”

  I don’t have a fever. She pushed aside the hand Ryuuji had pressed against her forehead, but she was gentler than usual when she did it. In that moment, the sting and ridicule was absent from her earnest gaze.

  “I just want you to let me help every once in a while! I’m serious about being a good girl when Santa’s so close by! I really, really love Christmas!”

  “Well, I get that, but this is just too sudden… Actually, what’s with you? Why do you love Christmas so much?”

  “What do you mean ‘Why?!’ Do I need a reason to love Christmas?! Look, the streets are so pretty and sparkly right now. Everyone is smiling and happy and…right! Ryuuji, I have something to ask! Could you make a lavish feast on the twenty-fifth?! Something amazing that we don’t eat normally! Like tons of chicken! Or tons of beef! Or something else! Like something a foreigner would eat!”

  Tons of chicken and beef!

  Had Ryuuji ever encountered words that had so sincerely moved him to the core? Ryuuji’s sanpaku eyes quivered with a glitter of maddened delight. Then, he licked his lips. He wasn’t thinking, I don’t care whether it’s chicken, beef, or human! Hra hra ha ha ha! or anything like that—the romantic Christmas lights had simply reflected in his wide-open eyes.

  “Well, now that you say that, I suddenly feel an itch to put my skills to use! Yeah, I feel it burning inside me! We’ll have a special feast on Christmas! All right, leave it to me!”

  “I will! I’ll go to the department store basement and buy the most delicious cake—the entire cake! Hee hee, what kind of cake should I buy?! Maybe a yule log?! Ahh, I need to get a magazine and do some research! Right, we should get champagne for Ya-chan—the really good kind!”

  For a moment, they grew more and more enthusiastic as they stood in the middle of the street, but then it hit them. They even fell silent in perfect synchrony.

  “So,” said Ryuuji, “the only problem is…”

  “Christmas Eve, right,” said Taiga. “I don’t know who went and decided it, but…”

  “It’s considered a couple’s holiday all over the world, isn’t it…”

  Ryuuji and Taiga exchanged looks with each other. A moment later, they both sighed. “Ahhh.” Of course, what came to their minds was each of their crushes. For Ryuuji, that was Kushieda Minori, and for Taiga, that was Kitamura Yuusaku.

  Taiga, in particular, had circumstances that would warrant a sigh.

  “I’m completely done for. I can’t invite him over or anything. It’s like…what would I even call it? It’s like I’m imposing on him. Doesn’t it seem like that? He just got his heart broken, so he’d be lonely.”

  She was talking about what had happened two weeks ago. On the same day that Taiga had been suspended, Kitamura had boldly pulled a stunt and been spectacularly rejected by the previous student council president in front of the whole school.

  Though it must have been a shock to Taiga that Kitamura had a big brothe—no, a girl he liked, that big brotherly patriarch—that girl had moved away to study abroad. It wasn’t an even playing field, but…

  “Kitamura was pretty worried that you were suspended.”

  “No way! Really? H-he did message me to ask how I was doing a few times.”

  “It’s true. If you invited Kitamura over, he definitely wouldn’t turn you down.”

  “Aaaaah…he would, right?! I don’t want it to happen like that! It’s kind of like…there’s an invisible force coercing him… I wouldn’t be able to tell if he was coming because he was really happy about being invited or bec
ause he was just being polite…”

  “You’re right. If you were a shrewd girl who could take advantage of the opportunity and bring in the win, you wouldn’t be laid-back and shopping with me for dinner on the Sunday night before your suspension was over.”

  “That’s exactly right…” Taiga dejectedly muttered as they slowly started to walk again.

  He wanted to support Taiga in her love life, but the situation had become too messy. Taiga had gotten in a fight with the person who had rejected Kitamura, and that was why she was suspended. Naturally, Kitamura was indebted to Taiga, so there was no way he could deny anything Taiga asked of him. In other words, she had too much of an advantage, and it was unfair to the point that Taiga couldn’t make a move.

  With Taiga, who was already dispirited at his side, Ryuuji became disheartened himself. He definitely could never invite his own crush over on Christmas Eve, either.

  The reasons he couldn’t invite Minori were even simpler than Taiga’s. First, it was because it was Christmas Eve. Frankly, that was just too much pressure. The twenty-fourth of December just held too significant of a romantic association in the entire world (or maybe it was just in Japan?). Of course, you’d want to ask your crush over because of the day it was, but if you were having a date on that day, then it had to be because you were confessing or proposing. He didn’t think he could end the day with a, “Today was fun, wasn’t it? Well, see ya later.” And to confess to Minori, well—that was i-i-i-impossible. It was too quick and also impossible. The other reason he couldn’t invite her over was more realistic. On Christmas Eve, which was the busiest time of the year for restaurants, Minori the workaholic would probably be at her part-time job.

  “Ahh…even if inviting Kushieda over weren’t impossible, staying at home would be boring. On the other hand, if we went out, there would probably be couples all over each other… Maybe we should go rent a DVD and watch it at your place.”

  “What?! What are you saying, you giant lecherous ma—”

  Oh, can’t do that, good girl, good girl. As soon as she began to yell at him, her mouth contorted and snapped shut. Taiga massaged the center of her forehead. Then she put on an amicable expression to rival Santa’s.

  “You and your giant libido. We can’t do that. What are you saying? You’re going to make sure you invite Minorin out. It’s okay, you have me on your side. You have me—reborn as angel Taiga-sama, the cherub of love.”

  Yay, she mouthed as she put up a V sign for victory. Without thinking, Ryuuji let his genuine thoughts slip out of his mouth.

  “You’re grossing me out!”

  Taiga even took that in stride as she put her hands together. “Say what you will. Right now, I’m a living Buddha.”

  “Are you trying to fake it like Kawashima?! And a Buddha! Weren’t you supposed to be an angel?!”

  “Ahh, an angel, right, an angel. The angel Taiga has resolved to even give away the clothes off her back to make sure everyone has a happy Christmas—even if she were to entirely strip herself in the end.”

  “You said you’d strip yourself. I heard all of that. Then let’s have you do it!”

  “Go ahead and do as you please! But make sure you put everything to good use! Anyway, you’re going to ask Minori out on a date for Christmas Eve! You definitely are! I, the angel Taiga, will go all out as the head of this production! Hee hee, I wonder if Santa’s watching~! I wonder if he’s seeing how determined I am to be good and pure~!”

  Ryuuji didn’t even have the energy to poke fun at Taiga. To be frank, trying to understand her was too difficult. Plus, what was the point of raising the hurdle on a mission that already had a low chance of success? There wasn’t anything more dangerous than a determined Taiga—though he couldn’t say that out loud.

  “Ryuuji, you have to put your heart into it! That’s right, because it’s Christmas! I want everyone to be happy! That’s why I need to be a good girl!”

  Taiga’s hair shook as she swung her head up to see the lights, and her eyes glittered. It seemed that her determination had grown even firmer. In proportion to that, the level of danger was also steadily increasing.

  “…I don’t need you to produce anything. Please stop, really.”

  “Why?”

  Ryuuji had cut the fuse short.

  “Because it’d definitely be impossible! If I invite her out on a date on Christmas Eve, then she’ll know that I like her! It’s completely impossible! It’s too impossible! It’s too obviously suspicious! That’s not going to seem casual!”

  “It’s not like it doesn’t not…doesn’t have to be not…doesn’t not have to be not… It’s not like you have to make it seem casual.”

  She puffed out her chest in pride and lifted an eyebrow. The angel Taiga thrust a pale finger up in front of Ryuuji’s nose. Whoa, that’s dangerous, thought Ryuuji—if Taiga hadn’t been in angel mode, she might have thrust her finger right up his nose, poking right at his brain.

  “It’s fine if she knows. That’s right, you just need to take this opportunity to confess to her once and for all. It’s Christmas, so you have to tell her the thing you most want to tell her! You’ve got to be honest, Ryuuji! You have the spirits of me and Santa behind you!”

  “C-c-c-con—you idiot! It’s not like I could do that! Whether you’re an angel or a Buddha, or Santa’s watching, the impossible is impossible!”

  He was close to blowing a fuse. Ryuuji desperately shook his head. Of course, he wanted to tell Minori his feelings. He wanted to tell her outright that he liked her. On Christmas Eve, on the day for lovers, he wanted to let his long-unrequited love prosper.

  But Ryuuji was too awkward and cowardly and pessimistic. He could only think of the bad things that could happen, like if his one-sided feelings caused a problem for Minori or if she cut off the small bond they had fostered until then. He couldn’t think that there was a happy future waiting for him after confessing. In that case, he thought that it was better to keep the status quo.

  It’s fiiine, it’s fiiine, leave it to meee, Taiga whispered in a sing-song voice as she started walking in front of him. Then, in the middle of the busy crowd that was coming and going, she suddenly flipped around. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but she took the nibbled-on closet dehumidifier—actually it was just the doughnut ring—and hoisted it above her head.

  “Hee hee, how’s it look? Don’t I look like an actual angel?”

  “You don’t. Actually, you’re dropping crumbs on your head.”

  “No way?! Waah…get them off, get them off!”

  As he sighed at Taiga, who was so silly it was kind of sad, he batted at her hair whorl. The sweet-smelling crumbs dropped down in front of her nose and into her long hair. What an idiot. Seriously.

  Well, though. How about it?

  Putting aside her comments on staging a production for him, it might be nice to have Taiga be a “good girl” once during the year. Ryuuji looked down at Taiga, who was batting off the crumbs of doughnut that had fallen on her face, and couldn’t help but smile.

  All of humankind probably wished for a happy Christmas.

  ***

  “Ah! Tiger-san is here!”

  “The Palmtop Tiger is back at school!”

  “Tiger-saaan! Thank you for your hard work!”

  Whoaaaaaaaaaa! The deep voices that rumbled like the earth echoed along with the boisterous sound of footsteps. Ryuuji automatically shrunk away and quickly moved to the outskirts of the corridor. That had been the right thing to do.

  Taiga, who had arrived at school for the first time in two weeks, was surrounded on her right, her left, her front, and her back by a guy here, a guy there, another guy, and another…all of whom were part of the “Palmtop Tiger Fan Club.” It was another name for the group of male students who were obsessed with combat. The group of guys continued to turn their fevered gazes to the Palmtop Tiger, Aisaka Taiga, who possessed overwhelming power, natural fighting instincts, and a tyrannical, merciless nature overfl
owing with sadism. They actually had been aware of the club for a while. It had steadily grown in number, and during the pro wrestling event and Miss Festival contest at the culture festival, that growth exploded to the point that by the time anyone noticed, they had turned into a large and perverse corps.

  “Hey, Takasu-kun, can you move a little?! Tiger-san, there’s something we want to ask you!”

  “Whoa!”

  Brushed aside, Ryuuji was pushed even further into the wall. In a split second, Taiga, whom he had come to school with, was surrounded by guys. Even though it was the middle of winter, he was stuck in the hot and sweaty crowd and the impassioned swirling eddy of hollers.

  “Tiger-san! We just have to know! Can the Phantom Big Brother vs. Palmtop Tiger fight be counted as a victory for you?!”

  “You knew the patriarch was going to go study abroad, so you went to settle things once and for all with a duel, right?! Whoa, what a passionate development!”

  “We believed it was a victory for you, Tiger-san!”

  What a mess… Ryuuji came to the realization as he was kicked out of the ring of passion. The nightmarish battle from two weeks ago had, it seemed, been chalked up to this among the students who hadn’t known the circumstances. The patriarch left amid rumors of the fight’s outcome, and Taiga had been suspended—but the fight didn’t happen for reasons as simple as that.

  “Quiet!”

  Whoaaa. The guys went silent at Taiga’s voice. Taiga raised a hand as if to settle those around her. They squinted at her like she was a brilliant object of worship and gratefully turned their heads up to her. Ryuuji held his breath. The normal Taiga would have screamed or hollered at them, torn them to pieces and punched them, punched them and torn them to pieces, kicked them up, stomped them down, maybe even spat on them, and ignored them after. But today, Taiga was different.

  “That day’s battle was…an ordeal! A lot of things went down, and it was a close call!”