Toradora! Vol. 9 Read online

  “Everything’s about the same as back then.”

  He remembered the night of the school trip when they’d talked in the hotel lounge. His heart had been throbbing. It had been his final chance to confess, and it had been when he’d finally, clearly realized that Kushieda Minori would never like him.

  Once he knew that, he couldn’t continue with his one-sided love.

  “It must be awkward, then.”

  “It’s not awkward so much as…I don’t know. It’s not like I’m avoiding her, though.”

  “Did you give up?”

  “It’s like I used up everything I had…”

  He could have kept having feelings for her, even if he never got anything out of it. He could have prepared himself to keep being hurt but also to pray for something to happen. He could have continued to believe that Minori might change her mind. He could throw himself into beautiful, extraordinary, sacrificial love. He knew he could have. He understood that was an option.

  But…

  “I see…” said Noto.

  “Ah, well,” said Haruta, “things just turn out the way they will~!”

  Ryuuji wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that.

  He felt like the line had been drawn, not in the moment that Minori rejected his feelings but when he decided he wouldn’t, couldn’t do that. Ryuuji knew firsthand that love could end in ways other than rejecting or being rejected by someone.

  Having done that, he could get a fresh start. He could do that—but he wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t just move on that easily.

  Just when he had given up on his unrequited feelings for Minori, he’d found out about Taiga’s. Ryuuji didn’t know why she hadn’t come back. In the end, the one who was left behind—who was abandoned—was him.

  It was like he was still wandering in that blizzard, even now. He felt like a prisoner, confined in that impossible world of ice along with Taiga’s illusory voice. The real world progressed forward, day after day, and he couldn’t even tell how he would be feeling tomorrow, much less what his future would be like.

  “Agh, it’s cold…”

  The chill that seemed to crawl up his back made Ryuuji grit his back teeth. As he rubbed his freezing shoulders, he thought about how easy it would be to flip through the days of his past like a disposable calendar, ripping each of them off and throwing them away.

  “Brighten up, Taka-chan. We’re almost to the ramen, okay?” Haruta smiled as he poked at Ryuuji’s hunched back. Ryuuji breathed out white air. “Things have been rough for you, haven’t they, Taka-chan? Kushieda rejected you on Christmas Eve, and then you got hospitalized, and then you got rejected again at the school trip, plus Taiga got lost, and now she’s been out since then. Of course you feel bad.”

  “On the other hand, Kushieda-shi hasn’t changed at all,” said Noto. “If I hadn’t heard it from you, Takasu, I wouldn’t have known that she’d rejected a guy at all. I wonder how she’s so tenacious?”

  “I wonder what happened with her fight with Ami-chan,” said Haruta. “It’s hard to tell what’s going on with women from the sidelines. Actually, did you make up with Maya-sama, Noto-chi?”

  “Huh…well, she’s completely ignoring me right now, of course…”

  The three boys looked at each other’s faces, pitifully ignorant of what to say. Ryuuji rubbed his freezing nose and ended up looking down at his own toes.

  Minori was probably at softball right around then. All they’d said to each other that day was Taiga’s out today, too. I haven’t been able to get a hold of her on the phone.

  The prisoner in the blizzard world fruitlessly inspected his own wounds. Love was futile—that was the only truth he knew.

  “Oh, looks like the line’s moving a bunch all at once.”

  As a rowdy group of people came out of the ramen store, the long line gradually shortened.

  “Okaaay! The next three guests can now make their way in!”

  When they heard the energetic voice calling them, the three of them turned to each other with faces that said “Finally!” They could put aside the chill of reality because, beyond the hanging cloth that covered the door, steaming hot ramen was waiting for them. They pushed up the deep blue cloth and finally stepped into the dim shop where the air was fogged with humidity.

  “Please take three seats at the counter! Ngahh?!”

  That Ngahh?! was pretty enthusiastic, too… Ryuuji thought as he looked up at the female employee putting out a glass of water for him.

  “Whoa?!”

  He nearly fell right out of the chair he was about to sit in but caught himself. On Ryuuji’s right, Noto dropped his bag, and on Ryuuji’s left, Haruta had taken a mouthful of water before he spat it all out with a “BFAAH?!”

  “Don’t look at meeeeeeeeee!”

  From where she was standing behind the counter, the employee squirmed.

  “Just kidding! You can take a good ol’ gander at me…”

  She posed proudly in front of them, a towel snugly tied around her head. She wore a black T-shirt with the name of the ramen shop on it and a matching black apron. Kushieda Minori’s mouth curved up as she chuckled “Heh heh.” She was most definitely real and made up of tangible mass.

  “Oh…” Without thinking, Ryuuji pointed at her bold face. “What’re…you?!”

  “I’m an employee!”

  “No, but…wh-what about softball club?!”

  “It’s over! The days are shorter in winter, so we wrap up earlier! But you sure surprised me. I had no idea you were all lined up out there. Well, how about I take your orders now? Also, if you say you want ‘ra-women instead of ra-men,’ I’ll poke your eyes out.”

  “One ra-women.”

  “A ra-women please.”

  “Give me a ra-women.”

  Bsht, bsht, bsht. Starting from the right, Minori’s thumb jabbed one of each of their eyes in order.

  “We’re sorry! Three ramens please,” Noto said.

  “Okay, good choice! Three ramens coming up!”

  ROGER! They heard a voice rumble from the kitchen, which was at a level higher than the counter.

  The busy employees going in and out from the kitchen were lit up with an intense light. Ryuuji could see countless polished pots sitting on top of flames that glowed from the back of the kitchen. Most of the employees were men, but there were a few women, and then there was Minori. They were all drenched in sweat as they skillfully managed the customers’ orders.

  “So you started another job here, too?” said Ryuuji. “What happened to the family restaurant?”

  Minori, reaching across the counter to wipe it down, turned toward Ryuuji. “I didn’t quit, but this place has better pay, so I got two hours here to try it out.”

  She flashed a peace sign… No, it was a two-hour sign. Her smile was as brilliant as ever. Her smile was the definition of energetic. Minori had no concern for the change in Ryuuji’s heart as she smiled at him.

  “Actually, Kushieda, can you even make raaamen~? I wouldn’t want your amateur raaamen after lining up outside for an hour and a half.”

  “’Course not. I’m just on the floor. I also wash the dishes and manage the line.”

  “Check please!” someone called, and Minori quickly answered the person as she flew to the register. They watched her go.

  “So while we were just standing around in the cold, she finished softball club and started work…” Ryuuji unconsciously mumbled. She’s way too tough. Noto nodded slightly from beside him.

  While he’d been brooding about trivial stuff like disposable calendars or whatever, Kushieda Minori had been, and still was, working. Unlike Ryuuji, she was always moving forward. She was leaving Ryuuji further and further behind. The distance between them only widened. With the desperation of an animal that would die if it stopped moving, she couldn’t even pause to talk to Ryuuji, the one she had shaken off.

  They were both only human, and even the same age, so why were they so different? Maybe it w
as a question of what kind of drive a person was born with. But in that case, hadn’t he already lost by a large margin?

  “Why are you always working so much?” Noto asked Minori as she took away some bowls on the tables. She adeptly piled the bowls on top of each other as she used her free hand to busily wipe down the table.

  “Because our second year ends in just two months. It’s my last spurt before I head to the finish line.”

  Come to think of it, Minori hadn’t given Ryuuji a clear answer when he had asked her something similar in the past. He felt like Taiga had once mentioned not knowing why Minori worked so hard, either.

  “No chitchat, part-timer! Get the bowls cleared!”

  Minori’s shoulders jerked up when she heard the sudden shout. “That’s the boss. His eyes are gonna open soon.” She ran off, leaving them with those parting words. Ryuuji and the others looked at each other.

  “His eyes? Are gonna open?”

  “Are his eyes always closed or something? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  In that moment, the whole restaurant suddenly went silent. The customers’ eyes went beyond the counter to a lone middle-aged man who was illuminated with light. The man’s eyes were firmly closed.

  Is he going to open them? one of the guests gulped.

  What the heck is he doing?

  Fwoosh! The man’s eyes opened.

  “Special technique—reincarnation cycle!”

  He grabbed several netted ladles filled with balled-up ramen noodles from a gigantic, boiling pot. Then he hurled the steaming noodles around and spun them vertically. The hot water that flew off the noodles landed right on the trio’s faces.

  “Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot!”

  Though they didn’t know it as they writhed at being splattered by boiling water, this was a demonstration that only the normally close-eyed chef could do. In the restaurant (which was named Zodiac), this was the chef’s method of straining water from the ramen noodles.

  This is dangerous! Ryuuji bent back, but the other guests were entranced, thrusting their heads out as they tried to get even a drop of boiling water on their own faces.

  ***

  The ramen had been good, but Ryuuji ended up getting home later than expected.

  He had wrapped his scarf all the way up to his mouth and held eco bags in either of his hands as he hurried down the gloomy Zelkova-lined path alone at a slight jog. His ears hurt so much from the wind that they felt like they were being torn apart.

  Speed was his priority for that day’s dinner. Even though he was a sucker for side dishes, he shook off the temptation and stuck to buying just fried things, pork, and a radish, planning to make an easy pork and grated radish soup. He had some great cabbage he’d gotten from his landlady, plus minced green onion to use in the stock, and, come to think of it, he’d gotten some citrus yuzu from his landlady, too. He had more than enough condiments, and other than that, the remaining ingredients he needed to stick into the dish were just Japanese sake and konbu seaweed. If he added those together, the moisture that would come out of the cabbage would automatically create a soup.

  He should still have frozen rice. He could be done with it in just twenty minutes.

  His footsteps rang out over the freezing asphalt. He turned at the familiar corner and arrived at his usual street. Then he stopped to look up at the second story window of the condo next door.

  During that week, he’d developed a bad habit of stopping at that spot.

  The window he looked up at was still curtained. The living room was dark, and there were no signs of anyone moving in it.

  So she still hasn’t come back. Ryuuji unconsciously furrowed his brows. What in the world could the owner of that place be doing, and where was she doing it, and why hadn’t she come back?

  The whisper he’d heard on the class trip revived in his mind. I just like Ryuuji. Ryuuji had heard it. He had heard Taiga’s last words. Is there a clue in them? Did she leave some kind of hint about why she hasn’t come back?

  Had she really gotten sick like the homeroom teacher told him? He’d heard she had barely gotten a scratch in the fall, but maybe her injuries had actually been worse than that.

  If that wasn’t it, was it because she thought that he and Minori would get together, and the thought was too painful for her to bear?

  Was it because she’d figured out that Ryuuji found out how she felt, and because she couldn’t show her face in front of him?

  “You idiot…”

  He tried saying it quietly out loud. Taiga probably wouldn’t be able to hear it, but that was what he wanted to say to her.

  If the reason she hadn’t come back wasn’t because she was sick, but because of something like that, then Taiga really was an idiot. What use was there in running away like this? Did she plan on never coming back and never seeing him again? Did she think she could get away with that and leave him behind to pretend none of it ever happened? Did she think she could just close her eyes and plug her ears so she would never know what happened between him and Minori?

  What if—Ryuuji thought, but then shook his head.

  No matter how long he looked up at the extravagant condo in thought, he would never find an answer. If he didn’t ask Taiga herself, he’d never know what the truth was.

  His whole body shook from the chill of the northerly winds that he couldn’t even open his eyes. Ryuuji took a deep breath. Anyway, he had to get dinner ready. He side-eyed the condo entrance as he tried walking past it.

  “Gweh!”

  That was when it happened.

  Everything in front of his eyes went dark. His throat closed up, and he couldn’t breathe. In that moment, as he fell over, Ryuuji understood the true nature of a random attack.

  BAM! He dropped his bag. “Ta…”

  Taiga—was going to kill him.

  “Oh, yikes…”

  At the corner of his vision, he saw the small hand that had been holding on to his scarf suddenly let it go. After being so cowardly strangled from behind, his throat was assailed by the cold outside air.

  “Guh-hck! Ugh…cough cough…! Cough!”

  “Stop, you’re being way too dramatic.”

  Ryuuji gagged pitifully, still on one knee and half in tears.

  “You…you idiot…!”

  Without thinking, he shouted the message he’d wanted to tell her earlier.

  “You strangle someone and just say, ‘Oh, yikes?!’ I actually lost consciousness for a second, like seriously! What are you trying to do to me?! Who comes up to someone like that?!”

  The more he talked, the more impassioned he became, but Taiga just pouted. Her expression seemed to boastfully say Oh, how could you? It’s not like this is my fault. He pointed a finger right at her face.

  “Oh, how could you? It’s not like this is my fault.”

  She said it out loud! She actually said it!

  Ryuuji’s eyes glinted crazily as Taiga proudly puffed out her chest. Her expression, coupled with the way she thrust her chin high into the air, made it seem as though insolence itself were wearing clothes and walking around.

  “I saw you around that corner. I thought about calling out to you, but yelling in public is kind of embarrassing, right? I tried waving my hand at you a little, but you didn’t notice me at all. Is there something wrong with your eyes? Have you got an oil slick on them or something? Are you actually washing your face?”

  “Whatdidyousay…?!” Ryuuji growled as though he were reading aloud a curse, still guarding his precious throat with both his hands. “Don’t mess with me! You know what, you—you—what were you… What were you doing—”

  That was all he could manage to say. Ryuuji’s lips froze right then. His voice stuck in his throat. The finger he held pointed at the tip of Taiga’s nose quivered, and he couldn’t bring himself to say the next words.

  “…Taiga, it’s you!”

  He finally got his voice to work again. Then, he simply bent over backwards. He opened his eyes wide, rai
sed both his hands, and just sat right down on the street.

  “Huh? You’re being weird. What’s wrong with you?”

  Ryuuji’s spine quivered. Taiga really had come back.

  She was standing right there before his very eyes.

  “You can keep blabbering in the afterlife,” Taiga growled. Her lips twisted up, and she gave him a look that said, I’m gonna be the one to send you there. With ferocity befitting the Palmtop Tiger, she grumbled unpleasantly in her throat.

  She had her school uniform and her usual duffel coat on. A giant bag crossed her chest, and she had both hands in her pockets. Her nose was red from the cold. Her long hair was tied up and spilling down one side of her shoulder. Instead of wrapping her scarf around her neck, she had just left it loose like she was some thug from the mafia.

  He spotted a white bandage on her forehead.

  “Ta…Taiga…”

  She came back. She came back home. Ryuuji’s lips quivered. Tch, Taiga clicked her tongue.

  “Why are you being all weird now?” Seemingly annoyed, she twisted away and glared down at Ryuuji from a 45-degree angle as he sat on the street.

  “You-you-yo…”

  “Like I said, what?!”

  “Wh…where did you go…?! Why didn’t you come home right away?!”

  “Hrk!”

  Ryuuji grabbed at the easiest part of Taiga that he could reach. He wasn’t trying to get back at her for what she had done earlier, but this just happened to be both ends of her scarf. As a result, he was now strangling Taiga as he shook her as though he were interrogating her.

  “Do you know just how worried I was about you?! What the heck! Were you! Doing! Up until now?! And who were you with?!”

  “Guh…that hurts, you idiot!”

  Voom! Taiga’s right hand tore through the air as though trying to break the sound barrier. She hit Ryuuji’s chin. That hurt, but—but—but—but—

  No matter what I do…

  “What’s wrong with you?! You pig-dog, demon-faced devil-grimace! You skeleton!”