Toradora! Vol. 9 Page 3

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! WHOA!”

  Slap, slap, slap! SLAP! Ryuuji managed to avoid two of the blows, which was a spectacular feat, but only made Taiga angrier.

  “Don’t you dare avoid that!” she said stubbornly.

  She latched on to his collar. She grabbed his hair, his ears, and his face in both hands, and then, as if she were going to yell her insults and complaints right at his nose, she took a big breath. In that moment…

  …Ryuuji saw the sidewalk lights reflected in her eyes.

  When she blinked, it was like stars fell from her eyes, glittering with a mysteriously deep color. He felt her skin from up close, thick with her body heat. He felt the strange warmth of the hands that touched his face and the breath that almost grazed his lips.

  “Uh!” He desperately pried himself away from her.

  “Wha—?”

  Shaken by the strangeness of it all, he’d pulled away too aggressively. To escape Taiga’s hot hands, he had writhed with desperation that couldn’t be misconstrued as a joke.

  The two of them wordlessly faced each other. The silence sank into the chilly asphalt.

  Taiga seemed taken aback by Ryuuji’s too-sudden resistance. Her mouth was slightly ajar. She tilted her head as if to say But this is supposed to be normal for us.

  Ryuuji couldn’t say anything. The ears and cheeks she had grabbed still felt hot, like they were burning. He didn’t know what kind of expression he had on his face, but as Taiga looked him, she seemed to realize something.

  “What’s with you…”

  As she took a trembling breath, a faint rosy color rose in her cheeks.

  It’s about Ryuuji—

  “What is with you?!” Taiga’s wide-open eyes glittered with the desperation of a wounded animal.

  “Whoa?!”

  “What! What! What! What! What! What is it?!” She flailed both her arms and started to assail Ryuuji once more. There was a recklessness and desperation about her, as though she were trying to destroy all that her hands could reach. Taiga thrashed her arms and legs like a child as she drove Ryuuji to the wall.

  “What do you want to say to me…?!”

  “Uh…”

  Bam! She hit him in the chest. Then, picking up where she left off, she latched back onto his collar, almost like she believed she could overwrite the strange atmosphere floating around them by redoing everything. But she couldn’t reverse the rosy redness that dyed her face up to her ears. Her breath was stifled, and she was biting her lip, but Taiga continued to glare at Ryuuji.

  Was it his throat or the hand she was holding him with that was hot? Was it his chest or Taiga’s heart that was ringing out—

  Because I like Ryuuji.

  In that moment, Taiga held his throat and shoulders fast as she brought her face close to his. Ryuuji couldn’t even make a sound as his feet failed him and floated in the air.

  He didn’t know what happened, but it was like his brain crashed. Everything suddenly went white.

  The impact was several times worse than when she strangled him. Heaven and earth flipped, and the stars burned out. Everything in the whole world burned to nothing in that heat. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear.

  He saw a glimpse of Taiga’s sullen face as he looked up at the sky that had fallen and realized he was upside down. Now lying faceup on the street, Ryuuji mused over his present situation like an idiot.

  “Ahh…wait, you flipped me over…?!”

  Taiga had flipped him, breezily reversing the sky and ground. Because she was holding his neck, he had been saved from having his head hit the ground, but, well, actually she hadn’t saved him at all.

  “Wh-what do you think you’re doing?! What do you think you are?! A random attacker?! A mugger?! What’s so great about attacking me?!”

  “Sorry. But you were looking at me weird all of a sudden. As a maiden in distress, my instincts kicked in.”

  “I was just surprised because you came back out of nowhere! Actually, you’re the one who attacked me first! I’m the one who was in way more danger!”

  “You tried to strangle me though.”

  “You tried to strangle me even before that!”

  Ryuuji got back on his feet, flailing both arms like a conductor as he encroached on Taiga’s space. Taiga turned away sulkily, which just annoyed him more.

  “I was thinking this whole entire time—This. Whole. Entiiiiire. Time. About what could have happened to you and why you wouldn’t come home. I was worried about you for sooooo long! You didn’t even tell me anything, and then just when I think you’ve suddenly come home, you try to strangle me! You hit me! And to top it all off, you flipped me over! What’s going on here?! Explain! Where have you been up until now?! Was the reason you didn’t come home because you like AHHHHHH!”

  “Whaaat…?”

  Taiga fell silent as Ryuuji cut himself off with that sudden yell. As she slowly and uncomfortably took a step away from him, thick sweat began running down Ryuuji’s forehead, his armpits, and his back. It’s not like I can say that out loud.

  It’s not like I can say that.

  “You like me, don’t you? You thought I was Kitamura and confessed to me. Do you remember? Could it be, maybe, that the reason why you didn’t come home was because you realized that?”

  He couldn’t. He absolutely could not say that.

  Ryuuji swallowed the forbidden words and held his breath. His head went numb, and his body went numb, and for some unknown reason, only his heart continued to squirm in the middle of his chest as though it were an independent living being.

  Taiga’s forehead furrowed. She watched Ryuuji surreptitiously—all while keeping a good two meters between them.

  But…this girl liked him.

  “I-I-I-I-I-I, I-I, I-I-I-I…I-I-I…”

  Had she finally come home because she had prepared herself? Had she come back to face him? To hear his answer?

  “I-I-I got a radish…!”

  Bsht!

  Ryuuji thrust the radish that had fallen out of his eco bag at Taiga’s nose. Still silent, Taiga looked at it.

  “Are you really okay?”

  “I’m fine! I got pork…! I got fried tofu…!”

  As Ryuuji rattled off the names of the things he had bought, Taiga thrust a freezing cold convenience store bag against his cheek. “This is frozen fried rice,” she said.

  “Eeeeek!” Ryuuji reflexively jumped at the sudden coldness. “Th-that was cold! What’re you doing?!”

  “Are you back to your senses now?”

  He gaped. He opened and closed his mouth, grasping for a retort. Who do you think made me this mess in the first place, or Would you rather I tell you something serious out of the blue, or—

  “This’ll take ten days to heal. It’s almost better now.”

  But before he could answer, Taiga pushed up her bangs and pointed to the white bandage on her temple. When he saw her do that, Ryuuji’s complaints all disappeared. The sweat that had soaked his skin suddenly cooled in the midwinter northerly wind.

  “Did…did they give you stitches?”

  Maybe…he had gotten to a point where he couldn’t distinguish between his imagination and reality. That might be why seeing Taiga’s injury with his own eyes was such a shock. Ryuuji couldn’t move as he looked at the white bandage. Even words seemed to escape him.

  Taiga snorted. “I wouldn’t need stitches for something like this. They said they could just bash a huge staple in it to keep it together and make it heal faster, but I said I definitely didn’t need that. It sounded scary. I’ve still got a cut, but it doesn’t hurt. I can wash my head like normal now. It’s just super itchy.”

  “Hey, don’t scratch it!” Ryuuji grabbed her fingers in a fluster as she tried to fiddle with her cut. As though her healing wound suddenly ached now that she’d remembered it was there, Taiga brushed Ryuuji’s hand away roughly.

  “Well… Sorry. I know I made you worry. I didn’t get hurt that bad, as you can s
ee. Also, I lied about being sick. I’m completely fine. I was just skipping school.”

  “I see, so you’re completely fine. Then…what? Huh? Huuh?!”

  As she watched Ryuuji’s eyes go so wide they could have split, Taiga shrugged as though she didn’t care.

  “I did it because I haven’t seen my mom in a while. I didn’t think she’d actually come, so I was pretty emotional. We stayed at a hotel and spent time with each other. We went shopping and ate together, and went to the movies, and talked. She spoiled me as much as I wanted.”

  “You’re close…with your mom…? And that’s why you didn’t come home…?”

  “That’s right. My relationship with my mom is going great, despite the circumstances. We were separated for a few years because she lives pretty far away. See, she’s not like that crummy old man. He’s got that whole irritating ‘He’s a father but doesn’t do anything!’ thing, but she’s not like that, so I think I can behave for her.”

  Taiga nodded to herself. The commentary, though persuasive, felt rehearsed somewhat.

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh…like I’m falling for that…!” Ryuuji held his head and let the confusion from the past week all out with a sigh. “Do you know how worried I was…?! Why would you turn off your cell phone?! If that’s what was going on, then you could have told me! You could have messaged me or something!”

  “My phone battery died.”

  “You could have charged it at a convenience store or shop or somewhere!”

  “Oh, could I? Huh, I didn’t know.”

  I see, I see, so it was the battery… You were taking your sweet time hanging out with your mom… I guess I was the only one stuck in that blizzard for the whole week.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I really am. You, Kitamura-kun, and Minorin looked for me, right?”

  “You don’t remember, though, right…because you were unconscious.”

  “Koigakubo Yuri told me at the hospital. She said you were all reckless, and she was kind of mad, but it made me happy to hear about about it. I promise that next time, if you get stuck in the snow, I’ll go out to find you.”

  After saying something incredibly serious, her nostrils flared as though she were slightly embarrassed. But even as she did that, she nodded. As he watched her, Ryuuji thought, I knew it.

  Taiga didn’t remember anything. He was confident of that. That meant the reason she had come back was because her vacation with her mom was over, and it wasn’t because she had readied herself to hear his answer after confessing.

  In that case—if he pretended he hadn’t heard her, everything would go back to the way it was. Even if he couldn’t change what had happened, he could at least pretend he’d forgotten about it. He could pretend, just like Minori had pretended Ryuuji’s feelings didn’t exist. It had hurt him when she did that, but it probably wouldn’t hurt Taiga, because he would be in sync with Taiga’s feelings about the matter, which were that she wouldn’t tell him how she felt.

  “So, you really don’t remember anything…?”

  Yeah, Taiga nodded. “But—” She turned her long eyelashes down and muttered in a low voice as though she were talking to herself. “I feel like I had this dream. Kitamura-kun carried me on his back, and it was like I was half-asleep and just letting everything out and saying stuff like an idiot. That was…a dream, right?”

  Ryuuji didn’t hesitate. “It was a dream,” he responded.

  In that moment, a sudden, freezing cold gust swept over them. “It’s cold!” Taiga groaned and held down her hair, which had been swept up by the wind. She quickly pulled her coat closed. She rounded her already narrow shoulders so they were even smaller and knit her eyebrows together.

  “Kitamura really did carry you on his back up the cliff, but you didn’t say anything. You were unconscious the whole time—that’s what I heard.”

  “Really? Good. For a second, I was like, ‘Huh?! Maybe that really did happen?!’ and I got super nervous.”

  “You really are—”

  Ryuuji swallowed a hard lump in his throat and licked his lips. Taiga had accepted a lie like that. She could be strangely sharp about things sometimes, but in that moment, it seemed she wasn’t showing any keenness at all.

  “You really are a klutz.”

  What? Taiga pouted for a second. “Tch, That’s kind of frustrating. I guess I can’t argue that. That’s right, I am a klutz. After what happened, I really, really do get that. But…I’m sincere in my own klutzy way.”

  As though she had prepared herself for something, she looked at Ryuuji’s face and said, “I was thinking about it this whole time…did you get to ask Minorin how she really feels? You didn’t lose your chance to talk to her because I caused that mess, right?”

  If his eyes could see the wounds in someone’s heart, Ryuuji thought, then his vision would probably be dyed red right now.

  “You don’t have to worry about me and Kushieda anymore.”

  “Why? Oh, is it because you don’t want me sticking my nose into it since I’m such a troublemaker? In that case, I’ll—”

  “No, it’s not that. That’s what you think? That’s not it. It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to you. I just don’t have a reason to get an answer from her anymore. That’s the truth.”

  Taiga seemed to be at a loss for words. She closed her mouth. Her eyes, which had overflowed with tears when she found out that Minori had rejected Ryuuji, opened wide.

  But no matter how intensely she looked at him, the words he couldn’t say and the feelings he couldn’t question wouldn’t change. Why did you want Kushieda and me to get together?

  “I don’t get what you’re thinking. But I just want you to know…that if you need my help, you just need to tell me. Definitely tell me. In my own klutzy, sincere way, I’ll help you.”

  She probably meant it, too. That was the kind of person Taiga was. If she knew that the person she liked was in love with someone else, she’d try to help that person. Ryuuji knew that. He’d seen what she did when she knew that Kitamura had been tormented by his unrequited love for Kanou Sumire.

  “I can’t figure out what you’re thinking either…”

  Why did she have feelings for him now? What had happened to her feelings for Kitamura?

  Part of him wanted to know, but the other wondered what he would even do if he found out. Would he try to support Taiga’s feelings for Kitamura once again? Would he try to persuade her to remember that she had been in love with Kitamura before? Would he tell her that she no longer had a rival and that all she had to do was try a little harder? Was that really what he was thinking of doing?

  “I’m cold! That’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that standing around here talking was a stupid decision. Let’s go home. We’ll catch colds.” As though trying to cut the conversation with no foreseeable end short, Taiga flipped around. She immediately started walking to the condo entrance.

  “Wait…”

  “No. It’s cold.”

  “Are you just eating frozen fried rice for dinner? Why don’t you eat at my place? It’ll make Yasuko happy. She’s been worried about you this whole time, too,” Ryuuji called out to her in spite of himself, but Taiga turned around slightly and shook her head.

  “It’s fine. I like fried rice. Tell Ya-chan I say ‘hi’ and that Taiga’s doing completely fine.”

  “Don’t be stubborn.”

  “I’m not. I feel like I’ve had the stubbornness crushed out of me…”

  As she went up the steps of the entrance, Taiga turned back around one more time. She had a slight smile on her face, as though she had told a joke. Maybe it was because of the cold, but her pale face was splotched with red right at the tip of her nose.

  “I’m really going home now. I’m tired, so I’m going to eat this quick and then sleep. I’m going to go to school tomorrow, so things will be fine.”

  A cold gust flipped Taiga’s skirt, and the hood of her coat rustled. The auto-lock on the door echoed lo
udly as it closed.

  Chapter 2

  After the nuclear war, civilization was destroyed, and with the proliferation of virus-based biological weapons, ninety percent of the world’s population was obliterated. The remaining humans created their own colonies and could only wait for extinction. However, having lost their masters, atomic-reactor-equipped robotic weapons from the old civilization continued the “war.” They became enemies of those who survived and attacked the colonies.

  One day, a boy living in a colony was chased into the historic “ruins” while escaping the robots. In the back of those ruins, he found and woke a slumbering battle android. No one knew that encounter would change humankind’s fate! That’s the story so far!

  “Why are all the survivors men? They’re missing the better part of humanity.”

  “It’s because most of the ones who survived the virus were really strong guys.”

  “It’s not like guys would date each other just because of that.”

  “That battle android isn’t a guy. It’s sexless. Plus, the guys aren’t actually dating each other yet, they’re just getting really close.”

  “You seem like you’re following the story pretty intently…”

  “It’s because they had me read the script before the broadcast.” Kitamura Yuusaku proudly pushed up his glasses and pulled the top off his bento box. There was seaweed stuck to the bottom of the lid. “Oh, oops.” He diligently reshaped his seaweed until his lunch was back in order.

  Sitting diagonally across from Kitamura, Ryuuji also spread out his lunch. Though he’d made it himself, he didn’t feel happy in the slightest as he was reunited with his familiar but uninspired side dishes.

  Disquieting words that were far too heavy for lunchtime, like “kill it,” “die,” “the apocalypse,” and “nuclear fusion” washed over the classroom. Once the third semester had started, someone had objected to the student council monopolizing the school broadcasts, and so the student council’s five-day-a-week “Supporters of Your Love” program now had to split time with the drama club’s radio play. Though the play’s cast seemed to consist of girls talking in rough voices, in actuality, that wasn’t the intent. The drama club consisted entirely of girls, but all the roles in the screenplay were male.