Toradora! Vol. 7 Page 5

  He wasn’t gloating about having obtained new abilities—“Here it comes, the cursed poison smoke from my eyes!”—he was just exasperated by the girl in front of him.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be a good girl until Christmas? Now you’re suddenly plotting larceny… I can see the greed clouding your eyes.”

  “Well, you just make it sound bad.”

  Taiga crossed her arms and languidly closed her eyes with their long lashes.

  “First of all, I think you’re in the wrong, Ryuuji, for not telling me such a wonderful lunch broadcast started. You should have been recording it for me.”

  “If I told you about it, you would have wanted to listen to it. And if I recorded it in class, I would have looked like an idiot. I thought that telling you about it while you were suspended would be mean, so I was trying to be considerate.”

  “Oh, no, no. You don’t get it at all. You have no idea what it means to be considerate. Plus, you’re being all smug, as if you’d done a good thing. There’s nothing more conceited than that. Your personality is like an old man who thinks a good day is putting a pile of salt on top of a slug and watching it melt while the sun sets. Even your face is abnormal. You’ve got the immoral face of someone who really is just a dog at heart. But I won’t scold you right now, Ryuuji. I won’t punch you or kick you. I won’t beat you up or strangle you or kill you, even. I won’t even insult you by saying you’re useless. Isn’t that amazing? Aren’t I doing a great job acting like a good girl? Ehee.”

  “I’ve had enough, so stop already!”

  Ryuuji dropped his chopsticks in despair. My personality is like putting salt on a slug!

  Taiga completely ignored him and blew her bangs up with a small sigh.

  “But it really is a bummer. Well…it’s not like I can really go in to steal it in the middle of the night. I just want to somehow get my hands on Kitamura’s beautiful voice, since I missed it while I was suspended. I want to be able to fast-forward it to the places I want to listen to and customize it to my liking. I just want to listen to my very own version of Kitamura-kun’s voice, all for me…”

  Pat. As Taiga was saying that, someone tapped her shoulder.

  “Tiger, if this helps, I’ll let you have it.”

  Taiga almost shot into the air as she realized someone had overheard her uber-embarrassing conversation. It had also surprised Ryuuji, since the students who had come to talk to Taiga were some girls she really wasn’t that close to. The girls handed Taiga a CD.

  “I’m part of the broadcast committee. Maruo asked me to record the lunch broadcasts every day. I only have the recordings for up to yesterday, but if you want them, I’ll give them to you.”

  Ryuuji and Taiga automatically exchanged looks and stopped thinking for several seconds.

  “Uh wh-wh…huh? Wh-why…?”

  Taiga eventually squeezed out a question. The answer was concise.

  “Well, we just happened to hear you say you wanted to listen to it. I just brought the backup CDs today, too. So…”

  “Yeah, right, right. We also recorded today’s broadcast, and we’re planning on recording all the future ones. If you want them, we can make copies for you. The broadcast is kind of fun to listen to, after all. It’s pretty funny.”

  They pushed the CD into Taiga’s hesitating, shaking hands. Taiga’s cheeks flushed red, and she kicked her chair back in a fluster as she stood.

  “Uh-um-um…”

  For a moment she looked back at Ryuuji as though imploring him. Say it, Ryuuji urged her with his hand.

  “Th-thank you…”

  She twisted and fidgeted. Taiga was shy as shy could be when she finally whispered the words in a low voice. The girls smiled and waved their hands at her.

  “It’s nothing, really. Think of it as a gift for celebrating the end of your suspension.”

  “Right, yeah. If you weren’t here, Tiger, school just wouldn’t be fun. Isn’t it great that you got to come back?”

  They returned to their seats where they had their bento spread out. Taiga was in rigor mortis for a while after that, but suddenly, as though she had come to a decision about something, she nodded. She pulled out a box of snacks from her desk, went after the girls, and thrust it out at them.

  “…Nn!”

  She said.

  “Oh! Thank you! These are really good.”

  “I love these, too! I’ll take one, too.”

  Then as she went back to where Ryuuji was sitting with her nostrils flared. She cradled the CD and squinted her eyes as her face went red. Even her neck turned a warm-looking pink.

  “D-d-did you see that just now?! I can’t believe I got so lucky?! Is this really okay?! I’m too happy!”

  She squealed as she stomped on Ryuuji’s feet under the desk. Incidentally, this wasn’t an attack, but like when an overjoyed cat head-butts its owner. Ryuuji could only grin and bear it.

  “That really was lucky,” he said. “The girls treat you way nicer than I’d have expected. I wonder if it’s with the blessing of the patron saint? Anyway, now you don’t need to steal it.”

  “Yeah!”

  Taiga took a big bite of lettuce fried rice that was loaded with mini tomatoes. Ryuuji also took a huge bite of the same meal across from her. Of course, the lunches were perfectly made that day, as they were every day. It had acidity from the tomatoes and crunch from the lettuce. With one egg per person, the finishing touch was scallops from a can. They also had Szechuan pickles and peppers and stir-fried chicken breast as sides. They had cucumber and seaweed salad topped with special sesame dressing, and afterward, they had mandarin jelly for dessert. The bento were a little lavish that day. Ryuuji put his heart into them, since it was the first day after Taiga’s suspension.

  Even though they were having a special lunch, Minori wasn’t in the classroom because of a club meeting. That was the only disappointing part about it.

  “I got it! I got it! I got it! Ehee hee!”

  Dancing a little, Taiga dug into her fried rice. She genuinely seemed happy, and her eyes squinted. He watched her face to divert him from his ennui.

  “I fiiiinally got my bread! The school store was packed!”

  “Is Kitamura on the radio today, too~? What is that? Today’s song is ancient.”

  “Don’t say that. Our homeroom teacher picked it.”

  “Geh, that’s kind of sad.”

  Noto and Haruta, the bread brigade, pulled chairs up to Ryuuji’s desk. There were three guys at just two desks and the person at the small edge would have to be scrunched up, but well, that was just how it was. Lunch was still fun. The song finally ended and Kitamura’s somewhat fake-sounding voice came back on over the speakers.

  “So, today’s high is eight degrees Celsius, and today’s low is three degrees. We seem to be in the dead of winter now. The wind is cold, and the air is dry… That seems pretty terrible, and influenza is burning its way through…”

  Shut up, Noto joked as he nibbled his bread. Ryuuji and Haruta laughed. Taiga had her ears pricked. She stretched out her neck like a turtle in order to greedily pick up Kitamura’s voice.

  “Speaking of things to hate, end-of-term exams are closing in on us. Are you all ready? Actually, I, the patron saint of broken hearts, too, am getting ready to seriously get down to business with these tests…aha! Things aren’t going exactly as planned, though.”

  “What did he just say?!” Haruta suddenly burst out. “Isn’t this broadcast nagging us?! Why is he talking about studying for tests?! Isn’t the title ‘Cheering on Love’?!”

  “Hey, hey, calm down,” said Noto. “What’s gotten into you so suddenly? We can’t hear Master Kitamura’s much-appreciated broadcast. Right, Tiger? You okay? Can you hear it okay?”

  He turned to Taiga, who nodded as her forehead furrowed. Taiga and Noto are acting really buddy-buddy, thought Ryuuji, almost like they’re real friends. Noto, are you taking advantage of Taiga being in Christmas mode…? No, he couldn’t let thoughts l
ike that go through his head. His maddened eyes flashed at the heartwarming scene.

  Haruta obstinately shook his head, “No, no.” He had been smiling right up to that moment, but now he tore off a piece of his fried noodle bread and shook his long hair gloomily.

  “I don’t want to hear about studying! You don’t either, right, Noto?! Right, Taka-chan?! Tiger, you too, right?! Hey, I hate studying! This might be a surprise to you, but I actually don’t want to think about studying for even one second!”

  “Hey!” said Ryuuji. “You got aonori seaweed from your mouth on my desk… Wh-where are my antibacterial wipes…”

  “This isn’t the time to be cleaning up aonori, Taka-chan! Stop it! Actually, what’s with you, Tiger?!”

  Haruta unexpectedly aimed his anger at Taiga. Normally, he would have immediately received capital punishment—death in two seconds, ascension in five seconds, and reincarnation after ten. He would have been a crying newborn in a new world by now. However, it was right before Christmas.

  “What about me…?”

  Taiga simply looked up slightly gloomily at the long-haired idiot. Ryuuji really believed that the person Haruta needed to be most grateful for in the world was definitely Santa. Then, getting carried away, the idiot thrust a finger at Taiga and bared his aonori-covered teeth at her.

  “When I bought bread earlier, the head of our year stopped me and told me, ‘Hey, you idiot over there!’ And then he suddenly told me off for being the closest to failing our year and said I needed to study for the exams! So then I was like, ‘But Tiger’s been suspended! She has to be in a worse place than me~!’ and he was like, ‘You’re the one who’s worse, ya dunce! Ya dumb king!’ Then he got even madder! Boo! Aha ha ha ha ha! Don’t you think it’s kind of funny?! Who’s ever heard of a dumb king?!”

  Ryuuji asked Noto with his eyes, “For real?” Noto quietly nodded in response. Taiga continued to be silent as she looked at King Haruta. Ryuuji wondered what she was thinking.

  Eventually, she slowly put her fingers together and prayed to the heavens. “May this idiot also have a happy Christmas…”

  “Kyaahaaaaa?!” It wasn’t the sound of the angel’s trumpets that interrupted her prayer, but the high squeal of Hayashiya Pah-ko. No, not really—it was just Haruta’s ultrasonic voice.

  “What is it with you, Tiger?! Sometimes you really can be nice! Ahh…no way, I don’t really know why, but I feel like I’m getting a—”

  Shwick! At that moment, Noto’s unexpectedly sharp karate chop hit Haruta in the neck. Haruta simply fell out of his chair, and his head slumped. There, Noto nodded. He gently took the fried noodle bread out of Haruta’s hands and placed it on the desk.

  The two boys gave each other a thumbs up. Taiga, still with bits of rice at the corner of her mouth and alone in her ignorance of what had happened, looked at Haruta, who sagged over like he had lost power. Then, she turned to Noto.

  “What was that just now? What was he trying to say?”

  “You don’t need to worry about it! It’s nothing for a girl to think about! More importantly, don’t you think we should really start studying for the end-of-semester exams? Let’s get together at a family restaurant and do it. Plus, we need to force Haruta to study or something or he won’t be able to go up a grade with us. Also, Takasu, I want you to let me copy that thing you have. Would that be okay? I mean the patriarch’s notes.”

  “Oh, right, of course. They really are great. Let’s pass them along and use them together. Oh, they’re not just mine though. You should probably ask Kushieda, too.”

  The patriarch’s notes.

  During the cultural festival at the end of fall, Ryuuji and Minori had received them as the prize for the lucky man race. Noto was referring to the comprehensive notes on every subject covered in school that the past student council president had left behind. As the representative of their victory, Ryuuji had kept the notes, but formally he co-owned them with Minori. He hadn’t participated in the race to get the notes in the first place, but when he had gotten them and looked them over, he was shocked. Obviously, they contained all the school lessons, but they had even broken down all the hard topics in manageable and easy-to-understand ways. They had been organized better than real reference books sold on the market. After seeing that, Ryuuji understood. Kitamura’s former love, the genius patriarch, had been blessed with brains, but she hadn’t shirked the hard work needed to continue polishing her heaven-sent talent. She was the real deal.

  At Ryuuji’s pleasing reply, Noto said, “Thank you! Aren’t we lucky, Haruta?! Right!” He shook his friend’s shoulder. Haruta still hadn’t come back to consciousness, so his long arms flailed futilely by his thighs. Then Noto turned around and continued, “Actually, Tiger, you’re lucky your suspension ended before the exams. They’re next week, so you’ve got to study with us, too. See, um, well, look… Let’s invite Kitamura or something, and we can all do it together. Right? Let’s start right away tonight?”

  “Uh!”

  At his words, Taiga looked up at Ryuuji with radiant eyes. It was as though she were trying to say, Did you hear that just now?! He had indeed heard it. Noto said he would invite Kitamura to their study group. Taiga somehow held back the joy that was about to overflow onto her face, but her eyes glittered, and her cheeks puffed up and turned peachy. “I-I-I-I-I wouldn’t mind,” she answered in a low voice as though trying to stifle her smile. Noto grinned and nodded.

  “Oh, right, we could invite Minorin, too, right?! Because the notes are also hers! Right, Ryuuji?!”

  Taiga seemed so excited she was close to humming to herself. “Right!” She looked into Ryuuji’s face. If there weren’t others watching, Ryuuji would have replied by saluting Taiga the angel for steadily cheering him on.

  …For some reason, though, Ryuuji felt like something weird was up as he stared intently at Noto from the side.

  “Hm? What is it, Takasu?”

  “…Nothing.”

  “Huh? When I look really closely at your face, you kind of look like the Joker card from a deck we have at home…”

  “Yeah, people sometimes tell me that.”

  Noto looked kind of like an otter—but that didn’t matter right now. He was convinced Noto was up to something that day. Regardless of whether Taiga was being a good girl because Christmas was coming, and no matter how refreshing it was to see her since her suspension had lifted, Noto just seemed like he was being too frank with Taiga. He had suddenly invited her to a study group… No, it wasn’t just that. There were other things that were definitely even weirder. Right, Noto had been acting weird recently, and—

  “Oh, Minorin! Over here! You’re late! We already finished eating!”

  He shot around.

  In a fleeting second, Ryuuji’s consciousness flew away. His scattered consciousness was pulled towards the figure of a girl as it pieced itself together into a vaguely human shape. All of the thoughts he had been putting together were lost, and he was restructured into a simple boy, idiotically in love.

  “Sorry, sorry. The meeting ran long.”

  The smile she turned to Taiga. The skip in her step. In the familiar classroom, Minori alone stood out brilliantly, and her outline seemed to glow. Her form, her voice, her scent stole Ryuuji’s heart with a terrific power. He looked down at his bento box as though to dredge up the remains of his food and averted his eyes, trying to pretend he didn’t even realize Minori was there. As though he were gulping down the words he wanted to say to her, he accidentally chugged down all of his oolong tea.

  “Minorin,” said Taiga, “did you finish eating your bento, too?”

  “I scarfed down some bread!”

  “Then let’s eat dessert together!”

  “Fine by me!”

  Taiga shook the box of sweets at Minori. She smiled and started to motion as though she were heading over to them.

  “So Minorin, we were just talking about how tonight we were going to… Minorin, why are you backing away?”


  “Aw shucks, I can’t get the huge things between my legs to settle right, aw shucks.”

  With a strangely skilled moonwalk, she retreated further and further away.

  “Ah, that’s a gross joke! That’s low, Kushieda!” Noto booed at her.

  Ryuuji’s face contorted like a poisoned ogre’s, and his eyes flashed hair-raisingly. His fist shook with the hidden power of a man. From his dry lips came a low voice fit for addressing a sworn enemy, laden with killing intent: “Guess we’ve got Saigo Takamori in the house.”

  YES! Just in his heart, Ryuuji shouted for joy. He had successfully made a casual comeback at Minori. However Minori smiled weakly as she continued her moonwalked retreat.

  “Aw shucks, I-I-I—”

  She got further and further away from them with smooth movements that didn’t make it seem like she had anything between her thighs. Minori didn’t stop, even when people got mad at her for running into them, “Heeey,” and even when her butt bumped into someone’s desk. Taiga, Noto, and Ryuuji were about to make fun of her with a collective cry of, Where are you going? when Kitamura’s voice came running through the speakers and a Christmas song started playing in the background.

  “So, anyway. After the tough exams, the day everyone has been waiting for will arrive—Christmas.”

  Ryuuji saw Taiga’s expression blossom into a smile when she noticed. Her beloved Kitamura had started talking about her beloved Christmas. Of course she would be in a good mood.

  “I have an announcement from the student council. Once the end-of-term exams are over, we’ll have our closing ceremony on Christmas Eve, the twenty-fourth. After that, we’ll go to the gym and have a Christmas party for all those interested!”

  It was in that moment that everything happened.

  The cacophony of the noisy lunch break came to a sudden halt. Taiga’s mouth was wide open. Even Haruta had regained consciousness and opened his eyes.

  This is… This is—! Ryuuji held his breath. He automatically exchanged looks with Taiga.