Toradora! Vol. 8 Read online

“It’s the hotel that we should have stayed at for the trip in Okinawa! It burned down during an end-of-the-year fire! There are no longer any hotels that can accommodate all one hundred and sixty-eight second years in Okinawa! So, we can’t go to Okinawa anymore! But, the trip isn’t canceled! We’ll just have a slightly compact two-night three-day mountain ski trip instead! Isn’t that great?!”

  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?!

  At almost exactly the same time, they heard a terrible scream, similar to a shriek, from the classroom next door. GAAAAAH! GYAAAAH! They heard unknowable despair from a class, somewhere, that made even the ceiling shake and quiver.

  “No waaaay?! Seriously?”

  “This is the worst! It’s so so so terrible!”

  “WAAAAAAAAAH! It would have been my first time on a plane and my first time in Okinawaaaaaaa!”

  “Why are we going to a mountain in the middle of winter?! Are you trying to make us upset?!”

  “Skiing is fun, too,” the bachelorette (age 30) followed up. “A ski slope with powdered snow floating around! A silvery-white snow scene! Two people drawing a heart with their ski tracks! And then everyone going ‘yahoo!’”

  “I don’t want that! It’s too dull! This is our once-in-a-lifetime trip!”

  “This isn’t a joke! I’m definitely going to Okinawa! I don’t care when it happens, please make it Okinawa!”

  “That’s right! I don’t want to go to a mountain in the winter! Let’s all boycott it!”

  At that radical opinion, the class started applauding in agreement. However, the bachelorette (age 30) glanced at the envelope under her arm.

  “But we’ve already received your permission slips…so we’re going ahead as planned…”

  The students started screaming in agony.

  Haruta, who had been so excited he bought a guidebook, began to weep. Kitamura must have wanted to go to Okinawa, too, because he grew agitated at their homeroom teacher. “I decisively object! This is nonsense!”

  The girls attacked with foul mouths. “Screw off!”

  “This is unreasonable!”

  “Old maid!”

  “Thirty year old!”

  Even Taiga, the little lady who could probably go to Okinawa whenever she wanted, hit her desk over and over in protest.

  With severe resistance raining down on her whole body, the pitiful bachelorette (age 30) had a troubled look on her face. “It’s not like I burned down the hotel in Okinawa.”

  That was probably true.

  Among the people in uproar, Ryuuji, alone, had become the inhabitant of another world. His two lizard-like eyes opened wide. It wasn’t the bachelorette (age 30) who had burned down the hotel.

  If anything, it was him.

  As he had come to school, his curse, “Burn and disappear!” had traveled through the air as sparks to the Okinawan hotel, just as his words had intended.

  Ryuuji apologized in his heart to his classmates, who spilled tears and continued to protest. In that moment, he felt like the shrieking cries of a snowstorm on a winter mountain were more appropriate for him than Okinawa’s blinding sunlight. The curse had been successful and, though unfortunate, Ryuuji was actually really relieved. He absolutely did not want to go to a blue ocean and blue sky. He wasn’t in the frame of mind to smile brightly in the sun.

  The shadowy overcast sky. The continually falling snow. The soaking-damp underwear. The incredibly smelly rental skiwear. The bears. The avalanches. The locked-room murders. That was good.

  Unbeknownst to anyone, the cursed ship blew its shrill whistle. The ghostly crew sneakily chuckled to themselves. Ryuuji was fine with that. Actually, he didn’t even care about the school trip. He didn’t care whether they were confined on the cold winter mountain or ended up playing tag in a maze of sewer pipes, or journeyed to the land of the dead. A once-in-a-lifetime school trip? Why would he care about something like that?

  “Damn it! Why is Ami-chan late on today of all days?!”

  “Ami-chan wouldn’t stay silent about something like this!”

  “Ami-chan would have done something!”

  Come to think of it, the black-hearted model hadn’t shown herself. The guys started baying, “Ami-chaaan! Ami-chaaan!” into the void.

  However, the bachelorette (age 30) simply said, “Kawashima-san is in Hawaii for work. Her plane home didn’t make it on time, so she’s taking today off. But look, she’s already gone to a tropical island, so wouldn’t she prefer a winter mountain?! Hee hee!”

  “Of course not!”

  The bachelorette (age 30) gave up any further resistance to the uncontrollable state of affairs. She turned her back to the students and headed toward the blackboard. There, she wrote distinctly: “Life doesn’t go the way you want it!!”

  ***

  “Oh!”

  Without thinking, Ryuuji let out a loud exclamation. Really? he thought. She’s already back?

  He had gone out grocery shopping for dinner as the sky began darkening into dusk. The midwinter wind was sharp as a knife, and the people coming and going along the street were quickly hurrying home.

  Ryuuji had caught sight of a certain incredibly attention-gathering form while he was peeking into a bookstore before going to the supermarket. The tall person he was looking at from over the bookshelves was definitely Kawashima Ami.

  She stood among the people lined up in front of the racks of women’s magazines. Though she was tall, her face was delicate. Her pale profile, adorned with giant sunglasses that glittered with an Armani logo, traced a beautiful line from her nose to her chin. She’d messily tied up her silky, shiny straight hair, exposing her neck. She was wearing a down jacket that was probably expensive enough to make Ryuuji want to die. She wore old-looking jeans, stuffed into her boots, and though she wasn’t wearing heels, her legs were still terrifyingly long. With her Chanel bag, she seemed to give off an oppressive aura that shouted, “There’s a beauty here! I’m a model!”

  Ami-chan-sama, whom he hadn’t seen in so long, looked just as she always did.

  When they had last parted, during the Christmas Eve party, it had been pretty awkward. It was as though Ami had gotten fed up with Ryuuji’s foolishness and gone home alone. He hadn’t noticed Taiga had left, and he had believed like a kid that the world would conveniently align itself… He really had been pretty foolish that day. There had been too much going on for him to call out to Ami as she left. It was only natural that she’d be fed up with him.

  Ami definitely predicted the situation he was currently in, even though he had thought she was just saying stuff that made her seem like she knew more than she did. Ami might have known what kind of outcome Ryuuji’s foolishness would invite. Her words were always painful, but that was probably because they were the pointed truth.

  “…”

  Surprised, he lowered his head into the cooking book he was skimming where he stood.

  Ami was approaching him from the women’s magazine corner. She was listening to music on an iPod and seemed not to have noticed Ryuuji’s presence at all.

  Ryuuji froze up, unable to awkwardly raise his head and say something at that point. Quite unexpectedly, Ami advanced closer and closer into the cooking book corner and reached out a hand to grab a magazine right in front of Ryuuji’s eyes. Staple Hot Meals: Brown Rice Bento was apparently her goal.

  “Sorr…oh.”

  Ryuuji blinked.

  The moment she pulled out the magazine, Ami’s Chanel bag hit Ryuuji’s hand. Ryuuji dropped the magazine, and Ami finally noticed him as she apologized. He couldn’t see her expression hidden behind her glasses, but she seemed about to say “Oh” as her mouth formed a pout.

  “Don’t bother with that. The Staple Hot Meals series is completely unusable.” Ryuuji’s voice grumbled from the awkwardness, but he still tried to speak as normally as he could.

  “Tch!” Ami acknowledged Ryuuji’s existence by clicking her tongue. She placed the magazine she had pulled out back on the shelf, contorting h
er mouth provokingly.

  I feel something vividly evil!

  The moment Ami tried to turn on her heel, her bag caught on the boring cell-phone keychain that protruded from Ryuuji’s down jacket. Ami turned around, shook her bag vigorously in order to get it back, and held it to her chest with exaggerated movements.

  “What do you think you’re trying to do to my Chanel bag?!”

  “What are you trying to do to me?!”

  At the terrifying look Ami gave him through her sunglasses, Ryuuji accidentally showed his demonic face, which would have caused a shudder of fear in anyone. The sudden argument that had started between the beautiful model and murder-faced boy got them looks from everyone around. However, Ami didn’t mind that at all.

  “Ugh, you’re so annoying! Actually, why are you even here? Disappear for me, would you?”

  She was really unbelievably rude. Whaaat?! Ryuuji’s face contorted even further.

  “What did you say?! Actually, what’s up with your attitude?! I-I was just—”

  I got rejected by Minori on Christmas Eve! He couldn’t say that, of course…

  “I was just hospitalized with the flu, you know! I had a fever of 40 degrees Celsius, and I wasn’t even conscious! I can’t believe your conscience would let you attack me with that attitude!”

  “How should I have known?! Actually, you had a 40-degree fever? Then…”

  Ami whipped off her sunglasses and nibbled on their end as wrinkles formed on her forehead. She narrowed her pretty, double-lidded eyes and stared at Ryuuji’s crotch.

  “…”

  “Could you mind your own business?! My genes are still alive!”

  Ryuuji crossed his legs and went on the defensive. As expected from childhood friends, Ami and Kitamura’s vulgar circuit of thoughts was surprisingly similar.

  “Oh, really. Huh, good for you. Well, bye.”

  Ami carelessly stuck her sunglasses into the back pocket of her jeans. With a smile on her lips that was easy to recognize as manufactured, she turned her back coldly on him.

  There was a dark whirlpool whipping around in Ryuuji’s mind. What a girl… How could her unpleasantness even be described? She was irritating. He knew she had an ugly personality. He knew about her two-faced, twisted nature, too. Regardless, he was still shocked. The way she treated him was absurd. Why in the world did she have to take an attitude like that with him? Was it because she was fed up with him? Even if that was it, wasn’t this too much?

  “Hey, wait! Why did you take up that fighting stance all of a sudden?!”

  “Oh, you want me to give it to you straight? Then I’ll tell you. I don’t like you anymore, Takasu-kun.”

  “Wha…at?!”

  She put it so simply that it couldn’t be misinterpreted. Ryuuji stood there, dumbfounded, in spite of himself.

  “Wh…why?!”

  “Huh? Don’t follow me. You’re seriously so annoying.”

  “Did you really…hate me that much…?”

  “Ow! What do you think you’re doing? Don’t screw around with me!”

  He was so shocked, he’d unintentionally reached out his arm, knocking the ecobag that contained his wallet and phone against Ami’s butt. Blocking the aisle of the bookstore, showered in stares, Ami pointed at Ryuuji and said, “You want me to spell it out for you?! I hate you because you’re an idiot!”

  “Bwah! She said she hates him cause he’s stupid…ha ha ha!”

  He heard merciless laughter, turned, and saw the owner of the voice. Ha ha ha! The person continuing to laugh at other people’s business was short, had her fluffy hair tied loosely to the side, wore a multicolor knit hat and a long, flower-patterned skirt, and had boots peeking from the hem of her white angora coat. In other words, it was Taiga.

  “You’re so slow!” said Ami. “It’s already ten minutes past the time we were supposed to meet!”

  “Don’t pick at the details. You’re a Dimhuahua—you can’t even tell the time.”

  “I can so!”

  Ryuuji was surprised by the conversation that was happening over his head. Was it possible that these natural born enemies, who had fought blood for blood for so long, in a rare moment in the history of the world, were friendly and meeting each other in a bookstore on the street?

  “Here, this was 14 dollars. That makes it 40.”

  “Uhh…so if one dollar is about one hundred yen…”

  Ryuuji unintentionally sighed as he watched Taiga clumsily pull out and count one thousand yen bills from her cat wallet.

  “At what point did you two get close enough to exchange gifts?”

  “These aren’t gifts. I’m paying Dimhuahua back. I only have ten thousand yen bills! Give me change!”

  “Whaat?! Aren’t you supposed to have this already prepared, considering you’re the one who asked me to buy this for you?” As she muttered, Ami also pulled out her Dior wallet and the two of them finished exchanging money. Then, Ami glanced at Ryuuji’s face.

  “Tch…”

  She scowled and clicked her tongue. The why-are-you-still-here aura exuded from her whole body. Ryuuji tried to prod the shins of Ami’s boots under the table with the tips of his shoes but accidentally kicked Taiga.

  “Ow! Was that you just now?!”

  She glared at him, and he turned away. He tried to bury his expression, but he was immediately found out.

  “It was you!”

  She returned the favor by stepping on his feet.

  “Welcome to Sudoh-bucks!” the female college student’s welcoming voice rang out. If the actual store they were ripping off knew what was going on, the café would have been in dire straits.

  After meeting in the bookstore, the three of them had set up camp in the Pseudobucks, aka Sudoh Coffee Stand and Bar’s nonsmoking section, as usual. Jazz music streamed through the store. Taiga ordered a giant bowl of café au lait and pancakes, Ryuuji had the house blend, and Ami had a café latte. Sitting next to Taiga, Ryuuji couldn’t get himself to look at Ami, who was right in front of him and not hiding her obvious irritation (she hated him because he was stupid, after all).

  “So what did you get Ami to buy you?” he said.

  Even though he wasn’t really interested, he peeked into the paper bag Taiga had received. If it was 14 and 40 dollars, then it was within an acceptable price range, he thought gloomily.

  “A pouch and sandals! They were in a magazine, and it said that they only had them in Hawaii! Hee hee, it’s this!” Taiga pulled out a waterproof pouch decorated with dancing hula girls and casual sandals made with natural materials.

  “Oh, right… In the end, these things were wasted… Ahh, I was so looking forward to it though. Oh well, I guess I can use these normally once it’s summer.”

  Lifting her face from her cup of café latte, Ami’s eyes went round with curiosity. “What? Why are they wasted? Aren’t you bringing them on the school trip to Okinawa? Why can’t you? They’re perfect for that. I even went and looked for the ones you specifically asked me for. Gosh, you’re just so—”

  “Oh right, you don’t know yet, Dimhuahua. The school trip has turned into a two-night, three-day ski trip.”

  “What?!” Ami’s café latte cup clattered against its saucer.

  “The hotel burned down. So, we’re being locked up on this suuuuper cold winter mountain.”

  “What?! Seriously?! Whaaaat~?! No way, you can’t be serious?! But I bought shorts and T-shirts and stuff for Okinawa! Actually, what do they mean we’re only staying two nights?! Isn’t that short?! And they’re making us ski, too?! I hate this so much!”

  “Sorry…”

  “Why are you apologizing, Takasu-kun?”

  “Why are you saying sorry?”

  Unable to reply to the two of them, Ryuuji sipped his coffee with distant eyes. On top of already being hated just because, if he said, “It burned down because I cursed it,” he didn’t know how they would look at him.

  Ami put up her hands. Currently in a situation wh
ere she didn’t need to put on her goody-two-shoes mask, she contorted her mouth and spat poison.

  “Ughh, I said not to screw around with me… Actually, this is the pits! Why have we got to ski on a school trip? I just don’t get it at all. It’s seriously so so so irritating! Ahh, maybe I can skip if I say I have work!”

  “If you want to skip it you can, but I have one thing to say to you about the trip.” Taiga slowly thrust her body over the table, sounding serious. “Oh!” The end of the ribbon on the chest of her dress dipped into her café au lait, and a flustered Ryuuji hurried to rescue it.

  “It’s so important that I went out of my way to ask you to meet me outside of school. Ryuuji was here by coincidence, but this is really convenient, so it’s good.”

  Taiga glanced at Ryuuji. Not knowing what she meant, Ryuuji was taking emergency measures to rub coffee off Taiga’s ribbon. He pushed the café au lait bowl far off, so she wouldn’t make the same mistake, and didn’t notice Ami looking at him with exasperation in her eyes.

  Taiga narrowed her eyes slightly, however. She turned to Ami and declared, “We lost Okinawa, but a school trip is a school trip. It’ll last in your memories, and it’s not much different from a big event. Because of that, Dimhuahua, I’ll tell you this straight. If you come, please make sure you definitely don’t hang around Ryuuji.”

  “Huh? Are you trying to say I’m the one who’s hanging around him and causing problems?”

  Lovingly clutching her Chanel bag to her chest, Ami glared at Ryuuji with hatred. But wait a second, he wanted to say. It wasn’t as though Ryuuji had asked Taiga to say that, so even if she glared at him like that, he didn’t know what the intent behind Taiga’s remark was. Ryuuji sipped at his coffee to calm himself.

  “Ryuuji likes Minorin.”

  “Bweeeeh!”

  “Ew, Ryuuji, that’s gross.”

  Cough! Sputter! Ryuuji held a napkin up to his choking mouth. What are you saying?! He looked up at Taiga with tears in his eyes.

  “Huuh…”

  Across from him, looking at him like a devilish snake that had spotted prey would, Ami’s pretty face raised itself up dramatically. Her lips, glittering with gloss, contorted. For the first time that day and that year, her eyes sparkled with glee as she surveyed the state of affairs.