Toradora! Vol. 7 Page 7

  At some point, Taiga had come into the living room, and at the scene of the mother and son prostrating themselves to the birdcage, voiced her disapproval. They had agreed to meet in front of the condo, but since Ryuuji hadn’t come down, she probably decided to go up to him. She seemed like she had a lot more that she wanted to say, but since she was in the middle of being a “good girl,” this was as far as she could go.

  “Ohh, Taiga-chan! So you’re going out to study~? Make sure your studying is on fleek. ☆”

  “Ya-Ya-chan?! You…y-y-you—”

  Yasuko pouted and started to slowly wiggle her arms around. Are you part of the Sankai Juku dance troupe or something? Ryuuji thought. No, no, she definitely had to be doing the wave.

  “I’m on fi-yah~?” she was happily muttering, but she was dancing like water.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me…”

  Holding her forehead with her hand, Taiga closed her eyes as though enduring a bout of vertigo.

  The sun set, and the air of the midwinter night cooled to freezing. The one and only saving grace was that there was no wind. The people walking the streets had their coat collars up and passed by each other quickly with scowls on their faces.

  “It’s cold!”

  “Yeah!”

  Ryuuji and Taiga couldn’t even have a decent conversation. They walked for about ten minutes on the asphalt streets and under the light of the streetlamps as though they were racing.

  “Uwah~! It was so cold~!”

  “Hah~! It’s so warm~! Actually, it’s hot. The heater is too strong in here.”

  Practically flying in, they pushed open the glass door, which shone brilliantly with light.

  They were at their regular family restaurant by the national highway. Ryuuji felt like he was about to choke on the heat when he took a step into the building. He groaned as he pulled off his beanie. Taiga also pulled off her colorful mohair cap. Her pale, long hair fluttered up and dropped down onto the back of her coat. Together, they could finally breathe in the warm air.

  They told the waitress who came out to lead them in that they were meeting with friends and secured four window seats. They looked around the floor, and Ryuuji, trying not to be a nuisance asked, “Um, excuse me, is Kushieda-san, the part-timer, working a shift today? Umm…we’re her friends from school.”

  “Kushieda is off today,” The waitress easily replied. “Once you’ve decided on your orders, please press the button to call me.”

  Ryuuji was paralyzed. Off today? He thought. She couldn’t be. Taiga also wrinkled her forehead, “Huh?”

  “No way, that’s weird. I thought she would definitely be here… She’s usually here Monday nights. Is she just taking today off?”

  “I knew it, I should have double-checked… Ahh, damn it, I messed up.”

  Taiga had invited Minori to study with everyone that day, but she had turned Taiga down saying, “After I have club, I have work.” She also said she would borrow the notes when she needed them and told Ryuuji to do what he wanted with them until then. Since those were the circumstances, Ryuuji went out of his way to make a paltry attempt to come to the restaurant early in order to talk to her, since she should have been working. Instead, his attempt was entirely in vain.

  “Something seems wrong. Let’s ask where she’s working right now.”

  Taiga twisted around and immediately pulled out her cell phone, but Ryuuji reached across the table and stopped her.

  “It’s fine. We don’t need to do that. We’d be bothering her if we call when she’s working, and she can’t answer if you message her, anyway. We can’t do anything about it today, and it’s my fault for not checking in with her. This might be a divine message that we should stop slacking off and get serious about studying. Look, let’s eat already and just give up and start studying. Here’s the menu.”

  “Ngh…”

  Taiga took off her coat and opened the menu he handed to her, but she was thinking about something absentmindedly. When he flicked the corner of the menu at her fingers, her eyes finally started going over the text.

  “I’ve decided. I’ll have the winter vegetable beef curry. What about you?”

  “I’ll have the kabocha squash doria.”

  They called the waitress with the button and put in their orders. Then the two of them went to get their drinks. Afterwards, they went ahead and opened up their textbooks, thinking they might as well start while they waited on their food.

  “Hey Ryuuji, I was thinking.”

  Taiga said that strangely, like her mouth was full of rocks. What? He looked up as he sipped his coffee.

  “Don’t you think that Minori is avoiding you?”

  Clunk. His cup missed the saucer and clattered noisily. He also got some of the hot contents on his hands and pulled his elbow back hard into the wall in surprise. He was paralyzed with so much pain he couldn’t speak. Ryuuji turned his face down in spite of himself.

  “Ahh… I definitely shouldn’t have said anything…”

  “No! I want to hear what you have to say! Wh-why?!”

  Taiga turned her eyes up and to the side as though exasperated. She spoke in a low voice as she fidgeted with and twirled her long hair.

  “Today, I saw you and Minori together for the first time in a while. Before I was suspended, we would all talk regularly, but today you didn’t even have a conversation.”

  “We did talk, though. We chatted, we really did—more than once.”

  “All of that was as good as not talking. Actually, you never even got to the point where you could have a regular conversation. Minorin wouldn’t even come over to you at all when I called her over. She was just playing around the whole time and wouldn’t actually talk to you. She wouldn’t even come when we invited her to study. She was supposed to be working, but she’s not here. …I wonder if she lied about work.”

  “Lied? You’re reading too far into things.”

  Minori would never lie. She wasn’t the type of person to lie. Ryuuji, at least, believed that, but Taiga didn’t seem to hold the same conviction.

  “But you can’t know. Minori isn’t just ‘an airheaded cute girl.’ The Minorin you see is a fantasy version of her, but even you know that she’s not just a pure, bright, funny girl like she looks like. Sometimes that’s the good part about Minorin…”

  “That’s…”

  That was true. After Taiga had said it, Ryuuji couldn’t help but nod. He wouldn’t go as far as to agree that he fantasized about Minori, but for example, during their summer trip and at other points, Minori had pulled one over their heads for sure.

  “Yeah, I guess she is.”

  “And on top of that, she said she wouldn’t join the prep committee for the Christmas Eve party. She said she wasn’t planning on going. If she were acting normal, that’d be unbelievable for Minorin.”

  “Well…Kushieda said that it was because she was down from that match she had, right? I don’t believe that was a lie. That’s right—Kushieda must be acting weird because she’s feeling down from the game.”

  That was it—she wasn’t actually avoiding him. In order to keep Taiga from saying anything more, which she seemed like she was about to, Ryuuji raised his voice a bit.

  “The issue is how we’re going to get her excited and get her to go. This is the time for angel Taiga-sama to come out and show her stuff, isn’t it? You said you’d go naked, didn’t you?”

  “Huh? Naked? I didn’t say anything like that. What are you playing at with that?”

  Even though she didn’t abuse him with her words, the look she showered him with was more than cold enough, and Ryuuji paused in spite of himself. At that point, she sighed loudly and purposefully. Taiga probably wanted to click her tongue at him, but she endured and sipped her cocoa.

  “Well, of course, I know that. Angel Taiga is love’s envoy. Christmas’s heaven-sent child. The very image of a good girl. Santa is watching. He’s checking his list. So, I’ll do what it takes to get Minorin t
o the party on Christmas Eve. I’m planning on supporting you for real, like Cupid, so that your confession to her goes well.”

  In order to show him just how “for real” she was, she closed one eye and mimed an arrow and bow, took aim, and pretended to hit Ryuuji’s heart. He felt like there wasn’t really much point to aiming at his heart, but really the problem wasn’t with that.

  “C-c-c-con-confess? I don’t even know if I can do that…”

  “You have to do it. It’s Christmas Eve. It’s the night before sacred Christmas, after all.”

  She easily slipped in an assertion, but on her second sigh, good girl Taiga’s face clouded.

  “But something’s definitely off. That’s what I think. I don’t know how to support you anymore. You and Minorin are different from before. Before, you were more—”

  Sorry for keeping you waiting. At the sound of the server’s voice, Taiga cut off. The server set their meals in front of them and slipped the bill into its holder. They were silent for a while. The server left, and Ryuuji handed a spoon to Taiga.

  “So? What were you saying about us?”

  “Ahh, it’s fine. I don’t even know what I think about it. There’s no way you would know either. Our food will get cold, so anyway, let’s eat. I’m digging in. …Hot hot hot! Ahh!”

  Taiga immediately burned herself on the first bite and got white sauce dribbles on several pages of her still-open textbook.

  “Ahhh! Seriously, I thought you’d do that! You’re a klutz, after all. Wipe it, here, make sure you get all of it!”

  “I did, this is fine. Ahh, I got an oil stain on it… Ah well. This will make it easier to tell what parts are on the test. I just need to look for the stains.”

  What are you saying? he thought exasperatedly as he took the textbook from her and tried to wipe away a little more at the food Taiga had spilled and given up on.

  “There they are! Takasu and Tiger, sorry for making you wait! Everyone’s here.”

  “Sorry for the wait~! Oh, that looks good, you’re eating something! It looks really yummy, maybe I should get something, too.”

  They raised their faces at Noto and Haruta’s voices. “Yo.” Ryuuji was slightly surprised to find two others behind them. It seemed Taiga was also slightly shaken and had frozen up with her spoon still in her mouth.

  “Yo! Today sure is cold! I think I might switch to a down coat soon.”

  “That’s right, Maruo, I told you before that down is the warmest. You can get them pretty cheap, too. Oh, look, Takasu-kun is wearing down, too.”

  Next to Kitamura, who was wearing a gray duffle coat like a typical test-taker, Maya stuck close by him in a short down coat. Even though it was the middle of the winter, she had the guts to bare her knees in a miniskirt. She was also wearing tall boots and had a fluffy bag. They could all tell a group of guys still in their school uniforms who were sitting nearby were watching her. Her long and straight silky hair was slightly dark and freshly dyed. Her light makeup, which consisted of just mascara and lip gloss, suited her.

  The looks she got were different from when Ami appeared. “It’s a celebrity…uwah!” It was different from the look whenever Taiga came on the scene, too. “That’s a beautiful girl…whoa!” She was rawer and closer to home. If something were to happen, she might even get hit on. The stir around them even forced its way to Ryuuji’s ears. It wasn’t as though he didn’t feel a slight sense of superiority over the guys watching them just because he had been waiting for her.

  “Kihara. What are you doing here? This is rare.”

  “I want to copy the patriarch’s notes, too. And I can’t get into the mood to study on my own. Is it okay if I join you?”

  “Well, of course… Where are Kawashima and Kashii today?”

  “Oh, it looks like they can’t come. Right, is it okay if I give Ami-chan and Nanako copies, too?”

  “I don’t really mind, but…” He would understand Ami coming, but he couldn’t have imagined Maya coming solo without the troupe.

  “Okay, let’s hurry and sit,” Maya said as she grabbed Kitamura’s coat sleeve. There were wrinkles on Taiga’s forehead, and the spoon was still in her mouth. It seemed like she might not have known what to do since she wasn’t dealing with Ami, or she might have had her hands tied because of her good girl limitations. Taiga remained speechless as she looked up at Kitamura and Maya, who was clinging to him.

  “All right, let’s all sit down! Of course, this is too cramped for six people.”

  Noto was strangely brisk. “We’ll take this, too.” He put his own bag in a two-seater partitioned by the walkway to claim it. Then…

  “Okay, okay, Tiger, could you stand for a bit?! Haruta, get in the back there! Kihara, sit next to Takasu, after you, after you. Now, I’ll take the seat next to Haruta. Tiger, over here, over here, bring your doria. This seat. Here, Kitamura, take that seat please. You can take my stuff off, thanks. Okay, now we’re good.”

  Before they realized it, Kitamura and Taiga were conveniently facing each other at the two-seater table. The other four were slightly separated from them.

  “H-huh? W-wait a second?! I want to sit over there, too! No, that, uhhh, oh I know, I’ll sit with Tiger so the girls are together! Right, right Tiger? Let’s do that!”

  Maya was strangely flustered as she staggered to stand up, but Taiga wasn’t even given the time to answer. Haruta heartily picked at his nose. “Shaddup.” He stuck his finger right up to Maya.

  “Uwah, gross!”

  “Don’t throw a fit. Do you really hate sitting next to Taka-chan that much? I feel so bad for Taka-chan. That’s cold, Kihara. It’s brutal, isn’t it, Taka-chan?”

  This time he turned his dirty finger at Ryuuji. Maya had a somewhat desperate expression on her face as she shook her head.

  “What?! No, no, that’s not what this is! That’s not it, but—”

  “Then let’s order! We just need to add four fountain drinks, right?!”

  With strange and very efficient methods, Noto shut Maya down. He quickly pressed the button and called the waitress to finish placing the order. Maya had lost her chance to speak, but she glared at Noto’s face as though wanting to say something. Noto ignored her. “Oh, I’ve got fingerprints on these,” he said, taking off his glasses and diligently rubbing his lenses with a napkin.

  What’s with this mood—Ryuuji swallowed.

  “Okay, now is drink time before we start! We’d be in the way if we all went at once, so I’ll go up and get everyone’s drinks. Do you have requests? If you don’t, I’m getting you all cokes!”

  The one who had stood up, not caring about anything else and going at his own pace was Kitamura. With the air of “cokes-for-everyone” kind of guys, Noto, Haruta, and Ryuuji sent him off with automatic applause and shouts of, “Yeah!”

  “Ah, uh, ah, I want something w-w-warm…no, actually! I’ll go, too!”

  Taiga stood from her seat and went after Kitamura with her face still flushed red. Noto and Haruta high-fived. “Yo!” Ryuuji was wide-eyed. Maya seemed sullen. Kitamura and Taiga handed each other cups in front of the fountain drink machine, filled them with ice, called over the waitress when they couldn’t find more cups, dropped the ice (Taiga), and picked it up (Kitamura), dropped the tongs (Taiga), picked them up (Kitamura), and to the unknowing eye, seemed like great partners.

  Noto and Haruta appeared smug as they grinned and stared at the two.

  “So…” said Ryuuji. “What’s your deal?”

  “Huh? What? What could you possibly be talking about?”

  “Don’t act dumb!”

  Ryuuji’s evil eyes locked with Noto’s small otter eyes through his glasses. No matter how thick he was, this was obvious.

  “Why are you being weird and trying to put Kitamura and Taiga together like that?”

  Right. Noto had been acting weird ever since that morning. He had been spurring Taiga and Kitamura on all day in an obvious way that was hard to call casual. It wasn’t as tho
ugh the likes of an otter could stand up to Ryuuji’s sharp eyes, which blazed and flared with black flames that belonged to the darkness. Noto easily surrendered and stuck out his tongue. If anyone was wondering, he didn’t look cute in the slightest when he did.

  “You figured it out. Well, that’s fine. We wanted you to help out, too, anyway. I think that Kitamura and Tiger would make a great couple.”

  “Oh, I think so, too!”

  Right! Grossly putting their hands together, Noto and Haruta nodded together. Ryuuji stopped moving.

  “Look, Kitamura got rejected by the patriarch, so he’s hurting right now. He’s trying his best as president, but he’s definitely hurting. We want him to hurry up and get better. Don’t you think the wonder drug to cure him is new love? And this is just between us…”

  Noto turned stealthily to the fountain drinks. Taiga and Kitamura didn’t seem like they were coming back anytime soon. Once he confirmed that, he lowered his voice.

  “Tiger seems like she likes Kitamura. This is for real—like really for real. I know you probably never realized, being you, Takasu.”

  It wasn’t on purpose, Ryuuji realized, when he looked back at Noto, that idiot with his half-open mouth and idiotic face. Noto assumed Ryuuji had agreed and nodded to himself.

  “Ahh, you must really be surprised. I didn’t expect it either. Who knew that Tiger thinks like a girl, too. And you’re the one who’s been closest to Tiger and looking after her, so it’s natural to be in shock.”

  “…”

  He was still speechless. He couldn’t get out a word at all. Not a single word.

  The words that caught in his throat weren’t How did you find out, or I already knew that, or anything like that. They were words he didn’t expect like:

  What do you guys know?

  Don’t stick your nose into this when you don’t know anything.

  Leave it alone.

  Or something like that.

  That feeling rose up quietly in him like pale anger. It robbed Ryuuji’s expression from his face. It was like he wanted to monopolize the situation, like he felt a sense of superiority over them. The emotions invaded him in ways that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.