Toradora! Vol. 1 Page 8

  Aisaka got in front of Ryuuji and swung her braids obnoxiously as she began to move. With a stare and a click of her tongue, she menaced another student when she accidentally encroached upon his space. The pitiful victim frantically apologized while giving even more space up to Aisaka.

  He remembered the mystery of Aisaka’s nickname. “Because of her name, and because she’ll pretty much bite anyone who wasn’t careful (except Minori), she was called the Palmtop Tiger,” a new friend had told him. No wonder she got called a tiger when she acted like that. Did she not realize how she might come off to Kitamura, even though she was a girl?

  But as Aisaka did her exercises right in front of his eyes, he reflected that she didn’t really seem like a girl who could have such a ferocious nickname—what with her short height and small frame. If he hadn’t known anything about her, she would have seemed like a frail beauty. Actually, when they first started school, she had been considered the prettiest new student and received an incessant stream of confessions of love. Ryuuji could definitely see why.

  Even compared to other girls, her small physique was on a whole different level. The tracksuits that everyone else wore normally would drag on Aisaka, so she had to cuff the hems very slightly. Even her backside was small; her build was terribly delicate.

  To be honest, even after seeing a more complete picture of her, Ryuuji couldn’t help but think Aisaka was cute. Of course, that applied strictly to her looks, but when their eyes would meet by surprise, his beating heart didn’t lie… But then, the sweat that oozed out of him at her glares didn’t lie, either.

  If she weren’t such a tiger on the inside, she would even be—no, what was he saying?

  “You moron,” Aisaka said. “What are you spacing out for? Maybe your tiny excuse for a brain finally rotted away?”

  While he was distracted by a whorl of involuntary thoughts, the radio exercises had finished.

  “Yeah, just keep on talking,” he retorted. “I’m way too sophisticated to stoop to the level of insults that crude.”

  Aisaka coldly turned her back to Ryuuji and sat down with her legs stretched out in front of her. Next were stretches.

  “How did I get stuck pretending to be happy doing stretches with you?” he wondered out loud. “Now that I think about it, we don’t even use the balls until the very end.”

  While laying on her complaints about Ryuuji’s plan, she extended her slender fingers to lightly grab the tips of her sneakers. If he were going to help push on her back, he would have to touch her, with only her shirt between his hands and her skin. He hesitated for a moment, before regaining his composure.

  “You sure are flexible. It would have been nice if you got to have this conversation with Kitamura instead, huh?”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Although he was exchanging pleasantries with her, he was actually incredibly flustered. It might have been because he was thinking about Aisaka’s looks, but now he couldn’t help but be oddly aware of her body.

  The shoulder blades that protruded from her back were warm—probably because she had been moving. The lines of her bra were just visible underneath her tank top.

  I might have accidentally made all the boys in the class awfully happy, Ryuuji thought.

  “It’s a little… Hey, take it easy. Don’t push that hard.”

  But with that thought, Ryuuji worried about Kushieda Minori. Like Aisaka, Minori might also be showing the faint lines of her underwear to Noto.

  “Ryuuji. That’s uncomfortable. Hey! That’s too hard! Ow, that’s too…”

  Even as he pondered that, his gaze focused on the area between the nape of Aisaka’s neck and the part in her hair. It might have been because it didn’t get hit by the sun, but it was completely white. The back of her ears and nearby carotid area didn’t have a single blemish. Her skin was smooth like marble. It was as though touching her would inevitably leave fingerprints. Just looking at it, his heartbeat sped up, and it got hard to breathe…

  “Urk… Urm… Urf!”

  “…Hm? What’s up with you?” he asked Aisaka.

  When he let go, she threw her head back momentously, like a diver breaking the surface.

  “I-I’ll switch with you right now… Here, you wanna switch…?” he asked.

  Aisaka looked at Ryuuji with an expression he’d never seen before—she grinned. Ryuuji couldn’t understand what in the world had happened. Maybe something good?

  Then, a few dozen seconds later, he was sitting with his legs out and his back to Aisaka. Don’t push too hard, Ryuuji thought and glanced back.

  That’s when he saw it.

  From a little way off, she ran straight at him. She took off and soared.

  “Hey, stop—aaack!”

  Carrying more force than her body should have allowed, the tiger nearly broke his spine. A sound of sheer destruction came from his waist.

  “Damn… That’ll be sore for a while…!”

  “I’m sore, too. Consider this payback.”

  After wasting each other’s HP, the long-awaited passing practice finally arrived. After enduring that jumping body slam, he felt like his lower half had been smashed to pieces, but he continued to participate in the exercises, somehow. Miraculously.

  “Hurry up and do it, just like we planned earlier. Are you ready?” Aisaka moved about five meters away from him. The other students had started practicing passes, and the satisfying sounds of basketballs echoed here and there throughout the room.

  Of course, their earlier plan was for Ryuuji to casually throw the ball during warm-ups and gently hit the person paired with Kitamura. But there was one problem.

  They’d positioned themselves so that Kitamura’s partner, Kihara-san, was diagonally behind Aisaka—or diagonally in front, from Ryuuji’s perspective—but Kihara-san was a girl.

  No matter how gently he tried to throw it, intentionally hitting a girl with a ball…it made him hesitate. For the time being, Ryuuji did a chest pass to Aisaka.

  “Why are you still passing normally?”

  Her large eyes glinting dangerously like the edge of a knife, Aisaka glared at Ryuuji.

  “There’s this thing called ‘timing.’ Hey, c’mon, pass it.”

  “…”

  With displeasure clear on her face, she returned a sharp pass. And then, when Ryuuji took the ball in hand, Aisaka motioned at him with her chin.

  Do it.

  She was giving him an order.

  “…Well, uh… well…”

  With just the right amount of deceptiveness, he threw one more pass. Aisaka caught the ball, but her mouth distorted into a scowl.

  “Hey. I’m telling you, hurry up and do it…”

  Then, slowly, with a stability learned through experience, she dribbled the basketball repeatedly. Bam. Bam. Bam.

  “There!”

  “Whoa!”

  She hucked the ball like a bullet, right at his face.

  “Y-you…”

  It was close, but Ryuuji barely managed to catch it in time. One of his cheeks twitched brutishly, but he wasn’t angry. Well, okay, he was a little angry, but even more afraid.

  “Hey, Ryuuji, hey—pass it, paaass it.”

  Aisaka wore one of her calm expressions. With each of her beautiful, near-on aggravating side steps, her gym shoes squeaked. Of course, since she hardly intended to receive a pass, both her hands swayed playfully. I should show her the pass of a real man. Ryuuji concentrated his strength into both his hands, but…

  “…Oh.”

  He stopped in his tracks, caught off guard when Aisaka glanced away. “What’re you looking at?”

  Right in Aisaka’s line of sight, Kihara Maya ran after her ball, as it quickly tumbled away. “Heyy, Kitamura, where do you think you’re throwing that?!”

  “Sorry, sorry!”

  Out of all the places it could have gone, the ball hit Aisaka’s feet.

  “…”

  She was dazed.

  With an unfortunate
expression showing on her face, Aisaka picked it up.

  “Oh, Aisaka-san! Sorry, are you mad?! I’m so sorry, it wasn’t on purpose!”

  It might have been because they were both girls, but Kihara smiled broadly and waved her hands, showing none of the fear a boy would have. “Throw it here.” But then she noticed that her shoelaces had become untied. Kihara quickly crouched down to fix them.

  In her place, someone else called Aisaka’s name.

  “Heey, Aisaka! Sorry, but could you pass it over here?”

  It was the honor student with the glinting glasses, Kitamura Yuusaku. As expected of Kitamura, his easy, natural attitude with girls never changed.

  Screech! Like a motor all out of gas, Aisaka suddenly stopped moving. From where he was, Ryuuji couldn’t see her expression, but he had a good idea. Her twisted back snapped straight as a board.

  Krrik krrik krrik… Clank clank clank. Aisaka took several precarious steps, the robotic sounds practically audible. Right hand, right leg; left hand, left leg—each moved in conjunction. She approached and found a suitable position, but she threw the ball silently, without even a “here you go” or “here it comes.” No, she just threw the ball away—with an abruptness that made you want to cover your eyes.

  The ball, seemingly fired at random, bounced several times. But it rolled straight ahead, right where it was supposed to go…until it rolled right into Kitamura’s hands.

  “Right, thanks!” he said, making a somewhat outdated hand gesture—he threw her two finger guns. The hem of his t-shirt was tucked squarely into his tracksuit, and the drawstring bottoms of his pants were cinched super tight.

  Does Aisaka actually like that guy? Watching on, Ryuuji maintained fundamental doubts.

  “A-Aisaka…?”

  “…”

  Aisaka, who actually did seem to like that guy, had ceased all living functions—or at least, she sure looked like it. Without answering Ryuuji, she stood in the middle of the other students’ passing practice, a conspicuous nuisance. She didn’t so much as twitch.

  After calling out several times, Ryuuji gave up and gingerly approached her. Then, doing his best to avoid rousing her anger, he said, “Hey, Aisaka.”

  “…”

  He gently pinched her T-shirt sleeve and softly tugged her along as he walked. Aisaka was surprisingly obedient as she followed in tow back to their starting position. He glanced at her silent face.

  “Whoa…!”

  Reflexively, Ryuuji was taken aback. Aisaka Taiga was grinning. It wasn’t easy to notice, but you could tell if you were up close.

  She had narrow eyes, like a cat with a full stomach. Her cheeks puffed up with air. Her lips pursed into the shape of a triangle, and her neck turned the color of a peach. Her earlobes got even redder. Though she didn’t vocalize the sound, if you listened very, very closely, you could just barely hear her breathing out, “Heh heh heh heh heh.”

  She was laughing.

  “H-hey, wait… Aisaka, what’s the matter with you?”

  “Heh heh… What? Now who’s the absentminded one? You should be happy, too; it suits a mutt like you.”

  “I should be…happy?”

  Hearing such an unexpected word, it was Ryuuji’s turn to pause in between the other students. Just what was he supposed to be happy about? Despite how angry Aisaka was a minute ago, now she was in a great mood, for some mysterious reason. She swung her braids around, one in each hand. She was skipping…and dancing?

  But how? Why? Ryuuji felt like he could get away with asking and while he endured being whipped by her braids again and again, he furrowed his brow and tried asking an extremely simple question.

  “Hey… hey, just what am I supposed to be happy about?”

  Suddenly, Aisaka exclaimed in surprise and raised her head.

  “I just told you! Are you saying you forgot the goal we’re working towards? Woow, just how stupid are you? Is your brain even smaller than I thought? Hah, it’s no joking matter, if you can’t follow something that simple. But I’m in a good mood right now, so I guess I can explain it for you. But will you listen? You’re listening, right? I-I just practiced passing with Kitamura! Heh heh!”

  She capped it off with another laugh, “Heh heh heh heh heh.”

  Ryuuji thought for a while, then eventually he said, “Uhhh, how can I say this…?”

  “Wait. You don’t mean…a mere dog like you is going to complain?”

  “It’s not a complaint. Sorry for raining on your parade, but are you sure you’re looking at this the right way? I’m just saying. You didn’t practice passing with him just now, you just tossed the ball to him once. And was passing practice even really what you set out to do? Didn’t you want to go beyond practicing and do things like have a conversation with him and become friends?”

  Huh. Some of Aisaka’s sharp logic came back into her grin.

  That’s right. Ryuuji gained confidence and dug in even more. “And what was that? Would you really call that exchange a ‘conversation’? You were silent, weren’t you? You just tossed back their stray ball and got a, ‘Thank you.’ Like this.”

  While still cradling the ball in one hand, he used his other one to mimic the stupid pose Kitamura had made.

  “Hmph!” Aisaka’s spirit flashed. With all her strength, she swung her tiny hand downwards. BAM! She knocked the ball under Ryuuji’s arm down to the ground.

  With terrible force, the stricken ball flew up almost to the ceiling, and—bop! It landed directly on Ryuuji’s head.

  A certain someone caught the ball that bounced off him and said, “You might actually have a point, there. Whoa, looks like even a broken clock is right twice a day. Hmph. Anyway, for now, let’s stick to the plan.”

  You can’t get any more pompous than that. The arrogant Aisaka was back. She practically kicked Ryuuji up from where he had collapsed on his knees. She blamed him for being slow and resumed position for pass practice. Then…

  “Hey, Ryuuji!”

  “Whoa!”

  He got a super-high-speed chest pass. He hadn’t regained his balance, and instead of catching it, he took it dead on in the chest.

  “Damn, that hurt!” Ryuuji cried out without thinking. But Aisaka’s bright eyes twinkled dangerously, almost burning with madness. The flame was stronger than before. Her fire was flaring up. It seemed like her delight over that momentary, chance interaction had sparked a fire of love in Aisaka. She was being an absolute menace.

  “Go ahead and do it,” she said. “Stick to the plan, and this time, I’ll make sure it succeeds.”

  “Uh…it wasn’t really a plan, so much as…”

  “What are you saying? It’s the plan you came up with, isn’t it?! We’re almost out of time, here!”

  Whatever happened, what was most important was going through with the plan.

  No way can I do this. Ryuuji took a quiet sidelong glance at Kitamura’s partner and shook his head. She was a girl, and even if the plan was to hit her gently, he just couldn’t do it. In fact, it would be better if practice time just ran out.

  That’s it.

  Ryuuji opened his eyes, enlightened. That was it. If he just kept on wasting time, he could stall until the end of class. Of course, Aisaka would probably be furious, but he could always try running from the consequences of two-timing her. There was nothing I could do, he would say to her. It wasn’t on purpose.

  “You idiot, what is taking you so long…? Ahh, jeez, even at a time like this…my nose is getting kinda…itchy…”

  There was his chance! While Aisaka vigorously rubbed her nose, Ryuuji pelted her with banter, machine-gun fast.

  “Hey, hey, what’s with the long face? Come to think of it, you were sneezing a lot yesterday, too. Do you think it could be an infection? If not that, maybe a cold? Or could it be allergies? Maybe your sinuses got wrecked by household dust? When was the last time you cleaned? Well, it is you we’re talking about, so I’m going to guess never. That nice rug is wasted on you. Tha
t’s right, that rug—where did you buy it? I sure wish I had one. It wasn’t made in Japan, right? Man, I’m jealous.”

  “Hahh?! You’ve got a big mouth all of a sudden,” Aisaka sneered. “What are you going on about?! I don’t care about any of that… Ugh! My nose… Uuuh… Ach, jeez! None of that matters right now, I’m telling you t-to hurry up… Uuuughh!”

  Aisaka, her irritation growing, wiggled her nose just before…

  “Hurry up, come on! Hey, hey, hey, hey! Paaaaaassssss iiiit!”

  She made a low growl and stretched her arms out like a jorou spider. Her eyes told him that if he actually threw the ball to her, he wouldn’t be easily forgiven.

  But what was one more pass to kill time? Ryuuji made a naïve calculation and felt like he could get away with one more pass back and forth. It might have been because Aisaka’s nose was still itchy, but her face distorted into a wrinkle.

  “Uh, uhh… Fluh…”

  “Okaaay, I’m going for it Aisaka!”

  Ryuuji threw one final, strong pass. To his surprise, Aisaka threw her head back and…

  “ACHOO!”

  “Aaah!”

  At the very same moment he threw the pass, Aisaka sneezed. The sound of it rang throughout the gym, along with Ryuuji’s yell… It wasn’t on purpose. He swore it wasn’t on purpose.

  But, unfortunately, just at the moment Aisaka was about to sneeze, the chest pass hit her square in the face. Aisaka flew back. The ball bounced fruitlessly and rolled away. Ryuuji just stood there, dumbfounded, for several seconds. Eventually he came back to himself.

  “Sooooorry! Are you okay?! Hey!”

  Flustered, he rushed over to help her, but he was shaking. It was terrible—ah, she had a nosebleed, she’d fainted… For some reason, the images of Inko-chan and Yasuko from that morning floated into his mind. They had both been on their sides in strange positions. And now, Aisaka was like this. Could it be what I saw this morning foreshadowed what’s happening now? Ryuuji shook his head. How could he think such meaningless things to himself at a time like this?

  “Tell me what happened, Takasu! Who got hurt?! Was it Aisaka?!”

  The instructor, along with the class representative, Kitamura, had both come running over. For a moment, Ryuuji thought he could entrust Aisaka to Kitamura—but then he looked down at Aisaka in his arms.