Toradora! Vol. 7 Read online

  Then he thought, It’s not like that. No, no.

  He finally realized how strange his thoughts were. It was like that, and he couldn’t refute it. Taiga liked Kitamura. That was definitely true. The biggest problem that Ryuuji and Taiga had faced for a while now was precisely that—it was Kitamura. Weren’t they completely right?

  But, why was it that right now, when an objective truth had been brought to the light and said aloud, he was trying to deny and even reject it?

  He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand anything anymore.

  “Here, sorry for the wait! Four cokes!”

  Ryuuji snapped his face up from the tray that came down in front of him. Kitamura, who was garbed in Uniqlo-casual clothes from top to bottom like he normally was, handed out the drinks on the tray to the four of them.

  “First, how about we all try our hand at math? If anyone doesn’t understand anything, everyone can look over the president’s notes and think it over.”

  “Sure, but there’s no way that the greatest teacher ever wouldn’t have understood something? It’s not like I don’t get anything, though…”

  At Haruta’s voice, Kitamura smiled and shook his head.

  “There’s a lot of things, actually. Then we’ll do that later.”

  He turned around and headed back to his table with Taiga. Even seeing Taiga from the margins, she looked nervous. She dropped her spoon as she was trying to clean up her things and dropped her pencil case trying to pick it up. Then, while trying to pick her pencil case up, she dropped her textbook, and in the end, she also dropped her notebook. As she did that, her face became a shade pinker each time. Are you okay? Kitamura seemed to ask as he helped her gather her things. She returned a stiff smile that said, I’m okay. Kitamura, who was looking back at her, kindly smiled back. There was no time for Ryuuji to help as their four hands skillfully picked up the fallen items.

  “See,” said Noto. “They do look pretty great together. Well, I’m going to the restroom really quick before we start studying.”

  “Oh, I’ll go, too.”

  Noto and Haruta stood from their seats, but Ryuuji still couldn’t move. It was a very strange feeling. Noto had looked at him as though he had been clueless and now, suddenly, Taiga and Kitamura who were sitting slightly away from them almost started to seem like strangers. I see, he thought. I see, if I think of them as strangers, Taiga and Kitamura really do look much, much better together than I thought. For real.

  “T-Takasu-kun! Hey, hey, hey, hey! Hey!”

  “Uh, right…”

  From beside him, Maya dug her elbow into him. He blinked. Low enough that only Ryuuji could hear, she scowled as she impatiently whispered, “Takasu-kun, what do you think about that?! You don’t agree with them, do you?! You don’t think they’d work out well, right? You don’t think that they should date, right?!”

  “Uh…well…that’s…actually, I think it’s really…sudden…”

  “I knew it!” Maya nodded as though she were aiming to attack while he mumbled.

  “Right, you don’t think so, either! It’s been going around the whole class, but that can’t be right!”

  “Wait a sec, what’s been going around the whole class…”

  “There’d be nothing good about it for you if Maruo and Tiger got together, right?! Everyone says you hang around Tiger because you’re just super nice and like taking care of people. They say there’s nothing more to it, but, really, you must like Tiger, right?!”

  “Huh?! Uh, uh wai…huh?!”

  “I’m rooting for you, Takasu-kun! I really am! So you can’t give up!”

  She fist-pumped enthusiastically and snuck a glance at the table where Taiga and Kitamura sat. No matter what he denied, or how he did it, he probably wouldn’t be able to get through to her. He knew that Kitamura had been popular among the girls for a while, so he wasn’t surprised at the passionate look Maya turned to him. It was the other part that surprised him. Wait a second, he wanted to say.

  What in the world had happened while he hadn’t been looking? Who had figured it out, how much did they know, and what were they trying to do? What was he supposed to do? For a while his mind was just a mess. He was a mad cray mess and fleek-wood mac. A-B-C-yotch. The words were just gibberish. He didn’t get what it all meant.

  Taiga and Kitamura had the doria plate taken away and were amicably opening the math book, but they weren’t looking at it. They were saying something to each other. He could hear fragments about Christmas Eve and the party, the prep committee, the student council…things like that. Noto and Haruta returned and started opening their textbooks at that table, too.

  “We should just copy the patriarch’s notes at a convenience store on the way home.”

  “Actually, what if we change the order of things and copy them now?”

  “The restaurant won’t like that, obviously.”

  He pretended to join in on the conversation by nodding and shaking his head, but Ryuuji’s stomach wouldn’t settle. He couldn’t calm down. His eyes wandered, prowled about, and since he didn’t know where to look, he was forced to make them go from right to left. When he looked straight ahead, he thought, Oh no, the curry’s completely cold. With everything going on, he had forgotten to eat it. Right, he needed to hurry and clean it off his plate first.

  He grasped the spoon loaded with rice and curry and stuffed it in his mouth.

  “A stool test! Ryuuji, a stool test! They say the whole prep committee has to do a stool test!”

  Bleh! He almost spat out all the curry. Right before he did, he desperately puckered his lips and swallowed the brown stuff down his throat.

  “Y-you…did that on purpose, didn’t you?!”

  “Huh? What?”

  Behind Taiga, who was tilting her head in curiosity, Kitamura nodded gravely.

  “We really do have to do stool tests. We have to work with food, so everyone has to do one.”

  “Heey~! Why, you! You’ve got to have some delicacy! We’ve got someone over here eating poo, so don’t talk about curry! Oh, I mean the opposite! We’ve got someone over here eating curry, so don’t talk about poo! Look, Taka-chan is eating po…I mean curry!”

  Kind, sweet Haruta hit him when he was already down. To Ryuuji’s sensitive eyes, the curry now looked like something entirely else. He super cray didn’t want to eat it.

  Chapter 3

  Time flew like an arrow. The steadily marching days didn’t give Ryuuji any time to spare as they easily sent him into chaos.

  “Wah!”

  “Kyah!”

  Alongside the muffled screams, glittery pieces of something fluttered and scattered. Ahh! Others also added their own yells as the empty cardboard box futilely fell into a corner of the hallway.

  “No! What do we do? This is the worst! They’re all over the place!”

  “Seriously, you klutz! If you’re going to make a scene, at least go pick them up while you’re doing it! Let me see. Are your knees okay? Ahh, you scraped them up, too! Seriously, you really are a klutz!”

  “You don’t have to tell me! Ugh…I really did it this time…”

  Taiga had scattered a large quantity of silver and gold confetti that five people had painstakingly cut from tape around the school hallway. If they wanted to, they could have bought the confetti, but once they had found out it was more expensive than expected, the prep committee had decided to make it by hand in order to save on their budget. They had worked hours in silence before school, during lunch, and after school just to make it. Finally, when they had finished making several boxes worth, which was enough for the party, a certain klutz had fallen over, done a few flips, and scattered a whole box’s worth.

  The klutzy culprit stood up and scowled provokingly. She looked at her own knees, which seemed painfully red.

  “Hey! Someone please pick this up, too!”

  “Oh, sorry…”

  Ryuuji turned around in a fluster towards the voice of the single teacher (age 30),
whom Taiga had collided with from behind. When he looked, he saw that the bachelorette (who was in excellent health) had lost a vast quantity of the printouts she was holding. Luckily, she hadn’t fallen over, which was to be expected from a bottom-heavy thirty-year-old… Though if he said that, it would probably cause a single door to a single alternate universe to open. He didn’t say anything uncalled for but quickly kneeled in the hallway to pick up the printouts, leaving the confetti to the others.

  “This is terrible~! They used to be in number order, and now they’re all messed up~!”

  “We’re really sorry. She’s the one who did this. It’s that little idiot!”

  Having been introduced, Taiga picked up the edge of her skirt, bent her knees, and looked unexpectedly honest as she lowered her expressionless head.

  “Thanks for pointing that out!”

  That was probably part of her good girl act. Had she been her normal self, at this point, the bachelorette (whose parents were alive and well) would have been sent to hell to dance forever in slow step by herself with a sixteen-beat tongue click.

  Unaware of her good fortune, the bachelorette (an only child) furrowed her brow and said, “It seems like you’re all just working on stuff for the prep committee lately. Are you all okay? It’s nice that you’re having a Christmas party, but don’t forget about your tests. Especially you, Aisaka-san. Are you following along okay even after all the classes you missed while you were on suspension?”

  Ahh, uhh. Taiga, who was absorbed in picking up the confetti, just made noises in response, so Ryuuji replied for her.

  “We’ve been gathering at night and having study groups lately. We ask questions about the parts we don’t know so the people who are teaching and the ones who are taught both get to learn. It looks like Taiga gets most of it in the first place, but what’s really cinching everything is pretty much Kanou-senpai’s notes.”

  “Really? Well, Aisaka-san had good grades to begin with, if only that, and you have good grades, too, Takasu-kun, but I’m worried about Haruta-kun and Haruta-kun, and especially Haruta-kun…”

  “You’re worried about Haruta-kun?”

  “And also Haruta-kun. Oh. Haruta-kun isn’t doing work for the prep committee, too, is he?”

  “It’s okay, Kitamura has a strict no-touch policy for him when it comes to the party, so he can devote himself to studying.”

  In a gray knit top, tight white skirt, and with a small diamond pendant hanging to her chest, she created an impregnable defense as she crouched. (She had her knees on the ground and her thighs to the side to make sure that she didn’t show a glimpse of her underwear. It was the strongest measure against any peeking. It’s elegant and once learned, doesn’t leave a gap in the defenses and creates an unwelcoming aura!) The bachelorette (a government employee) gathered the printouts but still looked into Ryuuji’s face as though she were concerned.

  “Please, please be absolutely—absolutely—sure you and everyone else don’t neglect your studies. I don’t want to see a sudden drop in your grades. You and Aisaka-san seem to always be here for the prep committee, and as your teacher, that has me worried.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  Ryuuji gave her a small apology and scratched at his head.

  The bachelorette (a four-year college graduate) wasn’t necessarily completely wrong to be worried. The committee consumed Ryuuji and Taiga’s days with a torrent of work.

  They would meet early in the morning with the student council and then be busy with various things related to the party preparations. There was plenty to do. They assigned people things, put together the things they needed for the program, allocated the budget, begged the instructors for the student council budget and expenses, had meetings during lunch, and, like they were now, would plan the agenda up to Christmas Eve, then divide themselves up as a group and choose what they needed to do. They would check in on each other’s progress and make confetti and decorations after school. They chiefly got everyone together to work on physical labor.

  In addition to that, they had their normal classes, of course, and their end-of-semester exams were coming. At night they would gather at the family restaurant or someone’s house and form a study group, and when they broke up, they would go home to study individually. The teachers were persistent about telling them that the Christmas Eve party was something the school allowed on the condition of their oversight. If the students concentrated too intently on the party preparations and were negligent about their classes, or if their grades dropped during the exams, the teachers would immediately put a stop to everything.

  In particular, there was not a single adult who looked kindly upon Taiga volunteering for the prep committee. She was already the number one problem child at school. On top of that, Taiga had recently earned a criminal record, so they couldn’t give a warm reception to her participating in an unconventional student function put on for fun. It seemed quite a few teachers held the harsh opinion that she didn’t seem like she’d reflected on her actions and that her punishment had been too lenient.

  It was just one bachelorette—no, one homeroom teacher, Koigakubo Yuri, who had vouched for Taiga, citing that Taiga’s grades hadn’t been bad leading up to that point, and that she needed the committee as a way of letting off steam. Their teacher claimed Taiga would become more self-aware of her role as a student by taking on responsibilities. In other words, the bachelorette (though she was an only daughter, she wasn’t insistent about using her family name, Koigakubo) was responsible for Taiga, and if Taiga fell from grace, the bachelorette (in other words, she wouldn’t force her future husband to adopt her name!) would also be in a rocky position.

  “But I think that you really don’t need to worry about Taiga for now. Taiga’s grades are even better than mine, and we’re studying together for the upcoming exams. I saw her midterm test scores and finally got it. Saying that it was abnormal is kind of mean, but…”

  “I forgot to write my name a couple of times when I was a first year and had a lot of 0 percent scores that I had to take supplementary exams for. Starting this year though, I’ve been telling myself before tests, ‘Your name! Your name! Your! Name!’ So it’ll be okay.”

  “Sorry she causes these things by being klutzy… Here, this is everything.”

  “Danke schön!”

  “Sorry for that. So, bachel…I mean, teacher, are you coming to the Christmas party?”

  “Like I would! I don’t have any plans, but I’m not putting my pride on the line to go! But—”

  Oh ho ho. After she stopped, she suddenly shook with soft laughter.

  “I hope everything’s a success. You’re working so hard. You deserve to be rewarded.”

  At the words of the bachelorette (who can become a bride anytime she wants!), the tip of Ryuuji’s nose turned red without him realizing. He gained the ability to blow flames from his nose…not really. To be rewarded—in other words, that meant Minori coming to the party. It meant that he would be able to spend Christmas Eve with his unrequited love. For that to happen, Ryuuji and the angel Taiga-sama were investing their precious time to prepare for the party.

  He wanted to be rewarded. Ryuuji was silent for a while as he digested those words. He wanted to spend the one and only Christmas Eve of his seventeenth year—the day for couples—with Minori. Taiga must have felt the same. She must have been praying for the party to go well with Kitamura.

  The bachelorette (oh, she’s good at foreign languages, too ♥) wouldn’t know that, but the gentle look she gave Taiga seemed like it had sincere warmth. As their homeroom teacher, she had genuinely been worried about Taiga, the problem child, and Ryuuji fully understood that just from her look. He understood that this adult really was on their side.

  Taiga crawled along the hallway.

  “Aisaka-senpai! You’re getting trash mixed in, too~!”

  “Geh! Awah wah, oh no, oh no!”

  “I’ll pick out the trash, so just collect them, senpai! It anyone comes b
y, they’ll scatter them even more!”

  “No way! This is bad!”

  She was making a scene with the first years as she fixed the mess she had created from her own klutziness. When they first met, the underclassmen also feared the Palmtop Tiger, the most terrifying animal at school. But because Taiga was her Christmas limited-edition good girl version of herself, right now she was the senpai they were closest to. They had even learned to deal with her klutziness.

  Senpai, over there, over there! Over here, too! As Ryuuji watched Taiga going left and right in a flurry as she crouched down busily according to the voices of the underclassmen, his face pulled back ominously and twitched without him realizing it. He was smiling.

  “Taiga apparently loves Christmas. Honestly, I don’t really get it but…she’s so excited about it. She’s saying this stupid stuff about being a good girl because Santa is watching.”

  “Oh, so that’s what was going on. I get it, though. All girls love Christmas.”

  “Is it that kind of a thing?”

  “I’m not a young girl anymore, but I like Christmas… Tiffany, Cartier, Gucci, and Coach… Hermes, Bulgari, Dior, Vuitton, Chanel… Chloe, Bottega, Mark Jaco-o-o-owaaaaaaah!”

  “Whoa?!”

  The BACHELORETTE used GREEDY FIRE!

  RYUUJI shakes from fear!

  Command ► RUN.

  Couldn’t get away!

  “I’m buying a reward for myself! It’s Christmas, so what’s stopping me?! I’ll buy a watch or a bag or an accessory. My budget is 300,000 yen! It’s my first Christmas as a thirty-year-old, so it’ll be a reward for working thirty hard years! That’s why I’m allowed to buy it!”

  “…”

  “Wh-what are you staring at me like that for?! If there’s something you want to say, then just say it!”

  “…”

  “Y-you must think that I’m wasting my money?! You must think buying a present for myself is just a spinster falling for marketing! You’re probably just thinking, ‘What a spinster! What a spinster!’ Aren’t you?!”