Toradora! Vol. 2

by Yuyuko Takemiya

  Together, the parent-child pair stared straight at the three servings of tonkatsu that sizzled so deliciously in front of them. Although their faces didn’t look alike, they were thinking the same thing—if we don’t eat quick, it’ll get cold.

  Ever since the after-school mishap, Taiga had behaved oddly.

  It seemed like she’d hit her forehead pretty badly, but there wasn’t any blood or nausea or any other worrying symptoms, and eventually, she returned to peak condition. Where were you looking? Were you trying to kill me? That’s a lot of guts for a dog! And on she went—classic Taiga.

  If she was in a bad mood, that was fine, but she seemed too…dark. If Taiga were normally like a firework that had gone off accidentally, after the mishap, she was now more like a piece of poisoned fruit, melting from the inside out. After a word or two of complaint, she pretty much went into a heavy silence. She didn’t once open her mouth until they got to her condo. She didn’t even talk about Ami.

  It wasn’t the same as ignoring him. She wasn’t shunning Ryuuji on purpose. It seemed more like she was deep in thought, and because she was deeply lost inside those thoughts, her reactions to the outside world were dulled.

  And then, at half past six in the evening, even though it was time for dinner, she hadn’t arrived at the Takasu place.

  A pair of chopsticks in one hand, Ryuuji crossed his arms, looked down at the tonkatsu, and muttered, “Maybe she’s not feeling well? And then went to the hospital…by herself? If that’s the case, I shouldn’t have let her force herself to go home. I should have just taken her straight to the hospital…maybe I shouldn’t have been frying the tonkatsu this whole time.”

  “Nooo, I have a feeling there’s someone in there. I sense a certain something coming from the window,” Yasuko declared, busy holding a gaudy dress up to herself as she looked in the mirror. “I’m sensitive to the presence of girls. Inko-chan thinks so, too, right?”

  The bird that had suddenly been brought up in the conversation made a vacant, idiotic face. “Huh…? Oh, yes,” Inko-chan chimed in with a strangely human-like response.

  Inko aside, Yasuko’s hunches were usually right in times like these. She was, after all, a self-proclaimed “slight psychic.”

  “Ryu-chan, if you’re worried, why don’t you go and get her?”

  While saying that, Yasuko settled on her clothes, hung them off the top of the doorframe for the time being, and continued to do her hair with her right hand. With her left hand she poked her phone, skillfully texting away. Around this time of night, she would always noisily multitask in the Yasuko style—dressing while taking care of her business mail.

  Guess I have to. Ryuuji nodded at the tonkatsu. It wouldn’t help to just keep worrying like this, and he couldn’t have Yasuko wait when she was working staggered hours.

  “Then I’ll go over for a bit. Once you’re done with all that, don’t forget to eat.”

  “Ooh la la!” When his own mother replied with an enigmatic, sexy pose, Ryuuji averted his eyes and left the house. He slipped out the front entrance, still in his t-shirt.

  ***

  His sandals clanged against the iron stairs as he made his way down into the town’s early summer evening, already in twilight. The sky was dyed a striking indigo dappled with deep red, and the crosswind was serene.

  He felt as though his chest, which had been breathing in the pungent odor of fried food inside the apartment, was now clearing up. Ryuuji took a deep breath. As the ample oxygen went to his head, his unnecessary worries became even more vivid.

  Moving forward, just how were Taiga and Ami planning on getting through their days if they had to share the same class? Were they going to keep having underhanded contests in the small classroom, chipping away at each other’s HP until one of them collapsed? What was the point of that? It was an unfathomable world that Ryuuji couldn’t understand whatsoever.

  On foot, it was one minute—or really, ten seconds. He went through the palatial condo’s familiar marble entrance.

  Ryuuji’s worries still weren’t exhausted. If anyone looked closely, they would be able to see the two girls didn’t get along, and he knew that their meeting had been more than awful. But still, he couldn’t help but have one thought. Since they’d become classmates, for the sake of keeping the peace, wouldn’t it be better if they were more considerate of each other’s feelings?

  In his mind floated the form of Taiga at her most brutal, bluntly glowering with passionate, murderous intent. Beside her appeared the ill-natured Ami, turning away in disdain with a smirk on her lips. If Taiga was the Palmtop Tiger, then Ami was a Chihuahua of high pedigree, one that was only friendly to its owner. It would bark to provoke, and when it came across danger, would jump into the arms of its owner (Kitamura) and stick out its tongue. And it would probably be dressed up in tiny brand-name doggy clothes or something, too.

  “…That works way too well.”

  Imagining the tiger and Chihuahua confronting each other sapped all his strength. Exhausted, he hit the intercom doorbell. For a while, he waited, but no one answered. Tilting his head, he tried again, then again.

  Yasuko’s intuition couldn’t be off, thought Ryuuji (who was just a little bit of a mama’s boy). He tried one more time. Then…

  “…Who is it?”

  Who are you?! He wanted to ask, as Taiga’s dull and gloomy voice reverberated through the door.

  “It’s me. Hey, the food’s done, so come on down. It’s tonkatsu.”

  “…I don’t need any.”

  Suddenly, a powerful madness lodged in Ryuuji’s sharp eyes—he wasn’t angry, he was surprised. Taiga, whose appetite he could always depend on to be limitless, was saying she didn’t want to eat her food? It was even worse than he’d thought!

  “Hey, is there something wrong? Are you not feeling well? Does your head hurt?”

  “…You’re annoying. Nothing hurts.”

  “If you skip a meal, you’ll collapse again.”

  Her small body wasn’t exactly efficient, and if she missed a meal, Taiga immediately lost weight and her blood sugar plummeted. Knowing that, Ryuuji put more effort into sharpening his tone of voice. “Anyway, for now, open up! I won’t stop giving rations to someone who doesn’t explain why they don’t want to eat.”

  Silence, then a faint click of the tongue. Finally, the auto-lock door opened.

  ***

  “…Yo.”

  He was on the first-class condo’s second floor.

  Ryuuji inadvertently bent backwards and groaned as he saw the face of the person who slowly opened the oak door and peeked from behind its frame.

  “Wh-what happened…?”

  “…”

  Taiga was speechless, under the blanket that covered her head. Her lacy cotton dress was a mess. Her hair was horribly tangled, hiding her head. The one eye he could spot was red and gummy—her cheeks were also completely wet. It seemed she had been crying here by herself.

  Taiga was a creature that cried regularly, but still… “H-hey. Wait.”

  Pulling the blanket with her, Taiga went down the high-end beige hallway to return to the living room. Though he hesitated, Ryuuji removed his shoes and followed after her.

  Behind the heavy glass door was a magnificent living room over twenty tatami mats in size, with an interior that looked like it was pulled straight from a foreign magazine.

  “…Ahhh…” Ryuuji murmured, scratching his head.

  On top of the rug that the sofa was also on, there was a mounded mess of sheets and blankets from the bedroom. In the middle was a hollow big enough to fit exactly one Taiga. She squatted down in it, settled in completely, and balled herself up. Once she pulled down the blanket currently draped over her head, the Shut-In Tiger would be complete.

  She didn’t have the crystal chandelier on, so only the dim recessed lighting shone, casting a soft glow from the ceiling. Taiga had been in her dim room like this the whole time, clueless as to the color of the sky beyond the close
d-off curtains.

  “…Hey.”

  “…”

  In pure gloom, she’d balled herself up like this.

  There was a moment of hesitation. But Ryuuji made up his mind and flipped over the top of the couch. Ryuuji held his knees and sat down beside Taiga, who was hiding in her nest like a baby cub.

  “Hey, what’s wrong? …Does it hurt where you were hit earlier? Do you want to go to the hospital?” After all, the attacker happened to have been Ryuuji. Maybe it was a little invasive, but he couldn’t not check on her.

  But without answering, Taiga remained balled up in her tiger cub pose and pushed her head into the sheets.

  “…Are you okay…? Come on, answer me…”

  Eventually, he heard a voice like a mosquito’s buzz. “…Hey…”

  “Hm?”

  “…I wonder if…Kitamura-kun…actually does hate me now?”

  Her covered face turned to the side. Through a gap in her hair, he got a peek of her teary eyes, colored with desperation. Totally serious, Taiga looked up at Ryuuji with a firm gaze.

  He let out a long, long breath. “Is that really what you were worried about?”

  “Well…”

  “I told you, right? Kitamura saw everything that happened at that restaurant. He knew you were provoked into doing that, and he knew what Kawashima was really like to begin with. And you’re the one who would know best of all that Kitamura wouldn’t hate anyone for something like that, right? Don’t go getting depressed over something this small.”

  “…You really think so…?”

  “I do.”

  “Then why am I so short?!”

  “Huh?!”

  That question was a surprise attack! Ryuuji didn’t normally make a pastime out of thinking about why someone else’s body was the way it was. For a few seconds he was struck dumb.

  “Uh…probably because of, like…DNA…your genes…and stuff…”

  It probably wasn’t too far off the mark, but it came out awfully half-hearted.

  But Taiga continued speaking in a low voice, “…I’m a shrimp…and my name is weird…and I can’t do anything by myself.” She cut herself off and went silent.

  That was new. It seemed she wanted to do something about that immense name, so unusual for a girl, and the small stature that gave her the Palmtop title. Now that she said it, he realized something obvious—Taiga was always greedily drinking milk products. Was she trying to inspire a growth spurt?

  “I had no idea that you worried about something so trivial.”

  “…It’s not something trivial! Unlike you, I’m sensitive.”

  She rubbed at her eyes with her small fists. Taiga finally got herself up and sat next to Ryuuji. He hadn’t seen it because of her hair, but she had a cooling patch stuck on her round forehead. She might have developed a bump. Ryuuji felt a sting in his heart, and mostly subconsciously, gently rubbed the patch. Taiga didn’t push his hand away.

  “…What… just because you’re 165 centimeters tall…” Taiga pouted and muttered, eyes dipping slightly downwards.

  I’m a little taller than that, Ryuuji thought, then he realized what she meant. She wasn’t talking about him.

  “…And just because her name’s like Sailor Mercury’s… Because of that, because of that…!”

  This was about Kawashima Ami.

  With a well-proportioned figure and a cute name like an anime character’s, she was the ideal girl, who had both things Taiga wanted—that was Kawashima Ami’s existence to Taiga.

  Of course, Ryuuji breathed in. The reason why Taiga was gloomily grumbling like this was because, on top of worrying what Kitamura thought of her, Ami had triggered a self-confidence crisis in Taiga. The ill-natured girl she hated had all the things she couldn’t help but want. On those points, she could never win… there wasn’t a soul alive who wouldn’t want to squat in a dim room and shut themselves in when faced with that.

  Ryuuji could understand that frame of mind. He nodded knowingly. “And she’s also a childhood friend of Kitamura’s. And their whole family is close, too.”

  “Augh…!”

  …I know, I know. He’d tried to support her by saying he understood.

  But Taiga’s miserable face turned into the picture of melting ice.

  Oh, shoot. I hit at her worst anxiety…

  Now he finally understood. Even if Ami was well-proportioned or had a cute name, Taiga wouldn’t have become this depressed as long as Ami hadn’t been close to Kitamura. Taiga had gotten to this point because Ami had the most important advantage over Taiga. Her efforts to get the thing Ami had that she didn’t had all been in vain.

  Ryuuji finally realized his mistake, but it was already too late. Like a broken jack-in-the-box, Taiga deflated back into her shut-in corner. In the end, she closed the blanket top right up.

  “…How can you be so barbarically insensitive…? I’m just flabbergasted!” Her low voice was equal parts reproachful and muffled.

  “Yeah, and I’m always flabbergasted when I see the way you live your life.”

  “WHAT?!”

  At Ryuuji’s slip of the tongue, Taiga simply snapped. She sent the blanket flying as she leapt up.

  “Hey, you’re looking better.”

  “Just what. About me. Leaves you flabbergasted?!”

  “W-well, that’s! Exactly! Wait! Whoa! Ah!”

  His words were interrupted by cushions being thrown at him from above, from below—to the left, to the right.

  “You! Jerk! You dog! Mutt!”

  “Hey! Watch it—watch the—the dust! Stop! Oof!”

  “Shut up! Be quiet!”

  And then…

  “Ha…haaa…CHOO!”

  “Whoa! Whoa! …Yuck, your snot’s everywhere!”

  She moved on from physical attacks to spiritual humiliation. When he was nearly beat by her counterattack… rumble rumble… Taiga’s stomach roared like the shaking of a fault line.

  “Oh.”

  She opened her eyes wide, stopping her attack. She looked down with a face of pure wonder at her own stomach, as it echoed with that terrible sound.

  “What on Earth was that noise just now?”

  “Don’t just say ‘oh!’ It’s the sound of your own gut! …Jeez, so you are hungry after all. Here, let’s eat the tonkatsu.”

  “…I told you I don’t need any.”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna take your stomach’s word for it over yours. Yasuko needs to leave soon, too, so here, stand up.”

  “…Is it Berkshire?”

  “Yeah, it’s Berkshire.”

  “…Will you eat the fat?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  With a reluctant look on her face, Taiga finally stood from her blanket nest. First he had her blow her nose, then he had her check that the windows were locked. At Ryuuji’s direction, Taiga took the key and put sandals on her bare feet, and then finally, he was successful in leading her out of her condo.

  They walked slightly apart, under a sky that was a shade of indigo just a little prettier than before. But while they were heading up the neighboring stairs, they were interrupted.

  “Ryu-chaan!” Yasuko’s tearful face peeked from the entryway. It seemed she had dutifully waited for the two of them and hadn’t eaten a bite. “How are we supposed to eat tonkatsu without the sauce?!”

  She had chopsticks in one hand, waving the empty sauce bottle as she gave her son that most shocking news.

  ***

  Making a sudden change of course, Ryuuji and Taiga rushed to the closest convenience store. Ryuuji went straight to the sauce shelf and Taiga went selfishly to the magazine rack.

  “Hey, we’re in a hurry, so let’s go!” After paying for the sauce, Ryuuji swung the convenience store bag to lightly tap Taiga on the butt. Taiga sullenly turned.

  “I know that already. Don’t touch my butt, you perverted dog. Just a little bit more…here.” The fingers that were rifling through the pages stopped. Then, she pulled Ryuuji (who had g
one out of the store ahead of her) back in by the edge of his T-shirt. “Get a load of this.”

  She showed him the page.

  What is it? Ryuuji turned around and unconsciously stopped walking when he saw what was on the page. “…It’s Kawashima Ami, isn’t it?”

  On the lower part of the opened page was Ami in her regular clothes, with her own attached sidebar. In it was written this:

  Because of matters relating to school, Ami-chan will be taking a break from this month’s edition. Look forward to reuniting with her soon!

  “So… she’s taking a break?”

  “Because she moved here? …I wonder if our school was worth it…” Somehow, he had his doubts. “Well, we don’t have time for this. If we don’t hurry and get back, Yasuko will be late.”

  After putting back the magazine, they jogged out of the store.

  It happened when they were taking a short cut through the parking lot to the road…

  “…Hm?”

  “…What’s that?”

  Nearly simultaneously, they both saw something strange. They stopped walking once again and automatically turned to look at each other.

  A little ahead of them, they saw an odd-looking, mysterious woman go into the convenience store they had just left. She was clothed completely in a black tracksuit with a face mask over her mouth, and even though it was night, she wore sunglasses and a big cap. But those long and slender limbs, the silkiness of her exposed black hair, her elfin face, and her stellar figure could all only belong to the one model in the whole town—the one they had just seen in the magazine.

  As expected, Taiga was also scowling unpleasantly.

  “That’s…that’s who I think it is, right…?”

  “…Well, speak of the devil, and all that… What’s with that getup?”

  Her extremely strange disguise only made her stand out more. If this were Hiro or Azabu or some larger town, she might have melted in and looked like an entertainer trying to retain her privacy by hiding her face. But on a residential street like this, you might be mistaken for a convenience store robber with an unusually good figure and arrested if you were unlucky.