Toradora! Vol. 2

by Yuyuko Takemiya

  Taiga isn’t the only one I want to be close to—I’d like to be closer to you, too, Minori… That’s what he would say. This was it. He softly licked his dry lips and casually put his nervously shaking fists in his pockets. The timing was natural, it wouldn’t seem weird, and if worse came to worst, he could play it off as though it were a joke. He could only do it now, only now—

  “Ta—”

  “Ryuuji!”

  BAM! He was forcefully thrown back.

  “Ryuuji, it’s terrible! What should I do?!”

  “…”

  His voice wouldn’t come out. He regained his footing just as he was on the verge of falling over. Though Taiga was still looking up at him, Ryuuji couldn’t say a word.

  “Come here, quick! Over here!”

  And just like that he was pulled into the shadow of an alleyway.

  “Kitamura-kun has been beside that president this whole time! This whooole time! He won’t leave her! He’s laughing it up like he’s having the time of his life and isn’t noticing me at all! I worked up my courage and tried telling him, I came with Ryuuji, but when I did that do you know what he said?! ‘Oh, I had no idea. I didn’t notice, thank you! That helps!’—and that was it. That was all he said! Is that what you say to the girl you once confessed to?! Right?! What do you think?!” she went on a tirade, saying it all in a single breath. Taiga pressed Ryuuji even more for an answer, “Do you think it means…he definitely isn’t interested?! Wh-what should I do?! What do you think?! I won’t get mad so just be honest!”

  “I-I don’t think…well, to be honest—”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I wish you would have left me alone… things were going well with Kushieda…”

  “…What’s that?” From a looming distance, Taiga’s expression filled with quiet anger. “Even though things are going so badly for me, they were going well for you?! Huh?! This is bold, even for you!”

  “I-Is it so bad? Didn’t you say you wouldn’t get mad?!”

  “I’ll get as mad as I want! No, I won’t forgive something like that! I told you, didn’t I? Until I get together with Kitamura-kun, I won’t let you be happy! You…heartless brute!”

  Taiga the tyrannical stalked off straight out of the alleyway.

  “Taiga, what’s wrong? Just when I thought you’d appeared, you vanished again.”

  “Minorin!” Taiga fell into the arms of Minori, who was standing around without anything to do. She firmly wrapped her arms around her.

  “I don’t want to be here anymore… let’s go away, just the two of us, as far as our legs will take us!”

  “Eloping? I can’t say I dislike the idea.” Minori’s smile got full marks for broadmindedness as she embraced Taiga’s small shoulders.

  Then, the two of them nestled close and walked off into the distance. They didn’t even turn back to Ryuuji once. They seemed strangely happy.

  “D-damn it…” he groaned in frustration as he stood stock-still. Left behind, Ryuuji could only watch as Minori’s back grew more distant. And I just made progress—

  “Are you okay?”

  “Huh?”

  At the sudden words directed to him, he spun around like he’d been hit. Ami was standing beside him, bowing slightly. It seemed she had come out after Taiga, who she detested, had left.

  “Aisaka-san bowled you over just now, right? I saw it. Were you okay?”

  “Uh…yeah, well…I’m used to it, anyway.”

  “Takasu-kun, you poor thing. Aisaka-san and Minori-chan aren’t around anymore, and I don’t know where Yuusaku went either.”

  “Oh…right.”

  He suddenly noticed the other students, who were also restlessly walking around, taking starry-eyed glances at Ami. Though they watched the celebrated beauty with feverish eyes, ‘that Takasu’ was next to her, so no one seemed able to talk to her. Outside of their class, the name Takasu Ryuuji still was reckoned in the same standing as the Palmtop Tiger. They were both synonymous with terror.

  There were still a few girls who had the courage to walk by and wave, saying “Ami-chaan.” When Ami smiled and waved back, they clamored in delight. But, Ami immediately turned her back to them.

  “Well, looks like we’re the leftovers, so let’s work together and get on with it! Hey, where do you want to try going?” She looked up at Ryuuji with her dazzling angel’s smile.

  “Uhmm… Are you sure you don’t want to go with those girls from just now?”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine, I don’t know any of them anyway. I’ll go with you. That’s right, how about we go towards the riverbank? That was part of the cleanup area, right?”

  “…I don’t mind, but…”

  Are you sure you want me to go with you? He didn’t even get the chance to ask, as Ami happily started walking with long strides. Then she turned right around.

  “Hey, you’re going to be left behind!” Just like in a scene from a movie, she held out a supple hand to him. Ryuuji couldn’t just clasp it, so he did the only thing he could and walked quickly to overtake Ami. He looked exactly like the trope of a villainous guy acting bashful.

  ***

  Wobble, wobble, wobble…the tip of the quivering stick finally caught the plastic bottle on the water’s edge.

  “I-I got it…!”

  “You can do it!”

  Ryuuji pulled the empty bottle in against the current, and finally breathed a sigh. He shook his arm, which was heavy from stretching it as far as he could manage, and then dropped the bottle into the trash bag, touching it as little as possible. One down.

  “Aah…I’m about halfway there…”

  “I’m about the same. We don’t have too far to go, so let’s show some energy!”

  At the Class A river that ran along the border of the town, Ryuuji and Ami once again carefully started walking along the lower part of the concrete levee, taking care to keep their sneakers dry. Under the greying clouds, whether it was because no one was there to take care of them or because they had been left to grow as they pleased, grassy patches sprouted between the cracks of the concrete.

  The grass gave off a slightly sickening smell alongside the odor of the river water, which couldn’t be described as clean. Walking in front of Ami, Ryuuji secretly breathed in. The work had ended up even more lame than he had imagined. The amount of trash in the bags they each held were far from becoming one whole trash bag’s worth. Even though the quota wasn’t strict, this probably still wouldn’t be acceptable.

  They had been searching on the promenade above the bank just earlier, but they couldn’t find any coveted bulky trash, and so ended up coming all the way down to the shoreline. Then…

  “Whoa…”

  “Ahh!”

  Swash, Ryuuji narrowly avoided the downwind splash of a wave and turned to Ami. Ami also seemed to have been able to avoid the wave, but…

  “Ugh… really… this is the absolute worst…”

  Ryuuji gulped.

  Her low mumble to herself approached irritation, and there were deep, grim wrinkles rippling across her brow. They didn’t suit her at all. On top of Ryuuji being worn out, it seemed that Ami was getting tired, too. The omens of her mask’s impending failure were there.

  The clouds certainly were dark, and the wind was strong. There wasn’t any work more boring than this. It was getting unpleasantly cold, but they were far from finishing. They also hadn’t collected enough trash. In these circumstances, anyone other than Ami would normally have been in a bad mood, too. On top of that, there was the incredibly delicate air between the two of them. They couldn’t keep up a conversation; it was awkward, and Ryuuji, being shy, couldn’t even tell a good joke. He already had his hands full trying to keep his composure so she wouldn’t think he was gross.

  “A-are you okay?”

  “Huh? Yeah! I’m completely fine! This is fun, it’s like exploring, right?! I really like stuff like this!” She had stuck on that angel smile without any problems, but the rift was still
scary. Ryuuji felt he would have been a lot more comfortable if she had just kept being in a bad mood.

  “Hey…you don’t have to push yourself so hard. You can rest if you’re tired. Even if we can’t fill the quota, it’s not like they’re going to kill us. And this is pretty hard for a girl, right?” That was Ryuuji giving it his all trying to check her mood, but it only made her double down on the act.

  “Oh no, I’m completely fine, I’m telling you!” While making a big deal of waving her hand in front of her face, she looked up at him with her Chihuahua eyes, which were radiating sparkles. She inclined her head while spinning especially sweet words for him.

  “I was thinking about this since way earlier, you know! That I wanted a chance to have a nice relaxed chat with you, Ryuuji. So…awah!”

  It happened then.

  A strong gust of mischievous wind had disturbed the water’s surface, creating a larger wave than before. Ryuuji quickly ran away to the slope and escaped the trouble, but Ami, down at water level, was too slow.

  “…No…way…”

  This was unfortunate.

  “Are you okay?! I-I ran away by myself, but that was… what have I…”

  “…”

  Even someone as versatile as Ami didn’t seem to have the power to recompose herself right now. She looked long and hard at her sopping wet sneakers and at the hem of her tracksuit. She remained speechless and expressionless as she stood.

  “K-Kawashima…”

  But finally, he saw the edges of Ami’s lips lifting. Slowly, mechanically. Like a machine. Though she raised a grim, shaking look at him, he could see that she was trying her best to soften it.

  “Ohh…”

  She had a resolve that couldn’t be dissolved. Slowly but surely, Ami tried to regain her angelic mask, desperately, with great pain. Then, when she had recomposed seventy percent of it…

  “Eep—”

  …Her pretty features once again froze over. On top of Ami’s wet feet—on top of her sneaker laces—some sort of blackish, moist, and weird object wriggled and writhed. For about three full seconds, she just stared at it.

  “Eeee…”

  And then she shrieked.

  “NOOOOOOOOOO AAAHHHHHHHHHHH GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFFFF!” Outright screaming, Ami tumbled over. She flailed her feet around.

  “S-stop moving! Stop moving! Don’t kick my face, they’ll fall down! You’ll crush them!”

  On her feet were two, no, three tadpoles with composed faces. As Ami screamed on the brink of madness, nearly unconscious, Ryuuji somehow got her shoes off.

  “Salvaged!”

  He was able to return the tiny tadpoles to the stream.

  “…Wh…wha…wha.”

  But.

  Collapsed on her back, Ami’s face was in rigor mortis. She was out of breath. Frozen over. Her hair was in terrible disarray, her legs were carelessly spread out, her tracksuit was sopping wet up to her shins, and it went without saying that her socks were covered in mud. “Kawashima Ami-chan” was in a horrible, unbecoming condition.

  Ryuuji hesitantly approached.

  “I-I’ll…put your shoes here. Okay. They’re wet, but there aren’t any tadpoles on them anymore, okay?”

  He quietly put the sneakers together by her feet. Ami’s big eyes swerved to look down at those shoes.

  “Ah, ah, ah…”

  Ami-chan, he heard her say in a very low mumble.

  It only took another second after he heard that.

  “AMI-CHAN-DOESN’T-WANT-TO-DO-THIS-ANY-MOOOOOOOOOOOORE!”

  Her white hands grabbed her shoes, and she chucked them straight into the riverbank.

  “…Wha…uwaahh…!”

  Without thinking, Ryuuji covered his mouth with his hands. He couldn’t say anything more. The mask was off.

  Ami huffed with her shoulders like a beast. Words poured out of her, things like “I can’t stand it anymore,” and, “I really can’t do this anymore,” and, “Ami-chan is going home, I’m going home right now!” and on it went. Until…

  “AAH?!”

  She turned and locked eyes with Ryuuji. She finally seemed to remember his existence. For several seconds, the two of them stared at each other without words.

  “…Eheh!” Ami put her fists up to her mouth, and put on her pure and deadly smile. “Just kidding! That’s a joke, a joke! C’mon, Takasu-kun, don’t make such a scary face!”

  You’re the one who’s scary… Of course, he couldn’t actually say that.

  Ami smiled as she turned back to him several times and laughed, Eheheh. Still in her socks, she bravely went up the bank.

  “Here I go, here I go… ahh! I found them! What a relief!”

  In each hand, she was holding the shoes she herself had just thrown, all smiles. With a forced sweetness in her voice, she dramatically turned around. She put her shoes on then and there.

  “Takasu-kun, do you want to race to the bank?”

  “…Uhh…”

  “The one who loses has to give the one who wins all their trash! Then the winner has their quota filled! I’m gonna staaart—aaand GO!”

  As Ryuuji watched Ami’s back as she ran up the bank, he thought, The winner gets the trash, but…you just left behind the trash bags.

  He reluctantly took the two people’s worth of trash bags in his hands and quickly went up the bank. He couldn’t keep up with her, but in this case, it was his only option.

  In the grass, Ami disappeared from his field of view. Right about now, she was probably trying to desperately remake her broken mask where no one could see. He thought about going a little more slowly.

  “You’re slooow!”

  Then he saw her hop out from behind the grass onto the top of the bank with her features completely composed, cute as can be.

  “Takasu-kun, you lost! But, I’ll keep helping you pick up trash, so don’t worry, you’ll be fine!” she said in a bright voice as she looked down at him. It seemed like she had fully regained her usual smile.

  “…You don’t have to keep doing that.”

  “Huh? Doing what?”

  Contrary to her words, it was impossible to hide the bewilderment in her wavering gaze—it was because Ami’s eyes were too large. And then, just like Ryuuji, she was too tired to remake herself in the way she intended.

  “What’s the point of it all? All this suffering and effort just to look a little better in front of me? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone or anything. So just go rest somewhere over there or head back early.”

  At those unintentionally blunt words, Ami’s eyes became round with puzzlement. “…What are you talking about? I don’t understand what you mean.”

  It seemed she was intent on seeing her charade through to the end. Even though the mask had broken long ago, it didn’t seem to be ordinary brashness. But, Ryuuji’s own brashness was a force to be reckoned with, too. If anything, it was because he was taking care of the Palmtop Tiger day in and day out.

  “…If you really don’t get it, that’s fine, too. You can do what you want. But I understand it even less than you do. Why are you forcing yourself to participate in this boring cleanup? What’s the point of it—to doing this? Is there one?”

  He didn’t actually intend to accuse her of anything, but he couldn’t just not ask. He couldn’t help but think the work involved in the cleanup wasn’t suited to someone who wanted to keep up an act. Ami didn’t have to go this far. She already had a good reputation spreading among the class.

  But Ami muttered, “You don’t understand the point?” Her smile suddenly disappeared. “…You don’t understand. Huh…”

  Ryuuji stopped walking for a moment at that clear gaze. He found himself unintentionally straining his eyes to better see what kind of expression she had on, but the wind blew and scattered Ami’s hair, shrouding her face.

  “It seems like you aren’t as easy as I anticipated, Takasu-kun. This sort of thing doesn’t work on you…”

  I just wanted t
o play around with that shrimp, but this messed me up—he thought he heard derision in her hoarse voice.

  “Huh? What were you playing at…?”

  But, when he questioned her…

  “Hm? Whaaat? That’s how you heard it? That’s weird, you must have misheard.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, and like an angel, smiled her usual calm smile as she looked at Ryuuji. “I told you earlier, but the reason why I’m here is that I wanted to have a nice, relaxed conversation with you, Takasu-kun. Is that such a mysterious reason?”

  Those sweet words, that beautiful smile… this was undoubtedly the superficial Ami he was so used to. No matter what he said, he couldn’t seem to reach her. He just got the usual Ami, who looked down on other people.

  Ryuuji breathed in, deciding against asking any more questions. No matter what he said, it wouldn’t reach this Ami anyway. If she wanted to do this, she could. It no longer had anything to do with him.

  Then, suddenly Ami looked up at the sky. “…Was that rain…?”

  Cold, heavy drops also fell on Ryuuji’s cheeks.

  “…This is ridiculous, isn’t it…?”

  They were beside the promenade, on a bench under a square gazebo. Ami was holding her slender legs as she sat, muttering as though in a daze.

  She had recovered her mask but hadn’t been able to keep it on for more than ten minutes—she didn’t seem in any state to go on picking up trash.

  Just as Ami had said, the scene beyond the cover of the simply built gazebo, its roof supported merely by posts, was ridiculous. They had suddenly been assailed by torrential rain.

  Massive clouds covered the sky, and even though it was around four, a strange gloom engulfed the area. The downpour of slanting raindrops violently gouged the soft earth like bullets. It had only been a few minutes since it started, but here and there puddles were quickly forming, flowing like small streams. The river was right below the embankment, but it looked blurry and hazy.

  The strong wind made the roof creak with its roar.

  “…What if the roof just blows away…?”