Toradora! Vol. 2

by Yuyuko Takemiya

  “Try your best.”

  He could see the word “anger” glinting inside her double lidded, beautiful eyes. Sumire waved a white hand at him on her way out.

  ***

  It took him over three hours before he finally finished the work he’d been ordered to do.

  By then, the sun had decisively gone down, and it was already evening. He left the school gates and crossed the large street. It was well into the evening around the time he headed out, and the neighborhood streets were devoid of people.

  Kouta busied himself with hustling down the asphalt road, its length illuminated by the streetlamps. Careful on your way home tonight—the gloomy road randomly reminded him of that brief message.

  This isn’t something to be scared about, he’d sworn to himself. He’d resolved to look straight ahead, but when he was actually walking down a road at night, he couldn’t help but worry about his surroundings. Was it always this quiet? He didn’t sense the presence of any people in front of him or behind him at all.

  In spite of himself, he was close to freezing up on the spot.

  “…No. I haven’t really done anything yet,” he muttered to himself in a small voice, and to overcome his unease, he lifted his face in determination. That’s right, there was nothing to worry about. There wasn’t any reason to fear. He really had been threatened, but he hadn’t done anything since then…but…

  “Uwah!”

  …A bush rustled. Nearly scared to death, Kouta leapt to the side. He tried making an immediate break for it to run away, but…

  “Mrrroww.”

  …He heard a faint mewl.

  “Oh…oh, it’s just a cat.”

  As though lost in the shadows, the pitch black kitten poked its head out from the bush. Only its cute, tiptoeing front feet were white, like it was wearing socks.

  Looking up at Kouta’s face as he caught his breath, the cat mewled at him one more time to curry his favor. Then it stuck its tail straight up into the air and edged up to him on its tiny booted legs.

  It was so adorable that Kouta forgot his fears. His eyes lit up in delight. When he put out his fingers and called to the kitten, it pressed its head happily against his ankles.

  “Ah, stop, stop, you’ll get fur on me… oh, right.”

  He remembered that he still had the leftover tail of a fried mackerel inside his bento box. Kouta crouched then and there and took out the bento box from his bag. While dodging the kitten’s playful pawing, he took off the box’s band and top, and picked up the tail with the tips of his fingers.

  It would be bad if he got fur on his uniform, and he couldn’t just horse around here for long. So, as a parting gift, he thought of throwing the tail into the bush the kitten had come from. The kitten would probably go back trying to chase it, so he’d just leave it at that and go home.

  “Right—here, here, I’ll give it to you now. There!”

  He threw it diagonally in front of him—or he tried to. But the golden eyes of the kitten were looking past Kouta. The tail flew perfectly out of his hand and straight behind him.

  Oh no, Kouta muttered, but the kitten ignored him and ran off after it.

  “Mrrawr…!” Suddenly, all the hair on the kitten’s body stood on end. It reached Kouta’s knee, raised fur puffing it up to three times its original size. It arched its back, lowered its ears, and stepped backwards, trembling. Then, like a bouncing ball, it jumped into the bush.

  “Huh? You don’t want it?”

  I wonder what happened? He stood up and turned around to retrieve the thrown fish tail.

  “…”

  He lost his voice.

  There stood the girl.

  There stood that person—his beloved—the half-eaten tail stuck, stunningly, between her eyes.

  “…Tomiie…Kouta…”

  Like a low, low growl, her horribly monotone voice seemed to crawl along the ground. He knew immediately he should apologize—but this sudden meeting scattered his thoughts off into the night. He couldn’t even ask her how she knew his name.

  That girl’s eyes. That gaze.

  “You know…I was thinking of forgiving you.”

  From within an obscure corner of his head, numbed by panic, Kouta thought… That’s weird.

  That long hair, beautiful face, and the delicate body—it was unmistakably that girl. It was the one with his undying love—the prisoner. But why did it feel so weird?

  “It didn’t seem like you bumped into me or stepped on my sandwich on purpose…and you’re also Kitamura-kun’s kouhai. I was thinking of forgiving you, which is rare and generous for me.”

  When he looked at the sweet spring breeze of a girl that he’d encountered in that nighttime street, he thought for a moment that she was shaking.

  “Ah, ah, ah, ah…?”

  So why was it that he couldn’t stop shaking, now that he was facing her?

  “And then when you hit me in the head with that coffee, I thought I could just tolerate it and hold myself back. That was because Kitamura-kun apologized. He said to just let it go. Now that I think about it, it seems like Kitamura-kun was too easy on you…and I was too easy on you, too.”

  The girl’s shadow wavered and lengthened.

  Kouta’s whole body froze, and he took an unconscious step back.

  Her eyes were like a cave painted black with darkness.

  Kouta, no longer able to even breathe, tried desperately to understand the situation. “Uhhh…huh? H-huh?”

  “Takasu Ryuuji also tried to stop me. ‘He’s a new student, so don’t do anything terrible,’ he said. So me being here was a total coincidence. This art exercise I was doing went on forever, so I was late going home…and you happened to be walking ahead of me.”

  “Th-that’s strange,” Kouta muttered in a feeble monologue. “When I just turned around there wasn’t anyone there… oh, maybe… right, she’s so small I didn’t notice…?”

  He meant to speak just to himself, but it seemed that his words had also reached the ears of that petite girl. He saw her white cheeks grow tense. That didn’t bode well…

  “Right. Uh, yeah…that’s right.”

  The girl slowly peeled off the tail that had been stuck skillfully between her eyes. She looked at it just for a moment, and then, as she exhaled, her lips distorted into a smile. “Hrmph!”

  Splitch! She hurled it towards Kouta’s feet with a terrific force. Struck silent, he leapt back. The tail gouged the asphalt like a bullet. The sock-wearing kitten stared at it from within the bush and tried to quietly reach out its front paw…

  “Tomiie…Kouta…”

  He shook at that delicate voice, its sound like a poisonous harp being strummed in hell.

  “Even an incredibly generous person like me has limits to how much she can take.” Without a sound, she lifted her face. Her eyes bore straight through Kouta.

  “…Eek…”

  His feet became tangled.

  He fell to his butt.

  The eyes of the person who looked down at him were dyed in madness—the color of bloodlust.

  The glinting eyes emitted the scent of blood. It was the mad gleam of a starved animal. They said one thing. “There’s my prey.” If that beast could bite him—kill him—then it would eat him. It would cut through his flesh and feast on his guts. That ferocious, growling voice matched her gruesome smile.

  “I won’t forgive you…”

  Her mouth, bursting with the color of blood, was just like that of a raging tiger.

  “Huh…? T-tiger…? Uh…”

  Terrifying, ferocious… tiny… palm-sized…?

  “…the Palmtop…Tiger…?”

  At that precise moment, his thoughts went blank.

  A young man’s shriek echoed throughout the neighborhood, until finally, it faded away.

  ***

  It was seven-fifteen in the morning.

  There was no sign of the other students yet. Kouta was unseen as he went to the hatchway of the second year’s shoe ra
ck.

  Second year class C, the girls’ shoe rack, at the very top, the one furthest to the left.

  Holding the paper bag with both his hands, he tried to stick it in just as he’d been commanded. But he couldn’t get it to fit, so he tried smoothing it out, as though he were refolding an umbrella.

  A tomato, bacon, and cheese sandwich, which was the most popular option at the sandwich shop called “Maruya” near the north station entrance, a joint that sold ten limited edition sandwich boxes. A glaze-baked chicken sandwich was the second most popular item. Then the silky and genuine custard and café-au-lait-flavored puddings that were only sold at the local convenience store. A three-pack of vanilla bean yogurt. One-liter-sized milk carton.

  He knew there shouldn’t have been a mistake in the contents. He’d checked them like his life depended on it.

  He once again pushed in the more-or-less compact bag, and this time his offering was neatly finished. Finally, he checked the position of the cubby one more time, and the nametag…

  “Ha…hahaha…”

  …and then he fell right down onto his knees. The girl really was the legendary Palmtop Tiger in the flesh. After all, her name was Aisaka Taiga. Taiga… the palmtop-sized Taiga-san.

  “…Just who thought up this stupid nickname…?”

  He lost his strength to laugh and squatted under the Palmtop Tiger’s shoe cubby. The specific variety of things he had left in dedication were the items she’d requested as an apology.

  “Huh? Kouta, what are you doing here at this time…?”

  He turned to the voice that came from behind him.

  “…Buh!” He looked up vacantly at Kitamura, who let out a spurt of laughter.

  “Y-you… that face! Did Aisaka do you in?!”

  “See for yourself… senpai, what are you here for? Is it club stuff?”

  “Yeah, it’s for my cl-club…ha….ha!”

  “Bwahahahaha,” he guffawed at Kouta, so hard he was letting his spit fly. Kouta didn’t have the strength to respond. For now, and for a while, he’d have this face, and he’d have to live with it.

  The other night, after thoroughly having her way pushing him around, with Kouta still completely under her control, the Palmtop Taiga had said, “A naive idiot like you needs the power of feng shui to live!”

  Thus, Kouta’s face. With his nose as the center, it had a compass drawn on it in bold sharpie. His chin was north, with seven more lines for all the directions. She had drawn the arrows in freehand, styled like a Feng Shui compass. Whether he rubbed or washed it, it was a compass designed to find true bliss—and it wouldn’t disappear.

  “It was a reaaaaaaally terrible experience. She really is a tiger. A wild animal that no one should touch. She’s a dangerous person, so dangerous that she was infamous enough to have a legend about her… and, senpai, you knew all of that, and you still spurred me on.”

  “We didn’t intend for that to happen. That’s why I tried to tell you, but you told me to just leave it be, didn’t you? And then the president also said to leave it alone.”

  “Would you agree to do anything if it was the president who told you to?”

  Well, for the most part, yes. Kitamura uh-huhed and nodded, expression perfectly normal.

  “Bwahahaha!” Another burst of laughter. “But still, your face! It’s like a big scrunchy butthole!”

  “I-If you want to laugh, go ahead… I was the stupid one for taking your and the president’s words seriously. Anyway, I know the Palmtop Tiger’s actual identity, but who were those people? Kushieda-senpai and…”

  “Kushieda, even though she looks like that, is Taiga’s best friend.”

  “F-friend?! Those two together! Friends! That’s a shocking development, is what that is. Then is that scary Takasu-senpai the Palmtop Tiger’s… is he her friend, too? I-is he her… boyfriend?”

  When he asked that, Kitamura suddenly withdrew his smile. “Do you really want to know? Unfortunately, even I can’t answer that. The relationship those two have is one of the seven wonders of the school, after all.”

  “What? Ahh, forget it!”

  In the end, he had just been toyed with by the student council members. They were just teasing him. He understood that well enough.

  In indignation, Kouta turned his back to Kitamura and started running. My face is a butt now, anyway. I’m just predisposed to being unlucky, anyway!

  “Ah, Kouta! Wait!”

  Like I’m going to turn around. He completely ignored Kitamura’s voice and just kept running.

  “The Palmtop Tiger touched you, right?! How is it—do you feel like you’ve been blessed with happiness?!”

  “—Tch!”

  Without a word, he went up the stairs and cut off that question. He at least didn’t want to answer in the negative. Oh, that was right—he really had touched the Palmtop Tiger. She had sat on top of him, and he had been trying to push back the sharpie she’d tried to force on his face, and really put up a desperate fight. But then he had completely lost the battle of strength. He couldn’t put up any resistance against that tiny girl at all.

  Just what’s with that girl? It seemed like he only ever got strange people appearing around him. Shaking off frustrated tears, the unlucky Kouta ran down the hallway. At its end, he jumped into what should have been an empty classroom.

  “Ah…”

  Panicked, he covered his face with his hands. But, it seemed it was too late.

  Several of his classmates, who were at school early for some reason, looked up at his face with sounds of surprise.

  And of course they would. If a compass-faced boy suddenly appeared, anyone would be surprised. Kouta, halfway to despair, walked to his seat with his graffiti-covered face completely exposed. Now he would be even more out of place in this class… Then…

  “Wahahahaha! Tomiie, what happened to your face?!”

  “Let us see, let us see, what were you doing?!”

  …The bright sounds of laughter suddenly surrounded Kouta. His classmates approached him with outstretched fingers and roughly—though not enough to hurt him—rubbed at Kouta’s cheeks.

  “Ah, that’s, this is—”

  “Huh, what’s that? What happened?”

  “Say it, come on, out with it! How did you get like this?!”

  Kouta’s desk was surrounded. They were waiting with sparkling eyes for Kouta to talk. They were pretty much saying, just what did you get yourself involved in?! What could have possibly landed you in a stupid situation like this?

  “Well, it’s like this…”

  Kouta faced the people who were leaning over him and started briskly chatting away. He started at the very beginning. They thought the story was way cooler than he thought they would. The further along he got in his retelling, the more the interjections increased. “Whoa!” “You serious?!” “Wow!”

  Kouta had truly confronted the legendary Palmtop Tiger, after all.

  He had even touched her.

  ***

  He was on the third floor of the old school building.

  “See you again tomorrow!”

  “Yeah, see you!”

  Noisily separating from his classmates, Kouta quickly walked down the hallway.

  He’d just been thinking, maybe it’s time to quit General Affairs. But at present, his feet were taking him straight to the student council room. He thought he might continue for a little longer. He had things he wanted to say to those spiteful upperclassmen.

  I touched the Palmtop Tiger, he would say.

  And actually, some nice things happened, too, he would say.

  Anyway, even if he told them about the good things, Sumire would say, “You mean trivial things happened.” She’d probably laugh, but…he was so happy! After entering school late this last month, he’d finally had found people to talk to. He was so happy he almost wanted to believe in the Palmtop Tiger’s blessing. Just today, he felt he’d laughed about three times as much as he had in the month before.

&nb
sp; So, with eyes a little brighter than normal, he pushed open the familiar door. He kind of felt like he was starting a new life, and he expected nothing less.

  “Sorry I’m late… uwah!”

  In that instant, his eyes were hit by the flash of a glaring light, and he turned his face away, flustered. What was that just now…?

  “F-flash?!”

  “Correct! One more for posterity!”

  Just as he barely opened his eyes, Sumire flashed him again from the opposite side of the room with her digital camera. Behind her, hard at work as usual, were the second-year duo of the secretary and manager of General Affairs.

  “Well done, president!”

  Next to Sumire stood Kitamura, applauding.

  “Wh…what are you doing?!”

  “I heard about your face, so I wanted to preserve the memory. …Yeah, but really, just…bwahaha! That face!”

  Daahahahahahaha! Naahahahahaha!

  The laughter that rang out from the student body president was two times manlier than usual. Of course it would end up like this, just before Kouta lost his nerve…

  “Ah, I had a good laugh! See, I’ve got a picture to remember it now, so hurry up and wipe that off!” Sumire threw a small tube to Kouta while wiping away her tears.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s supposed to be the best makeup remover on the market. At any rate, the stuff can supposedly be used to take off nail polish. If this doesn’t work then you’ll have to go to a dermatologist. Here, take this too.”

  She also threw a towel at him, and Kouta was pushed forward from his back. Normally he would just say “yes, yes, I got it” in a scene like this, but…

  “…President.”

  “What?”

  He turned around and said it. “You’re a kind person, aren’t you?”

  Suddenly Sumire’s eyes went round. Those lips forgot their next sentence and opened slightly—and Kouta just left the room. While walking down the hallway, he subtly pumped his face.

  “I won…!”

  For Sumire to make that face…yes, it was the first time he had confused that ‘tough guy’ and silenced her. He’d left her at a loss for words.