Toradora! - Volume 4 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Not cute.

Not tough or brimming with savagery or intelligence, either.

Pitiful faced. Miserable and shabby and disgraceful, more than anything.

Ryuuji was just a­­ dog.

By the time he realized it, he was alone. Just walking left him out of breath, and he was helplessly lonely. He was so helplessly lonely that all he could do was prostrate himself.

He bowed to her and begged. “Please, somehow, please be with me,” he begged. “I can’t live all by myself, please marry me.”

“I suppose,” she said and put her heel on his dog head. She let out a long sigh through her nose. Her lips contorted, and her eyes filled with a complex mix of contempt and pity. “If you’re desperate enough to say that, I suppose I’d be willing.”

And so, she and the dog were married.

Their new home was the Takasu house. What had happened to it? With some remodeling, the second story rental had become a doghouse complete with a triangular roof.

“Ryuu-chan, look, look, see how many babies there are. This one’s white, and this one’s speckled, and this one’s brown. See, a whole bunch of puppies were born. Taiga-chan gave birth to so many. I’m a grandmother to puppies now!”

“…”

Takasu Ryuuji’s eyes popped open.

His heart felt like it was connected to a defibrillator.

The sleep paralysis finally released him. It was the first time he’d experienced it, and now he couldn’t even wipe the sweat that drenched his forehead. He gasped several times and finally rolled out of his bed to escape. He got on all fours like a dog on the worn but clean floor. Then he squeezed all the carbon dioxide from his lungs while putting his forehead to the ground, prostrating himself.

“It was a dreeeeeeeam…”

He couldn’t even wail. As if in rigor mortis, he couldn’t move. Sweat drenched his shirt, and every muscle in his body shook from the vestiges of the nightmare. He combed his stiff fingers through his hair, which was dripping with sweat as though he had taken a shower. He pulled at it, mussing it up.

What a dream. What kind of nightmare was that?

He, a dog, had failed at life and bowed to Taiga so they could be together, and she had given birth to dog children for him. Was any future more pitiful than that? If there was, he wanted to know. He wanted someone to tell him about it. He wanted to water down the shock of that dream, even if only slightly. He had had a glimpse of a shockingly bleak future. He was a dog bowing before Taiga. There had been a doghouse, and a dirt-poor doghouse at that, he thought. Granny Yasuko and Taiga, who were holding the dog children, were wearing simple, primitive animal skins. Taiga had been wearing a tiger hide.

It was too much to take in at four o’clock in the morning. It was mid-summer at dawn. Outside the window, the world was already growing light. He could hear cicadas crying even this early in the day.

He took a breath and felt his strength leave him. Something came to mind.

After dinner the night before, it was so hot and everything on TV was so boring, and on top of having nothing to do, the AC was barely working. They felt like watching a scary movie, so he and Taiga rented a DVD.

A True Story: In the Islands of Japan was the title of the one they’d chosen, for some reason. It was so crudely made that it transcended being a cheap film and entered the territory of farce. Aside from the obvious CGI, they could clearly see the rope pulling along the mannequin that was supposed to be a corpse. They could even see the guy, who seemed to be part of the crew, pulling it. Incidentally, that man was also an actor in the next story and was chased around by a female stalker with long, evenly trimmed hair. She was wearing a trench coat. The whole thing stank of a rip-off. 

Though they made fun of the terrible, three-part mini-drama, they still watched to the end out of sheer boredom.

The third story was that. “Terror Island: Kansai Region Compilation: I Gave Birth to Dog Children!” The terrible appearance and screaming of the low-budget, unknown actress was a little scary. 

“Noooo, the children are getting spots all over ’em!” She carried a Dalmatian puppy, enthusiastically playing her part with an obviously fake Kansai dialect.

They burst into laughter together and said it was a waste of time and money. Then finally, Taiga went home to her condo next door because she was tired.

Ryuuji knew he was pitiful for letting such a terrible drama give him nightmares. If he’d known things would go this far, he would have wanted his money back. If he’d known he would be subjected to this much terror, he would have even paid money to avoid it.

“That really was…the worst…”

The individual elements of the dream weren’t so bad—rather, it was awful in its entirety. He released several sighs and rubbed at the nape of his chilly neck, damp from cold sweat.

In order to at least breathe in the refreshing, early morning air and try to do something about the horrible feeling, Ryuuji opened the window beside his bed with a clatter. However, the air was muggier than he anticipated. He stuck out his tongue and gagged.

Then he froze.

“Uh!”

A reality even more frightening than his dream had developed outside his window.

It was on the second floor of the high-class, neighboring condo that was separated by a divider. The person wearing a disheveled camisole and glaring at him from the open window of Aisaka Taiga’s bedroom was none other than Taiga herself.

He didn’t know what had happened, but she stood there with wrinkles crossing her forehead like lightning bolts. Her upper lip twitched, and she sneered with overflowing disgust. He didn’t know if she had done it to herself, but her hair was a mess, as if she’d just finished enacting a skit about explosions. She stared at him with the brimming madness of a tiger who had tried to eat a viper and gotten the snake stuck in its throat. Ryuuji didn’t know how long she had been staring at him and the window of the Takasu’s house.

He couldn’t possibly say something like “good morning” to her. He could almost feel dreadful fireworks sparking off of her like antagonistic, poisonous radio waves.

“Ryuuji…” she said.

He felt a shudder of cold blood rising from the bottom of his stomach. 

“I had a horrible dream. It was an extremely, extremely…hateful dream. You were a dog, the dog was my husband, the children were dogs, and I was wearing a tiger hide. It was the worst…”

Gulp. He swallowed, unable to respond. 

No way.

Could they really have had the same nightmare on the same night at the same time while next door to each other? Their sync levels were practically maxed out—if they kept this up, would the rental and high-class condo meld into one?

Please make this a dream, too. Ryuuji slowly closed the window and pretended he hadn’t seen or heard anything. He burrowed back into his bed again.

I don’t want to think about anything else.

***

“It’s an ooomen,” Aisaka Taiga mumbled.

“Oh men? What kind of dating app is that…ah!”

“No, you idiot. A prophetic dream.”

This girl threw shredded green onion at a person’s eyes if they simply misheard her.

“I’m talking about that outrageous nightmare from this morning,” she continued. “I think something like that is called a prophetic dream. We’re going on that trip tomorrow, so our subconscious showed us that dream.”

“What?” Ryuuji asked as he wiped at the soup broth hitting his face. As Taiga slurped her noodles, she glanced at him, watching his mouth as he nibbled on his spiced myoga ginger. His eyes glinted like a Japanese sword that had absorbed too much blood, but he wasn’t chewing on illegal contraband and having rainbow-colored dreams—he was just affected by how terrible his nightmare had been.

The sun blazed outside the window, the rays hitting the muggy two-bedroom apartment mercilessly at eleven in the morning.

Though it was summer vacation, the Takasu household was having morning breakfast unreasonably late.

Taiga, who was across the table and facing him, muttered, “You don’t know anything,” haughtily and swept away all of her coveted somen noodles.

“Agh!”

She dropped the noodles from her chopsticks. Silently, Ryuuji lifted exactly the right amount of noodles with his own chopsticks and put them into Taiga’s broth. Of course, she didn’t thank him. Slurp. In a moment, the white noodles disappeared into her teeny, rosy mouth. 

“Basically, that dream was an omen,” she said after slurping the noodles. “It’s saying that if we don’t take countermeasures, we’ll end up like that.”

“I see… which means we shouldn’t watch weird DVDs before bed. So, what does that have to do with the trip to Kawashima’s place?”

“Haaaah,” Taiga sighed dramatically and put down her chopsticks as if she was fed up. She raised her chin and looked down on Ryuuji as she arrogantly rested her head in her hand. “Your horrible guesses are especially irritating today. I’ve lost my appetite. You can take this away now.”

“You ate two people’s worth of food. At least clean up after yourself.”

“I’m so full I can’t move.”

“You’ll turn into a cow.”

“I’d still be more useful than an incompetent dog.”

Withdrawing was faster than arguing; it was also less exhausting. Go ahead and turn into a cow, then. I’ll milk you. Ryuuji gave her the evil eye as he piled up the empty dishes. A future as a lifelong dog-slave wasn’t as heartening as being a dairy farmer with a cow in tiger’s clothing. 

“So, to continue,” Taiga said. “That dream was our sad future if you aren’t able to confess to Minorin and I can’t get together with Kitamura-kun. You don’t want that to happen, right? It’s terrifying, right? Then you have to do better, right?! That’s what it means. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Well… of course I don’t want to end up like that,” Ryuuji muttered unpleasantly as he gritted his teeth. With bitter, glinting eyes, he looked at Taiga, who wasn’t helping to clean up. 

“You’re the one who bowed down to beg me, you cheeky… whatever. Basically, that was an omen, and if we don’t take advantage of our big chance on this trip, that’s our future. That’s how I see it.” Taiga took the floor cushion from under her butt, folded it in half, and lay down, using the cushion as a pillow. Sprawled out like a synchronized swimmer, she stuck her white legs in the air and the soles of her feet against the wall.

She’s got such bad manners. Even as Ryuuji frowned, he didn’t refute her. Well, I guess if you leave out that shady part about the dream being an omen and stuff…

The big chance was the upcoming trip, of course. A three-day, two-night stay at Kawashima Ami’s villa that they would go on the next day.

At the end of the semester, they had a pool showdown involving the whole class to decide whether they would go on the trip or not. In the end, they settled on Kitamura, Minori, and Ami going along with Ryuuji and Taiga, too. When all was said and done, it was the one and only event of this plain and incredibly boring summer break that Taiga and Ryuuji were having because, for various reasons, family trips were irrelevant to them. Even though they didn’t say it out loud, they were excitedly counting down the days on their fingers. They planned to go shopping at the station for the trip that day.

Of course, the biggest reason for their excitement was that the atmosphere might be just right. They were staying overnight on a trip with each of their love interests. For Ryuuji, of course, that was Kushieda Minori.

Continuing to clean up, Ryuuji’s face softened until he was beaming.

“You don’t have to call it a prophetic dream or anything ridiculous like that,” he said. “We never get a chance like this. I can’t really talk to her at school, so I think this time, if I can, I want to try to get a little bit closer to Kushieda.”

“There it is. That’s it.” As she remained on the ground, Taiga’s dangerous, glittering eyes rested on Ryuuji.

“Wh-what?”

“This is why you get terrible prophetic dreams. Because you’re like that.”

She pulled up her long hair, which had been softly flowing over the tatami mat. Taiga lifted her face and propped her chin in her hands on the sitting cushion. From between the gaps in her long bangs, her round forehead was dripping sweat, and her nose formed a delicate line. Her small lips were like a rosebud. She looked up at Ryuuji with eyes like sleepy, malevolent jewels. Her long eyelashes fluttered. Her eyes shone bright.

“You’re a stupid dog, right down to the marrow in your bones. Your base is a dull soup, only good for people who are soup fanatics.”

If it wasn’t for her personality, the girl in front of him would have been a magnificent beauty.

“What are you ogling at? I’ll lay you out.”

“…”

In her case, she wasn’t just saying that—she could actually do it.

Aisaka Taiga, as her name suggested, was as brazen and violent as a tiger. People called her the “Palmtop Tiger”—she was tiny for a second-year high school student, at one-hundred-forty-centimeters tall. Because of her power, her bad temper, and her ferocity, people feared her and stayed at a distance.

Be that as it may, based only on appearance, Ryuuji, sitting next to her with his legs folded under himself, looked like an appropriate accomplice to the Palmtop Tiger. His piercing sanpaku eyes looked ferocious and sinister enough to kill five run-of-the-mill delinquents with nothing more than a glance. But those were just genetics. He just had that kind of a face.

He was methodical and awkward, an unassuming person, and performed household chores as naturally as breathing. Takasu Ryuuji was just that kind of boy. Ryuuji thought again about how astounding it was that he had come this far living with a girl like that.

But, of course, he couldn’t share such a delicate emotion with Taiga.

“You got it? I’ll explain it again from the beginning for someone as dull as you, so listen up.”

“Ugh.”

She thrust up a thin finger in a controlling manner below Ryuuji’s chin. Tyrannical contempt flickered in her eyes. “You said, ‘if I can,’ and ‘even a little bit,’ and ‘try doing better,’ and stuff like that, right?”

“I-I did! What about it? Don’t poke my chin!”

“You’re always like that. ‘If I can do it.’ ‘If it works.’ ‘It’d be nice if I said something good.’ You can’t just giggle and go yakety-yakking like that. Up until now, the whole time you’ve… no, we’ve gotten comfortable, waiting for luck to come to us. Then we make mistakes. It’s a pattern. If we keep this going, before we realize it, you’ll be a dog and I’ll be a bride, and Minorin and Kitamura will probably have a banquet in our doghouse and give a moving speech about how they were always rooting for us to be together.”

“No…way…that wouldn’t…”

He didn’t remember giggling and yakety-yakking, but the theory that they were caught in a rut was spot on. They might have been. He couldn’t deny it. 

At Ryuuji’s expression, Taiga gave him a deep nod. “Right? That’s precisely why it was a prophetic dream. We have one shot now to decide this once and for all. If we don’t break out of this horrible, terrible pattern we’re always falling into, your future as a dog actually awaits. If we let this one-in-a-million chance that fell into our laps get away, there might not be another one.”

“Which means, we need to work together during the trip to make sure something good happens…”

“See, you’re doing it again! That’s the losing pattern. So, I thought, instead of that, this time around we’ll seriously fight it. I don’t ever, ever want that nightmare to become reality. So I think one of us should back up the other, and we can go at it at full power. It’s better than going down together.”

“Right…” He couldn’t nod with her finger still thrust against his chin, but she was right—maybe. Sometimes even Taiga said smart—

“So you can forget about yourself and focus on working for me and Kitamura-kun, and do your best because we’re leaving our fate up to you.”

“Huh?”

She spoke outrageously quickly, like the contract of a corrupt financier trying to hide the fine print on the other side of the paper. Leaving Ryuuji in the dust, Taiga once again lay down on her cushion.

“Ahh, I’m thirsty,” she said. “Hey, you, get me barley tea. Water it down, too.”

Wait a second. Ryuuji sat down with his legs folded under himself. He looked intently at Taiga’s face as she lay down. Of course, he couldn’t not follow up on the incredibly important decision she’d just made.

“Don’t joke,” he said. “I heard you loud and clear. Why would the conversation automatically steer in that direction? Based on what you just said, it could also be flipped around. You could back me up.”

“…”

“Don’t ignore me!”

“Shut up… ow!”

He pulled the cushion out from under Taiga’s head. “This isn’t a joke! You talked your way around all that stuff and, in the end, you just wanted to say that?! Just how far are you going to twist this around?!”

“What do you think you’re doing, baldo?!”

“I’m not balding!”

“I’ve got my own interests at heart! What’s wrong with that?!”

“Wh-what’s with going on the offensive…”

“Give me back my pillow.”

“This is my floor cushion!”

“It’s my pillow!”

“It’s a floor cushion!”

For a short while, they had a futile tug of war with the floor cushion. Still sitting, they pulled on it as though the one who stole it would win.

“Ngh…”

“Ugh…”

SHRRK! The cloth tore, and Ryuuji instinctively let go. (King Solomon should have overseen this case.) 

Taiga tumbled straight back. “Ow!” She hit her head heavily on the table. BAM. The incredibly loud sound lingered as she curled up, hugged her spoils, and held her head, falling silent.

“H-Hey…are you okay?” Ryuuji asked.

That sound wasn’t a joking matter. If she got any stupider, it’d be a problem. Ryuuji thought of approaching her from the back and seeing if she was okay.

“Ow!”

“Whoa?!”

Still silent, Taiga’s beautiful face contorted from pain and loathing into a man-eating demon. She started beating Ryuuji with the floor cushion. Ryuuji ran away, disgracefully dodging the cushion as it careened towards him. Bop, bop. 

“Stop it! Don’t be violent! You’re raising up dust!”

“Shuddup!”

As he avoided the Palmtop Tiger’s full-out, floor cushion attack, the sliding door behind Ryuuji clattered opened. Taiga didn’t stop. 

His ugly pet parakeet Inko-chan’s ugliness increased three-fold as she suddenly cried, “Haaaagah!”

But the unyielding cushion attack didn’t stop.

“Guh! Wah…wah, wah, wah…”

BOP! It hit her perfectly. 

The cushion hit Yasuko-chan, Ryuuji’s thirty-something-year-old Lolita mother, who had just opened the sliding door, right in the face. The breadwinner of the family, she had come home at eight in the morning and had just gotten to sleep after working a hard day.

“S-s-s-s-sorry…”

Even Taiga tossed aside the floor cushion and jumped at Yasuko, who was holding her face and seemed about to cry. Apparently unable to take on the force of that impact, she collapsed onto the floor in her ridiculous getup of Ryuuji’s junior high shorts and her own zebra-striped camisole.

Ryuuji was at a loss for words. Taiga, who also noticed something was off, jumped away. Now he understood. Inko-chan’s earlier “Haaaagah!” was an attempt to say “Hag!”

Yasuko had aged suddenly. It might have been the heat or lack of sleep or that she hadn’t fully taken off her makeup when she’d fallen into a drunken slumber, but her usual jiggly, estrogen-filled skin was now wrinkly and had aged horribly.

“Wh-what’s wrong? Why did you age…? What in the world happened?! Hurry and drink a supplement or something! Put something on your face!”

“W-waaaaah… it’s because you’re so noisy that I can’t sleep…! If I don’t sleep, I age…”

He didn’t have any words for his mother as tears ran down her face.

The son and the freeloader continued to apologize earnestly. To let her get a good night’s rest, they quickly left the house.

***

“This is all set. Are you done?!”

“Ready when you are!”

Across the street from Taiga’s condo was a park.

A green road of Zelkova trees surrounded it with a spacious open area at its center. People walking with their dogs chatted occasionally, and a group of children from the nearby kindergarten sat under the trees complaining, “It’s hot.” “It’s muggy.” A cacophony of cicadas filled the air and, though there was a breeze, it wasn’t much different from the heat blasting from a dryer.

It was midsummer, midday, and even their eyes seemed to burn. Ryuuji and Taiga stood across from each other. They had drawn a line between them with the tips of their feet. They held badminton rackets they had borrowed from the landlord. Sweat ran down their foreheads, and their cheeks were flushed with excitement.

Both were incredibly determined. Taiga had even gone back to her condo to change from her fluttery dress into a shirt and shorts. Her long hair was tightly tied up, and her glowering eyes burned.

“It’s a three-point match. That’s it—whether you’re crying or smiling at the end. The one who loses… well, you know about that part, right?”

“Fine by me.”

This wasn’t just badminton. They were betting on their futures with this game. The loser of the match would have to back the winner on the trip.

As Ryuuji lightly played with the shuttlecock in the grassy smelling air, he snickered to himself. Though he was against Taiga, who had the reflexes of a wild animal, (except when it came to swimming) he had this game in the bag. The truth was that Ryuuji, despite appearances, had been in badminton club in junior high.

There was no net in the center of the rectangle acting as their impromptu court. The game would be harsh. Rulings would be made with that line, period. They would play roshambo for the serving rights and quickly finish the game before they got heatstroke. 

If that nightmare was an omen, he didn’t want to end up like that. Honestly, he didn’t think Taiga’s support would help much but having to back Taiga would be a serious burden. At the very least, he didn’t want her getting in his way. He was doing this for the sake of the trip he had been looking forward to—for the sake of a bright future with Minori.

“Let’s do it!”

Ryuuji floated the shuttle up into the blue sky and swung the racket with all his strength. Schwip! With a comforting sound, the shuttle flew diagonally, straight toward the ground.

Or so he thought.

“There!” Taiga dashed like a beast, carving through the grass and dirt with her racket, just barely hitting the shuttle so it flew back up. To think she would have made it! Now Ryuuji was flustered. He followed after the shuttle barely floating above the centerline and dove for it.

He managed to just barely bop the shuttle so it arched. Taiga laughed, “Ha!” and caught the slowly falling shuttle perfectly in the center of her racket as she swung.

“Ugh!”

“Got it!”

She pumped her fist. Ryuuji, on the other hand, was speechless. What had just flown past him? A rocket?

“Come on, what are you standing around for? I got a point!” Taiga laughed and swung her racket around. The shuttle had fallen behind Ryuuji, hitting the soft ground.

“Y-you… you’ve played this before?!” Ryuuji didn’t think she had but asked anyway. 

Taiga nonchalantly said, “Hmmm? When I was at private girls’ school for elementary and junior high, I was in the tennis club aaaall nine years. That might have something to do with it.”

Fwish!

Her high-speed swing was eye-opening. It was so powerful that, had it not been a racket but a cleaver in her hand, she would have made a herd of stampeding buffalo part. 

Taiga calmly fanned herself and said, “It’s hot, let’s hurry up and finish this.” 

Wait a second, Ryuuji thought. He couldn’t let his gaze timidly drift away as he picked up the shuttle. What was this? He didn’t have the advantage at all. This was supposed to be a match he couldn’t lose.

“Okay, this time I get to serve,” she said. 

“R-right.” Though it was early, he was sweating. He wiped his forehead as he handed the shuttle to Taiga with the best poker face he could muster. 

Taiga tossed it up lightly in her hand several times. “Here I go!”

She threw the shuttle high into the pure, blue, midsummer heavens. She extended her thin arm to its fullest extent and sprang with her whole body to swing the racket up. 

Ryuuji held his breath as he stayed in the center where he could respond whether it went to the right or left.

“Huh?!”

Taiga swung the racket as hard as she could and hit empty air with a swish. The shuttle pathetically plopped at her feet. 

“Right, one point, one point, right! It’s a draw, we’re at a draw!” Ryuuji had abandoned all pretense of maturity.

“Nuh-uh! That doesn’t count! It doesn’t count!”

“You can’t do that. Of course it counts, you klutz!”

With a desperate look on his face, he ran to where Taiga was positioned and tried to take back the shuttle by skillfully popping it up with the edge of his racket, but she grabbed him by his collar.

“Wait a second!” she said. “You’re going to do that?! That’s cheating! You’re cheating! Cheating!”

“What?! You dropped it, didn’t you?! You can’t do that, so it’s my turn to serve!”

Their ugly, heated argument spread across the grass. They pushed each other with their rackets. Taiga hit Ryuuji’s fist with her own to get the shuttle back. Ryuuji used their height difference to his advantage and stood on tiptoe with his hand raised in defense. Using his butt sumo skills, he began wriggling away from Taiga.

The bored troop of wives walking their dogs laughed at them from afar.

“I can’t believe they’re doing that when it’s so hot.” 

“That boy looks like a delinquent at first glance.” 

“But they’re so lively.” 

“Won’t they collapse from heatstroke?” 

Even their dogs had their mouths open and were panting as though they were somehow laughing. But Ryuuji and Taiga didn’t have time to pay attention to that.

“Just give it to me! I’m going to do it over!”

Taiga, worked up, had thrown her racket to the side and was cracking her knuckles. She took a step toward Ryuuji as though to attack him. 

“Gyaaan!”

The racket she’d thrown went farther than anticipated and hit the head of one of the dogs. Wham! It was a clean hit. 

Oh no. Ryuuji and Taiga turned as the owner raised her voice.

“Oh dear, oh no. Are you okay, Chiiko-chan?!”

“Wooh wooh…”

Chiiko-chan, who did not look okay, raised her face to glare at Taiga. She was a muscular, ferocious-looking, double-coated, unfamiliar and gigantic husky that was bound to be hot in the midsummer.

The dog stared at Taiga, her expression like an ogress mask. Chiiko’s nose wrinkled as she stepped forward. It was you? those eyes asked. If you apologize, I’ll forgive you.

Taiga glanced at Chiiko’s face and immediately looked away. Then Taiga lowered her head in obedient apology that showed her regret only to the owner standing behind the dog.

She raised one eyebrow as she looked one more time at Chiiko, huffed a breath, and haughtily raised her chin. Though she didn’t say so out loud, her attitude indicated that she would apologize to the owner but would not bow to a dog.

Then it happened.

“No, no, it’s fine,” the owner said. “Chiiko has a cute face, but she’s actually super healthy despite her looks, and she’s proud of her strength. My friends call her grand sumo champion Chiiko…ah!”

Shaking off her leash, Chiiko made a mad dash toward Taiga. Kyaa! The troop of owners shrieked, and Ryuuji automatically backpedaled at Chiiko’s ogress expression.

But Taiga remained facing forward.

“You wanna go?!”

“ARF!”

BAAAAAAM! She stopped Chiiko’s attack.

In the grassy expanse of midsummer, a high school girl and a husky who were the same height grappled with each other. They were evenly matched, their power balanced. Chiiko’s back legs shook, and Taiga’s sneakers slipped little by little. 

Just when Ryuuji thought they were about to start a daylong battle, the human and animal separated and quickly put distance between themselves. 

“Ah!” 

“Woof!”

Urgh. Chiiko growled in a low voice. She raised her curled tail high, lowered her neck, and stared up at Taiga with her light blue eyes. 

What? Taiga also growled and fought back. Her bright feline eyes turned to slits, and her arms hung loose and ready. 

There was no rationality in their eyes; it was a fight between a pair of brutes.

The two beasts circled, still keeping distance between them. The first one to move was Chiiko, standing on her hind legs, her giant front legs furnished with claws.

Wham! She pushed Taiga in the stomach. 

“Ugh.” Taiga stumbled and glared at Chiiko. “Now you’ve done it!”

“Woof!”

She slapped at Chiiko’s long snout.

“How could you do that to an animal?! I-I’m so sorry!” Ryuuji couldn’t help but worry. What was Taiga doing to someone else’s pet? He bowed his head incoherently to the owner but didn’t have enough courage to get in between the two.

“N-no, no…I’m the one who should be apologizing,” the dog’s owner said. “I wonder if that small girl will be all right.” The middle-aged woman took a glance at Ryuuji’s face and turned red, “Oh, what a handsome young man.” 

The other owners surrounded them and whispered to each other. 

“His eyes have definitely got something wrong with them.” 

“She’s into that stuff.” 

Please leave me alone, Ryuuji thought. I know Chiiko and I are in the same category when it comes to our faces.

The peanut gallery swallowed their breaths and watched. Taiga and Chiiko continued with their evenly matched fight. They exchanged slaps several times, glared at each other, and assessed their opponent.

“There!”

“Wuff!”

Once again Chiiko went on all fours.

Taiga was so caught up in her fight with the dog and its ragged breath that she’d completely forgotten about Ryuuji. 

Ryuuji thought for a bit. “Hey, Taiga. We’ll let go of that last point, so I’ll serve,” he mumbled. 

Taiga raised her face in surprise. “Huh?! Huh?! What did you just say?! I can’t hear you over this stupid dog’s breathing!”

You don’t have to hear anything.

He took the shuttle and racket in hand and made an impromptu return to the court by himself. Plop. Ryuuji hit the shuttle gently. It fell into Taiga’s ground. He walked over, picked it up, and hit it again. It fell into Taiga’s ground. He walked over, picked it up, and hit it again.

“There, it’s done,” he said. “First to score three points. I’m the winner. You make sure to back me up during the trip.”

“H-huh?! Hey, you can’t decide that all by yourself! This isn’t a joke! Move aside, I don’t have time to play with you anymore!”

Taiga returned to her senses and tried to shove Chiiko away, but Chiiko was still grappling with her, ogress mask in place, and wouldn’t move. It was as though Chiiko thought her pride as a sumo champion would crumble if she lost this contest of strength.

“I said we’re done! Argh, okay, fine, I got it, I give, I give! I was wrong! I’ll apologize! I’m sorry! Okay, now move! Go home!” Taiga tried to pull away, but it didn’t get through to Chiiko. Her face had turned bright red and she was dripping sweat. “Come to think of it… oh, it’s hot… it’s hot! Your fur is hot! Your fur is super hot! I’m gonna die!”

Grappling with Chiiko was probably exactly like wearing a fur coat under the blazing sun.

Fruitlessly trying to peel Chiiko off, Taiga tried to wrench herself away. Chiiko just adjusted and took a step closer with her back leg. Taiga took another step back and to the side. Chiiko also took another grand step.

Though he felt bad for Taiga’s (and Chiiko’s) desperate expressions, as a spectator, it looked to Ryuuji like they were salsa dancing. 

“What’s she doing…? They’re facing off.”

It might have also pulled on the heartstrings of the owner. She slowly took out her cellphone and, naturally, started taking a video, memorializing her pet and the local high school girl’s strange dance. 

“Get away! I said get off! Ahh, your breath is hot, too!”

It was the height of summer. The merciless sun beat down, heating Chiiko’s fur and Taiga, who was firmly grappling with her. The frequency of their steps increased, their passionate rhythm a notch more danceable. Taiga was nearly in tears. Sweat poured from her, and she started to shake. Chiiko started stealing the lead.

“Agh, I got it! I got it, okay! Fine, you guys won! Ryuuji, aren’t you a dog? Come and take it off of me! Tell it to stop!” Taiga pulled her face back and turned, pleading with Ryuuji.

“Are you sure you’re fine with me winning?” he asked.

There was a second of speechless hesitation and then another, until finally, she breathed roughly into the silence. “I-It’s fine!”

Ryuuji and the owner desperately persuaded Chiiko to let go of Taiga, who had thrown in the towel. 

And, like that, Ryuuji was triumphant.

Frankly, although Ryuuji had won, he didn’t really expect Taiga to help. The klutz god had showered her entire body with blessings, after all. He didn’t even expect her to try.

But, Taiga said, “I have an idea for a really good approach.”

In Pseudobucks, where they’d gone to cool off in the air conditioning, Taiga raised her face from her iced milk tea. Her T-shirt was covered in dog prints. Her whisper trickled faintly out into the café. The voice of the part-time female college student rang out, “Welcome to Sudoh bucks…” This was the Sudoh coffee stand and bar. There was no “bucks” in the actual name.

Taiga whispered. 

His mouth still filled with iced coffee, Ryuuji’s sanpaku eyes went wide. “Are you serious? I see, well… talking about it is one thing, but how are we actually going to do it?”

“We’ll do it together.” Taiga pointed at herself and then Ryuuji in turn with her thin fingertip. Then she said, “You cheated in the match, and I don’t want to work hard for you either, and I don’t think you’re good for Minorin, but that nightmare was unbearable, so I’ll actually help you this time. Well, it’s better to hurry up and be rejected rather than having unfulfilled dreams, right? If you’re rejected, you can grow as a person, and that dream future probably won’t happen, right?”

“Do I really have to be rejected first?”

“Don’t be stubborn. With the way you are right now, when your proposal bombs, you’ll probably throw yourself on a grenade, hurt your back, and have to be hospitalized. You’d only be able to look at the ceiling and sigh.”

The large feline eyes that looked across at Ryuuji quivered with contempt stronger than the midsummer sun.

***

It was six in the morning on the day following the midafternoon badminton match.

“Okay!”

In the dark kitchen, Ryuuji checked the freezer and nodded once as though in confirmation.

He looked at the spare rice he had made. There were a good five portions. He had finished separating them into individual bowls and wrapping them. Unfortunately, he could only get a variety of frozen side dishes.

“I have something I want to tell you before I go on the trip and leave you behind,” he said. “It might be annoying, but listen to me carefully. Right, I’ve prepared everything, so you can make it all in the microwave. Be careful not to use the stove.”

“…Drr…”

“You can eat the Caspian Sea yogurt I’ve made. I want to keep the one in the small bin from being completely sterilized so I have it for the next batch, so don’t touch it. Make sure not to forget to mix the pickling rice bran every day. You can put a plastic bag on your hand when you do it, but when you do, whisper, ‘Thank you for everything,’ in your heart and cherish it. Also, you can eat the cucumbers today and the eggplants sometime tomorrow.”

“…oo…”

“Even if Inko-chan’s water isn’t out, change it twice at least, once in the morning and once in the evening. Even if it looks like she still has food, it’s the same, twice a day at minimum. Change the newspaper at the bottom of the cage every day. Talk to her every once in a while and put the cloth on her before you go to work. If that’s all you can do, that’ll be fine.”

“…ool…”

“I’ve paid the bills, so no one should come by. I think they shouldn’t come. …They probably won’t come. Well, just have something prepared if they do.”

His mother was speechless. She tilted forward, backward, left, and right as her son repeated his precautions. 

“Hey, are you really listening?” he asked. “Do you understand? Try repeating it back.”

“…Drool…”

They were in the gloomy two-bedroom apartment where, as always, the morning sun didn’t penetrate. Yasuko’s breath still completely reeked of alcohol. And of course that would be the case—he had forced her up just an hour after she came home and was ready to sleep and then pulled her into the kitchen.

Yasuko, who kept wobbling around, opened her eyes two millimeters. But, well, there were things in the world you could learn while sleeping. When he asked her to repeat the words back to him, her reply was “drool.” She was at least listening to him, so it might be fine. 

Two years earlier, in junior high, he had left home for four days and three nights on a school trip. The laundry became a mountain, the takeout containers in the sink stank, and the raw garbage that hadn’t been taken out was rotten and fermented, but Yasuko and Inko had survived.

“Well then, I’m going.”

“…Have a nice time… huh?”

It seemed that she might have finally noticed his T-shirt and shorts, as well as the bag her son had in hand. 

Yasuko furrowed her brow. Puzzled, she tilted her head.

“Ryuu-tan…where’re yoo goin…?”

“On a trip. I told you about it didn’t I? I told you earlier?”

“A tri…? Tri…”

He didn’t know whether she had completely understood or not, but Yasuko nodded several times. “Uh huh. Trip,” she muttered and plip-plopped in her bare feet back to her futon. 

Well, guess it’s fine. Ryuuji turned.

“Inko-chan…I’m off.” He walked towards the birdcage next to the window and gently lifted the cloth that covered it.

“Oh…”

Inko-chan’s face flashed as she was sleeping. She was at max output the morning they parted. He still didn’t have an answer for why her beak wouldn’t completely close or why froth dripped from it, or why she squinted with the whites of her eyes showing, or why her body continuously convulsed.

Even so, no matter how gross she was, she was definitely still his beloved pet. He lovingly put out new water and food for her.

“Well then… guess I’ll head out!” Ryuuji stood, lifting his methodically packed bag onto his back.

When he opened the creaking front door, breeze left over from the summer morning cooled his eyelids. You wouldn’t know from being in the house, but the weather outside was fair. Fluffy clouds bubbled in the distant sky, predicting the day’s heat.

By the time it got hot, they would probably be at the villa—no matter what was said and done, it was enough to soften his face with excitement.

Well, this is a two-night, three-day trip. What sort of fun things will be waiting for us? What’ll I talk about with Minori, and how close will we get? Meeting up with Kitamura for the first time in a while will also be nice. Thinking about the battle that would start between Ami and Taiga already tired him out, but it was still summer vacation. They would be going on a short trip without any parents, and there would probably be a lot more fun things than not. Definitely.

He softened his steps for the landlady as he went down the iron stairs. Under the early morning sky, he made the ten-second walk to the condo next door.

This was Taiga, so she might not have been ready to go yet, and because of that, he had left home early.

“Oh.”

Taiga, who was on the stairs of the marble entryway, lifted her face when she saw Ryuuji. She raised her right hand and gave him a morning greeting.

“Whoa. Well, that’s unusual, you’re early,” he said.

“I am occasionally.”

In another rare occurrence that morning, Taiga was wearing a new mint-green dress. Her hair was prettily put together and braided only on the side. Her lips were even made up a light color. She was like a pure rose blooming in the summer morning. Ryuuji averted his eyes as though something were shining into them, raised his left hand and returned the greeting.

Taiga had said she would devote herself to backing him while going on a trip with the boy she liked. In the end, Taiga must have been excited like him and woken up early. Ryuuji felt like laughing a bit, and in order to keep her none the wiser, walked ahead of her.

They were meeting in fifteen minutes. They would make it even if they walked slowly, but he was restless and felt like hurrying.

One of their friends had showed up early to the meeting spot at the terminal station ticket gate.

“Hm?”

“That’s…Minorin? Isn’t it?”

Even though there were only a few tourists, salarymen who seemed to be on trips, and others accompanying their families in the station, people still milled about. One person, however, was standing in a spot by themselves.

“Good morning!”

Ryuuji and Taiga could only see the girl with the supple body and smile. It looked like Kushieda Minori. When Minori noticed them, she abruptly but slowly widened her stance and bent her knees. Then she hinged forward and slowly circled her head. When she did that, a bespectacled face appeared behind her, imitating her movements with slightly different timing. 

“Yo! Right on the dot, how great of you two.”

The two of them stood directly in line with each other as they continued to revolve. Ryuuji and Taiga, unsure how to respond, stood stock-still. The surrounding passersby stared at the mysterious young ones. That’s the zoo, that’s the move from the zoo, a pair of thirty-year-old businessmen in suits were probably thinking as they squinted in nostalgia.

Minori and Kitamura, the softball club manager combo, turned their faces like a propeller. 

“Ha ha ha, they’re pulling back, they’re pulling away! They’re retreating, Kitamura-kun!”

“And even though we practiced.”

Smiling, they broke apart to the right and left, patted each other on the back, and praised each other.

“Nice dance!” 

“Nice zoo!” 

It seemed it wasn’t only Ryuuji and Taiga who were in high spirits and excited for the trip.

“You guys are really lively first thing in the morning,” Ryuuji said. “What’s the ‘zoo’?”

“Don’t worry about it, don’t worry,” Minori replied. “I was excited, and when I came early, Kitamura-kun was here, too.”

“And there was a full-length mirror right there, so we started practicing to greet you like this,” Kitamura said.

“You’re really stupid.” Ryuuji jabbed Kitamura in the side. “Like actually. Yo, glasses, long time no see.”

“Yo, yo, sanpaku!”

Ryuuji smiled with his entire face, but his eyes were fixed on Kushieda Minori.

Once she’d stopped her odd dance, Minori looked like a radiant child sent from the sun. As she toyed with Taiga’s hair and Taiga sniffed her, she shone blindingly bright like no one else.

Though she wore simple knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved parka, she was incredibly, unimaginably cute. She might have been more sunburned since he had last seen her. Like a kid, just her cheeks and the tip of her nose were red. Minori’s eyes narrowed when she smiled. The way she looked was really unbelievable to Ryuuji. The way her bag sagged from one shoulder was adorable, and her thin ankles above her sneakered feet were adorable, and that smiling face, in such a good mood, was so brilliant he couldn’t look straight at it.

“Hm? What’s wrong, Takasu-kun? We’re finally going on the trip! Say something!”

“R-right.”

Bop. Minori hit his shoulder and his dumbfounded stupor metamorphosed into quivering nervousness. Seeing her again after such a long time, his anxiety was even stronger.

And Taiga, who was at his side, was no better.

“Oh, but Aisaka, it’s been a long time,” Kitamura said. “We haven’t seen each other since closing ceremonies, right?”

“Ah, uh, oh…”

Kitamura grinned, and Taiga stood straight as a rod. Ryuuji didn’t know if she was trying to appeal to Kitamura with her outfit or just being shy, but she played with her braided hair with her fingertips and seemed unable to reply. She looked around dubiously, seeming suspicious as her mouth opened and closed. She silently mouthed something but seemed at a loss for words.

“So, is Kawashima not here yet?” Though he had no intention of being her lifeboat, Ryuuji asked Kitamura to break the silence.

“Not yet. She hasn’t messaged me, and it’s still a little before the meetup time.”

“Right. Hm, in that case…come over here!”

Minori beckoned Taiga, Ryuuji, and Kitamura in front of the mirror. Huh?! No way! But Minori pulled them in, squashing Ryuuji and Taiga’s protests with a, “Well, well, well, well, well.” 

Kawashima Ami arrived at the ticket gate several minutes late.

“Huh, I wonder where everyone…hm? Hmm?!” She slightly tipped the sunglasses that hid half her pointed face. Her lips, which were like rose petals, half-opened in a cute way, as if she was speechless.

“Yo, Kawashima.”

“You’re two minutes late, Ami.”

“Good morning, Ahmin!”

“It’s not like I’m doing this because I want to. Minorin just told me to do it.”

Ryuuji, Kitamura, Minori, and Taiga stood lined up one behind the other, from tallest to shortest. They moved their arms, at different heights, around. From Ami’s point of view, it probably looked as though Ryuuji had eight arms.

“I wonder where they are?” Ami asked. “Where is everyone…?”

“Hey, Kawashima!”

“Ami, we’re over here!”

“Ahmin, where are you going?!”

“Don’t you dare run, you dumb Chihuahua!”

“I wonder where they are? Where are they…?”

Ami pretended not to know them as she dashed away. The four of them chased her, waving their arms grandly as they scampered after her.

“It was a great Asura imitation for just five minutes of practice,” Minori reminisced afterward.