Toradora! - Volume 4 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“The culprit was…me!” Minori pointed to herself.

Ryuuji, Taiga, and Ami stared, dumbfounded and at a loss for words. They sat in a row on the sofa, their mouths wide open like simpletons.

Then, Minori pointed at Kitamura, who was beside her. “And the accomplice was…you!”

“Sorry, everyone.”

“Sorry about that!”

They stood side by side and slowly lowered their heads.

For a while, the villa’s living room was filled only with the sound of the constant, quiet waves. The sun had completely set; a transparent, indigo curtain had fallen outside the windows.

“What… what are you saying?” Taiga’s weak groan trembled. She sounded slightly tense and on the verge of panic.

The first crime Minori and Kitamura confessed to was the pillow in Ryuuji’s room, then the clothes strewn about in Taiga’s, then the shaking window and shutting door, then the hair inside the cave, and finally, that mysterious monster.

“Yeah, we shouldn’t have,” Minori said. “We really, really shouldn’t have. But you guys are so gullible, and I wanted to show you that this is how it’s done. By the way, that sticky mucous was a face moisturizer. And that hair was mine.”

Pluck! She pinched the hair on the back of her head, which had been cut a little bit shorter at the ends and stuck up.

“You said we’re gullible. Does that mean…you knew? You figured out the plan Taiga and I…?” Ryuuji asked nervously.

“Yes.” Minori nodded deeply. “I thought something was weird from the very start. Strange things kept happening one after another, and you two were sneaking around and acting weird. So I knew you had to be scheming something. But what really cinched it was when you were making curry. Takasu-kun, you were just pretending that Taiga was in the kitchen, weren’t you?”

“R-right.”

“And then I was like ah-ha, I knew it. Taiga’s bad at housework, and you kept telling her how good she was doing.”

Of course. Ryuuji couldn’t tell her he thought it would make a good impression if Kitamura had been listening. He scratched his head, feeling slightly apologetic toward Kitamura.

Kitamura just said, “But didn’t you notice, too? All those stupid things that kept happening in the cave—you didn’t think, ‘There’s no way Kitamura, who’s always so put together, would fail so hard!’ or anything like that?”

“No, I was completely convinced you were an idiot…”

“Oh, is that so.” With that low vote of confidence coming from a close friend, Kitamura’s expression saddened slightly. Apparently he didn’t know about that.

“I was completely fooled by your amazing performance, Kushieda. I thought you were actually scared.”

“What? I wasn’t trying to act scared. Would a scared girl behave that weirdly?”

“Well, it was you, so I thought that was how you acted when you were scared, too…”

“Oh, is that so.” Minori’s expression also turned tepid.

Ryuuji really had been fooled. It may have been rash to think Minori wasn’t the type of person who could trick people.

“Aah…really…so you figured out everything…”

As she patted Taiga’s slumping shoulders, Minori smiled. “No, no, it was fun! Thank you, Taiga. You, too, Takasu-kun.”

“You’re not angry? We knew you couldn’t handle scary stuff, and we still tried to scare you. Well, we failed though.”

“I ain’t angry.” Minori swung her two hands in two peace signs around the left and right of her face. “Actually, the reason I tell people I’m scared of stuff is because I’m tired of having to wait for things like this to happen. It’s like…if I keep telling people I’m scared, I’m so scared… I’m really scared of gross zombies… something will happen. It’s reverse psychology.”

“Uhh…huh?””

“If you just say you’re scared over and over, eventually someone in the mood for a prank thinks, ‘Then let’s give her a scare.’ I then graciously accept it. The truth is, I really love it. Horror, thrills, the occult, zombies—I can’t get enough of them. Screaming and getting all excited is fun for me. I really love roller-coasters, too.”

She got us—perfectly, like a pro. Ryuuji looked at the ceiling. 

Taiga opened her mouth in mute amazement and eventually, exhausted, held her head and closed her eyes. She couldn’t have guessed that the lie she told Kitamura the night before had been on point. Minori’s performance had beaten Taiga and Ryuuji black and blue from the start.

“Actually, once I knew what was up, I recruited Kitamura in the middle of the night. We were already in the middle of our plan when you two started your meeting. And well, it was like a godsend. I sent in a spy,” Minori said and then added, “I also considered Ami as another option.”

After being called an “option,” Ami was at a loss for words. Her lip just twitched. Ami might have drawn the short straw this time around.

Ryuuji was still staring at the ceiling, unable to move even an inch. What the heck have I done? What have I been doing this whole time with this precious trip, with this precious chance?

Taiga, probably in the same state of mind, curled into a ball on the sofa. She furrowed her brow in anguish. She had let her chance to approach Kitamura slip away—and for what? For nothing?

It had been pointless. And now the summer was over.

Ryuuji hadn’t made a lasting impression and his relationship with Minori hadn’t changed. The one and only summer of his seventeenth year was finished.

“Well then, in that case… ta-da!”

Possibly feeling guilty, Minori and Kitamura cheerfully held out a huge bag.

“We actually went to buy fireworks yesterday!” Minori said. “Let’s light them on the beach!”

Ryuuji didn’t feel like having fun at all, but, the more he thought about it, it might be what he needed right now. Flowers of scattered fire would pop open and bloom—no, wait, wouldn’t that just be a reminder that nothing had bloomed for him…? 

The wind blowing across the beach was refreshing. The melancholy cries of the evening cicadas rang from the mountains. The sky darkened quicker than expected. Autumn seemed suddenly closer.

Listening to the waves, Ryuuji wandered along the surprisingly cold beach in his flip-flops. When he had walked back earlier, he had still been able to feel the heat from the midday sun.

“Wah! I’m scared, Minorin, I’m scared!”

He turned toward Taiga’s voice.

“It’s fine, it’s not scary! Look! Look how pretty it is!”

Taiga stretched her arm far from herself as Minori lit the tip of her firework. In an instant, thin green flames erupted vigorously from the narrow, cylindrical firework Taiga was holding. As it popped and crackled, small stars of heat blossomed around it. Not knowing what to do, Taiga just held it straight up and stared at the flames that illuminated her too-pale cheeks and Minori’s smiling face.

“All right, which one should I choose? Maybe this one?” Minori took a stick she seemed to be pleased with from the bag and lit it herself with a lighter. She let it fizzle for a while.

“Oops!”

“Whoa!”

As Minori and Taiga both exclaimed, vivid pink fireballs burst and overflowed from the firework. The gradually intensifying flames were dazzling.

“Aha ha! This one’s pretty amazing!” Minori frolicked and twirled. The pink flame traced a long tail of light in the darkness like a glittering ribbon.

What a dazzling smile, Ryuuji thought. The white teeth that shone from behind Minori’s lips as she smiled were brighter than the fireworks. Her blinking eyes were brighter, too.

And then as he watched her, likely without leaving a trace in Minori’s life, without his existence leaving so such as a mark, he vanished. Far from becoming darlings, far from becoming sweethearts, he hadn’t even been able to frighten her. The ways he had tried to surprise her and scare her were cowardly, but in the end, he had even failed at that. He hadn’t even been able to make this fun for her in the first place.

It wasn’t just because summer was ending that he felt like he was going to cry.

A little way away, Kitamura lit a rocket he had set up. Shrrrr! The shrill noise stretched into the sky. 

“Wooow!” Minori shouted in joy. 

Taiga’s mouth opened without a sound as she looked up at it. The ball of light showered the girls’ gazes, and before long, it exploded with a POW! Red and green flowers of radiant fire bloomed above the rolling waves of the ocean.

Further in that direction sat Ami. She seemed to be watching the rocket, but in actuality, she wasn’t looking at anything. She was just holding her knees. She looked bored and lonely.

It seemed Ami was aware of his feelings towards Minori. How did she find out? As he unintentionally stared at Ami’s profile, Ami became aware of his gaze. She looked at Ryuuji and then, without smiling, shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly.

Come to think of it, back inside the cave she had said, Takasu-kun, would you be lonely? Ryuuji couldn’t answer at the time. But now, perhaps, he thought he could.

His answer was that, maybe, Ami felt the same way he did. To other people, it didn’t matter whether he existed or disappeared. He might have made her feel like that. The value he placed on Minori and the value he placed on Ami weren’t the same, no matter how you thought of it.

Ryuuji stood up and walked over to her, standing beside her, knowing that he might be rejected.

“Hey… Today was ridiculous, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“…” Annoyed, Ami looked up at Ryuuji’s face and then immediately turned away.

“Continuing the conversation from before, because I didn’t answer… I’d be lonely if you weren’t around. But, well, how would I put it…” Realization dawned on him. “It’s not important whether or not someone would be lonely without you. Isn’t it more important to know whether you’re lonely yourself? If you think you’re lonely, then you could figure out how to stop being lonely, right? Look, we’re both like that. You’re the one who said it. We’re alike. If you’re lonely, shouldn’t you just say so?”

Ami’s eyes shone brightly, though she stubbornly refused to turn towards him. The rocket Kitamura had launched reflected in her large eyes. They were very beautiful. It didn’t matter whether they were real or fake—they were beautiful.

“Takasu-kun…” Ami finally said. “I-I…” Drowned out by the sound of the waves, her feeble voice was so faint that it seemed to disappear beneath the sound of the fireworks.

“I haven’t ever thought about whether I’m lonely,” she said.

“You should think about it. Seriously.”

“Isn’t that…painful?”

“It can’t be that bad as long as you can do something about it.”

If you’re lonely, then…It clicked for Ryuuji, and he started walking. What he was telling Ami applied just as much to himself. Of course he could do something about it. If he wanted to become equal with her, there was something he had to do. It was incredibly simple.

“Hey, Kushieda.”

“Huh?!” Still holding a firework, Minori turned. 

He was lonely because there wasn’t a piece of him in Minori. That had to be what it meant to not be equals. And if that was the case, he should try to start a conversation. To figure out whether it was possible, to scope out whether there was space for him—and it didn’t matter what kind of space—he wanted to at least try shouting, I’m right here!

“Ya know…”

Taiga smoothly slipped away from beside Minori. “I’ll take a firework to the Dimhuahua,” she mumbled as she made room for Ryuuji. 

In order to make good on her show of support, Ryuuji summoned his courage. “Ya know, Kushieda. Th-thank you.”

“Huh?”

“Even though it was seriously scary, looking at it now, it was fun. You had me completely fooled. Whenever I’m with you, unexpected things keep happening. It’s fun being around you, no matter what we’re doing.”

Minori was silent, as though taken by surprise, but then she said, “Aha ha, that’s my line.” She looked at Ryuuji with her usual smile.

“This vacation was really fun,” she said. “Thank you, too. I had a lot of fun. With that seaweed ghost, and then that spicy curry. It was so good. Oh, and we made sandwiches together, too. And you even tried the Minori special with extra mustard. And then… and then you didn’t laugh at the weird stuff I said, and you just listened. You were really understanding.”

Minori slowly rotated the fireworks in her hands, spellbound as she gazed at the trails of fire, and then she laughed. “I’m really sorry about scaring you and stuff. And about getting your towel dirty, too. I’ll get you a new one as a present. I just really wanted to show you a ghost, Takasu-kun, and I kinda got carried away.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” Minori looked down at a firework and then slowly raised her gaze. With the fireworks reflecting in her eyes, she looked straight at him.. “You said you wanted to see ghosts, didn’t you? And I thought, why don’t I just show you one? Just like how you tried so hard to show me one. And the whole getting scared thing was an act, but everything we talked about before was real. It was all how I actually feel.”

Ryuuji unconsciously closed his mouth, trying to figure out what Minori was actually saying. 

As though trying to bridge that gap, Minori continued to speak. “Takasu-kun, why did you want to scare me?”

“Uhhh… because, Taiga told me you weren’t good with that stuff…”

“So you were pranking me? You were teasing me? No, Takasu-kun, you’re not the type of guy who would show someone something they don’t like. You’re the type of person who only ever thinks about how to make people happy.”

Uh. He choked on his words. Minori wasn’t mad, but she wasn’t smiling, either. She just stared straight at him.

“Takasu-kun, when you were trying to scare me, what did you think would happen? That’s what I really want to know. It was really strange.”

“That’s…” He licked his dry lips, his heart jumping like a fish out of water.

But he started saying it.

He wanted to say it.

“I wanted to make you believe that ghosts are real. I wanted to show you a ghost. That wasn’t a lie. You’re not an outsider, so…so…”

He prayed that somehow Minori wouldn’t misunderstand him as he spoke quickly.

“I see.” Minori said, her gaze turning soft and tender. It was unclear how much she understood. It wasn’t clear how far she’d accepted his explanation.

She just smiled and continued. “Takasu-kun, have you seen a ghost?”

Ryuuji slowly nodded. He had seen it. He really had found one. 

Had Minori found her ghost? Had she finally realized he was there? Unable to ask her, Ryuuji looked at the sand at his feet.

It would be nice if she found him.

It would be nice if, inside Minori, there was even a small bit of him. Not a ghost but a part of his soul.

“Hey, Takasu-kun… well, next…how about we look for a UFO together? One that isn’t a satellite.”

Minori suddenly squinted at the sky and grinned. “After ghosts we find UFOs. Then we can look for those mythical snakes, tsuchinoko. Then we’ll keep doing that and change the world bit by bit, and we’ll keep finding the things we want to see, which will change my world, and if that happens then maybe someday…”

Then it happened.

Ryuuji saw something light up in the corner of his eye. He pointed quickly at the ocean.

Minori turned around and saw it.

A ball of fire shot over the dark horizon. Then, it burst open. Round, large, vivid flowers of light bloomed in the distant, transparent indigo sky. Boom! Then a low sound resounded far away, a moment later.

It looked like fragments of stars were falling over Minori’s head.

Minori extended both arms, and her eyes shone more radiantly than any star. The tip of her nose was dyed by the glaring light of the fireworks. And then she murmured, “It exploded—the UFO exploded,” to herself. She probably didn’t mean for anyone else to hear.

Kitamura also noticed and looked up at the sky.

Taiga and Ami also followed suit.

Everyone was speechless. The boisterous dance of the flaming flowers was so sudden.

They kept launching, dazzling as they opened, the sounds going off and dispersing. Crimson, yellow, blue, green; their eyes were overwhelmed by the radiance of the midsummer fireworks as they set the sky aflame.

“Is that…the Milky Way?” Minori muttered again as though she couldn’t believe it and stretched her arms toward the sky. Again and again, she muttered, “It’s like a dream, I saw it.”

And beneath that dazzling sky, Ryuuji didn’t notice as Taiga slowly lowered her raised arm. 

The fireworks are amazing, hey look, hey you stupid dog—

She dropped her hand to her side, leaving the T-shirt hem she normally would have pulled untouched. 

She finally realized it. She hadn’t realized it at all until then.

Right.

So that’s what this is.

Only Ami watched Taiga’s profile from beside her. Below the sky where the fireworks danced, Ami’s eyes filled with amazement rather than sympathy, but she decided to leave the secret unsaid, as she just stayed by Taiga’s side.

***

“Ugh!”

When Taiga opened her eyes, she didn’t know where she was for a moment. She felt like she had been having a strange dream. She still felt frightened by it, still trapped in that mood. She felt as though she had been left behind, alone in a terrifying place.

“What are you doing? Look, you’re gonna fall!”

“Uh? Huh?”

Ryuuji was in front of her. Beside him was Kitamura, pulling Ami’s luggage from the rack and handing it over. Ami, however, was staring into her Chanel hand mirror as she cried, “Aaah, trains definitely dry a girl out!”

“Taiga! We’re going!”

They pulled her hand, and she rose from the seat. Minori smiled ear to ear as she carried Taiga’s wicker bag for her.

Oh right, vacation is over, she realized. At some point, the limited express train had arrived at the familiar station. Passengers were already spilling onto the platform.

Flustered and holding her bag, Taiga grabbed Minori’s hand and walked down the narrow aisles. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but it had probably been too long because she had a thumping headache. And she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her stomach.

“Minorin…my stomach hurts…”

“Huh? Really? Hey now, are you okay? Takasu-kuuun, Taiga says her stomach hurts!”

Whaaat? Ryuuji turned around, Kitamura joining him.

“Do you want to take some medicine? Sit at one of the platform benches for a sec.” Kitamura looked over his glasses at Taiga. His gaze was so gentle that just looking at him would have made someone cry. But Taiga shook her head and looked away. I’m fine.

It’s fine.

It’s fine like this.

In a few days, summer vacation would end. Then their normal lives would resume.

They would go back to their unchanging group, unchanging classroom, and unchanging mornings and nights. But they would also go back to something that had changed just slightly.

But, Taiga thought, she was okay with that. She didn’t have a reason not to be.

They were at the ticket gate where they met two days earlier.

“The trip lasts until we get home! Everyone make sure you head straight home!” Kitamura delivered an almost embarrassing speech. 

Ryuuji was deep in thought as he completely ignored Kitamura. “Should we stop by the supermarket to do some shopping? Today’s Friday, so tuna should be cheap.” Taiga, what do you want to do?

“Be quieeet, I’m tired! Don’t talk to me about your housewife errands,” she refused coldly.

Ami, being Ami, was humming pensively. It seemed that she was worried about her nose, which had burned slightly in the sun. “Maybe I’ll go straight to my parents’ house and take a trip to the beauty salon…” It was the statement of a celebrity. 

“Look, look, look! Come over here! Gather round!” Minori spoke seriously and forcibly pulled the ragtag group together against their will.

“Uhh, so our trip concluded without a hitch! Which means we’ll all see each other in the new term! See you at school!”

“We have club activities tomorrow,” said Kitamura, who couldn’t read the room at all. He was left behind as the rest of the circle waved at each other. 

Minori headed to the North exit where the bikes were stored, but then immediately turned around and called Ryuuji’s name. “I’ll bring a towel next time I see you! What color do you want?” 

“Uuh, blue!” 

“Huh? You want it pink?” 

“I said blue!” 

“Huh? You want a gaudy gold with gold lamé to boot?” 

“Buh-loo!” 

“Got it, khaki, right!” Minori, who clearly understood, smiled even more dazzlingly as she said, “Buuuuuuh…khaki…”

What idiots. Taiga’s eyes were cold as she sat down. 

Ami looked at Taiga and hummed for a moment before patting Ryuuji’s back. “Later!” She put on her sunglasses, transforming from a high school student on summer vacation into a prim model. She began walking to the ticket gates for her transfer so she could go back to her parents’ home in the middle of the city. 

Kitamura handed over the stomach medicine to Taiga as he waved his hand and said, “I left my bike behind, too!” and ran off in the same direction as Minori.

And with that, the summer of Takasu Ryuuji’s second year of high school ended.