Toradora! - Volume 2 - Chapter SS

Side Story:

The Legend of the Lucky Palmtop Tiger

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

Even though it was after classes had ended, there was no sign of any students in that dim hallway. Under broken, fluorescent lighting, Tomiie Kouta walked with a gloomy expression illuminated by the lights’ cheerless, flickering buzz.

He finally arrived at a door. A scrap of notebook paper was stuck against it with scotch tape, scribbled on with pencil.

It said, “Student Council Room.”

Ahhhh, Kouta sighed. With dark eyes, he looked down at the old doorknob. He came by this place every day, and for what…?

“DAAAH HAHAHAHA!”

“…That’s got to be the president.”

He was in danger of being blown away by the mere power of the overly hearty laugh that resonated from behind the door, but he stood his ground. He automatically pictured that laughter’s source.

What came to mind was their trustworthy personality and, on occasion, strict paternal love… the popular nicknames of “godfather” and “patriarch” were all too fitting for this very “masculine” person. It wasn’t that Kouta hated their style, but sometimes, it was a little much…

“Excuse me.”

…It happened at the same time he opened the door and stepped in.

“Ohh! You’re late, my first-year lad! Hurry up and sit, sit!”

“…Phew.”

It had been several weeks since they’d met, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the owner of that laugh.

“What’s wrong? That was a pretty lifeless response.” Tsk. He heard a tongue click, but immediately after came a show of white teeth and a generous laugh. “Have a bite of this,” said the manly individual in question, and threw a snack at him. 

That macho soul in fact had the incredibly feminine name of Kanou Sumire.

But there was more to her than that.

“President, sorry for the intrusion, but it’s about the data from the previous year’s proposed budget.”

“Right, I’ll see that, give it here.”

Slip… the black, silky strands of her hair spilled softly over her delicate shoulders. Her downcast eyes and pale Japanese complexion were just a skin she wore. 

The student body president, Kanou Sumire.

Since enrolling in the school, she had been a hardcore honors student who never wavered from her position at the top of the class. In addition, she had a little sister, Kanou Sakura, who was two years younger than her and a first year in the same school. Among the students, they were known as the Kanou sisters. In other words, Sumire was the president, the patriarch, and the elder of the Kanou sisters.

“Hey, Kouta. You were eating by yourself again today, weren’t you? I passed by your class and saw it with my own two eyes—you all by yourself.”

“…Please leave it be.”

Perched at a window seat, holding papers in one hand, Sumire was staring at Kouta with a grin on her face…while manspreading. It seemed she had no intention to leave it be.

“So you still haven’t made aaany friends. We’re almost at the end of May, you realize? It’s been two whole months since school started.”

There was no consideration in the cherry-blossom-colored lips that spoke those words. Kouta was silent. He turned his back to Sumire and dropped his eyes to the activity log.

“You’re a first-year lad, yet you’re an outcast.”

“Now, now, president.” The one who threw him a lifeline was the second-year vice president, Kitamura Yuusaku. With his silver-rimmed, severe glasses glinting, he jumped into the conversation with a gentle tone. “Kouta enrolled one month late, so he hasn’t even been here for a full month.”

“Right, that was how it went down!” Sumire slapped her hands together in understanding. “What was it again—you were hit by a car right before our enrollment ceremony, right?”

“…No. I was hit by the car on the day before the ceremony at my first choice school.”

“Right, right, let’s see—oh right, your neighbor’s house caught on fire and when they hosed it down, your own house was flooded…”

“That was the day before a school trip in middle school. The day before the ceremony, what I thought was a horrible stomachache was actually my appendix. When I went out to a restaurant to celebrate, it ruptured, and I ended up pulling down other people’s tables as I collapsed—”

“Yes! And then you were hospitalized for a month!”

With the President’s finger pointing at him, Kouta could only keep silent and look down. The next words Sumire let lose were ones he already knew were coming.

“You sure are an unlucky fellow!” Daaahahahahaha! 

…What was so funny, exactly?

“President, you’re laughing too much. You’ll make Kouta feel bad.”

That hearty laugh—strong enough to even bring on a rebuke from Kitamura—continued to resound. It got to the point that even the clerks going about their duties (both of them second years, older than him) had quivering shoulders while pretending to be engrossed in their work.

If you’re going to laugh, then laugh. Kouta sulkily pouted and turned away. Sorry for being so unlucky. But what could he do? That was just the way it was.

Whenever Kouta’s fate was in the balance, the scales inevitably came down on the side of trouble. It had been that way from the moment he’d dropped into this world to the present day. Incidentally, the moment he came out crying from his mother’s womb, his father’s video camera ran out of batteries, and the doctor, distracted by that, missed the moment his mother had finished her difficult task and dropped the newborn Kouta past her crotch. 

The trouble had just continued to the present day. At any rate, he’d made the unfortunate decision to join this student council of his own free will.

***

It was shortly after entering high school—his entrance delayed because of the particular circumstances of his life—when Kouta noticed he was in limbo in his class. For starters, he didn’t have a cheerful personality. He’d thought he might join a club to make friends, but the invitation season for new members was long past, and the opportunity to join was completely robbed from him.

Although he wasn’t despised, trying to endure the class recesses without a single friend was incredibly taxing. One day, as he was thinking about what he could do, a poster had appeared in front of Kouta’s eyes.

“Wanted: General Affairs members! Big welcome to new students! Join the Student Council!”

General Affairs… basically, that probably means helping with paperwork, he thought. It wasn’t like he had an interest in helping with desk work for the student council. But the words big welcome to new students seemed to sparkle in Kouta’s eyes for that moment. It was like the last door on the last train that he was already late to ride was still open—that was the feeling he had.

He just needed to get to know the other first year students in General Affairs. And maybe, if he became Tomiie Kouta of the student council, he would be able to escape his current station as a nonexistent waste of air. That was the thought.

He summoned his courage and headed to the student council room. Even now, he could clearly remember how he felt as he opened that door for the first time. 

A beautiful, black-haired Yamato Nadeshiko—the concept of the ideal Japanese woman—turned around as though surprised. That he would be able to work on student council activities with such a beauty was beyond his expectations. It was a rare moment—he almost thought he was lucky. But then the beauty said, “Yo!” and lifted her fist at him in a manly way. She plunked down on her chair with her legs splayed. “You’re a first year, right?! Something wrong? Go on, grab a seat!” Thump! She kicked an open seat for him. 

…Flub. The strength left his knees. The one who’d been lying in wait for Kouta was a tough guy—wearing a Yamato Nadeshiko skin.

There weren’t any other first years in General Affairs, and for starters, when he reported his student council position to his homeroom teacher, she hadn’t even known about it. “Huh? You went into General Affairs?” 

On the other hand, he couldn’t just quit because the truth of the student council had been a little bit different from his arbitrary expectations. So Kouta made sure to go to the student council room every day after school, where he was the only student working on troublesome, daily minutiae.

This really wasn’t meant for him.

“Aaahh… I’d love to touch that Palmtop Tiger…” It slipped right out of him…mixed with a sigh. He’d only meant to think it to himself.

“…Hm?” Kitamura reacted first. “What did you just say about the Palmtop Tiger?”

“Kitamura-senpai, does that mean you’ve heard about it?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question.” Sumire’s affectionate whip—the corner of her notebook—prodded the top of Kouta’s head.

“Ow! Hey, what gives? I can’t help it! I’m just curious about it, okay?”

The corner of the notebook dug in deeper, sawing rapidly into Kouta’s head.

“Aaah, that burns!”

“Don’t underestimate the notebook. Pulp is the essence of mighty trees. So spit it out, why do you want to touch the Tiger?”

“Y-you’re relentless… my classmates were talking about it, okay?”

When you touch the Palmtop Tiger, you’ll be blessed with good fortune for the next three years until graduation!

Kouta had heard about it being one of the seven wonders of the school right at the same time Sumire had seen him alone that day during lunch break. Even though he hadn’t been intentionally listening to the conversation behind him, it had caught his ears all the same.

“Hmph. Unlucky. You wanted to touch the Palmtop Tiger, but since you weren’t friends, you couldn’t bring yourself to ask for details. Just how shy are you, anyway?!”

Kouta turned his back on Sumire and muttered darkly, “It’s fine. Please leave it be. I was just curious, that’s all. I wasn’t serious. It’s probably no better than a good luck charm anyway.”

“No, you’re wrong.” Kitamura’s voice suddenly reverberated loudly through the room. “Nah, this tiger’s real. I’ve seen the Palmtop Tiger before.”

“Huh?! Really?!”

Sumire oddly didn’t seem surprised, either. She put up a graceful hand. “I’ve seen the Palmtop Tiger, too.”

The other members exchanged glances, and following the president, raised their hands. “Yup.” “Me too.” “And me.”

“Senpai, you’ve all seen the Palmtop with your own eyes?”

“Yeah, the Palmtop is especially notorious among the second years. …But the Legend of the Lucky Palmtop Tiger? Guess the legend gets bigger with each retelling. To think the Palmtop’s been made into such a big deal…”

Kitamura chuckled. He looked like he could hardly handle it. Every member except for Sumire had an odd grin.

“…Uhhh, guys, what’s so funny?” Kouta couldn’t quite decode what was going on. He glanced around, vainly trying to get a feel for what was happening.

“I’ve got it!” Sumire suddenly raised her voice. “Kouta, you have to touch the Palmtop Tiger.”

“…Huh?”

“An unlucky fellow like you in our group is a liability. Your bad luck might affect the whole student council. So consider this a presidential order. You absolutely must touch the Palmtop Tiger and cure your misfortune.”

“Even if you tell me to do that, I don’t even know what the Palmtop Tiger is.”

“You can just ask your classmates. Start tomorrow off by gathering information, first thing!”

“This seems like a fool’s errand…”

“Excuse me?” 

In front of Sumire’s sharp, piercing eyes, Kitamura once again jumped in with a “Now, now.” He went on, “It’d be difficult to have him do it so suddenly. Kouta, first off, we’ll give you a hint. In my class, the second-year class C, there’s a certain person named Kushieda who you can visit. Out of everyone I know within this school, she’s the one who knows the most about the Palmtop Tiger.”

“That was…Kushieda…senpai?”

Yeah, Kitamura nodded. He flashed an appealing smile as he looked down at Kouta.

“…Kitamura-senpai.”

“Hm?”

“You seem like you’re having a lot of fun, for some reason.”

“Yeah, I might be.”

It was always kind of hard to understand what was in the bottom of those intelligent eyes, behind those glasses. Even now, all smiles, he seemed to look through Kouta, piercing him with a straight, silent gaze.

Kouta thought of Kitamura as a kind upperclassman. Maybe it was because he was Sumire’s right-hand man, but he felt there was something up with the group gathered in the student council room.

After all, he had a predisposition for super bad luck. He decided to play dumb, but as he stared at the upperclassmen’s faces, there was suspicion in his eyes. 

***

Okay, Kouta. First, the Palmtop Tiger is real. And second, the Palmtop’s a ferocious terror that isn’t going to be easy to touch.

As a special favor, Sumire had given him a hint. But with a hint that small, he still couldn’t tell what the Palmtop Tiger was, or what form it would take. In cases like this, it would normally be something like a bronze statue, right?

“…Honestly, this is just coercion, at this point…”

It was the next day. Rather obediently, he stood in front of the door to the second-year class C.

After all, Sumire had given him the forceful warning—if you ignore a presidential order, you’ll be in trouble.

“Uhh, in other words…you mean I’d be fired?” What else could it be, anyway?

“No. I’d force you to become the next student body president.”

“Wouldn’t the next student president be a current second year?”

“Congratulations on becoming the first-ever first year president!”

“Yeah, I’d rather not…”

And so he lowered his gloomy face and unsteadily made his way to a classroom of upperclassmen all by himself. He peeked into the classroom for a while without revealing himself, but he was at a loss when he couldn’t find Kitamura, who he was depending on. It seemed that all he could do was ask someone to bring out the person named Kushieda.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Yes?”

He put all his effort into flagging down an upperclassman girl who happened to be walking by. 

“What is it?” The person who turned around had a bright smile on her face. Her kind-looking brown eyes turned to Kouta—

her round cheeks were lit up with a grin, and her pink lips were lustrous and shiny. From head to toe, she was too bright. Straightforward, honest, and healthy, she was completely different from a certain tough guy.

“Uh, umm…it’s, I’m looking for someone named Kushieda-senpai—”

“Yessss!”

“In…this…class…?”

He looked at her hand, which she had stretched to reach toward the heavens. Kouta tilted his head for a while. Umm, I guess since she said, “Yesss!” and stretched up her hand, this development means…

“I’m Kushieda!”

“Oh.”

Of cooourse. She was cute, but a little strange. He felt his spirits sink again. Everyone he had come across so far seemed a little weird, but that was probably just because his natural bad luck was a siren call to them.

“Hey you, don’t just say ‘Oh!’ Don’t leave someone hanging!” She acted awfully familiar—she pushed one of his shoulders and he wobbled dangerously. But he somehow held his ground and kept facing forward.

“Kitamura-senpai said the he would introduce us…” From the sheer desire to avoid being teased by Sumire, he took on the challenge that was Kushieda.

“Kitamura-kun? Nu-uh, he didn’t say anything to me.”

“Uhh…”

No way. As he recalled Kitamura’s bespectacled face, Kouta faltered. This meant that he had to tell her about the circumstances of his search for the Palmtop Tiger, starting from the very beginning, here and now. That was a little embarrassing. He was a first year going out of his way to a classroom of upperclassmen to ask, “Excuse me, do you know where the ‘Palmtop Tiger’ is?” That kind of made him seem like he was actually serious about it, and that was a little awkward…

“Yo, Kushieda! This is Tomiie Kouta, a first year. He’s looking into the Palmtop Tiger, so I told him about you. I told him that was a subject Kushieda knows all about! Anyway, see ya!”

…And then, like a gust of wind, Kitamura passed by and easily explained everything that had been embarrassing. And left.

Then Kouta noticed something. “Huh?”

Without so much as a warning, Kushieda’s eyes simultaneously turned harsh and dark. “You’re looking into the Palmtop Tiger, are you…?”

“…Senpai, your tone of voice is kind of…”

“Shut yer yap.” To cut off Kouta’s escape route, Kushieda leaned against the doorway and stretched her arm across to the wall. Her bright smile was no more, now completely withdrawn. Her head tilted, chin out, slightly crooked…

“And what are you planning on doing after looking into the Palmtop Tiger…?” She spoke in a low, husky voice and stared at him searchingly.

“Ahh, that’s…I’m going to touch it…”

“Touch it? You’re going to touch it? You want to touch it. So you want to touch it.”

“…That was four times you said that. Uhh, well…”

Huff, Kushieda’s prolonged exhalation shifted Kouta’s bangs. “Do you have insurance? You’re gonna need real good insurance—injury insurance.”

“I do have that, actually.” Honestly, for someone who was born with a predisposition toward bad luck like him, having several kinds of insurance was a given—plans with fully maxed out policies for any and all contingencies.

Uh-huh, Kushieda listened to that response and nodded deeply. “Listen here, young one…it seems you still don’t know what kind of thing the Palmtop Tiger really is…”

“Uhh. But that’s why I came to ask.”

“No matter what you hear from this old hag’s lips, you still won’t understand… the one thing this hag can tell you is… the ‘Palmtop’ part of the Palmtop Tiger’s name is referring to its size…”

Hag? Kouta didn’t follow. 

A noise exploded right in front of him. “Ack! Cough! Cough, cough, cough!”

“K-Kushieda-senpai, are you okay? …Huuuh?!”

…GOGH! As though she were calling out the great painter’s name, the self-styled hag Kushieda mussed up her hair, slipped down, and collapsed to one knee.

“Um, this is a performance, right? You’re joking, right?”

“This hag…is done for. You can ask…about the rest…from the one named…Takasu…”

And then in the hallway during their break, she pretended to fall over flat as though she were dead. Her skirt also flipped up, exposing her white underwear and butt for the whole world to see, but she didn’t make any signs that she was in a rush to fix it. Normally this would be incredibly lucky, enough to give him a nosebleed, but… What should I do? I’ve gotten mixed up with someone weird, and not just a little weird, either…

“…Um…who’s Takasu?”

The passing classmates just stepped over Kushieda’s body. Finally one girl said, “Hey, watch your underwear. Underwear!” and fixed the flipped-up skirt. But even then, Kushieda remained collapsed on the ground as she aimed a finger towards one corner of the classroom. Over there, several second-year boys were having fun chatting.

Guh. Kouta swallowed his breath. Within that group, one person had noticed him and turned around.

“…Kushieda, what are you doing?”

Shall I beat you to a pulp?

The guy’s voice held that kind of tone. That sharp gaze was no amateur’s. His mean-looking features were twisted in irritation. He fidgeted, menacing everyone in his vicinity with the incredibly dangerous aura that exuded from his whole body. Why was there such a transcendent delinquent in this tiny high school?

Then it came to him.

This delinquent was definitely Takasu.

Kouta’s fortunes always flowed in the least desirable direction, so that definitely had to be Takasu. I think I’m good, I’ll go back to my class. Kouta was quick in coming to that appropriate conclusion, but…

“Takasu-kun…this young’un seems to have business with ya…”

“Wha?!”

Just a moment too soon, Kushieda, who should have been dead, politely called Takasu over.

The one who replied “Whaaaat?” was, unsurprisingly, that delinquent boy. His eyes glinted, and his chair screeched as he stood. He wasn’t that large, but the power emanating from his body as he stood up was terrible enough that the air behind him seemed to warp.

Licking his dry lips to moisten them, Takasu approached. At full speed, on long strides, he stepped, stepped, stepped over.

“Eeek!” Reflexively, Kouta turned on his heels. He jumped to change direction and tried to make a dash for it, when…

“Ah!”

“…Tsk!”

He felt a hard impact against his chest. He had run into someone. Tottering, he turned around. “I’m sorry!”

“…Oww…”

…Flustered, he lowered his head and tried to start running away, but it seemed the crash was a bigger deal than he’d initially thought. In a corner of the hallway, a petite girl was crouched down. It seemed Kouta had sent her flying with the force of the collision, sending her tumbling to the ground. Surprised, he tried going over to her.

“Ah!”

…Squish. He felt something below his foot—probably what that girl had been holding. It was a sandwich, its toppings strewn through the hallway. He’d stepped on just one part of it. But Takasu was drawing closer, and the girl was still crouching. He didn’t have time to spare for bread. At any rate, he could at least help the girl. He extended his arm. “Are you ok…?”

His words were stolen from him.

Her small body was enveloped by her long, doll-like hair. She quietly brought up her face and turned her gaze to Kouta.

Her ivory profile looked almost transparent.

Her wondrous eyes glittered as though reflecting the color of the cosmos itself. 

Her small, rosebud lips were open.

Through a gap in her disheveled hair, he caught a glance of an intensely bewitching face. For a moment, he nearly even forgot to breathe.

“…Wh…whoa.”

It struck him with all the force of a lightning bolt to the head. Kouta instantly forgot whatever destiny might soon befall him. Instead he was drawn into those entrancing eyes. Going into those eyes was a dangerous act, like jumping naked into a starlit sky—so captivated was he that he lost all track of his surroundings. He didn’t know anything—he didn’t know why the nearby second-year students had frozen, or why they had collectively swallowed their breaths.

He only knew about the beauty before his eyes.

“Run!”

“…Huh?!”

It was Takasu.

At some point, the delinquent Takasu had approached and jumped in front of him. He was blocking the girl with his body, as though to hide her away. He had the most terrifying look in the world on his face…

“Hurry! If you value your life, you need to go now!”

“…Huh?”

Takasu was shouting. He shooed Kouta away with a move of one hand. “Don’t just stand there! Go!”

“Y-yes sir!”

It was undoubtedly a threat. Still not quite understanding what was happening, Kouta couldn’t resist Takasu’s command. He could only run, leaving the girl behind.

***

Basically, the girl had been taken captive.

Looking back on how things had unfolded, Kouta came to that conclusion. She had been forcibly caged like a bird by that delinquent Takasu. Did his reign of terror know no bounds? He didn’t know about the details, but it was surely something like that.

“…I wish I could help her.”

Haaah… He loosed a heartfelt sigh, there in the post-school-day student council room.

Two people’s gazes turned sideways to watch Kouta, not too quick, not too slow. It was like they stared straight through him.

“As expected from Kouta.” The one who muttered that with such strange admiration was Sumire. 

Beside her, arms folded, was Kitamura. He chimed in, too. “You seem to naturally head toward misfortune. You rush towards it like it’s drawing you in… maybe sometimes it’s in a slightly different direction from what we expect, but it’s like you’re always running blindly into bad luck.”

Yes, yes. The other members agreed, too. A strange kind of solidarity was born in the cramped room.

“…Well, please, go right ahead. You can say whatever’s on your mind about me.” Being excluded from the conversation by his upperclassmen, Kouta turned to show them the back of his head.

To put it bluntly, Kouta wasn’t afraid of bad luck at that moment. On the contrary, Kouta would put himself in the way of any misfortune if he could help that beautiful, second-year girl. He would suffer any bad luck, he thought, if it was for her—in short, he was smitten.

Even now, he deeply regretted having left the girl in that place. He was willing to face the misfortune of putting himself on that delinquent’s radar—no, he was willing to have a full on confrontation with him. If he could endure a little pain to achieve the best-case scenario, his true happy ending would be waiting for him, after all. 

“President, I’ll do it.” Kouta abruptly lifted his face and looked firmly into Sumire’s apricot eyes. Sumire was brought to silence for a moment, but after a while, she slowly shook her head.

“Don’t. Don’t get eager. Don’t do anything unnecessary. I just felt a chill run through me… now that I have a thorough understanding of your unlucky predisposition, I’m starting to think you should limit your mobility to a restricted area.”

“No! I’m going to do it. I’ll definitely follow through. I’ll go and save that poor prisoner. And then, I’ll touch the Palmtop Tiger and be blessed! We’ll touch it together, so that we can be blessed together… after all, you were the one who told me to do this in the first place, president.”

“…Well, I don’t remember saying a single word telling you to save that poor soul.”

But Kouta was lost in a daydream, too far gone to listen to anyone else. He was recalling that white profile. Those misty, starry eyes. The expression that looked as though it were spun out of delicate glass. Like a fairy, she had a soft outline. There wasn’t anyone else like her in the whole world.

“Umm. Kouta, you know, I’d like you to listen for a sec.”

“Please leave it be.”

He didn’t even turn away from Kitamura’s voice as it tried to break his warm fantasy. Kouta was immersed—he was a resident of the world of dreams. His mind was wrapped vividly in the vision of him, that person, and the Palmtop Tiger, the fortunate trinity.

“Ahh, it’s fine. It’s fine, Kitamura, please just leave it be. It’s come to this, so please let it go wherever it leads.”

Even Sumire’s blunt voice didn’t reach Kouta’s ears.

“Kouta said he wants us to leave it alone, and he’s at the point where he’s refused to listen to our advice, too. Let’s just let him do the best he can.”

“…Are you sure? Well…I guess it’ll be fine.”

***

Th-there!

Kouta resisted the urge to exclaim out loud. For a little while now, he had been passing by the front of second-year class C in order to avoid standing out. He’d done it several times now, coming from both sides of the hallway. Casually peeking in through the window, he finally found the person he was looking for. He was lucky he hadn’t been caught by Kushieda or Takasu.

He hid himself along the corner of the wall and ruminated over his fleeting glance at her. Even though it was break time, she was alone in her seat and not talking to anyone. Her small shoulders shook from the loneliness, like a fragrant rose. She doesn’t have friends, either… just like me, Kouta thought for a moment, but then immediately shook his head.

It was definitely that jealous Takasu—he must have forbidden her from letting anyone get too close. He’d threatened her; there was no mistaking it. That Takasu. Just how small could his heart be?

“…Just hold out a little longer. I’ll get the Palmtop Tiger soon and come for you,” he muttered in a small voice. Once again, trying to act as casually as possible, he started walking down the hallway. He put his hands in his pockets and grasped the present he had gotten for her in the palm of his hand. He had just bought it—a still-hot can of coffee.

It would have been best if he could give it to her by hand, but they didn’t have that kind of relationship yet. So, for now, it would be from an anonymous benefactor.

“…There!”

Go! He released the hot can of coffee with miraculous skill from his spot near the window, aiming at his beloved girl. The scene playing out in his head was: “Here, drink it!” “Huh?” Shoot! Tumble tumble tumble…bop! “It… it’s warm…” and then she’d squeeze the can between her hands… Just like in his vision, the can traced a pretty line as it tumbled through the air directly toward her head. After he watched it go that far, he dashed away.

WHAM, came a sound from behind Kouta, but he was in a delirium as he ran. He didn’t even notice, let alone stop. Even Kouta himself didn’t believe he could have made such a brazen move. He couldn’t believe someone shy like him could do something so pompous that it might as well have been from a TV drama. Ahhh, he sighed. Now that he knew this love, he was becoming more and more of a man. He held his flushing cheeks in his hands, smiling slightly as he ran away.

The hot can of coffee had a deep meaning to Kouta. Sometime I’ll give you something warmer… something even more heartwarming as a present, okay? That was right. In other words, what he would give her was daily bliss. He meant to release her from Takasu.

With things going like this, the day when he and his rescued damsel would touch the Palmtop Tiger wasn’t far. Hand in hand, with their cheeks touching, they would take the image of the palm-top-sized tiger—or whatever it was—and would caress it together. “Let’s be blessed together ♥” he would say. “Yeah ♥,” she would say back.

“…I can’t believe it. I’m finally going to have some luck coming my way.”

Kouta shivered in delight.

***

“Tsk.”

He was soon shivering for an entirely different reason. The two oscillations canceled each other out then and there, after school. He had been passing time alone in the student council room like always, and when he finally thought of going home, he saw something in front of the shoe racks.

Kouta found a methodically folded loose-leaf sheet of paper nestled in his shoe cubby. It seemed to be addressed to him. Wondering what it might be for, he opened it. His heart suddenly froze.

On the note, written in scrawled letters, was just one phrase.

Careful on your way home tonight. 

 —Takasu, second year-C 

Someone spoke. “Oh?”

“Wah!”

Kouta jumped at the voice, but instead of standing, he backed into the shoe racks, producing a loud racket.

“Wh-what is it?! Sh-shouldn’t you be at your club?!”

“I have today off.”

Despite Kouta’s rude tone, Kitamura’s gentle smile was unwavering. He glanced at the paper in Kouta’s hand. “Did you get a warning from Takasu? He sure goes out of his way,” he muttered, as though it were a joke.

“It’s not the time for that! Basically, th-this is…this is bad, right?”

“It basically says something like be careful going home tonight, right? Takasu’s a kind guy, giving a warning like this to an underclassman he doesn’t even know.”

Kouta didn’t even have the strength to respond to Kitamura’s incredible optimism. Careful on your way home at night was pretty much a stock threat from the mafia, wasn’t it? If you get up to anything strange, it won’t be tolerated, be prepared, was what it meant.

“Yeah…”

Chills ran down his spine. Although he had been prepared to fight Takasu for her, now that it came to this, he remembered those glinting, dangerous eyes, and couldn’t stop his whole body from shaking.

For a guy with crazy eyes like that, a surprise attack on an innocent underclassman would be as easy as breathing. He would definitely brandish a polished wooden sword or something like that and wave it around, aiming to take Kouta’s life.

“Well then, see ya tomorrow.”

Leaving Kouta scared and alone, Kitamura heartlessly went ahead out of the school building. Reflexively, Kouta tried to stop Kitamura. “…Wait!”

He clenched his extended hand into a fist.

In his heart was the girl’s fragile profile. He had decided to save her from her own misfortune, hadn’t he? Then he couldn’t get scared by every little thing, especially not by something as small as Takasu’s threat. He couldn’t ask Kitamura for help.

He would school himself to extreme patience. He’d toughen up. Kouta crumpled up the paper after a single breath, and then, without taking a good look at his surroundings, tossed it toward where the waste basket should have been.

“Wahaha, it’s all good! I just threw it away!”

“You seem to be having fun.”

He turned towards the bitter voice. A little ways away, he saw Sumire.

“President, what are you doing?”

“I got an earful of your talk just now.”

On top of her head was a single piece of crumpled paper, sitting in place because of her amazing balance. Sumire frowned as she furrowed her brow.

“If this were a pebble or something else, my temple would have gone up in a fountain of blood and I’d have suffered an unsightly death.”

“Ahh… and if it were a plate, you would’ve turned into a kappa.” 

After vaguely nodding, Kouta finally grasped the situation. The thing on top of Sumire’s head is the trash I just tried to throw away. 

“…President, you’re pretty unlucky, yourself. Normally, a paper has no business staying put like that.” 

I’m very sorry. He went over to Sumire, took the paper off her head, held it up, and this time tried to get it into the waste bin. But suddenly he burst into laughter.

“Hahaha, what you looked like a second ago… ahaha, it was like this!”

He’d won out against Takasu’s threat. That feeling manifested in Kouta as a kind of strange elation. He plopped the paper onto his head and turned himself back towards Sumire. It was a pretty boneheaded reproduction, but he still couldn’t stop laughing. 

Sumire’s expression didn’t change. She just watched Kouta the whole time. 

He had just enough self-awareness to think Ah, this isn’t good, but then he kept right on going. “You’re eighteen, hahahaha, but you had trash on your head!”

The fit of laughter made his body shake so much that the trash began to fall, grazing the tip of his nose on its way down, but he couldn’t stop.

“Hahahahaha, ahahaha, haha…haaa!”

He finally took a breath. The fit had gone on for a full minute. He bent and picked up the trash and again threw it into the waste basket. Then, he wiped the sweat that had formed on his brow from having laughed too hard.

“Well, then, see you.” He turned his back to Sumire and tried to start walking home. 

“Kouta.” 

The one who firmly grabbed his shoulder was Sumire.

“What is it?” 

A grin. The smiling, living Japanese doll dropped a key into Kouta’s hand.

“This is the key to the student council room. Just now, I was on my way to return it to the vice-principal’s office, but I forgot a very important matter. There’s a locker, right? Inside it are nearly one hundred historical logs of student council activities. We need to put a printed sticker on each one to label those activities by fiscal year. We need stickers on the front cover, stickers on the back cover, and we need to organize them to be easy to see. Today. I leave this up to you, General-Affairs-kun.”

“…What? Right now? All by myself?”

“That’s right. I’ll check it tomorrow morning, and if they’re not all done… You understand, right? Well then, get to work.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“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 rack.

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.

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.

For some reason, he was in bit of a good mood. He was still the compass-faced boy, but today of all days, things were going very smoothly for him. After touching the Palmtop Tiger, he may really have gotten luck on his side.

It might have been because of that thought, but he didn’t resent the Palmtop Tiger for putting him through this. Though, of course, he was scared of her. He definitely didn’t want to come across her a second time.

“Well, a beauty is still a beauty, after all’s said and done.”

He’d seen the Palmtop Tiger up close. Even though she was terrifying, she was still a beautiful girl of the highest caliber. He felt he could kind of understand why all his upperclassmen called her by that name. She’s scary—you don’t want to get involved with her, you don’t want to make her angry, but you can’t just be afraid and ignore her.

Since we can’t ignore her, let’s all look at the pretty girl from a distance and equal footing—from this safety zone. Anyone who went out of the safety zone and approached her would be attacked. In his misfortune, Kouta had unwittingly taken one step too far. And the result of that was his punishment as the compass-faced boy.

So then, now that he understood everything, what was Kouta to do? 

He decided to stay in the safety zone.

He decided that no matter how unlucky he might be, no matter what kind of situation he might find himself in, he would stay at a distance from the Palmtop Tiger. He’d stay where he couldn’t make her any angrier and just continue to secretly watch her. The cozy safety zone doesn’t seem so bad. With those complex thoughts in mind, he would finally start his high school life.

Humming to match his mood, Kouta went to the hallway restroom and threw the window open wide, full of resolve. His enthusiasm was his undoing.

“Oh no!”

He’d dropped the tube he’d gotten from Sumire outside. Flustered, he leaned forward, looked down, and froze. Of course it would end up like this. Regardless of whether he had taken refuge in the safety zone, his bad luck could easily overcome such a small roadblock. 

“Ow, owow, owowow…”

She was under the open window.

With a look like a demon, she clutched her head. With the small tube in hand, the girl slowly looking up at him was…

The Palmtop Tiger.

END