Toradora! - Volume 7 - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

She hadn’t really intended to worry about it.

Sitting on the shabby, freezing bench with a glove over her downturned head, Kushieda Minori still couldn’t bring herself to stand. The other team members were giving her words of encouragement. Captain, you’ve got to keep it positive. None of us were doing that well today. We all have days like this. It’s just a practice match, so don’t let it get to you. Of course, she couldn’t not let it get to her. As the team captain, it was too pathetic. She couldn’t forgive herself after such a terrible play.

Plus, to be blunt, if anyone asked whether she had her head one hundred percent in the game, it was a fact that she hadn’t.

They had been on the ninth inning with two outs and no runners, and they had a three-to-one lead in the final inning.

The ball made a dull sound as it connected with the bat. It traced a loose arc; it could have been caught after one bound. It was almost as though the ball were happily jumping into her glove. Yes, we’ve scored ourselves a win, she thought as she went to catch it. She would get it to first base, and the match would be over—or it should have been. 

“Huh?!” 

“What are you doing, Kushiedaaa?!” 

“Kyaah!”

The screams were coming from the very bench she was sitting on. The players on the other school’s bench were yelling, “We did it! We did it!” “You got it, run!” She couldn’t believe it was true. All her hair stood on end. Why had the ball spilled out of her glove right before she had thrown it? 

The more flustered she grew, the worse the situation became. She kicked the ball with the tip of her shoe as it rolled away and then tried to pick it up. “Roll, roll,” she could hear people yelling. No way, no way, no way. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. When she failed to pick it up again, the runner was coming around the second base. Amid the shrieks and cheers, she finally got the ball and threw it at third. She missed. The runner simply reached the home plate. And then there was the rest of it.

There was the smell of the suffocating dust.

The midwinter wind that she was powerless against, as it chilled her.

It was a late Sunday afternoon. The rays from the sun were beginning to slant.

She was a loser who couldn’t even stand up.

They were like falling dominos. Once their ace player’s blunder threw off the team’s concentration, they weren’t able to recover. Someone got a base from a walk, and on top of all that, their stacking errors got the other team a home run before they knew it. 

“Ahhh…seriously…”

Minori hunched over with her glove covering her face like a hood. She held her head in her hands. She didn’t seem to care that her knees were grimy with dirt as she pushed her nose between them. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault. She wasn’t convinced that it didn’t matter because it was a practice match. This hadn’t happened because they were having an off day. This day wasn’t a one-off fluke.

It happened because her thoughts were in a mess and she had lost her focus. That was why things ended up like this. In other words, if she continued to be like this, they would probably never win another match.

“What am I even doing…?”

***

“What do you think you’re doing?” said Taiga.

“I’m not doing anything…”

You lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy oaf!

The winter winds that assaulted him combined with the jeers to create a tornado-like vortex that swirled around Takasu Ryuuji. His bangs were sent dancing by the freezing wind and his eyes were wide open, so he looked like the spitting image of a demon king materializing out of thin air. He looked sinister enough that he could have easily blown away a planet or two, but in actuality he wasn’t trying to do that, and he wasn’t going to become a demon king. He was just feeling slightly down after someone had publicly pointed out the truth.

“I couldn’t help it! Because—”

“SHAH-HUP!”

At the same time she yelled that unintelligible phrase—WHAM-BAM!—he got a double slap coming at him from the right and left. She was probably telling him to “shut up.” Ryuuji held both his cheeks and did just that. Her sudden assaults always surprised him. 

“Don’t make excuses, you lazy oaf! You butt-ugly, lazy oaf of a stupid perverted Russell terrier! You lifelong bug repellent! You fish flake-covered idiot! You’ve got the face of a harebrained walrus!”

Further attacks were fired at him like countless missiles that originated from another dimension. They assailed the demon king from all angles and dug their way into his heart. For the finishing touch came Taiga’s scornful voice. “Keh!” She was a brute… No, that wasn’t strong enough. The one he would rather call a demon pompously stuck up her arrogant chin.

That arrogant way she stood. The haughtiness in the way she held up her chin. The cold-bloodedness in her half-open eyes, which were filled with contempt. The one whose cheeks had turned rosy from the cold wind and who now pushed up her hair was Aisaka Taiga, known as the Palmtop Tiger. She was the beautiful demon in the flesh.

Her face was as delicate as a French doll’s. She was called “Palmtop” because of how petite she was, but the cool, monotone voice that came from her physique was lower than expected. 

“Ryuuji, I wonder if all that’s left for you now is to die alone…”

Slash—she cut him down in a flash.

Ryuuji transformed into a speechless statue in the middle of the road. This was even more merciless than the double slap. Aren’t these practically the same as acts of violence? he thought. Are you fine with that, police officer? Is this justice, Japan? Isn’t this something that should be outlawed? He gathered his scattered courage and cradled his neatly halved heart. Ryuuji readied himself and glared at Taiga.

“D-don’t think that a constitutional country will leave you unchecked forever…!”

“Huh?”

His desperate comeback turned to dust and disappeared within a moment when faced with Taiga sticking her finger in her ears as she jeered at him. Cold wind blew through the prickly silence that came between them.

It was a winter Sunday.

The sun set early. It was barely past five, but the sky was already darkening into dusk. It was a bit congested, with the housewife regulars of the street-side stores bringing their families in tow, a group of old ladies wearing masks, and young kids who seemed to be heading out for a night on the town.

Ryuuji’s elbows bumped into the passersby. He quickly bowed his head and made way for them. Right, no matter how horrible her words were or how terribly he was hurt, he couldn’t stay petrified in the middle of the street forever. He’d be blocking traffic. He reverted back to a conventional living human being, ready for the rest of the walk home.

“Huh? Taiga?”

That was when he finally realized that the demon that had been dispatching multidimensional missiles had disappeared before his very eyes. She may be a demon, but she’s still the Palmtop Tiger. He didn’t really know what he was saying, but what he was getting at was that she was small. Because she was petite, Taiga might have been pushed around by the crowd and gotten lost.

“Heeey! Taigaaa, where did you go?!”

With the hefty ecobags hanging from both his hands, Ryuuji wandered through the crowd for a while, looking left and right for the top of Taiga’s head. The landmarks he was looking for were her waist-length wavy hair, the white angora coat that looked expensive at a glance, and the warm men’s scarf that was wrapped a full three times around her neck.

They would both be going back to the Takasus’ place anyway, and even if Taiga had gone back to her own home, her condo was right next door. With things coming to this, it would have been fine for them to go home separately, but under the December sky, he felt anxious after losing sight of her. What’s the deal? he thought, his forehead wrinkled as he looked around. 

“Eep…” 

He saw a young mother shy away to the side of the road while holding her child and told her in his head, I’m not some random attacker.

“What do you think you’re doing? You look exactly like you’re going to randomly attack someone, the way you’ve got yourself planted to the ground like that.”

“Whoa!” said Ryuuji. “Where were you? I was looking all over for you! Actually, it’s like you don’t even really care whether I’m even here…”

Taiga, who had slipped from between the passersby and reappeared, smiled in satisfaction. She thrust something she was holding in her right hand at him. There was no mistaking what that half-uncovered, half-wrapped-in-paper object was, especially with its sweet milky and buttery fragrance paired with the all-too-recognizable ring shape.

“A doughnut… Where did you even get that?”

“Over there. Hee hee, it smelled so good that I had to buy it! I don’t know how it’ll taste, so I just bought one for now. If it’s good, I’ll get in line again and buy a ton.”

There was a van stopped in the alleyway that Taiga pointed at with her doughnut. The truck’s back hatch was open to form an impromptu storefront where several men and women were forming a line. Now that she mentioned it, he really could smell the sweet scent of doughnuts in the air. For people with a sweet tooth (Taiga included), the smell was certainly too enticing to ignore. 

Ryuuji didn’t dislike sweet things, for sure. Huh, he thought as he scanned the handwritten sign, tilting his head in confusion. The words written on the sign in permanent marker spelled out “Krispy Creamy,” apparently the store’s name. It seemed like an obvious knock-off—in fact, it couldn’t have been anything except a knock-off.

“Are you sure about that place? The name looks suspicious right off the bat.”

“It’s fine. Look, that person’s eating one and walking. They’re not poisoned…probably.”

“Why are you even eating it if that’s something you’ve got to worry about?”

“Because, look, it’s Krispy Creamy. Ha ha, this is definitely a knock-off.”

“That’s why I said it’s suspicious. If they were an actual doughnut shop, they wouldn’t name themselves something that sounds like another place because of trademark, or something.”

“But I definitely won’t ever get to eat one from the real place. I’ve checked it out in the past, but it’s still so crowded! I got fed up just seeing the line! All of the people who have tried them say they’re crispy and fluffy. They’re supposed to melt right in your mouth until they disappear. I’m set on trying one no matter what.”

“Well, they’re supposed to be completely different from any other doughnut.”

“Right, exactly. They’re bold enough to sell these under practically the same name, so they’re probably made to taste like the original, right? Mmm, it smells so good! Well then, now to see what it tastes like…”

Ahhhh. She opened her mouth wide. Taiga rudely sunk her teeth into the edge of the doughnut right in the middle of the crowd. For a moment, she had a pleasant look on her face, but it slowly clouded as she chewed. Her expression became odder as her chin moved up and down.

“How is it? Is it different from any other doughnut place?”

As she chewed, Taiga nodded, but her excitement dwindled to the point where he could see it in her eyes.

“It really is…completely…different. It’s like it’s dry. It’s like it’s sucking all the moisture out of my mouth…”

“Don’t let it go to waste. Remember—mottainai.”

“Oh, I just thought of something! I’ll put this in your closet. I think it’ll be a great dehumidifier.”

“Don’t let any go to waste,” Ryuuji repeated again. “Mottainai.”

“Ugh…”

She looked at the giant doughnut a bit resentfully and pouted. The other people who had bought the same doughnut were eating as they walked. They still looked pretty healthy. No one had collapsed, but their expressions looked questionable. Taiga was also part of that group. 

“It says they have doughnuts~!” 

“It’s Krispy Kreme!” They were mistaken.

The doughnut wasn’t so bad that Taiga or Ryuuji were about to go out of their way to tell the squealing junior high school girls, who had happily joined the line with their allowances in their hands.

“Seriously, what are you doing ruining your appetite right before dinner? How much was that thing?”

“Two hundred yen…”

“Two hundred yen! You paid two hundred yen to eat a dehumidifier that you’d put in a closet!”

He wasn’t trying to get revenge on her for picking on him earlier, but he couldn’t go without saying something in front of Taiga, who was becoming less enthusiastic about the doughnut in her hand. This was a teachable moment. Ideally. she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. 

Incidentally, that day’s dinner was going to be a simple Japanese rice wine-marinated amberjack fish and mizuna mustard hot pot. He also planned to make finely chopped lotus root and burdock with chicken skin in it and multigrain rice with ginger cooked into it. To be frank, the amberjack had been expensive. He had just bought it in fillet form, but it was expensive. It had been expensive because it was wild fish. It had been expensive buying enough for three people. But it’s in season! The farm-raised ones weren’t cheap either, so why not buy it wild when you can?! Right, and also—

“Plus, I bought the amberjack today to celebrate!”

“I said I get that…”

“That wasn’t enthusiastic! You don’t get it! That’s the reason why you got tricked into buying a doughnut from a weird stand! You saw how much the amberjack cost, didn’t you?! You knew how excited I was about it, didn’t you?! And then you still went and gave up space in your stomach for something that didn’t even taste good…I didn’t want to ruin things by saying anything more than I had to, but amberjack is super luxurious for my place! Damn it, you better be happy about the amount I paid for this, even if you’re faking it!”

“Yay! Yay! It’s amberjack!”

“More! That’s weak!”

“Amberjack is a huge catch! Yippee!”

He watched her long hair fluff up as she, still expressionless with a doughnut in one hand, leapt for joy. Good, Ryuuji nodded to her. With this, the amberjack, and also the several bills that had disappeared from the Takasu’s household budget, could rest in peace having not been used in vain. Though Taiga’s two-hundred-yen allowance would become a forever wandering vengeful spirit, that wasn’t in Ryuuji’s jurisdiction.

That’s right. That night would be a celebration. On Monday morning, Taiga’s school suspension would be over. Starting the next day, Taiga would be able to go to school. Come to think of it, two weeks had gone by quick.

In other words, two weeks had passed since that nightmarish incident. Ryuuji sighed again. He didn’t know whether to call it a nightmare or not, but… No, he wouldn’t think about it anymore. No good would come from thinking about it. The reality was that Taiga would no longer be suspended and would be able to go to school the next day. Wasn’t that enough? 

“…So. We were in the middle of our conversation. Why are you like that?” The young lady in the angora coat narrowed her eyes. Just that faint motion of her eyelids gave him the premonition of her overflowing tyranny. 

He cautiously took his distance as he asked back, “Like what?”

“I was asking you why you’re so lazy. Why haven’t you done anything when you had a chance without me being around to get in your way? Why haven’t you been able to get any closer to Minorin? That’s what I want to know, personally. What do you think you were doing? What was the point of me going out of my way to get myself suspended?”

“You didn’t do that for me.”

“Don’t you go changing the topic, you coward!”

“…”

At this irrationality, which made his stomach curdle, Ryuuji unintentionally held his tongue. Taiga quickly closed the distance between them.

“While I was gone, you two should have been going to school together! You should have invited her to lunch! You should have hung out with her on the weekends! There were a ton of things you should have been doing, weren’t there?! What happened to all of that?! You didn’t even message her?! Ha! You’re a laughingstock, you lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy…ow! I bit my tongue!”

She held her own mouth as she writhed. Ryuuji took it as a chance to successfully get a word in edgewise and make his excuses.

“Well, I couldn’t do any of that! When you’re not around, Kushieda won’t come to our meeting spot in the morning, and she eats with other girls at lunch, and I don’t know those girls at all. She always seemed like she was at softball club after school, too! I couldn’t think of a reason to message her out of the blue, either!”

Now that he had said it out loud, he realized how pitiful he was. But it was the truth.

Once Taiga was suspended, the common thread between Ryuuji and Minori just disappeared. Up until then he thought that, even if only slightly, the distance between him and his long-unrequited love had shrunk over the passing days. Though there was nothing romantic between them, he had thought they were friends, at least. Instead, it turned out that without Taiga as common ground between them, Ryuuji and Minori didn’t even have anything to talk about. Of course, it wasn’t as though they were ignoring each other. They would exchange greetings, like, Good morning, Bye, Yo!, or How’ve you been?

Ryuuji heaved a long sigh and stopped in his tracks. Wait a second, he thought, raising his head.

“But compared to how we were in April, I guess we’ve made a lot of progress? Yeah, I think we have.”

He crossed his arms and nodded in agreement with himself.

“Of. Course. You. Haven’t. You. Lazy. Oaf,” said Taiga.

“Ahhhhh…ugh.”

A shriek the likes of which had never come from him before overflowed from his throat. He expected no less from Taiga, architect of rare shrieks—but it wasn’t the time to be thinking that.

Taiga was peeling up Ryuuji’s upper lip as though she were about to pluck it away. She was doing her best to tear it right off. The part connecting his gums to his lips seemed like it could tear at any moment, and he was afraid she would flip his face right off. Ryuuji automatically turned his head up and stood on his tiptoes.

“What do you mean she wouldn’t go to the meeting spot, you idiot?! Idiot! Idiot! Idioooot! You think you’re on standby?! What do you think you’re doing?! You think you’re Hachiko the dog?! Did you think that if you just waited silently and without doing anything Minorin would just conveniently ask you to meet?! Oh my, my, my, what an unbelievable person you are! Why, it’s terrifying! What a travesty!”

“Ahhheeek~!”

“I leverage capital punishment on your passive nature! You can continue waiting for Minorin in the afterlife!”

“Ahhhhheeeeeek~!”

Help me! he thought.

At the genuine threat to his existence, he closed his eyes, before which his life started to flash. Kindergarten…peeing his pants at the graduation ceremony…his elementary school entrance ceremony…being the only one with a second-hand backpack…going on a trip his second year…Yasuko sleeping in and forgetting to make his lunch…and right around then…his nickname, “prodigal bastard,” being cemented in place…

“Oh.”

At the same time as that small sound, Taiga’s fingers unexpectedly let go of his lip. He staggered after being released from the force hoisting his head up. He opened his eyes, which were wet with tears.

“Whoa!”

Ryuuji grunted, too. The people around them had also stopped and raised their voices all over the place at the scene, “Whoa!” “Amazing!”

A belt of light had lit up in front of the stores that sandwiched the road.

The illuminated displays that had probably been made to order by the neighborhood association switched on all at once. The yellow, glittering lights traced loops and waves as though crawling along the eaves and continuously blinked on and off. There was a blue, blinking arch of brilliant lights that stretched as far as the eye could see. In a moment, the sky of the store-filled streets had become a too-vivid planetarium as the pale stars of the evening disappeared.

The beauty of those lights.

Jingle jingle jingle. Starting with the sound of bells, background music began pouring through the speakers. Smiling Santas and red-nosed reindeer clung to the imitation fir trees that hung from the streetlamps, flashing brightly. A speech bubble-shaped light blinked, “Merry Christmas!”

“Right… Oh, right! It’s almost Christmas!”

In the glittering lights, Taiga extended her arms widely and looked up to the heavens. She wore an innocent smile he had never seen her use before as she did a full turn to face Ryuuji. Then her voice rang out, “It’s amaaaa…zing! Oh, how beautiful this is! How lovely! We didn’t have lights like these last year!”

He saw the LEDs twinkle in her eyes, gleaming like brilliant gems. 

“I wonder if there’s a tree somewhere, too?!” 

At Taiga’s behavior, Ryuuji forgot the pain in his upper lip and smiled despite himself.

“Yeah,” he said, “they put a lot of spirit into this year’s decorations. Christmas, huh, it really is coming up, now that you mention it.”

“You know what, I loooooo…”

Taiga closed her eyes tight, formed her hands into fists, and crouched. “…oooove Christmas!” she yelled, and like a firework, did a silly hop into the air and stretched out all of her limbs. That kid’s super excited, someone in the crowd mumbled. Even some people they didn’t know were smiling at her. As she enthusiastically spread her arms to the sky and threw her head back, Taiga’s eyes glittered all the more. They were wet, almost as though she were about to cry.

“Ahh, I’m so looking forward to it! I have to be a good girl for a while! I need to be a good girl! He’ll be approaching the skies in Japan soon!”

“Who will?”

“That’s obvious. Santa is! Santa Claus!”

There was no embarrassment or fear of others’ judgment in her yell. Taiga gave him a full-faced smile.

“Give me one. I’ll carry one of your bags.”

She stole one of the ecobags from Ryuuji’s hands. Ah, he thought, she’s snatched it… Wait, no. His actions were automatic.

“Wh-what are you doing?” said Taiga.

“Don’t die on me, Taiga!”

I don’t have a fever. She pushed aside the hand Ryuuji had pressed against her forehead, but she was gentler than usual when she did it. In that moment, the sting and ridicule was absent from her earnest gaze.

“I just want you to let me help every once in a while! I’m serious about being a good girl when Santa’s so close by! I really, really love Christmas!”

“Well, I get that, but this is just too sudden… Actually, what’s with you? Why do you love Christmas so much?”

“What do you mean ‘Why?!’ Do I need a reason to love Christmas?! Look, the streets are so pretty and sparkly right now. Everyone is smiling and happy and…right! Ryuuji, I have something to ask! Could you make a lavish feast on the twenty-fifth?! Something amazing that we don’t eat normally! Like tons of chicken! Or tons of beef! Or something else! Like something a foreigner would eat!”

Tons of chicken and beef!

Had Ryuuji ever encountered words that had so sincerely moved him to the core? Ryuuji’s sanpaku eyes quivered with a glitter of maddened delight. Then, he licked his lips. He wasn’t thinking, I don’t care whether it’s chicken, beef, or human! Hra hra ha ha ha! or anything like that—the romantic Christmas lights had simply reflected in his wide-open eyes.

“Well, now that you say that, I suddenly feel an itch to put my skills to use! Yeah, I feel it burning inside me! We’ll have a special feast on Christmas! All right, leave it to me!”

“I will! I’ll go to the department store basement and buy the most delicious cake—the entire cake! Hee hee, what kind of cake should I buy?! Maybe a yule log?! Ahh, I need to get a magazine and do some research! Right, we should get champagne for Ya-chan—the really good kind!”

For a moment, they grew more and more enthusiastic as they stood in the middle of the street, but then it hit them. They even fell silent in perfect synchrony.

“So,” said Ryuuji, “the only problem is…”

“Christmas Eve, right,” said Taiga. “I don’t know who went and decided it, but…”

“It’s considered a couple’s holiday all over the world, isn’t it…”

Ryuuji and Taiga exchanged looks with each other. A moment later, they both sighed. “Ahhh.” Of course, what came to their minds was each of their crushes. For Ryuuji, that was Kushieda Minori, and for Taiga, that was Kitamura Yuusaku.

Taiga, in particular, had circumstances that would warrant a sigh.

“I’m completely done for. I can’t invite him over or anything. It’s like…what would I even call it? It’s like I’m imposing on him. Doesn’t it seem like that? He just got his heart broken, so he’d be lonely.”

She was talking about what had happened two weeks ago. On the same day that Taiga had been suspended, Kitamura had boldly pulled a stunt and been spectacularly rejected by the previous student council president in front of the whole school.

Though it must have been a shock to Taiga that Kitamura had a big brothe—no, a girl he liked, that big brotherly patriarch—that girl had moved away to study abroad. It wasn’t an even playing field, but…

“Kitamura was pretty worried that you were suspended.”

“No way! Really? H-he did message me to ask how I was doing a few times.”

“It’s true. If you invited Kitamura over, he definitely wouldn’t turn you down.”

“Aaaaah…he would, right?! I don’t want it to happen like that! It’s kind of like…there’s an invisible force coercing him… I wouldn’t be able to tell if he was coming because he was really happy about being invited or because he was just being polite…”

“You’re right. If you were a shrewd girl who could take advantage of the opportunity and bring in the win, you wouldn’t be laid-back and shopping with me for dinner on the Sunday night before your suspension was over.”

“That’s exactly right…” Taiga dejectedly muttered as they slowly started to walk again.

He wanted to support Taiga in her love life, but the situation had become too messy. Taiga had gotten in a fight with the person who had rejected Kitamura, and that was why she was suspended. Naturally, Kitamura was indebted to Taiga, so there was no way he could deny anything Taiga asked of him. In other words, she had too much of an advantage, and it was unfair to the point that Taiga couldn’t make a move.

With Taiga, who was already dispirited at his side, Ryuuji became disheartened himself. He definitely could never invite his own crush over on Christmas Eve, either.

The reasons he couldn’t invite Minori were even simpler than Taiga’s. First, it was because it was Christmas Eve. Frankly, that was just too much pressure. The twenty-fourth of December just held too significant of a romantic association in the entire world (or maybe it was just in Japan?). Of course, you’d want to ask your crush over because of the day it was, but if you were having a date on that day, then it had to be because you were confessing or proposing. He didn’t think he could end the day with a, “Today was fun, wasn’t it? Well, see ya later.” And to confess to Minori, well—that was i-i-i-impossible. It was too quick and also impossible. The other reason he couldn’t invite her over was more realistic. On Christmas Eve, which was the busiest time of the year for restaurants, Minori the workaholic would probably be at her part-time job. 

“Ahh…even if inviting Kushieda over weren’t impossible, staying at home would be boring. On the other hand, if we went out, there would probably be couples all over each other… Maybe we should go rent a DVD and watch it at your place.”

“What?! What are you saying, you giant lecherous ma—”

Oh, can’t do that, good girl, good girl. As soon as she began to yell at him, her mouth contorted and snapped shut. Taiga massaged the center of her forehead. Then she put on an amicable expression to rival Santa’s.

“You and your giant libido. We can’t do that. What are you saying? You’re going to make sure you invite Minorin out. It’s okay, you have me on your side. You have me—reborn as angel Taiga-sama, the cherub of love.”

Yay, she mouthed as she put up a V sign for victory. Without thinking, Ryuuji let his genuine thoughts slip out of his mouth. 

“You’re grossing me out!”

Taiga even took that in stride as she put her hands together. “Say what you will. Right now, I’m a living Buddha.”

“Are you trying to fake it like Kawashima?! And a Buddha! Weren’t you supposed to be an angel?!”

“Ahh, an angel, right, an angel. The angel Taiga has resolved to even give away the clothes off her back to make sure everyone has a happy Christmas—even if she were to entirely strip herself in the end.”

“You said you’d strip yourself. I heard all of that. Then let’s have you do it!”

“Go ahead and do as you please! But make sure you put everything to good use! Anyway, you’re going to ask Minori out on a date for Christmas Eve! You definitely are! I, the angel Taiga, will go all out as the head of this production! Hee hee, I wonder if Santa’s watching~! I wonder if he’s seeing how determined I am to be good and pure~!”

Ryuuji didn’t even have the energy to poke fun at Taiga. To be frank, trying to understand her was too difficult. Plus, what was the point of raising the hurdle on a mission that already had a low chance of success? There wasn’t anything more dangerous than a determined Taiga—though he couldn’t say that out loud.

“Ryuuji, you have to put your heart into it! That’s right, because it’s Christmas! I want everyone to be happy! That’s why I need to be a good girl!”

Taiga’s hair shook as she swung her head up to see the lights, and her eyes glittered. It seemed that her determination had grown even firmer. In proportion to that, the level of danger was also steadily increasing.

“…I don’t need you to produce anything. Please stop, really.”

“Why?”

Ryuuji had cut the fuse short.

“Because it’d definitely be impossible! If I invite her out on a date on Christmas Eve, then she’ll know that I like her! It’s completely impossible! It’s too impossible! It’s too obviously suspicious! That’s not going to seem casual!”

“It’s not like it doesn’t not…doesn’t have to be not…doesn’t not have to be not… It’s not like you have to make it seem casual.”

She puffed out her chest in pride and lifted an eyebrow. The angel Taiga thrust a pale finger up in front of Ryuuji’s nose. Whoa, that’s dangerous, thought Ryuuji—if Taiga hadn’t been in angel mode, she might have thrust her finger right up his nose, poking right at his brain.

“It’s fine if she knows. That’s right, you just need to take this opportunity to confess to her once and for all. It’s Christmas, so you have to tell her the thing you most want to tell her! You’ve got to be honest, Ryuuji! You have the spirits of me and Santa behind you!”

“C-c-c-con—you idiot! It’s not like I could do that! Whether you’re an angel or a Buddha, or Santa’s watching, the impossible is impossible!”

He was close to blowing a fuse. Ryuuji desperately shook his head. Of course, he wanted to tell Minori his feelings. He wanted to tell her outright that he liked her. On Christmas Eve, on the day for lovers, he wanted to let his long-unrequited love prosper.

But Ryuuji was too awkward and cowardly and pessimistic. He could only think of the bad things that could happen, like if his one-sided feelings caused a problem for Minori or if she cut off the small bond they had fostered until then. He couldn’t think that there was a happy future waiting for him after confessing. In that case, he thought that it was better to keep the status quo.

It’s fiiine, it’s fiiine, leave it to meee, Taiga whispered in a sing-song voice as she started walking in front of him. Then, in the middle of the busy crowd that was coming and going, she suddenly flipped around. He didn’t know what she was thinking, but she took the nibbled-on closet dehumidifier—actually it was just the doughnut ring—and hoisted it above her head.

“Hee hee, how’s it look? Don’t I look like an actual angel?”

“You don’t. Actually, you’re dropping crumbs on your head.”

“No way?! Waah…get them off, get them off!”

As he sighed at Taiga, who was so silly it was kind of sad, he batted at her hair whorl. The sweet-smelling crumbs dropped down in front of her nose and into her long hair. What an idiot. Seriously.

Well, though. How about it?

Putting aside her comments on staging a production for him, it might be nice to have Taiga be a “good girl” once during the year. Ryuuji looked down at Taiga, who was batting off the crumbs of doughnut that had fallen on her face, and couldn’t help but smile.

All of humankind probably wished for a happy Christmas.

***

“Ah! Tiger-san is here!”

“The Palmtop Tiger is back at school!”

“Tiger-saaan! Thank you for your hard work!”

Whoaaaaaaaaaa! The deep voices that rumbled like the earth echoed along with the boisterous sound of footsteps. Ryuuji automatically shrunk away and quickly moved to the outskirts of the corridor. That had been the right thing to do.

Taiga, who had arrived at school for the first time in two weeks, was surrounded on her right, her left, her front, and her back by a guy here, a guy there, another guy, and another…all of whom were part of the “Palmtop Tiger Fan Club.” It was another name for the group of male students who were obsessed with combat. The group of guys continued to turn their fevered gazes to the Palmtop Tiger, Aisaka Taiga, who possessed overwhelming power, natural fighting instincts, and a tyrannical, merciless nature overflowing with sadism. They actually had been aware of the club for a while. It had steadily grown in number, and during the pro wrestling event and Miss Festival contest at the culture festival, that growth exploded to the point that by the time anyone noticed, they had turned into a large and perverse corps.

“Hey, Takasu-kun, can you move a little?! Tiger-san, there’s something we want to ask you!”

“Whoa!”

Brushed aside, Ryuuji was pushed even further into the wall. In a split second, Taiga, whom he had come to school with, was surrounded by guys. Even though it was the middle of winter, he was stuck in the hot and sweaty crowd and the impassioned swirling eddy of hollers.

“Tiger-san! We just have to know! Can the Phantom Big Brother vs. Palmtop Tiger fight be counted as a victory for you?!”

“You knew the patriarch was going to go study abroad, so you went to settle things once and for all with a duel, right?! Whoa, what a passionate development!”

“We believed it was a victory for you, Tiger-san!”

What a mess… Ryuuji came to the realization as he was kicked out of the ring of passion. The nightmarish battle from two weeks ago had, it seemed, been chalked up to this among the students who hadn’t known the circumstances. The patriarch left amid rumors of the fight’s outcome, and Taiga had been suspended—but the fight didn’t happen for reasons as simple as that.

“Quiet!”

Whoaaa. The guys went silent at Taiga’s voice. Taiga raised a hand as if to settle those around her. They squinted at her like she was a brilliant object of worship and gratefully turned their heads up to her. Ryuuji held his breath. The normal Taiga would have screamed or hollered at them, torn them to pieces and punched them, punched them and torn them to pieces, kicked them up, stomped them down, maybe even spat on them, and ignored them after. But today, Taiga was different.

“That day’s battle was…an ordeal! A lot of things went down, and it was a close call!”

Caught up in her theatrics, she crossed her arms. She closed her eyes as though reminiscing.

The boys held their breath at Taiga’s words. Then, Taiga stood imposingly in the middle of the ring they had formed and suddenly opened her eyes wide.

“Buuuuuuut!”

The guys were abuzz as they stood firmly at attention. I see, Ryuuji thought. This was also part of the special-edition Christmas good girl angel version of Taiga. Noting the approach of Christmas, Taiga the good girl was trying to make her troublesome fans happy.

“You oafs must also know this! The person who stands in the ring last is the winner! In other words, I am the true viiiiiiictor!”

“You think you’re Korosuke or something?!” Ryuuji was the only one poking fun at her. 

“Whoooooaaaaaa!” 

“We’ve got a declaration of victory at long last!” 

“Our Tiger-san is number oooooone!” 

Close to tears, the guys started setting off poppers that they seemed to have pre-prepared. They threw confetti. Amid the delighted claps and yells, they even naturally broke into a chorus for some reason, chanting “Weee are the champions…” Then they lined up along both ends of the hallway and put their hands high up together to create an aisle. They sent Taiga off to her classroom while passionately chanting “Tiger.” The angel Taiga generously nodded in response to the maddening chorus as she walked steadily through the aisle.

“We’re counting on you from now on!” 

“Tiger-san, you’re the best!” they said. 

Even when they slapped her on the shoulders and back as though she were one of the guys, the pleasant smile on her rosy, flower-like lips did not fade. 

“Please give me a whack!” some guy cried, putting his face out for her, and when she gave him a full-powered slap, the cheers grew even louder.

What is this? As Ryuuji tried to shift away, someone pushed at his back and said, “Takasu-kun, you go, too!” They pushed him into the aisle. He couldn’t back out and so, somehow, he put his hands on Taiga’s shoulders and followed behind her. The two of them looked like an athlete entering the ring and her manager as they ended up walking among the Tiger chant and chorus. But, well, it was kind of fun—though it was all really just a sham. He didn’t like what was happening.

“A-are you…really okay with this?!”

“Mwa ha ha ha ha! It’s the best! I had no idea there were so many fans waiting for me to come back to school! I’m glad I wasn’t expelled!”

“Tiger-san! Give me one, too!”

“My pleasure!”

SCHWIP! She gave the guy another sharp slap. The receiver rubbed at his swollen cheek and, naturally, tumbled down onto the floor. He did seem to have quite a happy look on his face, but it wasn’t the time for them to be surrounded by the passion of guys like this.

“More importantly…you know what we have to do, right?!” said Ryuuji. “Let’s get out of here and ditch these guys! We have to get to the classroom fast!”

“Oh, right, right. I know.”

Still connected together, they sped up and broke their way through the crowded, B.O.-filled aisle to head to class 2-C. Applause followed them in the background.

They were probably both worried about the same thing.

Minori hadn’t been at their usual meeting spot where they always met in the morning. She wasn’t there even though it was the day Taiga was coming back to school. They had cut it close, but they hadn’t been running late. They hadn’t even gotten an “I’m going ahead of you,” message from her. It was the first time something like this had happened. Could Minori have gotten sick and taken the day off, or had something else happened?

“I felt your heart…”

That was what Ryuuji was thinking the moment the classroom door opened. The shrill falsetto suddenly echoed over to him.

“…quiver like a thigh tendon’s pulse…”

“Wh-what is this?!”

It was Kushieda Minori.

She had a blade of grass between her lips. Her butt was perched on top of someone’s desk.

Her face was red from the winter wind, and she wore a navy peacoat along with a checked tartan scarf over her uniform. It seemed like she had just gotten to school. The girl was singing like a castrato. Her eyes held the reflection of some ancient forest. 

Ryuuji stood silent, but this wasn’t unusual enough to surprise Taiga, who was at his side.

“Minoriiiiin! I’m back at school! So stop singing that weird song and huuug meee!”

She hopped and went into a jumping hug to clutch at Minori, which caused Minori to lose her balance on the desk and start to roll off. Just as she was on the edge, she stopped herself from falling.

“Ugh…release me! I’m a human!”

“Minorin, Minorin, Miiiinoriiiin!”

“You must live! You’re also human!”

“Minorin, I love you! Gah!”

“Oh, I can’t resist you! Minorin loves you, too!”

As she staggered, she firmly held Taiga, the indulgent destructor of humanity. Minori pushed her nose up against the top of Taiga’s head and rubbed it around until her hair was a mess, squeezing Taiga with reckless abandon. Incidentally, Taiga was wearing a pair of winter tights (made with genuine 100 denier) and her gray duffle coat. She hadn’t stolen Ryuuji’s scarf that day but had instead protected her neck by stuffing her own hair into her coat.

“Seriously! Minorinnn! I seriously soooo wanted to see yooooouuu!”

Taiga buried her face in Minori’s neck, sounding like she was practically crying. She bumped Minori over and over again with her forehead, which Minori took full against her chin. Mwah mwah mwah. Minori stamped Taiga’s forehead with kisses.

“There, there! There, there! Your brains are in the same class as Rei! Oh, but I don’t mean Ayanami Rei, okay? By Rei, I mean the giant cow from outer space! Boomo!”

“What? I’m not like that! More importantly, why didn’t you come to school with us this morning?!”

“Well, honestly, I woke up late and had to scramble to school. That’s why my thighs are spent… Actually, how did I overtake you and get to the classroom first when I had a late start?!”

Uhh, eh-hem, Ryuuji coughed to cover up his nervousness. At the ready, Takasu Ryuuji! Step forward! Take aim! 3, 2, 1…fire!

“O-oh, well, we got mobbed by these weird guys.”

“Silence, boy!”

There it was—instant death!

Though it was a metaphor, Ryuuji really did die. The letters S-H-O-C-K were carved right into his chest. He was convinced that he had seen life after death. He had been told to be silent. Minori, who was always so happy and kind, had bared her teeth at him and told him that in the voice of Miwa Akihiro himself. He had been shunned… 

The life in Ryuuji’s face disappeared. His soul was ascending. As she saw what was happening before her eyes, still clutching Minori, Taiga couldn’t help herself and snorted, “Bwaha!”

Minori, however, was flustered.

“Oh…whoa?! What’d I just say?! I couldn’t have…made a mistake (in my choice) of joke?! I fudged it (I think)! I’ve reaaaally doone iiiiiit! Oh no (sorry)! Forget all about it (please)! Ahhhhhhh, iiif onnnly I wereen’t aaaaan idiiiooot…uh?”

She trembled and shook as she sang with gusto. Her face spasmed, but then suddenly she said, “Well, wait just a second?! This may have actually been a stroke of luck!”

Her face lit up. It was as though she were leaving everything around her behind.

“See! Because I made that mistake, I need to show how I’ve reflected upon it! Yeah, that’s right, it was all made possible because I made this mistake! Ahh! How lucky I am! I can use this fair and square—my most prized possession, which I take with me everywhere! This is way too lucky!”

Pushed aside, Taiga plopped onto the floor. Without a care, Minori pulled out her bald cap from her bag and put it right on her head.

“See! See how lucky I am! Why, I’m on a streak! Things naturally worked out so I could wear it! I have such good fortune, I can’t believe it, uwaaaaaaaaah!”

And with that, she started to cry.

Minori prostrated herself on the ground, still in her coat, and tossed aside her bag, all while still wearing her bald cap. Then she suddenly started blubbering like a man who had never cried once in his life.

“Mi…Minorin?! What’s wrong?!”

“Wai—Kushieda! At least get up! The floor is dirty!”

It wasn’t just Taiga and Ryuuji—naturally, those around them had also gathered to gawk. “What’s going on?” “Kushieda’s gone off her rocker again,” they whispered to each other.

“Yo, Takasu! Oh, Tiger! Been a while, hasn’t it, Tiger?! Kushieda, what are you doing?”

“Ohh, it’s Tiger! Yay, how’ve you been?! Did Kushieda break down again?!”

Noto and Haruta had also made their way over and patted Ryuuji on the shoulder. They looked down at Minori in her frantic state.

Still wearing her coat, Minori crouched on the cold floor with her head in her hands. “Maybe I really should shave my head…” She eventually raised her head and sneezed. Her face was still haggard and snotty from crying as she yelled desperately, “Ahh, I’m so glad I had my bald cap! I’ll keep this on for a while!”

With that, she really did stay in her bald cap for a while. She was in a bald cap despite being a high school girl in the full blossoming of youth. 

Ryuuji didn’t even know how to start poking fun at her. He was dumbfounded, robbed of his words. Taiga, in her own way, might have felt unsettled, too. Her chin jerked as she wordlessly mouthed, Stop that.

“My, my, my… Well, actually…”

With a manufactured voice that sounded strangely senile, Minori sniffed, wrinkled her brow, and drew circles on her bald cap with her finger. Ryuuji thought she was acting sort of cute… Wait, no… It wasn’t actually cute. He wanted her to take off the bald cap, at the very least.

“Actually,” she said, “yesterday I made this unbelievably stupid, kind-of-want-to-die-inside mistake during a softball game, and we lost to a team we should have won against…so I was already feeling awkward.”

Ahhhhhh. The length of her protracted sigh easily conveyed the depths of her depression.

“So, I’m in terrible shape right now. I obsessed over it yesterday, and I just couldn’t really get any sleep in the end…ugh, cough cough…I’m even losing my voice…sorry, and Taiga just came back to school today, too… I wanted to celebrate or something, but with the state my body is in, all I’ll be is a burden…cough cough! Eek, it’s blood~!”

Ryuuji and Taiga had no words for Minori, who had suddenly aged in front of them. Also, she wasn’t even bleeding.

If she were her normal self, Minori would have at least prepared some fake blood to vomit, but instead she staggered toward her own desk, still in her bald cap. At the sight of that, Ryuuji was frustrated that he hadn’t said anything to her.

He hadn’t been able to say anything even though Minori was so down. And then he was immediately frustrated that he even thought that. What a selfish way of thinking. In the end, regretting that he hadn’t been able to say anything to Minori while she was depressed was just regret that he hadn’t been able to appeal to her with his kindness. He had really made it all about himself. Was appealing to Minori more important to him than her pain?

No, he thought, I really just genuinely wanted Minori to feel better. But no matter how many times he told himself that, in the end, the truth was that he’d wanted to take advantage of Minori while she was down. He went in circles gloomily thinking that for a good three seconds and then breathed in. Ahh. He was acting just like Taiga did. The weaker his unrequited love was, the more he was paralyzed by it being unfair to make a move. Then he was dead in the water. In the end, he would become a heartless person who hadn’t done anything when his crush was feeling down.

He was overthinking it—Taiga, too. They were both mired in the theoretical. No, no, no, this won’t work.

He scratched his head and rubbed his eyes. For the time being, Ryuuji straightened his back. Whether it was unfair or not, whether he was taking advantage of her, whether she was in a bald cap—who cared? The quiver in his heart was real.

He approached Minori’s seat.

“…Uh…”

“That’s going to get stuffy.”

Schwoop. He casually pulled off the bald cap.

Though his actions might have harbored ulterior motives that even he didn’t know himself, he still wanted to show her he was worried about her. He would at least show her that. He would pretend he didn’t see the parts of this that were unfair or about appealing to her or taking advantage of her state. He already had enough regrets about overlooking others’ pain, and he wouldn’t let it happen again. 

For a moment, Minori looked up at Ryuuji and blinked as though she had seen something too bright. Their eyes met, or so he thought.

Ryuuji hid his nervousness and somehow awkwardly smiled at her.

Then, Minori averted her eyes from Ryuuji. Still not looking into his face, she took back her bald cap and put it away in her bag. “Hee hee hee, right you are. Ain’t no reason to wear a bald cap, is there?” She smiled. She smiled and then simply clammed up. He felt like something was off, for a moment.

“Aaaaaaaiiiiiiisaaaaaaakaaaaaaaaa!”

They practically jumped at the echoing scream. They turned around…

“Oh, Aisaka! You’ve finally been able to come back to school. Congratulations! The last two weeks without you were unbearably long… They were so boring without you! I really mean that!”

…And the new student council president Kitamura Yuusaku was straight as a board at Taiga’s feet as he lay himself down in a scrupulous, fully horizontal bow. Was that really his best friend? Ryuuji felt slight dizziness at the scene.

“Ohhhhh m-m-m-my, K-K-K-K-Kitamura-kun. G-g-g-g-good morning.”

Like a robot, Taiga haltingly lifted her right hand at the floor.

“Good morning! Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve exchanged greetings like this, Aisaka! I’m so touched!”

Still on the ground, Kitamura lifted his refreshing, smiling face. Then he noticed Ryuuji was there, too.

“Oh, good morning, Takasu!”

“Why are you doing that?!”

“Because it’s morning, of course!”

“No! I mean what’s with that pose?!”

“Because prostrating myself just wouldn’t be enough! My feelings towards Aisaka just couldn’t be shown by just throwing myself on the ground at her feet! …Right, Aisaka? I’m so sorry I was the reason you got suspended. I can’t believe you risked sending your life into chaos because of me! And thank you. I was thinking that I wouldn’t be able to stay in school after that huge embarrassment, but because of you, Aisaka, I’m still here. I’ve even started my work as president.”

Still straight as an arrow in his recumbent bow, Kitamura looked directly up at Taiga. His eyes squinted as he gazed kindly over his glasses at her with a peaceful smile. 

“If there’s anything I can do to back you up, I’ll do it. So don’t ever get into a fight again, for anyone, ever. Not even if it’s for the sake of justice. If there’s something that you just can’t get over, then come to me first.”

Taiga said, “Ahhhh…”

And then she fainted.

“Whoa! Keep it together, Taiga! You’ve barely been scratched!”

Ryuuji quickly stepped in from behind as she fell. He slapped her cheeks. Kitamura’s sincerity had been too strong. He checked to see that her eyelashes were moving faintly. Good, she was alive.

“Breathe slowly…right…calm down…”

“Phoo…haaa…phooo…haaa.”

Ryuuji braced Taiga with his knee and desperately tried to bring her back to her senses by patting her shoulder. That was when it happened.

“…?!”

He was certain he felt someone’s eyes on his back. It wasn’t just one pair, but several. He whirled around as though he were a murderous demon attempting to hunt all life on earth single-handedly, but…

“…” 

“…”

“…”

“…” 

“…” 

…he was met with silence and the backs of several people’s heads.

Well, must have been my imagination! Or so he wished. Ryuuji’s forehead furrowed. What is this?

Pretty much everyone in the class had turned their backs to Ryuuji, Taiga, and Kitamura all at once. Their silence was as good as a confession. It wasn’t as though this were normal, but even Noto and Haruta were letting their gazes wander in a strange direction. They had nothing to say.

This couldn’t be…bullying? At the moment that thought entered his mind, he heard Kitamura’s easygoing voice.

“And so, I’ve started being a patron saint of broken hearts!”

Bam! Taiga fell off of Ryuuji’s knee upon hearing those cryptic words. If this were the first he had heard of it, Ryuuji would have fallen over with Taiga, too. But that wasn’t the case. Yes, Kitamura had already proclaimed his intentions of being a patron saint. The idea of it was so stupid that Ryuuji hadn’t found it in himself to tell Taiga while she was suspended. 

Right in that moment, before the class was about to begin, a knock came at the door.

“Umm, excuse me… I’m looking for the patron saint of broken hearts…”

“Hey! I’m right over here!”

Kitamura smoothly rose from his prostrated position and lifted a cheerful hand at the girl who was peeking into the classroom. She looked like she was an underclassman. Taiga was practically in a panic as she watched him head toward the fidgeting girl.

“You became…a patron saint…? That doesn’t happen in a day…but…but wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wha?! That. Little. Girl. Is. So. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-shameless!”

Taiga had her teeth bared as she trembled all over; blood-red murder overflowed from her eyes. She continued watching the girl who had called on Kitamura as though she were about to kill and eat the student, but then grew flustered, shook her head, and bit her lip. 

“…Oops! I almost forgot! Good girl, good girl…” 

Only her eyes stayed pinned to the two and refused to budge.

The girl, who was unaware she had narrowly escaped death because of Taiga’s good-girl week, reverently bowed her head to Kitamura. 

“I can’t find the courage to confess… Please help me…” 

Then Kitamura, the patron saint of broken hearts, said, “Hmmm… It’s okay. Have faith and your dreams will come true. Don’t hesitate and go for it!”

“But…I don’t have confidence in myself…and I’m not even pretty…”

“Don’t think about it! Go for the soap!”

“The wha? …Huh?”

“Don’t think too deeply about it.” Kitamura mumbled, chanted something over the girl’s head, and bowed. The girl bowed back and left. 

“Huh…?” Taiga tilted her head so steeply that her face almost seemed to rotate completely. She couldn’t figure out what had happened at all.

That was right. While Taiga had been out on suspension, a lot of things had gone down at school.

“What is this, Ryuuji…”

“Well, actually, since Kitamura made that huge confession earlier, he’s been kind of like the leader of a love cult—it’s like, he’s what people believe in when they want to confess to someone else…”

Oh, is he really?! Taiga was surprised, but she immediately followed with, “But he got rejected!”

That certainly was true. A rarity for Taiga: the gears in her petite brain had turned and worked it out.

“That’s exactly why he’s a patron saint. It’s kind of like Kitamura absorbs all the bad stuff.”

“So it’s basically like an exorcism.” 

Noto poked his head in and continued the explanation. “Well, the old student council really had some character to it, right? So, it’s kind of like he’s giving the council a new look by really pushing himself as the ‘patron saint of broken hearts.’ That’s been two today. It gets ridiculous after school. They make lines in front of the student council room. The council’s even getting into it. They made this shrine-like thing in the doorway. It looks like they’re really getting him into the role of a patron saint.”

“Whaat~?! Really? I had no idea! Isn’t Kitamura kind of amazing?!” said Haruta. 

“What did you think Kitamura was doing up until now?” Noto poked fun at him. Completely ignoring Haruta, Taiga had a weird look on her face. She watched quietly as the patron saint of broken hearts returned to the group. 

“…How about we try giving it a go?” Ryuuji whispered into her ear. 

She nodded slightly. 

“Yeah.” 

Taiga and Ryuuji sneakily put their hands together as though they were praying. They bowed their heads slightly to the patron saint. Of course, each of them was thinking about—

“What, even you guys? Is there someone you want to confess to?”

“Oh, guess you spotted us,” said Ryuuji. “I don’t, but I thought ‘Hey, why not?’”

“Same,” said Taiga. “Why not?”

“Okay! Get the soap!”

Like I will… Ryuuji closed his eyes slightly and Taiga scratched her nose. Looking between their faces, suddenly Noto said, “Actually, Tiger, you kind of seem quiet today. Are you laying low because it’s your first day back from suspension or something?”

He measured the distance between them as he carefully said those words.

“Oh, you noticed?” Taiga replied. “That’s right. I’m being a good girl right now.” Ehee! She smiled at Noto with an extra helping of cuteness. 

Noto might have been surprised or scared. “Wow,” he said. His glasses slipped down his nose; he seemed incredibly startled.

“It’s almost Christmas, so I decided I would be a good girl. Because, look, Santa is definitely watching…DAH-EH!”

Taiga was suddenly flung straight forward. She knocked desks and chairs into disarray and got entangled in several people, Noto included, before she rolled over onto the ground, the butt of her tights completely visible.

“Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha. ☆ Isn’t that stupid?! Santa! She’s going on about Santa! I can’t believe that word is coming out of your mouth~! It. Doesn’t. Suit. You! Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ☆ Actually, it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen you~! I heard your suspension was super hilarious~!”

Ryuuji didn’t have to look to know who the culprit was.

She had sent Taiga flying by hitting her in the butt with her bag. Her hair flowed smoothly as she pushed it up and laughed. 

The beauty’s name was Kawashima Ami. Her slender, perfect proportions were made for modeling, and every feature of her incredibly petite face was perfectly shaped in exactly the right way. Every part of her was radiant and smooth. She sparkled with the aura of a gem as she walked over. 

Ami, however, had an overwhelmingly bankrupt personality. To Taiga, who was reputed as being the strongest, most terrifying presence at school, Ami could be called an old rival. After being hit in the butt and sent flying, of course it would have been Taiga’s turn for revenge next. But…

“It’s been a while, Dimhuahua…”

“…Oh?”

But Taiga greeted Ami as she got back up. Of course, she wasn’t smiling, but she did peacefully wave her hand. It wasn’t that she was waiting for a chance to strike with the sharp knife hidden up her sleeve. Or with a poison needle between her fingers! Or with a frog in her ballet shoes! Or with a metal basin coming from above! She wasn’t trying to do any of those things.

Taiga stubbornly kept her grace and poise.

“Dimhuahua, it’s almost Christmas. If you keep being a Badhuahua, Santa won’t visit you. See, I’m a good girl, so we’ll compromise. We’ll pretend you just gave me a morning greeting and let it go. So, don’t fight until Christmas. I love Christmas. During this precious, beautiful time of year, I don’t want to have a fight for no good reason.”

“Kyaah!”

Ami screamed when Taiga grasped her hand and desperately shook it off. As though her right hand had rotted in Taiga’s grasp, she looked at it and shrieked, shook it around, and opened her eyes wide enough for them to seem like they were about to pop right out.

“You’re definitely acting weird! Did something happen to you while you were suspended?! You’re weird, weird, weird, weird, weird! There’s definitely something fishy going on! Oh, I know! Do you have one day left to live or something?! No way, that’s miserable!”

“Why are you saying the same thing as Ryuuji… Why do you all think I’m sick or dying when I’m trying to be good? I don’t understand you at all. I’m just doing this because it’s almost Christmas. I think you should stop acting like that, Dimhuahua. Because look, Santa is going to be flying over Japan soon…”

“Nooooooooooooo!”

Ami’s genuine scream echoed throughout the classroom even louder than Taiga’s words. Then, she genuinely gagged.

“Why are you talking about Santa like you believe in him? It’s gross, gross, gross, gross! Actually, oh! I figured it out! You’re trying to use this as an opportunity to change how people see you, aren’t you?! Uwah! That’s scary, you mongrel! We don’t have an opening for an angel here! And like, next week I was planning on saying, ‘I love Christmas. ☆ I’ve believed in Santa even through junior high. ☆ Aren’t I stupid?! ☆’ What do you think you’re doing, stealing my thunder?! Huh?! It’s seriously damn scary when you’ve got your eyes wide open like that, you harebrain!”

It’s okay, Ami-chan, it’s good that your purity’s all fake, it’s good when the ferocious real side of you comes out every once in a while, ahh, crack your whip, use it to tie us up and make our lives a living hell… 

Ami ignored the whispering boys who had slipped in behind her.

“Ha! Actually…I get it now!” She lifted her face and gulped. “You’re on drugs…”

She started to pretend to shake uncontrollably.

“That’s it! That’s what it is! It’s drugs! You’re on drugs! No waaaaay, that’s soooooo scary! That has to be it! No way, ahhh, that’s terrible! What’s gotten into yooooouuu~?!”

It seemed she had decided what was going on for herself. She twisted her body around and let her large eyes glisten with tears. She put her hands on her cheeks and her ironclad cute girl mask evaporated. Her mask changes were on an entirely different level from Taiga’s apprentice-level “good girl” act.

“Come to your senses!” said Taiga. “…Just kidding. Oh, Dimhuahua, what are you doing?!”

“So, I’ll examine all your belongings. ♥ This is definitely, definitely suspicious. Let me see…”

Ami grabbed Taiga’s bag, which had been lying on the ground. She pulled it open, but her movements were overexaggerated as though she were joking around.

“Oh no, oops!”

“Ahhh! Seriously, what are you doing, Dimhuahua! I’ll kill you…or not.”

She had let the contents of Taiga’s bag fall all over the ground. No waaay, no, no! Ami quickly crouched down and started gathering all the stationery and other materials from the floor. Even Ryuuji couldn’t help but take part in the terrible spectacle.

“Seriously, what do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “You’re basically happy that your fighting partner Taiga is back at school, right? Just be honest.”

“No way, Takasu-kun. Good. Mor. Ning. ♥ Why are you saying something so gross? I’ll. Kill. You. ♥ Actually, would you please get that~?”

With an angel’s smile, Ami had Ryuuji go after a pen that had rolled all the way to the wall. Then she handed the restored bag right over to Taiga.

“Oh, this, too. I’ll put this right here.”

At the very end, Ami stuck Taiga’s student notebook into the back pocket of her bag. Taiga muttered something grim and exasperated to herself. 

“Wait,” she said, “no, I can’t do that, good girl, good girl…” She forced a flimsy smile onto her face and took the bag from Ami. 

Someone came up behind Ami.

“Oh, wow… Ami-chan, you really are super nice…”

Kashii Nanako, who had come with Ami to school, smiled wryly as she whispered to Ami.

“Huh~!” said Ami. “What are you talking about~? Oh, come to think of it, I brought that limited-edition lip gloss. Nanako, you’ll try it on? Oh, right. Maya, you said you wanted to see it, too, right? ♥ Let’s try it.”

“Oh, I do, I do! Maayaa, let’s go!”

Beckoned by the two of them, Kihara Maya passed by Minori’s seat and exchanged words with her. 

“Huh? Why do you have a bald cap, Kushieda? That’s so funny!” 

“You want to put it on?” said Minori. “Wanna borrow it?” 

“Actually, why do you sound so nasally? That’s super funny!” 

“I was crying earlier.” 

“Why were you crying? That’s actually so totally funny!” 

Pulling at Maya’s arm, the usual group of three boisterous and beautiful girls moved to Ami’s seat. Like normal, the sweet and energetic voices of class 2-C’s official gorgeous trio brilliantly filled the classroom before school began.