Toradora!:Spin-Off 2 Fall Fattened Tiger Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Takasu Ryuuji, she remembered.
Come to think of it, it might be that in the beginning, my appetite for food was what hooked me up with that guy.
"Yes...."
It wasn't friendship, nor love, yet can I remember correctly just how this strange, family-like relationship, solid yet complex, came to be? It was ...
"Yes?"
To be precise, perhaps, fried rice. Indeed, it was fried rice. It started with that unforgettable but awful night, and then being fed fried rice at three in the morning.
"Yes....???"
"Oh, wait a sec. Let me explain. It was fresh food, home cooked, not warmed up at some convenience store while other customers wait behind you, annoyed."
"Oh, please continue!"
Overwhelmed, she sadly kept quiet.
Though she had a strong reply on her lips, she thought that perhaps it would be better to hold her tongue. Whatever! Huffing through her bared fangs, Aisaka Taiga again...
"Yessss......"
...swallowing her anguish.
In that small right hand there was a chunk of pork shoulder roast. In the left hand a pork-loin block. Shoulder roast if we make homemade chashu (and, make simple curry with the broth), pork-loin if we cook trotter for Japanese style kakuni, so WHICH ONE!!? Together with Ryuuji, Taiga was looking over the pork in the butcher shop, which was already getting old.
Light and fluffy waves of hair reaching her waist, transparent milky-white skin, she had a refined beauty like a French doll. Short for a second-year high school student, the whorl in her hair didn’t quite reach Ryuuji’s chest. Combined with a petite build, Taiga was rather cute today. With those big chunks of meat in both hands, thinking about what to do with that simple mind, ”I would just as soon eat both…”, Taiga is a real girl, of course.
An exceptional real girl, and...
"Yessss...Noooo....! I give up, I can't decide! Ryuuji, it's your choice! Because you’re making it, and are a better judge with that pig-nose sniffer working, you choose delicious things! Now do it!"
...impressive indeed, to die for.
"Who has a pig-nose!? ...Honestly. Well then, cheaper it will be. Today roast, we'll make chashu. It's decided."
".....!?"
“What? What’s up? You’ll make kakuni of course? In that case make them separately,”
"....!"
“What’s up, seriously? Doesn't roast sound good? Sounds good to me! Good, it’s decided. Let’s go."
Comparing the cuts of meat in both hands, not wanting to let them go, Taiga finally shouted “Hya!” and closing her eyes, she returned the pork loin block to the meat counter. At that, Ryuuji dropped the chunk of roast into the basket.
” … ’Hya!’ … ?”
“Let’s leave already, let’s go quickly, we’re done. If you stay here you’ll get lost again! I’m starving, so I hope you don’t take forever cooking! Potato salad or macaroni salad would be good!”
Yanking the edge of Ryuuji’s basket, Taiga left the butcher shop with her eyes looking rather desperate. … Leaving still rather regretfully, at the last moment looking back to where the pork loin was. Ryuuji was by now a little exasperated.
“You’re really something, saying you’re hungry lately, pretending it isn’t just greed, eh?”
"Dirty!? That's really cheeky! What can be said about this lowly, vulgar, taxing, bumpkin, this worst chunk of rotten meat!"
--- Wasn't that a bit abusive?
Before he could reply, she gave Ryuuji a deep poke in both eyes.
“My eyes, my eyes!”
"You’re a bad person; you should repent. Ha! What's with the drama, you completely disagreeable rascal? Hold on, aren’t you embarrassed? People are watching."
She poked him in the eye up to the second joint!… Scary… Those public high-school uniforms over there!… and so on, women look away… everybody averted their gaze, even with his eyes closed it must certainly have hurt. Ryuuji was in the middle of the store aisle, in pain, a figure in school uniform with his eyes pushed in, crouching, unable to get up. It hurt, it didn’t hurt, it hurt to death.
Arms crossed in zama style, Taiga sneered down at him in contempt. A most evil, violent, tyrannical, brutal and strong wild beast --- indeed, she was also known as the ”Palmtop Tiger”. That she is known by that name probably bothers the tigers.
“You really complain. Well, OK. Because of my super good pure and gentle heart, I’ll gather and bring up the purchases for you. I got so hungry during your little show that I got rather anti-social. … Whatever else, you’re sure a lucky guy, what with me helping you out with the shopping. Shouldn’t you be grateful? Don’t you see? But that’s okay, because I feel I should, from now on I am going to help you as much as I possibly can.”
Hmph. So she says.
… Come down now, fire and brimstone!
Ryyuji’s scary eyes glittered like crazy, glaring at Taiga as if they were about to spout blood. Incidentally, his eyes were simply bad genes, and his eyes were red only because they had just been poked badly. Unfortunately, since he didn’t actually have demons in the family, he couldn’t curse anybody. At that very instant,
”Gyaa!”
Taiga fell on her rear.
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