Toradora Chapter 44

[ … words ]

On Friday night at eight, I was at a family restaurant, having initially worried “Would there be enough space for me since it’s dinner time?”, but there weren’t many customers in the shop. There aren’t many people who would go to a family restaurant on a weekend to eat dinner…even though the food is tasty…and even though it’s very convenient…and even though there’s a drink-all-you-can drink bar… Even though I’m like this, I’m good at my work. I’m Takemiya Yuyuko… I would even spread cod eggs onto toast…and then spread a layer of cream before topping it off with seaweed…

Back to the topic. To everyone who has bought Toradora 6!, and to everyone who has walked with me all the way, I thank each and everyone of you from the bottom of my heart! The useless and immature me has hit volume 6! It is by the support of everyone for this series that I have been able to write so much! It would be my greatest pleasure to know that everyone has had fun reading this!

Other than that, there’s a very bad thing I have to tell everyone, as I’ve heard that this book could possibly be my last work of my twenties. If everyone supports the next book as well, then I’ll be thir…ty by the time we meet right? That’s a real possibility. So how? What do we do? Sigh, I don’t know what to do either…

Even then, I have already mentally prepared myself to a certain extent to step into the world of the thirty year-olds. Because the topic of discussion with the female friends of my generation recently have always been ‘insurance’, ‘cancer detection’, ‘inheritance’, ‘interest rates’, ‘yearly income’, ‘ballooning general price levels’, ‘the next big incident, accident’… Ah, there’s still celebrity marriages, divorces, having kids, etc. Even though we don’t know them personally, we comment extensively on their partners. Whether the ceremony was impressive or not, whether their clothes were weird or not, whether the food at their wedding looked delicious or not… We would be able to talk for hours without touching alcohol. Does this mean we’re completely gone? Even I can’t defend myself. I unconditionally surrender to the process of aging. To let time flow by without resisting, employing the tactics of the Takeda clan – to be as empty as the wind, to be as fragile as wood, to be burn up like fire, and to be as fat as a mountain. This is the Hurinkazan of us women! I’ll pay for my own funeral with my insurance payout!

I even bought skin-coloured old women underwear! It cost me four thousand yen, so expensive! But the cheap old women underwear isn’t warm enough for women who are getting on in their years, and even cause intense itchiness! My body requires high quality old women underwear!

That’s about it, and I hope that everyone would continue to support the next book, Toradora 7! ~Yuyuko’s thirty years-old~. Thank you for reading all the way to the end! And to the editors and Yasu-sensei, please continue to take care of this old woman…

Takemiya Yuyuko