Toradora! Volume 5 authors notes

Lately my bank gave me a acupuncture massage rod as a gift. There’re many acupuncture massage rods in this world, but this one is especially good. Whenever I feel like it, I would use it to press the areas around my neck, it feels so good I can’t stop. I was so addicted to it that I gave it a horrendous nickname — the “Toxic Rod”. Whenever I feel pain when going out, I would take out my Toxic Rod and massage away, but the stares of people was always strict. When I was young, I felt I was so normal no one would care, but now they were all looking at me with strange eyes, how sad… This is Yuyuko (aged 29) Even though it’s no longer monsoon rain season, I’m still sleeping in a quilt normally used during winter, and I’m thinner at last.

Back to topic, much thanks to everyone that bought Toradora! Volume 5! Before I knew it I discovered that this is already the fifth volume of the series. Thanks to everyone’s support that we’re able to publish this far. Is everyone having fun reading this? Have I awarded everyone enough for their support? I’m very happy that you’re willing to read my work, and I’m thankful for it. So I hope to continue repaying everyone’s sincerity with my work, and continue to march forward in romance novels (even if it means forgetting to replace my blankets)! No sense of season, you say!? My life doesn’t need that sort of thing! I hope to be able to get Toradora! Volume 6 published by the end of this year (2007). If you’re willing, please continue to give me your support and energy, I’m counting on you guys!

Now let me update my readers on my current goings… I bought a few bonsais, but they all die one by one as soon as I bought them!

A while ago, I read a book called Botanical Life written by Itou Seikou-sensei. It mainly covers the details of growing bonsais in the balcony. After reading it I was greatly affected, and felt like turning this into a hobby. And so I bought all sorts of bonsais to try out, but they all end up dying, and not one survived. It would start to wilt the moment I bring it home, it’s “countdown to death” was unstoppable. The spirited looking rosebud shooting upwards in the flower shop was now a charred black carcass. The parts known as petals were dark purplish on the sides, shriveled up and disintegrating. This wasn’t what I had hoped to see. I watered them regularly, but why did it turn out like this? Just what did I do? The sickly plants now emit an aura of death in my home, and right now my place is completely covered in a depressing melancholy, full of “negativity”. How did it come to this… Damn… And I had wanted to obtain some of the life force from these plants and live energetically…

Anyway, many thanks to everyone who read till the end, as well as to my main editor and Yasu-sensei, and please don’t give in to my aura of “negativity”!

Takemiya Yuyuko