25th Piece — 「For Me, Sato-san Is」

Shoutout to KBoy and Yan-chan for helping keep the site up and running! I’m working on making a thank you page for the site, but I had to pull some mega hours off at work, sadly. There’s some important notes down at the end as well.
Notes from when the Web Novel was up: I translated this in one sitting. I just couldn’t stop. The way I screamed—

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Contrary to the state of affairs, the ringtone suddenly stops, as I panic more and more.

I can say I imagined it willingly, but I didn’t think that by any means that Sato-san would pick up the phone this quickly.
I have no plan, I completely have no plan.

I almost reflexively shout her name.

「—Sato-san!!」

『—Oshio-kun!!』

With me, Sato-san’s voice from the smartphone overlaps.
At this frequent unexpected circumstance, I finally become speechless.
Sato-san is the same, and on that note we accidentally sink into silence.

「……」

『……』

The mic of the smartphone picks up noise and it’s an awfully noisy silence to experience.
For a moment the insides of my head were fresh, but now they start to be incessantly disordered again.

A cold sweat runs down my back.
The blood flowing through my whole body is concentrated in my head, and the numbness is starting to run down to my hands and feet.
The innumerable conversation simulations float to the top of my mind then sink, falling to the bottom of my head like rain.
Just before my tiny brain explodes.

From that mudding stream of emotions, however only to that extent, I was asserting my own thoughts.

—I don’t want to be hated.
I, absolutely, don’t want to be hated by Sato-san—

「……Ha, haha, sorry about the sudden phone call, are you busy?」

As a result, leaping out of my mouth, with those kind of ambivalent words, was a clumsy, forced smile.

『Eh…… ah, yes, no, it’s fine you know, I’m not busy at all! I’m free! Hahaha……』

The kind Sato-san, in addition to me, also makes a clumsy forced smiling tone, harmonizing with me.
I received this, and then just a little, but I was tired of my miserable self who was sighing with relief.
But, opposite to that kind of feeling, my mouth conveniently weaved a web of words.

「I, I see…… to, today was unexpected, wasn’t it, unexpectedly meeting in such a place.」

『Y……yes! I was also surprised! It’s such a coincidence, isn’t it……!』

「It really is, right……」

Hahahahaha…..  each time the forced smiles pile up, my chest becomes painful.

……As for me, now, I’m having a phone call with Sato-san, right?
If it’s real, it’s a happy situation that I want to jump up and down and yet…… why?

To that extent, my practiced words, my clever remarks, none of them appear.
It’s as if it’s a nightmare but I’m seeing it, everything and anything isn’t going as expected.

「Th…… the shaved ice this weekend, I’m looking forward to it.」

『……Yes! I, eating shaved ice again again, it seems!? For the first time in ten years…… no, that’s exaggerating too much, isn’t it? A, anyways I’m looking forward to it! Ahahahaha……』

「Hahahahahaha……」

I don’t want to be hated.
With only that sort of feeling, in the insides of my head, I’m extremely emphasizing that.

—Not wanting to be hurt…… the one not wanting to be hurt is me, isn’t it?

Shizuku-san’s words echo in my ear.
Deeply falling in love, what is it, each and every person going at their own pace, not wanting to be hurt.
In the end, that’s just as Shizuku-san says, isn’t it?

Because you properly think of the other person, be careful?
That’s not it, because this is important to me for sure, with a roundabout manner of doing things, through that conclusion I ran away but—

—at that time.
Mutually exhausting words to say, in the inevitable silence, a strange sound could be heard.
From the other smartphone, something like frantic muffling intermittently continued, a watery sound.

I realized the origin of that sound, then felt the temperature of my whole body suddenly falling,

『—sorry, Oshio-kun.』

Carried through the smartphone, very delicately, like it would disappear, is Sato-san’s voice.

『Oshio-kun…… because he’s kind, also treating me kindly, I understand…… It doesn’t mean I’m special……』

Although I want to say something, my throat stiffens and then my voice doesn’t come out.
In the first place, nothing comes to mind.

Then Sato-san, with a tone of awkwardly smiling,

『Perhaps, that recent message also, there’s a reason for it, right…… but if it’s me, it’s okay! Because I don’t mind……』

Because she doesn’t mind.
Those few words become a decisive blow, and I lose hope.
I didn’t have a feeling of being able to move even a single finger, let alone using my voice.

『……but, sorry, this weekend, for shaved ice, I can’t go, possibly…… really, I’m sorry……』

Sato-san’s voice, gradually becoming concealed, becomes muddy.
Her words echo in my head that becomes hollow.
……it was an empty shell.

In the middle of the silence, from the smartphone only the sound of water was heard from far away.

『……sorry, it’s been a nice and long time, so we should end it soon, right…… today, for helping Rinka-chan, thank you……』

On the other side, finally Sato-san spoke.
If I wait, I will not have the right to speak.

Gradually the sound of water goes away, and it seems Sato-san’s smartphone separates from her ear.
Then at this time with this voice that can’t be heard, my cowardly first love, will come to an end.

『……good night, Oshio-kun……』

Then finally, when this decisive moment must come, this time—ban! went my shoulders as they were vigorously struck.

「!?」

With that sudden shock, I am brought back to reality.
Turning my head right away, there for some reason was Mayo-san and Shizuku-san whose face was swelled like it had been hit repeatedly, putting their hands on my shoulders.
Why…… without time to put that question into words, Mayo-san and Shizuku-san repeatedly mouthed something.
I saw the completely same movements of their mouths, and then from the girls, I understood what they were trying to say.

「You like her, don’t you?」

「—!」

In an instant, in my head, sometime, somewhere, the words I that were said to me were refreshed.

—Sota, when your muscles grow for the first time, they hurt

—A man’s appearance means crap, but that doesn’t mean you can just recklessly ignore it. If you want to throw it away, it’s only when you’re chasing after a woman you fell in love with.

—The truth about falling in love is…… don’t stop!

Suddenly I look at the sky.
The whole sky is starry.
However as I gaze at them, they certainly sparkle slightly, and her smiling face crossed my mind.
That day, I gave a cheap-looking konpeito, her smiling face when she tasted it was completely like a treasure.

—Very, it was very sweet. Thank you very much.

That’s it.
I, how could I forget something so important?
I didn’t want Sato-san to hate me, but that does not mean that was the reason I treated her kindly.

—it was because I like her.
Because it can’t be helped that I like her, someday I wanted to convey that feeling, that’s it, isn’t it?

「—Sato-san!!」

From the other side, the sound of a finger striking the smartphone display is able to be heard.
However, the phone call isn’t ending.

Sato-san is silent, however, with a deep breath she understands, as she now pushes the smartphone against her ear.

『……what is it, Oshio-kun……』

With a trembling voice, my heart aches.
However, I won’t falter again.
After a considerably long time, I inhale deeply.

「—I want to apologize to Sato-san for one thing!」

『!』

With the smartphone on the other side, I grasp that Sato-san gasped.
At my back, Mayo-san and Shizuku-san anxiously are raising their eyebrows.

『……No, Oshio-kun…… I, I don’t want to hear……!』

From the smartphone, Sato-san’s sorrowful prayer is heard.

However, I don’t have any intent to stop.
After all, it’s already not my first love anymore.
Then, I—

「I’m sorry for confessing through MINE as such a thing is miserable behavior. I’ll confess properly.」

『Eh……?』

「—I like Sato-san.」

—the intent to do such a thing such as escape, there isn’t even a single atom.

「It’s not a joke nor is it a misunderstanding, nothing of the sort, I like Sato-san, in a romantic sense.」

『Eh, eh……!?』

Roundabout words aren’t necessary, only expressing everything one feels.
Certainly a rejection is possible, it seems, but that sort of thing is irrelevant.
After all, how I think of Sato-san—it’s because I’m deeply in love with Sato-san.

「……always, from the time we first met, I liked you, your smiling face, your angry face, your tear-stained face, your face when you get a little carried away, I also liked.」

I before realized it, the cap that held back all of my emotions up until now completely disappeared.

「I’m not nice, as for being kind to Sato-san, it was because I thought of her specially.」

Then, at the same time, I put my feelings into words.
For me, there’s no use fighting back.

「—I like Sato Koharu.」

Those words that were powerfully declared, in the town that was dozing off in the night, I’m sure echoed.

I don’t have any regrets.
Rather, it feels like the weights clinging to my whole body fall off, and only a strangely refreshing feeling is there.
Supposing a reply comes, with whatever words they are, especially now I had the belief I could accept them.

『………gou.』

Some kind of sound I wasn’t used to hearing came through her smartphone, and on that note silence arrived.
……I have the confidence to accept the reply, although as expected this is discouraging.
But, I already confessed.
So, I wait, for her words.

『…………』

…..not yet, it seems.

『…………』

……it’s quite long, huh.

『…………』

「……yes?」

I thought of the impossible, moved my smartphone away from my ear, then looked at the display.
There somehow on the display, Sato-san’s talk room is displayed instead of the call screen.
Then, there,

“Call Length 12:02”

is written.

「—Haa!!?」

I unconsciously raise my voice.

「H, how is it, Soota-kun!?」

「The reply! What about the reply!?」

Mayo-san and Shizuku-san are rushing to me.
While taking one glance at the smartphone, I turn my head to the girls, and say with a trembling voice.

「……the phone call, it ended……」

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

「Hey Koharu~, from just some time ago you were noisy~, how long are you going to be in the bath~?」

Sato Koharu’s mother, Kyomi, from outside the changing room called her daughter’s full name.
However, a reply isn’t returned.
Up until some time ago, the noise changed suddenly, pichon, pichon, only intermittent watery sounds could be heard.

「Haa……」

Kyomi sighed deeply, then threw open the changing room door.
In the basket was her daughter’s complete set of clothes.
As expected, she was still in the bathroom, it seems.

Kyomi exasperatedly reached for the sliding room door to the bathroom.

「Hey, Koharu! How careless can you be!!?」

To the scene in front of her eyes, Kyomi shouted.
The reason is her daughter Koharu, her whole body was dyed bright red, with water dripping from the edge of the bathtub she was nestled in.

「Ah, what are you doing!!?」

「…… li…… I, also……」

While her eyes were spinning in circles, her daughter mumbles something.
Kyomi entered the bathroom and pulled her daughter out of the bathtub.
She was sent out perfectly.

In doing so, Kyomi was so preoccupied with Koharu that naturally, she didn’t notice Koharu’s smartphone sinking to the bottom of the bathtub.

「Idiotic daughter!」

Kyomi, dragged her daughter who was as red as a lobster, to a cooler room.
Koharu herself doesn’t understand what kind of circumstance she’s in, as with a voice that no one can hear, she mumbles and whispers.

「I also… like…… Oshio-kun……」

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Notes from before the web novel went down:

COME ON ARE YOU SERIOUS.

Also YEAH MAN I blasted through this chapter, I did like 20% of it, said, “I’ll take a break”, but I just had to know how it ended, especially when I saw “I also like Oshio-kun” and “I like Sato-san” in the raw, I knew I had to go for it.

But that’s the end of Volume 2!

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Notes from after the web novel went down:

…and well, yeah. This is where things get tricky.

So I’ve got two main choices.

The first one is really easy, we call it an end here. Unfortunately, even after I bought the official e-book of the light novel, it’s proven to be a lot harder to get the raw text as all of my text hookers are a little inconsistent with getting it but I potentially have the raw text, I just have to spend some time reformatting it. But it’s possible to get it working. I really don’t want to take this option, though.

The second option is we start from the beginning of the first novel. That means we gotta backtrack quite a bit, as I go back through scenes I originally translated along with the ones that Nono No Sanctuary translated, this time using the light novel text rather than the web novel text. I decided I would be comfortable doing this, with the caveat that if at any point, this light novel gets an official localization, I will take it down.

Now I know some of you are asking, “why not just jump back to where we were?”. And that is because volume 1 of the light novel is a whopping 331~ pages. I would have to comb through all of that to try to find roughly where we were. But, in addition, the chapters aren’t broken up like they are in the web novel. Rather, Volume 1, which I believe by the pictures, does include the scenes at MOON and hidamari, which were from Book 2 of the web novel. But, Web Novel Vol 1 is only five chapters, meaning there’s a lot of these web novel chapters packed into a single LN chapter.

That’s why I think if we want to continue seeing Sato and Oshio’s story, it’s inevitable that we’re going to have to restart from the beginning, because even if I just leap back to where we were, I’m going to have to likely reread the entire thing, and there might be new scenes in there that mean later ones don’t make sense if we don’t pick them up. However, this means the translation block per chapter has increased by a lot. There’s no way I can translate an average of sixty pages in a two week pace, and I can’t release, say, Chapter 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 because I cannot reference the WN to break them up, as instead I’d just have to arbitrarily break them up which gets weird. I would want to release each chapter as its own, and right now I have no reference to say how long it would take to translate and proofread each of those chapters. This story does use a lot of simple grammar and vocab, so it’s not terrible, but these chapters could take anywhere between a month to three months (or more!), and I can’t say for certain what the translation pace is going to be.

I really do want to continue this story though, but I just wanted to put this up for your guys’ consideration. If you guys decide that you’d rather not start all the way from the start, we can always go experience a new story. I’m pretty open to suggestions since this was mostly done for practice, anyways, but I’d hate to leave Oshio and Sato’s story hanging.

Feel free to comment below and let me know what ya’ll want. I’ll likely post an update in a week after sitting on it for some time, but I’m already leaning towards starting from the beginning.

See you all next time.

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