With this, ch 1 is over. I think I’ll split ch 2 into 4 parts, even so each parts will be longer than the one from ch 1.
1-3. Even just breathing makes me feel sad (Part 3)
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It was more like a recollection than a dream, and it was about the memory of that day.
My senior smoked a cigarette on the bed and had a sad expression on her face. A slender body that hugged me many times, wearing only underwear. She exhaled deeply. And cigarette smoke that came out from her mouth makes a thin line like a contrail, but it disappears instantly. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Only then did I realize that this relationship was over.
At that time, it was still summer. There is a shrine just behind the 1DK apartment where my seniors live, so I could always hear the sounds of birds and insects, and on that day I was eating chilled Chinese Noodles while listening to the cicadas singing at night. The noodles that you can found anywhere are topped with finely chopped cucumbers, broth eggs, and ham. My senior often made it so that I could eat it when I lost my appetite in the summer.
Seeing me who had eaten everything, she says,
“Yes, boys have to eat a lot.”
My senior treated me like a child. In fact, I think that I, a college student, is just like a child to her, who’s already working. After a year of dating my senior, I realized that many times. She’s probably had so much life experience that it can’t even compared to mine, and it was also in love experience. Her way of drinking wine calmly at the restaurant and her gestures when she first went to bed, told me that.
When we weren’t in relationship yet, I could see a magazine that I didn’t think was something that she like, was placed in her room. She always said that she didn’t want to go to the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama, and when in the end we first visited the place,
“When I came here before, it’s…..”
She started saying her past. And every time she said that kind of thing, I just can’t stand it.
When I think about it, it was a year when I keep thinking about how to be the number one in her heart. How can I not be thrown away by her? And the days when I keep having such worries come to an end.
When I touched my senior’s skin on the bed, she slowly shook her head and removed the blanket. After fixing her underwear, she sits near the edge of the bed. Then she swing her legs. She look like a girl on a swing in the park at dusk, not wanting to go home. I imagine that when I see my senior’s expression that seems to start crying at any moment.
“…..Senior?”
Why do you look like that? I know, she always saying about her physical condition in this kind of moment, but the atmosphere now is clearly different from that time. I waited for words to come out from her. But, there was only silence. For no reason, I throw the unused condom in my pocket into the trash can and looking around the room. I see a bookshelf containing an overseas science fiction novel and a BUMP CD, the ice cream cups that we just ate together on top of the table, my rucksack in the corner, a small TV, a game console bought by us, a small white sofa. It was a year ago that I first came to this room where I could feel a sense of life. I went to my senior’s room more often than my senior came to my room. My senior’s room was deep engraved in my heart that I almost said “I’m home” rather than “I’ll bother you”.
My senior still quiet on the bed. Oh yeah, when I realized that this was a farewell, my senior finally opened her mouth.
“Hey, how long did you believe in Santa Claus?”
“… Santa Claus?”
“Yes, Santa Claus…. you don’t remember?”
When I just keep silent,
“I see.”
My senior muttered that. Then she continue to speak.
“I don’t remember the time clearly, but when I look back at my diary, it seems that I believed until I was in the 4th grade of elementary school. It’s a little too long, isn’t it?”
I silently listened to the story of my senior. I don’t question what she’s talking about right now. I’m sure she’s telling a very important story now. We had been dating for a little over a year, so I could have guessed that much.
“But when I was in the third grade of elementary school, my uncle asked me, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’. At that time, I really wanted a big piano, but I thought that the Santa couldn’t buy it for me, so I said that I wanted a small piano.”
“But, at that time, senior believed in Santa Claus, right?”
“Yeah. There’s a time when my friend told me that there was no Santa Claus, but then I cried and argued with him.”
My senior shrugs and then continues her words.
“I’m sure that real Santa Claus really exists in the world, but he didn’t come to me, so I feel like a pitiful kid…. No, maybe not. Even now. I know there must be Santa Claus in this world, but Santa Claus just doesn’t come to me. He doesn’t want to make me happy.”
“That’s… “
That’s not true, is what I’m trying to say, but I stopped. As expected, I still don’t know much about senior.
Then she exhales longer, while holding the cigarette between her index finger and thumb, and removing the ashes with her middle finger.
“Hey, since we start dating, a lot of things had happened.”
“Please stop….”
I heard a voice that surprisingly piercing my heart. I was upset by that and I was crying without knowing it myself.
“… Did senior, start to hate me?”
“I don’t hate you. You know that I don’t like you so much in the first place, right?”
“Then, why?”
A deep breath leaks.
“Why do you say something like this so sudden?”
“For a long time, Even just breathing makes me feel sad.”
Then she reached for the second cigarette. While igniting with a silver Zippo, she prefaced, “Just that I never admit it.”.
“I’m sure you can say that you like me because I say that I don’t like you.”
“Wha…”
What are you talking about, is what I’m going to say so strongly.
How much have you thought, I’ve been thinking about you since I met you in that park? Think this, when you see the shadow of someone that you’ve ever liked, that person expression and gesture, from far way, how much pain and jealousy you will feel at that moment? However, when I saw the expression of my senior, all the words I tried to say went somewhere.
She wasn’t laughing anymore. I can’t remember the last time she laughed at me. For a long time, she herself hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t laughing anymore.
And, I finally realized that, yeah, this relationship was over.
I need moar
ah seemed like an interesting series
any chance you will continue translating this?