Tonari no Seki no Satou-San chapter 39

This is the second last chapter of the extras. It is a two parter. I will get the next part out hopefully sometime tommorow.

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Title: Satou-san’s hand and my hand (1)

The only person left in the classroom is Satou-san. It’s late in the quiet after school, and Satou-san’s shadow stretches across the floor of the classroom. She is in the last row, in that seat second from the window, facing her math printouts. Her hand tended to stop holding the pen, and the eraser seemed to be in play more often than not. She was staring at the printouts with a serious, difficult look on her face. She seemed to have a hard time solving the problems and sometimes sighed in pain. She doesn’t seem to notice me peeking into the classroom from the corridor.

What a problem, I think. It seems that Satou-san did not get a very good result on a pop quiz given in her math class the other day. Takada-sensei, the math teacher, had called her out during lunch break. After school, she was left to struggle with her math worksheets. It’s not the first time that Satou-san has been unable to study, but she doesn’t have to be left behind just for today.

I’m standing in the hallway after school with a handful of thoughts. I don’t want to disturb Satou-san, so I just look in the classroom from time to time. But at this rate, I don’t know how long I should wait. The only thing in her profile is the seriousness of her face. The orange evening sun is shining through the window, casting a shadow over our side of the room. The seriousness of her shaded expression was even sadly visible. The shadows stretching from her feet were almost reaching the corridor. It was time to get tired of waiting. I didn’t mean to interrupt her, but I might need to lend a hand.

I called out to Satou-san just as her pen stopped.

“….Satou-san.”(Y)

With a flash, Satou-san looked up. The pen fell out of her hand with a thud and she stood up in a hurry. Instantly, the chair fell over with a thumping sound.

“I’ll pick it up,”(Y)

Unable to watch, I ran into the classroom and picked up the pen before she did. A familiar pattern, a character pencil.

“I’m sorry”(S)

Satou-san hurriedly fixed her fallen chair. Later, she apologetically took the pen from me. Our fingertips touched for a moment.

“Thank you, Yamaguchi-kun, for picking me up.”(Y)

“No, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry I came in with such short notice.”(Y)

As I told her, Satou-san shook her head.

“Nope. I didn’t think anyone was still there, so I was just surprised. I’m the one who’s sorry for making all the noise.”(S)

“You don’t owe me an apology.”(Y)

I can still feel the sensation of my fingertips on my hands. Even though it was already summer, they were cool and cold fingers. It was exactly the same cold as the last time I held her hand in a movie theater.

“How are you doing?”(Y)

I asked, looking down at the printouts on her desk. It looks like half of them are filled. The other half is all application questions, though, so it will take extra time.

“Yeah I guess it’s getting there.”(S)

Satou-san replied, glancing at me and giving me a complicated look.

“If I don’t finish, neither I nor the teacher can leave, so I have to hurry. But it’s not going to be easy.”(S)

I’m the same way. I’m waiting for Satou-san, so I can’t leave until she finishes this printout. But instead of telling her, I try something different.

“Would you like me to tell you what you don’t understand?”(Y)

I’m not that good at math either. But I’m much better than Satou-san. Like anything else, I can do it well enough to teach it to her. She blinked, then Satou-san smiled slightly.

“I’m glad, but there’s a lot to be said for it…”(S)

“That’s okay. I’ll tell you.”(Y)

“No. It’s just a feeling.”(S)

Suddenly speaking quickly, she suddenly turns her gaze to the hallway. After carefully circling, she returned her eyes to me and kept her voice low.

“If Takada-sensei finds you, he’ll be pissed, Yamaguchi-kun.”(S)

The maths teacher’s name was announced in a trembling voice.

“That’s not–”(Y)

I keep my mouth shut, trying to tell her I don’t care.

Takada-sensei, the life guidance teacher, is the most overbearing of all the teachers in the school and is feared by the students. I don’t like him very much either, and he’s not someone I’d want to be associated with. Besides, if the teacher ever found out, the person who would be scolded by him then was Satou-san rather than me.

When I choked on my words, she sat back in her chair and laughed emphatically.

“He was kind of pissed off at you earlier, too. He said I must have gotten a terrible score because I wasn’t motivated. So I have to work hard on this one.”(S)

Her mouth is smiling. But her eyes seemed to be blushing at heart. I knew it wasn’t because of the evening, the shade of the sun’s rays.

“I was told that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to graduate with everyone else”(S)

You weren’t just told that way, but you didn’t tell me honestly. The truth is, you would have been told differently, if you were dealing with that life guidance. But Satou-san doesn’t say that.

“I have to do my best so… it’s okay. I’m sorry for worrying you.”(S)

Satou-san nodded one, as if to herself. Her expression looked brighter.

“I see.”(Y)

I finally spoke up. I couldn’t bring myself to take a bite out of it, so I eventually turned on my heel.

“Then good luck, Satou-san.”(Y)

“Yes, thank you.”(S)

I raised my hand lightly and she laughed back. That was the only thing that saved me. I couldn’t tell her that I was waiting. But I was going to wait. Not because of our current conversation, but because I had made up my mind a long time ago. I wanted to go home with Satou-san today.

Satou-san is not good at studying. To say that grades aren’t everything is a tidy summation. I’ve heard that some people think that Satou-san is lazy because she’s working so hard and doing so poorly. In fact, I thought that way at one time, too. But that’s not the case, Satou-san is doing her best and trying her best. But even so, there are times when I’m frustrated. For this unannounced test, I had an inkling that it was about to come since she hadn’t done it recently. As a person who has been preparing for the test for a while, I was somewhat annoyed by Satou-san’s ineptitude. If she had prepared a little more, she wouldn’t have been scolded by the teacher. If anything, I should have told her something. I want to be there for her. I don’t know what I can do, and I don’t know how to do it, but I hope there’s something I can do for Satou-san. Satou-san doesn’t ask me for much, so I haven’t been able to convey that feeling to her well.

I’ve learned a lot from Satou-san. I’ve learned that while I’m thinking about the text of an email, I’m also thinking about the other person. I learned that a little snack on in your break time is very tasty. It’s very difficult to put your thoughts into words. But you don’t have to be moved by someone else’s behavior, and you don’t have to be funny or hesitant to put into words what you feel. And that – in those moments when I can put into words – I am happy and comfortable. It took me a while, but I was able to tell her that I was happy and comfortable too. It’s all because of her.

So today, I wanted to express my gratitude in a tangible way. I’m not going to wait for Satou-san, even though I’ve lost my start.

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