Tonari no Seki no Satou-San chapter 63

The final chapter in the mini trip arc.

Translator: butterreader

Editor: butterreader

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Title: Our School Trip Revenge (4)

The Kaisen-don was very good, as was its reputation. One miscalculation, though, was that we went to the reputable restaurant at lunchtime. There was a little queue in front of the restaurant when we spotted it, and it took us quite a while to get in the queue, to be let in, and to get the bowl we wanted.

By the time we finally finished our meal and came out of the restaurant, it was already past two in the afternoon.

“It was good, wasn’t it, that sashimi?”(S)

I didn’t feel like complaining about the wait, because Satou-san seemed to be very pleased, but when I came with her, she was still looking like her cheeks were going to fall off even after we finished eating. It must have tasted really good. If you show me that face, I can’t stay in a bad mood.

“I suppose so. I know, but it’s just like a trip to a food market.”(Y)

I mutter to myself and check my watch again. It’s past two in the afternoon.

“It’s already this late……. we should probably get back soon?”(S)

Satou-san looks at my watch and asks me that.

“It’s probably better to think about the train ride home. We have to return the bikes, too.”(Y)

“I see…”(S)

When I answered, her shoulders slumped and she still gave me a small smile.

“But there’s enough room to go slow, right? Why don’t we go back more leisurely than we were before?”(S)

I was at a loss as to where to start with this, as Sato-san, who is a slow walker but never a safe walker, said. I raised the question anyway.

“More so than before? Can you pedal that slow?”(Y)

“No, I don’t mean that. Let’s just push our bikes. Oh, if you’re not tired, Yamaguchi-kun.”(S)

I wasn’t tired, and I had no objection to a leisurely ride back. It felt strange to walk all the way down the bike on the bike path, but I decided to go along with it if that’s what Satou-san wanted to do. I can talk to her while I’m pushing my bike.

There were many things I wanted to talk about. When I’m alone, I think about this or that when I’m with Satou-san, but when I’m with her, it all slips away. Maybe I’m satisfied just by being with her, or maybe I’m with her and she’s putting the brakes on me so I don’t have to say the wrong thing – whatever it is, I’ll regret it when I’m alone again, and that’s the last thing I want to do. I’ll miss you when you graduated from high school and I didn’t see you every day. But that seeing you like this has helped me so, so much. Today’s trip was really fun, and I was happy to see a different Satou-san, but the time has not yet come to an end, and I hope to have a few more good memories. Maybe I should tell her about those feelings now, while I still have time. Now that I am on the road, I may be able to tell you what I always find hard to say.

The bike path was still light enough to follow, and yet it wasn’t very popular at all. Maybe the locals don’t like it along the river one step before the Dobu River. We’re traveling, and even this stuff looks glittering to us. In the silence, as I was pondering my first words, Satou-san opened the conversation with,

“That was a fun trip, wasn’t it?”(S)

She was already in return trip mode. She said she had a good time, and she was put in the past tense. Apparently, she’s already planning to end this trip. It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon and we haven’t even arrived at the station yet, but this cluelessness is very typical of Satou-san.

“It’s a trip to get home.”(Y)

And I had no idea how to express my dissatisfaction to her. The words I just said sounded kind of sulky, and Satou-san looked at me with a startled look, which made me feel flustered.

“Oh no, it’s not that I did not have a good time either.”(Y)

When I quickly mended the situation, Satou-san laughed in relief.

“I see. Yeah, we’re still traveling, aren’t we?”(y)

Shortly thereafter, I looked at the concreted river flowing by.

“You don’t want to go home just yet, do you?”(S)

I just let it slip. There’s not an ounce of romance in what she says, and I’m not ready to read too much into it. But since I’m me and I’ve been thinking about the same thing, it’s strange that I’m upset. Even without the ulterior motive, the fact is that I want to be with Satou-san forever. At least in high school, we used to see each other every day. That’s not possible now. Satou-san will probably go back to work on Monday, and I’m in the middle of summer vacation, but after that, I’ll have to go to college without her. And as usual, I will spend my days looking for the girl I know is gone. I need to make some more new memories, even very good ones, or I won’t be able to do this at all. –I’m not sure what to think, but I’m not sure about you, Satou-san.

“I hope the school trip redo went well for you.”(S)

The slow uphill gradient makes the bike heavy. Finally, just past that point, I cut out. The road switches to a downhill slope. Satou-san nods, as if she’ s been waiting for me to get there.

“Me too. But I’ve been thinking about it.”(S)

I nodded in agreement and continued further.

“In our case, having to start over isn’t just limited to school trips, is it?”(Y)

“Yamaguchi-kun, too?”(S)

Then Satou-san rolled her eyes a little happily, as if she were surprised

“I thought the same thing. There’s a lot of things we need to redo.”(S)

If you’re saying it’s unexpected, it’s me, too. I didn’t think that Ms. Sato felt the same way… well, I don’t think that we are exactly the same in terms of what we want to do over again. I’m sure she’d have some very unimportant, unattractive things to say to me. It’s best to get that sort of thing out of the way first. I prompt her to say. 

“What is it that you want to do over again, Satou-san?”(Y)

“A lot. A lot of things.”(S)

She replied in an unexpectedly serious tone of voice. The hands on the handlebars are squeezed, perhaps to control the bicyclist which tries to veer off in a hurry.

“I wonder if you remember, Yamaguchi-kun. The talk we had in the park before graduation.”(S)

“Of course. Of course.”(Y)

“Thank you. …..I told you then, didn’t I? I’ve been in love with you for a long time, but I couldn’t tell you.”(S)

The ‘long time’ that Satou-san refers to was not that long ago compared to me. Still, the fact is that I was making her wait for me. I was planning to wait for her to look at me, timing her, but really, I was just making her wait for me the whole time.

“I sometimes think. That if I had told you earlier, what would you have done? I wish I could have said it earlier, if I could have said it when I wanted to, like I had so many times before, then I would have had more memories of my high school years. If I hadn’t been so reserved and had been able to talk to you more honestly…maybe the school festival, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day would have been spent differently. After I didn’t see you every day, I thought that way even more.”(S)

I was at a loss for an answer and couldn’t give a single response. I can’t stop thinking about it, but I can’t help but think about it. I also regret some things, and there are plenty of memories that I want to redo. Instead of dwelling on them, I just realized earlier that it’s faster to get new memories. I just don’t think it’s right for a man to make the girl he loves have those regrets.

“But you know what? But I feel like I can do that as many times as I want with Yamaguchi-kun.”(Y)

Unaware of my innermost thoughts, Satou-san gave a soft smile.

“Yamaguchi-kun is kind. I’m a very laid-back person, but you went along with me and helped me redo our school trip. I’m sure that if we started over with other things, it would be a lot more fun than it was in high school.”(S)

I look at her face with a sideways glance. She’s not really pretty, she’s plain, and if I thought she was going to wear make-up just because she’s working, she wasn’t like that when she met me, and she’s not exactly nice to look at anyway. But she has a kind face. And she has a personality that suits that face.

“’So now I know that I don’t regret what I did in the past, I just need to start over one by one. Christmas and Valentine’s Day can be spent in a different way next time, and I don’t want to say ‘I should have done it this way’, I want to say ‘I’ll do it this way next time’. You’ll go along with me, won’t you, Yamaguchi-kun?”(S)

“All right.”(Y)

Satou-san laughed even more at my answer and saind,

“Thanks, that’s nice. The school festival is the only one that’s kind of hard to do but we’ll do everything else as often as we can.”(S)

“The university has a school festival too. You should come visit.”(Y)

“Really? Then I’ll be there for sure.”(S)

The end of the bike path comes into view as she looks at me happily. I’m not a very nice person, but Satou-san is. There are often times when I regret my actions or words afterwards. But with Satou-san, I’m sure I can recover from those mistakes. There is no life that can be redo. But with Satou-san, I can tackle a new challenge called ‘start over’. Because there was a time when I hurt you badly, but now we are together. I’m allowed to be with you. Because I can take it back. Because I’m able to say what I couldn’t say before, and I’m able to say it well. Because Satou-san was waiting for me.

“What do you want to do over again, Yamaguchi-kun?”(S)

Satou-san asked, and I stopped with my bike. Two seconds later, she stops as well. She looks a little skeptical. The bike path in the late afternoon is deserted and the sound of the river echoes through the air. The scenery on the journey is bland and beautiful. The water and the sunshine through the trees glows like an ornament. It’s romantic, I thought to myself. It’s one of the best parts of traveling. It’s also a good way to be honest.

“Well, I hope Satou-san remembers me. At the park before the graduation ceremony…”(Y)

“Yes.”(S)

“Didn’t I once hit you on the forehead when I tried to kiss you, Satou-san?”(Y)

I’d really like to do that again. Even though I didn’t have to say the last word, Satou-san seemed to understand, and she immediately became extremely awkward and clearly embarrassed.

“Oh, uh, I remember…”(S)

I was a little relieved. I’d be shocked if someone said, ‘I forgot about it,’ and even if she did, it would be a dent in my feelings if they didn’t care.

“Can I start over?”(Y)

I asked, and I got an answer from her about a minute later with a choppy and rusty nod.

So I kissed her over the two bicycles for the first time in over four months. Satou-san was not acting cute even in this situation, her eyes were squeezed tightly shut, her brow was wrinkled, and her lips were so tightly knotted that you couldn’t tell how soft they were. It wasn’t so much a face for being kissed as it was a face for being eaten by a monster or something. Thanks to that, I didn’t get nervous, but I had a hard time holding back my laughter.

Anyway, we made a lot of memories on the redo school trip. On the train ride home, I held her hand the whole way home. On the real school trip, we were sitting next to each other on the bus, but it wasn’t like we were able to touch each other. It’s a blessing to have a do-over. Satou-san had an unusually red face and would occasionally look at me and smile at me in annoyance. To be honest, she looked much cuter than she did when we kissed earlier, but I didn’t think it was right to be so honest in pointing it out, so I kept my mouth shut. But even that is just a matter of saying ‘let’s do it again’. In the meantime, we can do it again after we get off the train. That’s the way it works between us.

There aren’t many girls like you, and I’m not sure I’ve been looking for one. She’ s a simple girl, and she’s fragile and inconsiderate, but she’s very, very nice to me. Sometimes I think she’s too good-natured, but she’s perfect for someone like me, who only gets to be honest once in a while. Instead of regretting everything, I’ll be able to think about what I should do next time. Then I’ ll be able to wait for the time I don’t get to see you and feel a little better.

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Notes:

This chapter was slightly annoying because it kept on mentioning how they were still in high school which made me go back and retranslate parts of the first chapter of the trip chapter only to realize that new chapter translations were wrong and had to fix it.

Also whenever Yamaguchi says stuff about Satou being unimportant boring or as such the next word translated says that she is sexy or erotic. This happens in almost all the chapters translated. I was starting to think Yamaguchi had a split personality for a second because if you call her plain then she can’t be sexy at the same time. I have realized that the words are meant to be attractive and such after googling for help. Every time I translate I still find it funny when it comes up.

Finally, did anyone else also forget about the whole kissing thing? Because I sure did. They never had their second kiss for months. Feels bad for Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi reminds me of Yangai from last game manga. 

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