Translator: White Lotus
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The music that played while he was leaving the school was called “The Road Home”, and He didn’t like the melody which created a strange sense of uneasiness.
It felt as if it was deliberately trying to make you feel lonely in order to make you go home early.
After school ended in the evening, Hira was listening to this melancholy music while feeding the rabbits at school with the bread that he had for lunch. At that moment, an uncle in a jersey called out to him from behind.
“Do you like rabbits?”
Since he was at school, he must be a teacher. But not the teacher of the Hira’s grade. An ominous feeling rose up in Hira’s heart at being accosted by an older man he didn’t know at all. Ah, I think it’s going to happen. With that in mind, he opened his mouth to answer with simple words “I like them”.
“I-I-I li—”
Ah, as expected. The words didn’t come out again. Hira’s face turned red, sweating underneath his shirt that couldn’t be seen.
The man tilted his head as if he was in trouble at the repeated word ‘l’ of Hira.
“So, you like rabbits. Remember to go back before it gets dark.”
The teacher in the jersey patted Hira’s head gently and then turned around and left. Hira lowered his head while squeezed the bread in his hand. Why? These were simple words “I like them”.
“…I like them.”
When he tried to say it again, the words came out smoothly, Hira felt a wave of despair.
He had no problem talking with his family or familiar friends, but when he got nervous, he couldn’t speak. It was even worse when he was called upon to read aloud the text in the Japanese language class. In a quiet classroom where everyone was listening to him reading. Everyone giggled at him as Hira became flustered.
When he had just entered elementary school, his parents, who had received a report from his homeroom teacher, decided to take Hira to the hospital. He was diagnosed with dysphemia, but the doctor told him not to be too nervous. He then advised Hira to take deep breaths when he felt nervous and to calm down before speaking. This advice was very effective. But it was not perfect. It wouldn’t work if he panicked before he had a chance to calm down. It would become like this that had happened just now, “I- I- I li..”
Moreover, the most troublesome thing was that he got nervous most of the time, so he didn’t know when and where the dysphemia would start occurring. The students were annoyed with Hira, who repeated “su-su-su-su” and “ka-ka-ka-ka” like a broken peashooter. Naturally, Hira became a taciturn child.
Hira developed a habit of taking several deep breaths to relieve his nervousness when he was asked questions by someone, and finally started to speak only when the other person began to feel impatient. Of course, his classmates were annoyed with him. They called him an idiot.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Yo mbegrf, Llgj ofia yjv jcv rjv.
Dea ralii tf atbeuta atja yflcu jc lvlba kjr yfaafg atjc yflcu vlruerafv.
Qlat j rlut atja vlvc’a rbecv ilxf j mtliv’r bo tlr juf, Llgj ifoa atf gfra bo atf ygfjv lc atf gjyyla’r mjuf jcv rfa boo obg tbwf.
While walking alongside the edge of an irrigation canal, he suddenly saw a yellow object floating from the other side. It was a yellow plastic duck doll with round eyes and curly, long eyelashes painted on it. It was not known whether someone dropped it accidently, or threw it away on purpose. Maybe it was called “Captain Duck”. At the sight of being washed away in the concrete irrigation ditch, Hira felt an indescribable empathy.
Captain Duck was supposed to be floating in a warm bathtub or a children’s swimming pool , but somehow it ended up in this dirty irrigation ditch. What had happened in his life?
It’s not that Captain Duck liked to drift in the dirty irrigation canal on his own because he liked it.
Hira was the same. It was not like Hira liked to stutter of his own volition.
It was just that there were a lot of things in the human world that didn’t go well.
With a proper salute, Hira saw off the drifting Captain Duck and set off for home again.
When he entered junior high school, the difference of the class system became even more evident than there had been in elementary school. A place called school was built on a caste system, forming a pyramid, consisting of top, middle, bottom, air, and trash. So, it was only natural for Hira, who was presented as a taciturn and gloomy guy, to be included at the bottom of the pyramid.
Although people at the bottom of the pyramid had their own groups, Hira, who didn’t talk much and was gloomy, was a stray bottom of the pyramid who didn’t even have any friends. There were several strays in the school, who were ranked at the bottom of the pyramid, but even among them, there was a girl who was classified as trash. That girl, who was ignorant of her own status, was badly bullied by the girls, who were also at the top of the pyramid, for the crime of talking to a boy from the top of the pyramid in a friendly manner. It was like a modern version of burei-uchi.
Hira, who had always been absent-minded, was considered as a harmless being and was not bullied. However, in contrast, he was ignored and treated as someone invisible like air. After joining the soccer team, Yama-chan, whom he used to play with occasionally in elementary school, suddenly became popular and now started to act like he didn’t know him even when he met him in the hallway. In the end, even in the eye’s of Yama-chan, Hira became invisible. A transpicuous person.
Of course, he felt bad and dreary.
However, being a transpicuous person was much better than being bullied.
he had gone through the the same cycle as in elementary school, now he felt that he had sank another layer down.
There were some people look at the top and got inspired, while others, who found comfort in looking at the bottom. The latter would only keep falling, there was no possibility of climbing up. Even though he knew that, he still sought refuge in his heart in this moment. At such times, he thought the scene of Captain Duck, who always floated through the irrigation canal.
–Keep your mind as calm as possible. Don’t be sensitive to stimuli.
–Be like Captain Duck, who floated through the dirty artificial river with long, curly eyelashes.
By imposing himself in an image full of subtle humor, he was trying to make the sad reality like a scene in the movie.
Hira secretly used this way to protect his feelings. However, in the summer of his second year of junior high school, his homeroom teacher, made an extremely insensitive report to his parents, “Hira had no friends and could not fit in with the rest of the class,” and for this reason, he developed a clear hatred for this homeroom teacher.
“It’s amazing. It’s the first time I’ve seen such a view.”
His mother’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the scenery in front of her.
“Come on, Kazunari, take pictures as you like.”
Hira’s father put his hand on Hira’s thin shoulder to push him slightly as if urging him to go forward.
Being carried away by the momentum of the two them, Hira took a step forward with an expensive digital SLR camera, which was too expensive to use by a junior high school student, and walked forward.
With a white birch forest as a background, Hira mechanically pressed the shutter facing the cluster of colorful lilies, which were in full bloom. Orange, peach, red, white, yellow. Making his eyes hurt.
“The weather is so nice , I’m glad that we come.”
“Um, Kazunari seems to be enjoying himself too.”
His parents were whispering to each other behind him.
Hira pretended not to hear them.
About a month ago, Hira had accidentally overheard his parents talking late at night in the living room, after receiving the disturbing report from the homeroom teacher. His father comforted his mother by saying that most of the mild stutterers were expected to be cured when they reached adulthood, and that there was still hope for him to be cured.
After hearing his parents saying that it would be good for him to have a hobby that he could be passionate about, Hira quietly went back to his room. His heart was filled with sadness, grievance, and misery. He could not forgive the homeroom teacher, who had ruined his life not only at the school but also at home.
The next week, he received a gift from his father, even though it was not his birthday. He said that he got it as a prize for winning the golf, but when did he ever play golf? When Hira opened it, there was a camera inside. It was an expensive digital SLR camera that was often shown in commercials recently.
Hira remembered his parents’ words that it would be good for him to have a hobby that he could be passionate about, and that was the solution they came up with. You could take pictures by yourself, and you had more opportunities to go out, so it was a pretty good hobby for a boy with liberal arts background. For now, he shouldn’t hurt his parents’ feelings. “Thank you, I will take good care of it.”
Hira said with an awkward smile, and his parents smiled as if they were relieved.
“Let’s go somewhere to take pictures together on our next vacation.”
That was why today, Hira was here constantly pressing the shutter to take pictures of lilies.
No matter which direction you turn, there were lilies, lilies, lilies, and lilies, and if you climbed up with a lift, you would also see platform for viewing lilies. What on earth they do with so many lilies? Are they really that much beautiful? Ah, or could it be that lilies are edible? Maybe the lily’s root that is used in making chawanmushi come from these lilies.
“Kazu-kun, Kazu-kun, take a picture of your father and mother too.”
Turning around, he saw that his parents were smiling and posing by making ‘V’ — shap sign with their fingers, “Yes, say cheese!”, Hira said and took a picture by pressing the shutter of his camera with a loud sound that didn’t suit him at all.
By the time he got home, Hira was feeling exhausted. It was because he spent the whole day laughing and frolicking by pretending to look active in order not to disappoint his parents. The next day, he imported the photos into his computer and observed them again. He still didn’t think of them as beautiful. The green leaves of the birch and the white trunks. Overly colorful lilies. Orange, peach, red, white, yellow. It was looking very artificial, unnatural landscape, and it made him feel sick if he kept staring at it.
Hira held the mouse and tried to erase one orange lily with an image processing software.
Peach, red, white, yellow ones were all erased one by one in a flowing process.
He couldn’t think of anything else.
Looking at the absurd photo with full of holes, Hira finally came back to his senses.
Ah, what I’ve done?
He ruined the pictures that he took at the place, where his parents brought him to, by the camera that was also bought by them for him with good intentions. Although they could be restored with a single click of the mouse, the fact that he did it was the problem. After quickly restoring the photos, he opened the next photo that happened to be of his parents together posing by making the V-shaped sign with their fingers, and at that moment the guilt of his conscience reached its peak.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry for being like this.
As Hira was apologizing continuously, a chirping voice sounded like a bird’s cry began to ring in his eardrums. Hira’s chest felt tight and he could only call out the name of his mater: “Captain Duck, Captain Duck.”
—Keep your mind as calm as possible. Don’t be sensitive to stimuli.
—Be like Captain Duck, who floated through the dirty artificial river with long, curly eyelashes.
It was easier to live everyday being obtuse. But that day, Captain Duck was caught in a raging stream, constantly banging against the concrete walls here and there, leaving his whole body covered with bruises.
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Oh, poor baby. ☹️
This is a really interesting look at Hira’s backstory and adds a lot of color to what’s outlined in the television series. Thanks for the translation!
Thanks for reading ❤️
And this baby is sad 🥺
cool! Thank u so much for translating!
Poor little Hira! 😭 Can’t believe there isn’t a single person in school who can empathise with him! Would love to be friends with him anytime! ><
I’m already pitying him. Is he going to suffer abuse? 😫
So sad! 😔
Poor boy, at least your family is good to you.
Thank you for the chapter!
Hira and Kiyoi are my all time favorite couple. Planning to binge read the novel. How many chapters in total?
Comfort me captain duck! This is a nice yet sad chapter.
Thank you for translating this novel 😭
he’s just like me fr