Translator: White Lotus
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Hira was putting on his shoes at the entrance when he heard his mother’s voice coming from the kitchen.
“Kazu-kun, what do you want to have for dinner today?”
“I don’t know what I want to have for dinner this early in the morning. I’ll call you later then.”
“You always say the same thing, but you never do it.”
Hira’s mother popped her head out of the kitchen. An angry look on her face. Twice last week, he made her prepare dinner for nothing.
“It’s fine to hang out with your friends; just be sure to give me a call back.”
After realizing his mistake, Hira immediately apologized and then left the house as though he were running away.
As he walked towards the station, Hira thought to himself that his mother had undergone a significant change. When he was in high school, his mother would forgive him for being late or not being home for dinner, as long as he said he was hanging out with his friends. However, it had been two months since he started attending university, and as the frequency of Hira’s late arrivals to the home increased, his mother began to complain like a typical parent would. This was also evidence that Hira had started a pleasant academic life. Compared to high school, where everyone was crammed into a small box called a classroom, university was basically a place where you could hang out only with the people you deemed fit. If you didn’t get along with someone or didn’t like something, there were many ways to distance yourself from it. As a result, Hira was no longer surrounded by those taunts and scorn.
Additionally, he was quite fortunate to find a club that suited him. Hira, who had been alone for many years, had never considered joining a club; however, on the opening day, as he brought his camera with him to take pictures of the entrance ceremony, he was inundated with invites from photography clubs.
The cordial demeanor of the members of some clubs made Hira somewhat hesitant, but he eventually made the decision to join a club when a member of that club, a plain-looking man with glasses, offered him a brochure and asked him if he was interested in joining.
At the beginning of the self-introduction, because of his nervousness, Hira slightly stuttered. Everyone was amazed.
Oh no, it’s going to happen again………….Just as Hira was feeling desperate—
“Do you have dysphemia?”
A first-year boy sitting diagonally across from him asked, and Hira was startled and nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Well, it must be tough. My older brother used to be the same as a kid.”
After saying this, the boy then started explaining dysphemia to the others, who were unfamiliar with the term.
“……I see. I didn’t even know that such a disease existed.”
“We’ll also try to understand. If there’s anything we can do, please let us know.”
It was a little embarrassing and uncomfortable for Hira to make the others bother, but the reassurance of being accepted by everyone was even stronger. Being able to think this way allowed him to acknowledge that he had indeed undergone a subtle change from when he was in high school.
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.
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Whenever you went to the clubroom, you could naturally find someone there chatting about cameras as well as games, manga, and other topics. Once a month, a symposium on photography was organized with a specific theme, but other than that, the club had a laid-back atmosphere where members spent their time playing cards or shogi in circles, and such relaxation was suited for Hira’s personality.
Among them, Hira became close to a boy named Koyama, who had helped him on the first day. Koyama had an elder brother who was three years older than him and used to suffer from dysphemia as well. Fortunately, most of his symptoms had subsided by the time he reached adulthood, and he now worked at a company and helped out in the backstage at a small theater group of his acquaintances.
“Having dysphemia is very problematic. Because many people don’t know it’s a disease.”
“Yeah, I always feel a little uncomfortable explaining it to people.”
“My brother said the same thing. He didn’t want to explain it to people because, in his opinion, he seemed to be doing it in an effort to win their sympathy.”
Hira nodded in agreement while having lunch at the campus cafeteria. Dysphemia was the root of Hira’s deep-seated inferiority complex, and it amazed him to think that one day he would be able to discuss it in such detail with someone.
“By the way, Hira, are you free this weekend? I would like you to accompany me somewhere.”
“To go in order to shoot some photos?”
“Yeah, to take photos of Nishikigoi.”
Perhaps an incredulous expression was visible on Hira’s face as Koyama explained, “I was asked by my parents to do it.”
“The teacher at the English conversation class my mom attends asked me. That teacher seems to be obsessed with Koi lately, and it’s said that a certain garden in Setagaya recently received a batch of very rare Nishikigoi, and he wants pictures of them.”
“Oh, I see.”
“If you’re not interested, then forget it. Particularly given that taking photos of living things is outside the purview of Hira.”
“It’s not like that, though.”
“That’s how things are. I’ll never forget the shock of seeing Hira’s photos for the first time.”
Sometimes in the club, the members would critique each other’s photos that they had taken themselves. To Hira’s surprise, his photos of the city where humans had been erased from existence were unexpectedly well received when he showed them to everyone, instead of the frightening responses he had anticipated.
“It cannot be helped. I ought to go by myself to take photos of Nishikigoi.”
“It’s okay, I’ll go with you.”
“You’re not pushing yourself, are you?”
“No, I’m not.”
Although Hira was not interested in Nishikigoi, he enjoyed being with Koyama. Naturally, Hira didn’t say these words, but the forthright Koyama responded with a smile on his face, “That’s great; I’m so happy.”
“It would be really hard for me to go shoot Nishikigoi alone. Oh, come to think of it, I’ll be meeting Hira alone for the first time. Well then, why don’t we have a drink somewhere tonight after the koi shoot?”
“Yeah, sure.”
To hide his embarrassment, Hira lowered his head to look at his lunch plate. Even though he had a friend he felt comfortable talking to, Hira would still be nervous in the face of someone’s kindness.
“Do you want to go to an izakaya? Or come to my place? I live alone, so it’s okay if you come to my place.”
“Anywhere is fine.”
“Ah, the way you worded that makes it sound like I’m the only one who’s looking forward to it, which makes me feel awful.”
Koyama pouted his lips.
“S-sorry. That’s not true. I also enjoy being with Koyama.”
Seeing Hira panicking, Koyama laughed and said, “Yeah, yeah, I’m just kidding.”
After that, the two of them used their cell phones to find out how to photograph Nishikigoi. It’s the most difficult thing to take photos of moving things, be they human or animal. Moreover, taking photos of Nishikigoi underwater requires a lot of technique. After finalizing how to do the photography, Koyama suddenly asked, “Hira, have you ever photographed a person before?”
“I have.”
Even though he had asked the question, however, when he heard the answer, Koyama was extremely surprised: “You have?”
“Anyone other than your family?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be…… your girlfriend?”
“Eh, why do you think that?”
Hira did not expect the other person to ask so much.
“I don’t think a guy like Hira can photograph anyone unless he has deep feelings towards that person.”
Faced with Koyama’s sharp assessment, Hira was startled. After a moment of silence, he gave an affirmative reply.
“However, it wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“An unrequited love?”
“……I don’t know. He's someone who can’t be classified.”
As he spoke, an image of that particular person appeared in Hira’s mind.
He liked him so deeply that it hurt, and the anguish made him feel like dying.
With only a single word, he had the ability to both hurt Hira to death and make him thrilled to death.
Whenever he thought of Kiyoi, the word “death” easily sprang to Hira’s mind. It seemed superficial to him. However, because of his limited vocabulary, he had no choice but to express his feelings in this way with his poor speech. That was how much Hira liked Kiyoi.
“Do you meet with that person?”
“Well, he’s not someone you can normally get to meet with, and I don’t even know his contact information.”
On the day of the graduation ceremony, Hira’s cell phone fell into a puddle, and all the data was lost. When the mobile shop staff told him that the data could not be retrieved, he felt a strange sense of serenity in his heart. The data that had disappeared contained Kiyoi’s phone number and email address, so he thought that this was the end.
Hira knew Kiyoi’s university, and he should be able to get his contact information through his high school classmates. Kiyoi was probably still working as a model, so he could readily learn about Kiyoi’s present situation by conducting a search on the Internet. But Hira didn’t do it. He couldn’t do that.
――Then, see you.
He remembered the words of farewell that sounded like a rejection, as well as the kiss that seemed to be an act of pity.
At that moment, Hira felt as though he was being admonished not to pursue him any further.
Even though it was sufficient to purchase a new mobile phone, Hira also changed his phone number out of despair. The staff at the shop gave him an enthusiastic recommendation, raving about how great it was. Hira elected to accept the salesman’s offer because, regardless of whether it was a good deal or not, he only needed to let his heart have a vent for his emotions. It was good this way. It was indeed a good deal. Absolutely no loss.
Hira wondered if that was really the case.
Two months after the graduation ceremony, he made friends, attended club drinking parties like a normal university student, and was often scolded by his mother for arriving home late. Compared to the lonely high school life, his days were now so relaxed and bright.
And yet, the afterimage of Kiyoi refused to disappear, no matter what. When Hira thought of Kiyoi, he had no other way to describe his feelings except through the use of the term “death,” and he kept repeating that he liked him so deeply that it hurt, and the anguish made him feel like dying.
Looking at Hira, who suddenly became silent, Koyama seemed as though he had something he wanted to say to him.
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Translator’s Note: Thank you sooo much Ko-fi supporter, Sj & Ruby for the Kofis (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡
I’m so proud of Hira! I hope Kiyoi is having a good life too 🥹
Thank you for this chapter. Made my Sunday morning extra special.
Thank you for reading ❤️❤️
Criei tanto carinho por esse BL em tão pouco tempo, estou amando o desenvolvimento dos personagens ❤️
Obrigado por traduzir mais um capítulo.
Thanks for reading ❤️❤️
Thank you very much for translating this chapter! Will you finish the translation of the story? Just like Hira, I feel like dying to know what happens to them…
Since I’ve started doing the translation of it, I’ll definitely finish it. Thanks for reading ❤️❤️
Indo-european- ? I’m wondering about this since Indonesia doesn’t have gender aswell for he/she so I’m interested on why some of them are called indo-european
I don’t think Indo is referring to Indonesia, I think it is referring to India.
As for gender pronounce, what I said is “Japanese does not have grammatical gender in its nouns or adjective agreement, unlike many Indo-European languages.” As third-person pronouns, 彼 and 彼女 are not used as often as “he” and “she” in English, especially in speaking. This is because pronouns (or rather, subjects and objects in general) are frequently omitted in Japanese. When you do refer to someone, it’s more common to use their name, or social or family role, than a third-person pronoun (and you can do so repeatedly without it sounding redundant, unlike in English). So 彼 and 彼女 don’t sound like neutral third-person pronouns in spoken Japanese.
I hope you understand ❤️
Aha- I see, never learn language and in hindsight. I should have checked google before commenting that, Thank you for the information tho ^^
There’s something about this story that is really captivating. Obsession is so interesting. It’s so interesting seeing how a persons life experiences affect how they view the world.
Thanks for the translations!
Thanks for reading ❤️❤️
Love it! Thank you!
Thank you for reading ❤️
❤️❤️❤️
Hira’s progress is impressive.