Reading The Summer You Were There | Yurivan

The Summer You Were There

· @manga_collector· Yuama (ゆあま)

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Chapter 11

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1. "..." 2. "...Hoshikawa-san." 3. "Sorry about what happened at the aquarium..." 4. "Surprising you like that..."

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1. "I'll be calling you Shizuku then." 2. "..." 3. "...You didn't do anything wrong." 4. No.

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1. I need to say it properly. 2. "I'm sorry for running away." 3. "I need to apologize." 4. "I..." 5. "..." 6. "And never contacted you afterwards..." 7. "I swatted your hand away, left you there and went home." 8. "I'm the one who suddenly brought it up, but I got scared."

1. "...Your letter." 2. "Can I ask you about it...?" 3. "Of course." 4. "That's why I came here." 5. "came here."

3. "I want to know about you."

1. "...About the past." 2. "You stayed quiet about it until now because..." 3. "...I couldn't find the right time to mention it." 4. "And I figured you wouldn't want the topic to be brought up anyway." 5. The first time she came over... 6. "I thought about mentioning it when I first came to your house, but..." 7. "You were being so cautious of me, so I couldn't do it."

1. "Your house is close to the elementary school, right?" 2. "Yes." 3. "So the reason you knew where I lived..." 4. "I saw you coming home from school." 5. "I lived in a different district, but" 6. "...one time when I passed through by car," 7. So she wasn't lying about that...? 8. "Coincidence, I guess." 9. "...I mentioned it in the letter too, but..."

1. "Ru-mors always get exagger-ated as they spread, right?" 2. "I found out through the rumors that spread through-out our grade." 3. "I didn't actually see what hap-pened back then." 4. "That might be part of why I couldn't bring it up." 5. "I didn't know how much was true." 6. "...Since I wasn't there myself," 7. "But when you opened up to me," 8. "I thought it wouldn't be fair to hide it anymore."

1. "I'ts exactly as I wrote." 2. "What you wrote in the letter about... admiring me... what was that about?" 3. "...Um." 4. "I admired you" 5. "for always seeming so confident," 6. "taking the lead and helping others without hesitation." 7. "...You're exaggerating." 8. "I'm not that good of a person."

1. "I'm not like you think." 2. "I'm dirty and despicable." 3. "I must be rotten to the core." 4. What I thought was doing good was actually harming others. 5. And I failed to realize that.

1. "...It is." 2. "That's not true...!" 3. "I bullied Ruri-chan and hurt her." 4. "Yet here I am still living as if nothing happened." 5. "...Hoshikawa-san." 6. "I'm a despicable human being..."

1. "Were you trying to die...?"

1. "...Do you think..." 2. "It would be better if you weren't alive...?" 3. "..."

1. "...Why do you know" 2. "every-thing about me..." 3. "...when I read your novel, I noticed something." 4. "I don't know any-thing." 5. "It's just..."

1. "The protagonist commits double suicide with her best friend" 2. "to atone for her sins..." 3. "The more I read, the more I became convinced." 4. "That the plot was what you yourself were dealing with..." 5. "I realized that you had been feeling guilt this whole time." 6. "...It almost read like..."

1. "Like a" 2. "suicide note." 3. "A suicide note..." 4. "That might've been true."

1. "When you said you wouldn't write again," 2. "My doubts changed to conviction." 3. After I threw the novel away, I intended to erase myself with it. 4. "...That's why" 5. "I wanted you to write another novel." 6. "...?"

1. "You would never abandon a work" 2. "part way through writing." 3. "...What do you mean?" 4. "So I thought that I myself could become the source material." 5. In other words... 6. "..." 7. "...I thought I'd make that be a reason for you to keep on living."

1. "..." 2. The reason that Asaka-san made that silly proposition that day 3. was to help me...? 4. "That's... ...that's ridiculous..." 5. Up until that day, being desk neighbors was our only connection. 6. "There was no reason for you to go that far for me." 7. "Even more so if you knew what happened in elementary school..." 8. "There was no reason for you to sacrifice yourself." 9. "To throw away your entire summer vacation" 10. "just to come hang out with me."

1. "So why did you..." 2. The more I learn about Asaka-san's feelings, the less I understand. 3. Why me...? 4. The words and emotions she directs toward me. 5. None of them add up.

1. "Be- cause I" 2. "loved your novel." 3. "...Eh..."

1. "But that's not all." 2. "The beautiful choice of words." 3. "The figurative language." 4. "The regret of hurting someone." 5. "The frustration of doing something that can never be undone." 6. "The immature yet effective prose." 7. "The hurt that you yourself felt." 8. "I loved all of it." 9. "The psychological depictions so desperate they hurt."

1. "...That's why" 2. "I thought it would be nice if I could see a different side of you from a different novel." 3. "It was like your emotions were all stuffed into those pages." 4. "It might be presumptuous of me, but I felt like I got to know you just a little bit through reading your novel." 5. "I guess I'm your fan."

1. "...You're kidding." 2. "Nope." 3. She simply liked my novel...? 4. so she spent her summer vacation coming here? 5. she wanted me to not disappear and write a second work, 6. Because she liked my novel,

1. "I still don't get it." 2. "Why do you see me in that way?" 3. "..." 4. "...You're too harsh on yourself." 5. "It's a fact that I hurt Ruri-chan." 6. "I'm not nice." 7. "That's because I'm...!" 8. "My novel was nothing more than an immature first work."

1. ...I'm someone who gradually lost my sense of connection with others 2. I'm someone who bullied without realizing it. 3. Hurt others. 4. And hurt them with insensitive words... 5. And couldn't even 6. apologize with their own words... 7. "That's why...!" 8. ...a work and its author are different things.

1. "The me that you see is a false image, nothing more." 2. "the author of a work to be like." 3. "You're confusing reality with the ideal of what you imagine" 4. "There's kindness somewhere in there." 5. "No matter how holed up in your shell you are," 6. "...No, I'm looking at you." 7. "That's why..." 8. "The Hoshikawa-san right here." 9. "You're someone who truly pays attention to others."

1. "Other-wise you wouldn't still be suffering from some-thing that happened five years ago." 2. "You wouldn't have bought that stuffed animal from the aquarium that I was only looking at for a brief mo-ment." 3. "...Half a year ago, at the entrance ceremo-ny,"

1. "Your atmosphere was totally different. You were looking down." 2. "When I saw you, I was surprised." 3. "Even after facing your wrongdoings so sincerely." 4. "But it's too tragic to see you unable to forgive yourself" 5. "...As an outsider, I can't judge who was right and wrong back then." 6. "One look and I knew..." 7. "You had been punishing yourself this whole time for what happened five years ago." 8. "Did you hurt Ruri-chan intending to hurt her?" 9. "N-No..."

1. "...No... but..." 2. "It's even worse that I didn't realize what I was doing..." 3. "..." 4. "I thought that it was correct to spell things out clearly." 5. "I thought that Ruri-chan didn't talk back because I was correct." 6. "And mistook my opinion for the entire classes' consensus." 7. "I got full of myself." 8. "That it was good of me to be able to say things that others weren't willing to."

1. "That's why-" 2. "Thinking I was the most correct," 3. "...Without a doubt I said so many nasty things." 4. "I kept hurting Ruri-chan." 5. "That's why" 6. "you keep trying to push me away?"

1. "...How do you feel right now?" 2. "...You're lying." 3. "It's true." 4. "...I've spent over a week with you, yet I'm not hurt." 5. "I could say the same myself." 6. "...But I might hurt you in the future..." 7. "But..."

1. "Did you not" 2. "Eh...?" 3. "like spending time with me?" 4. At first, I thought she was a nuisance. 5. I was scared that I couldn't tell what she was thinking. 6. That she was too forceful. 7. But...

1. Gradually, 2. I came to feel that it was fun being together. 3. Once I realized that, 4. I didn't want to stay silent any longer. 5. "...What will or won't hurt someone," 6. "No one can know."

1. "If you do hurt someone, apologize." 2. "Forgive and be forgiven!" 3. "That's how everyone gets by." 4. ...And what if you can't get forgiven even if you apologize? 5. "If you can't get forgiven no matter how much you apologize," 6. "...then maybe distancing yourself from that person is the only option." 7. "But if it gets rough, you can run away." 8. "You don't have to carry it all by yourself." 9. "If you don't feel like you can go on, you can rely on someone else." 10. Just one thing...

1. "No more trying to die, okay?" 2. "Asaka-sa..."

1. "...I'm not saying that I approve of any bullying you may have done" 2. "but..." 3. "There's no reason you shouldn't be allowed to move forward." 4. "Forgive your younger self, even if just a little."

1. "Don't" 2. "hurt your-self any more than this..." 3. Asaka-san's hand 4. was trembling slightly. 5. And warm. 6. "You don't have to be alone."

1. "When it gets rough" 2. "you can lean on me."

1. "Heh" 2. "I think you express your feelings" 3. "better in writing than in words." 4. "...Hoshikawa-san."

1. "Your words were just what you were thinking, rather than carefully selected..." 2. "Well maybe that was a good thing." 3. "...I was just vomiting them onto the pages..." 4. "Because your feelings really came across in your novel." 5. "May-be..." 6. She might be right. 7. For me, sentences on paper that I write, erase, and edit 8. might convey things more clearly.

1. ...If only I realized that earlier... 2. Maybe I could have apologized to Ruri-chan through a letter... 3. "..." 4. I can't send her a letter if I don't even know where she lives. 5. But it's too late now.

1. "...You" 2. "still can." 3. "Eh?" 4. "Want to try writing a letter" 5. "to Ruri-chan?"

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