NOVEL NEXT Chapter 25
“Yo, Ryuichi. Golden Week’s comin’ up soon, got any plans?”
“…Nope, nothin’ I can think of.”
It was nearing the end of April, and May was just around the corner. The new month brought with it the major annual holiday weekend, but Ryuichi had no plans at all. In previous years, he had spent his time with Makoto and his other friends picking up girls and hanging out at adult-only establishments, but this year, Makoto asked Ryuichi what he would do, and after giving it some thought, Ryuichi replied.
“…It’s been a while since I last went, maybe I’ll come along.”
“Oh, so you’re comin’?”
He thought it wouldn’t hurt to show up for the first time in a long time at a regular party to which he had been invited before but never ended up going.
“Right before the holidays, huh? Aight, I’m down for it.”
The one who’d spoken was a boy standing next to Makoto, Kurosawa Kaname. He was the one who’d tried to touch Shizuna the other day. Like Ryuichi and Makoto, he was a student treated as a delinquent, but he wasn’t truly a bad person at heart.
“I’mma try and keep my schedule open. Just so ya know, if I don’t feel like it I’m heading straight home, got it?”
“‘Kay.”
“Yep, yep. But man, I’m totally excited for this.”
Kaname then said that he had to go to the bathroom and left the classroom. Ryuichi was left alone with Makoto, but since they were friends, their conversation progressed smoothly. Suddenly, Ryuichi felt a faint gaze on him, so he turned his head in that direction and sure enough, his eyes met Shizuna’s. She seemed to have been talking with her friends, but right now they were all looking at Ryuichi.
“…Geez.”
Shizuna stared at him while her friends grinned at her, and when Ryuichi scratched his head and raised his hand in greeting, Shizuna made a wide grin, prompting her friends to playfully poke her shoulders.
“Say, Ryuichi.”
“Yeah?”
“That choker Rindo’s wearing. Is that your doing?”
Ryuichi nodded. The black item attached to Shizuna’s neck was in fact a choker. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be quite the stylish item; it was adorned with a floral pattern, and just as Ryuichi had said, he had bought it for her.
“Well, that’s because she told me she wanted it.”
On his previous outing with Shizuna, Ryuichi had given her a moderately priced stuffed animal as a token of his appreciation for her bentos, among other things. He thought that would be the end of it, but at one of the stores they stopped by, she’d come across a choker.
“What’s up?”
“Huh? Oh, uh…I was just thinking about how nice this looked. It looks so similar to a collar, so wouldn’t putting this on me make me look like I belong to you, Ryuichi-kun…? Wait, what am I even saying?”
Chokers, too, were technically a style of fashion, but there were certainly some who would say they looked similar to collars. She’d looked surprised when he actually bought it for her, but soon she happily held it to her chest.
“Holy hell, though; I never would’ve thought she’d actually use it to school.”
“Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Some people might suspect something, but they’d probably conclude it’s just a part of her outfit.”
A beautiful woman always looked good no matter what they wore. There may be some exceptions, but that choker was not one of them, as it definitely suited Shizuna well. Even now she was putting her fingers on the choker as if she was touching something important. She didn’t seem to be conscious of it, so she must’ve truly considered it important from the bottom of her heart.
“So, what didja do to him?”
“…Well, all I can say is something definitely happened.”
“No shit, man. Haha, he looks like he really hates your guts.”
The person Makoto was glancing at was Sohei. A few days had passed since then, and Sohei likely hadn’t realized the woman in Ryuichi’s arms was Shizuna. Shizuna didn’t tell him anything either, so he was probably still unaware even now.
“…Y’know, getting a girl as good as her has its own downsides, huh. Feels like I’ve developed a sort of superiority complex against those who’re in love with her.”
“Nah, it’s totally fine. In fact, you should be pumping your chest out in pride. It’d be a different story if you were actually dating her and shit, but that’s not true, isn’t it? Then you have nothing to worry about, man.”
“I…see. Heh, you’re being strangely nice to me today.”
“I’m always nice to my bros, though?”
Ryuichi laughed at the irony coming out of his mouth.
However, even as he was talking with Makoto, Sohei was still glaring at Ryuichi as if he were glaring at his parents’ mortal enemy. Ryuichi knew this, but he wasn’t sure if he could straight up confront him about it, especially since he hadn’t talked to him at all since then.
“…Well, whatever.”
“Yeah, just leave it be.”
Eventually, Sohei removed his gaze from Ryuichi. After school, Ryuichi met up with Shizuna to leave school.
“Hey, Shizuna. Did you say something to him?”
“Him? Oh, you mean Sohei-kun?”
“Yeah.”
After Ryuichi nodded, Shizuna proceeded to explain everything to him. She seemed somewhat indifferent toward Sohei, but he could see a slight hint of anger in her eyes.
“He ran his mouth and said whatever he pleased. He told me not to talk to you anymore, not to get involved with you anymore, and he told me that you’re the kind of guy who goes to shady establishments and brings all kinds of promiscuous women to his home.”
“Hmm…”
It seemed that Sohei was being quite blunt about Ryuichi to Shizuna behind his back. But it was only then that he got the full picture of why Sohei had been glaring so hard at him. In other words, Shizuna must have said something back.
“Of course, I tried to hold myself back at first…but in the end, I couldn’t stand it any longer; I told him that I hated him and that he shouldn’t come to me ever again. I also told him not to talk to me anymore.”
“Pretty blunt of you, huh.”
“Of course. I’m not the kind of person who’s patient enough to stand hearing someone berating the person I like.”
She said this while looking at Ryuichi with a serious look in her eyes.
“…I see.”
Ryuichi didn’t understand why she could say that so emphatically and seriously. He truly questioned how she could care so much for somebody else, just because she liked them.
“Shizuna, you’re…”
“Yes?”
Her eyes pierced through Ryuichi. They were beautiful eyes, unblemished and pure, honest to a fault, and filled with light. Depending on how one looked at it, her body had already been tainted by the hands of Ryuichi. Even so, her figure was truly dazzling, never losing its radiance.
“You’re truly a wonderful woman, Shizuna.”
“If that’s what you think, then it’s all thanks to you, Ryuichi-kun. You’re the one who changed me to become like this. That’s why I’ve become a woman who you can call wonderful. ♪”
She gave him a smile from the bottom of her heart. Ryuichi’s heart jumped. He naturally reached out to touch her, seeing how honest she was and how much she cared for him. Once his hand reached her smooth, white cheeks, she rubbed them against Ryuichi’s hand, as if seeking his touch. A chuckle slipped out of him at the sight of Shizuna, who looked as adorable as an animal.
The two of them then walked down the road together in the setting sun. When they arrived at Shizuna’s house, she took him by the hand, seemingly having noticed something.
“What’s wrong?”
“Over here.”
Shizuna pulled him over to the corner of the street, hiding them from view. As he wondered what was going on, she pointed her finger toward the house. There he saw Sohei talking with Sakie. He seemed to be desperately trying to convey something, as evident from his frantic body movements and gestures, and Sakie was just listening to him with her hand on her cheek, as if she couldn’t care less about what he had to say… Shizuna let out a big sigh.
“He’s even talking to my mom now… Truly wasting his time, that one.”
That was the moment Shizuna finally switched from calling him “Sohei-kun” to “that one
.” In Sohei’s eyes, he was acting for the good of Shizuna, who was getting involved with bad people, which might’ve been the right way for a childhood friend to act. He wasn’t wrong; he certainly wasn’t, but he had an overwhelming lack of understanding about everything.“What a comical sight…he doesn’t even know that Mom and I are in love with you,” she spat. In the first place, neither Shizuna nor Sakie had been forcibly attacked by Ryuichi. They willingly offered their bodies to Ryuichi and willingly nurtured feelings for him. Even though it may not be obvious to others, they definitely had proper feelings in them for him.
“He thinks he’s doing the right thing…but he might actually just be self-conceited. That’s why he wouldn’t understand you even though you kept trying to tell him. I know I’m the cause for that and all, but man, you’ve got one hell of an annoying childhood friend, huh?”
“You’re not the cause, Ryuichi-kun; you’re just a factor. I am the cause.”
Shizuna’s words were, in a sense, not entirely unfounded either. As he stared at Sohei, who was much too ignorant, Ryuichi thought about something. This world was the manga world that he knew, and the people who existed in it were no different. However, he wondered if he needed to be concerned about this world being a manga world after seeing all these characters existing with their own will.
“……”
To be honest, he didn’t really care about it anymore. He didn’t know if it was just in Ryuichi’s nature not to worry about details, but he truly didn’t care anymore. To Ryuichi, as long as he was still alive, he would make sure to enjoy his life to the fullest.
“Shizuna.”
“Ah. ♪”
He put his hand on Shizuna’s shoulder as she stood next to him. In an instant, Shizuna’s cold eyes toward Sohei disappeared completely, and she looked up at him.
“You are my woman, and my woman alone.”
“You belong to me, and me alone.”
His voice overlapped with a familiar voice elsewhere.
“Yes! Of course. ♪”
“Yes. Of course. ♪”
Again, Shizuna’s reply, too, matched the one in Ryuichi’s memories. Something will probably change clearly in the near future. Ryuichi had a clear premonition of this.
HamletJr's notes:
A few things to clear up for this chapter:
- That was the moment Shizuna finally switched from calling him “Sohei-kun” to “that one.”
- In this line, that one is a loose translation of the term used in the raws, あの人 (ano hito), which is actually the Japanese equivalent of third-person pronouns in English. A more one-to-one, rigid translation would be "he", "she", "they", "that person", etc. In this context, it's basically an indifferent, detached way of referring to Sohei.
- TL;DR: Shizuna is referring to Sohei very coldly here.
- “You are my woman, and my woman alone.” “You belong to me, and me alone.”
- These two lines were a little hard to subtly translate. I tried my best, but I probably botched it. In the raws, the first line read お前は俺だけの女だ (omae wa ore dake no onna da), which literally translates to: you are my woman alone. The second line is specially marked, supposedly to imply that it's manga world Ryuichi, and it reads お前は俺だけの物だ (omae wa ore dake no mono da) which literally translates to: you are my property alone. Property, object, thing, item, any other way to refer to something inanimate, you name it. I used belong because belong is usually used for items, which should imply the same as the explicit translation.
- TL;DR: Ryuichi refers to her like an actual, living woman in the first line, whereas the second line treats her as an object in his possession.