Chapter 67

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Here is chapter 67. The next chapter is supposed to be a continuation of this chapter. I will try to get it out for tonight but no promises.

Translator: butterreader

Editor: butterreader

raw

Title: Our Days Apart (1)

One Friday night, I showed up for a drinking party with my college friends, and Satou-san was there, too.

But that doesn’t mean we were drinking together. To begin with, Satou-san is already a working man and I am a university student. Aside from the relationship between the two of us, Satou-san and I don’t have any points of contact in our current lives. She has to commute to work by train, and I can walk or ride my bicycle to the university. However, Satou-san still lives at home, so this kind of coincidence might be possible.

I had a part-time job, so I planned to join the drinking party late. After finishing my part-time job, I rushed into a chain of izakaya restaurants in front of the station after 7 p.m. The drinking party had already started, and I said, ‘Oh, hey, everyone!’ When I arrived at my seat with what everyone was prodding me to do, I found her in the seat right next to the small table. Satou-san was sitting at the next table with a bunch of adults. How did I know it was her right away, it was only because she was a rather distinctive girl. She has that mellow atmosphere, that single-heartedly good-natured smile, her hair is still tied in a knot no matter how old she gets, and she’s endlessly dressed in plain clothes.

Other girls my age wear make-up, and their clothes are becoming more and more sophisticated and cute. But Satou-san, on the other hand, will always look unrefined if left unattended. Sometimes I go shopping with her and try to dress her up, but today was a weekday and it was probably because I was on my way home from work, and she was wearing a gray parka one-piece that she had probably picked out herself. At first glance, it may seem like a contradiction to say that she is plain and therefore stands out. But from my point of view, I’m used to seeing all the glamorous girls in college, so I can easily recognize a girl like Ms. Sato just by being in the corner of my eye. Today, as if by intuition, I noticed her presence.

In the noisy izakaya, even the conversations at the next table were inaudible. Most of the people around the table with Satou-san were middle-aged women, and I vaguely suspected that they were part-time employees of the bento shop where she worked. There was only one man in the group. A young man with short, slightly delinquent-looking hair was sitting next to Sato-san, drinking a mug of beer. Satou-san was sitting upright and seemed to be drinking orange juice. And despite the fact that I quickly spotted her and have been watching her closely, she hasn’t noticed me. She didn’t even turn to look at me. She’ s eagerly eating her grilled chicken. With orange juice. What an odd combination of food.

“–guchi, Yamaguchi.”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

My name was called, and that’s when I finally came to myself. I turn around and see my friend who is the organizer looking at me with a bitter smile.

“You’re late and don’t stand still. What do you want to drink?”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

“Uh … sorry. Then………”(Y)

As I answer, I look sideways at the table next to me, unthinkingly. Satou-san doesn’t even notice my name that I’ve just been called. It was probably too noisy in the izakaya to hear it

“Orange juice, please.”(Y)

And I imitated Sato-san. The organizer said, ‘You’re kidding me,’ but that’s how I felt, so I couldn’t blame them.

I often go out for drinks with my university friends. It’s usually in the same seminar or circle, or sometimes my friends’ friends or my friends’ seniors join in. It’s always a big group, and people I’ve never met before are often mixed in. The purpose of the drinking party is also different from each other, and I can see some of them don’t just come to drink. Most people, myself included, don’t suddenly become diligent or serious just because they become college students.

“Where does Yamaguchi go to high school? What, East? You’re pretty smart, I’m surprised!”(Random girl)

The one who keeps talking to me now is the girl sitting next to me. She has short, fluffy hair and a lively smile, and she’s very cute. And she’s wearing a lot of make-up so her eyelashes are very fluffy, and she’s particular about her nails and showing off her colourful nails, which I think is very girly. A girl with a gap is a very cute thing. Satou-san doesn’t have any gaps, you know. She’s always the same as she looks. Of course, her carefree attitude is not the only thing that makes her special, but…

I kept glancing at the table next to me in between conversations. Satou-san was still eating her yakitori and showed no sign of noticing me. Every once in a while, the ladies sitting right across from me would offer her a plate of food, and she would bow her head as if she were afraid when they handed it to her. Satou-san started working right after graduating from high school, but it seems that the people at work love her. She is not a bad girl, but she has a tendency to be difficult to understand, and I was secretly worried that her witlessness would have a bad effect on her work. I wasn’t able to hear much about her work from her, so I was even more concerned, but it’s a relief for now.

“…Hey, Yamaguchi. Do you hear me?”(Random girl)

The girl next to me calls me back and I hurriedly give her an affectionate smile.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just tired from my part-time job.”(Y)

“Yeah. What are you talking about, like an old man?”(Random girl)

It’s a shame to be discouraged by a pretty girl, but I didn’t come to the party with the intention of getting along with a girl in the first place. I don’t need to meet anyone because I have a girlfriend. But at a party where you call your friends’ friends, if you don’t have enough brains, you may be driven out. That’s exactly what happened tonight, I came to this party to socialize even though I’m actually exhausted after my part-time job. It’s not that I don’t like drinking, or that I don’t like talking to girls, it’s just that I think it’s fun. It’s just that I enjoy it, but sometimes I feel like going out with them is a hassle. I wonder what’s up with you, Sato-san? I wondered if she was enjoying tonight’s drinking party at work.

“Yamaguchi, why aren’t you drinking? Health conscious?”(Random girl)

The girl sitting next to me spotted my orange juice. I laughed lightly at that as well.

“Sort of. Mood?”(Y)

I reply. Then I still look at the next table for some reason.

Satou-san was laughing. It was like she was talking to a Yankee-looking man sitting next to her. The man wasn’t even laughing, but Satou-san seemed to be enjoying himself. There are no gaps or back-sides to Sato-san, and she always has a friendly smile on her face, no matter who she is with. I felt a hazy feeling in my chest when I saw her smile, which is the same as when she is with me, from a distance.

You know what? It seems like you’re having a lot of fun. I’m glad to see that Satou-san is getting along so well with the people at work, which is a good thing, but seeing her laughing with other guys like that immediately makes me feel bad. Maybe it’s because that Yankee-looking guy is a young man. Every time the man with multiple ear piercings said something, I saw Satou-san giggle, and my heart suddenly went cold. Satou-san and I don’t talk much about each other’s circumstances. I don’t want to be aware that we’ve drifted apart, so I’ve deliberately avoided asking her about it. Sato-san isn’t the type of person to complain, so she often talks to me about what she’s been watching lately, or about the manga she’s addicted to. I’m happy and happy when we’re just the two of us, and I think that’s all that matters – but if I didn’t know about Satou-san’s workplace, I’d be more bothered by this. I wonder if she’s on good terms with that man. Will she be able to talk with him often at work? I can’t stop thinking about such things.

“Hey, Yamaguchi, if you’re gonna drink, why don’t you come with me?”(Random girl)

The girl sitting next to me tilts her head to look into my face. I think she’s cute, but I prefer girls who are a bit more plain. The drinking party here seems to start at 5 p.m., and when I arrived there was already a certain amount of alcohol in the air, and everyone was looking good. Since there was an atmosphere of an after-party, I ordered a few more drinks in moderation.

“No, I’m good.”(Y)

Vaguely declining, I pull my phone out of my pocket. I quickly call up the email screen and type a message.

“Oh, what? Are you going to call someone or something?”(Random girl)

I could hear a disgruntled voice from next to me, but I didn’t stop sending it, though I apologized with my mind. The recipient is, of course, Satou-san. As soon as I finished sending this message, her mobile phone seemed to ring, and I saw her looking at the screen while bowing to her surroundings. ‘The table next to you. Have you noticed I’ve been here a while?’. This is what I sent.

I thought that she probably didn’t even notice, and sure enough, her eyes widened as she stared at her mobile phone. The next moment she looked up as if she had been played and turned her head towards me. Immediately, her good-natured smile appeared on her face, and even though there were many things I had wanted to say to her up until that point, such as, ‘I wish you’d noticed before you said it,’ ‘I don’t know about orange juice and grilled chicken,’ and ‘You look like you’re having a lot of fun with the guy next to you, but what the hell,’ all of those things blew away. Satou-san finally noticed me, but when she looked at the group of college students at the table I was at, she immediately looked disappointed. Just as I couldn’t talk to her directly, Satou-san seems to find it difficult to talk to me. She gave me a small wave and then began to type clumsily with a sluggish hand.

As usual, Ms. Sato was slow to type, and the message finally arrived about five minutes later. When my cell phone rang, the girl next to me seemed to be in an increasingly bad mood.

“Oh, the notification. Who’s that? From the girl?”(Random girl)

She plunged in with desperation, and I thought I could be blunt about this, too, so I answered honestly.

“Yeah. From her.”(Y)

Satou-san’s message to me was this. ‘I didn’t notice it at all. I didn’t notice it at all.’ The text was somewhat easier to read than it used to be, which naturally brought a smile to my face. Of course, I sent a reply right away. ‘Right. But I’d like to go home now. What time does Sato-san’s party end?’ Her mobile phone rings again. Satou-san is staring at it. The people at work seemed to be paying no attention to it, but they had no idea that the message was coming from the next table. ‘I’m going home now,’

If I look at her table, I can see that she is starting to clean up after herself. The ladies are so reliable at times like this, and before I could even look at them, they were packing up the plates, collecting glasses and putting down the disposable chopsticks. At the cleaned-up table, Satou-san was drinking the rest of the orange juice. Well, then, I’ll leave too. I replied to her with that thought. ‘I’ll give you a lift home, would you like to go home with me?’

And before I could hear her reply, I called out to our organizer.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I have to go home now.”(Y)

When I got up from my seat as I said this, the cute girl sitting next to me cowered as if she knew what she was doing and the organizer hurriedly sprinted over.

“You’re leaving already, Yamaguchi? We don’t hang out much, do we? That’s right, I feel bad for calling you out after my part-time job, but… I’m going to karaoke now, but I can’t go that far–”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

The secretary chases me down and I apologize as flatly as I came.

“Sorry. But I can’t do it today.”(Y)

“Why? Are you sick?”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

“That’s not what I’m saying. She’s here, here in the shop.”(Y)

When I turned around, I saw that Satou-san and friends had already left the restaurant and she was looking at me in her parka dress. She smiled at me and when I raised my hand, the organizer seemed to know who ‘she’ was. I couldn’t believe it.

“That girl? Seriously? You’re in high school.”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

The way he spoke, it was as if he was saying that high school kids are just kids. But this guy and I were actually high school students until just a short time ago, as was Satou-san.And after really becoming one, I found out that there’s not much difference between a college student and a high school student. The conversations we have and the things we are interested in. Maybe not so much for working people, though.

“That girl. I just happened to be sitting next to her.”(Y)

When I admit it, the organizer looks at me in dismay.

“I’d heard about it, but the story about Yamaguchi’s delicate taste in women, it’s true.”(Yamaguchi’s friend)

That’s what I’ve been hearing since high school.

“Come on. It’s better to have no rivals.”(Y)

So I said it back to him proudly. The organizer looked disgusted and collected the money for the party from me and wished me good luck.

Notes:

An izakaya is a japanese bar that serves alcohol and snacks and is similar to a irish pub.

I really don’t understand this “gap” thing Yamaguchi mentions. I originally thought he meant gap moe or something similar but it doesn’t make sense with the rest of the paragraph. If anyone knows what he meant please comment or if you can translate japanese here is the line ギャップがある女の子というのは得てして可愛いものだった。

Also after editing this I realized this is one of the only chapters where Yamaguchi talks but Satou does not.

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