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DIVE!! (Light Novel) - Book 1 Chapter 4 - Concrete Dragon
Book 1 Chapter 4 - Concrete Dragon
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
First of all I just want to say: what the heck is a “”””concentration dragon”””””
Second of all: why is no one pointing out that the subs spelled Miu’s name wrong.
Anyways, the anime was cool, I can’t wait till best boy Shibuki shows up next week. (He’ll show up next chapter) Also, editing this chapter makes me wonder what I’ll do when that scene comes, since I don’t want to spoil anyone before the anime shows it, though I don’t think it’s a big secret (maybe the circumstances surrounding it are though), so we’ll see.
Also this chapter was hell to translate, and apparently I missed a complete sentence? There’s probably a lot of iffy sentences in here, so feel free to ask me for clarification.
Also now I’m wondering if Youichi has any actual friends, like, anywhere. Book 3 seems to say that he does not.
Full list of translations here.
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Previously on DIVE!!: Very ironic title.
April. Whenever the season that cherry blossoms began to bloom arrived each year, Tomoki always remembered something that Coach Fujitani’s wife, who was a former diver, said in a spring of many years ago.
“Cherry trees have strange shapes, don’t they?”
She had said so while looking up at the cherry blossoms in full bloom. Those were probably from the row of cherry trees that stretched from Tatsumi Station to the swimming center. A layer of pale pink cherry blossom petals covered the heads of Tomoki, Youichi, Reiji and Ryou.
“They bend and twist in unexpected directions. Cherry trees really do have strange shapes.”
While everyone was watching the cherry blossoms, she was the only one focused on the deformed trunks and branches.
“However, if you think about it, it’s because cherry trees have hidden such a strange energy that they are able to make so many beautiful flowers to bloom at once. Even the cherry tree itself cannot control such an explosive energy. It probably ends up swirling around in the trunk, making it bend and twist so much.”
Though those words didn’t have an impact on Tomoki, since he was still young at the time, but as the years went on, they took on a strange weight.
The beautiful flowers and the distorted tree beneath them.
A brilliant contrast.
Even in the sports world, the more beautiful flowers that you tried to make, the more distortions that might be created elsewhere, Tomoki thought. The distortions were reflected in the athlete’s body, or their heart, or their interpersonal relationships, and something got damaged. Something was taken away.
The top athletes who were active on TV. Beneath their brilliant smiles with dazzling white teeth, do they hide a large, violently twisted tree?
If it got chopped down, will dark blood spurt out?
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“Tomo-kun, Tomo-kun.”
A sweet voice came from besides Tomoki, who was fascinated by the cherry blossoms in bloom.
When he turned to look, he saw Miu, wearing a light pink jacket perfect for cherry blossom viewing, and having an uneasy look in her eyes.
“Ah, sorry.”
“It’s okay. Tomo-kun, I thought you were sleeping with your eyes open.”
“No, I was just a little dazed…”
While hiding his awkwardness with a faint smile, he lifted himself up from lying on his back. On the vinyl sheet spread on the lawn was a colorful lunch box brought by Miu. It was sprinkled with a nice smell, like a small flower garden.
“Hey, I made a lunch box.”
“Okay.”
Only one day. Because there was only one day left of spring break, he was invited to go to Yoyogi Park in the afternoon. Since it was cherry blossom viewing season, there were couples everywhere in the park, and even the places without cherry trees were filled with the sweet scent of the blossoms. Compared to the freezing training room, this is like the Palace of the Dragon King (1), thought Tomoki as he side-eyed the neighbouring couple kissing unashamedly in the open. Or, maybe this is just the original appearance of the world, and I’m the one at the bottom of the ocean.
“Look, look, I made it with Mama. It has the side-dishes that were your top ten in the survey you took before.”
If you looked up a little from the bottom of the ocean, you could find casual enjoyment floating around anywhere.
“Tamagoyaki. Fried chicken. Viennese sausages. Spaghetti. Hamburger steak. Fried rice. Yakisoba. Onigiri. Cream croquettes. Fries. Right?” (2)
Every time Miu opened the dividers of the Tupperware, a colorful side dish appeared. It’s like we’re playing house, but I wonder if it’s too happy, Tomoki thought.
“Mama said while making it that Tomo-kun must be a very straightforward boy, because you can see it from looking at his top-ten.”
While listening to her talking, Tomoki extended his wooden chopsticks to the hamburger steak in the red box. At that moment, he shouted, “Got it!”
Miu started at his raised voice, and she almost dropped the lunchbox.
“As expected, the hamburger steak was number one. Mama and I were taking bets. Mama said it was the onigiri, but I knew it must be the hamburger steak.”
“I, I see…”
It’s a little tiring, but this is the price of happiness, Tomoki said to himself. Despite the fact that he told himself this many times, occasionally when the wind briefly turned over the vinyl sheet, he suddenly thought, I wonder what everyone at the MDC is doing right about now?
It had been three days since Tomoki started to skip diving practice.
He couldn’t even explain to himself why he absolutely did not feel like going to practice. Was it that he didn’t want to be hurt even more by Reiji and Ryou, or that he didn’t want to hurt Reiji and Ryou anymore, or that he wanted to show those two how he has been hurt enough already ?
“So, Saitou-kun from Class B was called to the art room by the art teacher Fukami-sensei. And when Oda-chan and Jin-kun were wondering what happened and went with him, Fukami-sensei yelled at them, ‘I only wanted Saitou to model for me!’ His face seemed to have turned all red too…”
The stories from school that were being spoken from Miu’s cheerful profile, as far as Tomoki was concerned, were like stories from a star that was hundreds of millions of light years away.
“Sorry, Tomo-kun. Are you not having fun?”
“Ah, not at all.”
When he turned around to say he was having fun, he met with Miu’s uneasy eyes. Her naturally wavy hair bathed in the spring sunlight. Eyelids that only drooped down for sleep. Soft petal-like cherry blossom-colored lips that seemed like they’d peel apart easily when touched.
Still, he’d never touch them. He’d never be able to feel like doing the weird things like the neighbouring couple was doing. While thinking that, Tomoki abruptly started to talk rapidly.
“Um, have you ever felt like you’re being boxed in?”
“Boxed in?”
“Yeah…I don’t know why I’m saying this…I don’t know how to say it well, but I feel like I’m in a very narrow and shallow place. If you want to see a wider place and watch TV or something, you’d see the important-looking people there, but they look like they’re in a narrow, shallow place. Sometimes, when I think about if I’d have to live in a box like that for the rest of my life, I feel hopeless. But, whenever I dive, I feel like I could overcome it.”
Oh. It was as Kayoko said—he was aiming for the top as well. He wanted to try to see the scenery from the top. However, it was an extremely vague top, it was a summit, an impression like a mountain peak rising through the clouds, and when that became complicated with the cold reality of the Olympics or the representative selection trials, it suddenly became a little stifling.
“I just wanted to overcome it, but…”
Tomoki shut his mouth there. Though he tried saying it to someone, as he did it he felt like what he was saying was terribly boring, and suddenly felt embarrassed.
However, Miu stared at him without breathing, and suddenly a smile spread across her face, like a flower bud blooming.
“It’s wonderful.”
“Eh?”
“I think the way you dive is wonderful.”
“…you think so?”
“Yes. If it’s you, you can surely overcome things that me and other people couldn’t. Whenever we look at you, we feel like we can cross over anything.”
Pale pink petals landed in her hair, shoulders, and cheeks, as if they were words trying to tell her to tightly weave them into pressed flowers or such. For the very first time, Tomoki thought that this was a very wonderful occasion. It might have been because he was happy to be praised, but he thought she was lovely.
If I only I wasn’t so awkward and hanging my head down right now, and somehow was able to tell her that honestly…this was something that Tomoki would think about many times after this.
When they parted,
“I will cheer you on when you dive, but sometimes it’s nice to switch things up and have fun, right? So, next time I go bowling with Hiro-kun and Yama-chan, Tomo-kun, you should come as well.”
If I had said “yes” to Miu’s invitation, something might have changed. He would think that again and again.
Straightforward, the word Miu’s mom used to praise the top-ten dishes of the bento.
Tomoki had been too tired from diving practice, so he had asked Hiroya to fill in the survey for him. Those were Hiroya’s favorite foods.
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“Welcome back.”
When Tomoki returned home, his father Hisashi was in the living room, engaged persistently in challenging the computer.
He had bought a laptop impulsively to begin going on the Internet. Nevertheless, before he could connect to the Internet, he got hooked into one of Windows’ card games, and thus got stuck that screen whenever he had free time. When he got tired of card games, he also got tired of the computer.
“Is it still four o’clock?”
Hisashi’s inflamed eyes went towards the wall clock, then to Tomoki.
“You’re early today again.”
“Yeah. Where’s Mom?”
“At the neighbourhood association meeting. Hiro’s at a party with friends. Were you on a date?”
“Ah…”
Tomoki widened his eyes. Seeing that, Hisashi also widened his eyes,
“Why, I hit the bullseye. It got me.”
“…”
“But you also have that half-done lie, and it’s going to get exposed soon.”
Casting Tomoki, whose ears have gone red, a sideways glance, Hisashi restarted the card game with a nonchalant face.
“Well…” Tomoki began to confess towards his back. “I skipped practice today, yesterday, and the day before yesterday.”
“Ah, I knew.”
“What, how?”
“Fujitani-sensei called last night.”
He immediately felt exhausted.
“Then, both you and Mom were playing dumb?”
“We weren’t. We were waiting for you with open arms to come and discuss it with us. But since you’re not telling us anything, that’s why I’m playing games.”
Despite having the stuffy job of designing telescopes and other things, Hisashi had a somewhat childish playfulness.
“Yeah. That was…bad.”
“Uh-huh.” Although he nodded, his eyes were affixed to the cards, so Tomoki had no idea how much he was listening.
On the contrary, thanks to that Tomoki felt it was easier for him to talk.
“Well, I’ve been thinking these days…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Doing things like diving isn’t very fun, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s nothing more than a disaster waiting to happen. I feel scared and sore everyday, I can’t sleep as much as I want because of self-training every morning, I can’t eat as much as I want because I can’t get fat, and really, I love pudding and other sweet stuff, but I always have to avoid them. Do you call the sweet part at the bottom caramel? That’s actually the best part, but since I can’t get fat I have to give it to Chikuwa. It’s like I’m working hard to cut down my own body, right? And, in the end when I worked so hard in so many ways, my clubmates hate me, and my friends at school are also leaving me quickly. I’m going to be the uncool kid who gets left out of all the latest trends!”
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you feel about what I just said?”
“Yeah…ah, I lost again.”
Hisashi placed his hands against his forehead. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. At the four second mark, he pulled himself together and turned around to look at Tomoki.
“So, what did you do to make your clubmates hate you?”
It seemed like his words have been heard, more or less. Plus, rather than latching onto the part where Tomoki was about to cry when he was talking about caramel, Hisashi had wonderfully grasped the important part that he had let loose, somehow.
“I thought they were your friends, but it must be rough, eh.”
“It’s probably because they are my friends.” Tomoki mumbled.
“Huh?”
“It’s because they are my friends they feel annoyed, bitter, and jealous when they’re lagging behind. You can’t do anything like that with total strangers.”
Because they are my friends?
While Tomoki reflected on the meaning of those words, Hisashi said, “Ah”, like he remembered something.
“Is Fujitani-sensei’s Youichi-kun one of those friends?”
“Definitely not. Youichi-kun would never be jealous of me.”
“I see. No, it’s because Youichi-kun called a little while ago.”
“He did?”
“He said he’d be waiting for you at Hakusan Park at five.”
“Five?”
Youichi was sometimes unconcerned about the other person’s convenience like that, calling people on a whim. And if Tomoki was late or didn’t go at all, it was like he’d be cursed at as a heinous villain for breaking a promise with his male comrade.
Tomoki looked at his watch. It was four-twenty. It wasn’t too late yet.
“I’ll be going out for a bit.”
Putting on the parka he had just taken off and dropping his bike keys into his pocket, Tomoki ran out under the reddening evening sky.
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It takes thirty minutes to bike to Hakusan Park from Tomoki’s house. His middle school friends would have taken the train or bus for such a distance, but Tomoki decided to put his body to use. He thought this could be taken as part of training as well. While the cool wind of dusk blew on his sweaty skin, Tomoki smiled bitterly. Even though he had skipped so much practice, he was still unconsciously thinking about diving.
Youichi calling him out like this must be because of his skipping. Because it was the first time he had been absent without notice for three days, he might have been worrying about what happened, or maybe he was just angry. Either way, Youichi’s mood would definitely worsen if he was late, so Tomoki rode his bike with full speed, only resting his feet once from pedalling on the way there.
It was when he passed by Sakuragi High.
The high school that was affiliated with Eidai that Youichi goes to. There was no need to look for the on-site diving pool, since the towering diving tower would tell you. It cut a grim silhouette in the peaceful streets away from the city center. Looking up at it from the neighbouring path was like looking at a rare mythical creature.
Tomoki would never forget the impact of passing through this path for the first time in the summer of second grade.
Five meters, seven-point-five meters, ten meters—the three heads of the beast that suddenly appeared on the other side of the concrete wall. Since there were no high buildings in the area, even now they overwhelmed Tomoki with their impressiveness. What is that, he had thought. It looked like a dragon monster that would challenge Ultraman. It was a concrete dragon!
Throwing his head back so much that it seemed like it fell off, Tomoki had sucked in a huge breath. His swelled-out chest was filled with excitement. Then a strange shadow was added on the dragon.
It was a person. A boy appeared on the dragon’s tallest head.
The boy had skin tanned from the August sun and long limbs. His face was too far away to be seen clearly, but he had a slender, firm body, looking like a majestic Ultraman who commanded the beast. A boy who tamed a dragon. Tomoki was watching when suddenly the body nimbly flew into the air.
He fell!
From then on Tomoki went nuts. Abandoning his bike, he dashed through the back gate of the school, running with all his speed towards the dragon. He was thinking that the boy would die from falling from such a height, so he needed to call an ambulance as soon as possible.
However, when Tomoki passed through the courtyard and the side of the clubroom, finally reaching the base of the dragon, what appeared before his eyes was a dazzling swimming pool, glistening in the sun; the entire form of the dragon, looking even bigger from the front; and the overhead practice scenery of the kids jumping down one after another.
Are they jumping into the pool below…?
Looking at the world hidden by the concrete wall, Tomoki felt exhausted. At the same time, he was attracted to the strange way of playing that involved flying from the head of the dragon.
“Hey, you.”
Behind Tomoki, who was standing on the poolside, someone’s voice pierced into his back. He turned around and caught the sharp gaze of a tanned boy, glistening with water droplets.
Long limbs. A balanced form. And above all, his dark skin. He knew immediately that this was the kid who had been on the dragon a minute ago.
“Um…um, I…”
He’s going to yell at me for coming in without asking…but as Tomoki slowly walked backwards, “You, do you want to dive?”, the boy said with an angry face.
“Eh?”
“If you want to dive, I’ll let you into the MDC.”
Diving. Tomoki didn’t know words like that yet.(3) However, he got the point in his own childlike way, so he instantly nodded.
“I want to join it. I want to join this place.”
Towards Tomoki’s innocent reply, the sour-faced boy flashed his white teeth for the first time.
“You’ll regret it.”
“Huh?”
“You’ll regret it a lot and become stronger.” He said while laughing—that was what Youichi had said to him six years ago.
I want to dive. Towards their son who had suddenly burst out that sentence as if he was delirious from the heat, Tomoki’s parents were unusually cautious. They had first called MDC to receive information about admission, and then they went to Mizuki Sports Club to listen to a detailed talk from Coach Fujitani. They’d also decided to visit Sakuragi High School. As a result of all this, they learned that diving was not as dangerous as they thought it was, and that it was rare for a major accident to happen as long as one was cautious and not negligent, and so they felt relieved. The Sakuragi High pool couldn’t be used in the winter, and although they had to go to Tatsumi through a bottleneck, in the end his parents agreed to let him join.
“You see, Tomo. I’ll say it now: when I was a kid, I was praised as an athletic prodigy. But, I wanted to do everything, and couldn’t put my mind to doing only one competition, and I wasted my abilities on this and that. Well, that’s what they call a ‘jack of all trades, master of none.’ Watching you and Hiro, you seem to have gotten my athletic skills, while Hiro seems to have gotten my willingness to do everything. It’s your life, so you can do whatever you want with it, but it might be good to have accomplished one thing until the end.”
And it was with those words from his dad that Tomoki started to do diving.
Even though his father didn’t mean for him to do that, when Tomoki joined the MDC, he quit boys’ soccer and English class. He had also lost interest in collecting the monster cards that he had been obsessed with, and the girl that he had liked at that time.
When he looked back on that day where he looked up at the Sakuragi High diving platform, he really felt that it was a turning point in his destiny. For the next six years, Tomoki, like Hiroya, could have been able to do whatever he wanted to do every day. But he became fascinated, sucked in, engulfed, and stolen away by the concrete dragon. He became addicted to the fears and pleasures of the world of water.
Oh no, I’m late.
While putting his pedalling feet into turbo mode, Tomoki felt he now knew a little bit of the reason why he did not want to go to practice.
Even if he was feeling awful about his friends’ words, if he was before the lush diving pool, he would have not been able to stop himself from climbing up the diving tower. He would not have been able to stop himself from throwing himself into the world of water that was filled to the brim with goodwill and malice.
Though he said all those things before, in the end he still loved diving and couldn’t leave the water. That might be something that he himself found annoying.
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“I heard about it from Reiji. He was sorry about all the bad things that happened. Ryou seemed like he’s still sulking, though, but since it’s him I feel like he’ll let it go and return to his old self eventually. But you aren’t in elementary school, so don’t skip practice over something like this.”
In Hakusan Park, which didn’t even have a tenth of the cherry blossoms that Yoyogi Park had, green buds were illuminated by the sunset glow.
Tomoki passed through the stone gate while thinking that today must be some sort of park day. He found Youichi perched on a bench in the shade of a tree.
“We’ve only got three people now.”
Tomoki sat shoulder-to-shoulder next to Youichi, and removed the black hood of his parka. Then he murmured slowly, “There’s only three people. Now, we’re thirteen-year-old boys diving in Tokyo. It’s only me, Reiji, and Ryou. Isn’t that a great thing? Among the tens of thousands of people who are the same age, we’re the only ones still diving. We know the pain of striking your body against water from a ten-meter platform…”
The pain of being swallowed by water while you faint. The skin that instantly swells up. The ache in your ear that gets stronger as you dive. The phantom lower-back pain—
“That’s why we thought we were special. Everyone’s personalities were completely different from each other’s, and I don’t think I’d want to associate with Ryou in particular apart from diving, but I thought we had something special that tied us together. So that’s why it was so shocking when those two turned the other way against me…”
Tomoki faltered at the end of his sentence, but then regained his strength.
“But, because there’s only three people, they were also pretty frustrated. While I was happy, I didn’t even think about their feelings, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Sorry, huh.” Youichi snorted. “You’re pretty soft-hearted, too.”
“Soft-hearted?”
“You’ve just won. Asaki Kayoko was paying more attention to your diving over Reiji’s and Ryou’s. Your talents were valued. There’s always a contest like this in sports. Even though everyone is doing it with that in mind, will you feel depressed every time you’ve won?”
“No, a contest is a contest, but my friends’ feelings…”
“LIsten, Tomo.”
Cutting Tomoki off, Youichi’s eyes were rippling. Usually his eyes only looked cool like that when he’s talking about diving.
“If you want to excite a hundred thousand spectators at a huge venue one day, you’ll have to forget about the one or two people beside you. If you pay attention to every single person close to you, you won’t have any energy left to excite those spectators.”
As the sun has completely set, the ultramarine of the night began to take over the red sky. It was like a fabric gradually fraying as it began to fade little by little.
Tomoki pondered Youichi’s words in his head, and suddenly smiled. If you pay attention to every single person close to you, you won’t have any energy left to feel the excitement of the spectators. Even though he said that, it was funny how he worried about Tomoki, who was close to him, and it made him happy.
“I can’t be like you, Youichi-kun, but I’ll continue diving. I don’t know what will happen with Reiji and Ryou, but I’ll try to do my best anyways.”
I’ll do my best anyways. After being troubled for three days, this was Tomoki’s conclusion.
I’ll do my best anyways. I’ll do my best anyways. I’ll do my best anyways.
Even though it really was a simple-minded conclusion, if he repeated it without being ashamed, he’d draw energy from it, in a way.
“Well, do your best anyways. If you’re not going to quit diving, there’s no reason for me to argue with you.” Youichi said without hesitation, then looked at his diver’s watch on his left hand. “Ah, Tomo. Do you still have time?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Well then, let’s go to McDonald’s. My treat. I have something to ask you.”
While saying that, Youichi had already gotten up and turned his feet towards the gate.
They sometimes went to the McDonald’s in front of the station after returning from dryland training. Tomoki, who usually refrained from eating between meals, only slacked off against his better judgement when he was with Reiji and Ryou, and placed his hand on a forbidden hamburger. Tomoki was more curious about whether even Youichi sometimes ate hamburgers, than wanting to hear what he has to say,
The two of them rode their bikes and entered the restaurant, which was crowded with students.
When Youichi went to the counter and ordered only coffee, Tomoki felt somewhat defeated. When Youichi flatly refused the temptation of “Would you like fries with that?”, Tomoki also felt a lot of self-hatred. Youichi might have been unexpectedly keeping up that constant effort, since his diving friends kept a distance from him because they thought he was “dry” and “hard to talk to”.
However, the talk that Youichi started at a table stained with the smell of cheap oil was more interesting than he thought.
“Do you know why Asaki Kayoko isn’t showing up right now?”
“I think it’s because she went to Aomori.”
“So, that’s the purpose.”
“Well, she said she had something important to do there but…ah, and she also said something about bring back a souvenir.”
“Souvenir?”
“The souvenir is a rival, or something like that.”
The souvenir is a rival. Even though it sounded funny coming out of his mouth, Youichi didn’t laugh at all, and seemed to be thinking about something.
“Youichi-kun, do you know something?” When Tomoki asked, Youichi jutted his elbow out and said, “I’ll only say it here.”
“It’s Tsugaru’s Okitsu.” He whispered those words solemnly.
“Tsugaru’s…Okitsu?”
“Ah, if my intuition is correct, he’s the guy that Asaki Kayoko will try to set up to become your rival. Okitsu Shibuki. Sixteen years old. The phantom high school diver.”
The phantom high school diver, Okitsu Shibuki—
It was genuinely the first time that Tomoki had ever heard of that name. Regardless, not only was that name odd (4), but it also instinctively excited him somewhere within. At the moment Youichi spoke that name, Tomoki wondered why he was suddenly feeling so hot, and gripped the paper cup of his iced tea with both hands tightly.
He indented the paper, as the tangible feeling of ice spread to his palms.
As he listened to Youichi talking about his rival, Tomoki held the paper cup that partitioned off the ice until his fingertips became numb.
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Translation Notes
1. The Palace of the Dragon King is the mythical undersea castle of the Japanese dragon god of the sea Ryujin. It appears in the myth of Urashima Tarou, where a turtle takes him to the undersea palace for three days, but it turns out that 300 years had passed in the future.
2. Tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette), hamburger steak (beef shaped into patty), yakisoba (fried buckwheat noodles)
3. So throughout this flashback Tomoki keeps using the word “ダイブ” (daibu), which is how Japanese people would say the English word “dive”, but Youichi uses “飛込み” (tobikomi), which are the kanji characters for “dive”. Tomoki was probably too young to know what they meant back then.
4. Shibuki (飛沫) means splash, so his name is literally “Splash Okitsu” lmfao. His grandfather, father, and little sisters have sea-themed names as well.
