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DIVE!! (Light Novel) - Book 2 Chapter 9 - Summer Vacation
Book 2 Chapter 9 - Summer Vacation
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
“Even if you said that you have three days off, excluding coming here and going back, you only have one day to play around fully.”
“We’d looked forward to this day, so we want to spend it nonstop, as much as possible.”
In response to that request, the next day Shibuki, together with Kyouko, led the two to a nearby waterfall, where they spent the morning dripping. Kyouko, who worked at the neighborhood supermarket, had also entered her one-week summer vacation today.
For Tomoki and Youichi, they were having their summer vacation for the first time this summer, and for Kyouko she was finally having her summer vacation. However, Tsugaru’s summer was quicker to escape from than that of Tokyo’s, and though the hot weather lingered during the day, there were no swimmers in the sea because of the jellyfish that had already appeared there. Until a short while ago, even the children who played in the sea until they burnt black weren’t seen much, having moved their turf to the rivers and the mountains, or possibly catching up on homework at home.
In a child’s mind, did the waterfall have the image of “a little sad-looking place?” The area around the waterfall wasn’t very big, and it was always quiet. On this day as well there were only two girls sketching in the shade of rocks and an old person hanging their fishing pole down from a large rock in a stream.
“Wow, look at those birds!”
“Wow, look at those fish!”
“Wow, look at that dead body—”
They gave the frolicking Tomoki sidelong glances as they tread upon the wild path surrounded by bushes, and before long the whooshing roar of the waterfall brushed against their ears, which turned into a thmp-thmp sound as they got closer, and as they approached even farther it turned into a rumbling sound. The four stared at the powerful performance swooping down to the waterfall lake from the steep cliff.
“If Coach Fujitani was here, he’d say something like, ‘Know the mind of the waterfall.’”
“The old man wouldn’t say that. Well, nowadays he’s been overpowered by Asaki Kayoko’s American ways.”
Tomoki and Youichi snickered.
They watched the waterfall for a while, then they turned their backs to the roaring, the sound of water becoming a steady BGM as they went towards the stream.
The wind that blew on the stream was refreshing. Sunlight filtered through the green leaves, sprinkling a clear emerald color on them as they sat on the rocks of the stream.
“I can’t stand it anymore!”
Tomoki kicked off his shoes and socks, and shouted, “Just a little bit–!” as he dived into the stream that was only ankle-deep. No one followed after him. Kyouko turned to Youichi and eagerly asked him questions like, “Did you see any celebrities?” and “How many times have you gone to Disneyland?” Shibuki stared at his girlfriend’s profile with a bitter smile. It was an nonstop day, just as he had wished.
They had their fill of nonstop-ness and returned home, where they had their lunch of chilled soumen (1), and everyone was struck by drowsiness in the tepid early afternoon.
The four laid down side-by-side on the tatami mats, and had a pleasant afternoon nap for about an hour.
It was already two when they woke up. Tomoki suddenly spoke like he just thought of something.
“Hey, let’s go to the cliff where Okitsu-kun always dived from.”
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As its name suggested, it was definitely a very precipitous cliff.
It was a separating wall that cut off the sea and land.
The cliff didn’t let the rough, scattered wave crests come near even a little, and its tip pierced the sky at its highest—
“Is that twenty meters…?”
They walked for forty minutes from Shibuki’s house before finally arriving at the cliff, and stepped onto the rugged scaffolding that was laid down, so different from the platforms. Looking down at the sea that heaved far below, Tomoki and Youichi, who were supposed to be used to heights, held their breaths all at once, and lost their words for a brief moment. The magnetic field of the world shook unsteadily, as if the very earth itself lost its stability.
“It feels somewhat spooky. How long have you been diving from here?”
“Since I was thirteen. In the past, when the eldest son of the Okitsu family turned fifteen, it seemed that for a while they were taken to this cliff for their coming-of-age ceremony, but my Gramps broke that custom and dived from here when he was fourteen. He seemed to have stirred up plenty of disapproval, but in my father’s generation that custom had completely disappeared, but I wanted to surpass Gramps and dive here at thirteen.”
“Thirteen…that’s one-year younger than me.”
Kyouko’s provocative voice came from besides Tomoki, who was gulping deeply. “Do you want to try diving?”
“What?”
“Cut it out.”
Without listening to Shibuki, Kyouko walked forward until she was just a step away from the empty space, and crouched down at the tip, hugging her knees.
“Three years ago, when I started to go out with Shibuki, he made a declaration to everyone in the village. He announced that if there was anyone who wanted to steal me away, they should come here, become his opponent and dive from here.”
“Awesome~. That’s so cool.”
“Definitely.” Kyouko replied bluntly to Tomoki, who was looking at Shibuki with eyes of respect.
“Everyone was interested, even me. Though because of that, anyone who wanted to steal me away still hadn’t said anything yet. Apparently when stuff like that was said after a guy like that appeared, they were laughed at by Aya-san. Well, when I think about it now, Shibuki was still just a kid, but I still feel embarrassed about that.”
“So in other words, even now no one has appeared yet? No one else dived from here?”
When Youichi broke into a smile as he said that, Kyouko nodded and said, “Yep,” seemingly reluctantly.
“No one has dived here. Until today.”
“Until today?”
“When I heard that friends from the Tokyo diving club were coming here, I was really excited. I thought that that time might finally come, and that I won’t end up blushing every time I come here.”
Kyouko’s eyes were filled with expectation. Youichi skillfully avoided them and turned around to Tomoki.
“If that’s the case…”
“What, no way!”
With Kyouko’s gaze pouring onto him, it made the bottom of Tomoki’s eye twitch.
“We have to do it from here?”
“Because you’re divers, right? Surely, you feel good about it.”
“That’s just assuming things…”
“It’s alright, it’s lower than bungee jumping. Only there’s no bungee cord attached.”
“Eek!”
Compared to Tomoki who was completely backing away, Youichi was calmer.
“Thanks, but no thanks. If I get injured now, then the two weeks of training camp would all be for nothing. If I do dive, it’ll be after the Olympics, and after I check the depth of sea bottom with my own eyes.”
Kyouko raised her chin up. “Aw, that’s too bad,” she laughed. “But you, you’re pretty smart, aren’t you?”
Was it his imagination, or did Youichi’s cheeks turn slightly red?
Changing the topic quickly, Kyouko said, “let’s go back” as she stood up, her purple skirt flapping in the air.
“It’ll be dinner time at the Okitsu house soon.”
On the way home, Youichi bought up all of the fireworks from a small candy store, in order to have a firework display after dinner that day. The faces of Miyuki, Misaki, Minami, Kyouko, Shibuki, Tomoki and Youichi, which were illuminated by the dim lights of the fireworks, all resembled those of innocent children. A wind disturbing the night air extinguished the light of the candles, from firework to firework, and when the relay for stopping the spark from being extinguished began, everyone became more and more electrified, acting desperate as though they were protecting something tremendously important.
“Somehow, when we do stuff like this, it’s like we’re just ordinary friends.” Tomoki casually murmured while he drew pictures and characters on the board of darkness in front of the fireworks. Beside him, Shibuki and Youichi casually nodded, but if it was looked at from another perspective, it usually indicated that how much that they didn’t have the relationship that allowed them to be ordinary friends.
The end of the fireworks was always lonely.
Even if the fire was used up first, even if the fireworks were used up first, it was all unsatisfactory in the same way.
“Ahh…” Then they broke up suddenly while becoming silent, and Tomoki, all worn out from the excitement, fell asleep within ten seconds of returning to his room.
“Do you have a moment?”
It was after that that Youichi brought Shibuki out to the porch where the smell of gunpowder still floated.
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“I want to confirm this once.”
Youichi got straight to the point.
“Do you know that the new semester starts in four days?”
“Oh, I’ve never counted, but it’s really in four days, huh.”
“You’re saying that you’ll be coming back to Tokyo in four days.”
“…”
“You’ll also be returning to the MDC.”
“…”
“What?”
“Today, where we went…”
“Ah?”
“The first time that I flew from that cliff, I was definitely only thirteen, but it was long time up until then.”
Am I just dodging the question, or is there actually some kind of connection? While knitting his stout fingers on his knees, Shibuki falteringly spoke. From the darkened windows of the Okitsu house where the lights were quickly turned off in succession, and only the flickering dim dots of the fireflies in the shade of the grass could be seen from the porch where the two were sitting.
“In the beginning, I dived from one- and two-meter cliffs, like Gramps told me, and when he died I walked for hours on my own, trying to find a convenient cliff…once I cleared a height, I pursued techniques next. Gramps did indeed teach me the basics from the first to sixth groups, but I could only do up to 1½ somersaults. Because when Gramps died, I was still only around eight years old. I recklessly practiced the 2½ from then on, by myself. I might have hurt my back because of that, but it couldn’t be helped. I wanted to go higher, do more amazing techniques. It was our instinct to aim for the top like that. I challenged new things, failed at them, challenged them, failed at them…I dived because of that most amazing feeling when I finally succeeded.”
But then Shibuki laughed without any power.
“But Asaki Kayoko told me that the 3½ is impossible for me now. There are athletes somewhere in the world who can compete overseas without doing 3½.”
“…”
“I can’t do the 3½. I can’t strive for amazing techniques. So now, honestly, I can’t see what I’m going to do for the future.”
To Shibuki’s bitter confession, Youichi only murmured, “I understand,” and cast his eyes down. Although he was too timid to say more than that, he understood Shibuki’s feelings so well that it wasn’t really possible to put it in words.
The surging of his heart when tackling new techniques. And the sense of accomplishment when he was able to do them. Divers seeked that moment of ecstasy that makes them feel like they wanted to roll around, and so would put up with the painful and cold practices. If they had been robbed of that…
“Even I don’t know what will happen if I’m in your position. Something like this could happen to anyone someday.”
Youichi’s voice became gloomy, and in order to show that this was never someone else’s problem, he spoke about something that, until then, he had hesitated over whether or not he should tell it to Shibuki.
“It seems that Asaki Kayoko intended to teach Tomo the 4½.”
“4½?”
Shibuki murmured, flabbergasted, and then repeated it again a few seconds later. “4½?”
“Ah, when I first heard of that, I thought there was something wrong with my ears. Even Tomo himself didn’t really accept it. But during the Beijing training camp, it seemed that he gradually came to feel that way. I guess he truly felt that he couldn’t catch up with the rest of the world if he stayed as he was.”
“4½…is that even possible?”
“Even if I used up everything to my full strength, it would be impossible for me. I know my own limits. However, I don’t know Tomo’s limits. If he could pull off a technique that I absolutely couldn’t do, I might have to quit diving.”
“…”
“But even so, I still might not quit.”
“…”
“Well, I won’t know until that time comes.”
Raising his arched eyebrows, Youichi looked into Shibuki’s face.
“That time might have come for you now. Of course, you’ll be the one deciding for yourself, but I just want to say one thing. I want to dive with you again. At the competition, it was the first time that I had so much fun, and the first time that I felt so frustrated. I want to do that again.”
The sound of fireworks came from somewhere in the distance. The sounds could be heard, but the petals of gunpowder couldn’t be seen. While the night quietly grew late, the matches beneath his feet, the sunflowers in the garden, and the towels hanging on the fence—that black mouth swallowed up all of those lingering summer scents.
To Shibuki, who currently seemed inclined to be swallowed up together with them, Youichi couldn’t press the answer here any further.
“Well, for now there are still four days left. So, take your time thinking about it. But, whatever you decide to do, you should call Ooshima-san. He seemed to be really depressed.”
“He’s depressed?”
“When you decided to pull out, he cried in front of the old man. He wanted to let you go to Beijing because it was a rare opportunity, but he couldn’t do it when he thought about your future. I don’t really get it, but it seems like that Ooshima-san himself, during his athlete days, had a lot of bitter feelings. I guess there was a lot of different factors. Then, after that…”
Leaving Shibuki puzzled, Youichi stood up and came back with his backpack in his hand, which was left in the hallway.
“I have something that Asaki Kayoko entrusted to me.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll know when I give it to you.”
What appeared from the backpack was a B5 envelope, and when he opened it after receiving it, there was a videotape and letter inside.
Shibuki’s fingers shook as he ran his eyes over the label on the video.
“Okitsu Shiraha IN 1937”
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Translation Notes
1. Soumen are thin white noodles.
