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DIVE!! (Light Novel) - Book 3 Chapter 7 - Meet The Monster
Book 3 Chapter 7 - Meet The Monster
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
November 4th, nine a.m. The south entrance of the JR Shinjuku Station (1) was crowded late-commuting salarymen and office ladies, couples who looked like students, and people who don’t seem to know what they were doing. Youichi, dressed in a thin black sweater and casual jeans, and slipping through the ticket gate quickly, would also seem like one of those people who didn’t what they were doing to an observer.
It was a bright and pleasant morning. The sky was clear, and the sun shone with a moderate body warm-up-ish light, like it was a diver preparing for its performance in the afternoon. The people walking down the road were still dressed in light autumn clothing, but beneath their feet, the cold wintry wind drew small swirls, already signalling the arrival of winter.
Youichi walked straight forward on the Koshu Kaido (2) that stretched from the station to the government offices. Even he knew the way he was walking—directly forward—was awkward and jerky.
It took ten minutes to walk to the hotel of his destination. The promised time was exactly ten o’clock. Even though there was plenty of time, Youichi’s feet moved forward like he was a robot that ignored time allocation. If he slowed his pace down forcibly, he felt like he’d come to a halt in the valley between the skyscrapers, and no longer be able to move his feet forward again.
He was nervous. He was as nervous as if this was right before the final dive of a competition he absolutely couldn’t lose.
That person is waiting.
Just thinking that made Youichi’s heart beat faster.
The time had finally come.
Regarding Youichi’s appeal to see Chairman Maebara, Keisuke had called it “extremely absurd” and that it was “impossible to set up.” Chairman Maebara controlled the entire Japanese water sports world, which not only included competitive diving, but also competitive swimming and water polo. There was no reason for him to spare some of his precious time just for a mere high school diver. Youichi himself knew how reckless this endeavour was, as Keisuke emphasized repeatedly. Nevertheless, he refused to give up on that reckless endeavour, because in his mind he was thinking that it was impossible for such a preposterous thing, like having Olympic representatives suddenly fall from the sky one day, in this world.
Youichi kept on persisting, but Keisuke hardened his stance. Their relationship became more strained by the day, and that didn’t lead Yoriko, unable to put up with being stuck between the two of them, to support Youichi, they might have continued this cold standoff forever.
Yoriko, who had been neutral until then, had a very simple reason for why she came to be Youichi’s ally for the first time.
“Your father has watched from the poolside how you are suffering from your slump. I have been watching from this room as well. The room is closer, and I can see how completely lifeless your eyes are better from here. You’ve asked for a favor that made your eyes shine like that after such a long time. No matter how crazy it is, isn’t it just like a mother to want to grant it to you?”
Youichi had no idea when and where she persuaded Keisuke. Keisuke, who knew Youichi’s disposition to not yield once he proposed something, might have expected this conclusion from the very beginning.
Nonetheless, even after writing an impressive-seeming petition to the chairman, he continued to show that he did not approve of Youichi’s “extremely absurd” act. Every time Youichi saw his face, he felt like he’d fall into the deep wrinkles carved between his brows.
Youichi had no idea when and where Chairman Maebara looked over Keisuke’s letter and accepted the meeting. If anything, it seemed that the assistance of Yoriko, who worked at the JASF, was a bigger help than Keisuke’s letter. For the first time, he was aware of the “blessing” of having parents who were well-known in the diving world.
In any case, fourteen days after he visited Tomoki, he finally got his desired reply.
Two weeks from Thursday, Chairman Maebara will be interviewed by several magazines in a room at a certain hotel in Shinjuku. He could only leave one hour before the interview aside for Youichi.
The message he brought from his mother to Chairman Maebara was the first flake of snow that he himself sent down.
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When he saw the white walls of the designated hotel, the watch on his wrist still indicated that it was nine thirty-six. It’s like I’m an anxious student about to take an exam, Youichi thought, ashamed of being twenty-four minutes too early. If he was going to come, he might as well be like Musashi who kept Koujirou waiting (3), and arrived comfortably late. However, unlike Musashi, Youichi was confined to the given time of the battle.
In order to calm his nerves, he killed time by walking one lap along the streets that surrounded the hotel. When he thought about how everyone at school would be in class around this time, he felt like he had come to a somewhat terrifying, distant place. Youichi couldn’t surmise what kind of person Chairman Maebara was, but he didn’t seem like someone who honoured the common sense that high school students shouldn’t be absent from school.
Maebara Ichirou. Seventy-eight years old. A former competitive swimmer who although was one of the leading figures in creating a swimming boom in post-war Japan, never participated in the Olympics. It seemed that person was more complicated than he thought, as Youichi received differing advice from both Kayoko and Yoriko.
“In the outside world, he’s called a medal ghoul, but he rather gives off the feeling of a monster. At any rate, he’s strange. He is so powerful he doesn’t seem like he is near eighty, and if you are careless, he’ll knock you down, so be careful.”
Kayoko seemed to have been acquainted with the chairman, and when she learned that Youichi was going to go meet him, she warned him, half-threateningly, half-amusedly.
Rather a monster. A strange person at any rate…
And so, the seeds of bewilderment were planted, with Yoriko sprinkling the fertilizer on them.
“Generally speaking, there are many differing ways to assess him. Medal ghoul, self-righteous, fascist…the different malicious gossip around him cannot be suppressed, but the ardent devotees who idolize him cannot be suppressed either. As for me, I have been in his anti faction ever since he touched my butt at a competition where he was a judge, during my athlete days.”
“They didn’t have words like ‘sexual harassment’ back then,” Yoriko said, with her eyes seeing the distant past.
“But well, one thing is certain. Chairman Maebara is more well-versed in diving than anyone else in the JASF. Some say that because he is a former competitive swimmer, he doesn’t know diving, or that he does not put effort into the sport of diving, but that is not the case. He knows diving very well, perhaps he even loves it.”
He was startled when he heard the word “love” from his mother’s mouth.
To Youichi, who reflexively looked away, Yoriko held out an old booklet. The handmade booklet was bound with large staples, and on the yellowed cover, the title “Diving Manual” was handwritten in stern-looking letters.
“This booklet was made by the chairman twenty years ago. At that time, he was teaching swimming at a university while serving as a committee member for competitive swimming at the JASF, and though he was sometimes urged to be a judge for competitions, he had nothing to do with diving. But for some reason, he made this book. At that time, as well as now, because books written on diving were non-existent, I was ecstatic when I received this from my coach. You’d know if you read it, but its descriptions are really detailed. Of course, at the time I didn’t care who wrote it. A few years ago, I suddenly remembered it and looked over it, when I saw Maebara Ichirou’s signature in the author’s field, I was truly shocked.”
From that day onwards, Youichi kept turning over the pages of that booklet every night before he slept.
Diving events. Rules. History. Training methods. Recent overseas news—.
Not only did Chairman Maebara’s pen spell out those topics precisely, with regards to matches he also touched on noteworthy things in diving competitions, and the complex psychology of the athletes. The page that explained the events was accompanied by illustrations that in no way can be called skilled; the diver diving from the platform looked like a dragonfly, and depending on one’s point of view, like they’re leaping towards their death. Yoriko might have felt the love there, but to Youichi’s eyes it looked quite surreal, and it seemed to have made him unable to sleep.
It wasn’t just the strange illustrations that made it difficult for him to sleep.
The Maebara Ichirou who made this book twenty years ago, and the current Chairman Maebara who adhered only to medals, did not resolve well at all inside Youichi’s head. If one of them was a mask, then it’s a big deal, and if both of them were genuine, then he really was a monster.
These sprouts of bewilderment were quickly nurtured within Youichi, and thus somewhere in his heart, he gradually became afraid of his desired meeting with Chairman Maebara.
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When he walked one lap around the hotel and stood in front of the front entrance once again, the hands on his watch indicated that he had about ten minutes left before the arranged time. He didn’t plan on going exactly at ten, and it might be effective as psychological warfare to go a little bit earlier to catch the enemy off-guard. Usually, Youichi was the type to slowly count “one, two, three” right after the whistle was blown before stepping forward, but sometimes he purposely started early to catch the judges off-guard and get them to pay more attention to him.
But here on the land, there was no water that would catch Youichi no matter what mistakes he made. If he failed, he’d fall all the way down into the depths. He was resolute, and while mustering up courage for his unusually cowardly self, he ended up loitering around the lobby floor until the very last minute.
Just before he got on the elevator, he realized he needed to go to the washroom badly because of stress.
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Translation Notes
1. JR stands Japan Railways, a group of companies that operates Japan’s railways
2. Koshu Kaido is one of five routes built during the Edo period to connect Edo with Kai Province
3. This is referring to the famous duel between Koujirou Sasaki and Musashi Miyamoto, where Musashi was three hours late in order to psych out Koujirou.
