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DIVE!! (Light Novel) - Book 4 Chapter 6 - Where’s She Going?
Book 4 Chapter 6 - Where’s She Going?
This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml
Since I’m an old woman, don’t think too much about it. However, I can’t see, as lately I couldn’t see far at all. As for diving, it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s interesting, it’s just a blurry stick falling and rolling from the top of the platform. I can only understand words like “somersaults” and “twists” for a little bit, sadly.
As Aya-san continued to grumble and complain beside her, Kyouko hugged her with a “hyah!”
“Aya-san, Shibuki’s finally standing at the top!”
“Where is this top?”
“It means first place.”
“Why did that happen then, do you know.”
“Look, the current rankings are on that electric signboard over there.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s what, I don’t understand anything at all.”
Even while sternly narrowing her eyes, Aya-san didn’t seem to be all that annoyed.
“But, being at the top is a great thing. However I can’t tell the faces apart, and I only recognize the Okitsu boy. That boy is so big.”
“Yep. Shibuki really is big.”
“Even though I can’t see well, he’s a very strapping man.”
“Yep. He really is a good man.” Kyouko said unashamedly.
“Oh?” Aya-san said, looking over at her.
“Seeing him at his big moment made even I lose my heart to him.”
“Shibuki is a child of the water after all, so I understand. It was already his destiny when his name had three characters with the ‘water’ radical in them.(1) No one, not even Shibuki himself, can change it.”
“Not even you?”
“The only thing I can change is my own destiny.”
“If It can be easily changed, then it can’t be called destiny.”
“Then, only my life.”
“Did you feel like changing your life?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
While smiling a meaningful smile, Kyouko’s eyes followed Shibuki as he rose from the water and returned to the end of the line of twelve people again.
About eight months ago, Shibuki suddenly took off for the Tokyo that he had abhorred until then, only leaving word that he was “going to do diving”. Kyouko, left behind, felt like she had no idea what was going on at that time, and that she didn’t know Shibuki at all. And when he returned home in the summer because of his worsening back, he had an awful-looking face, like a seagull with injured wings.
But now, Shibuki, who was freely aiming for the top of the diving tower, definitely knew these things. The meaning in him being here. The reason why he was dancing above a pool far from his hometown.
Next is my turn to confirm things.
Kyouko corrected her seated posture and looked up at the diving platform. In truth, she felt like she had the answer a long time ago, but she thought that she would keep her eyes fixed on the tip of the concrete anyways until the very last second.
Because it was the stage where Shibuki’s dream, and her own future, hung in the balance.
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Her own future—that meant marrying Shibuki and building a family together. For Kyouko, who had unwaveringly believed in that for three and a half years, the bewilderment in her heart that suddenly arrived was an unexpected incident.
It all started with Ken’s appearance. No, Kyouko might have been the one to appear before Ken. Because Ken had been the one in that classroom from the start, and Kyouko had been the one to walk in there.
The event where she made up her mind to go to an English conversation school was only a small spark. After graduating from high school, Kyouko worked at the village supermarket with Aya-san, and though it was a simple life, they also lived pleasantly in their own way. However, as soon as Shibuki disappeared, it felt like her life had suddenly become empty. The moments where Shibuki was missing. The spaces where Shibuki was missing. Everything was too much for her. So, she tried searching for a lesson to take, and the nearest town only an English conversation school, a Russian school, and a Shaolin kenpo dojo. Kyouko chose the English conversation school, as anyone would do in all probability. That was all. Since it wasn’t a formal school, she could take breaks on days where it felt too troublesome, and if it was awful, she could quit.
Despite having that attitude at first, Kyouko ended up going to lessons once a week mostly without taking breaks. The friendliness of the small group lessons was enjoyable, and most of all she liked the way Ken taught without using a manual.
Ken, who had white skin and black hair, was biracial with an Irish father and a Japanese mother. Born and raised in the London suburbs, he came to Japan after graduating from university in order to trace his own roots. He got a job as an English conversation lecturer to settle down for a while, and now it was almost two years. When she tried to ask “Why did you come to the country?”, he answered in slow English, “Because the job offer was here. Plus, it was recommended that it was better to experience Japan through the countryside than the city.”
Ken was fluent in Japanese, but he usually only used English. He only used Japanese when he was having a very private talk. Every time Ken talked to her in Japanese, Kyouko always put herself a little on guard. Because she knew he liked her.
“Your smile is beautiful.”
“I love being with you.”
“I want to be by your side more.”
As expected of someone raised in a foreign country, he kept sending her straightforward pitches ever since they first met.
“Please be my girlfriend.”
Every time, Kyouko plainly rejected him.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a boyfriend who’s the complete opposite of you.”
As Ken was fundamentally a gentleman, he kept quiet for a while after she said that. But, after a few weeks he slowly started to get closer to her again. While she kept thinking that it might be better to quit the school, Kyouko continued to put that off. Because there was a part of her that enjoyed spending time with Ken.
She wasn’t in love with him at all. Since Ken was a gentle, straightforward young man, her heart certainly felt at peace when she was with him. Sometimes they ate together or went out for drinks with each other when they headed home from the classroom. She couldn’t really say that some of the empty spaces of not being able to talk to Shibuki sufficiently enough every day weren’t filled by Ken. But, that was purely within her mind. After all, she never even held hands with Ken, much less had sex with him.
“Kyouko’s actually staying true to her boyfriend!”
Sleeping with many men and then leaving them, sleeping and then leaving…Kyouko’s friends, who knew how she repeated that process, widened their eyes all at once when she talked about Ken. However, Kyouko wasn’t especially staying faithful; it was just that she didn’t feel like sleeping with a man other than Shibuki. She loved sleeping with Shibuki, and she loved waking up with Shibuki. She was missing that latter feeling with the men who she had a night of fun with before.
She used to think that she definitely had debauched blood flowing through her. The blood of her mother, who abandoned her when she still couldn’t remember yet and ran away with her young lover. She wasn’t as wild as her mother, but she always felt like only sex could fill something within her.
Her first partner was her homeroom teacher in her second year of middle school. Kyouko was the one who seduced him. She wanted to discover the identity of the thing that drove her mother wild as soon as possible.
I see, so this is it, she became enlightened on the first night. It wasn’t because of the pleasures of the flesh or stuff like that. The time of passion enveloped her so absolutely that no physical body was needed any longer. Herself, and someone other than her. It was like the mingling hearts and lives melted that boundary. She never thought a time like that could exist in this world.
In bed, the man was only staring at her. Touching only her, whispering only to her, and sometimes only trembled only for her sake. When she buried her face in that sweaty skin she couldn’t help but cry. It was worth waiting fourteen years for this. She finally had a way to connect with the world. She wouldn’t let go of them. This night. This time of passion.
Anyone would do, but it felt dangerous to share this time with one man too much. So when the night was over, Kyouko turned her attention to another different man. In the midst of this cycle of nights and days, she eventually happened across Shibuki.
From the first night, Shibuki was completely different from all the other men. There was not the usual breathtaking passion, but it was somewhat lighter, yet strangely pleasant. And so it was surprising that pleasantness exceeded that night, continuing even into the morning.
What on earth is this.
Why is he the only one who’s different?
Because she wanted to find that out, she slept with Shibuki many times.
When her friends got wind of that, they made a huge fuss about how “Kyouko stayed with one guy for a whole week!”
It was a week later that Shibuki took her up to a steep cliff.
“I want to show you something here.”
“What is it?”
“It’s not a big deal. I mean, almost everybody covers their eyes.”
There was hearsay that Shibuki, born into a fishing family, received a dangerous tradition. But, when she witnessed his bare upper body exposed to the winds, him staring intensely at the horizon from the edge of the cliff, Kyouko understood it for the first time. Yes, this boy surely has such distant eyes in bed. He was bound by, imprisoned by, yearning for the sea that had swallowed his grandfather and father.
Before Kyouko, who was overawed and standing stock still without making a sound, Shibuki threw his body into the waves, and as he dragged his wet body up to the cliff again, he asked her a question.
“Did you cover your eyes?”
“I didn’t.”
“But, did you want to leave me?”
“Why?”
“I’ve brought three girls here so far. I was dumped by all three of them. They said they simply cannot look at a man who does these kinds of dangerous things.”
That was reasonable. If they went out with such a man, they wouldn’t be able to feel at ease for even a second. Moreover, he didn’t look at them alone for even one moment.
While agreeing greatly with those three girls,
“Will you watch me?”
When Shibuki asked that, Kyouko nodded without hesitation.
“Even when I’m diving?”
“Even when you’re diving.”
Because that was how this boy connected with the world.
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Since then, Kyouko abandoned the times of passion in favor of snuggling close to Shibuki, supporting him as he devoted himself to diving. She was thankful for meeting her partner who she considered dear to her day and night, and thought of him as her treasure. She didn’t know how long it would be, but she would work in her current workplace until Shibuki put an end to his life in Tokyo, waiting his return while occasionally taking her lessons. And as soon as Shibuki came back, they would have sex every night, get married, make babies, buy a boat, and fish the tastiest fish on that day for everyone in the family to eat. She had been picturing that dream in her head for a long time.
That was why Kyouko herself was the one most shocked by that betrayal when her heart was swayed by Ken’s confession.
“Next month, I’m returning to Britain.”
Ken had said at the coffee shop he had invited Kyouko to, after the first lesson of December.
“I want you to come with me. First we’ll start a new life together, and once everything gets going, I want us to get married.”
Britain. Marrying Ken. It was a future that she had as much expectation for as a grain of sand on the beach, but for some reason when she heard it, Kyouko felt a wind that had never blown before blow through her chest. A fierce, rumbling roar was raised.
Kyouko, who was confused and had her bearings snatched away by this roar, inadvertently let the chance to say “no” to Ken slip away.
“Because it’s such an important decision, let me have some time to think about it.”
Ken seemed to have made a misunderstanding. She should cleanly reject him next week.
However, the following week she missed her chance to say no again, and after she went home, she went crying to Aya-san, not understanding herself at all.
Kyouko had always been a girl who rarely voiced her troubles, but whenever she reached her limit she turned to Aya-san. She had a higher opinion of her grandmother than any of her friends or teachers. Though Aya-san didn’t have any especially refined thoughts or a quick wit, she was able to rely on her because she maintained a thoroughly neutral attitude in any problem, and above all, she was a realist.
“If a man better than the Okitsu boy appears, then you should choose him. Everything depends on your own feelings.”
Aya-san said after listening to Kyouko’s story.
“However, if you are going to live in Britain, it’s better to receive only money as an assistance from that man. It would be a bother if you couldn’t move around in a faraway country. You have the money your father sent, but that’s only five million yen (2). You should take that.”
Kyouko had also heard that after her mother left their home, her father disappeared in order to chase after her, and every month he would send some money home. And that Aya-san, who worked in the town’s dry-goods store two years ago, wouldn’t lay on her hands on that money no matter what.
“Aya-san, didn’t you say you weren’t going to spend that money even if you die?”
“I won’t use it even when I die, so no one other than you will use it. Use it all.”
“But, will you be fine? If I go, then Aya-san will be all alone.”
Aya-san smiled calmly at the confused Kyouko.
“I’ve lived in this village for decades. I’ll walk around here, meet people to talk to whether I’d like it or not, and when I need to I’ll call a young person over. If I feel bored I’ll eat lunch with my friends. Okay, Kyouko? At this point in life, it is good for people to make the others around them family.”
Gently admonished, Kyouko felt a stinging pain in her chest and hung her head. It is good to make the others around them family. Yes, Aya-san had certainly lived that way. Kyouko was abandoned by her parents. She had always lived without forgetting that fact, but Aya-san was also abandoned by her son and daughter-in-law. And so for Kyouko Aya-san was the grandmother she depended on, and for Aya-san she was the granddaughter she cannot rely on…
“I understand.”
When she opened her mouth again, Kyouko had strengthened a certain resolution.
“I will go after all.”
“Going to Britain?”
“No, I’m going to Osaka first.”
“Osaka?”
“Shibuki has a competition there on the nineteenth. It’s an important qualifying trial that will decide the Olympic representatives. Aya-san, do you want to go with me?”
“If you go there, would you get your answer for whether you’re going or not?”
“I feel like I want to, and I feel like I don’t. Either way, I won’t start anything unless I meet with Shibuki.”
Aya-san was silent, thinking over something with a pensive look on her face. The only thing she mumbled was, “When did the Osaka World Expo end?”
_______________________________________________________________
Osaka.
Kyouko calmed down a little, because she was able to accomplish her goal and postpone the decision for the moment. First, she would meet with Shibuki. Until then, she did not go to the English conversation school, looked at guidebooks, and bought travelling clothes. She hadn’t left the village since her high school’s school trip, so Kyouko noticed that she was a little excited.
However, that was at most three days ago. As the day of the Osaka trip approached, Kyouko gradually became afraid of meeting with Shibuki.
What if I meet with Shibuki and still have no answer?
What if I get an answer that I didn’t expect?
I can’t believe this, but what if this is the end with Shibuki?
Her heart kept pounding on the airplane. Even when she was eating takoyaki with Aya-san, even when they got stamps at Tsutenkaku, even when they took commemorative photos with Kuidaore Tarou. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. She regretted that she didn’t confine herself to the village to meet such scary eyes. But, because that was no good she came here.
While she waited for Shibuki at the family restaurant, her heart thumped so much that her surroundings seemed garishly bright.
Wondering if she would calm down if she took something sweet, she poured syrup into her iced tea, but because her blood sugar levels increased her heartbeat sped up even more.
For an hour and a half, her heart kept on thumping and thumping until it almost couldn’t go on any longer.
And then, Shibuki arrived.
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“At that moment, the pounding of my heart just disappeared completely. I knew just by looking at Shibuki’s face. It was so simple. The only one I love is Shibuki, as expected. Ken is a good person, but he’s completely different from Shibuki. It’s like the difference between a mammal and a fern…”
The battle of destiny steadily progressed, already nearing the sixth round. Every time someone succeeded or failed, the stands were stinging with tension. But Kyouko, waiting impatiently for Shibuki’s turn, was only irritated by the other eleven’s performances.
Somebody appeared on the platform and dived, then sank into the water. Then someone appeared in place of them on the platform and dived, then sank into the water. What on earth was that all about?
With sidelong glances at their performances and scores, Kyouko affectedly told Aya-san her thoughts.
“But even so, when Ken invited me to come to Britain with him, my feelings really were wavering. While talking to Shibuki yesterday, I kept wondering, why is that, why is that. I was wondering that after we parted ways, I was wondering that while lying sleepless at night, I’m even wondering about it here and now…I feel like I finally understand it a little. I might not be attracted to Ken, but to Britain.”
Yet another competitor appeared on the platform, then sank into the water. The judges gave their scores, which were posted on the scoreboard.
“Shibuki threw himself into what he loved like that, shined on a huge stage, and if he wins this competition and becomes an Olympic representative, he’ll go farther and farther away. I don’t know how many years it’ll be before he retires. In that time, I’ll always only be waiting for him without ever changing. I wonder if that’s really okay… Maybe I also want to go to an unknown land and see something unknown, like Shibuki.”
Yet another competitor appeared on the platform, then sank into the water. The judges gave their scores, which were posted on the scoreboard.
“And so, I just thought of this a little while ago. If Shibuki wins this competition and spreads his wings out to a bigger world, I will also try to daringly fly out into an unknown land. Where to go, what to do, I haven’t decided on those things yet. But, I will be brave and try to spread my wings anyway.”
Yet another competitor appeared on the platform.
Just then, the dull concrete stage transformed into a steep cliff, and the scent of the seashore enveloped the venue. The ceiling lights turned into the sun. The pool at the bottom turned into the rough sea. The people in the seats turned into fish—.
A momentary magic.
There was only one person who could do this.
“Aya-san, it’s Shibuki’s turn.”
Kyouko flicked her gaze to the side for a moment, and shook from seeing Aya-san’s stiff face.
“No way, Aya-san. Are you nervous?”
“Hmm, no matter what happens, when the one at the top appears, everyone will look at them breathlessly. You are the one who keeps on chattering away.”
“That’s because my future…”
“That boy’s competition is more important than anything else.”
“Ah, he moved.”
The towering precipice. Shibuki advanced towards that pointed tip. It seemed like that soon, the white waves would gather, the salty breeze gliding along those wave crests, and the stem whistle of a faraway ship could be heard.
It had to be like that.
Next to Kyouko, who was suddenly enjoying herself, Aya-san was doing her nervous habit of chanting sutras.
“It’s okay, Aya-san.”
Backwards 2½ somersaults in tuck position. As she watched Shibuki turn right on the tip of the platform with his back towards the stands and entering the motions of the initiation of the performance, Kyouko put her hand on top of Aya-san’s palm.
“Because Shibuki has kept the talisman you gave him. He will surely be protected.”
“That’s not what it was.”
“Huh?”
“That was a marriage talisman.”
“Eek!”
Kyouko let out a small scream.
At the same time, Shibuki’s massive back sloped, the expectant water sparkling below him—he was being sucked into the twenty-five square meter ocean.
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Rankings as of the Sixth Round (Cumulative)
① Okitsu Shibuki (357.3 points)
② Yamada Atsuhiko (329.64 points)
③ Asama Takashi (329.64 points)
④ Sakai Tomoki (317.94 points)
⑤ Ogawa Shinobu (299.73 points)
⑥ Matsuno Kiyotaka (297.42 points)
⑦ Tsuji Toshihiko (277.89 points)
⑧ Maruyama Reiji (269.22 points)
⑨ Fujitani Youichi (268.29 points)
⑩ Moriya Kazuteru (267.48 points)
⑪ Kaburagi Shinji (261.33 points)
⑫ Nakayama Masahiko (254.76 points)
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Translation Notes
1. Shibuki’s name in kanji is 沖津飛沫. Three of those characters have the water radical (something that’s part of a kanji character) “ 氵“ in them.
2. Five million yen is about sixty thousand dollars.
