This is so awkward…
There was no better word to describe the atmosphere between me and Miyagi.
On the last day of summer break, I touched her in ways I never had before and heard unfamiliar sounds from her. Still, all I did was touch her chest a bit, and I barely heard her voice.
But either way, things felt incredibly awkward between us now.
We sat by her table with our textbooks open and homework spread out, but instead of getting anything done, it was clear we were just trying to gauge each other’s feelings.
「Hey, say something already.」
I said as I tossed my eraser at Miyagi, who had been silent this whole time.
Today was my first visit since whatever happened last time. The atmosphere in the room felt strange, making it impossible for me to calm my nerves.
「How about you say something instead, Sendai-san?」
Miyagi, sitting across from me, responded coldly and threw the eraser back at me. I picked it up as it rolled across the table and used it to erase some words that didn’t need erasing.
Summer didn’t end just because our vacation was over. Despite it being September, the heat persisted. It was still hot enough to enjoy ice cream, and air conditioning remained a necessity.
The temperature in Miyagi’s room felt just right.
It wasn’t hot enough to justify removing either Miyagi’s clothes or my own. Naturally, there was no reason for me to touch Miyagi, and no opportunity for it either.
It had only been a few days since the start of the new school semester, and yet here I was, with my mind in the gutter.
I wasn’t planning to do anything to Miyagi today.
There was no reason for an atmosphere like that to develop between us anyway.
Well, that goes without saying.
We didn’t have the kind of relationship where we’d have sex with each other, so there was no reason for that sort of atmosphere to arise between us.
―― So, why?
I couldn’t deny that I was thinking about being intimate with Miyagi when we did what we did the other day. I wasn’t particularly surprised by my desires either. Everyone had sexual desires of some sort, and Miyagi was likely no exception, so I didn’t find it strange to have those thoughts.
But why did I have to have those kinds of desires toward Miyagi of all people?
「What are you looking at me for?」
Miyagi asked, her tone colder than usual. Her icy gaze only added to the discomfort. I knew it was just a front and wasn’t overly worried, but her attitude still left me feeling weighed down and a bit disheartened.
「Can I not look at you?」
I replied, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible.
「No.」
「Okay, fine.」
I dropped my gaze towards my textbook.
“Do my homework for me.”
If only Miyagi had given me an order like that; it would have helped distract me. Instead, she was focused on her own homework. I had my own assignments to tackle, but I couldn’t concentrate on the problems in front of me. Before I knew it, my mind was wandering, replaying memories of Miyagi.
Even if I could forgive myself for having these thoughts, accepting them was still difficult.
Forcing myself to confront the fact that I had these desires for Miyagi was something I never expected.
I could still recall the feeling of Miyagi’s chest in my hand.
I clenched my right hand tightly, leaving fingernail marks on my palm. After a moment, I relaxed my grip, lifted my head, and rolled my eraser towards Miyagi.
「Are you sure I can’t look at you, Miyagi?」
「Aren’t you already doing it? Also, why are you even going out of your way to ask me this?」
「Because earlier, you told me not to look at you.」
「Whatever. More importantly, get back to your homework, Sendai-san.」
「I will, as long as you tell me I’m allowed to look at you.」
My eraser was not returned to me.
Miyagi wore a displeased expression on her face.
「Didn’t I say you weren’t allowed to look at me earlier?」
「Well, you didn’t explicitly say I wasn’t allowed to.」
When I nitpicked her, Miyagi frowned and, clearly annoyed, stood up to grab a manga volume from her bookshelf.
「If you’re not going to do your homework anyway, why don’t you read this instead?」
She said as she placed the book on the table.
「I just bought this yesterday, so it’s something you haven’t read before.」
I couldn’t understand why she was so opposed to me looking at her. It seemed like she was suggesting that if my eyes had to wander, I might as well read the manga instead of staring at her face.
Seeing Miyagi react like this was pretty cute.
But it wasn’t anything that stirred up any lustful feelings.
Miyagi was just an ordinary girl – there was nothing particularly remarkable about her. When we were classmates, she was merely an inconspicuous, plain girl in my class, and now she was still just as unremarkable – only this year, she was in the classroom next door.
To be more precise, while she didn’t stand out much, she wasn’t exactly normal either. Normal people wouldn’t order someone to lick their feet or bite them hard enough to draw blood.
When I put it that way, it actually sounds pretty awful, huh.
For me to feel attracted to someone like that, I must have a few—no, several—screws loose myself.
I shouldn’t let myself indulge in those feelings again.
While I did want to touch Miyagi again, even if I had the chance, nothing more would come of it. I had faith in myself. I didn’t want to delve into why those screws in my head had come loose, nor did I need to. Besides, even if I did want to touch her, she was sitting too far away.
「Are you not going to read it?」
Miyagi tossed my eraser back at me.
「I’ll read it next time.」
「When is “next time” supposed to be?」
「That’s up to you, isn’t it, Miyagi?」
“I guess that’s true,” Miyagi said, closing her textbook. However, she quickly reopened it and mumbled,
「… Actually, I didn’t think you’d come today, Sendai-san.」
Her offhand comment lingered awkwardly in the air.
As if to break the sudden silence, the only sound that filled the room was the rustling of textbook pages, which gradually faded away.
「Why did you think that?」
「Because of what happened last time.」
「Honestly, I didn’t expect you to ask me to come over again after that either, Miyagi.」
I was genuinely surprised that Miyagi invited me over today.
I really thought she wouldn’t contact me anymore after the new school semester started.
「It’s not like you broke any rules or anything.」
She closed the textbook she’d been fidgeting with.
Technically, what happened last time ended as just an attempt.
Since we didn’t actually go all the way, I suppose we never really broke the rule against having sex with each other. That being said, I wasn’t entirely sure what counted as sex between women.
「Then why are you sitting all the way over there instead of next to me?」
Not wanting our first conversation of the day to end, I decided to ask what had been on my mind for a while.
Recently, Miyagi had gotten into the habit of sitting next to me rather than across from me.
「Because I can’t trust you anymore, Sendai-san.」
She answered bluntly, and in my mind, I couldn’t help but agree with her.
I couldn’t refute her claim. However, Miyagi didn’t seem to reject me either. I wanted to mention that, but fearing that Miyagi would become silent again if I did, I kept the words to myself.
「Let’s just finish our homework already.」
Miyagi said something unusually serious for her.
However, instead of filling in the pages of my notebook, my thoughts were entirely occupied by the Miyagi sitting in front of me.
Ave Lilium Translations 
26 responses to “[Part 65] Miyagi’s All I Can Think About Today (I)”
Woo!
“I guess that’s true,”
Is there a reason that uses normal US quotation marks, and not whatever those brackets are?
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I just followed the original text for that section, which said:
「今度来たときに読む」
「今度っていつ？」
「それは宮城が決めることでしょ」
そうだけど、と宮城が言って教科書を閉じる。でも、すぐにぺらぺらと教科書を捲りだして、ぼそりと言った。
「I’ll read it next time.」
「When is “next time” supposed to be?」
「That’s up to you, isn’t it, Miyagi?」
“I guess that’s true,” Miyagi said, closing her textbook. However, she quickly reopened it and mumbled,
—
I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not familiar enough with Japanese writing conventions (heck, I barely know anything about writing in English, lol) to know why it was divided like that. I could’ve rewritten it with the brackets and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
However, one of the reasons why I keep the formatting largely the same is for anyone who is trying to read my translations alongside the original text. I can’t imagine that many people do this, but I figured it might make it easier to follow for those interested in learning a bit of Japanese and for them to see why I write certain things the way I do.
And when I say formatting, I mean almost all paragraphs are broken up the same way as the original text. I hardly merge paragraphs together even if they’re highly relevant to each other or rearrange the order the sentences are presented even if it was better if I did. I definitely do NOT write ShuuKura in the format of a regular English novel (like you’d see in official English releases), and that’s partially because I don’t have much confidence in myself to write it that way – because I don’t know how to!
Even if I did know how, I feel that part of the charm of fan translations is their effort to remain true to the original text and sometimes culture (no bias, I swear).
Sorry I ended up going on a tangent. This ended up a lot longer than I expected, and not only that, I didn’t manage to answer your question either.
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Thank you for such a detailed reply! I have no criticism. I had assumed it was likely an error, but your reasoning makes sense. I have no idea why the Japanese would be like that, either. And you did answer my question as best you could, I think: your translation is irregular because the source is irregular, and you tried to follow that as best you could.
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I love the way you’re translating and formatting it. It honestly makes it feel like I’m reading the original source, just in english.
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I’m definitely not reading this ksksksks
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in the raws, it’s probably bc some Japanese alphabetical letters uses what appears to look like quotation marks to differenciate the pronunciation. it’s probably written in those brackets to not confuse Japanese readers/learners.
as for why it was rewritten in those brackets: well it’d be the translator’s choice so i don’t really know :’). but it does have a nice charm to it!
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Isn’t it because it’s something like a mumble? Because it’s kind of like an offhand comment and doesn’t need a follow up? That’s how I see it anyway.
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Same here, I interpreted it as her kind of speaking under her breath or something.
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because it’s a thought, not speech
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nvm i should’ve read more carefully before answering
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The way I interpreted it is that it was supposed to imply that it was said in a low voice. Maybe there was no other way to express that with those brackets.
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Thanks for the chapter!
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lmao Sendai trying to cope with gayness 😂
Thank you for the translation!
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thanks for the translations as always! <33
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Thanks for the translation!
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Thanks so much for getting back to this. This couple is super endearing, but I have often found that, aside from other glaring deficiencies, the MTL doesn’t do them justice and is desperately in need of a sympathetic interpretation.
Maybe I just want to read with rose-colored glasses, but I hate it when Miyagi comes across as more nasty and cold than your typical tsundere/kuudere needs to be, without any sort of interpretive translation revealing what she is thinking and feeling behind her words.
It’s not true in every case, and readers can easily interpret Miyagi’s, “I won’t”, or “It’s all Sendai’s fault” as being cutely stubborn or irrationally oppositional, without further elaboration. But there are least a few times where the MTL really makes Miyagi come across as unnecessarily dislikable, for lack of clarity about her anger, jealousy or insecurity that is the painful source of her words and actions.
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Yeah, I agree that these two make a pretty endearing couple, particularly because they seem to be on the same wavelength despite their outwardly differences.
I don’t think pushing Miyagi towards any one “dere” category does her character justice at all. She is the prime example of “hurt people hurt people.” Although her mannerisms come off as cold and cruel, that’s not who she is or what she wants to be. To me and what I see from the text, Miyagi is actually just a timid, ordinary girl who may behave… quite strangely in the face of the unknown.
I won’t deny that Miyagi’s actions are pretty cruel at face value, so without proper translations of her thoughts, inner monologues and cognitive dissonances, it’s hard to see her as anything other than that. Such nuances are easily lost when it comes to machine translations.
I hope I’ve been able to portray her character properly so far. I think both Miyagi and Sendai’s complex inner thoughts and feelings and their little game of chicken are what makes this slow burn so interesting.
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I think you’ve done a brilliant job of portraying both of their characters. I honestly struggle not to praise you too much lol. You don’t know how ridiculously happy I am that you decided to continue this translation. I just finished rereading the MTL to where it currently is and being able to come back here and read yours is so damn nice. While I sincerely appreciate the MTL it’s kind of like skimming the surface while reading yours really gets into the depth of their characters and emotions. I actually love it this way. I’ve never experienced being able to read a story two different ways like this and I really, super appreciate your translation providing a much deeper look into them.
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If you get into that sort of thing, there are a lot of works with multiple translations. Particularly older classics like Homer, with translations over the centuries. Sometimes manga will have multiple fanlators, or fan + official translations (like Frieren, or Girl Friends). Though those can get frustrating, when the different translations differ at a basic level (like removing a negation, or who did something) and you can’t tell which is right.
(Though with Frieren I have access to the raws, and have just enough Japanese to sometimes be able to tell who’s right. Annoyingly, both translations have made basic mistakes.)
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Exactly, in the MTL she sounds unnecessarily cold and uninterested. I’ve gotten used to it now, after 350 plus chapters, and think I have a better grasp of the true meaning behind her words in that translation. But it is so damn refreshing to read this one and see what she is actually saying and thinking. It’s a much deeper look into her thoughts and feelings.
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Can’t believe it took me this long to notice how back we were! Thanks for the chapter!
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Thanks for the translation!
Oh she finally realized huh. Yeah, you’re not that normal either you know. 😭
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“Because I can’t trust you anymore, Sendai-san.”
And Sendai agrees with Miyagi lmao! She can’t trust herself either to keep her hands off of Miyagi!
They’re so adorable in all their disfunctional gayness.
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I’m pretty sure this is the first time one or both of them has finally admitted their feelings for each other. All in all a pretty memorable chapter.
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sendai’s typical incredibly reasonable rational logical thinking… yes no screws loose for sure… definitely very steady sendai
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finally getting caught up after reading for like 4 days straight
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