Volume 1 Chapter 1 (1/2)

After doing a great deal of searching through a few sites including カクヨム () and 小説家になろう () I found a great series of short stories called “Final Days of Sumer” (残夏)by Hashi+ba Masaki (羽柴柾) While it is still a work in progress, I feel that the stories that have been finished are great enough on their own to be translated regardless of when the author writes the remainder of the stories

I’ve gotten per, and he was very excited about the possibility of his work being translated to English

As for the genre of this work, I’ll just say it seeradually creep in and eventually things get a little out-there I have written a synopsis which gives away a little bit of the beginning of the story and talks about the series in a general sense I highly reco it after you read the translation of the first part, so I have put the synopsis at the very bottoet a taste of what is ahead

I have a few other older stories I a back to do more chapters, and a fe ones as well, so any feedback on this story will help ies You can vote for this story on my survey , or even better you can leave a comment on this post, or like it

Thanks to Niji this chapter

As each of the short stories are a bit lengthy, I’ll be breaking them into sizeable chunks You can see the entire first short story in its original japanese

Story 1: Stargazer (Part 1)

It's been quite a long time-nearly 10 years-since I last set foot on this beach

I've been in the same company for 8 years now Ecstatic that they finally let me have my own project, I failed to pay attention to the heavy responsibilities that go hand in hand with being a projectas I had hoped Toooverti in a conference room, unconscious Hence, this impromptu summer sabbatical

I'm sure everyone has lost faith in ht about this,Even worse than the frustration was a terrible sense of futility, per every cell of my body

Ever since I had begun this little vacation, it was painful each ti businessman when I was out soet any rest for ht and returned to the village where I was born I guess you could say I had siet as far away from that company as possible

I could describe e by the sea abundant with beautiful nature” But you could just as easily call it ”a Godforsaken place in the middle of nowhere”

Of course, there were no supermarkets around, and the convenience store 15 ht tears toonly the sound of leaves rustling and birds chirping Then, in earlyand farm work…It was a typical country town like you would find anywhere

Accustoet restless soon after arriving Around that time I re If I remember correctly, there was a sed stones…Oh, and there were many shells strewn about Back then I used to walk around and collect them

I think I'll go and visit that beach once more

Before I knew it, I already was on the way there

A distance close enough to reach with a child's legs would be even easier for an adult's I sifted throughin search of that beach As I traversed the twilit roads, ely faded and were replaced by feelings of elation

There was the beach, exactly as I remembered it Its pure white sand stood out in stark contrast to the surrounding jagged mountains, with nued-except that it all looked srown in these years

On the way to becohts and sounds of radually vanished Actually, I had only thought they all vanished-that is, until I returned here Even though I had changed so much, this place was exactly the same It was as if this beach had so about that made me extremely happy

Unable to contain ht there and dipped my feet into the chilly ocean water As if in response to my steps, ripples expanded on the surface of the water around ot soaked from the water spray Pure joy bubbled up from soh

This felt wonderful Listening to the sound of water splashi+ng was really soothing

”Achoo!”

A sneeze?

I i wildly around in the water and looked around It was then that I realized there was a e rocks, and I felt my face burn with erown s and thrashi+ng around on the beach at night I rushed out of the water and recovered my socks and sneakers

In any case, I had to get out of here quickly But if this guy told anyone else about what he just saw…That fear stopped h, I quickly approached the man and sat down next to him

”If you'll excuse me…”

”Go ahead”

He answered in a soft voice, without so lance in my direction After that, he simply stared intently into the star-strewn sky in silence The uess it was because of the shock of seeing me like that

Beginning to grow suspicious, I gawked openly at hi full well how rude it was It was then that I finally realized how strange his appearance was

His grayish blonde hair extended to his shoulders, and his overcoat sported baggy, thick sleeves that loosely wrapped a slender figure Bare legs protruding fro about this guy screa out of touch with the seasons-or with reality itself-and this somehow piqued my curiosity

”Hey……why are you here?”