CGBTS Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Mount Hinayama

Novel Title: あの夏から戻れない (Can’t Go Back to That Summer)

Author：宮緒葵 (Miyao Aoi)

Illustrator：笠井あゆみ (Kasai Ayumi)

Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists: 櫛原夏生 (Kushihara Natsuo -MC) & 四辻柊 (Yotsutsuji Shuu -ML)

*Please read at knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

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And so, they were firmly warned never to enter the mountain by themselves, and Natsuo and his sister nodded obediently. The thought of wandering into a world without their family or Shuu and being unable to return was frightening enough just to imagine.

……But what is it? Why does something feel strange?

Even though he was unsettled, Natsuo went swimming in the stream with Shuu and his sister, and they enjoyed a barbecue that night. It was only after he and Shuu had crawled into bed together that he realized what had been bothering him all along.

……That’s right. When Uncle told us not to go into the mountain, Shuu didn’t nod.

Why hadn’t he nodded? Natsuo wanted to ask him, but perhaps because they had played so much during the day and were completely exhausted, he soon fell asleep. Even though the air conditioner was running, he still remembered how strangely hot the hand Shuu was holding felt.

The next morning.

Just as the morning sun was finally beginning to peek over the ridgeline, Natsuo was shaken awake by Shuu. His parents and Shigehiko seemed to have been drinking late into the night after the children went to sleep, and the cottage was completely silent.

“Let’s go to the mountain. ……Just the two of us.”

The reason Natsuo couldn’t bring himself to refuse was because he thought that, if it were just the two of them, perhaps he could get Shuu to tell him why he had been acting strangely since yesterday. Yesterday, his sister or parents had always been nearby, so they hadn’t been able to have any private conversations.

Sneaking out of the cottage without waking everyone felt thrilling, like going on an adventure, but that small excitement soon turned into regret. Despite it being early morning in the middle of summer, Mount Hinayama, which Shuu led him into by the hand, was faintly shrouded in mist. With the sky perfectly clear and blue, he was overcome by an uneasiness as though countless insects were crawling over his bare skin.

“……Hey, Shuu. What’s the matter?”

Suppressing his desire to go home, Natsuo asked, but Shuu did not answer.

“Did the guys from the neighborhood bully you again? If so, I’ll-……”

“……-Hey, Natsuo. Do you want to stay together with me forever?”

Shuu slowly turned around. His eyes, dark and murky, seemed to melt away the shadows of the dense, overgrown trees. Why was he asking something like that? Tilting his head in confusion, Natsuo nodded.

“Of course. We’ve always been together until now. I can’t even imagine us being apart.”

“Really….!?”

Shuu’s face broke into a radiant smile, and the trees around him rustled despite there being no wind. Natsuo flinched, and Shuu tightly squeezed the hand he was holding.

“Then let’s not go back to the cottage. Let’s stay here forever. Just you and me, Natsuo.”

“……What are you talking about? There’s no way we can do that.”

“We can. Because you want to stay together with me forever, don’t you?”

“That’s not how it is……!”

There was no way children could live in the mountains without a house to shelter them from the rain and dew or any food to eat. Even Natsuo understood that. There was no way Shuu, who was so intelligent, couldn’t understand it.

“Let’s go, Natsuo.”

Shuu took Natsuo by the hand and began happily climbing the narrow mountain path.

As Natsuo was pulled along, the mist grew thicker and thicker, swallowing up the surrounding scenery. The outlines of the trees faded, the sounds of insects disappeared, and he could no longer see even a few meters ahead. The breath of life that had filled the mountain to the point of being oppressive seemed far away, and in the world gradually turning milky white, only Shuu and Natsuo remained.

―――The mountains, you know, have been a realm beyond our world since ancient times. They’re another world where the rules of human settlements don’t apply.

Could it be that they were already on the verge of stepping into the otherworld Shigehiko had spoken of? A trail of cold sweat trickled down beneath Natsuo’s T-shirt, even though the mist clinging to him had robbed his body of its warmth, making him feel chilled.

Before entering the mountain, the bulletin board at the campground they had passed had been covered with several posters searching for people who had gone missing on Mount Hinayama. Perhaps those people, too, had become enveloped in mist like this and wandered into the otherworld.

“……Shuu……!”

The hand gripping his arm suddenly looked to Natsuo like a large, rough adult’s hand, and he let out a scream. Shuu stopped at last, and Natsuo desperately pleaded with him.

“Let’s go home already! If we stay like this, we’ll end up in the otherworld……!”

“……Isn’t that exactly why it’s good?”

“Huh?”

He thought he must have misheard. But Shuu was smiling. Happily. ……Almost as though he were enjoying himself.

“I want things to stay like this forever. I want to stay like this, forever and ever, together with Natsuo. For that, I wouldn’t even mind going to the otherworld.”

“Shuu…………?”

The strength with which Shuu kept pulling him was far beyond what a child should have possessed, and Natsuo was dragged along for much of the way as they climbed the mountain path. Natsuo could barely make out the shadows of the trees, yet apparently the surrounding scenery appeared clearly to Shuu’s eyes.

“If you go in from where this sign is, it’s a shortcut.”

When the sign warning of forest fires emerged from the mist, Shuu veered onto a side path. Surrounded by rocky terrain, the path felt as though it could not possibly be in the same mountain they had been walking through just moments ago.

And beyond it――there was darkness.

A darkness as deep and endless as though a night sky without a single star had been condensed into one place.

His instincts warned him that he must not go there. That if he were caught by it, he would never be able to return.

“I don’t want to, I’m scared……!”

Natsuo screamed and, with all his strength, wrenched his hand free from Shuu’s.

Shuu’s eyes widened in astonishment, but his face and body were quickly enveloped in white mist.

………No, was that really mist? 

It was almost as though monsters living in the mountain were swarming around Shuu and trying to carry him away somewhere……

“…………Shuu?”

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Next update: 2026.10.04

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