CGBTS Chapter 8

Chapter 8 – The Residents

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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Natsuo tried stamping his feet a few times, but he wasn’t struck by any dizziness. Shuu, looking relieved, urged him outside onto the veranda, and the boy, who had been idly swinging his legs, let out an excited cheer.

“Awesome! This is the first time I’ve ever seen a stray person other than Big Bro Shuu and Uncle Yoshikawa!”

“Hey, Kazuo. What kind of attitude is that toward someone you’re meeting for the first time? You should introduce yourself properly first, shouldn’t you?”

“Oh, sorry. ……Hi, I’m Kazuo Sawada.”

After Shuu shot him a glare, Kazuo hopped down into the garden and bowed. He glanced sideways at Shuu as if asking, ‘Is this good?’, and Shuu nodded with an exasperated sigh.

Natsuo was secretly surprised by their casual exchange. The Shuu he remembered had been shy around strangers and rarely became close with anyone other than his family and Natsuo, but he seemed remarkably comfortable with Kazuo.

……He even calls him ‘Big Bro’.

Over those ten years, Shuu had built his own relationships with people in places Natsuo knew nothing about. …But of course he had. Natsuo had also spent those ten years associating with friends other than Shuu. He had no right to blame Shuu for it.

“……Hello. I’m Natsuo Kushihara.”

Suppressing the complicated feelings churning inside him, Natsuo bowed as well. Kazuo smiled happily and nodded repeatedly, as though savoring the name over and over in his mind.

“Natsuo, Natsuo…… You’re Big Bro Natsu, right? Nice to meet you! If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask me anything. You’re going to be living here from now on, after all.”

“Huh…”

“―――Kazuo, this is right before the meeting with the village chief. Don’t say anything unnecessary.”

Warned in a low voice by Shuu, Kazuo shrank his neck and then shouted that he was going ahead before running off.

……What does he mean, I’m going to be living here from now on?

It bothered Natsuo, but even if he asked now, Shuu probably wouldn’t tell him.

Giving up and letting out a sigh, Natsuo found that Shuu had neatly placed his shoes in front of him. They were the hiking shoes Natsuo had arrived in. Shuu must have taken them off him and kept them somewhere safe. Come to think of it, what had happened to the backpack he had been carrying? It contained emergency food, a change of clothes, his smartphone, and other things, so Natsuo hoped Shuu was keeping it somewhere safe.

“Let’s go, Natsuo.”

After putting on his shoes and stepping down into the garden, Natsuo found Shuu holding out his hand. The large, knobby hand had grown so much that it seemed like it belonged to an entirely different person compared to ten years ago. It was the hand of a grown man.

Because Natsuo had pulled away from this hand, they had been forced to spend ten years apart. If they held hands again now, only to let go…

“Ah…”

Taking Natsuo’s hesitant hand, Shuu intertwined their fingers and gave him a wry smile.

“You’re worried that I might disappear again, aren’t you?”

“…How did you…”

“When it comes to you, I know everything. It’s always been that way, hasn’t it?”

That was true. Whenever something unpleasant or something wonderful happened, even when his parents failed to notice, Shuu could easily see right through him. When Shigehiko had told him about the youkai called a satori, which could see through people’s hearts, Natsuo had even wondered if Shuu might have inherited satori blood.

“……You…… You really are Shuu, aren’t you?”

“What? You still weren’t convinced?”

“No, it’s not that…… I realized that even though you’ve grown so huge that you look like a completely different person, you’re still Shuu. And that made me happy.”

“…I see.”

Shuu narrowed his green eyes and tightened his grip on their intertwined fingers.

“It’s all right, Natsuo. I’m not going anywhere anymore. If our hands come apart, we can just hold them again.”

“Shuu…… I see. You’re right.”

After laughing together for a while, the two of them walked through the garden.

The moment they passed through the old-fashioned gate made of black-painted wooden beams and stepped outside, Natsuo almost froze in place. An elderly woman and a middle-aged woman were staring intently at them from behind the wall of a house some distance away. Even after noticing that Natsuo had caught them staring, rather than retreating into the house, they narrowed their eyes as though determined to figure out exactly what he was.

“They’re just curious because you’re unusual. If you pay attention to every little thing, it’ll never end.”

Natsuo quickly understood what Shuu meant by his warning. From all over the settlement, where single-story houses stood sparsely scattered—too desolate to really be called a residential neighborhood—the residents were peering at Natsuo.

They never tried to approach him or speak to him. Yet their assessing gazes clung to him from head to toe and never went away.

……Something feels strange, isn’t it?

It wasn’t just the residents. Everything Natsuo saw felt wrong somehow.

The ground beneath his feet wasn’t paved; reddish-brown earth lay exposed everywhere. The utility poles were simply untrimmed tree trunks with their branches and leaves removed, and there weren’t even any streetlights attached to them. There wasn’t a convenience store, nor could he find even a privately owned shop. Instead, the fields scattered throughout the area were lush with summer vegetables such as eggplants, tomatoes, and cucumbers, growing in abundance.

If he had to compare it to anything, it resembled the rural town where Natsuo’s grandparents lived. But even there, the roads were paved, and because public transportation couldn’t be relied upon, every household had at least one car. Yet as far as Natsuo could see, there wasn’t a single car parked at any of the houses, and of course, there were none driving on the roads either.

The people working in the fields used iron hoes and mattocks, and there were no tractors or anything like them. Cultivating all that land entirely by hand looked like it would be an exhausting amount of work.

“……A stray person.”

“It’s been a while since Shuu…… Since someone like that came along. He’s young, so how about that girl from the Hatano family?”

“Shuu should be first, surely. Sawada’s daughter would be a good match in age, but unfortunately, her temperament is…”

The residents whispering among themselves were dressed strangely old-fashioned as well. More than half of them wore kimono; the rest either paired kimono with monpe work trousers or wore yukata. Even Natsuo’s grandparents would probably be dressed more fashionably than this.

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*GLOSSARY: 

• Satori, the youkai: A satori is a mind-reading, ape-like youkai from Japanese folklore that lives deep in the mountains.

☝🏻Satori (I don’t wanna post this pic initially because I’m scared of them, but whatever…)

☝🏻Kimono 

☝🏻Monpe work trousers

☝🏻Yukata 

Next update: 2026.10.09

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