CGBTS Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – Odamaki Village

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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“Ah… could it be that the altar in the village chief’s house was…?”

“Yeah. I think it was modeled after an odamaki. The village chief is also the priest who enshrines Odamaki-sama, after all.”

Rattle, rattle.

When Shuu pulled on the end of the thread, the odamaki began to spin with a faint sound. The other end was tied to the axle, and when the handle was rotated, the thread that had unraveled was wound back onto the wooden frame as it had been before.

It unraveled, then returned to its original state.

Over and over again.

As he toys with the odamaki, Shuu begins to speak.

“—Fifteen years ago, while wandering through the fog, I eventually arrived at this Odamaki Village.”

“Fifteen years ago? …You went missing on Mount Hinashi ten years ago, didn’t you?”

Natsuo remembers that when he awoke here, Shuu had also said that fifteen years had passed since then. Perhaps his memories are muddled because he was so young.

Shuu shakes his head, his expression somehow seeming as though he is enduring pain.

“It was fifteen years ago, Natsuo.”

“Eh…”

“It’s been fifteen years since I started living in this village. …I’m twenty-three years old now.”

Shuu explains that Odamaki Village is a world separated from the world where Natsuo and the others originally lived. The village is surrounded by fog, making it impossible to leave, so they do not know whether any settlements other than Odamaki Village even exist.

However, the village is not completely isolated. It remains faintly connected to the original world, and from time to time, people from the original world—wanderers, like Shuu and Natsuo—end up wandering into it.

Natsuo suddenly realizes something.

“…Could it be that the ‘other world’ Uncle mentioned long ago was Odamaki Village?”

“Most likely. I think that lake on Mount Hinashi is the entrance connecting the original world and Odamaki Village. …And after hearing what you had to say, I became certain. Time really does flow differently in this world than it does in the original world.”

“Really?”

“Do you remember the story of Urashima Tarou?”

Confused by the sudden question, Natsuo nevertheless nods. If you’re Japanese, you’ve probably had the story read to you at least once when you were little.

The fisherman Urashima Tarou rescues a turtle and, as a reward, is invited to the Dragon Palace, where Princess Otohime treats him with the utmost hospitality. Eventually, despite being urged to stay, he returns to his hometown, only to find that hundreds of years have passed since he left. All the family and friends he remembers fondly have already died. When the despairing Urashima opens the jeweled box Otohime gave him, white smoke rises from it, and after being enveloped in the smoke, Urashima turns into an old man—

“Stories similar to that one—stories following the pattern of someone being invited into another world, receiving a treasure, and returning home only to find that a long time has passed in their homeland—exist all over the world. In other words, an ‘other world,’ not just Odamaki Village, is one where the flow of time differs from that of the living world.”

“I see…”

Natsuo finds himself impressed by the logical and orderly explanation. Come to think of it, when Shuu was eight years old, he had read through the entire collection of books belonging to his father, Shigehiko, who was a folklorist. He must be exceptionally good at this sort of deduction. Now that he has grown up, it seems that his already sharp mind has become even more refined.

Shuu stares intently at Natsuo.

“You spent ten years there, and I spent fifteen. Which means that time here flows one and a half times as fast as it does in the original world, so you’re eighteen years old?”

“…What’s with that surprised look on your face?”

“No… When I first found you, you looked about fifteen. I thought the flow of time on this side was even faster.”

“The hell that means…”

Natsuo couldn’t complain that Shuu was saying he looked younger. The reason he was blushing was that Shuu narrowed his green eyes in a way that made him look terribly fond of him.

“Y-you just got way too big. You used to be smaller than me and so cute, but now you’ve gotten ridiculously handsome, and you’re even going around saying things like ‘ore’…”

“I suppose I got more of my mother’s blood. There’s a lot of physical labor to do here, too, so I naturally got stronger. Besides, with a body this big, ‘boku’ wouldn’t suit me.”

As he answered, Shuu’s lips curved into a soft smile.

“…Handsome, huh. Is that how I look to you?”

“Eh… wh-what?”

His lingering smile had a sensuality that hadn’t been there ten years ago, exuding such unmistakable adult allure that it made Natsuo’s heart skip a beat.

……So he learned to make a face like this.

Perhaps this was the moment Natsuo truly realized that Shuu had grown into an adult five years older than him. Even Natsuo, his male childhood friend, couldn’t help but stare at him in fascination, so Etsuko must have been completely helpless against him.

“…You are handsome. If you walked around Shibuya or Harajuku, you’d probably get scouted constantly. You’re popular here, too, right?”

“Well… to some extent. But I’m sure Natsuo will become popular, too.”

Apparently, wanderers are generally welcomed here. If marriages were repeatedly made within the confined other world of Odamaki Village, the bloodline would inevitably become too inbred, but marrying wanderers allows their blood to be diluted.

However, wanderers are not accepted unconditionally. Those who are deemed harmful to the village are disposed of. The one who makes that judgment is the village chief.

“According to the legends, the village chief comes from an old family line that has continued since the time Odamaki Village was separated from the original world, and every generation has also served as the priest who enshrines Odamaki-sama. The villagers believe that Odamaki-sama is a god who governs constancy and is also the guardian deity of the village.”

“So if it’s the judgment of the priest of that god, they trust it?”

If the village chief, who also serves as the priest, is trusted to that extent, then the god known as Odamaki-sama must command an enormous amount of faith—enough that the villagers would even accept wanderers who suddenly appear among them. For Natsuo, a typical Japanese person who celebrates Christmas, rings the temple bell on New Year’s Eve, and visits a shrine for the first shrine visit of the New Year, it is a rather unbelievable story.

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*Translator’s Note: In Japanese, ‘I’ is ‘ore’ or ‘boku’ (for men). Women normally use ‘atashi’ or ‘watashi’. -K

Next update: 2026.10.12

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