CGBTS Chapter 43

Chapter 43 – She’s Insane

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 instinctively tensed up, but it was not simply because Etsuko, who was supposed to be confined in prison, had appeared. Red liquid had splattered across both the blouse wrapped around her slender body and her beautiful face.

……That’s blood……!

The scent of iron and rust mingled with the fragrance of the sacred flowers, and Natsuo immediately realized it. Etsuko had already harmed someone. …And the weapon she had used was the small dagger clutched in her blood-covered hand.

The dagger was stained red with blood dripping from its blade, but the characters engraved on its hilt could still just barely be read.

――― ‘Kazuo’. Which meant that the owner of this blood was…

“…No way, did you… -Kazuo-kun!?”

“I couldn’t help it. He was going to call someone because killing you wasn’t what we agreed on. I only stabbed him in the arm, so he isn’t dead.”

She said it so casually that Natsuo could not help but understand. Kazuo must have sneaked into the prison because he desperately wanted to let his sister see their parents, and helped her escape. He had probably intended to return her to the prison before anyone noticed.

But instead of going to her parents, Etsuko had tried to go and kill Natsuo. And after taking the dagger away from Kazuo as he desperately tried to stop her, she stabbed him and ran all the way here…

……She’s insane!

Even after being branded as the family of a criminal, Kazuo had desperately tried to protect his sister. How could she trample on such pure affection? Even if she managed to kill Natsuo, there was nowhere to escape to in this closed-off village. She must have understood that this time, she would certainly be unable to escape the death penalty.

No――or was this precisely the madness of someone who could not stop committing more crimes, even after understanding the consequences?

“…If only you… if only you die, then Big Brother Shuu would… would…”

Etsuko quickly rushed toward the rigid, motionless Natsuo and raised the dagger. …This time, Shuu surely would not make it in time either. The blood-covered blade approached his wide-open eyes, and then—

“―――Guh……!”

A broad back, draped in layer upon layer of kimono, suddenly thrust itself in front of him.

Natsuo did not know who it was. The only other person in the same room besides Natsuo had been the village chief, so it could not have been anyone other than the village chief.

Because…

The mask had fallen to the floor together with the hood, its cord for tying it behind the head having been cut. The head that had been revealed was not covered in white hair, but instead with thick, glossy black hair.

“Huh?……no――Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!”

Letting out a piercing scream that reverberated through the room, Etsuko fled at tremendous speed.

The village chief slowly turned around, and a blood-covered dagger was deeply embedded in his shoulder. When he took the blow in Natsuo’s place, the blade must have grazed him and severed the cord that tied his mask behind his head.

A youthful, handsome face with sharply defined features. And……Deep green eyes.

“Shu-…… Shuu……?”

How wonderful it would have been if Natsuo could have come up with some absurd explanation to cling to—such as the village chief actually being Shuu’s long-lost twin brother, or perhaps a complete stranger who just happened to look exactly like him.

But that man pulling Natsuo along by the hand, with the dagger still embedded in him, was indeed Shuu, his childhood friend and the man who had only just become his lover. Natsuo, who had shared his body with Shuu so many times, could never mistake him for someone else. That was why, even when Shuu led him out of the altar room and dragged him deep into the residence, where not even a candle had been lit, Natsuo could not bring himself to pull his hand free.

Even though he had been stabbed in the shoulder, Shuu walked out through the back entrance with firm, steady strides. Beyond it was the forest in the back garden that Natsuo had been shown once before. When Natsuo realized that they were heading for Megumi Lake, he could no longer hold back and called out to the broad back in front of him.

“…Why were you pretending to be the village chief?”

There was no way Shuu could not have heard him, yet he did not answer. How had he changed his voice? Where was the real village chief? Why didn’t he call someone to come and capture Etsuko, instead of making Natsuo and himself flee? No matter how many questions Natsuo threw at him, Shuu ignored them.

And so his mind began connecting things on its own—the things he had never thought much about before with the situation he was in now.

……Come to think of it, whenever I met with the village chief, Shuu was never there.

Not during their meeting on the first day, not during the trial, and not today, when Natsuo had gone to obtain permission to marry. If Shuu was the village chief, then it was only natural that he would never be there. The village chief’s clothing and mask would also have been useful for concealing Shuu’s conspicuous face and build.

……If that’s the case, then the village chief I met all those times was Shuu?

Why would he do something like that? Because the real village chief was elderly and no longer able to move around easily?

No. If he had become so frail that he was unable to attend an important ceremony like the trial, surely he would have passed the position on to a distant relative.

Natsuo didn’t know. Everything is blurred. Just like this mist that had begun drifting in around them a little while ago――.

“Shuu……”

How many times—no, how many dozens of times—had Natsuo called out to him before Shuu finally suddenly stopped. Beyond his tall frame stretched Megumi Lake, faintly shrouded in mist. Farther beyond it was the same wall of dense fog that towered there as always.

“―――Here we are.”

Shuu slowly turned around, his kimono sleeve sweeping through the air. The clothing that had seemed merely strange when he wore the mask somehow suited him perfectly now. As though it had been tailored specifically for Shuu. Even the dagger buried deep in his shoulder looked like just another ornament.

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Illustration 7:

Next update: 2026.11.13

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