CGBTS Chapter 13

Chapter 13 – To Live in This World

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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Even as Etsuko’s murderous gaze stabbed into him again and again, Natsuo could not tear his eyes away from those green eyes. All he could do was endure Shuu’s overwhelming advances, far more intense and invasive than could simply be called a kiss.

“…Hah… nnh……”

If Shuu ever got a girlfriend, Natsuo had always thought he would treat her with the utmost care, like a princess. He imagined they would be an innocent couple who would blush just from holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. He never imagined that Shuu would come to kiss someone so roughly, as though trying to take away even their mingled saliva and their very breath…

Every time Natsuo’s limbs involuntarily trembled and jerked, the hand around his back tightened. Perhaps Shuu thought he was trying to escape. As if Natsuo could possibly escape when Shuu’s heavy, burning-hot body was pressing down on him so heavily that he could barely even breathe.

“…She’s gone.”

Eventually, when Shuu reluctantly pulled his lips away, Natsuo went completely limp and was too exhausted to even move properly. He didn’t have enough strength left even to push away the hand that remained inside his shirt. Etsuko seemed to have left the garden, but…

“…Why… would you do something like that when she was watching?”

When Natsuo somehow managed to catch his breath enough to ask, Shuu’s lips curved into a faint smile. Natsuo probably wasn’t imagining that it felt as though Shuu were soothing him like a child. Right now, Shuu is five years older than Natsuo.

“Precisely because she was watching. Things were getting to the point where I couldn’t keep dodging the marriage proposal involving Etsuko anymore.”

“Marriage… proposal? But that girl looks like she’s fifteen or sixteen at most.”

“She’s fifteen this year, but around here, that’s more than old enough to marry. After all, Odamaki Village doesn’t have a hospital, nor does it have a doctor.”

Apparently, although an elderly villager deals with things such as herbal medicine, it never goes beyond the realm of folk remedies. Illnesses and injuries that could be treated without any problems by going to a hospital in the original world could become fatal here.

Since that lowers the average life expectancy, women are apparently encouraged to marry while they are young and give birth to as many children as possible. In fact, Etsuko’s mother married at fourteen and gave birth to Etsuko the following year, which was astonishing.

“Is this the Sengoku period or something…?”

“From what I’ve seen, though, in terms of civilization, it’s about the generation when our grandparents were still active… roughly sixty or seventy years behind the original world.”

In a world like this, fifteen-year-old Etsuko wasn’t considered too young at all. Rather, she was in a position where she was being urged to marry as soon as possible. Young men seeking to marry the beautiful Etsuko were endless, but apparently she had rejected every one of them, insisting, “I have no intention of marrying anyone other than Brother Shuu.”

“I’m a wanderer, after all. To make matters worse, the people around us were in favor of it, so it could have reached the point where I was forced into it at any time. So I asked the village chief to let me become independent from the Sawada household.”

“…You don’t want to get married? Etsuko-chan is beautiful, though.”

“I don’t think she’s a bad person at heart, but I can’t consider her as a marriage partner.”

Shuu’s firm declaration still carried traces of the deep kiss from earlier, exuding a distinctly masculine allure.

If you grew up under the same roof as a man like this, even if you weren’t Etsuko, you probably wouldn’t be able to turn your attention to another man. Somehow, Natsuo felt a little sorry for her.

……But, I see.

It finally made sense. The reason Shuu had suddenly acted like that was to make Etsuko—

“I’m not doing it just to make her give up.”

“…Huh…?”

“I didn’t do that just to make Etsuko give up.”

Then what was it for? As Natsuo blinked, Shuu gently pressed a kiss to his eyelids.

“It’s because I love you.”

“….”

“I was in love with you even before I wandered into this place. I kept wishing that you would become mine alone. …Those feelings haven’t changed even now. No, when I found you in the fog for the first time in fifteen years, they only grew stronger. So strong that I thought my chest might burn to ashes.”

The fiery green eyes reminded Natsuo of ten years ago.

…That’s right. Shuu had the same look in his eyes back then, too, when he took Natsuo out of the cottage early that morning. Then, when Shuu insisted that he didn’t want to go back to the cottage even if it meant becoming lost in the other world… when he refused to listen because he didn’t want to be separated from Natsuo…

“I never wanted anyone but you. So I thought I would live and die all alone, and yet―――you came to me. You came looking for me.”

“…Shuu…”

“Let’s live here together, Natsuo. I’ll protect you. As long as you’re here with me, anywhere is paradise to me.”

Overwhelmed by the intensity of the gaze being poured upon him, Natsuo nearly nodded, but then he shook his head vigorously. He hadn’t climbed Mount Hinashi so that he could live with Shuu in the other world. He had come to take Shuu back to the original world.

“No, Shuu. You’re coming back to the original world with me. If you make it home alive, I’m sure Uncle and Auntie will…-”

“-They won’t be happy. By now, the two of them have probably started a new family and are completely absorbed in it. If anything, wouldn’t it be more convenient for them if I didn’t go back?”

“Th-that’s not…”

Shuu gave a bitter smile and gently tapped the lips that had been about to argue that it wasn’t true.

“You’re still terrible at lying, Natsuo. …It’s all right. I already knew.”

“You already knew…?”

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*Translator’s Note: She’s not a bad person at heart??? Hmm. Think again. 

But then again, if you live in such a place, who wouldn’t go bad? Especially as a woman. -K

Next update: 2026.10.14

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