Chapter 4 – Summer (Part 4)
Summer, Part 4
Novel Title: ツァイガルニクの恋の沼 (Zeigarnik’s Love Swamp)
Author：月村奎著 (Tsukimura Kei)
Illustrator：志水ゆき (Shimizu Yuki)
Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)
Protagonists: 市川春音 (Ichikawa Harune -MC) & 二ノ宮航輝 (Ninomiya Kouki -ML)
*Please read at universalnovel.com, the original site of translation. TQ*
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In the cramped kitchen, their backs brushed against each other.
In such close proximity, Harune was worried his quickened heartbeat might be noticeable. Grabbing the dipping sauce and a bottle of mineral water, he hastily retreated to the living room.
Like a science experiment, Harune carefully diluted the sauce. Kouki, carrying the soumen, couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“You don’t need to be that precise.”
“One drop could change the flavour, you know.”
“It really won’t.”
Kouki sat down at the round, low table, placing a large platter of soumen and freshly fried tempura on it. Harune casually avoided sitting directly across from Kouki, opting instead to sit diagonally, yet not too close. He turned on the TV, and the steady voice of a newscaster filled the room, bringing a sense of relief to the quiet space.
“Itadakimasu.”
Putting his hands together, Harune reached for the eggplant tempura with his chopsticks. The crispy sound as the chopsticks touched the freshly fried batter made his mouth water. One bite, and the crunchy coating gave way to the soft texture of the eggplant, lifting the corners of his mouth into a smile.
“Delicious.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Kouki popped a bell pepper tempura dipped in sauce into his mouth and nodded in satisfaction.
“If I’d had more time, I would’ve fried some shrimp too.”
“Shrimp! I’ll look forward to it next time.”
“Yeah.”
For a while, the sound of the news became background noise as they silently slurped their soumen noodles.
The apartment where Harune lived alone until six months ago always felt shockingly bright when he turned on the lights after coming home from work. The glaring brightness often irritated his tired nerves, so he would usually switch to indirect lighting unless he was doing delicate handwork.
In contrast, his grandparents’ house was almost dim to the point of discomfort. At first, Harune thought it was due to insufficient lighting and tried changing the light bulbs, but it turned out the cause was the interior. The apartment had a white ceiling and wallpaper, while this old house had a ceiling blackened by soot and brown Kyoto-style walls.
When he was alone with Kouki like this, the dim lighting was comforting. He felt uneasy, as if seeing Kouki’s face any more clearly would reveal his own innermost thoughts.
“The stock prices are down again.”
Feigning interest in the irrelevant news, Harune kept Kouki in his peripheral vision the whole time.
Kouki was a big guy, but there was nothing sluggish about him. He had a crisp and dry air about him, like a well-seasoned piece of thick lumber. His short, black hair and sharply defined, dark eyebrows could easily make him look clumsy, but somehow, they gave him a refined and sharp appearance.
Or maybe that’s just how Harune sees him through his own filter.
Even though he’d grown up seeing Kouki’s face since childhood, the gap of a few years had only made it more masculine, and Harune found it hard to look directly at him now.
He wondered why this guy kept coming around so frequently.
As if answering that question in Harune’s heart, Kouki looked at him after finishing the last bite of noodles.
“Nacchan was worried about whether you were eating properly.”
Nacchan, or Natsuno, was Harune’s older sister and Kouki’s sister-in-law.
Even though Harune and his sister had fought over the future of the Ichikawa Thread Shop, she was still concerned about him and had likely asked their mutual childhood friend Kouki to check up on him.
But they hadn’t exactly cut ties after their argument. Harune and Natsuno still kept in regular contact. She didn’t need to use Kouki to spy on him.
“I’ll fix the edge of this table later too.”
Kouki bent over to inspect the spots on the edge of the table that had chipped or worn away from years of use. Watching him silently, Harune found it strange how naturally they were spending time together, despite the fact that they hadn’t spoken much for over ten years after their fight in middle school.
The Ninomiya Furniture Store now had a large store with a parking lot along the highway, but it used to be in the same shopping district as the Ichikawa Thread Shop.
Even though the street was already in decline back then, there were still more open shops than there are now, and some of their classmates lived nearby. Harune, who loved hanging out at his grandparents’ house and playing with yarn, would sometimes join the neighbourhood kids to play games.
Because their homes were close, and their siblings were the same age, Harune was particularly close with the Ninomiya brothers.
Kouki had been a lively boy who loved catching bugs and making things, in contrast to Harune, who preferred to sit at the counter in his grandparents’ store and knit.
On one hand, Harune felt that they were incompatible, but at the same time, Kouki would make him thoughtful gifts, like a pen holder for his knitting needles out of twigs he had collected, or a cage for the zebra finches Harune had kept at the time. Harune was astonished at how well-made they were, especially for a child, and his heart would race over receiving such a one-of-a-kind gift.
But then there was the mischievous side of Kouki, who would catch a big butterfly—something Harune was afraid of—and chase him around with it, making Harune cry more times than he could count. Kouki would also mess with Harune’s knitting, pulling the yarn out of whatever he was making and ruining it, or teasing him with comments like, “That’s something for girls to do.”
Harune liked Kouki when he was kind and made thoughtful gifts, but he hated him when he was being mean.
Or maybe, the reason Kouki’s occasional kindness made Harune so happy was because he was usually so mean.
It was Harune’s older brother, Naoki, who would always step in to protect Harune from Kouki’s teasing. Even though they were only two years apart, Naoki had an air of maturity and chivalry. Despite being at that age when boys often felt embarrassed about protecting girls or younger kids, Naoki didn’t care about what others thought and was always kind. While Kouki would tease Harune about knitting, saying it was something only girls did, Naoki was impressed, saying, “It doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or a girl. It’s an amazing talent.”
By the time Harune reached the upper grades of elementary school, he began to realise that, for him, the people he felt attracted to might be boys rather than girls. For most of the other boys, girls were the ones they wanted to tease or attract, but for Harune, girls were easygoing companions who shared his hobbies. On the other hand, being around certain boys made him feel nervous and uneasy.
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Next update: 2026.06.10
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