Kays Translations

Volume 1: The Boy and nobles

Chapter 1: Present Life

“You really are a failure, aren’t you?”

My father muttered disdainfully while checking his email on his smartphone. His attitude was overbearing and he stubbornly refused to meet my gaze.

I stood upright, biting my lip.

“I was so close…”

I gripped the postcard in my hand, which stated my results for the entrance exam for the University of Tokyo. There was no word of passing, only the cold fact that I had missed the mark by two points.

“Excuses are useless. Don’t you understand that you’ll fail at anything if you’re like this? You’re a fool. How many times do I have to tell you not to disgrace the Ginjo name?”

“I’m sorry…”

My father always liked to use the name “Ginjo” whenever he could. As a member of the old aristocracy and nobility, the Ginjo family always sought recognition from society.

“Yoichi, if you continue like this, you’ll end up like that guy. You don’t even have enough awareness of being born into the Ginjo family. The Ginjo family is…”
Father placed his smartphone on the desk in front of him and began to explain the history of the Ginjo family, such as its origin, the achievements of its ancestors, and the mindset of the aristocracy, endlessly. Yoichi had been hearing these stories since he was a child.

Yoichi tried to recognize his father's words as a series of words, trying to keep his heart cold. He began counting the number of small scratches on the floor, lowering his head.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...

He stood there silently, freezing his expression.

Just as Yoichi had counted almost all of the scratches on the floor, his father began to talk about the abolition of the aristocratic system after the end of the Pacific War, looking unhappy.

Yoichi seized the opportunity to speak up.

"I will do my best to continue to protect the name of the Ginjo family."

He smoothly and emotionlessly spit out the familiar words.

For his father, the abolition of the aristocratic system, which was supposed to have been implemented before Yoichi was born, seemed to be an unbearable thing. Since elementary school, Yohichi had learned to alleviate his father's bitter emotions by telling him words that could at least ease his criticism.

Father stopped talking and stared at Yohichi with his narrow eyes.

"You must pass next year. Failure is not acceptable."

"...Yes, I understand."

Yoichi deeply bowed and left his father's room, walking quickly down the hallway.

As he passed through the kitchen, he could hear his mother's sobbing voice. At the same time, he heard a dull sound of something being thrown away.

Glancing over, he saw his mother throwing away the cake and sushi she had prepared for his celebratory party, all while tears streamed down her face.

Although his mother should have known that Yoichi was passing by, her gaze remained fixed on the garbage can. Instead, she muttered just one word that was loud enough for him to hear.

"--Truly shameful."

Yoichi knew from the start that his mother's tears were not of sympathy towards him.

Tightening his lips, he passed through the kitchen and entered the Japanese-style room located at the north end of the house.

In the back of the room were two altars: a large one with carefully arranged offerings, and a small one covered in dust. The small altar held a portrait of a young man who appeared to be about the same age as Yoichi.

In the portrait, the young man had a smoldering, intense gaze, brightly dyed hair, and tattoos peeking out from under his disheveled clothing.

"Brother, i got scolded by Dad again."

Yoichi picked up something that was hidden behind the portrait.

An old handheld game console and a cassette containing a game that used to be popular. The small altar was a good hiding spot since his parents rarely approached it. 

A game where, as children, siblings would catch monsters and make them their allies.

There were different colors on the cassettes, and the siblings had different versions each. They would stay up late exchanging monsters, working on completing their Pokédex, battling and training, and they longed for those days. 

Every time he wanted to immerse himself in those happy memories, Yoichi visited his brother's memorial like he did today.

"I did fail the exam, but I did my best, really. Yet the first thing I heard was 'failure.' And it seems that mom is embarrassed by my existence. How ridiculous is that?" 

Yoichi's brother passed away in a single-vehicle accident two years ago, while riding in a car with a bad friend. His parents became especially intrusive after his death, and began pressuring Yoichi to enter the business world after he graduated from Tokyo University.

Until then, he had only been a spare number one, but now he was the only one left. 

Yoichi picked up the cassette, ran up the stairs, and went into his room. His room only had a desk, bookshelf, and bed. 

He sat down and inserted the cassette into his handheld game console, hoping to return to the happy times he spent playing with his brother. However, the screen remained black. 

The console had not been charged for a long time since he last used it, and the charger was nowhere to be found. 

-It seems like it was thrown away.

Their mother would throw away anything she deemed unnecessary for studying, including games and manga, which were all discarded upon entering high school.

The game console and cartridges in his hand now were his late brother's belongings that went against their parents' wishes. If they were found, they would be disposed of as non-burnable waste the next day.

"Well, can't be helped. I'll just have to buy a new one," Yoichi thought to himself as he tightly held his wallet and headed towards a second-hand shop near the train station.

Even though he wore a coat, the air in March was cold and tense.

Since a few days ago, a cold wave had arrived, and it was as cold as if it had returned to mid-winter. It seemed like spring wouldn't come for a while.

Around ten minutes of walking along the roads that crisscrossed the residential area, snow began to fall. The snow hit his face, and he felt numb as he hurried on.

"Let's buy it quickly and go home."

Suddenly, he felt a sense of discomfort.

His field of vision was oddly narrow.

"What's this?"

Yoichi stopped and looked around.

However, there was no one there. It was just snowing in the residential area on a weekday afternoon.

"Is it just my imagination?"

Thinking he might be mistaken, he started to walk again when his body swayed.

He hurriedly tried to take his hand out of his pocket but couldn't.

No, the hand that he was trying to take out, his left hand, wasn't there.
Without any hands to support his body, Yoichi collapsed onto the road. Ignoring the pain from the fall, he stared at his left hand.

His elbow and arm were gone.

"What is this?" he wondered, using his right hand to search for where his left hand should have been. But there was nothing there.

As he searched, snow fell onto the back of his right hand, and his body began to disappear into particles from where the snow touched him.

"What the hell is this!?" Yoichi exclaimed as he realized that not just his left hand, but his whole body was rapidly disappearing into the air like cotton candy in boiling water.

In a panic, he tried to move his limbs and realized that his left leg was already gone. No wonder he fell.

He tried to hold onto his remaining right leg with his right hand, but it too disappeared, leaving him grabbing at empty space.

"Heh, what a joke," he said, shaking in shock. He put his right hand on his face, and his arm passed straight through where his right cheek had been. He opened and closed his hand a few times before it too disappeared.

The fact that half of his head and limbs were gone hit him hard. He couldn't understand the situation, but he knew he was going to die like this.

It was one thing to lose his limbs, but without half of his head, there was no way he could survive.

His mind went blank. Suddenly dying was unreal.

"Still no one..." were his last words.

"Ginjo Yoichi" disappeared from the world.

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