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Shiinamachi Senpai Volume 3 Episode 1 Part B 6

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist     

【Episode 1 Part B: Sister and Legend, Part 6】

「Man, that guy should have taken better care of his beloved! Even if she was the one who run away from him, how could he said he loved har when he didn’t even went after her?!」

After the movie ended we went to a family restaurant to eat lunch, over which a heated debate started.

「But you can’t say that the girl wasn’t at fault here either. She was sending him unclear signals all the time and expected him to just understand them right off the bat.」

And it was getting more and more heated by the minute.

Defying my initial expectations once again, the person who turned out to be engrossed in the movie the most was Shiki.

「And even though I don’t necessarily agree that what he did was right, then consider the following: if he chose to chase after the heroine he would only end up causing more unnecessary pain for both her and himself…」

I glared at her sharply from behind my glasses, which were now partially obscured by my bangs.

「Says the guy who understands jack sh*t about human emotions.」

「That might have been true some time ago, but now I am different. If I was the protagonist, I would have chased after the girl even if it would kill me. I think.」

I am still unsure if I’d really do that if push came to shove, but if there is one thing that I am absolutely sure of it’s that I wouldn’t want to give up on the person I love, even if going after her would make her hate and resent me even more.

「Uhm, well, that is just my personal opinion, but… I think the actions of the heroine can be justified to some extent. After all, she had a lot of different problems weighting down on her mind when she was leaving the protagonist, so I think that the only thing to blame for such an outcome is a really bad timing. Also, it takes a lot of courage to willingly do what she did, knowing full well that it didn’t have to be that way.」

「Umu. I see Kaguya can clearly understand how the heroine must have felt. She’s a true person of culture, unlike certain someone sitting with us at this table.」
Shiki praised senpai while simultaneously dissing me.

「Eh? N-No, I, I just… something that came to my mind out of the blue. H-How should I know how a person who’s in love feels? I don’t have any such experiences after all! Ahahahaha!」

And she briefly glanced towards me.

Looking back on it now, I guess senpai and I went through quite a lot of typical tropes taken straight out of a romance movie. We died together, I come back to life after receiving a kiss from her (needs confirmation, but until then just let a man dream, ok?) and we even shared a bathroom where she washed my back and had a towel malfunction (she was wearing a swimsuit underneath so I didn’t get to see anything and that is making me feel absolutely livid up to this day).

「Kaguya, need I remind you that I know about every single thing that happened between you and Monjiro? So in my eyes you have plenty of experience. And no, there’s no use denying that this late in the game.」

Using an argument that senpai had absolutely no way of retorting to, leaving her in a state where all she could do way to say 「Awwawawawawa」 as her eyes were spinning, Shiki triumphantly leaned back in her seat and sipped some cola from her cup.

「Phew, I haven’t been that fired up in a long time. Now, putting the matter of my enjoyment and our little debate aside, what are your thoughts about the movie itself?」

Almost immediately after she asked about our impressions as if nothing had happened. And why do I have that ominous feeling that if I don’t give her a satisfying answer then she’s going to murder me with her words alone?

「Hmm, let’s see… if there’s anything I learned from this movie, it would be 「to not waste an opportunity when one presents itself to you」.」

「Yes, I think so too. Seeing the heroes do everything in their power to be together with each other only for it to ultimately fail was quite sad, but at the same time it was an invaluable lesson, one that I’m sure I’ll never forget.」

That’s right. The movie we saw today was a romance without a happy ending. Despite all their efforts, the hero and the heroine were not meant to be together. At the very end the heroine leaves the hero seemingly without a word of explanation, only to later send him a letter in which she explains to him that she is sick with an incurable illness and that she only has a few years to live at best so she decided to leave in order to spare her beloved the suffering of watching her slowly wilt away. It was a bitter-sweet ending which left me with a feeling of unfairness and unsatisfaction in my heart. Personally I prefer the happy endings, even if they seem oddly out of place: the ones in which the evil is defeated, villains are properly punished and everyone gets their well-deserved happily-ever-after.

「It’s great to hear such wonderful words from you, but here’s my version of the moral of this story: Monjiro, don’t be an undecisive wimp. Kaguya, never ever, under any circumstances, for all that is holy in this world become such an annoying woman who’s unable to be honest with her feelings to ask for help when she needs it.」

「「U-Understood!」」
Both senpai and I gave our answers at the same time. I’ve gotta say, for such an ordinary movie, we really learned quite much from it.

I think I understand what is the purpose of our date today. It’s so that we could see and experience the sides of each other we don’t normally let others to see. Or at least that’s the case for the three of us.

「Now that we have that out of the way, can we finally order something? I don’t know about you, but that discussion got me so hungry I could devour an entire horse in one go.」

「You’ve got that right.」

We got so absorbed in our debate that we didn’t even had the time to look through the menu, much less order something. Senpai, who was sitting next to me opened the menu and I looked over her shoulder to pick something for myself. The selection was surprisingly large and diverse.

「I think I’ll go with a Hamburg Steak Lunch Set.」

「Then I’ll have an OmuRice Set.」

Picking something for ourselves, we handed the menu down to Shiki.

「Hmm, the chicken certainly looks delicious, but curry is always a valid option too.」

Well isn’t today just stacked full of surprises? I thought she’s going to make her choice rather quickly, but here she is, seriously contemplating what she should pick for herself. I never thought she’d be the type of person to enjoy eating in family restaurants.

「Fufufu, it’s all right, Shiki-san, no need to rush. Take your time.」

Senpai just laughed and smiled and proceeded to take the pamphlet for the movie we just saw out of her purse. The cover was the same as the poster which was hanged in the cinema and its contents were the interviews with the director and the actors playing the main cast. She was probably going to entertain herself with reading all of it while Shiki was deciding on what to order.

And knowing her, this might actually take a while.