Part 3
It was now just the three of us and the first-year Nanase.
While there were a couple of things to discuss given what had happened, one matter took precedence over any of that.
And that was calming down Horikita, who had lost her cool upon seeing the knife pierced through my left hand.
“W-what should we do…? Should we, uhm, p-pull the knife out?”
The usually level-headed Horikita had probably never been in a situation like this one before.
“No. I know it isn’t exactly pleasant to look at, but it’s better to leave the knife where it is for now.”
If the knife wasn’t pulled out properly, I’d run a very real risk of hemorrhaging blood.
“More importantly, are you two okay?”
“Compared to you, I’m practically unscathed…”
“Yeah… I’m fine too.”
Sud? came closer to get a better look and grimaced upon seeing the grotesque state of my hand.
“Dude, how can you stay so calm with your hand like that?”
“Hmm, I don’t know.”
I was just doing things as I usually did, there wasn’t really anything special to it.
“But, man… I didn’t know you were like, so strong…”
“I just tried what I could to block the knife.”
“…That’s not what it looked like to me though.”
He voiced his honest impression of my confrontation with H?sen earlier.
Sud? had braved his way through a fair number of fights in his time, so it didn’t seem like I’d be able to deceive him, or Horikita as well for that matter.
With my right hand, I took out my cell phone and called Chabashira.
“Something’s happened that I need a bit of help with. Could you quickly come meet me behind the first-year dorms? Alone, of course. Also, please bring a bath towel with you.”
Although Chabashira seemed confused by my sudden call, she managed to sense the urgency of the situation and promised to head over immediately. In the meantime, it was for the best that we stay put and wait for her to arrive.
It would be dangerous if other students saw the state of my hand while we changed locations.
At any rate… even after seeing the aftermath up close, Nanase didn’t seem phased in the slightest.
Despite the fact that there was a knife pierced through my palm and blood scattered around, she was perfectly calm and composed.
The visually intense, graphic nature of the scene didn’t affect her at all.
“Could you explain what happened here for us, Nanase?”
“If I don’t, then it seems that Class 1-D will be placed in quite a tough position, so I will.”
“You were aware that the negotiations were going to turn out like this… Is that correct?”
Fairly Important TL Notes:
So I usually don’t like writing out notes like this, but in this case I have to make an exception. For those that don’t know, Japanese has multiple first-person pronouns. English only uses ‘I’ or ‘me’ for this purpose, but Japanese has more than 10, all used for different purposes, ages, and genders. Every character in the series (so far), has only ever used one of these to refer to themselves, and used it consistently thereafter. Apart from one time where she slipped up in a previous chapter, Nanase has exclusively used ? or watashi. This is a typically gender-neutral, maybe a little feminine, pronoun that Horikita and most serious respectful female characters (and Kouenji) also use. In the last spoken line of this part, Nanase says:
“I*… simply didn’t believe a person like you would be suitable for this school, Ayanok?ji-senpai.”
The asterisk here is my way of conveying that the first-person pronoun that she uses here is ?? or ‘boku’, which is a first-person pronoun primarily used by younger males. Now, Hirata and Ike both also use boku, but they use ? (the kanji) to say it instead of writing it in the stylized, katakana form (??) that Nanase has used it in. The important part about this is that, with this, Nanase is now only the second character in the series to use their first-person pronoun written in katakana. The first character is Kiyotaka, with his use of ?? or ‘Ore’, which is even more of a masculine pronoun than boku. Hosen, Ryuen, Sudo, and most of the more manly characters all use ‘Ore’ as well, but they use the kanji to do it, not the katakana, making Kiyotaka a special case. By having Nanase’s boku written in katakana as well, the author is highlighting or emphasizing some sort of connection between Kiyotaka and herself. (Which is, unfortunately, untranslatable into the English language.)
Therefore, there are two key things to note here that are hard to convey in an English translation. The first is that she is using a different, more masculine pronoun for some unknown reason, and the second is that she’s also using the pronoun in its katakana form instead of it’s kanji form, just as Kiyotaka uses when referring to himself with his own pronoun.
I hope this information has helped you to understand the sheer impact of this final line of Nanase’s on a better level than you would have without knowing this.
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