Thanks for the translation work Kirin and I agree with you about it being nice for the chapters to have some time between them so people can discuss them.

Pay no mind to one poster who can't read the room and posts a wall of spoiler text. The rest of us are happy to discuss the currently translated chapters and patiently wait for new ones.

I -hate- spoilers, it ruins the enjoyment of any media for me, I am never even tempted to mouse over spoiler text.

That being said, I also enjoy binge reading as well, for instance I read everything that was translated all in one day and then re-read it again recently. I may not be the type of reader most TL teams enjoy because I don't really post my opinion often, though I do often thank the TL (Thank yous probably make up the majority of my posts lol).

Anyway as usual thank you for the update, know your work is appreciated!

Whatever you decide to do, Kirin-kun, thanks for your work on this series. I really enjoy the nuances of the story’s characterizations, and the central mystery really does lend itself to reader discussion beyond the usual, “I like/hate [character]” or “Here’s what I think is going to happen next.”

So thanks again.

I totally agree with this. The style of this manga works really well serialized rather than binged, unlike many others. Well worth the time and effort to properly digest rather than simply "consume".
Thanks for your work making it available to read, Kirin-kun. :)

Thank you so, so muh @Kirin-kun for always working so hard on translating and making the manga you work on look so, so amazing. As someone who is trying to learn how to read/ speak japanese/Chinese, it's very difficult to do. Keep on working hard and doing what you do best.

I wonder what's up with Deja vu on page 11? Are we gonna progress from time leaping into some sort of time looping?

Alright Aya it's time for you to learn that Koto needs a therapist, not a girlfriend. Your disappearance hit her hard and drove her off the deep end a bit.

I wonder what's up with Deja vu on page 11? Are we gonna progress from time leaping into some sort of time looping?

Alright Aya it's time for you to learn that Koto needs a therapist, not a girlfriend. Your disappearance hit her hard and drove her off the deep end a bit.

We do know that there's an apparent gap in her memory between the last thing Aya remembers before disappearing and her actual disappearance. Erika mentioned in chapter 2 that the two of them had a conversation the day of the
Tanabata Festival but Aya's apparent last memory is the day before.

Given her actual response to it at the time and her feelings of Deja Vu here there's probably a lot of overlap between the two conversation.

We are soooo back.......

I don't quite understand what Erika wants to achieve by giving Aya the photo album to read. What I mean is is there an ulterior motive.

I wonder what's up with Deja vu on page 11? Are we gonna progress from time leaping into some sort of time looping?

Aya is probably just starting to remember the conversation she had with Erika in Tanabata.

Sorry Erika fans, I can't say she was at her best in this chapter. She hears Aya talk about some incredible emotional abuse and yet she still ends up being taken over by her jealousy until her guilt knocks her back into some semblance of rationality. While she asks Aya "Do you love the present Koto?", I feel like she should really be asking herself that. Does she have an actual reason to be in love with the present Koto aside from the toxic storm of obsession, jealousy, and guilt that's been driving her for the past 7 years? At least Aya has the excuse of being 14 lol.

As for Tsukuba, she seems like a nice person and her advice is, in the abstract, completely right. But I think she's missing some key context that neither Aya nor Erika were willing to provide her, Aya because she's immature and doesn't really understand how relationships are supposed to work, and Erika because she's still not really facing reality. That being said, it is true that Aya needed to internalize how traumatized Koto was at some point for them to be able to maintain a friendship, much less a romance -- which I still don't think is healthy for either of them, but I'm definitely curious to see both where Aya's new determination will lead her and what lessons Koto is taking from their fight.

Thanks a lot for the translation!

God.
This is so out of the line.
What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？ Even that's the case, it's none of her fucking business.

Imagine one of their common (Koto& Erika) friends who is in love with Erika goes tell Koto that Erika fucking likes her (Koto) and better to reject her (Erika) if she (Koto) can't reciprocate that kind of feelings.
Wouldn't Erika want to kill her friend？
That's the fucking red line you should never across.

Erika literally stabbed Koto on her back for her own selfish reason.
I have to say I am not surprised at all. That's exactly why holding an unrequited love that long never a good thing. You will not be able to control yourself because you already cost too much on it.
To think you never date, spend most of your lifetime grumbling in pain just to wait the girl who is in love with other people will one day somehow like you back (sigh).

Erika needs to grow up, really. If this keeps going, she will end up hurting people she cares the most.
Accepting someone might never like you is a maturity she lacks as a grown up adult.

last edited at Aug 1, 2024 9:03PM

With that deja-vu and Erika looking almost alarmed Aya remembered it I’m starting to feel very strongly that my hunch Erika was to blame for her disappearance was correct.

What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？ Even that's the case, it's none of her fucking business.

Aya barely knows present Koto, there's been 7 years of change. And it's kind of her business when (a) they were all close friends and (b) Aya is turning to her for shelter.

To think you never date, spend most of your lifetime grumbling in pain

This applies to Koto too, except she had even less rational hope of Aya ever returning her love (or at all).

God.
This is so out of the line.
What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？

That simply did not happen. Erika asks Aya, “Do you truly love . . . The present Koto? How about you give it a second thought?” Which the next two panels show is exactly the same question that Koto herself asked Aya.

However one reads the ethics of what Erika is doing, that is a false statement about what the text explicitly shows.

What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？ Even that's the case, it's none of her fucking business.

Aya barely knows present Koto, there's been 7 years of change. And it's kind of her business when (a) they were all close friends and (b) Aya is turning to her for shelter.

(a) even close friend should know there always has a red line you can't across.
(b)Giving Aya a shelter doesn't justify what Erika did here. I mean, asking why they are fighting, sure. But meddle in to the core of their relationship, out off line.

To think you never date, spend most of your lifetime grumbling in pain

This applies to Koto too, except she had even less rational hope of Aya ever returning her love (or at all).

Stop dragging Koto into this who is the most immature human being "game".
It's not the same.
Aya did love her back seven years ago.
From my point of view, it's quite obvious Aya likes Koto from the very start (chapter 1). To think you finally manage to date the girl of your dreams, then the girl fucking dead out of nowhere. I have to say Koto's trauma and behaviors are really understandable.

And unlike Koto's situation, Erika never gets to experience the pain of losing her loved one. Needless to say the girl (Koto) she loves never truly belongs to her. So it's such a mystery to me why Erika is so hung up on Koto.

God.
This is so out of the line.
What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？

That simply did not happen. Erika asks Aya, “Do you truly love . . . The present Koto? How about you give it a second thought?”

I really can't tell the difference lol.

Which the next two panels show is exactly the same question that Koto herself asked Aya.

Koto only asked Aya this because she didn't want Aya truly thinks this through. By only giving her two choices (a) confess to her immediately (b) fucking be abandoned again.

And ofc we know how a 14yo child with no family left would choose.
I got to say Koto has done a really good job here. She is a fucking genius when it comes to manipulate people. Normally, you wouldn't go back to the subject which (you consider) has already been solved.

Aya actually didn't really think of it untill this point.

^I want to read the AU version of the manga with this evil genius Erika that's in your head. Sounds like an interesting story!

God.
This is so out of the line.
What the hell is Erika doing here telling Aya she's not in love with present Koto？？？

That simply did not happen. Erika asks Aya, “Do you truly love . . . The present Koto? How about you give it a second thought?”

I really can't tell the difference lol.

Then you really don’t understand the English language.

None of them are evil, they're just mentally ill individuals that can't deal with their emotions now going through a situation that shouldn't have been possible from the start, and that situation directly involves the person that caused all those emotions. For Erika, this is a chance for Koto to get over it, for Koto, this is a chance to get back together with the girl she's been obsessed with for almost a decade, closure.
They'll be harming each other and themselves. It's a tragic situation where none of them can truly "win" because the moment one gets what they want, the other will lose what they want. From how I see it... Aya, freedom, Koto, safety and Erika, love.
The things Erika said, independently of their nature, are true. They are cruel not because of their meaning but because of what it means to accept them in Aya's situation, she herself understands she's got nowhere to go, she's a child in a body the law considers to be that of an adult.
No family left, no other friends that could offer her a place to stay, nobody else other than a boy that understands a facet of her situation. All she's got are two women who were deeply affected by her disappearance and never got over it. The only way she'll get a chance at being independent is with time and even then there's a chance she may just disappear again, if she disappeared once, what guarantees that what brought her back... couldn't just take her away again? I don't think that we'll be finding out so soon what took her away, and I think it's safe to assume things will explode once the cause is made clear. Was it really Erika? Maybe not. If she thinks that she had part in it, does she blame herself? Maybe. Likely Aya didn't sense this (maybe not so faint) animosity Erika has towards her until this chapter.

Erika isn't as mature as she may think she is. She's not above Koto, the difference is that the girl she likes didn't disappear and is instead a different kind of "unattainable", she's there, so close to her reach, but her sight is somewhere else entirely. Instead of moving on, seeking comfort in other things, distancing herself, she kept Koto around while her feelings got more warped over time.
She's throwing a lot of weight on a girl that got weaned off too soon, just like Koto did when her emotions got out of control.

There's no villain, only 3 girls who need to heal before they can hurt each other further beyond repair.
They are being forced now to develop their emotions and figure them out, we can't be assuming one is a "manipulation genius" or "evil" and really, the most tragic of it all is watching a girl having to grow up within months without proper support, crumbs of a safe space or a guarantee she'll be allowed to exist without an expiration date.
Was her return with a goal in mind? What were the terms settled when she disappeared? How will her memories of the day she disappeared affect the current relationship of the three?
And do they really think this will ever work?
Maybe with Koto if she ever learns to be healthier about her emotions and control them because what Aya is doing is the best for her in her current situation as she wants to have a chance at being independent, and she needs to be, most don't want to be in a cage where you have no freedom.

Yes I could be wrong about all of this if later on the author decides that there is conscious malice and manipulation behind their actions, but so far that doesn't make any sense and it's not what is being shown and is closer to a bad faith interpretation of their actions. You can harm others without intending to and it's your responsibility to accept that and make up for it.
Their actions aren't good but that doesn't mean the person behind them is evil by nature

Ideally they'd be mature and give Aya space to process what is happening, but then we wouldn't have most of this work

^I want to read the AU version of the manga with this evil genius Erika that's in your head. Sounds like an interesting story!

is it an trope in people that read manga to excuse garbage toxic behaivour and pretend the character did nothing wrong??

you exaggerated the characterization the OP made, and in doing so you pretend she ain’t doing toxic immature shit to Aya were even ERIKA HERSELF ADMITTED she ain’t good person! we have proof of her acting like an bitch all because of her UNHEALTHY OBSESSION over an person for 7 god damn years

Aya reaction and dealing with this is very real and doesn’t feel like an character flaw given the circumstances she is in

Koto suffers the same from Aya dissapearences, really justified her paranoia of Aya disappearing again

Erika? is just a bitch because of an unhealty obsession to the point of WISHING Aya will fuck off her Koto, and continues to act base on jealousy and keeps pushing for Aya and Koto to break up!

ALSO weird shit, Erika says she Loves Koto BUT doesn’t do jack to be next to her crush at all! doesn’t help her at all in processing this event were Koto looks more traumatized by it all! Erika semns to be in there to push Aya away and not ever help Koto as she should do! she loves her? more like an selfish love were Koto doesn’t pay attention to Erika and Erika does jack shit to now help Koto, she is more worried in pushing Aya away, and this chapter cemented that idea.

The bizarre ways people read Erika based on their hatred of her is fascinating. Aya shows up on her doorstep asking her for help and so Erika begrudgingly tries to help by talking Aya through her feelings, but somehow this is none of her business and her telling Aya what to think lol. Let's just completely ignore the entire arc of the chapter showing that Erika's advice to Aya, which Aya specifically sought out, has led her in a positive looking direction. Nah she's evil somehow lol.
Same with reading Erika's reaction to Aya's dejavu as "alarm" when we already know that Erika had a conversation with Aya that Aya doesn't remember. My read on her reaction is "oh right, damn I'd almost forgotten there's a supernatural element to this plot that we'll probably need to deal with".
Hell, I wouldn't even read Erika's actions as at all selfish this chapter. She's consistently shown nothing but care for Aya and wanting to help her, and her advice is not remotely the kind of advice you'd give to someone fighting with a partner if you want that relationship to end. She tells Aya to think more and learn more about Koto instead of going "wow she sounds like a yandere you should stay away from her or you'll end up chained up in some basement" or something. Koto's actions last chapter were genuinely VERY concerning, Erika wouldn't even necessarily be in the wrong if she told Aya she's potentially in danger. Koto wanting to cut Aya off from the world and from having agency is a huge red flag. But she instead takes a moderate low-intervention path to help her two friends in their time of need while feeling bad about herself and that's just so evil I guess

Honestly if anything I would criticize Erika for being too soft on Koto in not reacting more negatively to what she pulled. I hope Erika's planning on holding an intervention for Koto next chapter. Pull her aside and go "seriously you cannot lock up your girlfriend and keep her away from the world, that's absolutely not okay" and make sure she gets it before letting Aya see her again.

last edited at Aug 2, 2024 7:41AM

To be fair, it's still not clear that flashback Aya couldn't remember happened on Tanabata day.
And we also can't be sure the person she talked was Erika.

Feels like with every new chapter people are just rushing to paint one of the girls as the villain when this simply isn't that kind of story.

EDIT: Should've kept scrolling before posting as it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks this way, woops. Point still stands, though!

last edited at Aug 2, 2024 8:08AM

The bizarre ways people read Erika based on their hatred of her is fascinating. Aya shows up on her doorstep asking her for help and so Erika begrudgingly tries to help by talking Aya through her feelings, but somehow this is none of her business and her telling Aya what to think lol. Let's just completely ignore the entire arc of the chapter showing that Erika's advice to Aya, which Aya specifically sought out, has led her in a positive looking direction. Nah she's evil somehow lol.

Yeah for months now there's been this insistence that one of them must be evil and have malice behind all of their actions as opposed to the easier explanation that they're conflicted, mentally ill and/or scared. Calling her a "bitch" and "toxic immature shit" for having feelings that conflict with each other, okay... certainly not filled with hatred that is affecting how she (and Koto even) is being interpreted.
"Manipulative"
"Selfish"
"Evil"
Next is homicidal. Pedophiliac if it's sunny outside.

It doesn't feel like we are reading the same manga sometimes.

is it an trope in people that read manga to excuse garbage toxic behaviour and pretend the character did nothing wrong??

Except nobody is doing that, no excuses, only other users discussing why those characters are doing what they're doing.
How's anyone supposed to explore the relationship between them when the moment things aren't all going well those characters are reduced to "malicious" with no chance to be developed, no opportunity to have their behaviour justified (and justified doesn't mean forgiven).
Erika is not perfect, but Aya and Koto, no matter what, are her friends. She's trying to deal with her feelings in her own way, it's not healthy to allow an obsession to control your life this much, but again, if they were healthy this manga wouldn't exist. Characters don't have to be perfect and them having multiple flaws or messing up once doesn't automatically turn them into an evil villain. It's how tension can be created in a story, being hurt or hurting others, forgiving or moving on. Sucks to see this reductive behaviour on a manga that is very refreshing to see in the yuri genre.

By conflicting feelings I mean the fact that she's helping her "love rival" despite it all because she's not the awful person that some posts here want her to be so bad, she's lending a hand to her friend whose growth got stunted out of nowhere during a vulnerable moment in her life.
Again those words she said are only cruel because of the context, and even then them being cruel doesn't change the fact it's something Aya needs to think about, she doesn't have the time to be a kid anymore. She was weaned too soon and now she'll have to grow quickly against her will.

You can dislike a character without distorting the entire text surrounding her.

Feels like with every new chapter people are just rushing to paint one of the girls as the villain when this simply isn't that kind of story.

EDIT: Should've kept scrolling before posting as it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks this way, woops. Point still stands, though!

From what I can tell, there's 1 person in the Mangadex comments and 2 people in the Dynasty discussion that had their firstborn murdered by Erika. Only explanation for that over the top hatred of Erika.
Not that I love her or anything. She's handling things better than Koto so far but that's not a high bar to clear. Ultimately all 3 of the girls are suffering and I'm not feeling great about any ships.