Shinrei Tantei Yakumo Another Files - The Dead’s Wish - epilogue
Shinrei Tantei Yakumo novel translation
Another Files - The Dead’s Wish
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epilogue - afterwards
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Haruka sat on the chair with nerves on edge.
Despite having participated in recitals many times, she could never get used to them.
From the stage lit by the spotlight, her eyes wandered across the audience seats.
Lights in the audience seating area had been dimmed, so even if she saw people enter, she wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
Haruka had informed Yakumo about this recital, yet Yakumo’s response had remained vague to the end.
It wasn’t clear whether he would come.
Considering the Yakumo that Haruka knew, that man likely wouldn’t come to watch her recital. That was Haruka’s thought.
Yet on the other hand, she had hopes that perhaps Yakumo might come.
Rather than feeling uncertain like this, she should’ve forced Yakumo to give a definite answer, but it was too late for regret now.
Haruka turned towards Watanabe, sitting at the end of the same row as her.
While other members were occupied with checking their music scores for the final time, or adjusting their musical instruments, Watanabe was repeatedly checking the audience.
He might have had the same thoughts as Haruka.
The envelope Aki had returned the other day must have contained tickets to today’s recital.
Watanabe appeared concerned, but Aki should be somewhere in the audience. Though she had no basis for it, Haruka felt that way.
While Haruka was lost in her mundane thoughts, the conductor emerged from backstage, welcomed with applause from the audience.
The conductor signalled for everyone to stand up.
Haruka rose from her seat in unison with her fellow orchestra circle members and bowed once towards the audience.
As she sat down, Haruka exhaled deeply.
She couldn’t keep thinking about other matters. Right now, she had to concentrate on the recital.
Throughout the preparation leading to this recital, various things happened that led to Haruka having to excuse herself from a lot of rehearsals, so she honestly had no confidence to perform.
Even so, to the people coming to listen to their performance, such things were unrelated.
Besides, this was an orchestra performance. Things wouldn’t get solved by blaming herself over mistakes she made.
She had to play to the best of her ability.
As if waiting for Haruka to firm her resolve, the conductor then lifted his baton.
Everyone audibly drew their breaths in unison.
While tense, Haruka liked this moment.
The moment when a recital was about to start.
The conductor swung his baton.
With it, the performance began.
***
After the recital was over, from the corner of her eye Haruka could see a few members who had been talking with their instruments on hand began stowing away their equipment.
The recital itself had safely ended without trouble.
However, the dance routine—included due to the fact that this had been a recital on the campus festival—had been a complete disaster.
Haruka wasn’t particularly great at coordinating her body to begin with, and her lack of practice had made it worse.
She had remembered the moves, yet her movement had been so stiff even she herself could tell.
In her panicked attempts of adjusting her tense body, Haruka had ended up tripping on her own foot, falling down spectacularly as a result.
An utter failure.
Laughter exploded from the audience, and Haruka had felt as if her face was spewing fire.
“Ozawa-san, you really stood out back there.”
“What a splendid way to fall down.”
Upon returning backstage, she was teased relentlessly by other members.
Absolutely horrible—
Furthermore, despite being an orchestra circle, they had to perform a mysterious dance popularly seen on a television drama.
Not to mention they had to wear cat ears—
Even though they did this every year, this was the first time Haruka wanted to run away from her responsibilities.
Prior to the recital, she had been curious whether Yakumo had attended. But now, for the first time she hoped that he hadn’t.
“I’ll be on my way,” Having finished packing her belongings, Haruka left the waiting area.
The others had still been mocking her over her falling incident, so she promptly escaped with a bitter laugh.
She glanced at her watch.
There wasn’t much time left.
After this, she was going to watch the theatre circle’s stage play held at the auditorium.
The timing was barely enough.
Haruka began running faster towards the campus auditorium, but stopped her steps in front of the campus courtyard.
She witnessed Aki’s figure, sitting on a bench just like when Haruka had seen her for the first time.
Next to her was Watanabe.
He was still holding onto his musical instrument.
After the recital had ended, he must have ran after Aki who had been watching the performance.
Haruka couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but a smile faintly appeared on Aki’s face.
Haruka felt relieved and smiled as well without realising.
Uh oh, now’s not the time to space out. I’m going to be late.
Haruka quickly headed to the auditorium.
Yakumo had already been waiting for her in front of the entrance.
”You’re slow,” he said with a sigh upon seeing Haruka.
“Sorry,” apologised Haruka sincerely.
At that moment she noticed familiar faces.
Gotou and Ishii were next to Yakumo.
“Hey,” Gotou shouted as he casually waved. On the other hand, Ishii called out to her, purposely dragging out his words, “Haruka-chaaan!”
“So Gotou-san and Ishii-san came along too.”
“That’s right. Since we’ve been dragged to work on this and that, I thought we might as well come to watch.” replied Gotou.
It was true that Gotou and Ishii had been a great help during the theatre circle case. So it would be understandable for them wanting to know how things were going afterwards.
She understood that, yet at the same time, a question she had long since forgotten about resurfaced.
“By the way, what happened to Iida-san afterwards?”
Iida had been the culprit that had deliberately collapsed the set and injured Tomoko.
“He obediently admitted to his actions now. The charges are for bodily harm.”
“That’s a relief to hear.”
“Then, Daichi will soon be handed over to a prosecutor.”
“Is that so...”
Various feelings muddled within Haruka.
Daichi’s lover had practically been murdered. Haruka understood the depths of his resentment and grief. However, Daichi had chosen the wrong path by pursuing revenge.
While he deserved punishment, the whole thing had left an unpleasant taste.
“Also, I think Sakamoto and Fujimoto will be prosecuted for charges of causing death by negligence in duty of care.”
“Eh?”
“Because of testimonies from Daichi and that student named Natsuki, they finally admitted to it as well.”
Haruka’s heart felt lighter after hearing Gotou’s explanation.
They were going to be prosecuted, but most importantly, they had admitted to their actions, a sign that they had the willingness to repent.
Haruka felt it was a salvation that they could at least obtain.
“Just how long are you guys planning to hang around here?” asked Yakumo, returning Haruka to her senses.
If they didn’t hurry, the stage play would soon begin.
All of them quickly entered the auditorium.
It was free seating, but because they had come in late, they had to sit all the way at the back. Luckily, they managed to secure four adjacent empty seats.
Yakumo sat closest to the aisle. Next to him consecutively were Haruka, Ishii, and then Gotou.
“Is Haruka-chan’s circle going to do a recital or the like as well?” asked Ishii when the situation grew calmer.
What Haruka had just forgotten returned to her mind.
“Ah, it was already over.”
“Is that so...I would’ve wanted to go and watch...” Ishii hung his head in regret.
Such a huge disaster wasn’t something Haruka wanted to show.
“Ishii-san, in my opinion, you should be grateful you didn’t go to watch it,” added Yakumo.
“Why?” Ishii asked in return.
“Not only was she wearing cat ears at that age, she also performed a dance that made me wanted to close my eyes, and then fell spectacularly to top it all off—”
So he did come watch after all!
Haruka was happy that Yakumo had come to watch her recital. Yet at the same time, she was embarrassed by the fact that Yakumo had seen her in such a state.
“No…that...”
Haruka wanted to make excuses, but Yakumo held his index finger against his mouth and shushed. “Sshh.”
The audience seat lights had already been dimmed.
Haruka felt troubled by various things, but for now she decided to simply concentrate on the stage play.
Haruka then turned her eyes towards the stage—
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Translation updates - Mar 2024
Hi everyone,
It's been a while since the last update, and I hope everyone is having a good year so far.
File 3 of Another Files - The Dead's Wish is now up. This is the last file in the volume and admittedly the one that left me the most emotional. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. The epilogue and afterword should be up in the near future as well.
Moving on, I've decided to self-edit my translation in hopes to pick up the pace a little bit as I foresee having to juggle even more real life commitments alongside the translation. I hope it's not going to sacrifice too much of the translation quality.
Next up, about the translation backlog. In case you missed it, Kaminaga-sensei and staff made a major announcement late last year that 1) a sequel to the Shinrei Tantei Yakumo series is in the works and 2) they are making a 'complete' version of the previous volumes. As the series was Kaminaga-sensei's debut work that started back in 2004, my understanding is that they're updating the setting to keep up with the times while keeping the outlines intact to make something that both old and new fans can enjoy. Both are scheduled to start publication this spring. Currently, like most materials that are only available in Japanese, I'm not certain if I'll ever be able to pick these up ever (or anytime soon), so I'll just keep an eye on the official updates for the time being.
Hence, as scheduled, I will be translating Shinrei Tantei Yakumo Another Files - Lamenting Doll next. Like The Dead's Wish, this volume also consisted of 3 files that are self contained cases and an epilogue. As a preview for now, here is the blurb:
Yakumo’s uncle, Isshin, brought him a case of a painting of a man with red eyes. Alongside Haruka and Gotou, they then travelled to a sake factory at Yamanashi, where the painting was located.
However, after their arrival, terrifying incidents fell one by one upon Haruka!
The case of the painting of a man with red eyes led them to another case with the ghost of a child and a talking doll. Yakumo had to deal with spiritual phenomena one after another amidst heavy downpour!
However! While you guys wait for the file 01 of Another Files - Lamenting Doll to be completed, I'm planning to release another short translation beforehand: if you've been looking at my schedule page, I have a separate backlog of shorter-length materials only available in Japanese that I wish to slowly commission a JP-EN translation out of.
I'm excited to announce that the first item on the list is currently being worked on: Shinrei Tantei Yakumo 6.5 - Unexpressed Feelings. It's a not for sale booklet from a limited-run campaign in 2011 containing 2 short stories with illustrations by Oda Suzuka (instead of Suzuki Yasushi that usually did the paperback illustrations). The first story took place after the end of file 3 in the manga/novel volume 3, in case you'd like to refresh your memory of that particular case before reading. I'm hoping to have it published sometime in April.
This post's getting long, that's everything I have for now. Thank you for reading and do look forward to the upcoming updates!
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