Tonari no Seki no Satou-San Chapter 1

Tonari no Seki no Satou-San

Domo domo~ Onion dayo~

Right, right. Serious mode.

This one’s a suuuuper fluffy series, or so I can see. I’m not 100% sure if I want to just flat out MTL this or keep going with my normal rate.

(MTL is faster, but my slower rate has better quality, or at least I hope).

Either way, here’s the chapter!

Translator: Onion

Editor: Onion

The edge of the loose-leaf paper cut my finger like a knife.
I had thought that I should get ready for the next class, because the bell had rung.
The tip of my index finger was filled with red blood.

I hurried and put my hand into the pocket of my uniform.
My left hand’s movements were annoyingly clumsy, and so getting my tissues out of my right pocket was awkward to do. In the end, I could only grab my handkerchief, so I had to use it.
When I covered the fingertip with a handkerchief, it was stained red. The loose-leaf paper also had blood on it, so I needed to throw that away too.
It just wasn’t my day. I look down at my wounded finger and sigh.

“Yamaguchi-kun, are you okay?”
Suddenly, a voice comes from my left.
When I looked over, my desk-neighbor Satou-san was looking at me.
“Did you cut it?” (Satou)
Even though it’s not her problem, she’s worrying about me.
I nodded vaguely.
“It’s nothing, really.” (Yamaguchi)
A lot of blood came out, so my handkerchief was looking like I took it out of a crime scene.
Satou-san took something out of her skirt.
“Here, use this.” (Satou)
With a meek smile, she offered a band-aid to me.

A light pink, expressionless cat was drawn on it.
I saw this a while ago, when some elementary school girls would say “Cute, cute” repeatedly and try to collect band-aids with these characters on it.

Of course, I hesitated.
“That’s a little… too cute for me to use.” (Y)
“Yeah, it’s cute. But don’t worry and use it, I have a lot more.” (Satou)
Satou-san said, obviously misunderstanding something.
“I didn’t mean it that way”, I complained in my head.
If I had this around my finger, what would everyone think? “Grow up already”, they’d say, thinking I carry these around by choice.
The lunch break is already over, so I can’t go to get a different band-aid from the nurse’s office. Not that I have that luxury anyway.

I can’t handle Satou-san very well.
When my seat was put next to hers, I really thought “it wasn’t my day”.
In the first place, she’s not even cute. Out of all the girls in class she was the most plain, with her skirt ending below her knees as per school rules, and her hairstyle hadn’t changed once.
Even though she’s fun to talk to, Satou-san is still pretty boring. She can’t make good jokes, and she can’t follow the pace of conversations. There are a lot of chances to talk to her because she sits next to me, but they usually end up left alone.
If so, then it would be fine to ignore her, but Satou-san has a bad habit of being kind to everyone.
She does this even for me, who isn’t close to her at all.

“I’m happy you offered, but…” (Y)
I couldn’t find the words to say while staring at the held-out bandage.
Deep down, I thought about flat-out rejecting her. But then my conscience felt guilty. I should just be honest and tell Satou-san “I don’t need it”.
While debating, I was looking at Satou-san with a strange face.
“Yamaguchi-kun, what’s wrong?” (S)
“Uh, that band-aid…” (Y)
I said gently, and her eyes widened.
“Oh, I get it. I’m sorry, I’m not that smart.” (S)
So you’re aware of it?
Anyway, I’m glad she realized.
While I stroked my chest, Satou-san stood up, breaking the seal on the cat bandage.
“Excuse me a bit…” (S)
While I was refusing, she approached me, suddenly grabbing my hand.
“Eh?”
Out of surprise, my dirty handkerchief dropped to the desk.
I can’t refuse at this point. A person I can’t get along with suddenly grabbed my hand. Not that I’m glad that Satou-san grabbed my hand.
But because I was so surprised, I couldn’t say anything.
Satou’s hand holding my finger is soft and cool. While I was occupied by those thoughts, she wrapped the band-aid around my finger.
Then she faced me.
“You couldn’t put it on your dominant hand, right? How does it feel?” (S)
She smiled sweetly, asking like it was obvious.

Satou-san’s smile as she looked up is still plain and not cute at all.
But because she was so close, I had to look away.
Even though I hurried to look down, the afterimage of what I had just seen lingered.
Even though it shouldn’t be interesting, Satou-san’s smile and the cold feeling of her touch stayed in my memory.

A few seconds later, the teacher walked into the classroom.
Because of that, I couldn’t even thank Satou-san.

All through fifth period, an expressionless cat glared at me from my fingertip.
It had a face that looked like it wanted to say something, and the prickling pain continued in my finger. I felt like there was a pain somewhere else too, but I didn’t intend to find it. In fact, it’s probably just my imagination.
Not looking at the seat to my left, I breathed out a quiet sigh.

I really can’t handle Satou-san.

Yay! No editor notes either! Yeah, this was chapter one. As always, if there’s anything wrong, tell me, otherwise, I’ll start working on the next soon-ish. About the paragraph formatting, it really is like this in the raw. If it bothers people, I could change some stuff around to make it easier to read like Himekishi. Otherwise, I’ll try to keep it as close to the source material as possible.

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