Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
Week two in the bag. I had a few sentences marked as questions for this week, but I’ll type them out later; feeling too lazy now.
We get our first history lesson this week! How did everyone do? Fun fact: トーマス•フロビッシャー is named as one of Elizabeth’s pirates (or Sea Dogs, as they were also known), but this is a mistake; マーティン・フロビッシャー is the correct man. This mistake is also repeated in the first drama CD.
We also get a nice explanation of parallel worlds, and how your dream self is just another you in one of them. I even had a note that read “wtf” when Kaito asked what they were; maybe the concept wasn’t as well-known in the early 2000s? (Which I presume is when the series is set; I don’t remember if anything specific is ever stated or not.)
I’m a pretty big fan of the whole punching scene; Kaito doesn’t really have a great understanding of who Kazuya is, it seems, and Kazuya lays it all out very nicely for him.
I was just surprised that Kaito hadn’t heard of the parallel worlds theory, I suppose. Maybe it’s a newer idea than I realize and I just take it for granted.
I think this is just a twist to allow the author to explain it to the readers who may not be familiar with the subject. It’s a teenagers’ book after all
An honestly, it’s probably a good idea regardless of intended audience age to say something about the concept in some capacity, just so readers have some basis in it though we’re looking at time travel coming up.
Starting on the first page of this week, Kaito and Kazuya are on the train; Kazuya’s snoozing while Kaito eats and reads a local guidebook:
「あー、マジぃ。ここまで激マズだと、いっそ感動するよな…」
This whole sentence is throwing me. Is it something about how Kazuya pushed them to hurry up to make the bus/train, but ended up falling asleep afterwards?
Second: this is right after Kaito and Kazuya get into their fight, somewhere around the 12% mark. Kazuya is speaking:
The bolded is where I lose the thread of things a little. Kazuya’s saying that he realized that Kaito had closed off parts of his heart to others; but in the next sentence it seems to be saying, “but you wanted someone to gently move in [to the closed off part of the heart], so I was really careful to try to make my way in as gently as possible” (i.e. not “touch” anything)? I know I’m missing something here, but I’m not sure what.
Kaito is complaining about the poor quality of the sandwich he bought on the train. He says something along the lines “I’m surprised that such a disgusting thing even exists.”
[checked back with a Japanese native because I did not make the connection either ]
Ah, okay. That makes sense, although I’m still not sure I understand how the sentence equates to that. Something like this?
「あー、マジぃ。ここまで激マズだと、いっそ感動するよな…」
あー、マジぃ。= Ew, disgusting.
ここまで激マズだと、= Something as mega-gross as this
いっそ感動するよな… = I’d rather have not experienced (? like, I’d rather (いっそ) the sandwhich have not made a strong impression (感動するな) on me?)
Second question
Ah, that was what I was missing. What is that でも doing in the sentence, then? In the first one Kazuya acknowledges that he realized there were parts of Kaito’s heart he couldn’t enter easily, but then follows up with, “でも, […] I was careful not to touch those parts.” Is でも being used in different-from-the-usual sense of “but” here?
Thank you @nikoru, it all makes sense now. ^o^ That いっそ感動するよな is tricky, I’ll have to keep out in mind.
Edit: ah, part of the issue was that I was misreading 感動するよな as 感動するなよな.
I got a chance to continue listening to the drama CD, and as far as I can tell, for the parts they kept in, it’s pretty much word-for-word for the book. I didn’t have the book on me to compare with, granted, but it’s at least pretty close. Kazuya’s VA did a great sounding extremely angry here.
This section also only covers part of the second track, from 00:00 to about 09:07.
Just catching up on week 2 now!! Oh boy, character growth. It turns out that it was Kaito who had his heart closed off the entire time. The teen angst!
I am looking forward to seeing what happens to Kazuya? I think there was some foreshadowing when the boys talked about parallel worlds and how Kazuya wouldn’t want to stay because he has too much holding him back in the real world, but what will happen to the two of them? If they get separated after their dramatic fight, that’d be a little sad!
Kaito didn’t have much time to dwell on their “fake” friendship, huh. At least Kazuya was pretty straightforward about things and cleared up the air a bit.
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It’s a teenagers’ book after all 
Is it something about how Kazuya pushed them to hurry up to make the bus/train, but ended up falling asleep afterwards?
