Title Chapter 1: On The Other Side Of The World ✅

Haikyuu!! Shosetsuban!! Light Novel 12: The Views From After Graduation Translated by: @palaboras and @leoppii / sleepless-rain.tumblr.com PLEASE READ BEFORE STARTING THE CHAPTER If you’d like to encourage your friends to buy a copy here are some websites: Cdjapan https://bit.ly/3jUk7hn Amazon https://amzn.to/3fktrrk Amiami https://bit.ly/3fipi7f Aitaikuji https://bit.ly/30ico4Q Bookwalker https://bit.ly/3fpTtJS Kinokuniya https://www.kinokuniya.com/ Warning: Please do NOT repost this translation anywhere. If we see this translation being reposted we will delete this and stop translating other chapters. Disclaimer: We are not professional translators, we’re just fans who happen to know English and, to a certain extent, Japanese. We took several liberties during translation to make this read smoothly, which means that lines have been slightly tweaked to make the flow of the text feel more natural. As such, we would like to request that the words used in this translation NOT be quoted as canon, because they are not. They are just an interpretation of what has been written in the original text. We did try our best to stay faithful to the original, and we have other fan translators proofreading for accuracy. Regarding translations into another language: For the reasons stated above, we will not be allowing translations that use this as the base text. We’re very sorry to anyone who is keen on sharing it in another language, but please do so using the original Japanese text. Please respect our wishes as translators and thank you for supporting Haikyuu! Links to other chapters: Chapter 2: BJ Fan Appreciation Day Chapter 3: The Triumphant Return Of The Third Year Crows to Osuwari Chapter 4: Onigiri Miya, Open For Business Chapter 5: The Iron Wall As Working Members Of Society Chapter 6: The Grand King In Rio
Chapter 1: On The Other Side Of The World “Since when has she been standing behind me?” Yachi thought. “You’ve got it all wrong.” At the sound of her mother’s harsh tone, Yachi Hitoka’s whole body jerked in surprise. From directly behind her, her mother, Madoka — although she should really be calling her “president” while she’s at work — continued in an astounded tone, “Wafū 1 doesn’t just mean Mount Fuji, or cranes, or kokeshi dolls. This isn’t a souvenir marketed towards foreign tourists in Japan...” Yachi looked at the screen in front of her. Displayed on it was a design proposal for the packaging of a product. Sure, it did look like a souvenir from Japan, but she’d intended for its design to match the concept of ‘wafū’. “It’s...wrong?” Yachi, now a university student, was working part-time at her mother’s graphic design company. This time, she’d finally been given the chance to come up with a design that would be presented to a client, and she’d been in high spirits ever since she started working on it, but now— “Wh- What do you mean, exactly?” Yachi pressed ⌘S to save the file. She turned to face Madoka, not as a daughter, but as a designer-in-training. “Hm...” Madoka murmured, as she crossed her arms. The jacket she was wearing looked like it was tailor-made for her. The radio, which played softly throughout the office in place of background music, switched over to the traffic report. No congestion on the expressways, but light congestion coming down along National Route 4 and the Sendai Bypass, from Kozuru to Tsurugaya— “...” The only thing that Yachi could do now was to hold her breath and wait for the president to grant her an answer. It was as if she were stuck in traffic, and all she could do was silently wait. Along National Route 45, up towards the prefectural office, there’s a 1 kilometer long jam near the entrance of Shiogama City Hall— “...” 1 Wafū: Japanese-style
Time passed by at a suffocating pace and the traffic report finally came to an end — along with her nervous sweating. And right as it switched over to the weather report, Yachi could no longer deal with the pressure from the long silence (or rather, for some reason, she’d stopped breathing while she waited and now she needed oxygen), so she opened her mouth. “U- Um!” At the exact same time, Madoka finally began to explain, “Basically, the request was to come up with a simple, yet chic design. You looked at the documents, didn’t you? The price was also slightly more expensive than existing products. The concept of this design shouldn’t look too childish. Well, I guess the kokeshi dolls do feel very local, so you could possibly use that as a concept in one of your proposals. However, in general I’d like you to refrain from messy, childish, and noisy designs. If you want to include a wafū motif, then keep it to a single focal point. Don’t forget that it has to feel chic.” Yachi took down notes furiously as she tried to catch up with the sheer amount of criticism rushing towards her like water flowing down a vertical plank. At the same time, she racked her brains and tried to think of the corrections she could possibly make. “Simple... Chic... Maybe, something like this...” Yachi picked up the mouse again and started deleting the images scattered all over the design. She changed the thick brush font to a simple serif font. Then she changed the base layer from a red wafū pattern to a textured craft paper. It was a temporary fix, but with just a few clicks, the new design now felt completely different from the previous one. It was completely different, but Yachi still had some doubts. “Then, where...should the wafū be?” she murmured, as she tilted her head to the side. The president, who had been staring at the screen, began to speak. “The client has expressed that wafū lies in the simplicity of its design. It’s kind of like wabi-sabi 2 . So here we don’t want it to look like a richly textured noshi 3 envelope. Ah, but don’t get the wrong idea. It only applies to this particular instance, and everything changes when it comes to a different client or representative. There are as many different images of wafū as there are people, and I want you to understand that not everyone is going to have the same impression towards the same concept. Design is all about communication — we have to understand what the other party is looking for and then give it shape.” Yachi gave it her all in noting down the criticism that rained down upon her like a thunderous waterfall. She considered possibly asking for course materials regarding faster note-taking. She knew that the lengthy explanation probably came from a place of parental love. Madoka likely 3 Noshi: A kind of ceremonial origami fold. 2 Wabi-sabi: According to Wikipedia, “in traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection”.
only wanted to share all of the experience she had gained thus far; even so, in that moment, her daughter was on the verge of tears. “Um, so, um, in other words, is this all just...conjecture?” “No, it’s the imaginative power of a professional.” “S- sorry,” Yachi apologised, having been ruthlessly denied to the point of no recovery. “Crap,” Madoka muttered, who had now returned to looking like a mother once she realised that her daughter was cowering away. She decided to follow up with some encouragement. “The one you just edited, I think it’s a step in the right direction of ‘elegant and refined living’. Do your best,” she said, and bustled out of the office. Or not. Almost immediately, the door opened again. Madoka peeked in and said, “Ah, the one just now is fine as it is, but don’t make them all look the same! Maintain that sense of refinement and add some breadth to the rest of your design proposals. I’ve said this a million times before so I think you get it already, but make sure you’ve got proposals A, B, and C, not just proposals A1, A2, and A3.” “Un- Understood!” Upon hearing her daughter’s response, Madoka said, “Alright, I look forward to seeing them,” and this time, left the office for real. After waiting dozens of seconds to make sure that the door really, really wouldn’t open again, Yachi let out a huge sigh and slumped over her desk. Her arm bumped into the mouse, causing it to fall and dangle loosely, swinging in the air. “Thank goodness, my heart was pounding like crazy...” And then again, for good measure, she let out a small sigh and murmured, “Communication, huh.” I’m so bad at that. As she watched the mouse swing gently in the air, she was reminded of the “beach” that Hinata Shoyo had once spoken of. He hadn’t been thinking of somewhere like Shobuta Beach or Tsukihama Beach, that’s for sure. There’s nothing in the world as difficult as communication. “Even so, I have to try my best.”