The Trainer With Little Time Left Just Wants to Live [18]

Gold Ship: “Come to think of it… I’m pretty curious. Kitano-chan, how exactly did you manage to stop breathing and lose your heartbeat back then, only to come back to life afterward?”

Kitano: “…”

As for what Symboli Rudolf and Mejiro Ramonu had discussed, Kitano, currently recuperating in the hospital, knew nothing about it. He also had no idea that the countdown on his life, which even Nakayama Festa did not know about, had now been shared with them, nor did he know that this matter would set off an unpredictable butterfly effect in the future.

Right now, Kitano was quietly recovering under Gold Ship’s care. This time, Festa was not at his side. Kitano had made her stay at Tracen Academy to train properly, adjust herself to the best condition possible, and prepare for the upcoming debut race.

With the Three Goddesses’ guidance, Kitano had also made many timely amends to Festa, and the results proved very effective. Although Festa still refused to bare her heart the way she had by his hospital bed back then, Kitano could feel the distance between them shrinking. Festa could now sense that he was paying attention to her and trusting in her ability, rather than simply putting pressure on her.

And now, with Gold Ship fully responsible for taking care of him, Kitano could only wait for good news from Festa’s debut race. Once his lifespan was extended, he would be able to escape his current predicament of not even being able to get out of bed.

TAP, TAP, TAP.

“Trainer Kitano? May I come in?”

However, just as Kitano had no idea how to answer Gold Ship’s sudden soul-piercing question, a knock on the door broke the awkwardness in the hospital room. What followed was Oguri Cap’s voice, carrying a hint of pleading.

The instant Gold Ship heard Oguri’s voice from inside the room, her expression darkened slightly. But before she could speak, Kitano reacted first and immediately said,

“Please come in, Oguri Cap.”

“Also, Golshi-chan, could I trouble you to buy me a drink? I’m a little thirsty.”

During this period, Gold Ship had taken charge of almost all of Kitano’s care. However, Oguri Cap and Tamamo Cross, who both felt they bore an unavoidable responsibility for Kitano’s collapse this time, had also visited frequently while he was recuperating. Every time they came, they brought either meals or nutritional supplements.

Gold Ship’s attitude toward the two of them, however, was completely different. Toward Tamamo, Gold Ship was always all smiles, saying she had come to “atone.” But toward Oguri… perhaps because Gold Ship felt Oguri was the root cause of his collapse, her attitude toward her had always been guarded, even a little fierce.

So, to avoid conflict between the two gray-haired Umamusume he cared about most inside the hospital room, Kitano always had Gold Ship step away first whenever Oguri came. Gold Ship clearly understood what he meant. Although she was somewhat displeased, she still left the room without saying anything more.

As Gold Ship left and the hospital room door slowly closed, Kitano and Oguri’s gazes met in midair. In that instant, Oguri, who had always been indifferent by nature, actually showed rare hesitation and did not dare meet his eyes. Instead, she lifted the bag in her hand and said,

“Trainer Kitano, I brought you lunch—it is something I made myself.”

“That was thoughtful of you, Oguri Cap.” Hearing that Oguri had actually made the food herself, Kitano was a little surprised. Just as he was about to get up from the bed, Oguri nervously stepped forward and pressed down on his shoulders.

“Do not move.” A trace of panic entered Oguri Cap’s tone, and her eyes trembled slightly. Her hands pressed Kitano down firmly, leaving him no room to resist at all, and she said rather anxiously, “I do not want you to pass out again, Kitano… I do not. So please, do not move around.”

“…” At that moment, looking at the nervous Oguri before him, Kitano, unable to move, had no choice but to nod helplessly. Only after seeing the panic in Oguri’s eyes fade did he finally let out a long breath of relief.

He had to admit, it was precisely because Oguri Cap was the one pressing him down like this that Kitano could still feel at ease. If it had been any other Umamusume, even one of the trainees he had trusted most in previous loops, doing the same thing as Oguri, Kitano would have felt a faint sense of danger… wondering whether he was about to end up like other Trainers, forced by his irrational trainee into doing something extremely damaging to his body.

It was not as if such things had never happened before. For some Trainers, the hospital was not a safe house, but their next battlefield. Many Umamusume with clear goals understood perfectly well that taking advantage of their Trainer’s illness to care for them, quickly warming up the relationship between them, and even developing it into something beyond ordinary, was not out of the question.

Of course, Kitano had never experienced that sort of treatment himself. Otherwise, with his personality, if he ever truly obtained mutual love, then no matter how many loops he crossed through, he would go after the same person every single time. Kitano understood himself. Someone like him, lonely and lacking love since childhood because of congenital illness, would absolutely become pathetic the moment he knew someone truly loved him, clinging to his lover like a drowning man clutching a lifeline and never letting go.

…Thinking about it that way, in a sense, I guess I have a “heavy-going romantic minefield” personality too, huh?

That self-mockery flashed through Kitano’s mind, and he quickly came back to himself. At that moment, Oguri had already taken out the lunch she had brought him. But when Kitano turned his gaze toward the food Oguri had delivered, he froze slightly.

“…Isn’t this the fried rice I made back then?”

“No, I made it myself.” Oguri Cap shook her head and opened the bento box in front of her. Inside, sure enough, was fried rice almost identical to Kitano’s bento. If not for the obvious trace of one bite having been taken from the box in Oguri’s hands, it would probably be very hard to tell the difference between the two boxes of fried rice.

“I remade the fried rice according to your method, Trainer Kitano. Tamamo tried it too. She said… the flavor is almost exactly the same as what you made.”

“…This is the first time I’ve known you could cook.” Hearing that, Kitano subconsciously tasted a bite of the fried rice Oguri had made. Although his sense of taste had deteriorated greatly by now, he could still tell that Oguri’s cooking was unexpectedly good. And if Tamamo, the Umamusume most suited to being a housewife, had given it such high praise, then there was absolutely no mistake.

But Kitano remembered very clearly that in the loop he had shared with Oguri Cap, it was not as if he had never tried to teach her how to cook. At the time, he had considered Oguri’s enormous appetite, and because of his physical condition, he could not stay by her side at all times to cook for her. So he had wanted to pass his cooking skills on to her, so that someday, even if he was no longer beside her, Oguri could reproduce his cooking and make the meals she liked.

Unfortunately, as an Umamusume, Oguri Cap was an exceedingly flawless existence. But aside from her talent as an Umamusume, she could be said to know absolutely nothing about any other field.

Kitano had spent at least two years failing to teach Oguri how to cook. It was as if she were deliberately making mistakes. Every time she tried, she either mixed up the seasonings or put in too many ingredients, to the point that the pan could not even hold them, and the result never met expectations. Kitano had been one step away from saying, “Rotten wood cannot be carved.”

Yet in this loop, Oguri Cap’s cooking skill, refined enough to reproduce his dish, made Kitano curious. Who exactly had taught her?

“…Someone who cared for me and looked after me like a father taught me these things.”

Hearing that, after a moment of silence, Oguri Cap showed a rare faint, warm smile on her usually unruffled face and said softly,

“I did not want to learn these things before either. But after he left, I slowly began learning his cooking. Only now can I finally say I have reached the point where I can compare to him.”

“Someone who cared for you like a father… I see. He must have been the person you cared about most, Oguri Cap.”

Hearing that, Kitano nodded with a slightly strange expression. From Oguri’s words, he could more or less guess that the person she spoke of was probably the Trainer in this loop who had taken Kitano’s place. And when that unknown Trainer received such praise from Oguri, aside from feeling relieved, Kitano also felt a tiny bit jealous.

But very soon, Kitano turned his head and forgot that small jealousy. He smiled at Oguri Cap and said softly,

“Then in that case, Oguri Cap, you’ll be able to reproduce my cooking by yourself in the future. I probably won’t need to drag this sick body of mine around and cook for you like before anymore.”

“Ah, I was still worried that if I did that again, Festa and the others might beat me up. But now it looks like I don’t need to worry about that.”

“—It is different.”

However, hearing that, Oguri Cap unexpectedly shook her head with great stubbornness. Her bright eyes fixed on Kitano, and she said word by word,

“The flavor of a dish can be reproduced. But food I make myself… is not the flavor I want to find. That flavor… no, perhaps I should say that feeling, can only be made by one person. No matter who else tries to reproduce it, it will not be the flavor I am chasing.”

As she spoke, Oguri Cap’s small, solemn face also showed Kitano a faint smile. She had no intention of hiding her thoughts or feelings at all as she said softly to him,

“So I think… that flavor is something only you can make, Trainer Kitano. You are the unique one, the only person who can help me find that flavor. Only food made by your own hands can let me taste it.”

“No one but you can satisfy me like this again. So please let me take care of you for a while longer, until your body becomes healthy again.”

“I want to taste the dishes you make by hand a few more times, Trainer Kitano. If one day in the future, you can become healthy again, then please allow me to remain by your side and obtain the satisfaction only you can give me… all right?”

“…I see.”

However, looking at Oguri Cap’s solemn expression as she said words Kitano had never heard before, Kitano, after a brief daze, actually had his gaze waver in rare fashion… If the person saying these things had not been Oguri Cap, this blockhead who had no idea what deeper meaning her own words carried, Kitano would have thought Oguri was calling him out directly and inviting him to feed her his cooking for the rest of her life.

What Kitano did not know was that, as he treated Oguri Cap’s words like a joke and let them pass, he failed to notice a trace of disappointment flicker through Oguri’s bright eyes. But very soon, this gray-haired Umamusume rekindled her fighting spirit, as well as an expression of dependence that ordinary people would struggle to notice.

Oguri Cap herself knew that she no longer cared about that “flavor” anymore… because she had already found it.

She had found the person she had wanted to find, the person who could create that one and only flavor. Although she had failed to recognize him at first, after witnessing his weak collapse, she had already understood what that missing little bit truly was…

That “seasoning” did not come from Kitano, but from Oguri Cap herself. Only when her flavor and Kitano’s flavor merged into one would it become the perfect flavor from her dreams that she wanted to find.

And this time, she would not let all of this happen again… She would definitely change her Trainer’s fate… my dear, one and only Trainer-san.

T/N: oh? she remembers now? hmmmmmmmmmmmm to ME personally i think its all going a bit too fast, but im assuming hes prob gonna loop again so im not all that bothered by it

This is a fan translation of 时日无多的训练员只想活下去 by 许氏子谦 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!