Wheelchair Girl: Chapter 5-2

RAWS: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2611p/25/

Chapter 5-2: Incline

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One a certain day off.

Since Kazutaka was more or less also a student preparing for his exams, he too studied on his day off.

With his bag slung on his shoulder, he headed to cram school.

On his way, he passed by a certain crossroad.

To the right, there was a large hill with a very steep slope. Five out of ten cyclists would have just given up midway and pushed their bikes instead of trying to cycle it up. And on top of that, it was ridiculously long as well.

It was the path you’d have to take to get to a residential area. Despite having nothing to do with that place, Kazutaka still casually glanced that way.

At the slope, there was a certain someone. She was slowly trying to go uphill.

That certain someone was a certain girl in a wheelchair.

“Ah, perhaps…?”

Kazutaka strained his eyes and focused his gaze.

Black shortcut. Bingo.

That back belonged to none other than his classmate Harukawa.

Without any help, she was trying to climb up a hill all by herself. She was moving at a snail’s pace.

Since the slope had a gentle curve, Kazutaka was able to see Haruka’s expression.

Her face was soaked in sweat. She ground her teeth while grasping on handrim of her wheelchair with all her might, desperately trying to move up that hill.

 Kazutaka furrowed his brows.

“What on earth is she doing? Going up that hill all by herself…?”

No matter how you spin it. Going up that hill all by yourself was just absurd. If you make a single mistake, you’ll roll back down and perhaps even accelerate backward, heading towards quite some nasty end.

After confirming that no cars were coming from his left and right, Kazutaka crossed the intersection.

“Oi! Harukawa!”

He called out to her from behind.

Reacting to his voice, Haruka was surprised, quickly raised her face, and turned around.

“A-akasaka-kun?

Distracted by suddenly encountering a familiar face around this rather unfamiliar area, her grip on the handrims loosened.

And then the wheelchair rolled down backward.

“Ah…!”

Before they knew it, Haruka’s wheelchair gained momentum and sped down the hill.

“Kyahh!”

“Ha-haruka?!”

Taken aback by this sudden turn of events, Kazutaka immediately tossed aside the bag slung over his shoulder, and sprinted towards her.

Haruka, descending the hill, frantically reached for the brake lever to slow her momentum.

The mechanism emitted a squeaking noise reminiscent of applying bicycle brakes.

However, she wasn’t able to fully kill the momentum and the suddenly slowed-down wheelchair fell down the hill backwards.

It overturned with a crashing sound.

“Haru…!”

While catching his breath, Kazutaka witnessed all of this happening right in front of him.

Haruka’s body was thrown into the air.

Thrown out of her wheelchair, Haruka’s body hit the ground and then continued to roll down the rest of the hill up to the roadway.

One shoe fell away.

After three more rotations, her body finally stopped moving.

Like a puppet that had its strings snapped, her body was just lying there on the ground.

…All of this happened in just a single moment.

“Ha- Harukawa!”

Kazutaka finally awakened from the shock and sprinted towards her body, knelt down, and quickly lifted her up.

“A-are you okay? Harukawa?!”

He lifted her face and combed her hair away. Her eyes were closed. Not moving at all. Not a single twitch.

Her body was just hanging in Kazutaka’s arms. No strength at all.

Her cheeks and her hand had a lot of scratches here and there. She had red and bruised spots.

“O-oi! What’s wrong? Open your eyes…”

Don’t tell me she hit the back of her head.

His emotions all over his face, imagining the worst, Kazutaka’s face turned pale.

“Oi! Get up! Please get up!”

While being careful to not move her head too much, he repeatedly called her name. With his hands that were shivering with anxiety, he wiped away some dirt from her cheeks.

“Nn…”

Haruka frowned and finally moved into Kazutaka’s arms.

While groaning, she opened her eyes.

“Akasaka-kun…?”

“I’m so glad!”

Kazutaka couldn’t help but raise his voice in relief.

“A-are you okay?”

To his anxious question, Haruka, while groaning in pain was able to respond firmly.

“Ow, yeah more or less.”

Kazutaka confirmed Haruka’s current state.

She was wearing a grey blouse and a black long skirt, thus giving off an overall dark-stylish vibe. A rather monotone coloring. Come to think of it, this might be the first time he saw Haruka in outdoor clothing.

Since she had hit the ground, the skirt had turned over and she had hit her knees. His skin was peeled away by the hard asphalt and blood was dripping from various spots.

“Is your head okay? Did you hit it?”

“Yeah. It seems I got lucky there.”

While she had many scrapes and cuts, overall it was nothing too serious and she probably would be able to easily recover from this.

The thought of her hitting her head as she fell backward from the wheelchair was terrifying but it seemed she was okay for now.

Kazutaka was relieved from the bottom of his heart.

He felt like his heart would stop there. 

Kazutaka scolded Haruka with a stern expression.

“Seriously, what on earth were you thinking? Climbing up such an incline all by yourself. Are you suicidal or what?”

“No…well…”

Trying to hide her embarrassment, Haruka stuck out her tongue, as if this had been just a small blunder on her part, no biggie and stuff.

“I guess I did an oopsie there.”

She was playfully hitting her head.

“Oopsie, my ass. You goddamn idiot.”

“No… it was just… you know?”

Haruka made an evasive answer.

“If you really wanted to go up that hill, you could have just asked a passerby to push you or do various things. Seriously, what were you thinking?”

Kazutaka was getting more and more heated about this.

They were lucky that she managed to get over this with just minor injuries but this could have become a tragedy. She was already struggling with her disabled legs. What if another part of her body gets affected as well?”

Haruka was trying to make herself small, clearly feeling a bit uncomfortable in this situation.

“Yes…. Ano… I’m sorry for making you worry…”

She looked down and apologized.

She then looked up to Kazutaka, trying to peer into his face and gauge his expression.

“…I’m sorry.”

She seemed like a puppy that felt super guilty after being thoroughly scolded by its owner.

Just looking at her face made Kazutaka almost squirm. It made him go ‘kyun’ kind of.

Anyway, let’s get Haruka back in her wheelchair.

He looked around, searching for her wheelchair but it wasn’t close by.

He finally spotted it at the very bottom of the hill, toppled over with its wheels still spinning.

Even if he went down to get it, it was still dangerous to get on the wheelchair on an incline. So he decided to carry Haruka to the wheelchair instead.

“Welp, first of all, let’s go and get your wheelchair. Come on, get on my back.”

Kazutaka squatted down, ready to give Haruka a piggy-back ride.

However, Haruka suddenly just stood still for some reason.

“Etto…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Uhm, I kind of hit my hip I think. Sorry… I just can’t get up for some reason…”

Having both of her hands on the ground and lifting her upper half, she was unable to move further like a patient with a strained back.

Haruka told her with an amazed face.

“Seriously… This happened because you did something so reckless…”

Just then, a car suddenly came downhill.

Haruka was currently lying in the middle of the road.

The car slowed down and drove past them. The two of them bowed to the driver.

They really couldn’t afford to remain on the road for too long.

Kazutaka told Haruka.

“You said you hit your hip. How much does it hurt? Are you able to move?”

“Yes… If you lend me a bit of your hand.”

Haruka sounded apologetic.

“I guess it can’t be helped… I’ll carry you. Come here, hold onto me.”

“Eh?”

Kazutaka fixed up her skirt and then inserted one hand beneath her knees while holding her back with the other. He held her in such an embrace. 

In other words, it was the well-known princess-carry.

“W-wa?!”

Too overwhelmed with the sudden turn of events, Haruka froze up, almost as if she was turning into stone or something.

“I-It’s not like we can block the road for the whole time, right? So I’ll just carry you to your wheelchair like this.”

Kazutaka explained clumsily while averting her gaze.

Different from carrying her on his back, a princess-carry made her face awfully close. Her eyes, nose, and lips were close to his own.

Aware that his face must be red right now, he was not able to look at her directly.

“I-I see…. I’m sorry… And… thank you.”

Haruka was also embarrassed. Fiddling with her fingers in front of her chest.

She was shyly holding onto Kazutaka’s shirt.

“I’m sorry… I’m heavy, aren’t I?”

“To be honest, I think you’re too light.”

While being careful with his steps, he princess-carried Haruka down the hill. He was glad that Wakafumi wasn’t around. He would have surely made fun of them.

“How’s your lower back? Can I put you on the ground?”

“Yeah, it’s fine now.”

He toppled back the wheelchair to the right position with only his legs and lowered Haruka slowly onto it.

After that, both of them let out a huge sigh.

Kazutaka looked once more up the hill.

The slope was something else. You had to strain your eye to see the top of it. It was just too reckless to attempt to climb that one alone in a wheelchair.

He asked Haruka.

“Seriously, why on earth did you do that?”

Surely it’s not because she wanted to challenge something unsuitable for a wheelchair, right?

Come to think of it. She also tried to climb up the hill to school all by herself. She might be actually really into self-challenging herself.

“Are you maybe addicted to the slopes? Whenever you see one, you get the urge to climb it up?”

‘Why do I climb up slopes? Because there is a slope in front of me.’ Was it that kind of reasoning?

“No, it’s not like that at all.”

Haruka shook her head.

It’s just… It’s just that I really wanted to climb this specific road by myself.”

With those words, she gazed up the hill. As if she was looking at something far beyond it. Her expression showed her resolve.

Haruka could only tilt his head in confusion at this expression.

He looked at the hill as well.

The road uphill was leading out of this town.

What was beyond it?

“To be honest, I don’t get it. Want me to push you up?”

He suggested such but she shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll go home for today.”

“Is that so…? Well, then I walk you home.”

“Eh?”

“If you try to move the handrim with those hands, that’ll just hurt, won’t it?”

During her fall, a lot of her skin was peeled away by the asphalt, both of her hands included. They were scraped.

“But…Akasaka-kun, are you okay with time? Didn’t you have something else to do?”

“Ah…”

Kazutaka looked up to the sky.

Technically speaking, he had to go to the cram school now but even if he rushed now, he’d be late anyway.

“I have free time, no problem.”

Haruka responded powerfully. As for his finals, he’ll just grind in the summer. Yup, doing it in the summer was fine.

Recovering the bag he had thrown away and Haruka’s shoes, he went behind Haruka.

“Welp, let’s go!”

And then he began to push her wheelchair.

“I’m so sorry for troubling you all the time Akasaka-kun.”

While saying such, she turned around and glanced up that hill.

Translator’s note.

This scene was something else. Tbh, I don’t get why the author likes to make Haruka go through so much and never mentions it again. I assume the focus will be more on the hill and what past this hill has and whatever. But it’d be more interesting if Kazutaka just scolded the shit out of her now and then confessed, throwing away whatever plotline this damn hill has out of the window but nope.