Let Me Listen to Your Lingering Regrets

Last Story – A Bouquet For Your Smile – Epilogue

The last day of my training came, but nothing changed.

After tidying up the office, I woke Senpai up, who was sleeping on the sofa, and handed him a slightly stronger cup of instant coffee.

“Thank you.” He received the cup with a sleepy voice, then took a sip and said as usual, “Nothing beats instant coffee!”

“Senpai, can I have one today too?” I asked in response.

He smiled. “You’re asking permission before making your own cup of coffee? My, I see you’ve grown, Apprentice.”

“It’s Yuma.”

Senpai shrugged. “Well, Apprentice, your training ends today. Now that you’ve turned down Sasamine’s offer to become a first-class agent, what are you planning to do?”

“I’ve already made my decision.”  I answered.

“I’ll become an agent. I want to become a first-class agent like you, Senpai.”

“First-class, huh?” Senpai scratched his head.

“You’ve made the meaning of ‘first class’ a little vague,” he said. What do you mean when you say we’re ‘first class’ anyway?”

“It’s all thanks to your teaching and guidance.” I chuckled.

“You know how to clapback now, huh?” Senpai smiled wryly.

Ring ring――

The phone on the desk rang. 

Senpai picked it up with a troubled look on his face.

“Yes, Shindo—Oh, Sana… Right, I see. I understand. I’m on my way.”

He quickly told me in a soft tone, “Sana seems to have acted up. What a hassle, so early in the morning but this is my job so I have to go.”

“I’m going too. It’s my last job.” I eagerly put my half-drunk coffee on the table, but Senpai shook his head.

“–No, I, too, should be graduating soon. From Kyoko, and… from you.” He said with an overwhelming gentleness.

“I’ve learned a lot from you, Apprentice. Through you, I’ve been able to reflect on myself. But now—”

At that moment, I knew it was time to say goodbye.

To the lingering regrets.

To the clients.

And also to Senpai.

“Goodbye… Yuma Nikaido.”

I looked up at the sky, closed my eyes, slowly lowered my head and nodded quietly.

“Yes.”

In the end, I decided not to cry. But because of the surge of memories, I found myself on the verge of crying.

Senpai then tapped me on the head and said, “Your grade is “A”. Excellent. No pretensions, no favoritism. You did well—and thank you.” 

After saying that straight, he took out a large bouquet of flowers from a gap at the back of the sofa that was out of my line of sight.

“So you’re going to visit the grave today too. Or is it for Sana?”

Senpai smiled wryly. “No, this bouquet is for you. You know… as a congratulations…”

“Huh?” I blurted out in surprise.

I totally didn’t expect that. Why did he have to surprise me like this?

“Thank you.” Overjoyed, I bit my lip while holding back the tears that were about to overflow.

“Well then, it’s time for me to go too. As you leave this place, don’t look back. Alright, this is the real goodbye. Goodbye, Yuma.”

“All right, Senpai.”

I turned on my heel and started walking.

This is the last time.

This office.

The ticking sound of the clock.

Even the smell of coffee.

And Senpai, too.

I have to start walking.

“…”

But at the last minute, my legs betrayed me.

I stopped in my tracks and trotted over to Senpai.

“Apprentice?”

Before Senpai could react, I tiptoed and kissed the stubble on his cheeks.

“What are you doing?!”

I rested my head against his large chest for a while.

Senpai muttered, “You got me.”

“Hehe.” I giggled. “It’s payback. For all those times you were mean to me. And lastly, for making me cry like this.”

A teardrop fell, but I wiped it away with my finger, firm in my resolve not to cry.

Then I turned around again and dashed to the door of the office.

“Goodbye, Senpai! Thank you very much for everything.”

This time, I didn’t look back and opened the door, as if to cut off any lingering regrets.

After making sure that the door was closed, I looked up at the office. From the outside, it looked like an old, rundown office that was nothing out of the ordinary.

This was a place in the human world, but beyond the human world. Like a pebble on the side of the road, it was “just there”. A building whose existence was unknown.

I gave a big bow to the familiar building and decided to utter a real, final goodbye.

＊＊＊

“And so, you call this your final report from your training, Ms. Nikaido?” The professor said sarcastically as he slapped the paper down on the table in irritation. 

Inside the spacious seminar room, I submitted my final report, but just like before, I incurred the professor’s wrath. The sound of malicious laughter echoed in the room.

“My goodness. It seems like you got an A in your training out of mercy, but nothing has changed and you’re still the same. You still think you can become a first-class agent? Ensuring that humans are ‘happy’ isn’t even something agents must do in the first place—”

“No, professor—” I interrupted him and firmly said, “Even so, I’ll keep saying ‘yes’ to humans.”

I shrugged off the professor’s dumbstruck expression with my confident demeanor.

I visited Professor Yoshizumi again to thank her for encouraging me to participate in the training. She made me a cup of tea in her room, which was still as strange and mysterious as before.

I shared my endless stories about my training, and she kept giving me encouraging comments like “oh dear,” or “really?”

A while after we had finished our conversation, Professor Yoshizumi asked me as if she had remembered something she had forgotten.

“Speaking of which, how did you do in your final report?”

I took a sip of my tea and responded with the best smile I had ever prepared.

“I got a C. And was asked to resubmit!”

<Fin>

T/N: And that’s a wrap!! Thanks for reading this story. Took me a while but we got to the end! Finally! Lol.

I gotta say, the ending feels a bit anticlimactic because it’s like Yuma didn’t change? Her resolve was still essentially the same, although I suppose her mindset is now a little different. In any case, I guess what really matters was her journey — that despite her ideals getting shattered, she was able to pick herself up and come back with a renewed and stronger mindset. And with mental health being such a hot topic these days, this is one of those stories that illustrates and reminds us that as much as maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important, so is making sure that you’ve got a healthy state of mind.

Again, thank you all for sticking around and see you in my next translation!