Manga Recap: Oboreru Knife (Ch 63)

Hi guys! So I was browsing through mangafox and found an old comment on this Oboreru Knife thread where I summarized the contents of chapter 63. Some of my assumptions were inaccurate, and after some more thorough reading with my limited Japanese skills I ended up revising the summary quite a lot, and figured I might as well make it into a full recap.

Disclaimer: As always, please don’t forget to support the author, George Asakura. I published this post before the English editions were available, but now you can find the entire Drowning Love series on Kindle!

Background (Ch 62)

In chapter 62, Natsume pops up and asks Kana what happened, and she reveals that she and Kou were both at the crime scene, and confesses that if it weren’t for that, she (Kana) and Kou might have had a chance at getting together (?). They agree to go somewhere and talk, yadda yadda… then it flashes back.

Kana’s Flashback

  

Kana, panicked (it seems likely that she was raped), tells Kou about meeting the stalker in his shed. Kou seems unnaturally excited (in a dark way) and takes off after him despite Kana’s objections.Kana follows after thinking it’s dangerous and he shouldn’t be doing this alone. She gets there right when Kou is strangling the stalker. The man stops struggling and Kou loosens the grip thinking he’s dead, but the man gets up stumbling and coughing. Kou is about to chase after him to finish him off when Kana rushes out and holds him back saying “don’t do it! you can’t!” Then they both watch horrified as the stalker sets himself on fire and jumps into the sea.

After that Kana keeps crying while Kou clenches his fists and silently swears. He glances over at Kana then grabs her and says “Kana, Kana. That guy’s dead, help me take care of the body.” As though possessed, he says, “The body mustn’t be found… I’ll be arrested.” Kana looks up confused and Kou says “Well, doesn’t it look like I killed him?”

Kana, confused, says “but… the gasoline… the fire” (the stalker obviously committed suicide) and then Kou yells at her “I KILLED HIM DIDN’T I?!” Then he says “…if they do find the body, testify that I killed him.” Kana is horrified and says “Kou.. what are you saying?!” Kou then tells her: “Please help me. If you do this I’ll do anything you say. My whole life, I’ll be yours.” Next scene shows the two of them throwing the body into the ocean, with something heavy tied to it.

Next scene Kana begins talking to Kou (but kinda to herself as well). She says how depressing/scary this must be for Natsume, and how it must dig up old scars. She says that in the shed the criminal was muttering repeatedly how much he hated Natsume and how everything is Natsume’s fault and he wanted to ruin Natsume’s life. Then she says “it was truly painful… the stun gun,” likely referring to how the criminal assaulted her. And then “Just when I thought it was over, (he?) would move again…”, most likely referring to rape but with my Japanese I’m not sure. 😛

Next page is all Kana monologue. Kana reflects on how most of her life was awful, and Kou was her only light… yet life got worse. She got together with a former employee from a part-time job, but ended up giving all the money from the part-time job to Kou (? not sure I interpreted this correctly). “I’m truly stupid, aren’t I?” she says. “I wish I could die.” Finally on the next page she gives in to Kou’s request and says, “So Kou, thanks for killing that guy” and for a moment both of them are shrouded in darkness. (This seriously gave me the chills.) Kou embraces her and the scene pans out to show the pouring rain.

Kana and Natsume

  

CUT BACK to Kana and Natsume! Kana says, “So we made a deal…” And then, crying, “Isn’t Kou nice? He went with me the next morning to get a morning after pill…” Brokenly she says “meeting Natsume here–” but is cut off when Natsume bursts into tears. Kana is shocked and says something like “You’re crying! Are you crying for my misery? You two are truly beautiful! This is great! You must go to Kou! Talking with you like this now, I have betrayed my agreement with him…” On the next page she bursts into tears and falls to her knees, and says “I fear that I have lost Kou’s light forever!”

Natsume’s Decision

Natsume goes into some internal monologue about when she first met Kou. Cut to the present, we see Natsume and Kou on a train. Natsume thinks Kou looks radiant and bursts into tears. In the end, she lets Kou get off the train without reaching out to him, though Kou looks back as he leaves, as though detecting her presence.

Later on, we see her on the phone with Kana. She tells Kana that she never heard anything Kana told her, and as far as she is concerned Kou killed that guy. She asks Kana to please do this favor for her and she will be smiling on TV because of it. She thinks to herself that Kou has his light back, and this time she will shoulder the darkness alone. Back on the phone, she tells Kana to stop crying, and says “listen, you’re a much better person than I am.” She basically tells Kana that compared to herself, Kana is always thinking of Kou, understanding him, thinking of what he wants. She says she is jealous of the Kana who is always by his side (on the inside she thinks “really beautiful…”) and really hates Kana… and tells her that she will be leaving Kou in Kana’s hands.

  

Flash forward. Natsume’s thoughts reveal that Kana was sobbing all throughout that phone conversation. We see Natsume sitting alone in a train. She looks out at the scenery around her and thinks to herself, “Goodbye, Kou. Goodbye, the town of Ukifumo. Goodbye forever.”

So basically, Kana is not being manipulative! Many people seem to have gotten the impression that she was blackmailing Kou but that’s not true, it was the opposite if anything.

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