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T/N: So things to remember:

“A/N:” are the author’s notes, and

“T/N:” are the translator’s notes that may or may not include useful information. Sometimes I make comments because I just cannot help it.

The perspective is usually the main character’s unless you see this “~___’s Perspective~” and tells you who’s perspective it is.

Do you know Samuel Ullman’s poem “Youth”?

It’s a poem that begins with, “Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind.”

　It is a famous poem, and many famous people have made it their motto, so you may know it.

　I hate this poem.

　Yes, I have hated it since I was young.

　“Why,” you ask.

　I was someone who lost his “Youth” mentioned in this poem.

　To be honest, when I first saw it, I thought it was written with me in mind.

　You don’t like it when people point out what you are aware of, do you?

　It’s the same thing. It’s not about the content of the poem.

　I just don’t like it because it makes me want to say, “I know myself”.

　I don’t think the young people reading this have given it much thought.

　When I was in elementary school, I thought, without a shred of doubt, that I could be an athlete, a pilot, or whatever I wanted to be.

　By junior high school, I realized that I could never be a professional athlete.

　And I was beginning to think that I would never become a celebrity and that I would never lead the glamorous life that everyone envied. But I knew that there were still many things I could do and that if I found them, I would be able to live happily.

　When I became a high school student, reality suddenly dawned on me.

　Yes, my academic ability would not allow me to enter a top university. I realized that I would never be able to become a politician or the head of a company, someone who could make a difference in society. Still, I knew that there must be something I could do, and I just had to find it.

　But I made an insurance plan. When choosing a college. I chose a department I didn’t like, simply because it seemed like it would be easy for me to get a job after.

　I entered the engineering department of a local national university.

　At that time, I didn’t care about my dream. All I cared about was having a good time that day.

　The year before graduation, I had no choice but to start thinking about my career path. And here again, I had insurance.

　I chose a company that was unlikely to go out of business, and one that would let me survive even if I was fired. I was convinced that I could no longer dream, that I had to live in reality.

　At the age of twenty-five, I somehow got married. However, I was not able to have any children.

　At the age of 35, my wife left me, saying, “I will live and follow my dream.” Even so, I still believed that I was physically fit and had a future ahead of me.

　At the age of 40, I realized that I lived almost half of my liger, and I had just a few choices in my life.

　They say you are in your declining years, but I realized that meant I didn’t have a number of choices only to leave me confused. I also realized that I had no time to start over.

　At forty-five, I began to feel a physical decline and stopped even thinking about starting over.

　At my age, I often look back on my life. What an uninteresting life I had led, and I thought about that every day. And I often thought, “If I was able to be reborn again.”

　Do you know what we consume in life?

　People live by consuming their own “dreams = possibilities.”

　“Dreams = possibilities” were unlimited when we were children, and we can only live by eating them up.

　I believe that a successful person in life is one who has successfully absorbed those dwindling possibilities.

　And I have taken the easy way out, not the adventurous way in. I was what Ullmann calls someone who has lost his “Youth”.

　Yes, I had abandoned the “dream/possibility” that I should have had.

　This story is about a man who has given up on his dreams, who has never tried anything, who has lived his life aimlessly, just for the sake of living, and who dreams of starting his life all over again.

　My name is Yataro Kawasaki, a dull middle-aged man who will turn forty-five this year.

　I work for a manufacturing company in a port town in the Kansai region.

　There are managers among my peers, but at my age, I am still a foreman. Well, it is no one’s fault, since he had no desire to move up the ladder.

　If only my last name is “rock (iwa/岩) and not “river (kawa/川)”, then I would have been like the founder of “Yoko-san” (see note). However, since my surname is “Kawa-san”, I was often teased in this town for being a mediocre person.

　Well, I have never actually lost anything because of my name, so I have no problem with it.

A/N: “Yoko-san” refers to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., and “Kawa-san” refers to Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. An old-time term for the companies when they were in the munitions industry.

　I ate dinner at a cheap bar as usual and went back to my apartment, which still had more than ten years left on the mortgage. I could have sold it, but it was too of a pain to sell it, so I just lived in it and considered it as my “home”.

　When I go home, there is no one around, and the only thing I do is browse pornographic sites on the Internet or newly uploaded novels on websites.

　I rarely watch TV.

　I wonder how long it has been since I watched a drama.

　Even the world of dramas no longer thrills me.

　Well, not really.

　I don’t watch dramas anymore because they make me miserable, and I know there’s no happy ending for me.

　Today, I continue to browse novel sites.

　I rarely hit upon an interesting novel, but I feel like I’m looking through most of the novels about reincarnation.

　I want to be reincarnated too because I can escape from this dull reality by fantasizing about something I wish I could have achieved.

　As usual, I searched for “reincarnation”, “other world”, and “fantasy”.

　The screen shows that there are nearly a thousand series.

　I choose one of them at random and click on it.

　There are many misses today.

　I glance at about ten works and go to get a can of beer.

　With a can of beer in hand, I start reading the novels.

(Oh, this one is also a miss, isn’t it? I can’t get emotionally involved in a story with a high school girl as the main character…) (Yataro)

　Then, as I was about to look for another piece, I suddenly felt a stab of pain in my chest.

　My vision darkened rapidly.

　As I collapsed to slump against the desk, I felt the beer can fall over and soak my arm.

(Oh, I spilled it…) (Yataro)

　I was thinking about that without any sense of stress or urgency. And that was the last thing I thought about before fleeing this world.

T/N: That was slightly depressing. Anyway, here’s the thing, I’m going to retranslate the series. The original TL already did a fine job, but I want to try my hand at it. Please enjoy the translation of “Dream Life” by Lazy-kun.

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