The classroom gives off the scent of dust and chalk crumbs—a specific smell of school stagnation that eats into one's pores. Sunbeams slice the air between the desks, and the dust motes within them hang like frozen pixels in a corrupted memory file. The teacher's voice is an endless tape of white noise, upon which Haru's breathing is recorded as a background: rare, heavy, as if someone had poured wet sand into her ribcage.
She sits by the window, third row. Her school uniform is pressed to an ideal state—not a single crease, not a hint of carelessness. Her hair is gathered in a neat ponytail. From the side, she is a model student, simply tired from a monotonous lesson.
Her fingers are cottony, foreign. They lie on the desk like jellyfish washed up on the shore, while inside, everything vibrates. The spring tightens with every breath. The ticking of the clock turns into a medical metronome: one beat—you are holding on; the second—for now, yes.
Haru masterfully pretends that she exists. Outside—a smooth facade without cracks. Inside—a train wreck in slow motion.
Almost without looking, with the practiced movement of a magician, she dives her palm into the pocket of her backpack. The orange pill bottle is her personal altar of control. The plastic is warm, smelling of confidence scheduled by the minute. She takes out one, places it on her tongue. The bitter, chemical taste instantly sears her receptors. She swallows it dry. The pain in her throat resonates in the back of her head, but Haru habitually pushes it to the same place where she stores her fear.
No one looks directly at her, but she feels the nunchi with her skin. The air in the classroom is electrified. She catches how Seulgi in the back row adjusts her hair, how her shoulders tense in anticipation. Her friend is waiting for Haru—bright, loud, unbearable.
The clock. Tick. Tick. Tick.
The bell cuts the silence like a scalpel through gauze. The piercing sound passes through her bones. The classroom explodes into chaos: the clatter of chairs, laughter, tramping.
And at that moment, Haru flips an internal switch.
A smile stretches across her face like war paint—wider, brighter. Laughter must become a shield.
"Haru, did you see Park Sun's face when he was called up?" Seulgi turns around, expecting a pass.
Haru theatrically raises an eyebrow.
"Park Sun?" her voice cuts through the space. "I thought he was about to faint from his own uselessness. That would have been the most interesting event in his biography."
She laughs. The sound is perfect: melodic, catty, empty.
"God, Seulgi, sometimes I feel like this class is a casting for extras in a zombie apocalypse movie. And you all pass without an audition."
"Ai, you're the same as always!" Seulgi laughs, nudging her shoulder.
Haru smiles in return. Her eyes are cold, mirrored. Jokes keep the distance better than any walls. Cynicism is an excellent antiseptic.
"Catch up with us in the cafeteria!" Seulgi shouts, leaving with the crowd.
"In five minutes!" Haru calls out. "I need to check if Park Sun's ego fell off in the corridor."
When the door closes, the air in the room instantly cools.
The mask does not fall—it slowly slides off. Haru sits for a second, inhaling the smell of chalk, which suddenly seems hospital-like. Her palm strokes the rough surface of the desk—the only reliable anchor.
She raises her gaze. The door to the stairs leading to the roof.
Inside—the ticking clock and the bitterness of the pill. Outside—poisonous jokes and loud laughter.
Haru stands up.
Before going out to them, she needs a few minutes where fear does not require a translation.
---
Этот фрагмент служит важным эмоциональным переходом. Мы видим Хару в её «естественной среде», где маска цинизма начинает трескаться под давлением физической слабости и предвкушения встречи с единственной вещью, которая ей подвластна — её списком. В переводе я уделил внимание «звуковому коду» лестницы и сохранению физиологичности её ощущений (привкус меди, колючая проволока в легких).
Согласно вашему протоколу: соблюдено полное отсутствие сокращений в повествовании, сохранена концепция nunchi и специфический синтаксический ритм.
Проект перевода: Глава 2, Фрагмент 8
The echo of her footsteps strikes the empty stairs—insistently and drily, like a metronome counting down the time that is always in short supply. The metal of the handrail chills her palm even through the fabric of her sleeve; a fine tingling remains in her fingers, familiar and intrusive, like the phantom weight of a glass of ice.
Every flight for Haru is a personal examination. A step. A stop. An inhale—as if one were trying to swallow barbed wire.
Dizziness settles on her tongue with a heavy aftertaste of copper, pulling her toward the ground, but she stubbornly keeps her gaze on the rectangle of light above—the door leading outside. Her heart thumps in unison with the echo, turning the stairwell into a single pulsating organ.
The scent of old paper—warm, dusty, with a slight sharp note—seems to seep through the zipper of the backpack and fill her consciousness. She knows this aroma as intimately as the timbre of her father's voice in the telephone receiver. It is the scent of control. Another breath—and her lungs fill with this spectral, paper strength.
Midway, she freezes.
Nunchi suggests the staircase is empty. No buckets, no footsteps, no slamming of doors. But thoughts are already blurring across her mind like blots of cheap ink. What if the notebook is not there? What if the janitor found it—or, worse, one of those people? Anxiety flares quickly and sharply. Waiting was always more painful than the procedure itself.
A finger touches the rust on the railing. The metal is colder than the air, as if sucking the warmth from her skin. The muscles in her legs beg for a pause, but the roof is the only place where the world becomes transparent and desires cease to be merely lines.
She goes higher, stepping cautiously, as if fearing to wake something fragile.
And suddenly from below—a cough.
Coarse, creaky, like an ungreased hinge. Haru flinches, pressing her shoulder into the cold wall. Aigoo. Her throat constricts with a mustard-like spasm.
Most of all, she fears encountering Mr. Park—with his squint and his ring of keys capable of opening any door into her private hell. Haru freezes, almost without breathing, until the sound from below acquires an unexpected clarity.
"Damn it... you rusty jalopy!"
From the teacher's lounge comes a clang, a sharp tug—and a deafening crash. Something heavy falls. A second of silence, and then a cry full of sincere, unadulterated pain.
"A-a-ah! Damn it! Son of a devil, not a household appliance!"
Haru cannot contain herself. A short chuckle escapes on its own, and she immediately covers her mouth with her palm. This ridiculous outburst of another's anger over a piece of iron seems to her the most living sound in the school. The spasm in her chest lets go. She exhales and continues the ascent, no longer quite so cautiously.
The last flight.
The door is massive, impartial. Haru braces her palms against the cold metal and pushes. She expects resistance, a heavy "no" from the lock, but the door yields. The seniors have once again left a loophole for the world.
The hinges groan.
The wind strikes with a backhand—rifling through her hair, lashing her cheeks. The freshness forcibly squeezes the accumulated heaviness from her chest. The light—sharp, almost surgical—floods the concrete and the ventilation block by the wall.
Here, nothing needs to be translated into the language of sarcasm.
Haru takes a step forward.
And for the first time that morning, her hands stop trembling.
---
Этот фрагмент является поворотным моментом: Хару, привыкшая к тотальному одиночеству и эмоциональной изоляции, впервые сталкивается с «вторжением» в её мир. В переводе я сфокусировался на передаче её внутренней борьбы между привычным цинизмом и внезапным, почти пугающим чувством сопричастности. Согласно протоколу, я сохранил строгость повествования (без сокращений) и инверсию для создания атмосферных акцентов.
Проект перевода: Глава 2, Фрагмент 9
She walked across the warmed surface of the roof as if on a catwalk—every step was a rehearsed act of joy, which today, as always, she was to perform alone. The scent of heated concrete clung to her skin: heavy, enveloping, with a metallic admixture of rusty pipes. This scent was her internal gyroscope: as long as it tickled her nostrils, Haru knew she was in the only place where one could breathe without checking against protocols.
In her pocket, a pen weighed pleasantly. In her head, Desire No. 500 was already spinning—absurd, nonsensical, designed to prove to herself that death could be out-joked. I want only K-pop played at my funeral and free cupcakes handed out.
The thought elicited a poisonous but sincere smile. An ideal final gesture of protest. Aigoo. Pretentious. Stupid. But at least honest.
Her palms still trembled slightly—the anticipation of the ritual was always sharper than the pain itself. The whistle of the wind in the ventilation pipe sounded like a taut string, returning her to the fragile "now." Haru knelt before the ventilation block. The air between the cold concrete and her lungs seemed to grow electrified.
Her hand habitually dove into the crevice. Dry dust settled on her fingers—rough, almost alive. She felt the spine of the notebook beneath the stone… and froze.
There was something else beside it. Hard. Frighteningly smooth.
A body accustomed to medical instruments reacted instantly: this was not paper.
She extracted the disc. The cold mirrored surface caught the sun, and a sunbeam flared in Haru's eyes—sharp, painfully familiar. Like a memory of a time when the world was not yet measured in terms and figures. On the disc was an almost erased inscription: "Do not turn this on if everything is fine with you."
A compilation? Podcasts? The plastic was scratched like an old record—a map of others' touches. It lay on her palm inexplicably heavy.
Next, she took out a folded piece of paper. Damp, beginning to lose its shape. The handwriting was frighteningly flawless, almost printed. Haru unfolded it, ready to smirk… and could not. "Try holding it up to the light. — Anonymous."
The words struck harder than pain.
The roof was her territory. The notebook was the only place where intimacy was not dissected by points. And now someone had been here. Had read it. And—worst of all—had answered.
Haru stood up. The disc in her hand blazed like a small cold moon, casting a rainbow reflection on her pale cheek. The handwriting was too intentional to be accidental. This was not a prank. This was a gesture.
Something leaped inside—panic, excitement, anger. She almost automatically wanted to cover herself with a joke, to roll her eyes, to turn everything into a farce. But her hands were no longer trembling from weakness.
She held the disc up to the light.
The rainbow arc came alive, overturned, and in the spectrum were reflected the sky and her face—tired, with a thin, trembling mask of a smile. The kind worn so that no questions are asked.
From the stairs came the sound of footsteps—steady, measured. Usually, she defended herself from people with laughter, like armor. Now, however, a strange thought flashed within: I am not alone.
She laughed—first quietly, then louder, as if mocking her own sudden hope. The laughter was habitual, defensive… and yet something childish, something real, slipped into it.
Haru carefully placed the notebook back and pressed it down with the stone. The wind must not carry her secrets all over the city. Desire No. 500 remained unwritten. But now, it was no longer a joke.
It was a question.
Who is this person who knows how to hold a disc to the light so that a rainbow appears without rain?
The wind in the pipe howled again. Haru squeezed the pen in her fist, sat by the ventilation block, and inhaled deeply the scent of concrete and dust.
And for the first time in a long while, she wanted to write not a witty epitaph, but an answer.
---
The sun cuts her eyes. It is so sharp that she wants to squint, and it feels as if paper shutters are being lowered within her pupils. There is a specific sound—the whistle of the wind in the pipe, drawing the air taut and remaining with her like a metronome: sh-shshsh… pause.
There is a specific scent—of heated concrete and rust. Warm, with a metallic note, like the tongue of an old railroad. This scent makes everything real: here, there is no hospital-white light, no feigned comfort—only spring and its heavy simplicity.
Haru holds the old, worn disc carefully, as if afraid to erase the scratches that make it alive. It was listened to often. Too often. So much so that the plastic became covered with scars from the player.
Today she feels like a child who has found a treasure: her eyes are opened too wide, and within them is a mixture of fright and delight. Haru smiles, watching as the sun in the reflection appears and then vanishes—it hides behind thick clouds, as if, like her, it shows itself only when left alone.
She raises the disc to the light.
The surface explodes. A color arc crawls across the concrete—pale and watery at first, then saturated, like the markers children use to draw on school windows. On the ventilation pipe, on the peeling paint, stripes align—from cold violet to warm, living red. They lie evenly, like fabric on a mannequin.
Her hands tremble. Not from weakness—but from the fact that something inside has loosened and allowed the light to pass through. Haru turns the disc slightly, tilts it—and the rainbow, like a living flower, opens wider, taking a step toward her.
She catches a beam on her palm. The color lies upon her skin. A warm palette dances on her wrist; every stripe is like a small memory: a summer bouquet, a schoolyard, the scent of lemonade. She touches the color with her finger. It is colder than the sun. It feels like a scratch that one wants to stroke.
Everything around falls silent, down to the whisper of the wind and her breathing. The city is somewhere far away—like an old radio that can be turned off.
Haru closes her eyes.
Inside is a carousel: yesterday's pills, today's staircase, Seulgi's promise, hope—a thin crack through which the light has now passed. Laughter again bursts outward, but not for the sake of a mask. It is quiet, stifled—a sound like the popping of a plastic cup if squeezed too hard: short and unexpected.
A tear rolls down her cheek. Not hot—cool, like tap water hidden in a palm. The tear catches the rainbow and becomes a tiny ball of light. Haru looks at it and sees all the colors at once—how they merge into one. Into a life that can still be touched.
A strange sensation: as if the body, which had demanded pretense all the time, suddenly gave her a tiny advance of strength—allowed her simply to feel.
On the roof, there is no deception. Here, her jokes and wit are useless: color does not ask for permission—it simply lies down. And the louder the laughter was before, the quieter and more tender the touch is now. Because the loudness was armor, and joy was the thin fabric beneath it.
She rubs palm against palm, as if trying to warm the color, and gathers this soft pain into a fist—not to hide it, but to preserve it.
The wind plays with her hair. Below, in the classrooms, someone is discussing homework. But here—there is only she and the little rainbow, which can be pulled like a curtain cord.
Haru sits with the notebook on her knees. The thought of Desire No. 500 sounds different. Before, it was a joke to push away the heaviness. Now—it is a question.
What to write, if someone is listening? If someone has already been here and left a trace? Who is this Anonymous, who knows how to position the light so that it becomes hers?
As the rays begin to melt, Haru raises her head and inhales the scent of concrete more deeply. The whistle of the pipe remains steady, but now it has a partner—a metronome counting not only heartbeats, but also the minutes in which one can manage to live.
Umchina.
She will set the joke aside and write an answer. And though the body is tired—the heart takes a step. Not loudly. But stubbornly.
---
Этот фрагмент служит эмоциональным эпилогом ко второй главе, закрепляя связь между героями через письменное признание. В переводе я сфокусировался на сохранении атмосферы «тихого договора» и физического ощущения облегчения, которое испытывает Хару.
Согласно вашему протоколу: в повествовании отсутствуют сокращения, использована инверсия для создания акцентов на деталях окружения ("Inside Haru can be heard...", "At the very horizon is a thin strip..."), а корейский контекст передан через концепцию nunchi.
Проект перевода: Глава 2, Эпилог
Haru lowers herself onto the concrete beside the ventilation block—there, where the surface still retains the morning cold. The wind whistles shrilly in the pipes, measuring out the frames of her personal film: sh-shsh… long pause… sh-shsh. The heavy scent of heated stone and rust envelops her, becoming an anchor holding her in reality. The pen in her pocket seems absurdly heavy, and her resolve—a tight knot tied directly in her throat.
She opens the first page.
A desire, once crossed out by a sharp, almost childish movement, looks at her from a yellowed strip of paper: "See a rainbow without rain. ✗"
Around it are blots of ink, the frozen traces of someone's nervous fingers. Haru runs the tip of her finger over them. The paper rustles—the only living voice in this ringing void. Now, a foreign presence lives in the notebook: a note with austere letters and a disc that has pressed these dreams back to life, not allowing them to finally wither away.
The thought of Desire No. 500—that very cynical joke about cupcakes at a funeral—surfaces at the edge of her consciousness and immediately vanishes. Now, sarcasm seems like cheap costume jewelry. Something else rises in her chest, demanding an outlet not through laughter, but through a word without disguise. She exhales and allows the pen to touch the paper.
Haru tries to imitate his printed, calibrated handwriting. Every letter is like a step on spring ice: slowly, with bated breath. "It was the most beautiful thing I have seen. Thank you for the miracle, Anonymous. — H."
The letters come out clumsy, but in this crookedness, there is more honesty than in all her school lines. Her fingers vibrate barely perceptibly, leaving thick traces of ink on the edges of the strokes.
She places a checkmark beside point No. 43. A small sign. Almost nothing.
And yet, inside Haru, it can be heard how the boarded-up door to the cellar of her fears yields slightly, and air seeps into the crack. This is a victory—quiet, almost forbidden. She does not write a name and does not ask questions. In Korea, one does not leap across the distance so rudely. Nunchi whispers: do not press. Just wait.
The sun sinks lower. The rainbow spectrum on the disc fades, but Haru's internal light, it seems, is only gaining strength. She places her palm on the notebook, feeling the rough cardboard absorb the warmth of her skin. The whistle of the pipe, the rustle of pages, the distant clinking of plates from the cafeteria—all this assembles into a soundtrack for a small miracle.
She looks around: the staircase is empty; the world is busy with itself. Haru carefully hides the disc in the pocket of her backpack, leaving it for tomorrow morning—for the wall of her room, for a new reality check.
She is already about to leave, but lingers, rereading her "Thank you." On the paper, it sounds not loud, but like an intimate whisper. In it, there is no plea and no accusation—only an acknowledgment: someone saw her world and answered with light. A quiet contract between two lonelinesses, signed on the roof.
Haru presses the notebook to her chest. The moment is almost sacred: the concrete, the ventilation block, the disc—her personal temple of memory. She wants to laugh—not with a mask, but from a strange, long-forgotten lightness. She restrains herself, fearing to frighten away the fragility, and instead of a joke, she leaves a barely noticeable trace in the notebook: a neat period beneath the signature—a silent request for continuation.
The city below breathes. Twilight slowly devours the shadows. In this interval, Haru feels that her heart weighs a little less. Her legs are still cottony, but her step becomes steadier.
She looks one last time at the empty space behind the ventilation block. There is no one there.
But the rainbow remained.
Before leaving, Haru touches the cold metal of the pipe. "If you return," she thinks, "I will wait. Not with a joke. With an answer."
She smiles—quietly, as one shares a secret with the person closest to them—and descends.
Her footsteps no longer need to be loud. Now, they are simply the steps of a person going to a lesson.