Day 57: October 31
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード!
How much did I read?: 6 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 24 min
Me, thinking I'm not going to write that much and ending up writing a lot xD
We do get to see what’s on Haru’s mind - he knows he’s not swimming well, but he feels like there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t feel that connection with the water anymore, ever since he started thinking about times. It’s just…plain old water, now, and I find that very sad 
Then he has an interesting conversation with Aki, who seems to feel guilty that she suggested Haru join the relay team. Something I liked from this exchange was her…basically saying that when she suggested that he join the team, she had her own idea of what Haru needed, and her own vision of what friends and teammates should be - but there are different definitions of what friends are, and what it means to be a team. I appreciated that a lot, especially as it came after this little snippet of Haru’s thoughts where he’s basically like…I know I’m weird, when it comes to the way I think about other people. My weirdness was made abundantly clear to me at the graduation when everyone else got super emotional. …There’s also this moment that feels just too feckin’ relatable. As they’re talking about the graduation ceremony, he borrows Rin’s words, about their class being a good class - like he knows he’s “supposed” to have some kind of sentiment or emotion or thought about it and he just doesn’t have any of his own, so he borrows Rin’s for the sake of not wanting to push Aki away. I can’t really describe why that feels so relatable, but it just does.
She also mentions that seeing Haru and the others swimming together as a team inspires her to want to do her best, too. Haru’s reaction to this is quite cute, like I can just imagine him being like…well it’s not like I was trying to do that xD And then - I also find this interesting - Aki says she’s been having a lot of fun swimming. And Haru thinks to himself that he’s never really thought of swimming as “fun” before. I just find that interesting.
Good words
言い聞かせる (いいきかせる) - to tell; to (try to) persuade; to advise; to warn; to admonish; to reason
どうしようもない - it cannot be helped; there’s nothing for it; it’s no use fighting back; it’s hopeless; there is no way out of it
自己嫌悪 (じこけんお) - self-hatred; self-abhorrence; self-loathing
苛む (さいなむ) - to torment; to torture; to harass
押しつぶす (おしつぶす) - to squash; to crush; to flatten
順調 (じゅんちょう) - favourable; favorable; doing well; OK; all right
照れくさい (てれくさい) - embarrassing; awkward
見せつける (みせつける) - to make a display of; to show off; to flaunt
伏目 (ふしめ) - downcast look
明り取り (あかりとり) - skylight
Wow, it does not feel like it’s been 2 months at all 
(Then again, my perception of time is chronically messed up, so - probably doesn’t mean much, coming from me xD) Congratulations to everyone finishing their challenge today! 
Even if you didn’t keep a perfect streak, if you read more than you would have otherwise, then you still came out ahead 
I will save my final (whatever you want to call it - reflection?) for when I actually finish my makeup reading days xD But for now, I’ll say it’s been fun reading with you all, and I’m happy we had so many people participating in the challenge! :3 I feel like the Tanuki Cuteness Brigade needs to start a cute manga “book club” sometime in the future, where we all just share the cute manga we find xD