Brush Up Life (ブラッシュアップライフ)

The story so far..

In order to be reborn as a human,

Kondo Asami was reliving the second round of her life,

where she rescued her middle school teacher from false accusation,

and found out that her ex-boyfriend, who was a loser in the first round,

had achieved great success in the second round.

Then one day...

I let my guard down~!

She was sure she was going to be reborn as a human this time, but...

Indo-Pacific double-lined mackerel.

- There's no way I can start over again...? - You can.

Eh?

Thus started her third round of life.

Thank you for being born.

I worked pretty hard to accumulate good deeds, but I was an Indo-Pacific saba (mackerel) next.

Saba's good. I like saba.

- Yeah, I like it too. - You like it as food, right?

Yeah. What were you last time?

- Giant anteater. - Ah, giant anteater is tough.

- Isn't saba better than giant anteater? - Yeah.

- Just slightly. - Sounds like it might be fun once you turn into one.

Yeah, you're right. - Then

if you were to be reborn as a saba, do you want to be salt-grilled or simmered in miso?

- Ah~ that's a tough choice! - Are you assuming you're going to be eaten?

- It may be salt-grilled for me. - Me too! What about you, Ah-chin?

Shimesaba (cured mackerel).

Shimesaba is delicious too!

I mean, I don't want to be simmered or grilled, right?

But wouldn't salt-grilled be better as a side dish?

- Yeah, yeah... - As a side dish?

- You'd want to eat shimesaba while drinking sake. - For sure.

You just said you'd "want to eat."

- I'm sorry about this. - It's okay.

Kondo saved my butt too, so we'll call it even.

- Thank you. - We'll push on the way back.

On the way back? Are we on our way there now?

What's that? That over there.

Oh no! The police is here!

- Are you serious? What shall we do? - Let's go.

What will happen if we get caught?

- Won't we get turned into shimesaba? - Shimesaba?!

- No way. Let's go. - Oh no, oh no...!

Hurry, hurry!

What is it?

Eh~! Isn't this collective responsibility?

Hey, wait a minute!

It is now already the 14th year of my third round of life.

- The time is now 7:15. - Oh, here it comes.

Does that work?

It works, it works. It works really well.

I've also been managing to suppress my aversion for my father for the third time.

- Did you watch "Trick"? - I did.

Trick - Season 3 2003

Wait. I haven't watched it so don't tell me.

- Didn't you watch it, Nacchi? - I'm watching it today after I get home.

Oh yeah? Can we say things like it was good?

- No, if at all possible, please don't say that either. - Not even that?

- Wouldn't it be okay to say if it was good or not? - I mean,

if I hear that it was good, my expectation will rise, and

and I wouldn't be able to truly enjoy it. And if I hear it wasn't good,

- I'll lose the motivation to watch it, right? - Well, that may be so, but...

Then how much can we tell you?

- You can say if it aired or not. - Of course it aired.

That's why we're trying to talk about it.

But everything else would end up being a spoiler.

All right. We'll talk about "Trick" tomorrow.

Yeah. We can all talk about it after Nacchi sees it.

Sorry.

You can talk about Nakama Yukie's previous drama.

- Previous drama? - Gokusen?

- Yes. "Gokusen" would be okay. - "Gokusen", huh?

- "Gokusen" was good, wasn't it? - Yeah, it was.

- Nakama Yukie is good in comedies, isn't she? - She is.

Nakama Yukie's comedic skill is what makes "Trick"...

Wait. Don't bring "Trick" into the conversation.

- But I'm talking as a whole. - It's as a whole, but

- yesterday's broadcast is included too, right? - Well, yes.

- Then I don't want you to talk about it. - Eh~? Then what shall we talk about?

- Something that's totally unrelated to "Trick", right? - Yeah.

Totally unrelated to "Trick"...?

Like Asashoryu? - Ah~

Asashoryu - Mongolian sumo wrestler who became yokozuna in January 2003

- Unrelated, right? - Asashoryu would be fine.

Asashoryu... he's

This exchange is actually...

strong, isn't he?

the third time too.

Yeah, he's strong.

Brush Up Life 4

Ah-chin, did you catch a cold again?

Aren't you catching it too often?

Speaking of middle school days,

what can't be avoided is this scene.

The social studies teacher who disperses his same annoyance in the third round too,

Mita Tetsuo, commonly known as Mita Kong.

How am I supposed to know if you don't speak up!

You're robbing everyone of their valuable class time, you know!

Do you know what you're doing?

This is the scene I just quietly watched in the first round.

In the second round, I tried to fight back, but

I was forced to yield to his far-fetched argument.

- I'll say it again. You're causing trouble for... - Sensei.

What?

The two did something that had nothing to do with the class, but

since it's your decision to use class time to reprimand them...

I don't think it's right to blame them for that.

This time for sure...

Why is that?

If they hadn't passed notes,

I wouldn't have interrupted the class either, right?

Then why don't you reprimand them later?

Why go through the trouble of interrupting the class to reprimand them in front of everyone?

Because it's collective responsibility.

- Collective responsibility... - Listen up.

When you go out in society, there are many cases where someone's miscue or error

causes trouble for everyone. The collective responsibility is for you to learn that.

You say someone's miscue or error will cause trouble, but

you're talking about things like, for example, if someone spills milk in the classroom,

everyone has to smell it, or if someone breaks the window,

everyone will get cold, right? That's not the same thing as collective responsibility, is it?

- How is it different? - In this case,

you're just trying to force something that doesn't directly cause us trouble

to cause us trouble.

I don't think situations like this happen very often in society.

It happens. You guys just don't know about it.

No, I don't think it normally does.

Even if it did, in the times ahead,

I think that kind of thinking reminiscent of the Showa era will change.

- How dare you so brazenly... - But even before all that,

you have an obligation to educate us, and

and we have the right to be educated, right?

I don't think it's a good idea for the teacher to intentionally obstruct that.

There. How do you like that?

There's nothing you can say, is there?

Oh, well. Whatever.

Let's talk about the rest individually.

The three of you come to the faculty room later.

Okay, let's continue~!

Ah... I shouldn't have said anything~.

It took me 3 rounds to learn that

it's best to keep quiet.

As for my academic performance, perhaps it's because I had become remiss, but

my ranking had dropped somewhat from the second round.

The student council has an announcement to make.

Uno Mari-chan widened the gap again.

And after ending my middle school days like that without making much progress...

I enrolled in the same girls' school in the third round too.

H-have you kissed yet?

I had a relatively enjoyable time in high school...

Yes.

Well then, time is up, so we will now conclude the interview.

Thank you.

And enrolled in the same university.

Although this time, it wasn't the School of Pharmacy, but

I chose the Department of Literature, as I did in the first round.

- Did you read "Harry Potter"? - I did.

However, the friends I was close to were slightly different from the first round.

The reason being, in that group was...

Have you heard about that? iPhone.

my ex-boyfriend.

Even though he doesn't have any recollection of dating me.

Then one day...

Wanna go grab a cup of coffee?

- Sounds good. Oh, can I stop by Sanseido first? - Sure.

- What are you buying? - A reference book.

Say, we're all going to Karaoke after this, but

- you two wanna come too? - I would!

- Really? How about you, Asami-chan? - Oh... well...

Okay.

They said they'll come.

He probably just invited us on a whim, but

I felt a little flurried on my own.

1st Round

Come to think of it, we used to sing this song a lot.

Brings back memories.

I used to hang out with this bunch a lot too.

As a side note, at a barbecue during summer break next year,

this kid will confess his feelings to this kid, and will get rejected.

That's because this kid likes this kid.

But this kid is going out with a senpai at his part-time job, so

the two will never date, but

they will have a physical relationship just one.

Of course, at this point, they had no way of knowing.

Because our home was in the same direction,

he gave me a ride home.

It's the first time I've been in his car in a long time.

To be correct, his parents' car.

You bought a nice one~.

The time that we spent here back then...

and the words that we exchanged...

What flavor is this? It's brown sugar!

And...

Sorry about this.

the 50,000 yen I lent him

were all not even something in the past anymore.

Thanks.

- Let's all get together again. - Sure. Invite me again.

Yeah, I will. Oh, that's right.

Can I have your phone number?

Yeah.