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distortedheartStory: Black Tea (紅茶)
Characters: Eichi, Tori, Ritsu, Hajime
Translator: distortedheart (twitter: adriessene)
Proofreader: Linnæus
Chapter One ✧ Chapter Two ✧ Chapter Three ✧ Chapter Four
Chapter Five ✧ Chapter Six ✧ Chapter Seven ✧ Epilogue
Location: School Store (day) ✧ Autumn (present day)
Tori: Fufufu~n, today's dessert is pu~dding~ ♪
Eichi: ......
Tori: Huhhh? —Uwaiiii, Prez~ ☆ I can’t believe I get to see you during lunch break too! I'm super super emotional!
Eichi: O-oof... Try to refrain from launching yourself at me, Tori. You wouldn't want us getting injured over something as trivial as this, would you?
Tori: Nope! Ehehe~ ♪ (Hugs) ♪
Eichi: Fufu. You're as spoiled as ever, I see. (Pets) ♪
Regardless, what brings you here? It's certainly a coincidence to run into you at the school store. Do you often come here to purchase food?
Whenever we've held our occasional luncheons in the student council room, I recall that Yuzuru tends to have a handmade boxed lunch prepared for you ahead of time.
Tori: Yup. Even though I never ask for them and don’t even want them, he just always keeps making me his fancy bento boxes for no reason.
No matter how many times I tell him not to put any vegetables in and all the other things I hate, he adds them anyway. Even worse, all of it tastes really bland...
After I negotiated it with him for a looong long time, he agreed to at least let me pick out a dessert I like.
In exchange, I had to promise that I’d finish all my bentos without leaving even one single grain of rice behind.
But also, he came up with a bunch of detailed conditions, like I can’t pick any sweets that have too many calories and a bunch of other rules.
Ughhhh, jeez. I wish he’d at least let me be free enough to pick the kind of things I wanna eat.
Eichi: Fufu. Compared to me, you’re not only free, but an object of envy. Due to my poor constitution and my chronic disease, there are many things I can’t eat.
Ju~st kidding... That isn’t something you can compare from person to person, is it? “Freedom” isn't such an objective thing.
Tori: D... Definitely... Not that I really understand what Prez's talking about sometimes...
Actually, Prez, isn't it pretty unusual for you to be at the school store, too?
Did you need a new eraser or something? Prez, you're, like, a super big deal, so can't you just order some underlings to go buy it for you~?
Eichi: Fufu. Well, I suppose that is how people like us tend to think. To behave in that manner seems only natural to those who have lived as we have...
However, we ought to avoid acting in such a way that causes others to store resentment in their hearts.
Tori: Fufu, so you came to a "store" to avoid resentment ♪[1]
... Oops, I accidentally made a bad pun again. It's all Hidaka-senpai's fault.
Even if you say something completely stupid, he gets super happy, so... I keep thinking up funny things to say without meaning to.
Eichi: Fufu. I think you've gotten into a wonderful habit. Humor enriches and strengthens the spirit.
Returning to the topic at hand, my purpose in coming here is the same as yours: I'm here to buy dessert.
I’ve heard that our school store has everything—from cheap sweets to luxury sucreries—lining rows and rows in excess. I imagined I should be able to find what I’m looking for here.
Tori: Uh-huh. Whenever I come here to buy something, it feels like the amount of things they have in stock only gets bigger and bigger, and it's all stuff I've never seen before.
Eichi: That’s because the store periodically tries contracting new suppliers on top of, and sometimes in place of, the old ones.
I think this store is likely testing the waters to gauge what to order from where and what sorts of products to stock on their shelves.
But to set that aside, the real reason I'm here is on behalf of the tea club. We’ll be having one of our regular tea parties after school today.
It appears that Ritsu-kun, who always prepares our tea-time snacks, has his hands tied. I've been left to procure us treats in his stead.
Ritsu-kun has always refused to yield this role to anyone—he generally says something like, "Preparing snacks is my job," but...[2]
Due to Tsukinaga-kun's return, it seems Knights has grown rather busy...
However, in the past, whenever I received sweets and such as gifts and brought them in for the other members, Hajime-kun didn’t really take any. I suppose they might have been too high-quality...
I thus began pondering what sort of sweets a regular high school student might like, and, just as I was thinking I should investigate the school store, and I found myself here.
I supposed that, if I saw anything that looked permissible, I could just buy it at the store... If I chose not to purchase anything here, I would have at least still gotten a grasp of the average high schooler's preferences based on the store's selection, meaning I'd be able to carry out suitable preparations and purchase something appropriate elsewhere by this afternoon.
In brief, I've come here to make preliminary arrangements for a fun tea party.
I'd say my trip was entirely worth it. I've been enjoying my privilege as one of the school's sponsors and have been allowed, among other things, to sample all the sweets here...
I've heard the Suou family's Tsukasa-kun is obsessed with cheap sweets, and I think I've begun to understand his feelings.
Tori: Don't talk about him.
... But ever since a long time ago... He was always made to act with more self-restraint than I ever was, so... I guess he’s just happy he can enjoy a bunch of different kinds of sweets for cheap...
Eichi: Hmm. That was fairly unrelated to the topic at hand, but I'll keep that in mind.
Perhaps it's a good thing that they've assembled such a wide variety of sweets in abundance. There ought be at least one thing here that's to Hajime-kun's liking.
Tori: ... Y'know, Hajime gets to be with you basically all the time. I feel like you give him a ton of attention~ I'm pretty jealous.
Tennis club's full of weird upperclassmen. I kinda wish I’d joined the tea club instead.
Eichi: Fufu. On the contrary—from where I stand, I think tennis club seems quite fun. That I'm in tea club is solely a matter of luck... As always, the grass is always greener on the other side.
No matter when or where, you have no choice but to learn how to play the hand you're dealt and fight.
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Translation Notes
1. The idiom Eichi uses is 「反感を買う」(hankan wo kau), which is an idiom that uses the means "to antagonize" (so, "We should avoid acting in such a way that antagonizes others"), but an alternate definition of kau makes the idiom mean "to buy resentment." Tori then follows up with a pun that goes 「買い物だけに反感を「買う」んだね ♪」. The type of pun Tori uses is in A dake ni B "Oyaji Gag" (Dad Joke) format, where dake ni introduces the thing being punned. Thus, literally, Tori's line is roughly "So it's something that can be 'bought,' given you're 'buying' resentment ♪" It's funnier (in a lame way) in Japanese. ↑
2. The word Ritsu uses is 領分 (ryoubun), which also means "domain" or "territory." Unfortunately, there's no immediately equivalent English term. ↑
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