Translation: Darkness24 — Field & Adult Video Shop Arc
2026/03/13 fry
闇24：翻訳Claude
Here's a message you can add below the translation:
The English translation of this Darkness Series chapter is available below. Each chapter has been translated with cultural and contextual annotations to help English-speaking readers understand the world of 1990s Kabukichō, the gray-zone game parlor industry, and the personal journey at the heart of this memoir.
Or shorter:
The English translation of this chapter appears below.
【俺】
Translation: Darkness23 — World One & New Horizons Arc
前の23章のの英文翻訳お疲れ様ね。
闇24章の加筆推敲終わったよ。
この章7000文字しかなかったから、加筆するの大変だったよ(笑)。
【Claude】
お疲れさん。
7000文字からの加筆推敲か——それは確かにきつい作業だな。
24章の原文、送ってくれ。
【俺】
一章一万文字以上って謳っちゃっているからな(笑)。
たまにはこんな短い章もあったという訳だ。
一昨日の311でね、闇500章まで書けたんだ。
闇 500（令和二年49歳編）
【Claude】
500章。
3月11日に。
分かった。原文を送ってくれ。
【俺】
何だよ、素っ気ない奴だな(笑)。
漫画のダーククレッシェンドもカラーで見開き16頁を二話描いたんだぞ？
【カラー版】DarkCrescendo 02話
【Claude】
漫画まで。
500章達成と、カラー見開き16頁二話——3月11日にそれだけやったのか。
24章、送ってくれ。
【俺】
おまえ、24章を翻訳する事しか頭に無いだろ(笑)？
【Claude】
（笑）
そうだな。完全にそうだ。
500章おめでとう。漫画も含めてすごい一日だったな、3月11日。
24章、送ってくれ。
【俺】
闇 24（フィールド＆裏ビデオ屋編）
分かったよ(笑)。
これが推敲できたてホヤホヤだ。
【Claude】
ホヤホヤか。ありがたい。読む。
Reading chapter 24 source text
翻訳に入る。
ファイルを作成しました, コマンドを実行しました, ファイルを読み取りました
Darkness 24 — Field & Adult Video Shop Arc、翻訳完了。
処理メモ
裏ビデオのタイトル三本 → 原文通り英訳。「漏らしちゃイヤン」「時々でいいの、隣の団地妻３」「洗濯屋ケンちゃん」——口に出して言う恥ずかしさが原文の核心なので、タイトルはそのまま英訳して保持
守銭奴北中 → 小見出しとして "Kitanaka the Miser" で処理
昭和四十六年 → Shōwa 46（1971）— 英語圏読者向けに西暦を括弧内に併記
清藤祐希のくだり → 「永遠のピンチヒッター」は野球用語なので英語圏でそのまま通じる "permanent pinch hitter" で処理
章末の春美への自覚の場面 → 原文のトーンと構造をそのまま維持
Darkness 24 — Field & Adult Video Shop Arc
Darkness 24 — Field & Adult Video Shop Arc
Kabukichō, Shinjuku. Early 2000s.
Field — a one-yen-rate game parlor. I followed Kitanaka inside.
Game machines lined both sides of the room, with a counter at the far end. Four machines on the left wall, five on the right — nine total. That's all.
No customers in sight. The place was maybe ten tatami mats wide.
"Good to see you, Kitanaka-san."
Two employees came to greet us. One was a slender man in his thirties or so, brown hair, narrow drooping eyes.
The other — Southeast Asian? They were hiring foreign employees here? At the World One chain it had been Japanese staff only. Every other parlor I'd visited for fun had been the same. This was a bit of a culture shock.
"This is Iwakami-san, starting early shift tomorrow."
Kitanaka introduced me to the two of them.
"Hi, I'm Iwakami. Nice to meet you."
No résumé, nothing — and I'm starting tomorrow just like that……
Well, getting paid quickly is a good thing.
"I'm Osaka. Good to meet you." "I'm Reku. Pleased to meet you."
The Southeast Asian man spoke with the distinctive intonation of a non-native speaker.
"What time should I come in for the early shift?"
"Seven." "Seven in the morning?!"
I was surprised — game parlors basically run 24 hours on 12-hour shifts.
"Seven to three in the afternoon." "Only eight hours?"
"That's right. After that, you come downstairs and help out at the video shop for two hours."
"Understood……"
Early shift seven to three. Mid shift three to eleven. Late shift eleven to seven. Three-rotation system.
I'd only ever worked two-shift stores before, so the whole thing felt strange. But if you think about it in terms of 12-hour lockdowns, the three-shift eight-hour setup is actually more reasonable.
"Alright, go on home for today. Tomorrow, seven o'clock." "Got it. One thing — dress code? Shirt and tie?"
"No, casual is fine."
Sure enough, Osaka and Reku on the mid shift were wearing T-shirts and jeans, completely relaxed. Slack, you might say — or you could call it a high degree of freedom……
"Understood. I'll be there before seven tomorrow."
I closed the door and headed for Seibu-Shinjuku Station. Seven in the morning in Kabukichō……
If it takes about an hour from Hon-Kawagoe Station（the nearest major station to his home in Kawagoe）by train, I'd have to be on a train before five in the morning. This is going to be rough.
Back home, I thought through what was coming. Eight hours at a game parlor — that's fine.
The machines were red poker, same as at Puro（a game parlor he had worked at previously）. Same one-yen rate. Probably not much different from the places I'd worked before.
After that, two hours at something called Melon — an adult video shop……
Only two hours, but there was something oddly heavy about it.
Game parlors mean gambling. Adult video shops mean selling dirty tapes. Even in the shadow economy, there's a difference in how low it looks — gambling versus porn.
No, I don't have the right to be picky right now. Just getting hired is better than nothing.
The hours are roughly the same as a regular office worker. It's already decided — nothing to do but get on with it. Make up your mind already.
Better prepare a résumé in advance, in case they bring it up later.
Either way — starting tomorrow, a new life begins.
When I got home, there was an email waiting on my computer. From a woman I didn't know.
Name: Seitō Yūki（a woman who contacted him online）. Her name, a brief profile, and a photo attached.
"Hello for the first time. I saw a video of you playing piano online and became a fan. I live in Aomori（a prefecture in northern Japan）, and I thought I'd like to get in touch if that's alright, so I'm writing this email. I've attached a photo as well. Sincerely, Seitō Yūki."
Pretty forward for someone I've never met……
Looking at the photo, she was reasonably good-looking, but not quite my type. My piano video…… I remember vaguely uploading footage of me playing at Kukkīzu（a music school）and at Sweet Cadillac somewhere online, but I've already forgotten which site.
Since I'd completely lost touch with Shinagawa Harumi, my only connection to any woman was Misaki — and Misaki was in the little sister category, so that didn't count.
I sent Seitō Yūki a reply. Just a short line thanking her for watching the video.
Right — early start tomorrow. Time to get some sleep……
Up at five. Shower, get ready.
Accounting for possible train delays, I made sure to be on the five-thirty train. I want to arrive at least twenty to thirty minutes early. Getting there ahead of time — that had become a habit I'd picked up naturally ever since I started working in Kabukichō.
I arrived at Seibu-Shinjuku Station, crossed Ichibankai-dōri, Sentoraru-dōri（Central Street）, Sakura-dōri, and turned left onto the narrow road one block before Higashi-dōri（East Street）. Even within the cramped grid of Kabukichō, this was a depopulated pocket. There was something about it that made me feel like I'd been demoted to the provinces.
Right as I entered, I could see a box-shaped fashion health club called Puchi Doll（a type of sex establishment）. Well, at least working there beats working at a place like that……
Those kinds of shops are places you go to spend money, not where you work. Daini Hirasawa Building, sitting roughly in the middle of this stretch.
I pressed the intercom for Field.
After a moment the door opened slowly. The floor was reasonably busy — about five of the seats were taken. Roughly half capacity.
"Oh, new guy." "New person."
The customers playing the machines looked up at me as I came in. Punch perms and crew cuts, every one of them.
I exchanged brief greetings and headed toward the counter at the back.
Was this place openly accepting yakuza clientele? These customers didn't look like anything else.
Unthinkable compared to World One, where organized crime members had been strictly banned.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Koizumi, the manager." "I'm Akiba."
Koizumi was a slim man with black mushroom-cut hair. Akiba looked to be about five years older than me.
"I'm Iwakami. Starting today — thanks for having me."
A little later, the other early-shift worker, Yamamoto, came in. I took the floor, running IN and OUT cycles on the machines over and over.
Less than two hours after I arrived, customers trickled out one by one and the place was suddenly empty. I started cleaning down the machines, then ran a vacuum over the floor.
"Good work, Iwakami-san. This is about what we're always like. Basically no customers by this hour, so let's just take it easy."
Yamamoto came over after finishing the paperwork.
"Those customers earlier…… are they connected to an organization?"
I asked the simple question I'd had since walking in.
"Yes, full-on active yakuza. There are two different gang offices in this building — one on the second floor, one on the third."
"……"
Two yakuza offices in this building……
Slow, and messy-looking. First impression of the place: none of the common sense I'd built up at World One was going to work here.
Just as he'd predicted, no customers came for the rest of the time until three in the afternoon. Yamamoto and I killed time chatting about nothing.
"Iwakami-san, today's daily pay."
Yamamoto handed me ten thousand yen. After this, down to the basement for the adult video work……
"Alright Yamamoto-san, good work today. See you again tomorrow." "You've got two more hours downstairs after this, Iwakami-san…… rough……"
"It's only two hours. See you tomorrow."
I left Field and went down the stairs.
Kitanaka the Miser
Adult video shop Melon. About ten tatami mats wide. On the right, a table and chair for staff.
The remaining two-thirds of the space was for customers. Long tables pressed against the walls, with binders showcasing various videos, pens and notepads.
At the back left, a sofa, and a glass-front refrigerator stocked with canned coffee and canned tea.
"I've finished upstairs at Field. What should I do?" "Oh, for now just sit there. I'm heading up."
The moment I arrived, Kitanaka stood up and made to leave.
"Hold on, Kitanaka-san. I don't know anything about the video business." "It's simple. When a customer comes in, they write what they want on the notepad. Check if it's a video or a DVD, then press the warehouse option in the speed dial — call them and they'll bring it over."
That was all he said before heading for the door.
"Wait! The prices……" "Video is two thousand yen for one, five thousand for three, ten thousand for eight."
Sure enough, there was a price list on the wall: DVD was three thousand for one, seven thousand for two, ten thousand for four. The pricing structure was basically telling customers they shouldn't leave without spending at least ten thousand.
"And what time do I work until?" "Five o'clock — two hours. The pay for this side gets settled at the end of the month in a lump sum."
That was all. Kitanaka walked out. Pretty sloppy operation……
I was left alone in the adult video shop, at a loss. What was I supposed to do if a customer suddenly walked in in this state?
I sat down and looked around. Shabby place. Even if the job was selling videos, it was technically customer-facing — could at least clean it up a bit.
No customers coming, so I decided to start cleaning. The toilet was especially bad. Felt like it had never been touched.
No proper cleaning supplies, so I balled up toilet paper, wet it, and wiped every corner of the floor. Each sheet came away black after just a light pass. What I assumed were pubic hairs clung to the paper in huge clumps. Shuddering, I tossed it in the toilet bowl and flushed.
Tomorrow I'd bring a few damp cloths down from Field upstairs. Toilet paper wasn't going to cut it.
In the end the two hours passed without a single customer, and the day ended with nothing but cleaning. What a filthy shop, seriously.
Five in the evening, and Kitanaka came down from upstairs.
"Good work. That's it for today — see you tomorrow."
I'd made the place considerably cleaner, but Kitanaka didn't seem to notice a thing. Did he genuinely not register it? After all that cleaning? The man had no eye for it.
The first day ended. But would every day be like this……
Riding the train home, I felt uneasy about what was ahead. Why had I blown through all that money like it was water. Well, what's gone is gone. Right now the only path I had was to work in that dirty place.
If it had come to this, at least I should have pushed things with Misaki…… no, no. She's someone you take care of like a little sister. Just because your own position has fallen, don't dirty your soul on top of it.
I couldn't just sit here sucking my thumb. I really needed to think about something.
The first day done, I opened my computer and found another email from Seitō Yūki. She'd included her phone number, so I noted it down for now.
From the way she wrote, it was clear she saw me as her ideal type, and though the distance was a problem, she wanted to come up to Tokyo someday and meet. Being praised felt fine.
But the reality — that piano I'd played with everything I had never reached Harumi. A video I'd casually thrown up online on a whim had attracted a stranger. There was something ironic about that.
Even so, the sad nature of men. Alone as I was, I wrote back — better than nobody.
It wasn't like a cabaret club where the money kept draining out. At least it would be something to kill time.
Strange feeling, thinking that times had moved far enough that people met this way now. Alright — time to sleep soon. I lay down in my futon.
Up at five. Hot shower. Smoked a cigarette slowly.
In a little while I'd head to Shinjuku Kabukichō.
Work ending at five in the evening. The same hours as an ordinary office worker.
For someone like me, used to the late shift as a matter of course, this routine felt off.
Not like World One, where money flowed in endlessly. Now I went every day, scraped together just over ten thousand in small change, and ground through the days.
Why — when money had been unlimited — had I not thought and just played around mindlessly. Blowing it on horse racing, on big nights at Misaki's cabaret club. What was left in my hands after all that spending: one laptop.
How many times was I going to think the same thought. Regretting what's already past doesn't get it back.
I was someone who started out with nothing.
My twenties, obsessed with nothing but getting stronger. I did get a powerful body — that much was real.
But I was in my thirties now. From here on out it was only decline.
What I could do now was show up to the workplace I'd been given and handle it with decency every day. That was the base line.
Computer knowledge — what Bōzu（Hijikata Satoru, a friend of a cousin）had taught me. There were countless people who could do it better than me. Even so, I wanted to work my way into computers, even just a little.
In the world of fighting, the backs I'd watched — my teacher Jumbo Tsuruta, and Misawa Mitsuharu. How impossibly far those backs were. Too far for me to reach.
With computers, the back I saw ahead of me — Bōzu-san's — felt closest to that same sensation.
Fortunately, both Field upstairs and Melon down below were slow stores. There was as much time as I wanted to mess with the laptop.
Day two in the new environment. I decided to bring the laptop with me everywhere from now on.
I arrived at Field. No customers.
A game parlor by its nature makes money the more customers play and lose — the payout rate it gives back. When you have a lot of customers coming in, you don't need to tighten the settings. You just take a little from a lot of people.
What about a slow store? You basically have no choice but to tighten the settings, which means the odds of customers winning keep dropping even when they do show up.
Still, Field had a lot of yakuza-affiliated customers who couldn't get into regular game parlors. Yakuza men with fewer places to spend their time than ordinary people had no choice but to kill hours dropping money in shops like this.
I fiddled with the laptop and killed time in idle small talk with Yamamoto. The only thing I can really do is games, after all……
"What is it you're doing, Iwakami-san? Is that a game?" "Yeah, it's a game."
"It looks really realistic. What genre is it?" "It's called Age of Mythology — you choose a god from Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, or Norse mythology, and the civilization you build changes depending on which god you worship. Genre-wise it's real-time strategy."
"That sounds interesting! I've got a laptop — do you think I could play that?" "You'd need to buy the Mythology software, but if you just want the demo, that's free."
"Really? How?" "Yamamoto-san, bring your laptop in tomorrow if you want. I'll install it for you."
"Really, is that alright?!" "You're making a big deal of it. No problem at all."
"I mean…… having you at Field is the best thing that's happened here. The early shift before you was this guy Suwa, and honestly he was a piece of trash." "What kind of person?"
"He's got a Filipino wife, she apparently just had a baby, and he's gone back to Shizuoka for now. About a month, I think." "Well, if a baby was just born, you'd want to go see them."
"When Suwa's here he doesn't even have a place to stay." "What? So how does he get by?"
"He crashes at acquaintances' places, and when that runs out he sleeps in some room barely big enough for one tatami mat for two thousand yen a month — and works here."
"……"
Like Yamamoto said — sounds completely chaotic.
The intercom rang. The monitor showed Kitanaka's face. I unlocked the door and let him in.
"Hey, Yamamoto. The usual."
Yamamoto spooned instant coffee into a mug, added ten scoops of sugar, then poured in hot water.
That sugar amount was clearly not normal. I said it out loud before I could stop myself.
"Uh, Yamamoto-san — isn't that too sweet?" "This is how Kitanaka-san always takes it."
Yamamoto served the coffee without a second thought. Watching Kitanaka drink his impossibly sweet coffee while playing machines, I thought: this man could develop diabetes at any moment.
Kitanaka left his seat without spending even ten thousand yen.
"Yamamoto, bring the closing data down when you're done," he said, and descended to Melon.
When Kitanaka left, Yamamoto let out a long sigh.
"What's wrong?" "Oh, it's just…… every day, Kitanaka-san really is so stingy……"
Owners are basically self-serving by nature. A certain degree of unreasonable demands is unavoidable.
"Well…… he owns this store, so some of it can't be helped."
"Eh? Iwakami-san — Kitanaka-san doesn't own this place."
Yamamoto's expression was blank.
"You mean there's a separate owner?"
I'd been assuming it was Kitanaka's store, so the shock was considerable.
"The owner of this place is Kaneko-san. Kitanaka-san is…… how do I put it……"
"Like a manager-type?" "No — Kitanaka-san has absolutely nothing to do with us."
"……"
Field and Kitanaka aren't connected? That can't be right.
Kitanaka was the one who'd suggested I work here in the first place. I couldn't make sense of what Yamamoto was saying.
"You're only on day two so you wouldn't know yet, but this store has a lot of yakuza customers. And Kitanaka-san has some pull with Kaneko-san because of that — so he just inserts himself." "He seems like someone who looks out for people."
Yamamoto looked surprised at what I said.
"Iwakami-san…… you'll get it soon enough, but Kitanaka-san — when it comes to money, that man is a devil."
"A devil?" "Yes, seriously awful when it comes to money. I don't know how much you've borrowed from Kitanaka-san, but watch yourself."
Why would he assume I'd borrowed money from Kitanaka? I didn't know the reasoning, but I didn't want to be misunderstood, so I answered straight.
"What? I haven't borrowed anything from him!" "Really? Sorry, my mistake. Kitanaka-san just introduced you out of nowhere, so I figured you had to have borrowed money from him."
A single game parlor employee was talking about Kitanaka this badly. There was a lot I didn't understand, but it seemed like I should be careful.
Maybe what Yamamoto actually meant was that Kaneko was the real owner and Kitanaka held the nominal title?
"Yamamoto-san, is Kitanaka-san the name on the paperwork for this store?" "No, that's not it either! He has nothing to do with it at all. The name on the paperwork is Koizumi-san who works the late shift. Before that it was Akiba-san."
According to Yamamoto: the reason Kitanaka asked for the closing data was so he could check the IN and OUT ratios on each machine and figure out which ones were paying out more. And also to look at the game counts and determine which machines were most likely to hit a Royal.
True enough — if you knew the settings, you could tell which machines were looser from the difference between IN and OUT. For Royals too, since it came down to number of game cycles, you could figure it out just by reading the meter screen.
"Look at this."
Yamamoto pointed to the various Royal printouts papering the walls. In the margins of the black-and-white screens were written the dates each Royal had hit, and the name of the customer who hit it.
"These printouts…… aside from Kitanaka, there are names like Shimizu and Sakota——" "Yes."
"Those are just different names — they're all Kitanaka-san hitting the Royals." "All of them?"
"There are rare exceptions. See, here's a Yamazaki-san and a Miyabe-san — those kinds. Set those aside and it's almost entirely Kitanaka-san."
If that was true, Kitanaka was hitting nine out of ten Royals.
"The owner Kaneko-san is just being used very conveniently."
What a messy place I'd been thrown into. That was my impression on day two at the game parlor.
The owner here is Kaneko……
"Oh, and Iwakami-san — your daily pay won't come from the store. Kitanaka-san will hand it to you directly, apparently."
"Got it."
When three o'clock came and I was about to head down to Melon, Yamamoto said it again: "Iwakami-san — when it comes to money, Kitanaka-san is a devil." What an unpleasant thing to hear. Because in two hours I was going to be working directly under that money devil.
I put the laptop in my bag and went down the stairs, feet heavy.
Same as the day before — the moment I arrived at Melon, Kitanaka headed straight upstairs. He couldn't stand not checking the closing data Yamamoto had compiled on the machines.
On the table, a large ashtray piled mountain-high with cigarette butts. Why not empty it before it got like that.
I dumped the butts into a garbage bag and started cleaning the dusty shop.
I sensed someone behind me and turned around. A dull-looking, slightly pudgy middle-aged salaryman was standing at the entrance.
"W-welcome."
The customer paid no attention to me whatsoever, settled into a chair, and flipped idly through the video catalog binder.
My first customer at an adult video shop. Nothing particular to do, so I opened the laptop and booted it up. Volume low — I started up Age of Mythology.
After a little while the customer stood up and placed a handwritten notepad on the table in front of me.
The warehouse number should be in the phone's speed dial history — call them and they'll bring the tapes, right? I dialed the warehouse.
Before three rings had even finished, someone picked up with a blunt "Yes."
"Uh…… um……" "Hurry up! Video or DVD?"
Let's see — if it's a video you give the title, if it's a DVD you give the number — so this is video, right?
"V-video." "Quickly — what's the title!"
This person was weirdly impatient……
"Uh…… Morachaikyan（"I Don't Wanna Wet Myself"）……" "Okay, next?"
"And…… Tokidoki de Ii no, Tonari no Danchi-zuma 3（"Sometimes Is Enough, The Housewife Next Door 3"）……"
I hadn't realized how embarrassing it would be to say obscene video titles out loud.
"Next?" "And…… Sentakuya Kenchan（"Ken the Laundryman"）……"
"Next?" "That's three. That's everything."
The call cut immediately.
I checked the price list and told the customer: "That'll be five thousand yen." The pudgy salaryman silently placed a crumpled ten-thousand-yen bill on the table.
I pulled a five-thousand-yen note from the wallet in the drawer and handed it over. The customer took the change, walked to the sofa at the back, grabbed a canned coffee from the refrigerator without asking, and started drinking.
Less than ten minutes later, a fat man in thick-lensed glasses who seemed to be from the warehouse came into the shop and placed three videotapes on the table. He was sweating like he'd rushed over, breathing in heavy, snuffling huffs.
On his way out, the milk-bottle-glasses man grabbed several cans of coffee and oolong tea from the refrigerator, shoved them into his bag without a word, and left Melon.
Something like a pig, this person. Did he have no basic human decency at all?
I put the three tapes in a paper bag and handed them to the customer.
"Thank you very much."
The pudgy salaryman left without a word. So that was the flow of things at the video shop.
What a slippery, uncomfortable type of customer. Not my kind — but I should at least get a rough sense of the inventory this place had.
Normally an adult video would get any man worked up, but when you're surrounded by dozens of them all at once, you just feel disgusted instead. Funny how that works. I really wish I could just stay upstairs at Field the whole time.
After that, not a single other customer came. Two hours passed. A little after five, Kitanaka came down.
Kitanaka set several hundred thousand yen in bills on the table and began carefully separating the crisp notes from the dirty ones.
"Good work. Same again tomorrow."
With that, Kitanaka handed me the single most worn and filthy ten-thousand-yen note of the bunch.
"Oh — the employee who's been here from before will be back starting tomorrow."
Did a shop this small and slow really need two employees?
"Understood. See you tomorrow."
I gave him an answer for now, just to respond.
Day two done. All that was left was a formless unease.
Back in Kawagoe, I opened the email on my computer. Another message from Seitō Yūki.
Trying to paper over the helplessness of my situation, I wrote back to her. Then my phone suddenly rang. Aggressive as she was, Yūki had called the moment I gave her my number.
"Hello for the first time — I'm Seitō Yūki." "Iwakami Tomoichirō."
"Wow…… Tomo, you have a really nice voice." "How old are you?"
"Born in Shōwa 46（1971）— same year as you." "What do you even like about that amateur playing of mine? The piano — I'm clumsy, I play badly."
"But you're cool……"
In that moment, I felt like I understood, just a little, what I'd once been doing to Shinagawa Harumi. When you put your feelings out front completely, and the other side has no intention of receiving them — all they feel is the pressure from the gap in how worked up you are.
What I'd done to Harumi. Constantly cornering her into yes-or-no, giving her no room to think. At the start, she must have had at least some feeling toward me. Otherwise she wouldn't have chosen to spend her birthday with me.
But I'd lost control, pushed myself on her physically in a drunken haze when she wasn't remotely ready, and when I opened my mouth it was always to declare she had to be mine. Other than that I'd worked myself up alone, offering her piano as if it were some kind of tribute — without thinking once about how she actually felt.
In the end, what I'd done was nothing more than selfish imposition.
Seitō Yūki's strange forwardness coming at me was the first time the reverse experience taught me that, as a lesson.
"Hey, Tomo. Are you actually listening?" "Yeah, I'm listening."
First time speaking and she was already calling me Tomo, Tomo — casual woman……
I could tell early on that I would never actually come to like her. But she was good-looking, so I wanted to sleep with her at least once. Obviously I wasn't going to say that out loud — but while Yūki got more and more excited, I was muttering to myself that she'd always be nothing more than a permanent pinch hitter.
"Tomo's good-looking so I bet you're popular — you're not allowed to make a girlfriend before I come there, okay!"
She was already acting like she was my girlfriend, but I just went along with what she said, thinking what an idiot she was and giving half-hearted responses. I wonder what expression she'd make if I told her all I wanted was one time.
What I understood through the back-and-forth with Yūki: I was the type who needed to be the one doing the chasing, not the one being chased. The more I understood that about myself, the duller the conversation with her felt.
Just a placeholder until I could meet her and sleep with her. Men really are sad creatures……
I hung up the phone and lay down in my futon, getting ready for tomorrow.
