MaruMA:Doujinshi2:Story2.1
Surely There Have Been Many Nights,
but Because There are Nights, There are also Mornings[edit]
By Takabayashi Tomo
Translator Note: This story was originally published in Takabayashi-sensei's doujinshi "Knecht Ruprecht". Let me explain a little bit. "Surely There Have Been Many Nights, but Because There are Nights, There are also Mornings" is the main title under which we can find three stories : 1 "The Christmas of the Two Rascals" , 2 "Christmas Disgrace", and 3 "University Student Style Christmas". My notes are labeled using "t/n" or simply as references at the bottom. Anything that has not been labeled as such, including comments between parenthesis was written by Takabayashi-sensei. On a side note, what happens in this story seems to take place before Vier's "July 20th, Ocean Day, Fine weather"
The translation of the title to Japanese is "Servant Rupert"[1], an arbitrary(?) character that would give presents to the good kids, and a whip to the bad kids the night before Christmas. I wanted to try and write the "what if, but, in that case" pattern of how "these guys" would celebrate Christmas. Of course, this is an parallel story, not related to the main "Kyou MA" story. (disconnect the USB)
The Christmas of the Two Rascals[2]
December is more troublesome than other months.
On Valentine's Day you only need to pretend that you're getting chocolates, as men look forward to getting them from that one person they long for. Well, it takes courage to wander about the places where they sell chocolates, which are packed with women, but if you put on a face like you were taken there by someone, or you got lost, then you can manage somehow[3].
But there are no excuses for Christmas. It makes a big difference in the RANK you have among your friends, whether you have a girlfriend or not[4].
Even if you somehow get a small box from a famous store, there isn't a single human who would be fooled by that. And even if you make it in time for the special matchmaking gatherings[5] on the 20th, if you run away, it's unreasonable to believe that you'll GET a girlfriend for that day. If you don't have anyone to go out with, you welcome Christmas Eve with your family.
"..... And that's what I wanted to avoid..."
"Why? I mean, you have ROASTED CHICKEN at home"
The convenience store food was spread all over the living room at the Murata household, as Yuuri SET the VCR. He stared at and pressed a few buttons on the unfamiliar remote.
"Just try and imagine it. My dad's at work, my brother's with his CIRCLE[6], so in the end, I was there facing my mother, with chicken, champagne and cake!
"At home, since both of my parents are out till after midnight, I'm used to such an AT HOME situation."
"Whaat? I'm telling you it's better this way! It's easier to get comfortable if there's no one else at home. Thanks to that we can just lie back and watch a marathon of tearjerker Christmas movies, you know?.... Because if I tried to do it at home, my mom, who always ends up needing tissues, would want to join in"
"It doesn't matter, Shibuya. We have onigiri, sandwiches, pizza buns, oden.... but say, doesn't this food have too many carbohydrates?"
"It's fiiine, in any case, I'll run on my way back home"
"But why didn't you want to buy potato chips....?"
"JUNK food is not good for an athlete's body "
"Ah, is that so? You know I always think that, you work too hard for a grass lot baseball player. If you're going to live such an ascetic life for baseball, you might as well hurry up and participate in official baseball games."
"Shut up, don't say it like it's so easy."
Murata looked up at the light on the ceiling and then headed to the kitchen quickly. Because his friend 'didn't smoke or drink'[7], he would only drink MINERAL WATER or DIET COKE.
"Shibuya, do you want to drink something?"
"Ah, enough " (t/n: still Murata)
Yuuri was already indulging in his hobby, lying down on the wine-red carpet.
"Shi, wh-what are you doing?"
The nostalgic image of Pancho Ito[8] on the screen was reading the names of the players who had been selected during the first round.
"Ah! In 86' Seibu selected Moriyama Ryoji, a pitcher, you know? He was not active for about 5 years! But now he's a reliable coach... By the way, that year was pretty awesome. Kida from the Giants, and Awaya from Kintetsu also got first place. The nominations of the Hams and the Oceans were Nishizaki and Tomori, but after that the Seibu came and.... Do you think Tomori will become a "player chairman" next year?"[9]
"....... Shibuya........"
"Hm?"
"Who's Tomori?"
"Now he's Denney"[10]
"Ahh! That guy that no matter how you look at him there's no way he's Japanese?..... No, I mean, please stop watching videos for MVP elections from before you were born."
"Oh~ Shut~ up! Why not? I mean, it's Christmas! We can watch every election up till this year's in one night."
Murata put the glass with malt beer on the table, and pushed the high-carbohydrate food to a side as he said :
"This won't do. A real Christmas, you know, is a happy day, right? And to do something like this in such a day...."
"There's nothing to be done, huh?"
While lying on his stomach, Yuuri moved his lower legs in a circle.
"Despite wanting to be chosen, to not be able to or like, to be left out of the draft for the Koshien championship, like, I remember the tests to get into the team and such, and a lot of other things, and then, an arbitrary turn of events changed everything because I was too emotional. And also..."
"And also, what?"
"I will never in my life have my name called like that.... well, indeed there's nothing to be done, right?"
While saying something so moving for him, Yuuri found his answer.
"If you want it that much, wouldn't it be best for you to try and enter the high-school club? If you want to be a professional baseball player, instead of trying to convince yourself to be a grass-lot baseball player. Aiming for the Koshien could still be a real possibility, right?"
"... Don't you know about it?"
"About what? What don't I know?"
"Ah, enough! Let's change it. Let's skip this part about the MVPs. L-E-T-S S-T-O-P I-T! That's good. Let's stop it. Besides there are lots of things to watch in this overview of 82 years of the Nihon Series in the year 2000[11]. Uwah! Hisanobu Watanabe of all people had to pop up on the screen hitting the ball!"
In the end, he kept indulging in his hobby.
A dismayed Murata stole the remote, and ejected the video letting only static on the screen. He could not escape Yuuri's shocked glare as he reached over and changed the TAPE.
"Since it's finally Christmas, it has to be a fun VIDEO. The next one is guaranteed to be entertaining! It will offer 90 minutes of fun and EXCITEMENT plus the extension and PKs!"
"PKs? What's that?"
The 2001 Toyota cup, Argentina's Boca Juniors vs. Germany's Bayer Munich.
"... Wait... you ... soccer crazed bastard~!....."
"That's rich, coming from a baseball brat. Ah! Khan! He scraped Khan. Ah! That's right, that's indeed a yellow card, huh?"
Murata, the fan of the Bundesliege, was now indulging in his hobby and Yuuri was forced to watch.
| Return to MA Series | Forward to Story 2.2 |
References[edit]
- ↑ She's talking about the title of her second doujinshi, Knecht Ruprecht. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht
- ↑ The word for rascal can also mean, bastard, or simply guy. It's yaro in Japanese .
- ↑ Only women buy chocolates for Valentine's Day. Seeing a guy buying chocolates would be weird. He was buying chocolates for himself, to pretend he had gotten them from someone.
- ↑ He means you're more or less popular among your friends depending on whether you have a girlfriend or not for Christmas.
- ↑ People go to gatherings to meet 'potential partners' in Japan. This is a tradition from the 16th century and people still have these sort of gatherings nowadays. It seems Yuuri went to one , but then ran away.
- ↑ Group of people with a common interest.
- ↑ "No smoking, No drinking" is one word in Japanese. Yuuri's the type of person who's against that, at least until his body fully develops.
- ↑ Real name, Kazuo Ito (1934-2002) who played in the Pacific League and was then an announcer. He was dead by the time this story was written. Not to be confused with Itou Tsutomu, Yuuri's favorite baseball player.
- ↑ Yuuri's talking about some sort of election of the best players in different teams, it's something like MVPs as far as I could understand, there was a triple tie for the first place in 1986. Giants, Seibu(Lions), Kintetsu, Oceans and DeNA are all baseball clubs. A "player chairman" is something like a spokesman for the players.
- ↑ Denney Tomori: http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=tomori001den
- ↑ Sensei!!! Please tell us this is not how you picked Wolfram's age!
