At the Cafe Kichijouji Chapter 1 By Yuki Miyamoto Art by Kyouko Negishi serialized in Wings Monthly Comics p.1 (A sunny afternoon on a tree-lined quiet city block. A sign on the cafe says it is in preparation for opening) Tarou Kurihara (chief): (holding a mop) Hmph. The owner told us all to come early because he had something to tell us..... p.2 Tarou: (standing in the middle of the cafe; the chairs are still overturned on the tables) ...And the only one who shows up is Jun? Jun Ichinomiya (part-time): Yes. Minakawa-san was in the kitchen, but I think Maki-san and Toku-san are late. (Tarou sighs in irritation. They hear footsteps and turn around) Maki Oukubo (floor): (yawning) I'm sleepy... Shuta Tokumi (part-time): (while tying on his apron) 'Morning! p.3 (Maki and Shuta are holding their heads where Tarou has hit them with his mop) Tarou: You're LATE. Maki: I can't believe how you go around hitting people on their heads! Tarou: (with a gleam in his eye) I was only providing stimulus to and activiating a brain that can't even be punctual. (There's a fat pause as they face off. Shuta and Jun look on as if they are used to it) Maki: What are you talking about "activating"? What if you'd have terminated all activity?! Huh?! Tarou: But you never used it in the first place, so it's no big loss, is it? Maki: What did you say? Hey! p.4 Yuichi Mitaka (owner): (walking in) .....Are they at it again? Jun: Ah, master. (translator's note-the owner of a store is often referred to as master in Japan) Shuta: 'Morning. Tarou: What did you want to tell us? Mitaka: Hm? It's not really important, but..... One of them: A magazine article?! (The cat (who resembles Spinel from Card Captor Sakura) looks up from his sleep) Tarou: On our cafe? Shuta: Isn't that great!! Mitaka: They called yesterday to request it. p.5 Tarou: (with another gleam in his eye) It's not for some underground magazine's listing of strange cafes or something, right?......(It's not a "so long as we're in a magazine, nothing else matters" kind of thing.) Mitaka: What kind of image do you hold of this place? Don't worry, it's a normal town magazine. Later on a reporter will be coming by, so please try not to make any trouble. (No one is paying attention to him, instead they are flipping through a copy of the magazine the article will be in.) Jun: This places's food is awful but they're in here.... Shuta: Are there comics in this magazine? p.6 Mitaka: (placing his hand on Tarou's shoulder. Flames are shooting up in the background) .....I'm counting on you, alright?! Tarou: (under his breath) Whoa. (Out loud) Uh, okay. (Maki is raising the window shades and Shuta is folding napkins.) Shuta: (over his shoulder to Maki) By the way, what do they usually write about in these articles? Maki: Well, it's about a cafe, so it'll probably have the food on the menu, and maybe a picture of the place, and that's about it. Shuta: So that means we probably won't get mentioned then, right? Maki: Of course not.... p.7 Maki: (Maki is in a waiter pose, a crowd of girls are drooling in the background) Besides, if I was in print, the young women who saw this glorious, gorgeous, intelligent, and stunningly handsome me would overflow this cafe and make working here impossible for me. (Shuta laughs weakly) Maki: But if my fans increase the number of patrons who come here, then it kills two birds with one stone...... Shuta: ? Maki: I must speak to the master ASAP about a special closeup of my..... (Shuta bends backwards quickly to avoid the mop thrown by Tarou which hits Maki squarely on the back of his head, causing him to hit and crack the manga frame) p.8 Tarou: You shouldn't display your stupidity like that. It'll embarrass the cafe. Maki: (holding his head and picking up the platter he had dropped) Again, are these things normally supposed to be thrown at people?! If the gorgeous back of my head gets distorted, how will you make it up to all my fans? Maki: (with shimmering lights in the background) But then again, you're only lovers are a mop and detergent, so it's impossible to expect you to comprehend my refined love. Tarou: (behind Maki pulling down a screen with a picture of Maki's room on it, which looks like a tornado hit it) Before you talk about love, do something about the state of your room. Maki: (pointing to Tarou) My room has nothing to do with this!! And more importantly, what about you!! Always having to disinfect everything, and with your locker overflowing with your detergent collection! One box of xxx detergent is more than enough!! Tarou: What! p.9 (Jun and Shuta look on silently as Maki and Tarou haggle in the background) Tarou: What's so bad about keeping one's room neat? Your's can't even be considered a room! Maki: You're always buying all those weird detergents from mail order! Tarou: Don't talk about my hobby. Maki: I'm saying you're over the line! Things have an expiration date..... Tarou: That goes for you too! How do you accumulate that much garbage-- Maki: What I mean is, don't you have anything better to do? Like uruoi or something. Tarou: Do you even know what uruoi means? (translator's note-uruoi: moisture, gain, favor, charm) Maki: How am I supposed to understand a person like you who never cuts loose and leads such a depressing lifestyle? Jun: If they end up working here for a long time, I feel sorry for the master. Mitaka: (holding his head) Whatever, just stop them. Hifumi Minakawa (kitchen): (suddenly appearing at Mitaka's back and who always speaks a little creepily) How upsetting. Jun: Good morning, Minakawa-san. (Mitaka now has his hand over his heart, trying to calm down) p.10 Hifumi: (reaching into his vest pocket) I thought something like this might happen, so I brought along the dolls I just finished making. (The dolls are two voodoo dolls made out of straw) Hifumi: Chef Hifumi Minakawa's recipre for getting along together.........strawberry-flavored. With these, no matter how much the two people hate each other, they will become good friends. It's the ultimate......(dissolves into soft chilling laughter) p.11 Jun: How do they work? Hifumi: First like this. (tapes a piece of paper with Tarou's name on one doll and one with Maki's name on the other) Then like this. (he places one doll on top of the other) Then like this. (he puts a nail through the dolls) And then........ (he holds the dolls to the wall and is about to hammer the nail to the wall) Mitaka: So it ends up being that?! (translator's note-the act of putting hammering a straw doll to a tree or wall means you are putting a curse on whoever that doll is supposed to be and probably really despise that person) (Tarou and Maki look up from their fighting--Maki is fending off another mop attack) p.12 Hifumi: Oh, they've stopped fighting. Tarou and Maki: What exactly was he intending to stop......... Jun: By the way, this has nothing to do with Maki's delusions, but if a lot of customers do come, does that mean we'll get more hours and more pay? Mitaka: (while confiscating Hifumi's voodoo dolls) Yes, probably. That is if business increases. Shuta: Wow, really?! Then that means I can actually move into an apartment with its own bath like I've always wanted to!! Tarou: No bath........ p.13 Maki: Toku, what kind of place are you living in? Shuta: My place? It's on the second floor of this fifty year old wood and mortar complex and is about a fifteen minute walk from the station. The rent is 28,000 yen a month and it's about eight square meters. But there's no bath and only a common toilet. Plus, there are other apartment buildings all around, so no sunlight ever comes in. Even if you open the curtain, there's nothing but a wall outside...... (Tarou and Jun have horrified looks on their faces at the image of Shuta's apartment) Maki: Common toilet....? Shuta: But in the early morning, the foreigner next door is always reciting some weird mantra, and strange plants keep growing out of the cracks in the floor, so it's never boring! p.14 Tarou: Wait a sec. And you're keeping a pet even though you live in those kinds of circumstances? Shuta: Yeah...... But really, it's only two hamsters. I give them the leftovers of vegetables for food, so I manage to take care of them. Jun: But even so, for Toku-san, those vegetable leftovers are an important source of food, right? I'm surprised you'd go so far as to split that to take care of a pet. If you go to that length, there must be some reason..... Maki: Something more important to Toku than the pet. p.15 Hifumi: (walking by carrying a cake) Emergency food supply. Maki and Tarou: That's it! Shuta: No, they're not!! Tarou: But they certainly do multiply quickly, so they'd be perfect for that. Maki: Then again, they don't look very edible, and they probably don't taste good. Tarou: It's not the quality, but the quantity that counts. Maki: Since they are for emergencies after all. Jun: (with a completely straight and innocent face) Wow, Toku-san eats anything, doesn't he!! I can't even stomach celery....... Shuta: I don't eat them!!! (crying and running off into the sunset) I hate all of you!! You idiots! Jun: Toku-san!? p.16 Jun: Ah, you guys teased him too much. Tarou: Well, it was Jun who gave the final blow though. Maki: (laughing) Because for a guy with such a cute face, you do manage to say the awfullest things without a second thought. (Tarou grabs Maki by his necktie and hurriedly drags him away) Maki: What are you-- Tarou: You idiot! Don't mention his face to Jun! You know he has a complex about his face being too feminine, don't you? (Jun is still standing where they left him, unmoving) Maki: Uh, yeah. p.17 Maki: But I didn't say a word about Jun looking like a girl. (A shadow appears behind Tarou. Jun is standing over Tarou and Maki, holding a huge rock about twice his size over his head. A cold smile flashes briefly over his face) Maki: (while Tarou frantically runs away, pulling Maki behind him) Where did you get that huge rock of nature from?!! Tarou: That's not the main problem now!! p.18 (Jun heaves the rock at them. It crashes and destroys a couple of tables and chairs. Maki and Tarou just barely avoid it) Hifumi: (peering over one of the wrecked tables at Maki) With this kind of inhuman power, he's not girlish at all, is he Maki-chan? Maki: Don't just stand there like a spectator!! Jun: Who looks like a girl?!! Maki: That wasn't me who said that just now!! (Mitaka's anger slowly grows as tables, crates, and other various objects get thrown around in the course of the argument) Mitaka: (pounding his hand on a table) Will all of you stop this right now!!! (Maki tries to creep away. Jun sees this and grabs Mitaka by his apron) p.19 Jun: Maki-san, you jerk!!! (He throws Mitaka at Maki, both of whom slam into the wall next to the entrance) Tarou: Master! Hifumi: Oops. (The entrance door opens, and a lady is about to walk in. Then she spots Mitaka, pushing off a KO'd Maki) p.20 Mitaka: Um...........are you the reporter for........? Woman: Ah, yes.....I....am.....(she looks at the remains of the cafe, with a huge rock in the corner, and tables and chairs strewn everywhere) ............ It seems....now is not........a good time......Goodbye. (the door closes shut) Mitaka: Wait! p.21 Hifumi: She escaped. Maki: Well, after seeing this, anyone would, what with the huge rock and all. Tarou: (to Mitaka in a pleasant tone) We're due to open in thirty minutes. What shall we do? Mitaka: How should I know!!! (People walking outside, as well as Shuta on the sidewalk petting the cat look up) For three days afterwards, the cafe closed temporarily for uncertain reasons. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cafe Kichijouji de (C)Yuki Miyamoto. All rights reserved. Translated by Dawn Kolk Please ask my permission before using this translation for any purpose. webmaster@ein.i-p.com