It was raining today. The Evening Rain cafe quietly opened on the Dutch Slopes, where few people passed through.

Today’s visitors were the Yamashita couple, regular customers. They are a mischievous couple in their seventies who said they visited the Evening Rain on rainy nights to enjoy the nightlife.

They lived in the neighbourhood and visited here on recommendation from Iida-san.

Even the unfriendly Owner would come out to enjoy the conversation when the Yamashita couple were here.

 

After a break in the conversation, the Owner went into the kitchen to prepare their orders. Mr Yamashita said ‘he’s a real jigemon’ as the Owner left.

I recently learned that jigemon means a local person in the Nagasaki dialect.

I sometimes didn’t understand the Nagasaki dialect when Mr Yamashita used it. When that happened, his wife translated it to standard Japanese for me.

The Owner didn’t have any issues and had a pleasant conversation with Mr Yamashita in the Nagasaki dialect, which he normally didn’t use.

Sometimes, Ryoko-chan would also use the Nagasaki dialect.

When she was suddenly called in for her part time job, she shouted ‘bariyazeka!’, I asked her ‘sorry, but what does that mean?’.

‘Bari’ meant something terrible while ‘yaseka’ meant something troublesome, it seems to be slang spoken by young people to indicate that they were annoyed or depressed by something

When I asked if it just meant troublesome, I was scolded saying not to translate it literally.

 

The Nagasaki dialect varies from region to region and people who understand it can tell which part of Nagasaki prefecture it came from just by listening to it.

I thought that it was an interesting culture.

 

Thinking that it was about time that everything was prepared, I headed for the kitchen.

Today’s menu was “Taruto and Roasted Tea”.

Taruto seemed to be a traditional confectionary, but Yamashita-san and his wife said that they hadn’t heard about it.

I didn’t ask for any details about it because I wanted to enjoy it after it was served.

 

Taruto (torta) means cake in Portuguese. It was a confectionery made of jam wrapped with castella. There was also some made of bean paste wrapped in castella.

 

「Oh, I know this. It’s a specialty from Shikoku, isn’t it?」

「Yes. It seems to have originated from Nagasaki before becoming a famous confectionery of Shikoku and Matsuyama city in Ehime prefecture.」

「It was brought through the Sugar Road, wasn’t it?」

「It seems so.」

 

It seems that bean paste Castella was invented by a daimyo of the Edo period. At that time, the luxurious taste wasn’t not publicly available for a while, but it was eventually passed down to a confectioner in the Meiji period where it became a famous confectionery in Matsuyama city.

 

We introduced the Taruto to the Yamashita couple.

They seemed to be happy and nostalgic about it as they had gone to Matsuyama for their honeymoon.

It was wonderful to see the happy couple have a good time talking about their memories.

They were my idea of an ideal married couple.

 

After that, the Yamashita couple went home saying ‘We’ll come again’.

 

When I went outside, it had stopped raining, so the Evening Rain closed for the night.

The time was just before 8pm. The shop closed earlier than usual.

 

After I cleaned the shop, I turned off the lights in the room.

I took off my apron, folded it and put it into my bad. I was all packed up in 10 seconds.

 

The Owner said that they would send me home today as well.

 

「Owner, isn’t it hard to send me back every time?」

「……It’s not troublesome.」

 

Saying that, he poked my forehead with his finger.

When he said ‘yazeka’ I remembered that it was usually used to tell someone off.

 

◇◇◇

 

The Owner’s car went onto a different road than the one to my apartment.

Well, it looks like he was taking me somewhere.

We arrived at a stylish coffee shop. It seems that this shop was famous for its hamburger steak and quiche.

When I was hesitating over which one to choose, the Owner ordered a hamburger set and recommended I get a slice of quiche.

 

「Uwa~~. So much–.」

「Can you eat it all?」

「Yes.」

 

I decided to say I was still growing.

 

「Come to think of it, Yamashita-san said that Owner was a genuine local.」

「I was born and grew up in Nagasaki, so that’s natural.」

「But, since you hadn’t used the Nagasaki dialect up until now, I thought that it might have been different.」

「I was in Tokyo for a few years in university, so I wasn’t around here during that time.」

「Oh, was that so.」

 

He often used the Nagasaki dialect without realising it was a dialect and often had trouble communicating to other people. Because of that, he struggled for several years.

 

「Like with ‘naosu’, I was confused because what I thought it meant was different from what the other people thought.」

「What meaning does ‘naosu’ have in Nagasaki dialect?」

「To store or clean up.」

「So it doesn’t mean repairing or fixing something, right?」

「It was quite troubling.」

 

He tried to use easy to understand words from the Nagasaki dialect, but there seemed to be many cases where standard words like ‘naosu’ had different meanings in the Nagasaki dialect.

I thought it was quite interesting even though it was a difficult thing to deal with.

 

While we were talking, the food was served.

 

The hamburger steak was smothered with demi-glace sauce and gravy. It was a soft, juicy, authentic hamburger steak served at a restaurant.

The quiche was filled with vegetables, root vegetables and was very delicious. I was very satisfied with my slice.

All the food was delicious and I felt happy.

 

I suddenly thought while having an after meal coffee. This is a date, right? Right?

 

But I immediately denied it in my head.

Because it was the Owner, he might like going to different places to eat and might have invited me out for a meal as a friend.

What a little devil!

If you take me out like this, I’ll misunderstand since I don’t have any romantic experience.

I immediately felt sad.

But just in case, I tried to check.

 

「Owner.」

「Yes?」

「Do you have a hobby of trying out food at different restaurants?」

「Why is that?」

「No, I mean, you know a lot about food and have been taking me to various delicious places like this.」

「I don’t go by myself. ……Even if someone invited me, I wouldn’t go.」

「Not even Nanase-san?」

「Why would Nanase-san come up?」

「Eeh~, well you seemed to be good friends.」

「She’s just a normal friend.」

「A normal friend?」

 

I wonder? It was a rather blunt response about Nanase-san.

When he was talking to the Yamashita couple, he had a gentle expression, but now he didn’t show any emotions.

Even if he was embarrassed or shy, I couldn’t see it.

Maybe the person Owner likes is a different Yohko-san?

 

Oh, now I’m concerned about it.

 

「What’s wrong?」

「Ah, um……」

 

I’ve been asking questions for a while. I thought it was a good idea not to ask any more.

The Owner doesn’t invite just anyone out to eat and the person he likes isn’t Nanase-san.

Just knowing this much, it was a good harvest of information.

 

But, if I don’t find the courage to take a step from here, we will always be stuck in an employer-employee relationship.

 

The words that Komada-san said, that I didn’t need to think too hard about relationships, passed through my mind.

 

While I was absent minded, the Owner, who had left his seat earlier, came back and said it was time to leave.

Apparently he had gone to pay, I tried to take out some money in a hurry, but he said he wouldn’t accept any today.

I asked him to deduct it from my salary. He said he understood, but he had never actually done it. He probably wouldn’t deduct it this time either. I was really apologetic.

 

Getting in the car, he drove through the streets at night.

I arrived at my apartment in no time.

 

Before getting out of the car, I gathered about 30 years of courage and told the Owner that there was something I wanted to tell him.

I finally made up my mind to tell him my feelings.

 

Hearing me use formal speech, the Owner looked at me with questioning eyes.

I urged myself not to flinch here.

 

I thought that this would be the only time in my life that I would confess so nervously.

Even if this breaks us apart, there’s no other way.

It’s said that very few first love’s come true at the end.

 

Holding my intensely beating heart, I looked straight at the Owner.

 

「–I, I really like the Owner!」

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