We are reading the first volume of 夜カフェ as the Beginner Book Club!.
This thread is for chapter related discussion. We are reading together from the aforementioned date on, but this thread will be kept open mu~ch longer (like 10 years longer). So don’t be shy to ask questions even if you are late to the party
Vocabulary List
Feel free to add any words you looked up as well! Page numbers may be off by one or two because of differences between physical and digital editions, but we try to keep the words roughly in order of appearance
The book is also available over at koohi.cafe (formerly known as floflo).
Discussion Guidelines
Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler] result: texthere
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked
Isn’t it weird that middle school-aged Hanabi uses ちゃん when thinking of 20-year-old Saki? Although maybe she’s just taking Aiko’s lead, since she introduced Saki as Saki-chan.
Story comments
I’m glad Hanabi is cheering up. And Aiko is also pushing her to express herself more, which is great.
Edit: Don’t know why I categorized my question instead of providing a page number lol. Fixed!
I’m only halfway through chapter 3, but if it is mentioned up to this point that the cafe is owned by Aiko-san I also missed that. I’m quite sure it is part of the house, they are using the cafe for (free?) breakfast, and the cafe has pictures drawn by Aiko-san, but the exact relationship between Aiko-san and the cafe remains unclear to me so far.
I don’t know how common this is in “real life”, but I’ve seen it come up in manga a lot where a shop (especially a cafe) and house are all one unit.
A couple that immediately come to mind are 「ご注文はうさぎですか?」 where the main character moves into a house that has a cafe/bar and 「現代魔女の就職事情」 where the main character’s friend lives in a house with a cafe.
Here's from a scene from the latter where the main character is staying the night at the cafe owner's house and is literally sleeping in the cafe portion.
Series such as these conditioned me to immediately think of Aiko’s place as the same.
agree with you it’s pretty common when it comes to TV Shows especially, even American ones…people often live above the restaurant or bar in the same building… even Midnight Diner he lives above the shop…and don’t think it strays too much from real live either… there are plenty of smaller shops and more family type establishments that are like this…
I can think of quite a few wineries that we have visited where the tasting rooms are on the property but attached to the main living quarters. I was watching My first errand (“Old Enough”) [super adorable] on Netflix and even one of the episodes the dad runs his own sushi shop on the first floor and they live on the 2nd floor. And even a couple of documentaries where the store is directly attached to the home. I think it’s not uncommon once you get out of the big cities.
I’ve certainly seen examples of that in media before, although not personally. I suppose it currently remains a mystery as to whether Aiko-san also owns the attached bar or not, but I’d be a little surprised if she didn’t (or at least if there isn’t another explanation lol)
When Hanabi run away, she started talking (thinking?) about the house. I thought it said that the house used to belong to her grandparents but someone (I guess Aiko) renovated the house and now Aiko lived there by herself. So, I imagined that the first floor was turned into a cafe and the second floor/other rooms would be part of the actual house.
テーブル席 - is this individual seats, or three tables with seats around it plus another large table with seating? A google search suggests the latter. I’m trying to visualise the interior!
キッチンの流しで、コーヒーコップをふいていた愛子さん
the multiple possible meanings of 流す and ふく are confusing me here, especially with the の in there.
is the second part “wiping coffee cups”?
and is she “floating from the kitchen”? Or is she pouring coffee and I have the second bit wrong?
For some reason blur spoiler is not working, however I don’t think it’s a major plot point!!
I couldn’t penetrate this at all until I did the following breakdown, would love folks’ feedback on how I did!
パパやママに悪いなんて思わないで
Taking the で as the connective form of the copula だ, since I don’t think Aikosan is ordering Hanabi not to think her parents are bad, I get you don’t think papa and mama are bad, so …
たまには once in a while
思いっきりわがまま言っちゃえば? what if you say something selfish?
それでケンカになったら and if it becomes a fight
なったでいいじゃない。
I was initially very confused by the doubled up なるs, and also not sure what the で is doing, but I think this last bit is saying basically well if it does then that’s fine, right?
You essentially got it. The first part has a different meaning though:
パパやママに悪いなんて思わないで Your interpretation would need a different particle there. Also the ないで here is more the don’t do while meaning.
I would translate that as “Without thinking about being bad to mom and dad, (rest of your translation)”
I finished with this weeks reading too. Overall a pretty short read. The writing in the middle somehow felt very choppy though. Around where she went to charge her phone the sentences felt so short and jumpy. I can’t exactly put my finger on it but it just felt like pretty unrefined writing…
It’s the first week I felt like this but that might be because I didn’t have my usual setup and read everything in one gulp without looking anything up. Normaly the lookups and creation bring their own interruptions so I probably haven’t noticed it before. But without my setup reading everything fast it felt a bit meh to me.
No I mean without thinking “it is bad” to sometimes say something selfish to mom and dad. Man after reading my translation again I can totally see how you are confused ^^.
Basically don’t feel you are doing something wrong towards mom and dad saying something selfish sometimes. Is the meaning I want to convey -.-