夜市: Week 4 Discussion

[Naphthalene]

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Week 4

Start Date: May 30th
Previous week: Week 3
Next week: Week 5

Reading:

End Page	End Percentage	End Phrase	Page Count
60	27%	脅しも告白もためらいもなく、老紳士は前に飛びだし、刀を振った。	17

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[Naphthalene]

Wow this week really didn’t go the way I thought. So bringing いずみ along was for the purpose of having someone take his brother out of the place rather than to sell her… didn’t see that coming. I guess this could be used as a party time “are you a sociopath” kind of question
The last line was also not what I expected. I thought the old gentleman would attack 裕司somehow… but no. I also read the next couple of sentence, since it was hard to just stop here.

[lukhart]

Great chapter. I’m gonna be honest, that part where Yujin tells his reason for not wanting to live anymore was pretty silly and I liked that both Izumi and the 老紳士 were acting like it was an overreaction too lol.

[Naphthalene]

Well, we already know he was depressed before that. He mentioned not liking baseball anymore and so on. So I feel it just was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It is quite silly, though.

[denzo]

The whole “I’m going to make you sell me” thing aside, that went more or less as I expected…although I was expecting 老紳士 to try and cut the nightmarket rather than the 人攫い. Also just realised that the page numbers are now almost 10 pages off for me!

@Naphthalene

Well, we already know he was depressed before that. He mentioned not liking baseball anymore and so on. So I feel it just was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It is quite silly, though.

That’s the problem with depression. The reason is almost always stupid when you think about it rationally.

[Naphthalene]

@denzo

The reason is almost always stupid when you think about it rationally.

And yet realizing that never helps.

@denzo

The whole “I’m going to make you sell me” thing aside, that went more or less as I expected…although I was expecting 老紳士 to try and cut the nightmarket rather than the 人攫い.

Ooooh, cutting the night market sounds cool, since some characters (I forgot who mentioned it) believe that the night market is alive. It does seem like a huge risk for the old gentleman to do such a thing, though, especially for people he just met. Well, lopping off the head of the 人攫い is probably dangerous in its own right. I don’t think the night market would think too kindly of people attacking the shop owners. I guess we’ll get to see what happens when the market doesn’t recognize you as a customer anymore

[maskedkoala]

Book club + cliff hangers = whyyyyyyyyy!

Fun section. Good: Not selling your acquaintance. Not so good: Taking your own life of perpetual grief and guilt and bestowing that upon your acquaintance.

[denzo]

I’ve read a fair amount of Japanese fiction where there are swords can cut things like abstract concepts, so I was thinking “since it can cut anything…maybe it can cut the nightmarket, or their bond to it. Or perhaps it can cut open an exit from it.”

[Belerith]

I suppose this is the nebulous bond of blood relations who don’t actually know each other at work. 老紳士 is 弟 right? Come back from a future? Or alternate world with a faster flow of time? Otherwise I really can’t explain why he has any interest in these two kids at all.

Going a bit further, if he really is 弟, he might have been sounding out their character, too. He might have been deciding between whether to kill 裕司, who sold him, or the person who instigated it.

If I’m wrong I’m really looking forward to the next week!

[Naphthalene]

@denzo

I’ve read a fair amount of Japanese fiction where there are swords can cut things like abstract concepts, so I was thinking “since it can cut anything…maybe it can cut the nightmarket, or their bond to it. Or perhaps it can cut open an exit from it.”

Hm, true, but then again maybe you don’t want to completely piss off the night market. If you have proof that it was 詐欺 (somehow my brain refuses to give me the English term), for instance if you are yourself the younger brother, then it might be fine to punish the 人攫い without any penalty.
Other than that, @Belerith said pretty much what I was thinking, but at the same time, I really don’t know. Also, where does the story goes from there, considering there are only two weeks left…

[maskedkoala]

@Naphthalene

Also, where does the story goes from there, considering there are only two weeks left…

Well, the characters love their monologues. If it does turn out that 老紳士 is 弟 then I’m sure there will be a whole week of him telling his story.

[denzo]

Just finished my dictionary read through, and there’s one thing I didn’t get:

What exactly does 考え方次代じゃないか mean? I think I get what 老紳士 is going for, and I feel like I’ve come across it before, but I can’t think what it would be in English…

[Belerith]

It means, ‘depends how you think about it’ - that is, you can lay it out differently, and come to a different conclusion by changing how you think about it.

[denzo]

Just realised I misread the kanji. It all makes sense now…

[jacobalbano]

Read a little past the end, whoops – I forgot the exact wording of the line that this week’s portion ends on. This is getting pretty exciting! Quite the dilemma for everyone involved.

[valkow]

This week’s reading went by less quickly than in previous weeks, but was enjoyable! I forgot to look up when to stop, but when I reached a break point and came in to check, I was only one paragraph away from the actual stopping point, huzzah. And I’m glad I didn’t look before after all because it was nice not knowing that sentence was coming. (I guess I will try to do it by percentages with book clubs from now on, but they never quite match up. Oh well!)

Looking forward to next week!

[eefara]

\o/ Finally! I’m caught back up! I wasn’t able to do week 2’s reading, so I’ve been about half a week behind for a while now; I’d read the previous week’s section, then part of that week’s, then be behind again when Saturday rolled around. But no more!

It helps quite a bit with how interesting the story is so far; I’m kind of glad I finished up today, so I can get reading tomorrow with everyone to see what will happen.

Edit: Just read the theories here that 老紳士 is 弟. It didn’t occur to me at the time (panic reading), but that theory makes complete and total sense to me. I never really believed that the kid the 人攫い was selling back was actually the brother; that’s too easy, and the dude is too shady. It would also tie into why 老紳士 keeps bumping into them, of all people.

I feel really bad for Izumi; she certainly never signed up for any of this when she went on her date. Feels kind of iffy for 裕司 to not tell her to bring cash or whatever as well. I guess it plays into his plan of pseudo-suicide, but dang. That’s not second date material for sure.

[hoodsandhats]

Wow what a place to stop for the week.

Warning for lots of suicide and depression talk here:

I honestly sympathize with Yuuji… his rationale based on that one moment is trite, sure. But it makes sense to me that he’d feel his life is bullshit. He’s had a lifetime of guilt that no one else can even acknowledge over trading away his brother, and he must be constantly internally punishing himself over doing that for something so shallow. And for someone in that mindset, being able to eliminate yourself without causing anyone else any pain (because you would have never existed) sounds like the best possible option. I get the sense he hadn’t realized until now that Izumi would be affected or care in that way so it must have seemed like a win-win. And like, when you’re in that self hating depression pit, it’s hard to believe that your absence would actually hurt people because you feel so worthless, even though that’s not actually true. So I imagine he thinks Izumi wouldn’t feel any loss at leaving him behind. Definitely not second date material. Lots of therapy material.

Maybe reading too much into it because ouch, relatable.

Also how the heck are they going to get out now…

[myrmos]

Really a great chapter and I am finally catching up to you. I did start a bit late.

I just have one question, whether I got that right. There is this sentence at 28% in the kindle version:

このあっちゃんとの契約は二度目で、一度目の借りがある。

I would understand it as:

This contract with that guy is the second one and i have a first debt

But that doesn’t quite make sense to me. What debt is he referring to?

Thank you for your help in advance.

[Naphthalene]

借り doesn’t have to be a literal debt (as in, money). I understood it as a debt of gratitude or something similar, because he is a “repeat customer”. I also thought that 人攫い meant that he made a profit the first time, but since he is officially saying that he didn’t sell, that feels weird.