xxxHOLiC 179

Guidelines For Using My Translations

1
xxxHOLiC
Chapter 179
[Side text: The woman has finally tasted Watanuki's rice balls, but...]
Watanuki: Well, ah... / H... / How was it...?
Client: It was terrible.

2
[Side text: "The rice balls that you made... I ate them." With a look of anger on her face, the woman makes this declaration. Have the feelings that Watanuki tried to convey... gone to waste?!]
Client: The taste of the rice balls I made myself... // ...after I ate the ones you gave me, that is.
Watanuki: ...Wha...?

3
Client: The rice balls that you made... / Somehow, they tasted "kind". // They made me imagine how you were thinking of me as you made them. / So I thought that I might try believing in what you told me. // I thought that since you could make rice balls like that, perhaps there was some truth to what you said. // So I made some myself, and I ate them.

4
Client: And when I did... // ...they were horrible. // They were only attractive to look at. / They had no taste whatsoever. // No unique traits. // No individuality.

5
Client: If food really is an expression of the self... / ...then I must be utterly empty inside. // I didn't want to find out... // ...a thing like that... // No... / Perhaps I already knew... // ...and that was why I didn't want to eat anything that I had made myself...

6
Client: Because... / ...Because I... // ...I hate myself more than anybody else in the world...

7
Client: ...I'm sorry.
Watanuki: I'm sorry if I hurt you... that was never my intention.
Client: I know that. // After all... // I ate your rice balls.

8
[SFX: lift]
Watanuki: This is...
Client: These are the rice balls that I made. // This food that I don't even... / ...no... / ...that I hate myself... // That's what I've been making for other people all this time. When I realised that...

9
Client: I lay awake all night wondering whether I should give them to you... // But... / ...this is who I am, so... // I just thought that if you're going to teach me, you should know what kind of person I am now, to begin with. / Sensei.

10
Watanuki: "Sensei"...?
Client: Would... / Would you teach me after all? // To cook.
Watanuki: Oh, well... // If you're really sure...
Client: This is something I truly want to ask of you.

11
Client: Because you are the one who helped me... / ...to realise. // ...My marriage... / I decided to talk it over with my fiancé, and ask if we could call it off.

12
[SFX: clutch]
Client: Because, I couldn't possibly ask him to subject himself every day to food made by the likes of me... // But he told me... / ...that he would be happy to wait. // To wait until I find my own flavour. // And so... / I will be in your care once more, Sensei!
Watanuki: My pleasure!

13
Client: ...Oh, of course... / The tutoring fee...
[SFX: lift]
Watanuki: This is enough.
Client: But the flavour really is...
Watanuki: Because you decided that it was all right to tell me what kind of a person you are. // I'll savour each one.
Client: ...Cookery really is a very important thing to you, isn't it?
Watanuki: ...Yes.

14
Client: I had heard... / ...that that shop had some kind of strange power that could grant whatever wish you asked of it. // But it's not like that, is it? // In the end, it was you, visiting me every day... // ...those feelings were what moved me to change in the end.
Watanuki: No... / That's just because that was all that I could do. // I'm sure if it was Yuuko-san, she would have found a much better way...
[Side text: The world may be trembling with sadness, the future may be brimming with tragedies seen and unforeseen, but Watanuki has accomplished that which was within his power to do!!]
[Bottom text: And just where is Yuuko-san?! Don't forget to read Tsubasa in Shonen Magazine as well. See you next issue!!]