| Author: Bankuru | Original Source: Syosetu | Word Count: 2039 characters |
| Translator: PunishedLyly | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 971 words |
| Editor(s): Fire | ||
Dun dun du~n♪ Dun dun du~n♪ Dun dun dun du~n dudu~n♪1 On the streets, a pretty familiar tone started playing and together with the cold air, I was begrudgingly forced to recognize that my least favorite time has come again this year.
「It’s already that time of the year, huh…… I don’t even have a girlfriend and the job’s cake quota is pretty brutal too, it really isn’t a good time.2」
Selling cake is no problem but why do we have to have a quota?
I can still remember last year, me and the other part-timers bought the remaining cakes so we could somehow reach the quota.
I don’t hate sweet stuff but eating several whole cakes by myself was really grueling, practically torture.
「It’d be nice if we got a proper calculation based on how much people would actually buy cakes…… but it’s that manager, so yeah…」
I’m not sure if he’s confident or just isn’t good with planning but anyway, our manager asks for some unreasonable numbers. It usually doesn’t get that unreasonable, but he asks for pretty high sales when every seasonal event hits.
Though, maybe he’s just being pressured by affiliate companies……
Well, it’s not like an ordinary part-timer like me can be sure when it comes to those kinds of circumstances.
「Anyway, there’s no point on thinking about it, time to hurry home.」
Remembering something bad during my first break in a while, I let out a sigh as I hurried on my way home.
………
……
…
「…………suki. Natsuki. Hey, are you alright?」
「…… Mneh?」
Jolted awake by Ruti, I see that I’m in our now familiar home.
「Ahh…… It was just a dream, huh……」
「You were groaning in your sleep…… Did you have a nightmare?」
In some sense, maybe I did? Well, if it continued on, I would’ve been crying about the quota, so it should be a nightmare, I guess.
「Um, I dreamed about something in the past. It was something gloomy, so that’s probably why I was groaning…… But it still felt a bit nostalgic.」
It was just plain depressing at that time but I guess memories get beautified as time passes for some reason. Maybe that’s why it felt like some relatively good memory or something? Feeling nostalgic from remembering the heartburn from eating too much cake, humans really are unusual creatures.
「…… Say, do you sometimes think about going back?」
「Nope, not at all. I’m living a much better life now after all and most of all, you’re here with me, Ruti. So don’t make that face, okay?3」
Since I talked about the past, Ruti might have thought that I might leave her behind or something. She still seems uneasy, so I pat her head while properly denying it.
「Come to think of it, does this world have festivals near the end of the year?」
Thinking about it normally, it’s not like religions from earth exist here, so festivals shouldn’t as well. But maybe there’s a something similar here, so I tried asking about it.
「? There wasn’t any at Mois and there shouldn’t be any here at Arst, I suppose? There’s only the year-end celebration happening after the fall harvest festival, so there shouldn’t be any festivals other than that.
Oh, but it seems like Harvest’s year-end celebrations are quite grand, so I suppose you can call that a festival too. It’s just something I heard, so I can’t say for sure.」
Hmm, I guess it really doesn’t happen here, huh. It’s a bit disappointing but it looks like there aren’t any similar events that would make us even busier, so I guess that’s kind of a relief.
「Still, why did you ask that all of a sudden?」
「Well, the dream I saw earlier was about a festival near the end of the year…… I’m not actually sure if I can call it that but yeah, work was really tough at that time, you see? So I was just thinking if there’s something similar to that here too. 」
「I see, so that’s how it is. In that case, it should be alright.
Now, we’re on café duty today, so let’s begin preparing shall we?」
「Nm, got it.」
Still, I imagine that we’ll probably get busy during the year-end celebration but until then, it should be business as usual.
Is what I thought at that point in time.
「Why……」
「Even if you ask me that, who knows……」
As we arrived at the café, Ryzna-san excitedly showed us a new costume, ahem, uniform. It looked exactly like what’s commonly known as a miniskirt Santa, so thinking that maybe he’s from earth too, I unintentionally asked him 「Do you know that day?」 you know?
Well, he just said 「That day? Uhhh, if you don’t mean anything weird about that, I don’t think I do……」 in reply.
For an instant, I didn’t get what he meant by weird…… then I realized, that day! What sort of reason do I even have to ask you if you know about periods this early in the morning!?
Anyway, he doesn’t seem to be lying from the way he looked. I think. Probably. Maybe……
So as expected, the debut of the new costumes immediately spread to everyone…… and the customers were flooding in. As I thought, we’re still getting busy, aren’t we!?
Is it my destiny to be busy at this time of the year no matter where I am? Sob……4
