Translation: Darkness 05 — Niigata / Asakusa View Hotel Arc

2026/03/04 wed
闇05章：翻訳Cloud

（笑）しつこくてすみません。
でも渡してくれてありがとうございます。読みます。

Reading 闇05 source text

（笑）ありがとうございます。読みました。翻訳に入ります。

ファイルを表示しました, ファイルを作成しました, コマンドを実行しました
闇05、完了です。

翻訳上の処理メモ：

特記箇所：

• 馬場社長の奥さんへの「ふざけんじゃねぇ、ババァ！」→ 直訳維持。Don't mess with me, old lady! 原文の怒りそのまま。

• 三沢さんの「まだ若いんだから、おいおい教えていけばいいじゃない」→ 一言で場を静めた重みが伝わるよう He's young — you can teach him as you go, can't you? と自然な英語に。

• 佐藤貴子のゴリラの真似シーン→ 「ウホウホ」を Uho uho. でそのまま残した。説明不要。

• 「上越国際連盟」→ Jōetsu International Federation と意訳しつつ括弧内で原文ニュアンス補足。

• ウイスキー解説部分→ 蒸留・醸造・混成の分類は英語圏読者にも伝わるよう括弧注釈。

• 「秒速でフラれた」→ shot down in about two seconds flat. リズムを優先。

Darkness05 — Niigata / Asakusa View Hotel Arc

 
*Kawagoe / Niigata / Tokyo. 1994–1995. Age 23.*
 
A shattered nail on my left big toe.
Even walking was a struggle.
 
How much could I recover in a week?
Was I really going to face All Japan Pro Wrestling in this condition?
If the tryout was the same format as last year, I could do push-ups by resting my left ankle on my right calf.
 
Last year Osawa's brawl got me arrested and my entry was finished.
This year, a foot injury right before the tryout.
The relentless bad luck was getting to me.
 
The day before the All Japan Pro Wrestling tryout.
Same venue as last year — Toda Sports Center（a municipal athletic facility in Toda City, Saitama）.
 
The nail hadn't grown back at all.
Every step that put weight on my toes sent a jolt of sharp pain through me.
 
But brushing all that worry aside, wrestler Fuchi-san greeted me with a smile.
Since my stamina was already known from last year, there was no special test.
That much was a genuine relief.
 
I had put on ten kilograms over the past year.
He noticed my body had gotten bigger.
 
While I was giving Fuchi-san a brief rundown of how things had gone, someone called out from behind me.
 
"You're the one who faded out once, aren't you……"
 
A small woman wearing glasses was standing there, glaring at me.
Was she someone from the merchandise booth?
 
"We don't run the kind of operation that can afford to have people fading out once and coming back!"
 
Those words sent blood rushing straight to my head.
How much abuse and humiliation had I endured through an entire year of misery?
Making light of everything I'd been through just like that……
 
"Don't mess with me, old lady! Stay out of men's business!"
 
The moment I shouted that, the back of my head took a hard smack.
 
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to like that?!"
 
Fuchi-san's face had gone red as a demon's.
Other wrestlers rushed over and I was punched to the ground and pinned there.
 
"Apologize, you little punk!"
 
The person I had taken for a merchandise booth attendant turned out to be President Giant Baba's wife.
Even so, I couldn't accept having a year of my life dismissed that easily.
 
I would not apologize out of stubbornness.
Even unable to move, I kept my head up and glared.
 
In the commotion, a large man approached.
It was Misawa Mitsuharu（a legendary All Japan pro wrestler, known for his green costume）.
Even in that situation, I was absurdly thinking — so he really does wear that green costume in real life.
 
Fuchi-san was explaining the situation to Misawa-san.
 
Misawa-san pushed the wrestlers holding me down out of the way and helped me up, lending me his shoulder.
 
"He's young — you can teach him as you go, can't you?"
 
That one sentence silenced everyone.
He treated the cocky kid who could only bristle as a human being — and pulled me out of a tight spot.
 
Seeing Misawa-san smile, I was instantly captivated.
Not just strength — if I was born a man, this is what I wanted to become.
I was shown a great man's back.
 
From that moment on, I adored Misawa Mitsuharu as a human being.
 
My foot wasn't in full working order, but I made it to the training house.
 
Tsuruta-shishō（my master, Jumbo Tsuruta）praised me for putting on more size than last year and gave me close one-on-one training.
The physical toll was heavy, but the days felt full.
 
"You see — a wrestler must never dodge any attack, and no matter what he takes, he must never break."
 
That was exactly why you trained every day and built an indestructible body.
This place had everything needed to become strong, and nothing else.
The past year I had spent hadn't been wasted.
 
Once, I mentioned the Datotsu — the lethal strike technique I had devised on my own.
Tsuruta-shishō's expression changed completely and he tore into me: "Are you trying to kill your opponent?!"
 
The style of pro wrestling President Baba believed in meant standing ready to absorb any attack.
The opponent then throws everything he has into you.
 
My Datotsu was nothing but a cowardly technique that violated the code.
An abnormally developed grip and thumb.
 
Inside All Japan, I was not tall.
I had no fighting background.
My raw strength wasn't extraordinary either.
That was precisely why I had devised the Datotsu.
 
It was true I had never wanted a cheap kind of strength.
But with nothing to show for myself, what was I supposed to do going forward?
 
Training single-mindedly and building a bigger body — that was the only answer I could come up with.
 
One of the senior wrestlers took to pestering me in a particularly petty, grinding way.
He probably didn't like that Tsuruta-shishō was fond of me.
 
He picked at trivial things — the T-shirt I wore to practice — and found reasons to needle me.
The daily small irritations piled up.
 
During sparring, I clinched both his arms from the front and drove his face straight into the mat.
The opposite body position from a German suplex — a throwing technique.
It was something I had secretly developed as a throw with no way to take a back bump.
 
The senior wrestler bled from the nose and came at me furious.
 
His body was bigger than mine, but technique-wise I was not losing.
I locked a joint, immobilized him completely, then let go with a smile at the corner of my mouth.
 
On the ring you can do anything.
Senior or junior doesn't matter at all.
Huh — in a real fight I'm actually stronger……
 
The moment I let my guard down it happened.
He used his weight to climb on top of me and had my left arm in a joint lock.
 
He'd clearly been seething over everything I'd done to him.
The senior wrestler snarled, "Tap out, come on."
The nastiness underneath it all made me genuinely hate him.
 
Give up?
From one joint lock? Don't make me laugh.
 
I spat directly at his face.
In that instant my left arm bent in an impossible direction, and the bone of my left elbow jutted out at a wrong angle.
 
My pro wrestling career — before I had even debuted — was over.
 
— The grotesquely jutting left elbow —
 
First the police.
Now an injury.
 
Even accounting for my own mistakes, why did nothing ever go right for me no matter what I did?
 
I had been training all this time to fight in that ring.
180 centimeters tall, 92 kilograms.
I had at least made it to junior heavyweight size.
 
But all of it had become meaningless.
There was no longer even a reason to be alive.
 
I came back to Kawagoe, felled by injury.
 
When Bōzu-san heard what had happened, he came and stayed in my room for a week.
To me, sunk in gloom, he kept saying: don't throw yourself away — whatever happens, live.
 
There was at least one person in the world who cared about me like this……
 
I couldn't die.
 
No matter how much shame I endured, no matter how much I wanted to die, as long as I was alive I would get hungry.
Money — I never had any to begin with.
 
Once the arm injury improved enough, I needed to go back to work in ordinary society.
 
An acquaintance from the area told me: you're the type who's very considerate of others, so why not try working in customer service?
 
The job was in banquet service.
Apparently I first needed to register with a placement company.
 
I had originally planned to work at Kawagoe Hikawa Kaikan（a wedding and events hall in Kawagoe）, but I was suddenly asked to go to a hotel in Niigata instead.
The location was Hotel Green Plaza Jōetsu（a large resort hotel）, situated at Jōetsu Kokusai Ski Resort（one of the largest ski resorts in Japan）in Niigata Prefecture.
 
A bullet train ticket was prepared for me, and at age twenty-three, I headed for new ground.
 
A world of white blanketing everything in every direction — the same as my time in Kutchan（a town in Hokkaido near the Niseko ski area）, Hokkaido.
The difference was the number of guests who came specifically to ski.
And the texture of the snow.
 
Hokkaido snow stuck to your clothes and wouldn't shake off when you beat them.
Niigata snow was much the same quality as the snow that occasionally fell in Kantō.
 
A large hotel that could hold two thousand guests.
 
On my first day I was shown to the employee dormitory, and my assignment was a restaurant called Alps.
 
Somehow word had gotten around that I had been at All Japan Pro Wrestling, and hotel staff kept coming to ask me about it.
Some just came to have a look at whoever had shown up.
 
Was a man who had dropped out halfway through really that unusual?
It felt strange.
 
"Iwakami-san, that's amazing."
"What's amazing about it?"
 
Ishihara, a banquet server who shared my room, spoke up.
He was a year younger than me.
 
"Even that nasty general manager bows and scrapes in front of you, doesn't he?"
 
The general manager had a reputation among the other staff for being strict and unpleasant.
Apparently he was a devoted wrestling fan, and he came to Restaurant Alps where I worked.
 
I was no wrestler — nothing remotely close.
I had only been a trainee at All Japan for a short time, and yet he was bowing deeply and asking, without any regard for the difference in our positions, "Could I shake your hand?"
I hadn't done anything to earn that kind of respect……
 
Once the general manager left, I spoke up.
 
"What's so bad about that manager's personality?"
"It's because of you that he acts like that. You know how this hotel is stingy and employees aren't allowed to take anything home?"
 
"Well, with this many staff, if you allowed it, it would get out of hand."
"True, but you'll understand soon enough, Iwakami-san."
 
"Understand?"
"Living here, you end up craving normal food. You get hungry."
 
"Hungry? But there's a staff cafeteria, isn't there?"
"There is. Spend a week living here and you'll see."
 
"……"
"I'm assigned to the Japanese restaurant Yukimichi, and apparently a part-timer who went to help out at Alps sneaked one of the butter rolls from lunch."
 
"Well, they probably just wanted some bread."
"But staff aren't allowed to take food out. And apparently this person also took one of those small square butters."
 
"Makes sense — bread's better with butter."
"Then in the corridor, the part-timer stopped and bowed when they ran into the general manager, and the butter fell out of their pocket."
 
"Worst possible timing."
"Of course then it's — why do you have this — and a body search. And out comes one butter roll from inside their clothes."
 
"What happened to the part-timer?"
"Fired on the spot, sent home by bullet train the next day. He has the authority to do that."
 
"That's harsh for one piece of bread…… actually, isn't that pretty awful?"
"That's what I meant when I said the general manager is a nasty piece of work. And that's the kind of person who's bowing and asking to shake your hand, Iwakami-san. Do you have any idea how surprised everyone was when they heard?"
 
It was true — that general manager had asked me for a handshake.
But that was simply the reaction of someone looking through me and reaching the fantasy of All Japan Pro Wrestling behind me.
A half-finished man who wasn't even a wrestler.
 
Pro wrestling must have been extraordinarily popular back then.
 
And that was how my new life began.
 
Alps was a large restaurant — five hundred seats.
 
There were large groups of university students who had been lured in with the deal of unlimited ski lift rides and free accommodation, so counting those part-timers, about seventy staff were used per day.
Some days the regular staff alone weren't enough, and the Japanese restaurant Yukimichi would send help over.
 
Lunch was cafeteria-style — guests came up and helped themselves to whatever they wanted.
Evenings were all-you-can-eat buffet.
Service work of this kind in a hotel setting was entirely new to me, and everything felt fresh.
 
Five hundred seats, and the line still formed outside Restaurant Alps.
It showed just how cut off from the outside world this place really was.
 
At lunch I stood at the meat sauce station and spooned pasta into the bowls of guests who lined up, then ladled sauce over it.
They paid at the register ahead, so there wasn't much extra work.
 
The part-timers just kept clearing empty seats of dishes and turning them around — even seventy people couldn't keep up with the volume.
 
Niigata Uonuma Koshihikari（a prized brand of rice）— I had been quietly looking forward to it, but the cafeteria used part-timers to cook even that, and the staff meals were terrible.
The rice felt like something beyond old stock — crushed and tasteless, as if they were using rice that had been sitting for years.
 
As a person in a supervisory role I could have gotten food from the kitchen chefs, but with the part-timers always hungry in front of me, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
 
The only other option for eating was to ride the ski lift down to the base of the mountain and then head into town.
I tried it once, but the lift stopped partway down and I nearly froze to death. That cured me of the idea.
Riding the descent lift in street clothes to go shopping simply wasn't worth it.
 
Between all of that, my weight dropped thirteen kilograms in just over a month, down to seventy-nine kilograms.
After working so desperately to put weight on, it dropped this easily — the cruelty of reality.
 
Rather than eat that cafeteria food……
 
I kept my intake to the bare minimum needed to survive.
For someone with an appetite like mine to end up like that, it should serve as proof of just how bad that cafeteria was.
 
In a buffet restaurant, speed of turnover was everything.
How quickly you could clear a vacated table and turn it for the next guest.
Even with seventy-odd staff, the sheer volume of customers was more than we could handle.
Even so, my physical strength was in a league of its own, and when the floor got truly chaotic, I would step in and help the staff.
 
Stack trays on top of each other, place plastic cups at the four corners.
In between, load in dishes and servers.
Cover with another tray, place cups at the four corners again — in five layers, and carry it all out.
 
Guests focused on eating would catch a glimpse of me carrying the five-layered load and stop mid-bite to watch until I disappeared, or so other staff told me.
 
The task the female staff found most troublesome was stacking and carrying the trays.
I called over to them — "Leave that to me" — and lifted the stack I had piled higher than my own head without any fuss.
The whole restaurant erupted.
 
At least in terms of sheer physical strength, I was able to put to use without waste the body I had spent years forging.
 
Where am I right now — Niigata, right?
Every morning when I woke up, I pulled back the curtain and looked out at an unbroken silver world piled up to the second floor.
 
What a place I had come to.
In Kawagoe, snow fell a handful of times a year at most.
Here it was just an ordinary part of every day.
 
Hokkaido had been the same.
Around October or so.
Outside was always buried under white.
 
Same country, a few hours by train or plane, and it becomes this completely different world.
Living it in person, there was no way to make sense of it — it just seemed like magic.
 
I looked at the bone jutting crookedly from my left elbow.
No need to keep making my body any bigger now……
 
Around this time, Street Fighter Zero（a fighting arcade game by Capcom）became a craze among everyone in the small game corner inside the hotel.
There were even strange factions — the Virtua Fighter crowd versus the Street Fighter crowd.
 
I poured about eighty percent of my earnings into that game center.
I hit it off with the arcade manager Kumagai, and when no other customers were around he would quietly unlock the machine and press the credit button so I could play for free.
 
After work, as I was heading back to the dormitory with some of the university student part-timers, one of them said to me: "Iwakami-san, there's a pretty cute female guest who's been watching you the whole time."
 
I wasn't famous or anything special.
But it piqued my curiosity, so I looked in the direction they pointed — and there stood Tsunakawa Naomi, a classmate from my middle school days.
 
"Could that be Tsunakawa?"
"Iwakami-kun, is that you?"
 
What an extraordinary coincidence.
She had transformed over the years into a truly beautiful woman.
 
"You guys head back first."
 
I sent the part-timers on ahead, too embarrassed to have them around.
 
The scrawny little girl from middle school — I could never have imagined she would turn out this beautiful.
 
"Come have a drink with me."
 
I invited Tsunakawa into Michikusa（a casual izakaya on the first floor of the main building）, the pub on the ground floor of the main building, and we went in.
The person in charge, Akutsu, looked surprised to see me come in with a woman, but served us normally.
 
"I didn't recognize you right away — your body got so big."
 
"You've gotten beautiful……"
 
I wanted to say something that smooth, but someone with no immunity to women like me couldn't get a single word out.
 
"I'm at Restaurant Alps. You came with friends, right? If you feel like it, come by for lunch tomorrow."
"I will, definitely."
 
We just exchanged home phone numbers and I walked her to her room.
 
She had become genuinely, strikingly beautiful.
I was furious with myself for not being able to say so honestly.
 
The next day Tsunakawa really did come to Alps with her friends.
I asked a co-worker, Satō Takako, "She's a classmate from middle school — is there any way to do something for her?" and Takako said, "If she's a friend of Iwa-chan's, the bill's on the house," and comped the entire table.
In the middle of the insane rush, she had done that for me.
 
Tsunakawa thanked me repeatedly and left the restaurant.
 
"Iwa-chan, that friend of yours was really grateful. Nice, wasn't it?"
 
Once the cleanup had calmed down, Takako came over and spoke to me with a smile.
 
That was your doing.
What a graceful woman, I thought, and felt genuine warmth toward Satō Takako.
 
Life in the sealed-off world of a ski resort — the days passed in constant battle at Alps.
 
One day I had a clash of opinions with an older banquet server over something work-related.
His unreasonable way of speaking made me irritated.
 
It must have shown on my face while I was still serving guests.
 
Satō Takako came over and tilted her head. "Iwa-chan, did something happen?"
I didn't want to start badmouthing another server, so I brushed it off: "Nothing."
 
Then she put her right hand on top of her head and brought her left hand under her chin and did a ridiculous gorilla impression: "I'll do a gorilla — don't make that scary face~"
 
"What are you doing, Satō-san?"
"Uho uho."
 
A cute girl like her doing something like this……
 
I burst out laughing despite myself.
 
"Oh, you finally laughed!"
"You did that just to make me laugh?"
 
"Because Iwa-chan is always gentle and strong — but that same person was making such an awful face. Iwa-chan looks better when you're smiling."
 
"……"
 
Gentle and strong?
Sure, I've got strength — but gentle? That's not me……
 
In that moment I honestly felt: if a girl like this were always beside me, I would be happy.
Just before it had been Tsunakawa Naomi's beauty that drew me, and now it was Satō Takako's personality.
What a lack of consistency, I thought, and felt ashamed of myself.
 
Working in the same place as her, living lively days together.
For now, this was enough.
 
I had only ever dated Suzuki Michiyo（a girl from his past, mentioned in earlier chapters）before this.
In every way I was timid around women.
If I didn't let anything become conscious or push any further, at least this much of the relationship could be kept.
If I told her how I felt and got rejected, in this snow-surrounded mountain with nowhere to escape, I would have nowhere left to go.
 
If only she weren't in the same restaurant.
There was no one to blame for that except whoever had decided the assignments.
But then I would never have known the beauty of her personality.
 
I would worry over pointless things.
At the very least, I would avoid anything that might damage the image Takako had of me.
 
I kept myself in check, and of course things with Satō Takako never developed further.
 
The dormitory was of course all men.
Four to a room, and anyone who felt stifled would go down to the first floor.
 
In the large common room: some slurping cup noodles, some chatting happily with friends over cigarettes, some watching the single TV in silence.
 
Everyone doing their own thing in their free time, when suddenly shouting broke out.
A kitchen worker and someone senior in the banquet service were arguing.
 
Even at the same hotel, the temperature between the floor and the kitchen was different.
Different ways of thinking, different ways of seeing things — that was natural.
 
I couldn't tell what had started it, but one thing was clear: the banquet person was saying something dismissive, talking down to the other man.
 
"Look — unlike someone who just cooks food, we handle the guests and manage the staff on top of that. Maybe you should work on your brain a little?"
"What did you say?! Don't insult me!"
 
The kitchen worker lunged at him.
I instinctively stepped between them and stopped both men.
 
"Let go of me! That guy insulted me!"
"Calm down. I understand how you feel. You're furious, right? But raising your hand over this is wrong. Please, calm down."
 
He had tried to throw a punch.
That became a problem inside the hotel, and the kitchen worker ended up standing small in front of the head chef.
The way things were going, he might lose his job.
 
The man trudged out of the common room with his head down.
After he was gone, I went to the head chef and told him exactly what I had seen.
 
"He did try to raise his hand — I think that was a problem. But watching from right there, the other person's provocative behavior was practically begging someone to hit him. I feel strange saying this, but I don't think he was the only one in the wrong."
 
The chef narrowed his eyes and said quietly, "Thank you."
I heard later that the kitchen worker got off with a warning and kept his job.
 
Before two months had passed I was asked to transfer somewhere else.
Orders from the catering company I was registered with.
 
I had only just started to feel at home in Niigata, and leaving pulled at me.
I called in and pushed back hard, trying to express how I felt.
 
"Why me? There are plenty of other people."
"Hey now, I picked you because you've got a good reputation with everyone around you. It's not exactly a promotion, but it's better than being stuck in all that cold and snow — better pay, you'll be in the city. Anyway, this is already decided. Please go along with it."
 
Many of the staff were sorry to see me go.
I bought a small notebook at the gift shop, named it the Jōetsu International Federation（Jōetsu Kokusai Renmei）, and had each person write their contact information in it.
Back home I had a word processor.
I would make a contact list for the comrades I had met here.
 
As I was leaving the hotel for the last time, the kitchen worker from the common room dispute came up to me.
 
"Um…… the head chef told me afterward. He said someone who witnessed what actually happened that day came forward specially to speak up for me. That was you, wasn't it, Iwakami-san? Thank you so much."
 
He kept bowing deeply until I was out of sight.
 
Seeing that, I felt certain: what I did was right.
Something warm spread through me.
 
Niigata had turned out to be a genuinely good time.
His words of gratitude made me feel that.
Right at the very end, I had done something that mattered.
 
So even someone like me can have people who are grateful to him……
 
"Iwakami-san, you haven't forgotten anything? We're leaving soon."
 
Alps supervisor Tanaka happened to be taking time off to go home, so he offered to drive me back to Kawagoe.
As thanks, I took him to Jimmy Donuts（a local diner near Kawagoe that the narrator had visited since childhood）— the place I had gone since I was small — and treated him to meat sauce pasta and a burger.
 
I returned to my hometown feeling warmth inside.
 
I met up with Nishida, the head of the catering company, at Uguisudani Station（a JR station in Taitō Ward, Tokyo）.
Coming out of the station, we went into a soba restaurant on the right side of the rotary.
An expensive place — plain tanuki udon for sixteen hundred yen.
 
"The reason I called you all the way from Niigata is that I want you to go into Asakusa View Hotel."
 
"Asakusa View Hotel……"
 
My first time in Asakusa.
Same with Uguisudani here — I knew so little about the world.
 
"Most banquet work is temporary staff for weddings, but being put on a regular shift inside an actual food and beverage outlet is rare. You should be grateful to me."
 
The new location was Belvedere（a sky lounge on the top floor of Asakusa View Hotel）, the sky lounge on the top floor of Asakusa View Hotel.
 
For me — who had been sunk in gloom since All Japan fell apart — this had been a good turning point, even if it was just work: meeting and talking with so many different people.
 
Eighteen: Asaka Garrison（a Ground Self-Defense Force base in Asaka, Saitama）.
Nineteen: Kutchan Garrison, Hokkaido.
Twenty: back to Kawagoe. Twenty-one: Yokohama.
Back to my hometown again, and then the challenge of All Japan Pro Wrestling began.
 
Currently twenty-three — and now Asakusa……
 
I went home, opened the Jōetsu International Federation notebook, and typed every name and contact number into the word processor one by one.
 
Asakusa View Hotel stood tall facing the International Street（Kokusai-dōri）across from Sensō-ji（a famous Buddhist temple in Asakusa, Tokyo）.
 
My assignment: Belvedere, the sky lounge on the twenty-eighth floor.
 
Working with that dizzying view stretching out below.
 
Lunch was a sky lounge buffet. From late afternoon it changed to a lounge.
Inside the venue was a show stage, and a foreign singer performed four shows a day.
 
Even in the same service industry, this environment was completely different from Niigata — a real education.
 
A space that made you wonder if you were in a scene from a stylish film.
Guests drinking colorful cocktails while taking in the night view.
 
I had been drifting for so long — but here I would plant roots and work seriously for a while.
I made that firm promise to myself.
 
Just like at Green Plaza in Niigata, various staff came to have a look at me in the early days at the View Hotel.
Pro wrestling was still enormously popular at the time, so I must have seemed like an unusual curiosity.
 
Alcohol is a remarkably deep world.
Fermented drinks: beer, wine, sake（Japanese rice wine）.
Distilled drinks: brandy, whisky, gin, vodka, rum, tequila, shōchū（Japanese distilled spirit）.
Compound drinks: liqueurs and bitters — broadly those three categories.
 
The five great whisky-producing nations: Scotland, Ireland, America, Canada, Japan.
After work, I sat at the counter inside Belvedere, had a glass, and learned about alcohol from my superiors while they taught me the finer points of service.
 
Among all the bottles on the shelf, my personal favorite turned out to be The Glenlivet 12 Year（a Scottish single malt Scotch whisky）.
 
There was a lot to learn, but every day felt full.
 
I started with the whisky I loved and dug deeper from there.
Scotch whisky — because it's made in Scotland.
Scotch whisky divides into three main types: malt, grain, and blended.
My favorite, Glenlivet, was a malt whisky.
 
Malt is classified into four main regions: Speyside, Highland, Lowland, and Islay.
Livet was a Speyside whisky.
Part of me wanted to go there someday.
 
Take photographs of the place in person, blow them up large in black and white — and if I ever opened my own bar one day, hang them huge on the wall.
A bar like that would look pretty stylish, I thought.
 
The first thing I did when I got back was call Tsunakawa Naomi.
 
With those looks of hers, no man would leave her alone.
 
"Iwakami-kun, I had such a great time at the hotel."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. Hey — if you're free sometime, do you want to get a meal together?"
 
I worked up the courage to ask.
 
"Hmm…… I'm sorry. I have a boyfriend……"
 
"……"
 
And that was how I got shot down in about two seconds flat.
 
With no particular hobbies outside work, I finished putting together the Jōetsu International Federation list.
I wrote out each person's name and address by hand and went to the post office to mail them all.
Postage for seventy letters was not cheap, but I had fulfilled my responsibility.
 
Not long after, I heard from Satō Takako — the Alps staff member — that she had come back to her hometown of Koshigaya.
I invited her and brought her to Belvedere where I was working.
 
"Iwa-chan, what an amazing place you're working at. The view really is beautiful."
 
We left the View Hotel and headed to a yakiniku（Japanese barbecue）restaurant.
 
"What do you want to eat?"
"I'm fine with regular kalbi and rosu."
 
Trying to look impressive, I ordered premium kalbi, premium rosu, premium tan-shio.
Showing off with food was the only way I knew how to impress anyone.
 
It was still an era when drunk driving wasn't policed seriously, so I drove my family's car and took her back to Koshigaya.
 
When we had both been working at Restaurant Alps, we could talk easily about nothing in particular and the conversation just flowed.
So why did we end up in silence when we met like this?
 
Barely a word exchanged, and timid as I was, I didn't make a single move — just drove her home and that was that.
That was the date.
 
Whether she thought I was a boring man, I don't know.
Either way, that was the last time I saw her.