A Job for Children 2

HiMERU: Hm. You spend your money like a child... That’s common among young people who have exhibited talent in a specific field and earned a considerable amount of money but who have not experienced much of the world.

Or at least, it’s common in the entertainment industry, at least. In the past, there were even entertainers who had so much money that they made paper airplanes out of ten thousand yen notes.

They decided that whoever flew them the furthest would win all of it—they used their money as a plaything.

With that kind of money, they would have been able to do anything, or play any game at all.

Yuuta: Whoa, are you talking about the bubble economy or something? It’s basically a fairytale to my generation...

HiMERU: It’s the same for HiMERU, of course. Perhaps you see it differently, but if you check official records, he is only slightly older than you.

Nevertheless, we all stand upon the bedrock of the past. It would be negligent to think of the past only as some distant, far-off story of another world.

Yuuta: ......

HiMERU: ? What’s wrong, Yuuta? Do you distrust something HiMERU said?

Yuuta: Oh, no, sorry. I was just surprised at how calm and collected you are. I didn’t expect it...

I guess Amagi Rinne’s impression on Crazy:B is so strong that I just assumed all of you were like him.

I should have realized that unlike us, the members of other units aren’t identical to each other.

HiMERU: It is regrettable to have been regarded as similar to that man.

Still, there’s no helping it. Yumenosaki’s unit system has pervaded ES—no, the entire idol industry at present.

Everyone now prefers not to cherish the individual, but only the box they are packaged in.

Yuuta: Ahaha, but it’s not like we’re being forced into units, y’know? Take Mikejima-senpai, for example.

HiMERU: Fufu. When we are encouraged to walk the path that is so conveniently paved for the majority to follow, it makes it that much more difficult and infeasible to stray from it—

Which is why no one ever chooses another path. There is no choice at all. How is that different from being forced?

—It seems you are left-handed. One would imagine that you have experienced hardships conforming to a right-handed world, yes?

Yuuta: Right, like ticket gates at train stations, or scissors. But we’re pretty dexterous, so we get along fine. We adapt pretty quickly to things.

If we tried to change the world to suit our own convenience, we’d just be forcing a bunch of other people to go through the same hardships we did.

HiMERU: —What’s wrong with that?

Yuuta: ...What?

HiMERU: We are living our own lives; why, then, must we suffer for the sake of others?

Even though it would never even occur to the majority of people to ever sacrifice themselves and their comfortable lives?

Why should people like HiMERU be the ones who have to endure this?[1]

Yuuta: Umm...?

HiMERU: —Fufu. That was an uncharacteristic outburst. Yes, yes, HiMERU knows.

Everyone in the world shares an equal burden, a little at a time—and they all experience hardships while accommodating others.

This system that was constructed by the majority, for the majority, and as such, imposes an unreasonably large burden on the minority... surely that’s all fictitious.

Surely it’s selfish and ungrateful, even absurd to complain.

To oppose the system would mean to anger others and to be saddled with even more burdens. This is why you act so unconcerned with it all...[2]

You play obedient children to avoid drawing negative attention to yourselves and being crushed.

Yuuta: ......

HiMERU: HiMERU is impressed with how skillfully you live, 2wink.

Yuuta: ...Are you maybe trying to pick a fight? I thought you had a policy against attacking your own agency, Crazy:B.

HiMERU: We do. There was, of course, no intention to attack you at all. Apologies, it seems HiMERU got a bit riled up—

Ah, you two and “HiMERU” are the same... Why do you behave like the good kids adults expect you to be?[3]

Why do you believe the majority is correct and that if you can’t conform, that you are the ones in the wrong—

And therefore, that you ought to be corrected?

There are people who love all of the “wrong” things about you. Why should those voices be ignored and trampled upon—?

Why must you choose the way of life that the world declares is correct?

If that is what it means to be an adult, and if you cannot survive otherwise...

Then to be blunt, the only place left where you can live happily as a child is in death.

Heaven is for the young and for the evil... That sounds like something Kazehaya Tatsumi would say, but that’s what it means, no?

Yuuta: ...?

  1. When HiMERU speaks in the plural, he usually uses the plural pronoun 我ら (warera) which is usually the closest we get to him speaking in the first person. Here, however, he uses HiMERUたち (HiMERU-tachi), where -tachi is a suffix that is added to words to pluralize them. This word choice sort of distances HiMERU (the speaker) from HiMERU (the concept) and may indicate that he’s not actually talking about himself here.
  2. The “you” here is plural, but it’s not known exactly who HiMERU is talking about, so I left it ambiguous.
  3. Another little point of ambiguity here: In the second sentence, HiMERU does not use any pronouns. Therefore, it would be most natural to assume that he is speaking about both “you two” (2wink) and HiMERU. Once again, he’s putting distance between himself and HiMERU (the concept). I translated this with “you” instead of “we” because of this distance, which points to the inclusion of a third, absent party but maintains an ambiguity toward the existence of that party. This ambiguity continues for a few lines.