Trouble talking - 5

[rubestie]

Season: Winter

 

Writer: Haruka Kanata

 

Characters: Adonis, Nagisa, Anzu, Kaoru

 

<A few days later. Inside a meeting room in ES.>

 

Adonis: Thank you, Anzu. To think we’d get this many letters sent in.

 

Nagisa: …Thank you for going out of your way to print them all for us. It must’ve been tough to carry them all this way.

 

…So we just need to choose which problems we will discuss during the show from these, then?

 

Adonis: I’m having trouble deciding where to start reading. Either way, let’s try to get through everything today.

 

N? Ah, we will be fine. We scheduled today for reading through these letters, after all.

 

So you don’t have to worry, Anzu, you can go on to your next job. Thank you for coming all this way to see us.

 

Nagisa: …Anzu-san seems to be very busy lately.

 

Adonis: It still hasn’t even been a month since the new year started. I’m sure she’s busy planning new programs.

 

Nagisa: …That’s true. We should work hard to avoid adding more to Anzu’s burdens.

 

…Since we will be creating a script in preparation for the recording, we should pick our topics as soon as possible.

 

Adonis: Yes. I’m glad we were able to find that solution thanks to Sakasaki’s advice.

 

Or rather, I wonder why we thought we had to come up with advice on the spot while recording.

 

When you think about it carefully, it would be more unnatural for us to record the show without having gone over the topics we would be discussing beforehand.

 

Nagisa: …Right. It seems we were both getting somewhat ahead of ourselves. Having to improvise answers seemed so scary.

 

…But if we prepare our answers in advance, we can both feel at ease during the recording.

 

Adonis: I have to say, there really are a lot of letters. Are all the listeners carrying around this many worries?

 

Did you find anything that caught your eye yet, Ran-senpai?

 

Nagisa: …I found one that says “I always end up eating too many sweets. Do you know of any good ways to avoid gaining weight?”

 

Adonis: …? Isn’t it enough to just exercise?

 

Nagisa: …I think so too. The solution should be obvious. I’m curious as to why they wouldn’t just do that.

 

…There may be a special reason as to why they aren’t able to exercise.

 

Adonis: …If that is the case, then it would be hard for me to come up with any other advice.

 

Moving your body is accessible to everyone. If someone isn’t capable of moving at all, then I can only assume there must be extraordinary circumstances in play.

 

Nagisa: …Did you find any good questions, Adonis-kun?

 

Adonis: Yes. This one interested me, “English is too difficult and I ended up scoring badly on a test. Do you know of any good study methods?”

 

I can relate to having trouble learning a new language. I still often worry about whether or not I understand Japanese correctly.

 

Nagisa: …You speak Japanese very well though. It’s obvious you’ve studied a lot.

 

Adonis: I’ve been travelling back and forth between Japan and my home country since I was young, so I picked a lot of it up naturally.

 

Even then, I still had to work hard to study Japanese. I can’t say much except that regular studying will lead to results.

 

Maybe we could bring this problem up on the show?

 

Nagisa: …I wonder. It might be lacking in excitement. After all, we were only able to come up with the most obvious advice in response.

 

Adonis: That’s true. I’m not very confident that we would be able to find a concrete solution for that problem.

 

Nagisa: …Let’s look over the other letters. There are still many to pick from, after all.

 

…Let’s take it slowly and find some problems we feel confident in solving.

 

<Several hours later.>

 

Adonis: …Well, Ran-senpai. Were you able to find a problem we could solve?

 

Nagisa: …I’m not sure. Even “picking” becomes difficult when you don’t know what the correct answer is.

 

Adonis: I see. I also can’t seem to find any problems I feel like I would be able to solve.

 

Rather, I’m beginning to wonder if there really are any problems in here we can solve…?

 

Nagisa: …Maybe we are being arrogant in thinking that we will be able to find a concrete solution.

 

Adonis: What do you mean?

 

Nagisa: …I gave it some thought. All of these letters contain something the writer considers to be a serious problem they’re worrying about.

 

…And we are in a position where we want to pick and choose the ones we feel we can solve from among all these serious problems.

 

…It is an act of arrogance, as if we are picking and choosing which people to save. Are we really of enough importance that we are qualified to make that choice?

 

Adonis: Indeed, it is as you say. We really ought to seriously consider each of these letters and come up with a proper response…

 

N? I think someone knocked on the door… Did Anzu come back?

 

Kaoru: Nice, looks like I had the right room. Hiya, Adonis-kun, Ran-kun. Is your meeting going well?

 

Adonis: Hakaze-senpai!? What are you doing here…?

 

Kaoru: I was with Anzu-chan up until just now, you see. We worked at the same location today.

 

My work finished early, so she asked me to check in on you two if I had the time.

 

Plus, I was the one who recommended Adonis-kun to take my place for this job. And Ran-kun told me in our room that you two were having trouble, so I figured there might be something I could do to help.

 

Nagisa: …Thank you. I would appreciate your help, Kaoru-kun. To tell you the truth, we are currently-

 

<A couple minutes later.>

 

Kaoru: Ahaha. You’re both so diligent. You're way overthinking this job...
 

If you’re going to spend so much time worrying about every little thing, you’ll never be able to finish, you know?

 

Nagisa: …That’s true, we don’t have forever. Besides, it would be truly arrogant to think that we would even be able to find answers to every single problem.

 

Adonis: …That’s right. Which is why we should choose something we can responsibly find a solution for.

 

Kaoru: You’re so uptight! Well, that seriousness and dedication of yours is one of your charm points, though.

 

Alright. First things first, let’s get rid of that feeling that says you have to find a proper solution to everything.

 

Nagisa: …Why would we do that? If we are going to be listening to people’s problems, I think it is important that we manage to find solutions as well.

 

Kaoru: Sure, but in the end, the only thing we can actually do in the show is give out advice. There’s no telling whether that advice is enough to solve the problem, right?

 

Adonis: …You’ve got a point there.

 

Kaoru: So what’s most important is for the two of you to find some problems you feel like you would like to help out with.

 

Adonis: Problems we want to help out with…

 

Kaoru: For example, for me it would be… something like this. “There is a person I like, how should I approach them?”. A problem concerning romance.

 

When I look at this, it makes me want to support this person. Well, it might be bad to choose only based on that feeling, though.

 

The most important thing in all of this is that you two need to be able to maintain a conversation together, after all.

 

 

Nagisa: …In other words, we should just pick something we would feel comfortable talking about?

 

Kaoru: Shortly put, yeah. Did you have something good in mind?

 

Nagisa: …Yeah. I think this one would work well. I think Adonis-kun would find this easy to talk about as well.

 

Adonis: Hm. You’re right, I should be able to come up with something to say about this.

 

Thank you. Thanks to Hakaze-senpai’s advice, I feel like we’ve just made a breakthrough.

 

Nagisa: …Kaoru-kun is good at giving people advice, isn’t he?

 

Kaoru: I didn’t mean to do that this time though. Either way, if I was able to help you two out then I’m glad.

-

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