You lose because YOU are the weak one who gets picked on. 
You win if you are the one who can do the picking on, haha.
I consulted google sensei and it is also part of the dialect in 茨城県 where I think they live iirc (either way, they’re close to Tokyo so that guy could just be from 茨城県). It’s used in tons of dialects though, most notably in Hokkaido it seems.
No problem!! Super happy to help. 
Finished with this week! Read up to around page 40 in the Korean edition, which is slightly behind the Japanese story.
Oh Hira… on the one hand, I find it sweet how he is really attracted to the fact that Kiyoi is a strong-willed person who has what he lacks. On the other hand, why are you that happy about him being your “owner”?! 
I guess he’s just into that, though. At the end of the section when he is missing Kiyoi during summer break and realizing he has feelings for him, it was very cute (in kind of a weird way since he is slightly poorly socialized and has a twisted view of normal relationships lol). Even though Kiyoi is technically bullying him/allowing others in the group to use him as a bread shuttle, he’s still kind of respectful about it by giving him money so it doesn’t feel sooo bad. Let’s just chalk the entire situation up to them being immature and incomplete teenagers and hope they move past it soon and start getting closer to each other. 
I also wanted to mention, I forgot that Hira takes pictures of busy scenes and then photoshops out the people! He’s so weird, but I appreciate the way Nagira Yuu really develops his character so you understand where he is coming from and the way growing up with a stutter affected him. That way, even when he’s being a weirdo and talking about ducks you just kind of go along with it because you have insight into his situation.
It’s probably pretty obvious by this point, but I’ll be off schedule through probably the rest of December. Been taking a break from JP reading for a bit.
Same, the holiday season has been super busy – I’m going to try and catch up though!
I didn’t get to last weeks reading due to general busyness either - maybe we think about a break until January or so? What do you all think? @eefara @bibliothecary @Kalamari
Sounds good - shall we consider weeks 1&2 done, have a break and resume from week 3 the first or second week in January?
Sounds good to me! My preference would be the second week of January to allow for time to get settled into the year, but I’m flexible based on what we all want. 
Yeah, a hiatus sounds good – things should quiet down on my end as soon as the new year begins but I need to catch up with the main BL club too so maybe the 2nd might be better. 
Happy Holidays and New Year everyone!
You too!
Yes, sounds like a solid plan to me. Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!
@bibliothecary that snowman for the page number for the break period is really cute!
Just checking here; are we starting again as of yesterday, or as of next Monday?
How about we resume next week?
Sounds good to me! Gives me a bit more time to catch up, haha.
Yeah, I just realized what I said was a bit confusing but I meant the 2nd week of January 
We’re back for week 3! 
Sh-shhhh… I haven’t started week 2 yet. :X
Me either!
Somehow finished week two’s reading; I’m ending this session just as Hira sits down to eat supper with the family: 冷やし中華 (chilled noodles)!
So I apparently stopped at an interesting place last time; I pick up the book again today and, after entering Kiyoi’s phone number, Hira immediately goes into full, uh, toady mode (for lack of a better term). Like, I’m glad you’ve found something in school that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself, Hira, but this seems like a bit too much, no?
Honestly I’m not sure what to think. Hira’s immediate obsession + his little “wow this feeling must be love” as he puts the Kiyoi coins into his pseudo-piggy bank make me nervous. On one hand, we barely know Kiyoi. He seems slightly nicer than the rest of Hira’s classmates, but that’s not saying a lot. But BL has conditioned me to just look for the sparkly romance and ignore any bad portents. I’m hoping that the author writes well enough to craft both a believable story and a fulfilling romance. She(?)'s doing well so far, at least!
Honestly, I’m wondering just how obsessive Hira might get. Are these early symptoms just short-changing any nuanced feelings? Is he a yandere in disguise? Hoping for option 2 We shall see.
Anyway, small question on my part: am I correct in reading that Hira’s photography hobby is him taking pictures of crowded areas, then editing out the people in them? Presumably filling in building/background details in their places?
And week 3 done; I’m caught up (for the next few days, at least) and can start checking off other book club books.
Some thoughts from this reading; I left off with Hira leaving the gang as he mentally kicks them for being jealous of Kiyoi. Anyway:
The fireworks: This was the first scene where I didn’t really believe Hira and his “I don’t mind missing out on them if it’s for Kiyoi” shtick. It really felt like he wanted to see them with Kiyoi, and even Kiyoi asking him for something didn’t really mask the pain. And geez, Hira, couldn’t you have been a little nicer to that girl? It was unintentional, I’m sure, but you were approaching jerk-ish territory yourself. 
The masturbation: I thought this was interesting, in so far as it was a look at Hira recognizing that he’s not really seeing and idolizing Kiyoi as a real person; seeing Kiyoi break that perfect aloof school image isn’t something Hira can really deal with at the moment. Makes me wonder how this relationship is going to develop…
I think there was going to be a third point but I’m really tired and I can’t think of it at the moment. @.@ Oh yeah, I think I wanted to make brief mention of the fact that my face went 
when we found out that Hira saved the fireworks spot for 10 hours. And it reads like he basically brought nothing to do, just spread out a few blankets and plopped down. Hira, this is not healthy.
Well, this is the informal book club after all, right? 
I’ve been trying to catch up on kanji and vocab reviews that I let lapse during the holidays and now I’m finally getting back into this! In the middle of week 2 and should be all set for week 4 soon!
@eefara, @bungakushoujo did a really good job answering all those questions, I completely agree with the answers!
I just have a few small remarks:
◇ About the fixation on Kiyoi’s “small head”: It sounds weird but it’s a beauty standard in a lot of Asian countries. I spoke to a few people about it and essentially it means you have a small/delicate looking face, and the face/body ratio creates an appealing body proportion, the same way very long legs do. Essentially, hes calling him modelesque. It’s hard to explain but when you see it in pictures it’s a bit easier to visualize.
◇ The song referenced in the first sentence of the book, 家路, is this one. The Wikipedia page on it is pretty interesting actually – it’s based on a song in English but became its own thing in Japan pre-WW2. It has many renditions but nowadays most people know it as the song that many schools and stores play to let everyone know it’s closing time/time to head home.
◇ There was a small reference in the section about the bullied girl classmate that took me down a pretty deep rabbit hole: その女子は身分もわきまえず、ピラミッドの頂点にいる男子に馴れ馴れしく話しかけた罪で 、 同じく頂点にいる女子たちからひどくいじめられていた 。無礼討ちの現代版だ。
What is 無礼討ち? It’s another name for this. That’s wild to me that samurai could commit sanctioned murder on civilians just for tarnishing their honor. In context of the situation in that book, Hira really actually has a wry sense of humor when it comes to his classmates 
He’s been doing a lot of observing under those overgrown bangs of his!
◇ Also, yep! Hira goes to crowded places, takes photos of all the people at those locations and then erases them one by one like he did with the lilies the first day he took photos with his parents. Then he goes in and meticulously fills in the holes to blend in with the background, presumably to look as natural as possible but the holes still somewhat remain in a warped sort of way.
Just like the lillies, which were ugly because they were placed there artificially, the humans in these scenes represent to Hira, the ugliness of the unfairness that exists in the world. By erasing them, he feels like a god punishing those humans for those sins, and gains some sort of catharsis for his own suffering. 
Something that used to cause him shame has now become a form of stress-relief.
I already read this book so I’m afraid to comment too much on the plot in case I accidentally give something away, but the author, Nagira Yuu, has won a bunch of awards and I love her writing style so much. Hira is just such a weirdo and while the things he does definitely shows how unsocialized he is, he’s also such a sympathetic character, imo. I remember also being really anxious about what Hira was capable of as his obsession grows, so I guess we’ll find out how this story unfolds in the coming weeks. 
I’ll write some more comments as I catch up to the current week!
