Fizzysoda!!

I got the raws from the Manga One app in the Japanese iTunes app store.

I would like to preface this by saying that the most popular translated version, where Mob says the infamous “Shut up and eat” line, is the best translated version in my opinion, because Mob actually slurring that is a totally feasible thing. I’ll explain more about that in the translation notes below, but this version I translated isn’t reworked to match the syllables and make the slurring believable, but rather to try and represent the Japanese meaning.

Reigen: モブ。— Mob.

それもう焼けてるぞ。— It’s about to burn!

Mob: ………

Reigen: モブ… —Mob…

それもう焼けてるぞ。(二回目) — It’s about to burn. (A second time)

なぁ… — Hey…

Mob: このくらい…よく火を通した方が好きなんで。— It’s good like this. I like the heat to spread evenly throughout.

Reigen: 焼き過ぎだ。それだと肉本来の味が消えてしまう。—It’s cooking too much. It’s going to completely lose the original flavor.

Mob: いや、おいしいです。— No, it’s tasty.

Reigen: いや、それはベストのおいしさではない。— No, that’s not the best taste.

焼き過ぎな上にタレも付け過ぎだ。タレの味しかしないだろう。— It’s overcooked and you put too much sauce on top.

Mob: いや、おいしいです。— No, it’s tasty.

Reigen: また！それも焼き過ぎだぞ。— Again! That one’s also cooking too much.

ちょっと焦げてんじゃねーか。— It’s a bit scorched, isn’t it?

あ、ほらそっちの肉もあと4秒くらいで… — Ah, look—that piece of meat, in about four seconds…

「師匠は肉にうるさいなぁ…」と言おうとしたが、口に入れた肉が予想以上に熱くて舌が上手くまわらず… — “Shishou is picky about meat, huh…” is what Mob tried to say, but when he put the meat in his mouth, it was hotter than expected and his tongue couldn’t articulate well.

Mob: チッ… うるせぇな。— Tch… Shut the hell up.

Reigen: ………..

霊幻は静かに肉を焼いた。— Reigen cooked his meat in silence.

——————————

Notes:

- Mob: このくらい…よく火を通した方が好きなんで。— It’s good like this. I like the heat to spread evenly throughout.

「このくらい…」　actually directly translates to “This much…” (in regards to how much he’s cooking the meat over the grill). It employs the Japanese technique of “only say half the sentence and let the rest be unspoken”, but that wouldn’t make a lot of sense in English and kind of sticks out translated strictly like that. So I just finished the sentence.

- Mob: チッ… うるせぇな。— Tch… Shut the hell up.

So, this whole thing is a joke about the many uses of the word 「うるさい」　(urusai). 「うるさい 」　can be used to mean “loud/noisy”, “annoying/bothersome”, “picky/fussy/particular”, and “shut up!” when shouted as an interjection. I’ve been in a class in Tokyo where we were all yelled at for talking by our professor, who kept saying 「うるさいだよ！」. In Mob’s originally-intended sentence—「師匠は肉にうるさいなぁ…」—he was using うるさい to mean “picky/fussy”, since Reigen truly would not relax and leave him alone over that meat. But because the meat burned his mouth, he ended up clicking his tongue and slurring 「うるせぇな。」　He dropped the “Shishou” and “about meat” parts entirely, his hurt tongue not moving fast enough and holding out an “e” vowel throughout the latter half of the word instead of raising up into an “ai” sound. This… makes the word very rude. And since all other parts of the sentence were dropped, it also makes it an interjection— a rude and harsh version of “Shut up!”, which I’ve chosen to represent by making Mob curse. (Turning rude conjugation forms into English cursing is a pretty common practice in Japanese translation, as they have more expressive conjugation forms than us and we have no other real way to express that inherent hostility/brashness.)

In the most popularized English translation of this scene, the translators did something very clever to make Mob’s slurring possible, since we don’t have “rude” verb forms in English. What Mob originally wanted to say was, “Shishou sure likes to talk about meat…”, which gets slurred into “Shut up and eat.” The syllables specifically from “shishou” and “about meat” can be slurred into something phonetically resembling “shut up and eat”. I think this is extremely clever and fantastic translation work.

Sometimes, Dark Cacao wakes up in a wild panic in the middle of the night. Pure Vanilla knows it’s because he had a nightmare about Dark Choco.

Dark Cacao gets heat strokes in the Vanilla Kingdom and Pure Vanilla gets undercooled in the Dark Cacao Kingdom, so they had a cottage built right on the border where the temperature was acceptable for both.

When Pure Vanilla does visit, he always makes sure to bring a sweet treat from his Kingdom for the warriors of the Dark Cacao Kingdom. Dark Cacao pretends not to notice.

Nobody knows this, but Dark Cacao absolutely adores gardening. It’s a wonderful feeling for him to have something so fragile yet so strong under his hands, something he can take care of without breaking. He was absolutely shattered when rabbits invaded his garden while both rulers were away.

Following the headcanon above, Dark Cacao claims the garden is Pure Vanilla’s whenever someone visits. Nobody believes him, but they humour him anyway.

Pure Vanilla found Dark Cacao sitting in his freezer the first time the warrior-king visited the Pure Vanilla Kingdom. Dark Cacao insisted he wanted to get ice cubes but got distracted.

They have quite a lot of children, unofficial and official. On Pure Vanilla’s side, we have Custard Cookie III, Strawberry Crêpe Cookie and Pancake Cookie. Dark Cacao demands he stops adopting orphaned cookies, to which Pure Vanilla replies he has Caramel Arrow Cookie, Crunchy Chip Cookie, Dark Choco Cookie and has grown closer and closer with Wizard Cookie.

Pure Vanilla is both an emotional and cheerful drunk. Dark Cacao either gets extremely quiet or loses himself in memories. Or, as seen before, tries to fight inanimate objects.

While Pure Vanilla’s children are fairly young and up-to-date with slang, all of Dark Cacao’s children are grown. Dark Cacao almost had a panic attack when he got told he had ‘epic skibidi rizz’. Pure Vanilla found it mighty entertaining.

People who have no sight don’t survive for long in the harsh climate of the Dark Cacao Kingdom, so Dark Cacao does not know what braille is. Pure Vanilla likes hearing his voice, so he tricked Dark Cacao into reading his favourite books out loud to him in the evening.

Both are, as their rarity suggests, very old. Their bodies age slower, but Dark Cacao stopped throwing birthdays after he turned 50 and stopped counting his age when he turned 200. He had no idea why Caramel Arrow and Crunchy Chip made such a big deal out of celebrating his birthday when he turned 420.

Because their bodies age so slowly, they had the body and voice of a twelve-year-old but the brains of a much older and wiser man. A little creepy, yes, but Dark Cacao used to love freaking ‘real’ adults out by speaking in extremely long and sophisticated sentences when he looked ten.

Everyone jokes about Dark Cacao’s extremely convincing poker face. In reality, he just doesn’t know if someone is making fun of him or not if they don’t match their joke with any facial expression, so he’ll just stare at them until they clarify.

Dark Cacao DOES NOT like Pure Vanilla Cookie’s staff. Pure Vanilla closes his eyes at night, so when Dark Cacao wakes up at three in the morning and sees a singular eye staring straight into his soul he (rightfully) freaks out.

Dark Cacao cried when Caramel Arrow left for college.

Pure Vanilla once put on an extremely elaborate lie; everyone kept asking him why he doesn’t like tomatoes, so he just said he was allergic. This does mean he cannot eat pizza, pasta or any of the sort when visiting friends, which upsets him greatly. Dark Cacao will sometimes ask for a container to take leftovers home so Pure Vanilla can eat it there. It’s a whole thing, but they’re too deep in to back out now.

It’s well known that Dark Cacao actively avoids therapy, but Pure Vanilla skips his sessions as well because ‘others need it more’. Dark Cacao once forced him to go; a mistake, because the therapist immediately had a session with him, too.

Pure Vanilla will go all-out for costume parties. Dark Cacao does not like dressing up, because it usually means leaving the vital parts of his body unprotected. They once went as Saint George and the Dragon (Pure Vanilla being the dragon and Dark Cacao being the knight) just so he could wear his beloved armour.

Dark Cacao is deadly allergic to bees. He did not know this before coming to the floral and sweet Hollyberry Kingdom.

Dark Cacao does not like PDA. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he makes no effort to stop Pure Vanilla’s kisses and hugs.

Pure Vanilla Cookie chuckled at a joke Clotted Cream Cookie told, gently squeezing Dark Cacao Cookie’s arm as the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Isn’t that so amusing, my dear?~”

“Hilarious,” Dark Cacao replied, his dark eyes boring into Clotted Cream’s with a mildly murderous glance.

The young consul paid the angry king no mind, and continued talking to Pure Vanilla with an overly cheerful tone. Hell, if Dark Cacao didn’t know better, he’d think Clotted Cream was flirting.

It turned out, as the night progressed, that Dark Cacao did not know better. The armrest of his chair was starting to crack with how much force he was practicing onto him, and his vicious gaze hadn’t left Clotted Cream once. Even the consul was beginning to notice the dangerous glance.

“Do I have something on my face, sire..?” Clotted Cream asked light-heartedly.

Dishonour and shame, Dark Cacao thought.

“Nothing of the sort,” Dark Cacao said.

The king stood from his chair briskly, Pure Vanilla’s hand falling off of its place on his wrist. The healer looked up, his eyes closed but his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Cacao-”

“You will excuse me,” Dark Cacao muttered, walking out of the room through the main entrance.

“Is he okay?” Clotted Cream asked.

“Oh, he said ‘you will excuse me’ instead of ‘will you excuse me’,” Hollyberry Cookie said dryly. “That means he’s out for blood. You would be wise to watch your tone, consul — Dark Cacao Cookie is already upset by your continuous asking for his Souljam, you really don’t want to mess with him further.”

Clotted Cream opened his mouth to reply when Pure Vanilla stood up as well, albeit a lot softer than Dark Cacao had done moments ago. “I shall check up on him.”

“Oh, please, I insist you let one of the maids do it for you-!” Clotted Cream protested.

“Consul.” Pure Vanilla shot him a strict look. “I will check in on my husband whenever I please.”

As Pure Vanilla left the room, he just barely caught Clotted Cream whispering; “Husband..?”

Pure Vanilla shook his head with a sigh and a small smile, walking to where he knew Dark Cacao would be angrily waiting.

And right his predictions were; Dark Cacao was moodily pacing in the guest room he had been forced to begrudgingly accept by none other than his husband dear. The day Dark Cacao slept in that cold tent outside was the day Pure Vanilla was six feet under.

“Cacao, my dear..” Pure Vanilla murmured, sitting on the bed. “Why did you flee?”

“I did not flee! I am not in there anymore for that.. that wretched boy’s own safety!”

Pure Vanilla raised an eyebrow, egging Dark Cacao on to continue.

“Pure Vanilla, I know you are blind, but you are not an idiot. You knew what he was doing! You knew he was brazenly courting you!” 

Dark Cacao watched in disbelief as a chuckle escaped his husband’s lips. “Vanilla, are you laughing at me?!”

“Oh, I do apologise,” Pure Vanilla smiled, but the corners of his eyes crinkled mischievously. “But you are acting rather silly, my dear.”

“Silly?!” Dark Cacao repeated indignantly.

“Yes, silly,” Pure Vanilla said as he gently pulled Dark Cacao onto the bed beside him. “You know I would never give in to anyone’s advances, my love. You are the only one for me… forgive me for finding it silly that you keep forgetting.”

“I did not forget,” Dark Cacao grumbled, leaning into Pure Vanilla’s touch reluctantly. “But I think it’s ‘rather silly’ that you just let him talk to you like.. that.”

“Are you jealous, Cao..?”

Dark Cacao stared at him. “Someone is hitting on my husband, of course I’m jealous.”

Pure Vanilla laughed again, leaning against Dark Cacao’s chest. “Oh, you silly, hard-headed man.. don’t pout, love. It’s quite endearing when you throw little fits.”

Dark Cacao glared at him. He needn’t say a word, for his eyes portrayed all the indignance he felt for his show of emotion being called a ‘fit’.

“Please, my dearest,” Pure Vanilla murmured softly. “Let us return to the dining room, this time in peace. I know you do not enjoy Clotted Cream Cookie’s presence, but I hope you can rest assured knowing my affections go out to you, and you only.”

Dark Cacao sighed, before nodding.