Translation: Hide and Seek (Happy End)

Contemporary Happy End fans (lore has it there may have been a-as many as twelve of them!) would have gotten little sense of Takashi's poetic capabilities until the following year, but, between Come On, Spring! — Falling Thickly, Piling Up — Happy End — and this here Hide and Seek (Ohtaki/Matsumoto), what they would have had the opportunity to recognize right away was his genius for voice. Nowhere more so than here. Ohtaki embodies the narrator with impeccable nonchalance, dancing around the syllables in a weird and beautiful way (and those backing vocals?!), while Shigeru's guitar percolates along and Hosono holds down the fort, all casual-like. I wish all of Yudemen were this amazing. (As Kazemachi Roman would in fact be.)

In the second line, Ohtaki mistakenly sang "sky" (空 sora) instead of the word on the lyric sheet, "winter" (冬 fuyu). I've followed Takashi's version.

:::

Clouds are floating in the pale dusk sky.

The winter has clouded over.

I'm smoking a cigarette.

The wind has completely subsided.

I'm drinking a cup of hot tea.

Saying "I want you" or something like that

would mean allowing

a slice of a lie, like a long and heavy sigh,

to fall from me.

I'm drinking a cup of hot tea.

How come the snow hasn't melted yet?

The moments that remain inside

the tilted earthenware

are throbbing.

I'm drinking a cup of hot tea.

All right, that's enough now, don't say anything else —

just shut your mouth and let me be.

It's not like I can hear a word you're saying anyway.

Outside, the world is covered in snow.

Inside, we're playing hide and seek.

Your picture-perfect face is smiling.

I'm drinking a cup of hot tea.

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