Welcome back everyone! This is a special guest translation by my friend and fellow Yume fan Kiesa, and it’s her first time translating for Yume100!
Some notes she had on this translation was that she really enjoyed working on it because Sarasa is kind of sassy and has no real restraint when it comes to the protagonist. She also found the story amusing in a lot of places, and the story really helped solidify her knowledge of 輝く (kagayaku).
Some translation notes are that the protagonist refers to Sarasa as “Prince Sarasa” for the first part of the story, and then drops to “Sarasa” when he mentions that she doesn’t need to speak so formally. The Japanese uses the -san suffix ending to start with, then drops to -kun for a more casual feel. The using and then dropping of the ‘Prince’ title is used to help illustrate this, though 王子様 (oujisama/prince) is not necessarily used in the Japanese.
The second note is on the use of 人魚 (ningyo). Traditionally this translates to ‘mermaid’, and there are no other variations of the word in Japanese to signify genders or singular vs. plural usage. So while 人魚 is used in almost every instance in the Japanese, it has been translated as ‘merman’, ‘merperson’, and ‘merfolk’ depending on the context.