木村：風邪で4日も会社を休んで、すみませんでした。
課長：風邪で休んだにしては、ずいぶん焼けたね。本当はゴルフにでも行っていたんじやないの。図星でしょう？
Zuboshi
Kimura: Kaze de yokka mo kaisha wo yasunde sumimasen deshita.
Kachoo: Kaze de yasunda nishite wa, zuibun yaketa ne. Hontoo wa gorufu ni de mo itte itan janai no. Zuboshi deshoo?
Kimura: I'm sorry I took four days off from work just because I had a cold.
Section chief: You're very brown, considering you had a cold, aren't you? You were'nt off playing golf or something, were you? I can see right through you, you know.
Zuboshi - literally, the bull's eye - is used when someone hits the mark or hits the nail on the head, by seeing through another person's hid- den thoughts or schemes.
Let's look again at the conversation above.
In this company, employees are technically allowed to take holidays, but the number of people who actually do take them is small. On top of that, it's not the kind of place where you can say, "I want to take four days off; I'm going on holiday with my family." If you're off sick though, that's another matter; there is nothing you can do about that.
So Mr. Kimura went to Hawaii with his family. He tried not to get sunburnt, but after four days of soaking up the southern sun in Honolulu, he crept into work looking a bit sheepish. It was then that kachoo ni zuboshi wo sasarete shimatta. (The section chief saw through what he was up to.)
The verb usually used with zuboshi is sasu, which often appears in the passive form, as in zuboshi wo sasareru, and when this is used in the pattern te shimau , it adds the meaning of being inconvenienced or embarrassed by something. For example, "You like her, don't you?" one colleague says to another. "I wonder how he guessed?" thinks the second colleague:
Zuboshi wo sasarete shimatte, hazukashii (You guessed it.
How embarrassing!) Or, in a conversation with a teacher, "You didn't write this report yourself, did you?" says the teacher. "I was afraid this might happen," thinks the student: Sensei, zuboshi desu yo.
Dooshite wakarimashita ka? (You spotted it. How could you tell?)
Zuboshi wo sasarem to gikuri to suru (It's very cutting when someone sees through you)-everyone knows what it feels like. I'm sure you must have some experiences like this that you
can think of yourself?