木村：鈴木さんに変な噂が流れていますね。
佐藤：本人が躍起になって否定していますが、本当はどうなんでしょうね。
Yakki ni naru
Kimura: Suzuki san ni hen na uwasa ga nagarete imasu ne.
Satoo: Honnin ga yakki ni natte hitei shite imasu ga, hontoo wa do nan deshoo ne.
Kimura: There are some strange rumors going around about Mr. Suzuki, aren't there?
Sato: He's getting rather frantic about it, but I wonder what's really going on.
Yakki ni naru means to get frantic or flustered, excited, and desperate. There are many proverbs about rumors in Japanese.
Hi no nai tokoro ni kemuri wa tatanu (There's no smoke without fire), and Hito no uwasa mo nana-juu go nichi (A. rumor only lasts for 75 days) are two examples.
In our everyday lives, there are often occasions when we learn things from hearsay, without actually checking to find out whether they are true.
Totally unfounded rumors tend to die down after a while, provided the person they concern keeps quiet about them, and people begin to realize that "It was only a rumor, after all."
It is said that in 75 days, or less than three months, the rumor usually disappears. What happens, however, if Sono uwasa no honnin ga, yakki ni natte uchi-kesoo to suru (The person whom the rumor concerns gets flustered and tries to deny it)?
People begin to wonder Ano hito wa dooshite, anna ni yakki ni naru n'desho ne (Why is he getting so flustered?) Yakki ni nareba naru hodo, minna utagaimasu yo (The more frantic you get, the more suspicious people become.)
Let us look at a slightly different use of this expression.
In recent years, if you own a car, you need to have a registration form from the police to prove that you have a space in which to park it.
In rural areas, there are more houses built on large plots of land, where parking a car is not much of a problem, but in Tokyo it can cost anything from \30,000 to \50,000 a month for one parking space.
A friend of mine who was planning to buy a car told me, Yakki ni natte yasui chuushajoo wa doko ka ni nai ka to sagashite itnasu (I'm desperately trying to find a cheap parking space somewhere.)
But Yakki ni natte mo, ie no chikaku ni chuushajoo go arimasen (However hard he looked, there were no parking spaces near where he lives.)
In the end he rented a parking space that is 15 minutes'-walk from his house. You can imagine how inconvenient it is. Now, Rare wa kinjo no hito ni yakki ni natte tanonde iru (He's frantically asking people in his neighborhood) , "If you hear of any cheap parking spaces around here, please let me know."
I hope he has some luck soon.