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From what I’ve found in a few dictionaries,「狡い」has a negative meaning, like
“crafty, sly”, and also “unfair” (In Jp-Jp, it appears related to negative
actions like ごまかす). However, in this short story, such a meaning doesn’t make
sense to me. Can the word have a different nuance, or a neutral/positive
meaning?

In this short story, the narrator is describing how he first fell in love.
Because he was staring at her face, she became embarrassed. I include the
context below.

> 娘がまた言った。  
>  「慣れてるんですけど、少し恥ずかしいわ。」  
>  その声は、相手の視線を自分の顔に戻してもいいと言う意味を含ませているように聞こえた。娘は悪い素振りを見せたと、さっきから思っていたらしかった。  
>  明るい顔で、私は娘を見た。娘はちょっと赤くなってから、狡そうな眼をしてみせて、
> 「私の顔なんか、今に毎日毎晩で珍しくなくなるんですから、安心ね。」と幼いことを言った。

Source: 「日向」（川端康成の掌の小説；新潮文庫）
CC BY-SA 4.0
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question
meaning literature
「狡そうな眼」は悪くない意味もありますか
Interestingly, the most common contexts which I often hear this word in are
just about all positive. This short story was written some half a century ago,
but I think the usage stays the same. It tells us the girl is playful and
possibly teasing.

> 狡そうな眼をしてみせて

And she is doing such a face and showing her cunning eyes on purpose!

ずるい is very commonly used between people romantically involved, as in . 川端's
text. It is just something that could sound very flirtatious in the right
context. Read [this](https://ananweb.jp/anan/308427/):

> >
> 「彼女と付き合う前のデート。日も暮れていい雰囲気になってきたので、隙を見て抱き寄せ、キスをしました。すると彼女は一度離れ、照れたような顔をして、“ズルい”と言ったんです。一瞬ダメだったかな……と思ったんですが、彼女はまんざらでもない様子だったので、思いっきり抱き付きました」アツシ（仮名）／30歳
>
> **この場合、「ズルい」という言葉にネガティブな意味はありません。むしろ、キスに対する感想としては最高の言葉かもしれません。**
> 照れたような表情も加えることで、男性をさらにドキッとさせる効果があるようです。

This is probably a little personal but there was a period of time when I was
told that I was 「ずるい」 almost on a daily basis, and it made my heart sing every
time I heard it. Well, happy memories of days gone by.

Well, just for context and comparison, "sly" isn't necessarily a bad thing to
say about someone; it is often employed to describe someone as showing signs
of being adorably clever or withholding secrets. This is [David
Thomson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thomson_\(film_critic\)) speaking
of [Nicole Kidman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Kidman)

> and Batman Forever, where she played a shrink, Dr. Chase Meridian, and did
> pretty well being **cute and sly** in a franchise film where the heavy
> lifting and the big money were kept for Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jim
> Carrey.
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