Her none stop blabber about this and that went in from the ear and out the other. It was so boring just sitting there motionless with my knees that were beginning to numb. From the surface I looked attentive but, in reality, my attention was towards the loud laughter outside. Lies runs from the blood to the skin. I think I should focus.
"Do you understand!?" she suddenly shouted as her wrinkly face neared mine.
I answered how a soldier would, "Yes, Ma'am!" but in a sense of some prisoner. Please just let me go...
Granny didn't look convinced, narrowing her gaze on me as she asked, "What did I say, then?"
I kept my silence and stared at granny while internally gathering my wits and thinking of an answer. "To be on time for class." I responded. God, I wish I could just be one of those kids outside.
"Hmph." granny stood back and walked away, slamming the sliding door in the process. Guess I was right. I can tell that Granny knew Chinese, leaving the fact that I spoke my reply in Chinese 'cause the first time was Japanese.
"Phew..." the kept in breath finally let out. That was stressful than any exam tests. The thought startled me. Come to think of it, what was I like at school? Did I ever had friends? What was my personality like back then, I wonder.
"Boy, I never saw the mistress so strict." A sudden voice came from behind me. I whipped my head to be met with cool eyes of tangerine. His neck-long hair hid one of his eyes as he leaned on the frame of the sliding door that led to the garden from the other side of the house. "Hi, name's Hiroko." he casually raised up his hand to me.
I remained silent, staring at him with sleepy eyes. Fortunately, I understood his Japanese, but not-so-fortunate is I can't reply in Japanese. "Uh..." he began to feel uncomfortable from my silence. "This is where you're supposed to respond?"
All I could do was shake my head and he blinked, surprised from my sudden response.
"Oooookay..." he awkwardly stood straight, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop on you or the mistress but…" he scratched his neck, pushing away a bit of the hair getting away in his eyesight. "I heard about Japanese lessons?"
My eyes narrowed to what seems like disgust to him when it really meant something else. "N-not to be disrespectful or anything! But… you seem to understand Japanese… so I thought you knew how to speak a bit of it at least?" The teenager, Hiroko, tried to defend himself.
I got a tad bit angry from his remark, but grateful at his gesture. He was trying to make friends with me… too bad I can't be friends with him.
I stood up abruptly, startling the teenager as he still kept that awkward smile and chuckle. "Ahaha… so, uhh…" before he could speak I left.
I can't have people here think I'm being goody-goody with one of the kids. Flashes of the adults' faint glares and cold gazes gave me the reason why I shouldn't get too comfortable. After all, no one like an "unwanted" child. To think that my suffering ended when I left the Lou family… it seems not when the Tanaka family can't even accept me as a human with feelings.
Suddenly, everything began to go blurry, I was lucky no one seemed to be around which was weird, especially since it's almost lunch time. My eyes were fully submerged in salty waters, I covered my face in embarrassment. How could I be this emotional from just that one though?
I turned the corner to my room but bumped into someone, causing my fall. Ouch, my butt cheeks hurt.
"Argh…"
"Sorry! Sorry, sorry, miss." The boy, whom I recognized to be the one I bumped into earlier was apologizing profusely as if he committed an offense worth prisoning. I pulled myself together as he collected the sheets of small towels that was scattered all over the place. His soft and still wet blue violet hair bouncing along with his yellow like gold irises. Honestly, his beauty stunned me, I didn't see clearly earlier since he was mostly covered by the basket and his hair was in the way.
I was too dumbfounded by his appearance that I could only stand while holding one towel, attempted to help him. Too bad he finished and left without looking back. My thoughts were swirling but none of them entered my line of sight as I still stood motionless.
My body started moving to my room, slamming the literal paper thin walls of the room as I calmed down my nerves. Damn, how much of a beauty he was!! I shook my head in disbelief of what I saw, it must've been my imagination!
But no, days after that I kept seeing the cute guy walk pass my room and across the hall of the lecture room Granny assigned me. Of course, it didn't distract me enough… I hope.
That guy wasn't the only thing that got me thinking, but — from what I recall — Hiroko as well. Granny had taught me enough Japanese to communicate a bit with tangerine boy. Although, all I could say was:
"いいえ (Īe)" translates to "no" in any language. To which I can consider my favorite word now.
He would always ask:
"Good morning! Can I help you with that-"
"No." I said as I carried the ten books that granny told me to study for the weekend.
"Good morning, m'lady, can I just say that you are looking pale these days, would you like me to—"
"No." He said so while carrying fruits even though I just finished breakfast. It was a bit offensive to me that he commented on my everyday normal complexion.
"M'lady, how have you been today?"
"No."
"Wow Mhm Mhm, and?"
"No."
…
"No."
"I'm not even saying anything…"
"...…no." I wanted to comment on that, but realized he was aiming for that so I just denied.
"Damn it." He left.
Basically, the past three weeks passed by with him trying to have a conversation with me at every chance he gets. Granny noticed and had a bit of a judgment moment, thinking that I was slacking off. But when she saw that I wasn't interested in conversing with Hiroko she soon backed off the idea and just didn't care as much.
Meanwhile, my curiosity was more on that purple-head that kept peeping whenever Hiroko would pop in to try sparking a convo. It made me guess their connection with Hiroko, the curiosity was driving me to wish I could speak Japanese fluently enough to ask Hiroko about him. But I couldn't! And that drove my determination to study the Japanese language.
However, Granny's lectures were a wack. In the first week of lessons, granny introduced the history of scriptures, where the Japanese writing came from and how it was DEFINITELY not copying the Chinese language and writing. It was ironic how I came from "Chinese heritage" as she might say it, but really had the same meaning with the Japanese. It was the week she made me carry ten books.
The second week was about writing the words themselves. In total, there were about 34,000 letters in the Japanese alphabet. Unfortunately, Granny's schedules were strict and I had to obey to finish the 34,000 letters within a day. I had to rewrite the 20,534 letters because of how it looked "off" and smudged. It dumbfounded me, my wrist hurt and she made me use a brush!!
Now, on the third week, we focused more on letter pronunciation which is planned to take about two weeks. Three to four days per different writing system.
Meanwhile, Mom had been in and out of the house. I wake up at exactly six and to seven I finish bathing, dressing up, and eating breakfast. Up till I take another bath at 8:00 after dinner and study session at 7:00 PM, Mom was nowhere to be found. It was as if she avoided me, or that she wasn't in the house at all. I wonder where she could've gone?
I was looking outside towards the garden where the kids were playing and the older people were busy working. It looked blissful to just be carefree.
WHACK!
"Focus!" Granny abruptly smacked the table with her thin stick when she noticed.
A sting left on my cheek got me back to my study as I pulled back my orange locks, putting them neatly behind my ears. Granny continued to explain how the each letter would sound when put into a phrase or sentence.
If you are wondering about my memories not coming back this is why.
"This letter will have an 'a' sound when put in such way and the 'u' will become silent in this word."
She focused more on pronouncing rather than actually saying the word in a normal sense. It bored the hell out of me. However, the writing progress from last week helped me more on telling that kindly lady, Hana-san, all the things I wanted I say to her.
Lunch was nearing and so was my one hour break time away from Granny. The clock rang with a bell, it was like any other classroom in schools you could be in. It brought back a few of memories from my middle school life in China. All I could say was that it felt great to be an ordinary teen.
"That's all for your morning lesson, I will be back for your reading later on."
Oh right, there was that. It's the second day today, and tomorrow I will have to perform a test of pronunciation on our first writing system in the Japanese scripture, katakana.
As granny left, Hiroko — as expect and on cue — came in from the garden door. He said nothing as he watched me put away the notebooks and books from the lessons that granny presented. It was as if he couldn't let himself not talk that he said, "Do you want me to help?" Bursting from the silence as he slapped his forehead right after, he was embarrassed because he knew that I wouldn't respond.
But I wanted to try a bit of the wordings from what I learned so I said, "Will you, please?"
He whipped his head to me, his tangerine eyes looked at me like a newborn just spoke for the first time. "Fine. Don't." I said as I finished stacking the books and stood up to put them away in the closets.
"Hahahaha no, wait!" He laughed along as he got the books from me, leaving me with the notebooks which I carried towards the closet and he placed it neatly in the corner. "Gosh, that gave me a tear," he said as he wiped away his imaginary tears and snot.
I could only look away with a bit of disdain but also relief, i'm honestly happy for myself to come around. But, also kinda terrified. As I looked up, I saw the purple-head which covered his eyes, it widened, surprised as he hid behind the paper door. To which it still displayed his shadow. A baby boy came running from his direction, smiling and laughing while the purple-head tried to get him over towards him but failed miserably. He began to run back to the garden which led the little baby boy running after him. Succeeding in hiding.
That small scene made me feel uncomfortable with myself. Hiroko was trying to talk to me more but I didn't listen as I walked passed him and towards my room, waiting for 25 more minutes until lunch is prepared. It seemed that Hiroko noticed the two boys and tried to distract me which made it worst for me.
"Hey!" I stopped, "they're kids… they're shy. They actually wanted to get to know you better! But you're the granddaughter of the mistress… so-" I didn't listen anymore as I walked faster. Those excuses cut an even deeper wound. I'm just an unwanted child.