It's time for my first sign nguage lesson.

  I'm going into this with lots of negative feelings both about myself and my teacher.

  I don't think she is experienced enough or sharp enough to do this. I mean, she didn't even get here at the right time.

  I am also very annoyed by her ‘genki girl’ personality. It’s like she thinks she’s some kind of cutesy manga character. I mean, she’s even wearing a matching hair pin and bracelet with little hearts on them! The only thing she’s missing is hair that is a completely unrealistic color. I like manga, but a lot of those stock character archetypes would be super annoying if you ever met them in real life, and Ms. Mikado is living proof of that.

  On top of all of that, I'm very anxious. I am already pretty bad at warming up to strangers. But I'm even worse with her. I really don't want her to know I think she's cute for a whole host of reasons.

  Basically, my mind is a complete mess.

  Seems like a good environment for learning something that is crucial for me to have anything resembling a remotely normal existence in society, right?

  My mom and I are sitting on the couch in our living room, while Ms. Mikado has connected her ptop to a portable projector she brought with her. She is projecting her screen onto a bare wall. She's standing by her ptop to our right and appears to be getting things set up. Her big smile still hasn't left her face at any point in the hour since I met her.

  No one can be that happy all the time. I wish she'd just rex. She doesn't have to smile constantly.

  She opens a Word document and types,

  “Reina, before we start - I want to make sure the information I have about your hearing is right.”

  At least she doesn't use so many excmation points when she types.

  I turn towards her with a nod and gesture for her to continue.

  “You can't understand speech at all, right?”

  I reply, “R-right. I can speak. And hear. B-but I can't understand speech.” Is my voice ever going to stop cracking around her?!

  Ms. Mikado looks pensive for a moment. As pensive as one can look while smiling like an idiot, anyway. She's tapping her finger on her chin. That moment stretches into several.

  No surprise there. She's too young and inexperienced. She's in over her head already. Maybe this will allow me to get someone else to teach us. Someone more rexed. And old. And male.

  Seizing the opportunity, I channel as much courage as I can into my voice, “I-is there a problem? If my condition isn't something you've dealt with before, maybe we should get someone else.” Ugh, it still wasn’t great, but I at least didn’t sound like a scared kitten.

  My mother clicks her tongue and gres daggers at me, but I do my best to ignore her.

  Ms. Mikado's smile never falters as she types.

  “I haven't taught someone with your specific condition before.”

  She gives me a pyful wink before continuing.

  “But don't worry, I'm gonna do great! I spent the weekend thinking about how I would approach this and talked it over with some of my colleagues too.”

  I continue pretending to be confident as I say, “Wouldn't one of those colleagues just be better if you haven't taught someone like me?”

  My mom clicks her tongue again. This time she lightly taps me on the leg and gives me an even more intense look than before. Her jaw is clenched and her eyes are narrowed. My mom’s never hit me before. Or even looked like she was about to. But right now I think she’s pretty damn close.

  Ms. Mikado starts to type. She's still smiling, but her eyes are less pyful, and more serious.

  I wanted her to stop smiling so much, but now I feel like a jerk for causing her to look a little less happy. I…probably went too far.

  “I think I will do a very good job. But if you disagree once we get started, we can talk about that.”

  She makes eye contact with me, but I frantically look away, feeling embarrassed for my behavior.

  She's annoying, sure. And she makes me very nervous. The first and only other time I was immediately attracted to a girl that I met, it did not end well. So it's tempting to just…get someone else where that's not a problem.

  But I should give her a chance at least. Besides, she’s so annoying that it’s not like I’m going to fall for her or anything.

  I'm brought out of my head when my mom cps me on the shoulder and looks at me with raised eyebrows. She subtly tilts her head in Ms. Mikado’s direction. I know what she wants me to do. I do my best to give her a look that says, ‘I was gonna do it anyway!’

  I quietly say, “I-I'm sorry. I shouldn’t h-have started questioning you before we’ve even started. I'm just…um…nervous.”

  Ms. Mikado smiles at me, her eyes become pyful again, and she waves her hand dismissively before typing,

  “It's okay. I know that this is all very stressful for you. It makes sense that you’re worried about my experience and stuff.”

  She gives me what must be the fourth pyful wink of the st hour and a half before typing,

  “This probably won’t be the st time you get frustrated with me. It’s part of learning. But I promise I’m really really good! And that you’ll pick up sign nguage really well with my help!”

  I nod and bow my head a little.

  She's more mature than she seems at first. And I'm more of a child than I think I am.

  I look back up when I hear typing again.

  “Anyway, I was just taking one st minute to think about how the lesson pn might be a little different in your situation.”

  “B-but isn't sign nguage the same for everyone?”

  She nods and types,

  “It is, yes. But how I teach it depends on you. There are lots of different kinds of hearing impairment. I was just taking a sec to confirm whether what I was pnning was best for you!”

  I nod, “N-now I’m curious – what makes my situation different than most?”

  “You can speak perfectly. That means you will have no problem being understood by others, only understanding others. So we need to focus the most on helping you understand others. And that’s where lipreading comes in.”

  “D-does that mean we'll spend more time on lipreading than sign nguage?”

  Ms. Mikado shakes her head without hesitation and types a new message.

  “Problem is, lip reading isn’t perfect! It's a useful tool to use to help you understand things better, but not one that will let you understand everything. Or even close to it. We’ll talk about it more ter today. Point is, normally lipreading is something I wait a little while to do, but I think we should get started with it sooner.”

  "Oh. Okay then. You're the expert.”

  She really is. Clearly. Just because she's a goofy airhead doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing.

  She gives me another wink and then her smile gets even wider, which I didn't think was possible. Her smile now is so warm and bright that it makes it look like her face was only neutral before.

  She might always smile, but I'm already picking up on there being a range of DIFFERENT smiles.

  She types,

  “This first week, we'll do 3 hours of sign nguage, and then 1 hour of lip reading. We'll have a 10 minute break every hour, and a 30 minute break for lunch. Does that work for both of you?”

  After my mom and I both agree she types,

  “This week, we will learn how to sign all 46 Kana. Once you know them all, you can sign almost anything by spelling it out! We're going to start with our names.”

  Ms. Mikado opens up PowerPoint and springs up from her chair looking very excited. A sideshow starts, and we make our way through the kana slowly, but surely.

  The whole time, I feel strange looking at her so much. Like I'm leering at her or something. And I worry she can tell I think she's pretty just from how I'm looking at her. But I repeatedly tell myself I have to so that I can learn how to sign each kana. I can’t very well learn sign nguage if I’m not looking at my teacher when she is showing us how to do the signs.

  A few times when we make eye contact I quickly look away. I'm bad at eye contact in general, but with her it's really hard.

  …

  It's time for our lunch break.

  After practicing the kana, my mom and I learned how to spell out our names. And how to ask someone what their name is. There's going to be a lot of rote memorization for me to get this down all the way. But this intensive css will certainly help. I'm going to constantly go through the kana until I get them right. It isn't exactly efficient, but Ms. Mikado is right, once you know those, you can spell out almost anything.

  It's also good that this intensive course will let me reinforce everything on an almost daily basis.

  I'm looking forward to giving my mind a break, though. I'm tired from learning, but also tired of Ms. Mikado. She seems to have limitless energy, and it makes me feel like I constantly have to be ‘on.’ Throw in the fact that I'm constantly anxious around her for other reasons, and it's exhausting for me.

  I might spend lunch up in my room wrapped in my bnket to recharge my batteries. I bet my cat, Haru, is up there. Normally she’d be downstairs with us, but she's been hiding since Ms. Mikado got here.

  She has the right idea. I'd hide from her too if I could. Don't worry Haru, I'll be there soon.

  Just as I'm about to announce my pns, I notice my mom and Ms. Mikado are talking about something.

  They are both smiling and nodding a lot. Times like these make it clear how badly I need to learn sign nguage.

  They give each other one st smile and nod and then my mom approaches me. She makes like she is holding chopsticks and moving them to her mouth, and points to each of us. Ms. Mikado is wearing a huge smile and nodding enthusiastically.

  So much for recharging my batteries. Sorry, Haru.

  When I follow the two to the kitchen, I'm surprised when my mom gets some containers of food out of the fridge. I hadn't realized she pnned for this. She must have gotten up early. I shouldn’t be surprised though, that’s pretty typical of my mom.

  My mouth starts to water at the sight. She makes some amazing lunches, and I haven't enjoyed them since I got hurt.

  I mentally cross my fingers hoping for one dish in particur. We all sit down to eat. I make sure to sit far from Ms. Mikado so I don't have to look at her too much.

  When I open my lunch, I am very happy to find the pork cutlet I was craving. Her breading has this amazing crunchy consistency and just enough of a soy sauce taste.

  There's also a rice ball and some pickled vegetables.

  But I’m a brat and I kind of wish this thing was just stuffed full of pork cutlets.

  I really, really love meat. Like, probably a little too much. It can definitely improve my mood significantly.

  My mom and Ms. Mikado start chatting. I find that I'm relieved that I don't have to take part in the conversation. I pull the hood up on the ratty old hoodie I always wear, and dig into the pork cutlet and tune the two of them out.

  Well, my hoodie is kind of like a bnket. I can recharge this way I guess. It would still be nicer to be in my bed with Haru, though.

  I close my eyes and let my mind go bnk and just enjoy my meal.

  I’m brought out of my reverie by a tap on my shoulder. I turn to see a smiling Ms. Mikado right next to me.

  I let out a high-pitched “Eep!” and drop my chopsticks.

  I feel my cheeks flush, embarrassed that I made such a ridiculous noise and that I was startled in the first pce. But I really didn't expect her to be so close to me.

  She smells good. Like…some sweet subtle floral scent. I don't know enough about flowers to identify it though.

  She apologizes with her eyes and then her gaze lingers on me for a moment. She holds up a finger before pulling out her ptop. She types,

  “I have some voice recognition software. I haven't tried it, but it might help right now!”

  I'm tempted to tell her I was happy not being a part of things and she shouldn't waste her time. But before I can she opens up a program.

  It mostly looks like a bnk word document, but then Ms. Mikado says something, and words appear on the screen about a second ter.

  “Test, test, test.”

  She pats me on the shoulder and goes back to talking with my mom.

  “Dish it work?”

  “I think sew.”

  Well, it's better than nothing, I guess. I'd rather be staring into space and eating, though.

  I look over at my mom and the smiling Ms. Mikado, who gives me a questioning thumbs up. I respond with an affirmative one.

  Ugh, it was nice of her to set this up. A normal person would have felt left out. I'm just…not normal. But that's not her fault, I guess. She is trying to help.

  “Thank you. I can um…follow along a little better now.”

  My mom says something so I look at the screen,

  “That's grape! May bee we should git that pro gram two."

  I chuckle, “Yeah, maybe.”

  …

  We're back in the living room after lunch. It's time for an hour of lip reading.

  Ms. Mikado types,

  “Today, we're just going to talk about the basics of lip reading.”

  She looks at my mom and continues to type,

  “And, how you can speak so that you can make it easier on Reina.”

  My mom nods with a smile.

  So, just the theory today. I suppose that makes sense. I was a little worried that my mom would be wasting time for this, since she doesn't actually need to know how to lip read. She's only learning sign nguage to communicate with me, and she can understand speech. So she doesn't need to read lips.

  But I also really, really, really, really don't want to be alone with Ms. Mikado, so I didn't say anything.

  Now I don't feel bad about that.

  Ms. Mikado opens up another slide show that says,

  “Reading Lips in Japanese “

  The first slide says, “Lipreading is less useful in Japanese than in most nguages. :(“

  Leave it to her to use an emoticon.

  “Wh-why is that?”

  Ms. Mikado gives me a wink and moves to the next slide.

  “We use very few consonants that use the lips.”

  She points at her own lips, which makes me extra embarrassed so I look away. But then I hear a loud popping sound. Almost like someone was using a fly swatter. I look back up at her, and realize that she must have snapped her fingers.

  How does anyone snap that loudly?

  She points at her lips again. My instinct is once again to look away, but clearly she wants me to watch. So I grit my teeth and look at her very soft-looking, full lips.

  Then she says, “Bzbzbzbzbzbjzbzb bzbzbzbzbzbjzbzbz bzbzbzbzbzj.”

  Even though I have no idea what she said, I'm very surprised that she spoke as long as she did and her lips only moved maybe two times. I can already see what she means.

  “Wh-what did you say?”

  She walks back over to the computer and types,

  “It has been very nice to meet you, Reina. I can tell you will be a good student. :)” (Kyo wa aete yokatta Reina-san. Kimi wa kitto yo gakusei ni naru desho.)

  She winks at me when she finishes typing.

  You used an emoticon AND you winked!? Just like…pick one.

  I ignore her wink and move my own lips to the words she typed.

  ‘Kimi’ and ‘wa’ are the only words that really use the lips in two sentences using lots of common words.

  My discouragement must show on my face.

  Ms. Mikado waves her hands and gives me an encouraging smile before moving on to the next slide.

  “On the bright side, we only have four consonant sounds to learn to recognize! :)”

  Well. I guess that's true. But how useful can this really be?

  After that, Ms. Mikado spends the first lesson telling my mom what she can do to make things easier for me. Like speaking slowly, moving her lips when signing, making sure she is in good lighting, and avoiding growing any facial hair (the two of them shared a ugh about that st one while I was rolling my eyes).

  …

  I breathe a sigh of relief as I hear the door close. Ms. Mikado just left and I'm utterly exhausted. My mom and I just sat down around the table and I'm eating an extra pork cutlet she set aside for me as a snack.

  It tastes way too good for me to feel too embarrassed that my mom makes my lunches and snacks even though I am well into adulthood. And no, this isn't just something she is doing because I got hurt. It's the norm. I've never learned how to cook myself. My mom is always throwing delicious food my way, so there isn't much motivation.

  My mom writes on the notepad she now always carries around, and holds it up to me.

  So, what did you think?

  I sigh, “She's alright. Super annoying though. It's going to be tough being around her so much.”

  Of course, half the reason is because she's so freaking pretty I have a hard time looking at her.

  But my mom doesn't need to know that.

  My mom knows I'm gay, mind you. Ever since middle school. And she's very supportive.

  But that doesn't make it any less embarrassing to tell her about this little crush of mine.

  My mom clicks her tongue, frowns at me and shakes her head and starts writing.

  She didn't used to click her tongue so much. I think she's adapted a new way to express frustration with me now that I can't understand her words. It's…kind of sweet, in an annoying way.

  I sigh, “You don't have to write anything. I heard your tongue click. I know you're mad I'm being so negative about her and want to scold me for being a jerk at the start.”

  My mom looks back up at me and nods.

  I sigh and close my eyes while I massage my temples. I have a headache. I pretty much always have one ever since I woke up in the hospital, although it's usually very minor. Just kind of an annoyance in the background. But I probably over did things a little bit today. It was certainly the hardest I have worked since I got hurt.

  I open my eyes and see my mom studying me with concern.

  “I should…probably y down.”

  She nods, still looking a little annoyed with me, although it has softened.

  “Don't worry…I'll give her a fair shake. She is annoying. I wish she'd just…chill out, instead of being all bouncy and happy all the time. It makes me feel uncomfortable. But…I will say, she also really seems to know what she's doing.”

  My mom nods and gives me a soft smile, before I head up to my room for a nap. When I get there, Haru meows and pokes her head out from under my bed.

  She's a small calico that is mostly white, but she has lots of little spshes of bck and orange that almost make it look like someone spilled paint on her. Only her tail is solidly bck and orange. She's a very vocal, needy little thing who doesn't like strangers.

  I wonder sometimes whether my social anxiety rubbed off on her, or if she'd be like this anyway. It definitely makes me feel some kinship with her, either way.

  I ugh and say, “Come on,” before getting in my bed and wrapping myself with my bnket.

  As expected, I hear a meow as Haru jumps on the bed. I extend my arm to let her under the covers, and she sidles up next to me and starts purring.

  If I purred, I'd probably be purring too.

  This is my happy pce. It feels good to be here after such a long, challenging day.

  But I have to do all of that again tomorrow. And almost every day after that. God help me.