Not My Bias - An Im Jaebeom (JB) Fanfic

Blue Cookies and Tattoos - Chapter 4

༺ ¤○•° Sharay °•○¤ ༻

I was so tired I fell straight to sleep after dinner. My dreams were chaotic though as I swirled through marsh grass and smell the sweet scent of cinnamon.

I woke up at about 9am to Lunk asking to be let out and started making some oven fried chicken. There was some left over rice too that I thought Jaebeom (yes I got it right this time) would like.

"That smells great!" I heard from just over my shoulder and I nearly jumped through the roof.

"What the...You scared me to death. Don't creep up on me like that."

Jaebeom just smiled in apology and leaned in closer sniffing the chicken. At least I thought he was sniffing the chicken until he said, "Apples and vanilla go well with cinnamon," and turned around and left me just standing there with my mouth open. He had to be messing with me.

After eating and getting ready, we all headed to my dad's office. We explained to Jaebeom that Dad/Sam is an M.D. who works with people who have been severely injured and are in pain. As such, many can't make it into the office in the morning, so he works later in the day and has tons of paperwork to catch up on after the day is done. We also let him know that training would take place in that office. I would be working with him on vocabulary, communication skills, and things like that when I wasn't doing school. My mom would be covering the retraining of his brain to hear the sounds in the English language. Both of us would be addressing spelling, sentence structure, and other "fun" stuff like that.

Daniel had the easy job. He just had to do the school work Mom prepared for him. Since we home school, we school year round but do a lighter schedule in the summer. Since Daniel was just going into 8th grade, he usually was able to crank through all his work quickly and regularly finished in about 4 hours. After that, he was able to then play on Minecraft to his heart's content. As he was already ahead in studies for his age, and read like a maniac, he was given this leeway.

Our days would be long while training Jaebeom, so we brought Lunk with us to the office as well. He loved going to the office, as there were a few patients who gave him all kinds of loving. Leaving him home alone for 8 hours would have been too much for him to bear. We'd done this often enough in the past that he was familiar with the routine.

⊱ ♫ ────── ⋆Jaebeom⋆ ────── ♫ ⊰

Four hours into this testing and I was exhausted. I hadn't worked this hard in ages. My brain felt like my body had during my trainee days. I was frustrated as well, as I knew there were sounds I just couldn't hear clearly. It was like I was listening to the world through water and mud. Trying to grasp the pronunciation was even more of a challenge. My tongue and lips just didn't want to cooperate. I hoped this stage wouldn't last long.

"Don't worry," TJ said as if reading my mind. "In a couple of days you'll wonder why things were ever a challenge. When it comes to your mouth, the brain tells the muscles what to do, just like when you are learning a new dance routine. We'll work one piece at a time and then start putting them all together. It'll go fairly fast. I have confidence, not only in you, but because I have done this with numerous other people as well and it always works. Tomorrow will be a half day, and Sharay will work with you on vocab, conversation, and reading after the formal training session."

We found out that I struggled hearing individual sounds and pronouncing almost everything. I was extra horrible with the sounds /v/, /a/, /z/, /x/, /th/, /sh/, and anything with the /r/ or /l/ sounds in it. I was amazed that there was so much to learn when it came to the placement of my tongue, the shape of my lips, and other nuances necessary to make the words not sound like I had a thick Korean accent.