Japanese is hard...
Specially blind, but tou-chan has been vigorous with his teaching. Tou-chan came back the day after the argument with kaa-chan, but he had a new mentality. He wanted me to be like any other child even if that meant they had to get creative teaching me. So a month on, I can say some words, and I think it’s way too soon to be able to speak. But when you can’t read, draw, or people watch you get a bit obsessive in something you can try to do. So at night and to my parent’s ears that sound like baby babbling, I practice my vowels to get my tongue and mouth moving and it’s helped a lot.
The first words tou-chan was adamant for me to learn was names. So holding my hands and putting them to his face he repeated ‘tou-chan’ then moved my hands to my face and repeated ‘Mizuki-chan.’ We did this a few times before he went silent but still used my hands to pat him. It took a good hour before I could say it. It first came out as ‘ou-an’ my tongue just refused to make ‘t’s and ‘ch’s sounds. So we took about ten minutes practicing those sounds. And then I said it.
Tou-chan was ecstatic he cheered laughed and clapped. Picking me up, spinning us around shouting ‘Mizuki-chan!’ so ecstatic we sprinted outside. Where are we going? A few minutes running we come to a building that’s quite loud and I can smell food.
“Asami-chan” my tou-chan cheered. The place went silent.
“Tsukiya?” I hear kaa-chan question.
“kore o mite!” he announced bringing me around to sit on a table? “nee Mizuki-chan, Kōen kaa-chan?” Oh, he wants to show me off. Okay!
“Tou-chan!” I cheer with all the might of 3 month old can.
“Mizuki-chan” kaa-ch squealed.
I notice that the place is still quite with some mummers. As kaa-chan gushes over me I hear someone to my left start to walk over to tou-chan and start talking, I hear ‘ nenrei, tensai and shinobu.’ Tou-chan starts to sound angry and short with the man. The man keep pushing ‘shinobu' and ‘mura no tame no.’
“Kanojo wa mōmoku!” tou-chan shouts, I can feel the anger rolling of him. It has me frozen in fear.
“Tsuchi-san” a firm voice calls out. “Anata wa ochitsuku hitsuyō ga arimasu. Anata wa anata no kazoku o kowagara seta.” Whatever he said instantly calmed down my tou-chan and I unfroze straight away, but the feeling had been too much that my small body couldn’t take it that I started to cry.
“Nara-sama, arigatōgozaimasu” my kaa-chan bows with me cuddled in tightly to her chest.
“Sama wa hitsuyō arimasen, anata was watashi o nanidoshi mo shitte imasu.” He replies, sounding quite bored. “Inoichi” he calls to the man that has angered my tou-chan but then quietly talks to him.
“Asmai-san” another voice calls out. He has a soft calming voice “Īdesu ka?”
“Mochiron Chōza-san,” she said with a warmness in her tone. Shifting me about she passes me over into some giant arms. He smells nice. A lot like food and he just feels so calm, but buzz that comes of him is like a soft lullaby hum. Each person has a buzz. Even though kaa-chan is barely there, she still quietly buzzes. But this guy. He has such a profound present even though he keeps his buzz pulled in, it still hums clearly.
“Kanojo wa utsukushī” he mummers “kanojo no me?” he questions, I can feel the shift in the breeze of him turning his head towards my kaa-chan. “Karera wa utsukushīdesu” he declares strongly passing me back over.
“Arigatōgozaimasu” kaa-chan say so softly, but with so much love in her voice as I feel her hum so proudly.
They talk for a little bit longer something about ‘pureidēto' where the other two men interject and sound like they like the idea. Tou-chan still sounds a but short with them and a bit reluctant to agree but kaa- chan says something that makes him agree. As they leave. The man who calmed tou-chan down says something.
“Mōmoku ni natte mo kanojo no seikatsu wa tomarimasen. Kanojo wa nanika o suru koto ga dekinaito kanojo ni iwanaide kudasai. Kanojo wa nani demo dekiru to kanojo ni itte kudasai.”
***
After that day, my parent were both into letting me try anything, though I could still feel them hovering over very closely. Tou-san had started doing little exercise with my legs and arms, just bending them up and down, stretching out the movements. He would do this for ten minutes every morning whilst saying the words for arm and legs and getting me to repeat them. I have started crawling and trying to explore my surroundings. It’s going quite well. Had a few crashes and bumps on my head. That buzz always lets me know where my parents are, it’s like a flashing light always going off.
But since that day, I feel like they are trying hide me away. I haven’t left the house, and it’s always one of them leaving for work and coming back grumbling about ‘Yamanaka-san’ and ‘pureidēto'.
Pureidēto I’ve learnt means playdate. So I’m quite hurt that they don’t want me to play with other children. Wouldn’t that help me grow quicker? Another kid at this age won’t care I’m blind and want to just babble away at me. And it’ll give me a better gist on how to act like a baby. And stop being a creepy super-smart baby. And I kind of just want to make friends. I feel a bit lonely. Tou-chan and Kaa-chan have only been more focused on learning to talk and being safe while moving about. There’s praise, but they’ve just stopped rambling away at me and more focus on touching things and repeating what they are.
Sure, my vocabulary is going well, and some words now are automatically translating in my head, that I feel soon that Japanese will sound just like English. But I just want some days off where I can only play and have fun. Not all about learning. I want to explore outside. But I don’t think they’ll let me till I can walk.
***
By the time my first Birthday comes around. I’m fluent in understanding Japanese. Colours are hard but from knowing them in my old life, it has helped a lot with learning the words. They were a bit weary with teaching me them, cause they felt that it wasn’t fair to know them if I could never see them. But I really wanted to know what I looked like. I’m picturing my old self, but if I’m in Japan, surely I won’t look anything like I did before.
So we had a full month just learning colours and learning what colours the house was decorated in, what kaa-chan puts me in. Cutlery, flowers, pillows you name it. It was repeat the object and this is it’s colour.
On my birthday day I finally have two questions I want to ask and feel that the ripe age of one that it’ll be okay to know. They’re normal questions and normal thing to know and a thing to do.
It then came to the first scary question.
“Tou-chan? What do I look like?”
I could hear the sharp intake of his breath and the sad hum of his buzz. I understand it hurts them that I can’t see, but it be nicer if they hid how they felt about it more.
“ne, Mizuki-chan, why do you want to know?” he sounds tense? Is there something wrong with how I look. I just want my colourings. How to picture myself. I picture everyone at the moment from their buzz and smell. But I can’t really tell what I smell like and it feels like my buzz does an echo. It bonuses of over buzzes.
“I, I just want to know what colours I am...” he relaxes at the word colours, but I don’t understand why he’s so tense about that question.
“No one has said anything to you about your eyes, have they?” I’m blind why would I care about what they actually look like. Unless they are super creepy and they’ll scare people?
“What people. I only ever see you and kaa-chan” I huff because I really do want to get to meet more people and only person to comment on my eye and the only other person to hold me was Chōza-san and I remember he told kaa-chan that my eyes are beautiful. But I won’t tell tou-chan about that as I shouldn’t even really remember that.
“Mizuki-chan, come here.” I kick my feet as I shuffle towards him. I pause suddenly as I feel his buzz spike with mischief and the next thing I know his arms shot out and grab me, throwing me in the air and catching me, laying me down on the grass as he tickles me everywhere. “ aw, don’t huff pup, I want you to know what you look like, I just don’t want you to care what people will think.”
“I can’t see what I look like, so I’ll never care what people think. But I will care how people act. thats the only thing I can base people on.” tou-chan nods his head along with me, humming at what I say.
“Good girl, you are going to have to pick up on voice tones more, as you can’t see body language. Don’t always take what people say as truth. You’ll need to read underneath it. But that’s a lesson for another day. And who am I to reject the birthday girls wishes!” he plops me on his lap, playing with my chin-length hair. “ Mizuki-chan is beautiful, like a fairy tale Princess” he exclaimed exaggeratedly.
“Tou-chan stop being silly!” giggling at his silliness. “I want to really know what I look like”
Humming he rest his chin on top of my head. “your hair is curly, rest just at your chin and it’s already super thick as you know from your morning brushing-” that hurts so much. “it very dark, shiny black. Same colour as my own, but same texture as kaa-chan. You have chubby, baby pink cheeks, that I just want to pinch alll the time” he smushes my face in. “ you’ve got big round eyes, surrounded by long thick eyelashes that your kaa-chan is so jealous of. I can see these eyes turning into your ultimate weapon. Weirdly glad you can’t practice in the mirror to train that look” he drift off quietly
“What look?” I think I have a good idea what look.
“You don’t need to know yet” he pats my head as I pout. “ what else do you look like. You have very light skin, but that’s probably tou-chan fault at not letting you out into the sun too long. But Best way to describe you in one is as a breakable doll.”
Probably why they’re so protective, I look delicate and breakable. But I’m adorable.
“Tou-chan? What colour are my eyes?”
“They are your most striking feature. Your eyes look bigger than the average eyes, as yours only have a tiny bit of white showing. Whilst the iris overtakes your eye in a black colour, but grey, silver dots and mist cover them making your eyes look like the night sky. They are mesmerizing to look at.”
My eyes sound beautiful, and it’s horrible that I’ll never get to see them but they sound like something I’ve seen before, but it only happens in blind animals. Humans normally look like there normal eyes or they get covered in a grey/blue fog like texture. Zeus the blind owl. I remember him getting posted everywhere for a while because it was like you were looking into the galaxy.
“Your natural eye colour probably is my dark brown almost black eyes but shape is your kaa-chan doe eyes.”
So overall, I’m a very traditional, pretty Japanese girl.
“Honestly you look like you could be an Uchiha” he mutters to himself.
What? Uchiha. Oh God. No! I can’t be blind here! How will I survive this world? No, I could just be adding things up in my head. There’s no way I died and ended up being reborn in Naruto. That just doesn’t happen. Ask. I need to ask.
“Uchiha? What’s an Uchiha tou-chan?” please don’t be a founding clan.
“Not what. Who. Mizuki-chan. And they are a big part of our village, they helped found it, they help keep us safe and then need to be treated with kindness. The past year hasn’t treated them nicely and a mean rumours has gone around making people weary of them. But they love the village as much or even more as the rest of the village. So if you ever in trouble and can’t find tou-chan or kaa-chan find a Uchiha.”
Wow, tou-chan really respects them, he’s probably only part of the small minority that does. But it’s been said. I’m in Naruto. I need to learn to protect myself if I want to survive this world. I need to start ‘seeing’ in some way. And being in this world gives me some crazy magic to do. But I can’t forget even in my old world they taught themselves. One documentary that always stuck. The blind boy who clicked his tongue to see, allowing him to ride his skateboard. Sound waves he used. And if I think of another anime, they used vibration. I can do this!
“Oh, you’ll meet a few tonight, at your birthday party.” He announced as he picked me up and walking back in side. “time for lunch!”
What. What party?
***
Thank you for reading
I found out on my full on look into the Japanese language that buraindo is a curtain blind. But I'm keeping it cause I think it's cute and I think all the young children will think she's saying blind wrong and in wrong contexts and just replay back "buraindo?" It feels super cute.
Again thank you for reading.