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Kyuusei Chapter 5: Tekishitsu Part 2

Fri, 19 Oct 2018 10:09:05 +0000

Kyuusei Chapter 5: Tekishitsu Part 2

One of the most commonly used Japanese words in foreign countries is the word sensei. Almost everyone knows what it means, and who to address as such.

America? No different.

"Okay!" said the karate teacher in a British accent, observing Makoto and I. Hinoki had stayed home because he had pitched a fit. A huge fit that caused Mom to threaten him with no squishes for a week. He calmed right down, but, a flying foot broke one of Mom's French vases. So no squishes for a month, and Hinoki cannot spend his allowance so that he could cover some of the cost of repairing the vase.

The teacher bowed at us and invited us onto the matted dojo floors. It was a small place, with one side of the building being matted floors and the other side being chairs for observers.

I glanced at Makoto, who was staring at the teacher with hard eyes. He had bowed quite low, which had meant, in Japan customs at least, that we were worthy of more respect that him. I grinned and leaped onto the mats with Makoto. This meant trouble.

"Please bow, and assume guard stance," Sensei Jones said. I am using Sensei lightly here. He hardly looked like a karate teacher. He bore a resemblance to my homeroom teacher in his belly and arm areas. AKA he didn't have any muscles, only fat.

We quickly bowed, but Jones pushed up down to a low bow.

Makoto cracked. The teacher being a "sensei", bowing wrong, and the Chinese and Japanese décor on the walls seemed to have made him lose his temper.

"Listen, sensei," he said with gritted teeth, "you're doing the bows wrong." He could have pointed out so much more. For example, the canvases on the wall that read in Hirgana where mistakenly referred to as Kanji by the so called Asia-expert who sat in the desk when you first entered the dojo. There is an obvious difference between hirgana and kanji.

Jones smiled. "No, no, no," he said.

"No, it's wrong, in our country-" Makoto began.

"But this isn't your country, is it?" inquired Jones.

"Excuse me, in Japan, a deep bow means deep respect-" I started, trying to explain simply.

"Shush," said Jones, "and show me what you two Asian kids can do. Maybe if you do well, I'll rank you at yellow."

Yellow? First there's white, then there's yellow! The dojo teaches Krav Maga, so surely they wouldn't rank us so low! We are at least at brown or red!

"Anyway, proceed." Jones said.

Makoto proceeded into a round kick, and I dodged and weaved in order to make him miss me. He leaped back as I brought an axe kick to his head (boy am I flexible), and then he preformed a tornado kick right to my stomach. It stung greatly, but I managed to dodge of his other attacks. I got a few palm strikes on him though he said afterwards that I actually did not.

"Stop, stop, stop," said Jones. We stopped, and stood there panting a bit.

"What?" hissed Makoto.

"You two can't be taught here, I teach amateurs," he said.

"Excuses," said Makoto. "We want to be taught here. Or are you saying you're not up to the task?"

'No," Jones said, scared, "I am saying you are too dangerous to teach any more moves! Now, go. Find someone else, just don't come back here."

The parents in the chairs, as well as the kids who took class after us, were all staring and gawking.

As we left, we heard him say, "Bloody Asians. The lot of them, all of them! Can't trust a single Korean or he'll beat you up!"

"...I'm not Korean!" I shouted. "Get your bloody facts straight!!!"

"Shut up, Yumeka, you'll get us in trouble," Makoto said, and seized me by the arm. He marched me out of the place and then pushed me over to my bike. "Get on and let's go."

We rode our bikes to the bookstore, which was the halfway point between home and the dojo. I punched in Mom's number on Makoto's small phone to tell her what had happened because, according to Makoto, she was less likely to get mad at me. Frankly, I expected the opposite.

"Hey, akachan," said Mom. I could hear her washing dishes. "How'd it go?" Clank, clank, clank, splash.

"Uh... we got rejected."

"WHAT?"

"...yeah," I said. Makoto made wild hand motions to me out of the corner of my eye. "The teacher said he couldn't teach us cuz we were too dangerous?"

"Too dangerous?" she said, then swore. Loudly.

"Mommy, don't swear!" Hinoki said in the background.

"Yumeka, lemme talk to your brother. Anyway, don't you have somewhere to be this afternoon?" Mom asked.

"Michael wanted to meet me at the park we went to the other day," I said.

"Okay, just be back by... dinner, okay? Maybe bring him if his parents say okay."

Bring John Michael? Ugh... Mom... "Fine," I said.

I handed the phone to Makoto. "See you," I said, hasty to get away before Mom started yelling so loudly at Makoto that speaker phone would have been useless and the speakers would have gone out. Again. Kid me not, Mom has damaged our phones by screaming, which has earned her the nickname Banshee in our family.

I rode off down the road, arriving at the park. I noticed lots of bikes in the rack: I had trouble finding a space. When I did and ran off to the park to find John Michael, I realized tons of kids were there, lots of them from school.

"Yumeka!" shouted John Michael. I looked around, he had Roxy following him quite closely. So close that if John Michael had stopped, she would have crashed into him.

"Why all these kids?" I asked.

'I invited them to meet ya!!!" said John Michael.

"Oh..." I do not do well in crowds.

Roxy smiled for the first time. "I am from the country of Scotland," she said in a thick accent. Now I know why she only spoke to me once, she didn't want anyone to heard her accent. She must have practiced saying 'My name is Roxy' quite a lot to make it sound American-standard normal.

I smiled slightly. "Cool," I said.

John Michael smiled wider and beckoned some friends over. I hadn't seen the bullies for days now, and I was grateful, until I saw them hanging around the bike rack, hovering over my light green mountain bike.

They had spray cans and markers.

"What are you doing?!" I shouted at them. They scurried off, but I had already jumped the fence and skidded to my bike.

They had scrawled words all over it. "Asian" was one, then 'Korean', along with words I dare not mention in text. Really bad offensive words, along with marker scribbles to create crude drawings. I screamed at them but they had already ran off.

"What is it?" asked John Michael, chasing after me. I pointed and he stared.

"I need to go," I said quickly, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Hey, I'll come with you," he said.

"No," I said, leaping on my bike and speeding off before he could say another word. I coasted down the hill to my house in silence, and stowed my bike away in the garage, thinking about all the humiliation that would happen the next time I rode my bike to school.

I received tons of texts from John Michael that I didn't check.

Just stop.

Stop!

First the bullies on the first day, the racism of the sensei, and down the bullies again. I know some people go through some much more, but I'm already at the breaking point.

Just give me a solution. An easy fix.

But there are never easy fixes, are there?

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Sorry to end this chapter on a depressing note, and sorry it is shorter! I will not be able to write over the weekend, so look forward to Monday! Also, enjoy and I will cont. soon!

Kyuusei Japanese Translations Pt2-Chap2

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:20:47 +0000

"Tekishitsu" means "error made by an enemy".

"Sofubo" means "grandparents".

"Akachan" means "baby".

Kyuusei Chapter 2: Tekishitsu

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 10:12:21 +0000

Kyuusei Chapter 2: Tekishitsu

"Thank you kindly, Yu-meh-la," said the teacher, his small, fat little face twisting as his tongue wrestled with the strange word. He looked at me as if for help, and I facepalmed in my head. He had said it right the first few times! What's so hard about saying a name?! But maybe he only imitated my mother when she called me Yumeka before leaving and before I introduced myself.

"It's Yumeka," I said squeakily.

"Would you mind if I just called you Yuma?" he said, as if scared I would refuse. Listen, Teach, I can't kick you without getting in trouble, so calm down.

I had half a mind to scream because Yumeka is such a simple name to say. Yume-e-ka. Why can't you say that?! I want to be called Yumeka, or even Ms. Haruesaki, but NOT a cheap nickname just because you won't try!

"Sure."

Americans are so stupid. The homeroom teacher smiled a big chesire smile as if to win me over and said, "Very well, Yuma. Please take your seat" -he gestured to a desk very close to his own- "and let me introduce myself."

I sat down right between a guy and a girl. The guy was tall and lean and had a hint of muscle on his arms, and the girl was thin- like, unhealthy thin- and had huge glasses. They both smiled, but not in a genuine way. It was more forced, like they had lost all hope in newcomers.

"I am Mr. Sharp," said the teacher happily. He stood up and I got the first good look at him. He was still fat and sweaty, but I noticed that he had pinstripe pants and a thin white shirt that were painstakingly tight. He had black hair, green eyes, and a charming-if not annoying-demeanor.

"Hello, Mr. Sharp," said all the students in a drone. I heard a few of the guys in the back laugh. "Hello, Yuma," the class said to me. Some actually said Yumeka, while others tried mid sentence and switched to Yuma once they failed to say it correctly.

Class began.

"Hi, I'm Roxy," said the girl beside me, the one with glasses, and I turned towards her.

"You don't look like one," I said, and she grinned, pushing her glasses up. "Why are you so thin?" she smiled, and went silent, opening her math textbook as I asked, realizing how rude my inquiry sounded.

"It's a mystery," said the boy. "The name's John!" he said, shaking my hand. He had feathery brown hair and the brightest blue eyes, which added to his good-natured and well-refined appearance. "I know, my name's plain, right?" he grinned, "I have friends call me Michael, cuz it's my middle name, so maybe you can call me that too."

"Okay, but that means you are basically inviting me to be your friend," I said.

He nodded. "Sure. Never had a cute little Jap as a friend before," he said.

"And you never will," I said, angered by the comment, and turned away sharply to face the teacher. 'Cute little Jap'? Really? Do not comment on my height, or anything! Though I am honored he didn't call me Chinese or Korean, it's just wrong to say that to someone.

"Hey," he said, "I'm sorry, okay?! I know that sounded racist-"

"Don't be," I cut him off.

We sat in silence the rest of the class. Mr. Sharp taught us all the core subjects, such as math, science, history, and English. Then he sent us off to the more enjoyable subjects that were taught by Mr. Franklin (reading), Ms. Norbert (music), Mr. and Mrs. Ashton (health), and Mr. Petson (art). I didn't enjoy reading very much because Mr. Frankin droned on and on, but art was cool though I had no talent in the drawing Mr. Petson was teaching.

"Mr. Petson," I said, raising my hand, "do you teach how to draw anime here?" Anything to make me feel at home. Anything. Even if it's cartoons.

"Huh-? Oh, Ms. Haruesaki," he said, and I felt thrilled he could say my name correctly. You just may become my favorite teacher, Petson! He was tall and williowly, like a tree, and silver grey like one too, he was maybe in his early 70s. "I hold after-class tutoring tailored for different drawing styles, but no, I do not teach anime in class."

"Is there a section on it?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yes, later on in May. It is one of the last sections," he said, smiling. "You have something to look forward to, no?"

I nodded and he grinned. "Back to the lesson at hand," he said, and began to draw swiftly on his blackboard, sketching away a vase of white chalk, pointing out shadows and light.

Art was the last subject, then there was a 30 minute break before we were let out. Several people left during this time, but lots of people stayed. Curious, I did too.

"Why are you here?" asked John Michael. He didn't say it meanly but like a question he was curious about.

I ignored him.

He walked up to me, and began poking my shoulder. He earned "the most immature 15 year old in the class" label from me as soon as he began doing that. After about 5 minutes of his prodding, which got sharper and quicker the longer I ignored him, I whipped around.

"What?!" I hissed like a snake.

He grinned that annoying grin.

I had half a mind to slap him.

"Soooooo," he said, "why you here?"

As I was about to say it was none of his dang business, the boys from that morning burst into the room. Obviously detention had let out early cuz it was the first day of school. The ringleader spotted me and made a beeline, his minions following like mindless zombies.

"Yumeka, Yumeka, Yumeka," he said, keeping a distance like he thought if he was far away, my short range attacks couldn't get him.

"Shut up, please?" I said, "or I'll give you a bloody nose again."

"Korean, Korean, Korean," the ringleader said, and his friends entered the chant with confidence. I stood up, and the ringleader flinched and his friends slowly faded in their chant as their boss went silent.

"Um, Yumeka," said John Michael.

"What?!" I said loudly.

"You got a message," he said, handing me my powder green-cased phone. "I think it's from your mom."

I glared at the bullies, walked backwards towards the school door, and slipped out as I checked my messages.

MOM
1 new message
Coming to pick you up! See you soon, call me when you can. xoxo Mom(
(Sent at 3:48PM, August 1st)

I groaned and punched in her number. She picked up first ring and I leaned on the school wall, which was brick and red and rough, and began talking to her.

"Hi Mom," I said, "how's it going?" I spoke in English, and, taking my lead, Mom answered in English.

"Your brother is being a little jerk as usual," she said playfully, but I knew she was serious.

"What'd he do this time?"

"Began complaining about wanting to go back to Japan," Mom said. "Got any tips for dealing with him?"

"Mom, you're the parent," I said. "But tell him his big sis feels the same."

"I know, honey, but your dad needs this job. We all need it. Don't worry, we will go back soon to visit your sofubo. 'Kay?" she said in a voice that hinted sadness.

I said, "Okay Mom...", thinking about my cheerful grandparents, who were so sad to see us go. They said that they would visit first chance they got, but we've already been here 3 months.

"Okay! See you in 5 minutes then!"

"I'll be in the school."

"Okay, my little akachan."

"Bye, Mom." I hung up, and went back into the school building. The bullies had left.

John Michael jumped me as soon as I got back inside. "Hello, my little akachan," he said playfully.

"You don't even know what that word means," I said.

"True, what's it mean?"

I stared at him with distaste. Mom danced in and looked at John Michael. "Oh, hello," she said, 'what's your name?"

"Michael," he said, grinning at me.

"You got yourself a friend, Yumeka?" Mom said cheerfully, "I am so proud!!!"

"He's not my frien-"

"I am!" he said, throwing an arm around my shoulders, and squeezing me in a side hug. I growled at him and he said, "Oh, what was that, Yumeka?"

I leaped away, grabbed my mom by the shoulder, and pulled her out of the school and into her small little Toyota; I sat shotgun. "He's not my friend, Mom," I said in Japanese so John Michael couldn't try to eavesdrop.

"Maybe he should, he seemed nice," Mom said.

'UGH," I said, burying my head in my lap. She patted my shoulder.

"I know it's hard," she said.

We drove home in silence. At least I could talk to Dad when I got home. Maybe he could help me somehow.

___________________________________________________

Dairy Entry 1- August 1st

I hate you, John Michael! You are such a little brat and I do NOT want to have anything to do with you! If you ever even LOOK AT ME again I promise I will STUFF your ego down your THROAT!!!

-Yumeka

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Hope you enjoyed and to be cont.!

Links to Chapter 1:https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/34996/kyuusei-chapter-1-hedateru

Link to Chapter 2: https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/35072/kyuusei-chapter-2-tekishitsu

Link to Chapter 3: https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/35077/kyuusei-chapter-3-otousan

Link to chapter 1 translation: https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/35068/kyuusei-japanese-translations-pt1-chap1

Link to chapter 2 translation: https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/35074/kyuusei-japanese-translations-pt2-chap2

Link to chapter 3 translation:https://www.kidzsearch.com/questions/35079/kyuusei-japanese-translations-pt-3-chap3