Communication Confusion!

I was flat on my face, my nose bruised badly against the hard concrete of the balcony overlooking the river. If that wasn’t enough, the side of my jaw hurt from taking the full force of that book.

The pain was really something awful, but the humiliation was the part that kept me from getting back to my feet right away. It was an echo of something in the past I’d long forgotten, and rather stayed there.

Was I upset that this girl just smacked me upside the head for surprising her? One look at her frightened face told me she was more upset than I was. Sure, I was mad, but I couldn’t tell if I was more mad at her or myself. Did she even deserve any blame if she was the one scared by me suddenly appearing?

Of course, maybe she just didn’t know who I was. I would have thought my aura preceded me, but apparently some people were blind to my charm at a first encounter. It had been a long time since I met someone who didn’t already know me, and her being a blond foreigner was a sadly excellent excuse on her part.

“G-goaee!” Strange gibberish escaped her mouth and assaulted my ears. It was such an untamed voice, like she never used it properly. “Goaee! Oiee!”

What was that? Was that English? Nah, couldn’t be! She was clearly saying something, but not clearly enough, clearly.

Aside from her talking in tongues, another thing I couldn’t wrap my head around was that she didn’t even react to me when I was calling out to her before. Normally people would at least turn and see who was speaking to them, but she didn’t even give me the time of day. It was made even worse by the fact that I pulled out some of my best material! How could anyone ignore that? And, let me be clear; I didn’t see every girl as an angel.

I certainly didn’t see her that way after she hit me! No wonder she fell out of heaven… They didn’t want her there either!

So what was Blondy’s deal? It was obvious she wasn’t ignoring me on purpose, because she would have turned around at some point before I grabbed her shoulder. And I didn’t see any earbuds, so she didn't have that excuse.

“Adahi o bi-u no o a-amede guemau-u ga,” she barked in her ungraceful tone.

Those words felt like they were on the cusp of evolving into something discernible, but it was just a linguistic mess. The longer they processed in my mind though, I almost could have sworn there was something to it, like she was speaking a scrambled version of Japanese.

“Can you repeat that?” I asked, intrigued to figure out what she was saying.

“Eh…?” she uttered in shock. Her eyes blinked a few times in disbelief. “A-adahi o miyu no o amede guemau…ga.” She blushed and grimaced a bit. Her eye contact was very sporadic, like she couldn’t speak while looking directly at me. Actually, it looked like her eyes were focused on my lips.

“Ada…ata…Atashi…?”

I could only pick up on that word and some of the sentence structure. It was a question, because ga at the end sounded a lot like ka, and that was how basic questions were posed.

And ‘Atashi’ was a childish or cute way to refer to one's self. She might have been saying ‘watashi,’ but I couldn't tell why that didn’t stick as strongly.

I couldn’t figure out any more of what she was saying though, but it looked like she was losing tension fast and actually giving me a more judgmental glare, like scrutinizing a child.

“What’s that look for?” I asked. “You can’t look at me like that when I’m the one hurt here!” I just reminded myself that I had a beat up face. “Oh no…”

I pulled out my phone and–ᴺᴼᵎ ᴵ ᵍᵒᵗ ᵃ ᶜʳᵃᶜᵏ ᵒⁿ ᵐʸ ᵖʰᵒⁿᵉ ʷʰᵉⁿ ᴵ ᶠᵉˡˡᵎ–when I looked at my face in the selfie camera, I looked like I just was in a fist fight. No broken nose, but there was a little blood.

“My beautiful face…” I lamented as I poked the sore bruises, hoping a miraculous touch would heal them away. “Ouch…”

“Maiomu?” her face turned pouty and sad.

“What?” I tilted my head.

“Maiomu?” she pointed to my wounds. “Giu-ugea Imaei oee maai, eo goagai n ehu”

My god, I couldn't understand a word of that alien speak. The poor thing was trying so hard, but nothing was getting through. All I could do was stare at her in bewilderment.

She got frustrated and stomped once, then tapped her fists to her side a few times before taking in a deep breath.

“Ah… Aha!”

Her hands raised up and her fingers posed in front of her, very clearly meant to catch my attention. A series of gestures followed that I’d never seen in person before, but knew very clearly what they were signaling about this girl.

“Sign language…” I uttered in disbelief. “You’re deaf, aren’t you?”

It all became clear then what the problem was. She didn’t respond to me before because she couldn't hear a word of my charming voice.

“Mmm!” she nodded, cutely smiling like there was hope we could form a positive communication link.

Poor thing didn’t know what she was missing out on here without hearing me…

I was initially happy to figure that out, because I believed we had a chance to chat through our conflict, but then reality hit me like a hard-covered journal…

I didn’t know sign language! All those gestures she speedily struck meant absolutely nothing to me. What she lacked in the ability to speak, she more than made up for in dexterity though. Her hands were on point with every single motion as if she’d done this a hundred times, and it was impressive. But I only knew how to talk to people through spoken word, so no matter how good she was, it kinda’ fell on blind eyes.

Was that joke in poor taste?

“I don’t know what you're trying to say,” I admitted with a shrug and earnest smile.

“Uhhhhgg…” she grumbled and glared at me with a deathly stare. “Maka…” her right fingers posed in a double downward, loose finger gun and moved slightly to the left, then into an angled peace sign, also moving to the left.

“You want to kill me for peace?” I tried to interpret.

Now she just looked disappointed.

“Maka…” she said again, shaking her head.

Why did I get the feeling just then she was calling me an idiot? Was she actually trying to say ‘baka?’

“Hey now, that’s not nice,” I asserted with a tilt of my head toward the starry sky. “You shouldn’t go running around calling people above you that, you know?”

She didn’t reply, but thoughtfully pursed her lips like she was trying to figure out what I said.

Something new that bothered me was that she replied to me a few times already. Either she was lying about being deaf, or maybe…

“You can read lips,” I said as I looked at her, which earned me a nod. “So, I have to look at you when I’m talking, right?”

“Mmm,” she nodded. “Maka…”

“Stop calling me stupid!”

Blondy was so frustrating. I never had this much trouble with anyone, and I knew a lot of people. What was I thinking, considering her a potential fateful encounter? If talking to her every day was going to be this much of a chore, count me out of that bad business! But I did feel partly responsible for this mess, and it only seemed right to try and fix it before I left.

“Look, I don’t say this often, because I’m perfect and never mess up…” I took a breath and closed my eyes, ready to draw out a rare set of meaningful words. “But, I’m sorry I scared you.”

She had this blank stare for a moment as if unsure how to reply to me. But slowly it gave way to a crinkled face and curved lips that broke out into a clumsy cackle.

“This is the part where you apologize for smacking me in the face,” I pouted with a critique. “Go on! Praise me for being so humble! I did it first, so you do it next.”

Now she was really laughing in her own chaotic way. It just got me so aggravated that I had to listen to that noise.

“Mou ahha o!” her laughing subsided and she looked at me with a little grin, which slowly faded as well. “Maiomu?”

There wasn’t anything in particular that sounded like an apology, but the new face she was giving seemed apologetic enough. I accepted that.

To be honest, I was ready to write her off as a lost cause. That voice was nothing like I was hoping it would be, nowhere near a respectable level of coordination to match my own. So letting her be was probably for the best.

But part of me couldn’t separate so easily. Maybe it was some instinct flaring up, but this girl didn’t have any situational awareness. What if I had been a total scum bag trying to recruit her into a shady idol camp? That weapon of a book could only protect her for so long.

I looked around and didn’t see anyone else nearby. Was she waiting for somebody here? No, she wouldn’t have immediately gone for a slugging if she was, unless she hated that person.

Wait, did she hate me?

Anyways, I figured it might be a good idea to stick nearby until she got where she needed to go. But first, I needed to know where that was.

“So, what are you doing here alone?” I asked.

She pointed up to the sky, which was still peppered with occasional meteors streaking brightly.

“You’re here for the meteor shower?” I smirked. “They’re pretty great, like me. Speaking of me, are you here because you heard my announcement earlier?”

She looked so disappointed at that question on a whole new level.

“Oh, right. You can’t hear anything.”

I kept passively forgetting that I wasn’t talking to someone who knew what my voice sounded like. It was hard to keep in mind that she was deaf beyond a superficial understanding, especially when she otherwise looked like a normal foreign girl…