Raising a Baby (Open)
Sept 12, 2021 17:08:09 GMT
Post by Clive Shiriki Iliopoulos on Sept 12, 2021 17:08:09 GMT
Even though Clive entered his private school at the beginning of the second semester and the school gave him some leniency due to being a foreigner, he still needed to join a club. He was nervous about losing study time after school, especially since the clubs went on for two hours after every school day and sometimes met on the weekends, so he decided to join the choir club, hoping to improve his pronunciation.
They refused him since the club was too full, and they were preparing for a competition.
Next, he tried the wind ensemble club since he played the flute and some other instruments.
They refused him for the same reason.
After debating between the go, shogi, and tea ceremony clubs (joining the flower arrangement club was too embarrassing), his mother persuaded him to try joining the tea ceremony club next. She hoped he would learn more manners and etiquette there. Since his parents had high positions in their company, they were expected to entertain guests from time to time.
As the door slid open in front of him, revealing a highly traditional room filled with tatami mats, flower arrangements, kettles, utensils, tea caddies, tea whisks, small folded white cloths, larger folded orange or red cloths, portable braziers, ladles, bowls, pitchers, the decorative drawstring pouches he saw around jars in anime, and so on. Everyone wore kimonos and sat on the floor. The well-dressed women inside turned their heads and looked at him.
"S-Sumimasen!" he whimpered, immediately retreating from that alien world and shutting the door.
He checked the sign on the door again.
茶道
Translation: "The way of tea" or "tea ceremony."
This was definitely the right place... Of course, he was late since it took time to find the room itself, but the kanji looked right.
After rubbing his fingers with anxiety, he slowly knocked on the door.
An elderly woman with a bun opened the shoji (sliding paper door) and stared down at him. She didn't speak a lick of English, but they were able to communicate with his clumsy Japanese. She slowly explained how he was to act as a guest of a tea ceremony. As he went through the motions, she corrected him.
A third-year boy served him tea in a skilled manner.
After drinking the tea, the teacher gave him a list of materials he needed to join the club. Although he couldn't understand most of what she was saying, it appeared she was willing to accept him. She said something about wanting more boys to get involved in tea ceremony and something about the world that he struggled to interpret.
Once he introduced himself and asked others to address him as "Shiriki" since his middle name was easier for them to pronounce, she pointed him to a group of students who lined up along the wall, and he sat down next to them to observe things. They whispered shushed words to each other while glancing at him. Although the first semester had passed by, the first-year students were still watching their senpai perform and studying via observation.
Like in his classes, the other students didn't talk to him. He quietly took notes on his own and wrote down important terms to review with Suzuki-san later.
....He also realized that his senpai and he were the only boys in the club, which was a little awkward.
Once his driver brought him home, he raced to his bedroom and shut the door. He had about fifteen minutes in the real world before his tutor arrived. In the digital world, that was an hour or two, maybe?
Changing his shoes and pulling out his smartphone digivice, he awkwardly opened up the digi-port and stepped through it with his backpack.
Clive looked around the Trailmon Terminal nervously. He'd been here to meet Viktoriya and study his Russian with her, but this was his first time coming here on his own.
He adjusted his glasses and walked over to a bench before releasing his baby digimon, a mokumon, from the V-Pet program.
The puff of gray smoke exited the digivice. A spark of flame appeared on her head as she looked around and floated, happy to explore after being stuck in the digivice all day. She made some babbling noises, but he wasn't sure which languages she could understand.
He sat down and carefully began to tell her about his day in Japanese, and she watched his mouth move attentively.
He sighed.
Viktoriya's digimon could speak Russian, Japanese, and English, so why could his only make babbling noises? He heard she could evolve in time, but he wasn't sure how long it would take.
He reached up with his hands, trying to grasp her harmless puff of smoke. She giggled at him and began to drool.