Tsuki! - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

     Saki, Toya, Hattori, and Hikari had to leave the next morning, and aside from Hannah making love to Motoko two more times, the rest of their honeymoon was just the two of them. It went by surprisingly faster than Toshihiro had expected it to, and he suddenly wished that they could stay here forever.

     They were packing to leave when a thought occurred to Toshihiro. His parents weren’t too far from here, and more or less on the way back to Toshihiro’s apartment. Why not go visit them? He located the chalk board, and drew a picture of the two of them getting on the train, and then an arrow pointing to a house that he drew his family in front of.

     Hannah studied the drawing in contemplation. She had met his family at the wedding, of course, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to visit them at a time when she didn’t have access to a translator. Especially since they hadn’t seemed happy to have her as a member of their family.

You’re being silly Hannah! They seemed to get along with daddy very well, and I’m sure they’d love a chance to get to know me. Except that they won’t really get to know me because we don’t speak the same language.

     Toshihiro could tell that Hannah was feeling self-conscious, and he was about to indicate that they wouldn’t go after all when Hannah smiled, and nodded. He tilted his head to ask, Are you sure?

     Hannah nodded again, and that was that.

*******

     They arrived at Toshihiro’s family home just after lunchtime, and he spent some time showing her around the farm as they walked to the house. Toshihiro’s brother spotted them first, and promptly alerted the rest of the family.

     They had walked here from the train station as it wasn’t too far, and because Hannah had wanted to stretch her legs after sitting on the train for so long. They reached the house hungry, and Hannah blushed in embarrassment as her stomach growled loudly.

     Toshihiro hugged his family, and then suggested that he and Hannah get something to eat.

     “Of course Toshihiro, but why are you here?” His mom asked as she led the way to the kitchen.

     “It was a fairly small detour to make on our way back home from our honeymoon,” Toshihiro replied. “And, I wanted you to get to know Hana a little better.”

     His mom nodded as she retrieved food from the refrigerator, and his dad patted him on the back over his sensible decision.

     Hannah smiled at everyone as she sat in a chair, privately surprised that they had a table and chairs rather than the traditional Japanese table without chairs. Toshihiro took the time to tell Hannah each one of his family member’s names, and Hannah stumbled over every one of them.

     Toshihiro chuckled. “She’s nervous, usually she doesn’t have this much trouble pronouncing names.”

     His mom set a plate of food in front of each of them, and Hannah was pleased to see that it was a little bit of rice, a hunk of cheese, a dish containing chicken, and some milk.

Hannah grinned at Toshihiro, and squeezed her hands alternately as if milking a cow.

     “Hana loves milk,” Toshihiro explained.

     “Does she? That’s wonderful,” Toshihiro’s mom smiled. They had a couple of cows on the farm, of course, but they were not a dairy farm. They were more of an orchard, but they had a little bit of everything.

     “Tell me what I’ve missed while I’ve been at college,” Toshihiro prompted as he and Hannah ate their lunch. Hannah slathered her rice with butter, and lightly added some soy sauce to it. Then, she dug into her food with obvious enjoyment.

     Toshihiro made a face at her for buttering her rice, and she giggled softly. She offered him a bite, and he leaned away from it as if to say, “No way!” then he leaned over and accepted the bite.

     Meanwhile, Toshihiro listened as his family talked, and they watched him as he interacted with his wife. Once Toshihiro was full, he pushed his plate towards Hannah, and patted his belly to demonstrate he was full. Hannah happily dished his leftovers onto her plate, added butter, and devoured them.

     After she finished eating, Hannah tugged on Toshihiro’s sleeve, and pointed at her womb. Well, specifically at her bladder, but it’s not like anybody could tell which one she was pointing at, and his brother blushed thinking she might mean something else.

     Toshihiro pointed in the direction of the bathroom, then pointed straight, held up two fingers, and then pointed to the left.

     Hannah nodded, and repeated his gestures, and Toshihiro nodded to indicate that she had it correct. Hannah stood, and left the room.

     “This must be what it’s like to communicate with a deaf person,” his mom remarked.

     Toshihiro shrugged. “Probably.”

     His father looked impressed. “When I saw the way you two looked at each other at your wedding, I understood why you were getting married, but even so, I had misgivings about your marriage. It’s hard enough to make a marriage a success even when you do speak the same language. When you can’t… Well, I imagine that it would be so much harder, but you don’t seem to have any problem communicating at all.”

     “Well, I wouldn’t say that we don’t have any problems communicating, but it is surprisingly easy to understand one another,” Toshihiro stated.

     They all heard the toilet flush, and watched as Hannah came back with her hands cupped around something. She stopped in front of Toshihiro with a mischievous grin, and held her cupped hands in front of him.

     Toshihiro tilted his head to the side as if to ask, “What have you got there?”

Hannah slowly opened her hands to reveal a very large, very ugly spider, and Toshihiro almost screamed. He leaned away from her as far as he could, and Hannah laughed. She tilted her head towards the door to the outside. Do you want me to set this free?

     Toshihiro shook his head emphatically. No, kill it!

     Hannah shifted her head from side to side. All right, if that’s what you really want. She returned to the bathroom, and they heard the toilet flush again, and the sink turn on as Hannah washed her hands.

     Hannah returned to the kitchen once more, and tapped her glass.

     “Can Hannah have more milk, please?” Toshihiro asked.

     “Sure thing,” his mom answered, but it was his sister who volunteered to fill the cup.

     “I’m so glad you were the one to discover the spider, I would have screamed, and waited until it had left to empty my bladder,” his sister informed her, and Hannah smiled in response.

I think I understood about half of that, now if only I had understood the words that would have told me what she is talking about!

     Toshihiro had his hand crawl across the table for a second, pointed to his sister, and pretended to scream. Hannah nodded, and waved her hand as if to say, “Any time.”

     “Hana says, ‘no problem.’ Hana is pretty brave compared to me, I nearly screamed when she showed it to me, and had I discovered it, I would have found something to smash it with. … Well, maybe I would have just left it alone, and did my business outside,” Toshihiro said.

     Hannah snapped her head around suddenly as if searching for something.

     Toshihiro placed a hand on her arm, and she looked at him. She pointed in the direction she had been looking, made an odd pinching motion on her cheeks, and uttered a realistic impression of a cat.

     “Oh, you saw one of the cats. I didn’t realize that you liked cats,” Toshihiro smiled.

     The cat must have heard Hannah imitate him, for he poked his head back into the kitchen, and gave her an appraising look. Hannah smiled, and uttered another realistic meow. She then tugged a small bunch of hairs out of her head, and wiggled them in front of the cat enticingly.

The cat’s interest was piqued, and he approached Hannah’s hair as if he was hunting a mouse. Toshihiro told his family an edited version of how his life had been since he met Hannah as the cat steadily grew closer to Hannah.

     His family listened to him, asking questions now and then, as they watched her and the cat. This particular cat didn’t like anybody, and they were surprised that he came as close to Hannah as he was. Suddenly, the cat jumped up onto Hannah’s lap, and rather than squeal in delight, as they had expected, she stared at him seriously, and held still so that he could smell her.

He smelled her hands, and her shirt, and then her hair, which he even chewed on a bit, and finally, he smelled her face, which made it look as if he was kissing her. Hannah carefully began to stroke him, and when he didn’t protest, she continued to stroke him until her curled up on her lap, and purred.

     “That’s amazing!” Toshihiro’s brother exclaimed. “That cat won’t let anyone touch him!”

     “So, how long are you two staying?” Toshihiro’s father asked.

     Toshihiro looked at Hannah, pointed downwards, and held up one finger. After a moment, he held up two fingers, then three.

     Hannah tilted her head and tapped her lips as she thought about this. She motioned as if she were writing, and Toshihiro handed her the chalkboard from one of his bags.

     Hannah drew a wide building with a clock in the middle top, and then drew a calendar next to it. When do you have to be back for school?

     Toshihiro slid his finger across two weeks, and Hannah gave this some more thought. Suddenly, her cell phone rang. She frowned, wondered why the ringer was on, and answered it.

     “Daddy!”

     “How are you doing, now that you’re finally answering your phone?”

     “I’m wonderful, how are you?” Hannah asked.

     “Oh, well enough, but I miss you terribly. Listen, I’m in Paris France right now, and wondered if you would like to visit me for a couple of days.”

     Hannah inhaled in indecision, and then said, “I can’t daddy, were spending a couple of days or so with Hero’s parents.” She unconsciously shook her head as she said this.

     “Damn, I know how much you love Paris. Well, I am certain that I will be home in four days, how about you come visit me there? That way, it’s still early enough that we don’t have to worry about the flight sending you into early labor, and I can come visit you when the baby is born.”

     “You were serious when you said visit every three months… but it’s only been two weeks since you saw me last,” Hannah reminded him.

     “I know, but I was thinking about how you really shouldn’t travel by plane in your last trimester, and figured this would be better timing.”

     Hannah thought this over, “Hold on a minute.” She tapped on four of the calendar days she had drawn and pointed downwards, then tapped on a couple more days and pointed to the phone.

     “You want to visit your father?” Toshihiro asked incredulously, paling slightly at the thought. He wanted to say no, he’d be too nervous, but then he realized that that was what Hannah wanted to say when he suggested coming here, and nodded reluctantly. Then, a thought occurred to him. He erased the drawing on the board, and quickly sketched a fairly detailed drawing of the world.

Hannah took the board back, erased the world, roughly drew the USA, and placed a dot approximately where her house was located.

     “I’ve never flown anywhere before, I don’t have a passport,” Toshihiro said as he erased Hannah’s drawing and drew a little book, then an arrow to a plane.

     “Hero doesn’t have a passport,” Hannah told her father.

     “Yes he does, more or less, all he has to do is tell the appropriate department at the airport that he has applied for a passport, and needs to have his photo taken to complete it. I took the liberty of having the embassy issue him one so that he couldn’t make any excuses when it came time for you to visit.”

     Hannah pondered how to tell this to Toshihiro. She drew a stick figure in a business suit, and then pointed at the phone. Toshihiro nodded in understanding, and Hannah drew an arrow to a stick figure behind a desk, and then drew an arrow to a little book, pointed at Toshihiro, tapped the little book, and then motioned over her shoulder.

     “You father already got me a passport?!” Toshihiro burst out in disbelief. “How?”

     Hannah shook her head and shrugged.

     “Okay fine. We’ll go to America.” Toshihiro nodded in resignation.

     “Toshihiro says we’ll come visit, but we have to be back in time for him to rest before he returns to school,” Hannah stated firmly.

     “I know. I look forward to seeing you.”

     “Oh, and daddy? Do not buy me a lot of stuff. I won’t be able to bring most of it home with me.”

     Her father sighed. “You never did like buying a lot of things, which is strange because both your mother and I loved to collect things.”

     “I know. I’ll see you in about a week. Love you.”

     “I love you too, and don’t worry about booking a flight home, I’ll send the jet.”

     “Thanks.” Hannah hung up, and squeezed one of Toshihiro’s hands comfortingly. She erased the picture on the board, drew a plane, drew a stick figure that was holding a hand over its stomach, and another over it’s mouth, and then pointed to Toshihiro while tapping the stick figure.

     Toshihiro shrugged, circled the stick figure, shrugged again, and put an x through the plane. I’ve never been on a plane.

     Hannah tapped on her chest, put her hand about two feet off the floor, and flapped her hand to illustrate that it’s no big deal. I’ve flown since I was very little, and never hand any problems.

     Toshihiro nodded. I figured.

     The rest of their stay was much less awkward, and Toshihiro’s family grew to adore Hannah almost as much as he did, and Toshihiro was extremely happy that Hannah didn’t try to jump in bed with his sister. He watched the two of them closely, and decided that Hannah would love to bed his sister, but she must have realized that this would be just about the worst thing she could do at the moment.

     Their stay ended with Hannah hugging everyone, and promising to come visit as soon as she could. Toshihiro was happy that his family had grown attached to Hannah, but watched his brother suspiciously while he hugged her. He hugged her just a bit too tightly, and let his hands brush Hannah’s ass.

Hannah laughed, and turned to Toshihiro while Toshihiro muttered a warning to his brother about next time. His brother had the grace to blush and apologize, and then, it was time for them to go.

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