Language Barriers

by Mayushii

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A/N: Written because I ate waffles today. But of course, the food isn't the main point of this chapter. It's the language. …Actually, I love an-pan and inarizushi too, but I'm definitely not a kitsune. I'm just a girl who likes food… *sweat drops*

STUDY

Kurama stood at the kitchen counter with Shiori, rolling a glob of dough between his hands. He put the dough onto the floury wooden board and flattened it into a circle. Reaching toward a large metal bowl, he took a spoonful of anko and dropped the sticky red jam into the center of the dough. Then, unable to resist, he licked some of the cold jam from the spoon.

"Shuichi!" Shiori laughed as her son blushed guiltily. "Enough already! We won't have any left for the an-pan."

"Sorry," Kurama offered a sheepish smile. "I'll go clean it."

He crossed the kitchen and went to wash the spoon. They had spent the entire weekend on this project; they had cooked the jam last night and left it to chill in the fridge, and they had passed most of the afternoon making the dough. Of course, their efforts would be wasted if Kurama ate all of the jam.

Shiori shook her head, smiling fondly as she continued flattening her dough. Kurama replaced the newly clean spoon in the jam bowl, and returned to the roll he was making. Folding up the corners of the dough, he sealed the jam inside. He glanced at the squareish bun and then at his mother.

"What are you doing?" Kurama asked. Shiori was flattening dough all over her plastic cutting board, covering the entire surface.

"Have you ever made filo?" Kurama shook his head, and Shiori took a knife from the drawer, cutting the dough into long strips. "Well, instead of doing all that," she motioned at Kurama's rolls, "you can fold the dough into triangles. It's easier, and it folds up much more neatly."

Shiori took the spoon and dropped a generous dollop of jam onto the corner of one of the dough strips. She folded the corner over so that it touched the other side of the strip, then pinched the edges shut and cut the pocket of dough away. Kurama blinked as Shiori handed him the neatly-folded triangle.

"See? Very easy."

Kurama tried his hand at it, finding it wasn't too hard once he knew how to do it. They quickly finished making the rolls.

"Well, that's it! Now we just let them rise for an hour, and then we can put them in the oven." Shiori smiled, wiping away a bit of sweat from her forehead and streaking flour over her face. "What time is your friend coming over?"

"I thought he said five," Kurama said, glancing at the clock. It read fifteen past now. "I wonder where he is…"

"Maybe traffic was bad?" Shiori suggested. Kurama shook his head slowly. Then his sharp ears picked up a faint sound. He wandered out of the kitchen and down the hall, following the increasingly louder racket. It sounded like knocking… Yelping, Kurama hurried to the foyer and nearly threw open the front door.

Hiei looked up at him, one eye squinted critically.

"Your bell is broken," Hiei informed him in a flat voice.

"Ah—! I'm sorry, Hiei! I didn't know!"

"Hn! Moron youko," Hiei snorted loudly, obviously intending the word to be offensive. Shiori entered the foyer.

"Oh, good afternoon! You are Hiei-kun, right? Hajimemashite," Shiori said, bowing at the waist. "Minamino Shiori to moushimasu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." Hiei glanced at Kurama skeptically and received a nervous, pleading look in return.

"Ah, Kaasan, Hiei isn't from Japan," Kurama explained quickly when Hiei flatly refused to introduce himself. "He's not very familiar with the customs here." Kurama placed a hand on Hiei's back, pushing lightly. "Hiei, you say 'Hajimemashite' when you're meeting someone for the first time. When you've finished introducing yourself, you say 'Yoroshiku onegaishimasu' in the hope that you will be looked upon favorably."

Hiei saw Kurama's prodding look and sighed.

"Hajimemashite. Hiei da—desu," Hiei muttered. He ducked his head in a very, very short bow. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

"Ah, your Japanese is very good, isn't it?" Shiori said eagerly.

"Not really," Hiei said flatly. Modern Japanese and the Makai languages had the same roots, but the two dialects he had grown up with (East Makai and Makai Common) had been isolated from Japan since the end of the eighteenth century. Hiei barely knew how to use the -masu form, it was so rare in Makai, and neither of the dialects he knew used humble form at all.

"Where are you from?" Shiori asked.

"Alaric." Shiori stared in confusion, and Kurama's smile became almost obviously painful.

"It's, ah, it's in Europe," Kurama lied. "Very small town. Not a lot of people know where it is, right Hiei?"

"It's bigger than the Asian mainland."

"Isn't he funny?" Kurama let out a panicky laugh, stomping on Hiei's foot to shut him up. The demon cussed in Makai Common; Shiori stared and Kurama sweatdropped.

"Erm… Well! We have to clean up in the kitchen, but then shall we have lunch?" Shiori said abruptly.

"Yes!" Kurama said quickly, grateful for the change in subject. Hiei gave him an annoyed look.

The three went back to the kitchen, Hiei taking a seat on a stool and watching as Kurama and Shiori cleaned up the mess they had made. Kurama looked pathetically at the metal bowl which still had dribbles of jam inside of it. Shiori shook her head in mock exasperation.

"Oh, all right." Kurama almost purred and dipped his finger into the bowl, wiping away some of the jam and slurping on it happily. Hiei let out a loud snort, which caught Shiori's attention; Shiori gave him an amused smile, and for the first time in his life Hiei found himself in wholehearted agreement with a human.

After they had cleaned up, Kurama and Shiori brought Hiei to a restaurant a few streets over. They were seated at a booth, and they spent only a minute looking at the menus before a waiter came to greet them.

"What can I get for you?" the waiter asked, his notepad at the ready.

"Hm, the shrimp tempura looks good… And melon tea," Shiori decided. Hiei glanced at the menu, his eyes casually skimming over the menu as if he did this sort of thing every day, and then turned to Kurama and said in Makai Common that he had no idea what he was looking at. Kurama nearly fell out of his seat. Hiei couldn't read Japanese!

"Fine, just tell me which one is the ketsuheki-giyuuniku," Hiei said, annoyed.

"Erm, I don't think they serve that here," Kurama laughed.

"Oh, what is ketsuheki-giyuuniku?" Shiori asked curiously. Hiei turned, looking slightly confused now, and Kurama let out a weak giggle.

"It's, ah, it's beef boiled in brandy and served with vegetable fried rice piled on top," Kurama said helplessly. Brandy, yes of course.

"We can special order that if you want," the waiter said. He jotted it down.

"And for you, s—"

"Inarizushi," Kurama said immediately. The waiter smiled, amused, and quickly wrote this down too.

"Okay, I'll be back soon," the waiter said, bowing.

Soon enough, the waiter did return. Kurama, like most hungry teenage boys, dug into his food with no reserve. Shiori watched him for a minute with wide eyes before smiling softly.

"You must be a kitsune," Shiori murmured. Kurama choked on his food.

"Ehhhh—?" Kurama whined, shocked and horrified that Shiori had somehow guessed his true identity. "Wh-wh-what makes you say that?"

Shiori giggled.

"Anko and tofu are tasty things for kitsune, aren't they?" Shiori pointed out. Kurama paused for a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief. She was only joking.

"Well, my friends call me that sometimes," Kurama said. "I never really got the joke."

Kurama sweat dropped, laughing weirdly. Hiei just blinked.

"Hey fox, what kind of blood is this 'brandy' anyway?"

CONCLUSION

In Makai, demons learn two different languages: Makai Common and a regional dialect. In some dialects there is a polite "-masu" form, but for the most part Makai languages use only plain form. Certain dialects from northeast Makai also include multiple humility levels, but humility is considered largely obsolete. Pronunciation and usage have also evolved over time.

In this case study, the speaker of East Makai dialect refers to a popular Makai dish, "ketsuheki giyuuniku". This is an example of phonetic evolution. The two words used have the same roots as the modern Japanese words "ketsueki" ("blood") and "gyuuniku" ("beef"). Note that the 'e' mora has been emphasized as 'he' in the Makai dialect. Also note that in Japanese "giyu" and "gyu" are different words, but in East Makai they are allophonic.

The speaker also uses the word "youko" in place of "kitsune". "Kitsune" is the Japanese word for a fox, and may refer to a plain fox or a fox demon. In Makai, there is a distinction made between the two. "Kitsune" is a plain fox while a "youko" is a fox demon. Similar distinctions have been made for many demon species.