The first major bump occurred over Travis, the unwelcome roommate. He'd enter rooms just to stand slouching in the corner, looking at everyone. He would watch group meals being prepared, staring intently, and state obvious things, or ask annoyingly blatant questions. Such as, if you're cooking a pizza, he'd slouch over and ask, "Whatcha cookin', pizza?" While out and about with Xhavier, his boyfriend Makl, and Reno, this annoying roommate came up in conversation. Everyone began doing imitations of the slouch, and Reno looked confused. So Xhavier pulled out his phone and typed, "We have a terrible roommate, who we dislike." He showed it to Reno who looked up more confused. Xhavier checked the translation and "terrible" had become "wonderful." Reno was then under their impression that they disliked their wonderful roommate. He quickly retried and got the point across.
We were trying to ask her what sorts of things she liked. Xhavier and Makl are huge anime fans, and kept asking if she'd seen ones they had so there'd be something to talk about. Finally she shook her head and said she didn't really watch any. Xhavier wilted a little, and said, "Oh." Makl nudged him and said "Tell her we really like anime." There was a pause then Xhavier gestured at himself and Makl and simply said "Otaku."
The next hurdle was trying to ask if she smoked. I don't enjoy it, but it would have been an activity with Makl. When translated it came out the same, but Reno didn't know the word marijuana, and looked at us puzzled. Xhavier and I frowned at the phone trying to think of synonyms but we could only come up with slang. "Pot, weed, grass..." we muttered. I suggested showing her a picture of a bong. Xhavier pulled it up and she asked hesitantly, "Tobacco?" and made a little X with her fingers. We shook our heads then Makl said we should just pull up a picture of weed. When we showed it to her she said, "Oh, hemp!" We exclaimed that we hadn't thought of that, but it turned out she didn't anyway.
We told her there was a raccoon that came most nights, and found out the word in Japanese is the same as in German. When Roger the raccoon showed up we bent some rules and fed him cat food. We cautioned her to be careful, since he was standing right in the open doorway, but she held out her hand before we could stop her and Roger took food directly from her hand, delighting her and terrifying us.
The next day we went out to see a local waterfall. Isaac, Xhavier, Reno and I all set out in Isaac's car. Reno and Xhavier were passing their phones back and forth conversing. All of a sudden Xhavier laughed. "She wants to know if you and Isaac are dating." I laughed too and said "Tell her he's not my type." Isaac pouted at me and Xhavier puzzled over how to express that. Finally he passed her his phone and I asked how it came out. "I just told her you're a lesbian. It came out that you have very much homosexuality." I laughed, but was very relieved when Reno said "I do not deny that." In Japan it's very under the table. They passed their phones back and forth some more and Xhavier asked, "How long were you and Taylor dating?" My stomach tightened and I shrugged
"About five months? We started texting every day in February, I dunno." They were quiet in the back for a while and Isaac sidetracked me before I got despondent. We arrived and marveled at the falls and Xhavier comes up, "You have to see this." He handed me the phone with Reno's last message on it. "Since she is lovely, I hope a person early for her can be found." I looked at Reno with the biggest grin and told her thank you in Japanese as sincerely as possible.
We went to where the falls pool and have a lip you can jump from. Isaac stripped and went up to jump in. It wasn't really warm enough for it, because the falls are mountain run off, and Reno looked at Xhavier and I saying "kowai" (which means scary, that threw me off when I thought she was calling a spider cute, since it sounds a lot like kawaii). I tried to tell her that Isaac said he wasn't crazy, which came out to "He says that he may be sane."
Later that night Kat, Christian, and Makl joined the group. We were trying to explain to Reno that Christian was shy, but his name kept translating to Christianity, and in the end it came out as, "We do not care about Christianity." So we gave up on trying to express that. Eventually though Reno noticed that Kat was loving on both Isaac and Christian and more explanations were had. The poor thing. In Japan people don't come out of the closet, and in the same day she learned I was lesbian, that Isaac, and Makl, and Christian were bi, that Xhavier was trans, and that Isaac, Kat, and Christian were in a polyamorous love triangle. By the end of it, she was floored. She asked, "Is this allowed?" And we said yes, but that we weren't normal which was the best way of expressing that we're pretty niche.
We took her on a hike up through the mountains to get a view of the bay. We kept asking if it was okay because it's a challenging near-vertical scramble, and at one point you have to climb up using a rope. She kept insisting that it was okay, that it was very pretty. At the rope I went up first and she came up after me. "Kowai!" she said when she reached the top. I grinned and nodded, and she said I'd gone up bravely and I said no, but that she was sweet to say so. We got to the peak and took pictures. As we were going down Reno kept turning to help Kat over logs and waiting up for her. Later we started all talking about how cute Reno was. We had set up computer translators so we could just type in messages and play them aloud in Japanese for her. Xhavier typed to her that everyone was talking about how cute and sweet she was. She blushed, and said no, but looked really pleased.
The entire time we did our best to include her, translating as much as we could, but we worried she might not be having fun, and what she thought of us. Isaac on her last night finally asked if she thought we were strange. She sat up straight and said, "Yes!" We all laughed, and hoped she thought in a good way.
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