[though shiroki liked to think his knowledge of his mother’s preferred tongue was the same as it had always been growing up, he can’t deny its absence now. especially when he was surrounded by the language and could barely read a damn thing.]
[understanding the language verbally was one thing. he could hear someone speak japanese and grasp what they were saying relatively well, give or take a few participles and the occasional noun that slipped his vocabulary. but communicating was a whole other beast, a monolith of incompetence that loomed over him like a black smudge across his linguistic skills. his brain accustomed to english grammar, the structure of “do you speak english?” and his most common utterance of japanese, “英語は話しますか？” as different to his brain like oil and water, though the meanings stayed the same.]
[and as such, there he was, standing in the middle of little tokyo trying to rack his brain as to what the kanji laid out in front of him meant. just because he was used to seeing them back home didn’t mean he could read them very well, or at all.]
「居酒屋」
[though he knew what the place was for, the function of the rooms inside, he couldn’t remember the word for it in his mother’s tongue for the life of him. and so he managed to stop someone walking by, a rightfully confused look on his pale face.]
excuse me uh. what does that say?
[he pointed to the illuminated sign, a beacon of indulgence.]
like how do you pronounce it.
i can’t remember how to read this stuff.
@udedoki