Zero to Hero

2. Hai, iie, and de wa arimasen

"Ohayou gozaimasu."

I stumbled into what turned out to be the kitchen-cum-dining area. The girl from yesterday was setting things on the table. She flashed a smile and motioned to a chair, which I shuffled to, then sat upon.

"Kinou no tsudzuki wo shimashou."

Minutes before, a beautiful dream of maidenly maidens madly fawning over me had turned into a bloodbath when a slither of morning sun fell upon my eyes. I woke up just in time! It wasn’t fair, pulling chainsaws and whips from there! My neck hurt. It took a few seconds to remember that a metal collar was clamped around it. I couldn’t find a catch or clasp to make it open.

"Asa gohan desu," said the girl as she put a bowl of cereal in front of me. She sat on the other side of the table, somewhat hidden by the items haphazardly arranged between us.

She picked up a long, thin carton and held it out to me. "Kore ha gyuunyuu desu. Shiriaru ni kakete ne." The carton had a picture of a cow on it, so I figured it was milk. Tentatively, I tipped it over my bowl and, sure enough, a white fluid came out. I allowed more to drown the dried flakes in the bowl. "Sou sou! Sono choushi! Sono Cho⁠ushiii!"

The girl seemed far too excited about me adding milk to my cereal. But at least I’d learned a new word or two. Shiriaru sounded like cereal, and from context, gyuunyuu was milk. Probably. At least I didn’t think this girl would give me anything dangerous.

Just as I was wondering how I’d actually eat my breakfast, the girl held an item out to me. "Supuun desu." I couldn’t help but smile. Encountering words that had similar pronunciations to those I knew in my language were a real boon. I hoped this would keep up. It made handling this new language a lot easier than I’d have expected! I scooped up a spoonful of soggy flakes and tasted it. The cereal was a tad too bland. Some sugar would definitely help.

Things cluttered the table top. Among them, a cup, scissors, red and yellow condiments, a small stuffed toy, and two small glass jars; both with white powder in them. Were they here as part of breakfast or for part of the lesson I suspected the girl wanted to give.

Before I could decide, she interrupted my thoughts. "Gyuunyuu wo watashite kudasai." Instinctively, I passed the carton of milk to her, lifting it over the glass jars and an empty plate. She took it with both hands and hugged it close, as if it were the most valuable thing in the universe. Then she gingerly poured the milk into her bowl, trembling slightly as she did.

While she was concentrating on pouring, I grabbed one of the glass jars. There was a label on the lid, but I couldn’t read it. The other jar had a similar label. Figuring they were both different types of white sugar, I popped off the lid and tipped the jar.

"Wah! Cho-chotto matte...!"

The girl’s sudden shout took me by surprise. As I flinched, I lost control of the jar and ending up tipping a small mountain of white crystals into my cereal.

"A-Ano! Sore ha satou de wa arimasen. Shio desu kedo..." She looked flustered. I could only give her a confused look as I smushed the mountain of sugar, then took a mouthful...

"Bleh!" is what I wanted to say, but of course, it came out as the scratchy static noise. Well, on the bright side I had learned that shio was salt. Now, I wasn’t the sort of guy who would tip his mistakes into the bin and pretend they didn’t happen. The girl watched with increasingly wider eyes as I dug into my soggy, salted cereal. Apparently, she couldn’t stomach it, for she soon left the room.

If I was being honest, I wanted to take this opportunity to throw the rest away. It was too salty and my throat was dry. But I was too hungry to waste it. This was my first meal since I’d died. So, instead, I thought over the last thing Girl (see what I did there?) had said to me. In particular, the last two sentences, which, thanks to the collar, I could recall. I did so in reverse order, filling out what I thought I knew:

I’d not heard that last word before, but I also didn’t think it to be too important right now. The basic meaning was clear: the white powder my cereal ended caked in was salt. This information, which my tongue could attest to, made deciphering the other sentence easy.

I think Girl had said sore and de wa arimasen yesterday, too. But the collar was failing me. I didn’t know how to get it to recall yesterday’s conversation. Maybe it wiped its memory when I slept? At any rate, sore here must be referring to the stuff in my breakfast—salt—and, thus, satou had to be sugar. The exact meaning of each bit in de wa arimasen was also an unknown to me. Treating it as a set phrase for is not thing seemed appropriate.

Which meant that bouncy girl, wherever she currently hid, had said to me: "That’s not sugar! It’s salt."

Maru maru!!!

The collar spoke. Seemingly thrilled.

After finishing breakfast, I’d taken to doing the washing up. Girl had come back saying something about a toy ray, and was now reading a magazine at the table. I dried my hands and joined her.

I wanted to test my new found discovery, much as I had done yesterday. So I pulled my chair up beside Girl and, tapping her magazine, said: "Sore wa supuun de ha arimasen. Zasshi desu."

She beamed. "Hai! Sou desu."

I did the same with the milk, switching the sentence order and making an intentional mistake: "Sore ha shio desu. Gyuunyuu de wa arimsen."

This time, Girl blinked before smiling. "Iie! Sou de wa arimasen!" She clapped, then whipped out a device that she rapidly tapped, before concealing it on her person again.

From this exchange, I felt I had confirmed that de wa arimasen was indeed equivalent to is not thing. She said hai when she said desu and coupled iie with de wa arimasen. Could it be that these meant yes and no respectively? My instinct was to confirm with body language.

I opened my mouth to speak and started to nod, then froze.

This wasn’t my world. What if nodding here didn’t mean yes? What if, like Miyuki had told me, it meant I wanted Girl to strip naked and get busy battling the declining population?

Okay, so maybe I held a teensy shred of hope that the goddess hadn’t lied to me. That she had truly sent me to a world where nubile girls wanted to save their race by doing, you know... What if I’d just been unlucky and found the one girl that felt too chilly to be naked all the time? And she’d only been violent because I’d scared her. For that matter, I hadn’t seen any men here.

"Ano, dou shimashita ka?"

I shook my head before I could stop myself. Then smacked my head so hard, I winced.

"Sou desu ne," said the girl as she grabbed both my arms. "'Hai' to 'iie' no imi ha mada wakaranai kamoshiremasen ne. Daijyoubu. Yoku mite kudasai." She was so close, staring up into my face with these enormous eyes. "Hai," she said and...

...Slowly she moved her head up and down. Honestly, I felt disappointed. It seemed Miyuki had misled me after all.

Girl did the same for "iie", shaking her head left and right. So basic body language was probably the same in this world as that in mine. She let go of me, causing another moment of disappointment. But at least my heartbeat slowed.

She picked up a plate. "Kore ha satou desu ka?" The collar allowed me to recall her use of satou earlier today. I had decided that it meant sugar.

"Iie. Kore ha satou de wa arimasen," I said with total confidence.

The girl pulled out that device of hers and tapped at it again, mumbling. Had I said something wrong? I didn’t think so. We’d been using this same pattern since yesterday, right?

Ii desu yo. Ki ni shinaide.

The collar seemed to console me. I shrugged. Maybe Girl wanted me to identify the right item, too. So that’s what I did. My cute teacher clapped and smiled and nodded, for good measure.

We went through this a few more times. First with her holding up her magazine and asking, "Zasshi desu ka?" and then moving onto other items I knew: milk, sugar, spoon, salt, television.

I answered accordingly, "Hai, zasshi desu" or "iie gyuunyuu de wa arimasen." for each item. Sometimes, I tried mixing it up. For example, saying that the sugar wasn’t sugar, it was a spoon. Or that the milk was a television. As long as I got the structure right, she would nod and laugh. When I tripped and got it wrong, she’d shake her head and give the correct structure.

In that manner, I reinforced that:

[something] + desu + ka = Is it (a) [something]?

{Hai +} [something] + desu = {Yes,} it is (a) [something]

{Iie +} [something] + de wa arimasen = {No,} it is not (a) [something]

Hai and iie were, I figured, optional. As were kore and sore, which was good, as I was still yet to figure out their precise meanings. But all in good time!

A chirping tone eventually interrupted our lesson. I followed Girl as she left the dining-kitchen area, but when she noticed, she held open another door and shoved me into the living room. She motioned for me to sit and stay, like some puppy, while the chirping continued. Once sure I would not follow, she darted out of the room.

I heard muffled voices, the girl’s and another, which was similarly high pitched. Another girl, then. Maybe I’d get a harem after all!

My pleasant day dream was interrupted when Girl returned. There was much banging against the living room door before I pulled it open. When I did, the girl tumbled into the room, squashing us both under a gigantic box with three rings on it.