6. Naide and te kudasai
I nursed the bruises on my shins. She may be clumsy at times, but when she put her mind to it, Kotoha could be devastatingly accurate with her fists and her feet. Whatever had gotten into her? If someone should be mad, shouldn’t it be me?
Last night, I'd woken up needing another pee. Since the dam had broken, I'd become quite familiar with the little frog filled room. So, naturally, I’d headed straight for it, tiptoeing down the hallway, thankful that the nights were warm.
At the door, I reached out and turned the handle. Immediately, there was a bang, a thump, and a crashing noise loud enough to wake the recently dead—if they hadn't already been awake thanks to their bladder.
ちょっと！開けないで。まだ終わってないから！！
Some fumbling and a few bangs aside, I heard nothing more from Kotoha for what felt like a lifetime. Unable to take it any longer, I pulled at the door handle again. The door flew open, Kotoha all but falling out of the toilet with the momentum. She squished into me, sending us both to the floor, where my bladder finally gave up.
「何でいきなり漏らすのよ？せっかくお風呂からあがったのに。ガイさん、いい？ここには小便をしないこと。そういうのはトイレにやってください」
It's a good thing the hallway is tiled and not carpeted, was all I could think as Kotoha climbed off me and we both dripped everywhere.
「その上、服を着てよ！！」
Ah, that word again. 服. I gathered, from the fact that once again, my clothes had gone missing from my very person as I slept, that Kotoha wasn't too amused with my wandering around her home in my birthday suit. Even so, she took a very long time in getting me a towel to wear instead. Only handing one to me after I'd cleaned up my mess while she supervised.
I massaged my shins once more and put on my clothes, which had magically reappeared before morning.
After breakfast, Kotoha had me do more lines. How many times did she want me to trace out and copy the same shapes? I tried to recall when I was little. How had I learned to write English? Had it been a similarly torturous process?
「ガイさん、今日は、それもういいです。こち来てください」
こち was very much like これ, I had discovered, even without the collar to help me, in that it meant somewhere near to Kotoha when she said it. Plus, she beckoned with her hand. So, with Kotoha I went. To the toilet.
She made a big show of pulling the door open roughly. Was that meant to be an impression of me? Then she turned to face me and made a cross with her arms in front of her chest. 「このドアをノックせずに開けるのはだめです」 As she said ドア, she made a point of tapping the door, as if to hammer the point home. The pronunciation was about the same, so I had already guessed what ドア meant. Not that I could tell Kotoha.
「このドアを開ける前に、ちゃんとノックしてください」
This time, she knocked on the door. Well, like ドア, I could guess what ノック meant. But what about the rest? It was time to do some thinking within the door frame. I closed the door, then opened it again and said, 「これは『ドア開ける』ですか」
「はい。その行動は『ドアを開ける』です」
I took her はい as a sign that 開ける was her language's equivalent to open.
Kotoha appeared to figure out what I was trying to get at. She closed the door and, holding up one finger, said, 「一！ノックする」 Two fingers went up. 「二！一から五まで数える」 She counted from one to five, then raised a third finger. 「三！ドアを開ける」
「でも！」 she continued. 「一！ノックする。二！一から五まで数える」 she made a show of quietly counting slowly, stopping at three. Then, called out, 「入っています！！」 She then made a cross with her arms again, 「こうなったら、ドアを開けないでください！」
To think I'd be taught how not to open a door, or more precisely, when not to open a door.
Feeling very much like a kid, I let Kotoha lead me back to the living room.
She wasn't done with her impromptu lesson plan. Grabbing a conveniently placed t-shirt, she displayed it to me like it was a prop for a magic trick. 「服を」 she said, raising the shirt over her head, 「着てください」 As Kotoha pulled the shirt down, she struggled to get it over the shirt she was already wearing. Ultimately, she admitted defeat, and tried to pull the shirt back off.
「助けて」 came her muffled voice from where her head and arms had become wedged. 「ガイさん！助けてください！死にたくないよ！」
I shook my head and slapped my cheeks. This was no time to be enjoying the view, the dull aches in my shins reminded me. I set to delicately freeing Kotoha from the clothing strangling her, careful not to touch anything other than the shirt.
Once free, Kotoha left the living room. I guess she needed a moment to calm down, and I needed one to think. Even without the collar, I had sensed a strange pattern to the last few hours.
Most of what Kotoha had said to me ended with either て or てください and they all seemed to be things she wanted me to do. Another similar trend had been her use of ないで and ないでください. And those had been things she didn't want me to do. See, teachers, even I could learn. Eventually.
But I was still missing something.
開ける was the word for open, right? And 開けないで meant don't open. I sounded both out a few times before a synapse fired in the right direction. To say don't do something, all I had to do was remove the る at the end and replace it with ないで! Which meant for do something I remove the る and replace it with て... for example, to command someone to open something, I just had to say...
「開けてください！」 answered Kotoha for me as she banged on the living room door.
For the second time today, Kotoha sent both of us flying to the ground when I opened the door. At least this time, the pillow she'd been carrying helped to soften the impact. For her. I hit the floor hard and became sandwiched between that and Kotoha. She scrambled off of me and gathered up the other items she'd been carrying.
But before she could launch back into another lesson, I jumped at the chance to learn something useful. In as over-dramatic—but safe—manner as possible, I mimicked tripping over. 「これは何ですか」 I then asked.
「転ぶ」 Kotoha said in a hushed tone, her face a little flushed.
Okay, if 転ぶ meant trip over, then to say don't trip I just had to remove the る... Only, there wasn't a る this time. It was ぶ at the end. But, surely, it still worked the same, didn't it? I dropped the ぶ and replaced it with ないでください:
「ころないでください」
「『ころないで』ではありません。『転ばないで』です」
Fine. Apparently, the ぶ at the end did change things. This was not going to be as easy as I thought. I tried again:
「言葉！転ばないでください！」
Kotoha's face flushed a deeper red and she launched the pillow at my head.
「呼び捨てしないで！！」