Traditions

Traditions

Summary: Wolfram learns a bit about Japanese traditions from his King, and is a little surprised by some of the strange things his betrothed's people do...

Wolfram yawned and fanned his face with a hand. He simply hated the heat. It made him sweaty, drowsy, and his temper's short fuse even shorter.

Yuuri stepped outside into the garden, passing by Wolfram. "Sheesh, it's hot," he muttered. "Makes me wish the Tigers would win a game against the Giants or something," he murmured.

Wolfram sent him a strange look. "What would that do?" he asked. "The heat must have broken your brain. How could a tiger win against anything? They're herbivores."

Yuuri sweatdropped. Animals here were so weird... "Well, in my world, Tigers are predators... But anyways, there are different baseball teams. Two of them are the Giants, Tokyo's team, and the Hanshin Tigers, who belong to Osaka. Osaka and Tokyo are two cities in my world," Yuuri explained before Wolfram could ask.

"That still doesn't explain anything. What would that explain at all? So what if they won? How would that make the day any cooler?"

"Well, Tiger fans - their supporters - are pretty fanatical... They actually get into fights and things over baseball. But a long tradition for them is that, if the Tigers win a game, they throw themselves into a river that runs through Osaka," Yuuri explained.

"What, pray tell, does that accomplish, other than getting unreasonably wet?" Wolfram asked, rolling his eyes.

Yuuri shrugged. "It's tradition, that's all. The Japanese are pretty tradition-oriented, sort of like here. The traditions are just different, that's all."

"Hm, seems that way. No wonder you were surprised by our culture," Wolfram admitted. "Though I don't think it'd be too strange, considering your people throw themselves into rivers if their 'team' wins a simple game."

Yuuri chuckled. "Like I said. Tradition. There are a bunch of traditions here that are way different than in Japan, and other things, too."

"Like what?"

Yuuri raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You really want to learn about my world?"

"Would I ask if I didn't? Besides. Maybe it'll pass the time, and the sun will go down so it can cool off..."

Yuuri was thoughtful. "Well, for starters, we have much different eating utensils. Instead of using that spork-thing like you do here, we use chopsticks."

"Chop... sticks?" Wolfram blinked, trying to pronounce the new, foreign world.

"When you were in my world, Mom used spoons... So you wouldn't know about them. Chopsticks are like... well, two sticks. You use them to eat."

"Your people eat with sticks?" Wolfram asked indignantly. "And you were raised that way?"

Yuuri sweatdropped. "You don't have to act so surprised. And really, it isn't all that uncommon. They're more conventional... And for me, easier to use. I grew up using chopsticks, so forks and things like that are harder for me to use."

"Huh..." Wolfram seemed slightly interested. "How do they work?"

"You hold one in your hand like this," Yuuri gestured, forming his right hand into the familiar position for holding chopsticks. "And hold it with your finger. Then you add the other one, and use your hitosashiyubi and oyayubi to move it."

"Hito... What?" Wolfram blinked, not understanding Yuuri's speech.

"Oh... more Japanese culture shock," Yuuri laughed nervously. "We have a different name for each finger in Japan, while you guys just use 'first', 'second', and so on..."

"A name for each finger?" Wolfram blinked. "Why would you do that?"

"It's just an old part of our language," Yuuri shrugged.

"What're the names?" Wolfram asked, looking at his own hand.

Yuuri took Wolfram's hand on top of his own, and pointed to each finger as he said the names. "Oyayubi," Yuuri tapped Wolfram's thumb, "Hitosashiyubi," his first finger, "Nakayubi," his middle finger, "Kusuriyubi," his ring finger, "and koyubi." He tapped Wolfram's pinky in a final gesture.

Wolfram blushed slightly when Yuuri didn't let go of his hand. "Wh-what do they mean?" he asked, trying to distract himself from his betrothed's close contact.

"Well, litterally... Your thumb is called the 'parent finger', or oyayubi, your first is hitosashiyubi, or 'people-offering finger'," Wolfram sent Yuuri a strange look at the name. "Hey, I wasn't the one that named it," Yuuri shrugged. "The middle one's nakayubi, which basically means the same thing, but 'naka' really means 'inside', so it's like saying 'inside finger' rather than 'middle finger'... Kusuriyubi is the ring finger. It means 'medicine finger'."

Wolfram blinked in confusion, his eyebrows furrowing. "What a weird name..." he muttered. "Why'd they call it that?"

"Well, a long time ago in Japan, they used the ring finger to grind up medicines given to them by healers or priestesses. They believed the other fingers were unfit to do that sort of work, or something like that. So it ended up called the medicine finger."

"Your people have strange customs," Wolfram sighed. "And the last one?"

"Koyubi, or 'little finger'. 'Ko' in my language is used to mean 'small', or even 'child' in some circumstances. We put it at the end of girl's names a lot. I have four classmates named Yukiko back on Earth."

"Yukiko?" Wolfram asked, his temper flashing. "Hmph..."

Yuuri saw the anger before it really got started up. "They're just my classmates, that's all… I barely know any of them. It's just a popular name, and I thought an example might be nice..."

Wolfram looked away with another 'hmph'. "Whatever you say."

Yuuri's fingers tightened around Wolfram's hand. He jumped, just realizing he was still holding it. He dropped it, blushing. "Oh, s-sorry...!"

"Why are you so afraid to touch me?" Wolfram shot at the other boy. "It's not like I bite!"

Yuuri winced. "Culture shock, again," he murmured. "I was raised to think that touching… intimately… like that in public isn't the best ideas, and should only be done towards really good friends, family, or lovers..."

Wolfram growled. "Oh. So I'm not considered any of those?"

Yuuri turned red. "Y-You're reading too much into it," he muttered, finding the ground interesting. "It's just that... well, it's not exactly average for two men to be together on Earth..."

Wolfram growled at Yuuri before rolling his eyes, deciding it would be best to change subjects before his wimpy fiancé dug himself a deeper grave. "Hmph. Tell me something else about your world... I think it's sort of interesting. Not that I care, or anything..." In reality, Wolfram wanted to know everything about Yuuri - including things about how he'd been raised, what the world he was from was really like.

"Hm... Well, there's some pretty different foods," Yuuri commented. "At least, to foreigners, they're different. For us, they're everyday."

"Like what?" Wolfram asked, wondering vaguely how Yuuri's traditional food could be so very strange.

"Well, for starters, there's sashimi and sushi… Sushi is rice and some kind of filling rolled up in-between small rolls of seaweed, and sashimi is thinly sliced raw fish on top of rice," Yuuri explained.

Wolfram turned slightly green. "R-raw? What are your people thinking, eating raw meat?"

Yuuri shrugged. "It's nothing out of the ordinary for us. Besides, it's good. Then there're things like takoyaki, which are fried balls of octopus, basically…"

"Octopus? Do your people have a death wish? Those things are vicious!"

Yuuri sweatdropped. "Well, in my world, there's really only one type you have to worry about, and it doesn't live anywhere near Japan… And the only reason you have to watch it is because, if it happens to sting you, it's poisonous…"

"Your people are insane," Wolfram concluded. "Throwing themselves into a river because of a game, eating raw fish and octopus…"

"Hey!" Yuuri glared at him. "We have our redeeming qualities!" he retorted.

"How could you redeem that?"

"Well, we… we created a lot of sports!"

"So? We have those here, too!"

Yuuri searched his mind for something. "Well, in Japan, we have a bunch of different fighting styles… There's judo, karate, jujutsu, which are with your body, and then there's kendo, which is our ancient traditional sword-style… and there're other fighting styles from all over, like Tae Kwon Do from Korea or Kung Fu from China…"

"Your point? You obviously haven't learned any of these 'traditional' fighting styles, considering how much of a wimp you are."

Yuuri sighed, knowing that it wouldn't work to try and convince Wolfram not to call him a wimp. He'd tried. It was a losing battle. "So… what do you do for fun there?"

"Hm…. Well, we have karaoke, which is singing—maybe I'll take you out to do that next time you go to my world, I think you'd like it… Then there are things like TV, you of course remember that, movies, amusement parks…" He laughed. "I'm describing date destinations," he said, half to himself.

"What's a 'date'?" Wolfram questioned.

Yuuri turned a little pink. "A date is… time spent with someone you like. A possible lover… It's time you spend with them to get to know them better."

Wolfram looked interested. "Well. We'll have to go on a date sometime." Yuuri knew better than to argue with him. "What else do people do on dates?"

"It depends on their relationship… If it's the first date, it's normally someplace fun. If they've been lovers for a while, then they might go someplace romantic. I dunno, the sea at sunset or something…"

Wolfram smiled and imagined Yuuri and him at a getaway, alone, far away from everyone else… While Yuuri's people had some of the ODDEST traditions he'd ever heard of, he could live with the 'date' one.

Wolfram noticed that the sun was lower in the sky. "Maybe we'll have to see if we can get the cook to make some dishes from your world… but there's no way in hell I'm even trying octopus," Wolfram said quickly, pulling a pace.

Yuuri laughed. "It isn't that bad, when it's cooked right!"

"Eating a creature with eight legs. Disgusting and unnatural," Wolfram muttered. "Oh well… even if you grew up on Octopus and raw meat, you're still a good, if wimpy, king."

"I did eat other things, you know," Yuuri sighed.