The first time it occurred was when his grandmother had dislocated her hip and, unable to move, had been flipping through channels in boredom. She paused for a minute on a screen with little words at the bottom, which surprised Kaname because his grandmother usually insisted her hearing was fine and she didn't need subtitles on, thank you very much. Mildly interested, he sat down to see what it was about.
His mother was passing by with a load of laundry and glanced at him in surprise before walking away, looking amused for some reason. Halfway through the program she came back with a pile of neatly folded and ironed clothes, her eyes widening in amazement at the sight of him still sitting quietly on the sofa intently watching the program.
"If you feel bored, sweetie, you don't have to keep on watching."
Kaname's attention was jerked from the man frantically sprinting down the airstrip to stop his girlfriend's plane from leaving while desperately trying to phone her to explain that he did write to her, only the letter was lost. "It's not boring."
"But you can't even read yet. It must be boring for you, since you don't even know what's going on."
Kaname felt confusion and the beginnings of guilt, even though he didn't understand what he was doing wrong or why his mother disliked it. "I can hear what they're saying, so I don't need to read."
"But it's in Korean, Kaname. You don't understand anything that's happening, right?"
His mother's bewildered eyes implored him, asking for affirmation. He felt something inside of him curl up, instinctually knowing this was going to cause trouble, yet unable to tell a lie. "No, Mommy, I understand it."
This made his grandmother turn to him with The Frown. "Young man, what have I told you about lying!"
"But…" He didn't know what 'Korean' meant, or why he shouldn't be able to understand it, but he really did understand the show!
His mother put a hand on his head, pushing it down slightly. "I'm sorry. You're sorry too, right Kaname?"
He didn't know why he needed to apologize, but he did feel sorry for causing trouble. "I'm sorry, Grandma."
The old woman huffed and went back to watching to Korean drama, annoyed that she had missed the last few lines. His mother took the opportunity to drag him off, and Kaname never did find out how the drama ended.
The whole episode was forgotten within a week.
When he started kindergarten they he quickly learned hiragana and katakana, and then the teacher moved on to something called romanji, which he said was used by people far away who used different words called 'English'. Kaname obediently learned the new alphabet set with the same ease he had learned the two kana alphabets, and could easily use it to write things like "Boku no namae wa Kaname desu. Suguru to yondeiru otouto ga imasu. Doubutsu ga suki desu."
It was only after the teacher was satisfied that his class knew the English alphabet sounds and could use them in Japanese that he pulled out a CD player.
"Now class, I'm going to put on a CD of simple words in English. This means you won't know any of the words, so don't worry that you don't understand it. You're not supposed to understand it. Just try to copy out the sounds you hear, and I'll tell you what they mean afterwards. It's just so you get an idea of the correct pronunciation, so don't worry if you miss something. Just try your best."
Kaname sat in his little seat with his little chubby fingers gripping his pencil, poised over the paper ready to write whatever nonsensical words the tape player spoke, but to his surprise the cool female voice said very slowly, very clearly,
"Neko." Kaname paused, then wrote 'neko' down on his paper, and after a lengthy pause the voice continued monotonously, "Inu."
Kaname didn't quite understand what 'different language' meant, or how 'English' was different from 'Japanese', so he continued to copy down the words he heard obediently without questioning why he could understand them all, privately thinking this exercise was much easier than the teacher had made it sound.
After the CD went back to the beginning the teacher hit 'stop', and turned to the class. "Ok, so let's go through what we heard together, starting with the first word. Who wrote C-A-T down? Raise your hands."
Kaname looked at the 'neko' on his paper in bewilderment, and glanced around that the half dozen hands raised around him. The teacher beamed at them, "That's correct! You can lower your hands now." Now he encouragingly addressed those whose hands weren't raised. "Don't worry, spelling can be a hard thing, and this is just an introductory lesson. Now, who wrote down K-A-T?"
Most of the people who hadn't raised their hands for C-A-T now raised them, leaving a few children who'd written down either C-A-T-O or K-A-T-O, a girl who'd confused C and S and written S-A-T, and Kaname.
"Takasato-kun, what did you put down?" Kaname glanced at the 'neko' on his paper hesitantly, painfully aware that it was very different from all his classmates answers. He really didn't want to have to say it. "Don't worry, no one will make fun of you for getting it wrong."
Kaname looked at his classmates' gleeful faces, glad that for once he was the one with the wrong answer, and had to privately disagree with that statement. The teacher, seeing him looking around uneasily, mistook his hesitation for shyness and picked up the paper to read the answer himself. The man frowned, and took a second to compose himself before looking down to Kaname,
"It's wonderful that you know a little English, but the point of the lesson was to work on spelling out English words, not translating them."
Poor Kaname had no idea what he meant and could only stare at him miserably. The teacher, sensing his distress, tried to smile reassuringly. "Well, its ok, just copy down the correct answers beside them." Then, walking back up to the front, he said, "Now, for the second word, who wrote D-O-G?"
As the teacher went through the whole list it became apparent to Kaname that none of his answers were right, and the whole class noticed his absent hand, though the teacher spared him having to explain what he'd written each time. At the end, to his surprise, the teacher called on him once more.
"Takasato-kun, since you know a little English, why don't you share what each of these words mean with the class?"
Kaname could only miserably wonder what he'd done that was so bad the teacher felt it necessary to single him out and expose him for ridicule like this, as he'd only copied down what he'd heard as he was told to by the teacher himself. But the man was smiling at him like he'd just been given a wonderful treat, "Go on, just read out what you wrote down. I know you know it, don't be shy. The rest of you, write down what Takasato-kun says beside the word you wrote."
"… Neko. Inu. Tori…." With each word his classmates gave him A Look that said, you planned this all out, didn't you, you show off? The teacher looked pleased, like he thought this was making it up to him for embarrassing him earlier, when in reality he was just dumping coal in the flames. Why do adults think it's a good idea to show off intelligence? Don't they remember being a kid and getting picked on for the sin of answering a question right?!
After the tortuous list was over the teacher gave a brief explanation of how the words meant the same thing, even though they were different, then switched on the CD again now they knew what the words meant. This time Kaname could hear 'cat' 'dog' 'bird' if he listened carefully, but overlaying those sounds he heard 'neko' 'inu' 'tori' much more easily.
This was just the beginning of Kaname's struggles with the English language. Anything he heard he automatically knew the meaning of, but he had to listen very intently to hear its pronunciation. In addition, the written language was still completely foreign to him. If he heard the word 'beautiful' he would hear an overlapping 'utsukushii', almost as if the same person was simultaneously speaking in both English and Japanese with the English on very low volume, but if he read the word 'beautiful' on paper he would have no idea what it meant. Not only that, but occasionally when he spoke English the other person would hear it as Japanese, or when he spoke Japanese the other person would hear it as English. Combined, these things gave him some very lopsided and irregular English marks; something his grandmother constantly scolded him about. It was useless to try and explain his predicament, so Kaname had no choice but to study very hard for English tests.
Time dragged on and his marks improved from the hardcore cramming he did. He gradually learned the pronunciation of the words, and found as he did the words he already knew the meaning of stopped having the overlaying Japanese. Now when someone said 'cat' he heard 'cat' and for 'dog' he heard 'dog', though if they said something like 'giraffe' he would still hear 'kirin' overtop. Kaname often wondered where this strange ability came from, but as time went on and his mother continued to insist it was 'just a child's fancy' to his scoffing grandmother who denounced it as 'self-important lying', Kaname began to wonder if maybe he had just made it up. So he quietly put the issue to the back of his mind, and never brought it up again.