"Italicized" = Signed

"Regular" = Spoken

Italicized = Yō typing

= Someone else typing

----- = A spoken word Yō can't understand (or at least not lip read)

...

Yō's POV:

A few weeks had passed since I started school. Most kids gave me hell for being deaf as I had expected. Chika was the only one who didn't follow suit. Every day in school she would always be by my side and ready to chat.

She had met up with me at a café every day to learn how to sign. She was getting there, but it was hard. It was interesting to see what she would accidentally sign to me at times. But, she was determined to get through it and learn. I admire that. She's struggling a lot, but she really wants to communicate better with me.

Today was a different day at school. Pretty different. A new kid had entered the classroom this morning. She had long red hair and a shy, almost scared, look on her face. I guess she hates that everyone is watching her. I can understand that feeling well. I feel that same way whenever I'm signing in public. People always look at me like I'm a freak because I'm signing.

Chika being Chika was the first to introduce herself. She even offered the new kid a seat beside her. I watched them in amusement. Chika was way more hyper than that girl. I wonder if she can keep up. Even I can barely handle Chika's neverending hyperness on some days.

I stood up and walked over to them, hoping to save her a little bit from the questions. Chika sure loved to ask a lot of them whenever she could, that's for sure.

"Chika, she seems lost on your words. I think you should take a step back." I stated, watching the girl to see her reaction to my voice.

She didn't seem to have much of a reaction. I guess she's from a city then. Lots of accents there so this wouldn't be unusual for her.

"Sorry," Chika apologized, "I guess I got ahead of myself."

If she couldn't sign it, she'd speak it. So half the time her sentences were signed and half the time they were spoken. This seemed to confuse the girl even more. I gave her an apologetic look even though she wouldn't know that I'm the cause for Chika's weird speaking. I still felt like I needed to get that across to her though.

"Hi there, my name is Yō, what's yours?" I asked.

"My name is ----" She responded.

I'm not good reading words I don't know. I looked at Chika and asked her to sign the name for me. She happily did so.

"R-I-K-O." Chika spelled.

Riko watched us, her eyes wide. Well, it wasn't like she wouldn't know about me being deaf for long anyway. Someone would tell her if I didn't.

"I'm deaf. I couldn't understand your name so I asked her to spell it. My lip reading skills only go so far." I stated.

"Oh... sorry?" Riko offered.

I shook my head, "It's fine. Honestly I like being deaf. I don't have to deal with annoying brats like our classmates."

That earned a chuckle out of both of them.

"You can speak pretty well." Riko pointed out.

I chuckled, "Try telling that to everyone else. I only know how to speak because of some abusive family members. I can't say I'm not grateful, but... I'd be okay if I couldn't speak."

Riko was about to say something, but she looked at the front. I looked and saw the teacher was there. I retreated back to my seat quickly.

Riko went up front and wrote her name on the board. Then she started talking. I wasn't focusing on her lips that much. I just glared at the two knuckleheads in front of me who were passing notes. I saw some of the writing. They were about me. I didn't really care that much. I'm used to it now. The bullies have dwindled down after the first few days after they learned I wasn't going to react to them.

Then the notes changed to being about Riko. They were even worse than the notes about me. I glanced up and saw Riko was still talking. I could deal with the notes being about me, but I will not tolerate them being about someone else. Especially when Riko had done nothing to deserve it. She literally just moved here. They really want to start drama with someone.

I looked at the teacher and prayed she would look toward me. She turned her head my way so I quickly got her attention by moving my hands around. I pointed to the girls in front of me.

The teacher nodded. I hoped she had seen the notes. After Riko finished, the teacher went over and pulled the girls and their notes out of the room.

Riko walked over to between me and Chika. She gave me a confused look.

"They were passing notes. Bad notes." I stated.

"Oh... about me?" Riko seemed sad.

I nodded, "Me and you."

"Is everything okay?" Chika joined in.

"I ----------- here because -- --------" Riko mumbled.

"What? I can't understand you if you speak like that. Type it out if you plan on quietly speaking." I said, hoping I wasn't being too pushy.

Riko grabbed her phone and quickly typed something and showed me.

"Oh..."

"Weren't you ever bullied before?" Chika asked.

"Not at school. I went to a deaf school. But they raised the price so we couldn't afford to send me this year." I explained.

"They have deaf schools?" Chika seemed very shocked.

"They have schools for the blind too." I replied teasingly.

"Right... forgot about that..." Chika apologized.

This girl... she is something else. No doubt about that.

"So, you know sign language?" Riko asked, looking at Chika.

Chika shrugged, "A little. Yō-chan has been teaching me."

"Let me guess... you wanna learn it too?" I knew where this was heading.

Riko nodded, "Yeah... I want to be able to talk with you better."

I sighed and looked down, "And here I thought everyone would ignore me and leave me alone..."

I could tell they were laughing at me even if I wasn't looking at them. I looked up after the vibrations of their laughter stopped.

"You think the teacher will be back soon?" Riko asked, eyeing the door.

"Probably. But, who knows." Chika replied.

Just as she said that, the teacher walked inside. Riko took her seat as the teacher started talking. It seemed like she was apologizing for the sudden interruption.

...

When lunch rolled around, Chika invited Riko to eat with us. We sat in our normal spot and ate. Chika tried to talk to me using her little sign language skills. Riko watched her. I bet she's trying to guess what she's talking about.

"Maybe you should wait until you learn a bit more to talk that much. I won't translate but it wasn't correct in the slightest." I stated after she finished.

Chika blushed in embarrassment, "Sorry..."

I looked over at Riko to find that she was looking at something. I followed her gaze to find there were two girls fighting. Not physically but they were screaming.

I recognized one of them. It was the student council president. After a moment, I realized the other was the vice president who I had met on my first day.

Riko showed us her phone. I shrugged, as did Chika.

"I heard the student council president is pretty bad at her job. I guess they're fighting about it." I answered, guessing my theory.

We all watched as the fight became tenser and tenser as it progressed. Eventually a teacher came and yelled at them. They backed away for a moment, before the president tried to attack physically. The teacher intercepted her and they walked away together. They were probably going to the principal.

"Dear god..." Chika said.

"I wonder what the outcome will be." Riko said.