"I don't really know how they pick it when it's ambiguous. I guess maybe it seems more obvious if you're Japanese. I mean like if you grew up here. I'm technically Japanese in that like my ancestors were from here. I can teach you more words but loan words are usually in katakana, that's the other alphabet, do you want that now or do you want to practice hiragana more first?"

"I will practice this."

He-but-with-a-degree i su.... chi? ri.  Pe i su ta ri.  Pastry.  Bo ku.  Book.  .....She doesn't think she can do 'philosophy' but she has thought of it and she will try anyway.  Fu do so fu... i.  Phooey.

She carries on like that for a while.

Ren comes in while they're breaking for bento lunches. "- 誰ですか?"

"Mama!" Haru gets up and - doesn't run over to her, but holds out his arms for a hug and gets her rushing to him to provide it. "This is Kennedy. Some kind of monster teleported her into the apartment while I was on the phone with 119. She doesn't know any Japanese yet so that will make going full immersion much harder."

"Hello, Ma'am."

"Oh, how about you just call me Swan-san, I'll have a classful of kiddos doing that soon and may as well get practice with it - have you been all right, Haru -"

"Well I didn't have any money since you had your purse, but Dungeon Data Science International gave me some for the report on Kennedy so I was able to get food from the konbini. Uh her monster messed with her head, so she is confused about a lot of things. Are you okay?"

"Apart from being worried sick about you I have been perfectly fine. The dungeon was an orchard and I was buried up to my neck in a peach, like a worm, but I'm not a bit hurt and they got me hosed down before I came home. I'd have called but I'm going to need a new phone. Peach juice."

Kimberly is listening somewhat raptly and wide-eyed to this.

"I have been sleeping in your bed since if you came in at night I thought that wouldn't scare you and putting Kennedy there would, and she has been in my bed, but I don't know what to do now. I don't know how to talk to social services in Japanese, I'm not good enough at it for that," Haru tells Ren. "She remembers stuff about where she came from but it doesn't make any sense. Like it's a continent that doesn't exist."

"Haru said that a superhero may be able to fix me and I would really like that to happen as soon as it can."

"Ye-e-es, hm. I think... I'll call my boss for help, he speaks excellent English if I trip over some words and must know anything about social services for children, because he runs a school. Oh, are you learning some Japanese now, though, dear?"

"I am trying, Ms. Swanson."

"- Ms. is an English way to be polite, and putting -san at the end of a name is the Japanese way. You don't do both. Just Swan-san."

"...Okay, Swan-san."

"There you go, well done. Anything to cover before I get on the phone, Haru?"

"I sent Kennedy's picture and stuff to DDSI but it's not really their department and I have not heard back."

"All right. I'll have to borrow your phone." She accepts it when he hands it over and dials.

"Thank you very much, M - mmmm.  Umm.  Swan-san."

Ren gives her a smile and a thumbs up and then she's talking to some guy in Japanese.

Kennedy is so capable of being so quiet.  She sits with her hands folded on her lap.

Haru goes back to eating his bento and trying to read Harry Potter.

....Okay, it's probably sufficiently polite for her to also eat.  She will do this.

It's got inarizushi and pickled vegetables and a hardboiled egg (peeled and cut in half) and grilled fish and edamame in there.