violet

today’s word was ‘sweet potato’. when cooking with him, he’d often ask how to sign different ingredients that you’d come across. the ‘sweet’ part was easy; a simple point to the jaw. the motion of peeling which represented a potato required some slightly advanced dexterity, but it was more than achievable.

“okay, watch me,” you stood next to him, facing the same way across the room, “pretend your cupping a potato with your left hand… perfect! okay, now make your right index finger into a little crescent, like this.” you curved your own finger to demonstrate the sign, “lovely, now just peel the potato you’re holding!”

you smiled up at him as he curved his hand to peel. his cheeks swelled with pride, and his eyes curved with happiness, “so if i put it together,” he pressed to his jaw, and then peeled the invisible potato, “i just signed sweet potato?”

“you sure did honey!” you beamed. it seemed that learning new signs always left seokjin chuffed with himself, and you couldn’t help but be equally, if not more proud of him and his willingness to learn, “you look like a little hamster when you smile like that. like.. hamster,” you repeated, while animating the sign for it. having mentioned this little feature of his to jin before, he had no problem of mirroring his animal spirit back to you.

MYG

“i’ve been showing the boys what you’ve taught me today.” yoongi prompted from the dining table. it was a sudden turn of conversation, but welcome all the same, “i was just showing them greetings and the easy animal signs, but i came to my hobbies and it just totally left my mind. like, are piano and guitar as obvious as i think they are?”

yes. yes they absolutely are. you simply couldn’t stop yourself from noticing how so adorable yoongi is for wanting to share his hobbies with his best friends through sign, “well for piano, imagine you’re a 3 year old going crazy on a grand piano. like you’re pressing about 5 keys a second,” you demonstrated a quick sign for him, “like this!”

yoongi mirrored your gesture back to you, earning two circles made by your thumbs and index fingers in both hands in approval, “and so for guitar?”

“tell me how you’d guess you’d sign guitar baby.”

yoongi quickly strummed on invisible strings, with no particular chord, “it just feels too… easy? is it right?”

“that’s the point! it has to be easy to learn for people who have to learn it suddenly; and yes, you’re spot on!”

JHS

everyday, hoseok made an effort to learn at least one new sign. after understanding how much signing helped you to communicate, it became one of his priorities to make you feel more comfortable and accommodated for. his dedication was astonishing to you; nobody else had ever made the same kind of effort for you.

with your birthdasy just a few days away, hoseok had tried to learn a few related words. although trying to be discreet, it was inevitable that you’d eventually piece together ‘cake’, ‘celebrate’ and ‘balloon’ into a common category. today’s phrase probably dropped the biggest hint, however.

“so how do you sign happy birthday? is there a special sign for the phrase or do you put signs together?” he asked as you took a seat opposite him. 

“well, there’s a few ways to do it, but the one i always used goes like this,” you adjusted your position so you could easily show him a side view of your gestures too; it seemed to help him to learn, “start with happy; so you twist your hands to face different directions and clap them twice. and then for birth, make your hands parallel so your palms face each other, then push them away from you... yeah just like that! and then for day, place your fingers behind the other hand, and open them like a fan. now just put them all together.”

it took him a few shots to get the perfect movements, but once he’d mastered them, hoseok wished you a happy birthday every other minute, “yknow my birthday isn’t for a few days yet?”

“just practising honey, just practising.”

KNJ

having a friend who was so willing to learn how to communicate with you when you were struggling brought such relief to you. of course, it couldn’t be expected of everybody to know sign language, but to have at least one person to be there for you was comforting to say the least. namjoon had always been active in trying to learn BSL for you; you’d realised that he’d even studied by himself to learn words he had a particular curiosity for.

“so, can you go through finger spelling with me? it’s a lot to learn…” he prompted. you had realised that namjoon tried not to bombard you with constant questions out of courtesy; for you, signing was no new learning curve, but you hardly minded teaching others, “like the vowels, i can’t remember which finger is which?”

“the vowels are probably the easiest, joon! the vowels go along your hand, you know?” he shook his head; fair enough, it probably wasn’t the best explanation. you raised your hand to show him, “so, your thumb is A, your index is E, your middle finger is I, and so on.”

his face lit up - it was as though the lightbulb had finally ignited. with such a high volume of new information, it can be really hard to find patterns. but patterns help learning, and luckily, there was a few for signing, “you got it?”

“well, i’m a lot closer to getting it now!”

PJM

jimin had just begun his signing journey; after a long night of sleepy talks, you’d finally opened up about your childhood and how sign language brought you a lot of comfort in certain circumstances. with just a bit of beer in his system, jimin had vowed to learn just for you. now that the beer was out of his system, he seemed to maintain his promise.

“i guess we should start with greetings, right?”

“what about ‘i love you’? i wanna know that one.” jimin held your eye contact, a smile holding up the corners of his mouth. despite being so smily, you knew he was being completely serious. affection was one of jimin’s most prominent traits, but not that you were complaining.

“okay, it’s a pretty easy one actually. watch,” you pointed at your chest, placed both of your hands over your heart, and then pointed back to jimin, “see? simple really!”

later in the day, as jimin was getting to ready to go home for the day, he leaned on the door frame without saying a word. instead, he focused his eyes on yours, “what are you looking at me like that for?”

he signed ‘i love you’, perfectly. your eyes folded in elation at his mini gesture. you had a feeling you’d be seeing that one a lot from now on.

KTH

you and taehyung sat on the padded floor with your toddler, trying to teach her a few signs. for her age, she was struggling to communicate with you both at a level which was the average. on a forum buried deep on the internet, you learned that some simple signs could really help her to familiarise herself with communicating, and so that became your shared mission.

in preparation for shared moments such as these, you’d learned some key signs in advance to save time. today’s agenda was drinks; specifically her favourites - orange juice and milk. before introducing them to her, you first decided to teach tae. from your research, appearing confident in your signing can help children to learn.

“you’re gonna need both hands, ready?” tae nodded eagerly, leaning into your company. his eyes steadied on your outstretched arms, “so for orange juice, you make a claw and twist it at your jaw- and then for juice, just trace your finger from your middle finger to your thumb in the shape of a ‘J’.”

tae smirked as he perfectly mirrored your sign. it was actually quite adorable how much pride he took in learning sign language for the sake of his daughter, “already mastered it, look.”

you couldn’t help but smile at his humble boast. he wasn’t wrong, it was the perfect sign, “i see honey, i see. okay, so for milk, you extend the thumb and pinky on both hands, point them towards each other and move them up and down in opposite directions.”

“like you’re milking a cow, kinda?” you nod with a smile plastered across your face; the inspiration for many signs wasn’t difficult to link at all, “i don’t think it’ll be long before i’m teaching you, yknow.”

in all honestly, neither did you.

JJK

being born partially deaf made many aspects of your life more difficult than they really needed to be, perhaps the most obvious aspect was communication; sign language was a great tool for you in understanding others, but in a world where spoken language took hold, finding those who knew it enough to talk to you was difficult.

after getting into a relationship with jungkook, he soon came to realise how beneficial sign language was in your daily life. since, he made an active effort to apply what he knew when he could, and was always prepared to add to his bank of knowledge.

“i got a question for ya. if you tell me that you need to go to the hospital in sign, what am i looking for?” considering how much you found yourself visiting different hospital wards, this was a long awaited question. jungkook waited for your response, his dark doe eyes focusing into yours.

“okay, so you make your palms parallel and circle your hands away from you twice, like a wheel. it’s pretty simple!”

you watched as jungkook focused intently on his hands, trying to get the perfect alignment and motions. strangely enough, you became intensely focused on his hands too, checking his signing and in pure fascination.

“i’ll try not to use it as much so you don’t have to remember it,” you said, half joking.