Disclaimer: unless noted otherwise, all characters used in this story are owned by Tim Kring


A cockroach, feeling himself king of the world, crawled over a wide open space, made almost entirely out of concrete materials. It didn't think that there'd be anything out here that could, or would kill it. How wrong it was. There was one loud click of a woman's heal, which got somewhat disguised by the squishing sound, caused by the fact that the heal stepped on it directly.

The woman who stepped on it, who was a young blond girl, lifted up her foot to look. She knew that these type of shoes somehow make a woman look more beautiful, but she felt that they appeared more useful as murderous weapons than anything else. Sexy and deadly, as her boyfriend would describe it. Before she had a chance to think more of it, she heard a car honking. She looked into the direction of where it came from. She saw a blue Nissan Versa, of which the driver had no idea of how to control it, judging from the way he controlled the lights and everything. Being the nice girl she is, she walked to the car, trying to talk to the driver. It was an Asian guy, mumbling some kind of panicked Japanese.

"You need any help?" she asked him in English.

Still speaking Japanese, the guy replied: "Oh... nothing's wrong! I got everything under control!"

The girl laughed out loud: "I'm sorry, but it doesn't look that way for me!"

"Okay, maybe I'm not so..." the guy started, but then realized something odd.

The girl saw the look on the guy's face, then realized what was wrong that moment. The whole time he spoke Japanese, and she spoke English. Yet, for some reason, they understood each other perfectly well.

"You speak Japanese?" the guy asked.

"I... well... no. Actually, I..." the girl muttered.

"But you understand me?"

The girl supposed so: "Yes."

"You know how to drive a car?" the guy asked.

"I..." the girl hoped that this guy could understand this right, "I don't have my license yet, but I know how to drive, yes."

"Can you teach me?"

The girl had never heard the Japanese word for 'teach' yet, therefor she didn't understand him at first.

The guy noticed this: "You know, help me to drive this?"

Once the girl understood him, she replied: "I could try, but I promise nothing."

The guy appeared very enthusiastic about this, either because someone can help him, or because he only understood half of what she just said. She wasn't sure which one it was, nor was she sure she could teach him anything. But she decided to go with it anyway.

"My name is Hiro Nakamura." the guy said.

The name rang a bell to the girl. Once she remembered it, she said: "Y... you're Hiro? The same man my boyfriend called for my computer?"

"Did he?" Hiro didn't appear to remember, "I got lots of calls from people."

The girl smiled. She could help him remind of which call exactly, but knowing that it would take up some time, she decided not to. Instead, she returned Hiro a little favor: "I'm Aline."

After about a half an hour of explaining one or two things to Hiro, Aline realized that whatever words she used in English to explain him, he almost litterally understood only half of it.

"Maybe it would help if I drove a little." she suggested.

"Yes, you do that." Hiro agreed.

Aline was about to start the car, when suddenly a thought occurred to Hiro: "How can you be so sure I'm the one your boyfriend spoke to? The names Hiro ans Nakamura are quite common in Japan."

"Oh..." Aline was surprised he'd bring that up, but she answered anyway: "I recognized your voice."

Hiro seemed to understand at first, but as the car got started, he realized something else: "Wait a second! If it's your boyfriend I spoke to, how can YOU know my voice?"

Aline hadn't thought about that. For obvious reasons, she couldn't explain him why, but she had no explanation at the ready either. So all she said was: "It's a long story."

Hiro didn't understand that phrase, but as Aline had already started to drive the car, Hiro decided to shrug it off.

It took Aline about an hour before Hiro had fully comprehended everything she said, or even everything she did when driving. Once they were both certain there was an understanding, Aline felt secure to let Hiro drive the car. After driving for only five seconds, Aline realized she made a mistake of judgment, for Hiro was already about to hit a mother with her child. Just as quickly as that happened, the couple appeared to have... disappeared from where they stood, only to reappear just out of the way. This way, when Hiro hit the breaks, he didn't hit the mother and child in the progress. Whatever it was that happened just then was quite confusing, but somehow it was more confusing to Hiro than it was to Aline, who mumbled something in a foreign language. Hiro wasn't sure what it was she said, but it sounded a lot like the English word 'work', although she definitely didn't speak English.

"Maybe we should try that again." Aline remarked.

"You're special too?" Hiro started.

Aline looked at him surprised: "What do you mean?"

"Are you the one who made them move away?" Hiro asked.

Aline pretended to not know anything: "What are you talking about?"

Suddenly, the people behind them started to honk their horns. Aline made a decision: "Maybe you let me park us."

"Oh no!" Hiro was enthusiastic about learning, "I think I'm starting to learn..."

Another honking interrupted him, so Aline insisted: "Right now, we got a better chance of me driving this without getting us into any accidents!"

"Or drawing too much attention to ourselves!" Hiro reasoned, "OK, I got it!"

He gave Aline the thumbs up, although she didn't know what he was going on about. In any event, she switched seats with Hiro, and tried to get the car parked again.


Note: the character "Aline" is mine