A/N: All parts where characters are speaking in English will be underlined. Thank you for your attention, please enjoy the story.
TalaRei
My English Tutor
Disclaimer: Kivea does not own Beyblade.
--
The boy sucked in a breath, his heart beating wildly and a look of determination on his face. He put his tanned hand on the golden door handle, pushing the door forward and popping his head into the room. It was dark, and the light that he was letting in illuminated the room and a door on the left.
First door on the left, she said, he thought, fully stepping into the dark hallway. It was a plain dark wall with soft red carpet. There was three pictures on the wall, attracting his attention. One was of a young boy and girl sitting at a beach in nappies, playing by a lopsided sandcastle. Their matching crimson eyes sent shivers down the boy's spine. The one below looked like a big family photo, each member with pale skin. The two children from the picture above were older in this one, looking at the camera with the same red eyes that many other of their family members had. The final one was a long photo of a girl laughing, her hair and summer dress blowing in the wind as she stood on the beach. She had beautiful platinum locks that none of the other people in the photos had. The boy felt his hand running over his own hair which was tied in a wrap and hung at his knees.
"What are you doing?" came a male voice from behind him. He spun, his golden eyes fixing on the crimson ones of the boy from the photo. He stood a good five inches taller than the long haired boy and had strange shark tail markings on his cheeks, eyes glaring.
"I-I came," he swallowed. "For tutoring."
The red eyed boy in front of him snorted and went back into the room opposite the photos, holding the door open. "This way."
He followed quickly, clinging to his school bag.
Lying on the couch in front of the TV was a pale boy, his head flung over the back so his neck was fully exposed. His school shirt was unbuttoned half way and the sleeves were pushed up to his elbows. The long haired boy still had his black school jacket on, buttoned all the way up, and the red eyed male next to him had the same jacket but it wasn't buttoned at all.
"Tala!" the red eyed one snapped before snapping something in another language.
The head came forward and two strands of red hair fell into dazzling icy blue eyes, vibrant hair up in devil horns. He looked at the taller boy before turning his eyes to the smaller one.
"You must be Rei," Tala said smoothly, standing and smiling slightly. "I'm Tala, you're new English tutor."
Rei cleared his throat. "Thank you very much for-for offering to help."
"Nonsense," Tala said, swinging his hips as he waltzed over to the two males. "Anything to be of service to such a pretty boy."
The other boy mumbled something in a language Rei didn't speak.
"Don't be rude, Kai," Tala scolded. "Speak in Japanese."
Kai raised a brow. "I don't see how Japanese will help someone who's meant to be learning English."
Tala smirked. "I don't see how Russian will help someone who's meant to be learning English and only speaks Japanese and Chinese."
"Whatever," Kai sighed, turning to Rei. "Good luck with that one," he jerked his head to Tala. "Do you need anything to drink or eat?"
"Uh, some milk would be nice."
"Get me a can of bear, will you?" Tala called, shutting the door as the red eyed boy left. He turned his attention to Rei, chuckling. "Relax a little, will you? You're so tense! Take off your jacket or something, put your bag down. Have a little break before we start studying."
Rei dropped his bag and followed the red head to the couch, looking at the TV program that was lighting up the room. Some scary movie.
God, what was Mao thinking?
--
"Rei!" she jumped onto Rei's desk, sitting on it with a bright grin. "You'll never guess what I managed to get you!"
He gave her a bored look. "Final Fantasy four?"
She frowned, but her energy wasn't depleted. "Lee shouldn't have gotten you that game. It's all you do, when what you should be doing is studying for a certain subject,"
Rei narrowed his eyes at that smiled she had back. "What did you do, Mao?"
"Have some faith, Rei! I've gotten you an English tutor!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it so exciting?"
"No, it really isn't," he cringed. "You know I can't speak English!"
She huffed. "Chinese may be the second most spoken language, but that's only because so many people in the world are Chinese. As your big sister-"
"You're not my big sister, Mao."
"-I think that it would be better for you if you could actually pass English with a C. Then you'll be ready to face the big, bad world and it's inhabitants!"
He sighed, seeing no way around the situation. "When and where?"
Mao squealed, hopping off his desk, her wild pink hair swaying slightly. "After school today straight away! I have the address in my bag!"
"But me and Lee were going to go-"
She huffed, planting her hands on her hips. "I've talked to Lee already, don't think he's getting out of this either! I've organised for him to do his chores rather than leaving me to do them."
Rei sighed, rubbing his temples. "What's my tutor like then?"
"Oh, you'll see, you'll see. He's in the year above us at the Japanese International High School-"
"Those kids hate kids from our school!" Rei exclaimed, fully aware of the rivalry between the two schools.
"Oh, suck it up. He seemed more than happy to help."
"Are you at least going to tell me his name?"
Mao smiled dreamily. "Tala," she said. "He's Russian, rich, and has the nicest hair colour ever," she frowned. "It clashes with mine though."
"Why, what's his hair colour? Teal?"
"Red," her eyes lit up. "Bright, shocking red!"
--
Tala smiled and Rei fidgeted under the gaze. Kai had lead the two away from the TV into a study room where they were sat surrounded by books on a table with paper and pencils all over, an English children's book in front of them.
"What's this word?" Rei asked, pointing at the page.
"Yume, dream,"
"Dream," Rei repeated, wrapping his tongue around the word. "Tis dream." Tala chuckled a little and Rei flustered, fuming slightly. "I can't pronounce the t-h thing, okay?"
"Not many Asian people can," Tala said, turning back to the page, his amused smile still in place. "So, this dream was different because-"
"What's because?"
Tala sighed, shaking his head. "Because is on every other page. How do you not remember?"
Rei looked down sadly, fists clenched on the table. "I told you, I'm not good at English."
There was a pause where the blue eyed boy sat back in his chair, looking intently at the other.
"Say that in English."
Rei looked up. "What?"
"What you just said."
Rei bit his lip. "I speak to you, I no speak English good."
Tala nodded. "When saying 'speak' in past tense, it changes to 'said'. Remember that. It's irregular."
The smaller boy stared at the Russian for a few moments, who was sat up in his chair, looking professional, amusement still in his eyes. Rei nodded and wrote down the words in his book.
"Now, this dream was different because-"
"Because it was about snow," Rei finished. He frowned. "What's snow?"
"In English."
"What snow?"
Tala smiled slightly. "Yuki."
"And because?"
Annoyed sigh. "Kai! Can we have a break?!"
--
The three males were sat in the kitchen eating steak. The Russians each had a can of bear while Rei had a glass of milk. After a while the door bell rang and Kai got up silently, leaving the room and excusing himself.
"So, you go to Tsubasa High, right?" Tala asked. "Is it a nice school?"
"It's alright I guess," Rei replied. "We don't have English classes though, but I used to take beginners English in China before we moved out here," he frowned thoughtfully. "Are you and Kai related?"
Tala shook his head. "No, just friends. I practically live here though, as we're so close. We're two out of about five Russians at the international school."
"Out of all those kids?" Rei asked, shocked. "Wow…"
"Yeah," Tala shrugged. The couple looked up as Kai entered the room, a pink haired girl following. She wore her usual pink attire, quarter lengths and a Chinese shirt.
"Hi Tala, thanks loads for tutoring Rei," Mao said with a bright smile. "Don't know what he would do without you," she turned to Rei, telling him to thank the redhead in Chinese.
"Yeah, thanks," Rei said. "And thank you for the food, Kai."
He shook his head.
Tala stood and walked Mao and Rei to the door. "It's no problem, it was fun," he winked at me. "And I do anything to get out of my own work."
Mao waved and started to walk down the path. Rei smiled and followed her.
"Did you have fun?" Mao asked.
"I guess, he's kind of cool," Rei replied. "The English part wasn't fun though."
She giggled. "I'm sure you'll come to love it, English is the word of the world, as Granma used to say."
Rei frowned. "What's world?"
Mao rolled her eyes and linked their arms, resting her head on his shoulder. "I said, English is the word of the world."
"Oh!"
The two Chinese students got back home, walking into the house and into the living room where Lee and his dad were watching TV. Lee looked up, grinning to see his sister and Rei.
"Hey guys," he greeted, standing and walking over to them. "How was tutoring?"
"It was okay," Rei replied with a shrug.
"I can't believe Mao has you learning from one of those rich kids."
The girl huffed. "There's nothing wrong with them, Lee! You haven't even met them!"
"I don't plan on it," Lee said.
"I'm tired and stuff, so I'm going to go shower," Rei said, leaving to go to his room to get his things.
Tala, Rei thought, falling on his bed and staring at the ceiling, imagining the bright haired boy. You're very interesting, aren't you?
--
Kivea: -shifty eyes- I know, I know, I said I wouldn't make anymore stories, but I can't help it! The idea was so…so…
Ugh, I loved it and couldn't be bothered to manga-it.
Ja ne ~
Kivea
PS: Uh, about calling Mariah Mao, I like it better muchly, so I call her that instead. If anyone has a problem with it, tell me and I'll change it back.
PREVIEW:
"Kai! What are you doing here?"
"You left your jacket at my house."
"Oh…thanks for giving it back."
"Hn."
"Rei, who's this?"