push me towards the sun

she was always jealous of the sun. everyone knew it was there, even when it wasn't.

by la rose de versailles

"Hello, my nah-m is Song Kyung-Mi. Please excoose my bah-d ack-shent. I haf only reshently arrived in Japan. I am naht used to speac-king in Jah-panese."

Bouts of laughter spread across the room and the teacher hurried to shush them all. It was never very polite to make fun of a new student. Much less one who had only recently arrived in the country, I noted. I had only recently arrived in Japan from Korea. The move had been on short notice. My father had gotten a great job offer and decided to relocate the family immediately so he could start working. It didn't give me all too much time to study the language better, and well. Frankly, that was what made this catastrophe happen. It was difficult speaking Japanese. It didn't feel as fluid as Korean was, but I supposed it was just something I'd have to learn to deal with.

Worse come to worse, I could just start dragging a translator with me.

Though, I supposed that might have just attracted more attention. The teacher turned to me now, speaking in the foreign language that I still could not comprehend. My eyebrows were raised in question, not fully understanding what it was she was asking of me. I was almost scared to ask a question. Today hadn't gotten off to a great start after all. Here, I had woken up thinking, 'Oh, I'm probably not going to go to school for a while until I learn the language'. But nope, I just had to go back to school after bailing out of it for a while because of the move.

It was always awkward moving into a new school in the middle of the term. We moved a lot though even when we were still in the country, so I had gotten used to it. But this, this was just pathetic. I had no idea what was even happening. "Kyung-mi!" The name came so fluidly from the teacher's mouth. I had no idea she was a multi-linguist. Though, I supposed that too made sense. Why put me in a class where even the teacher couldn't communicate with me?

Or maybe my name was just that easy to pronounce.

The teacher pointed to the back corner of the room, making gestures to communicate for me to sit in any desk available. There was a nice one in the corner by the window! I bowed partially, fumbling with the many textbooks that I carried in my arms. Some of them came to a thud on the floor and I hurriedly picked them up before scurrying to the back of the room. Dear god, that was embarrassing. I could hear stifled laughter from the others as I set my books down on the desk, and jammed myself into the chair.

I sat there, silently praying for class to be over. Hours passed after hour and I only sat there, staring at the teacher and trying to understand the Japanese that came from her. This language! It was impossible! You would have thought that Korean and Japanese was close enough to comprehend, but nothing! I understood nothing! My hands rose up to the black tendrils that were my hair, yanking on it in frustration. This was impossible! I would die a slow, slow death.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder though, and I turned to look at them. It was a brown-haired fellow with big, brown eyes. Or at least. I think it was a boy. I couldn't really tell. They pointed at a note on my desk and I stared at it. I picked it up and passed it forward to the person sitting in front of me before the note was snatched away by the brown haired boy. Two ginger headed twins sitting behind the boy laughed. He wrote on top of it, slowly. I stared at the note once he handed it back to me, trying to decipher the Japanese characters. Okay, so that was a K. Next one was a Y. After skimming through my translator book, it was a note for me. The bell rang then, and the boy waved to me before getting up to leave with the twins. I only sat there then, quiet as I read. Or rather, attempted to read.

"Hello, Kyung-mi. My name is Ha- Haru… Haruhi Fu… Fujioka." I read out loud, tilting the note to a certain degree trying to understand. So this person's name was Haruhi Fujioka. Sounded more like a girl's name to me. But apparently, since this person was sporting the male's uniform, I had assumed otherwise. Or maybe his parents just wanted a girl so badly that they ended up naming him Haruhi? Well, it was a possibility. "I will try… to help… you?" I continued, tapping myself on the chin with a pencil gently. Help? That sounded nice. I certainly could have used some.

I couldn't even pronounce the name of the school without sounding like an idiot.

"If you need help…" I continued, understanding a bit. "If you need help, please just ask me." Well, that was awfully nice of him! I clapped my hands together in excitement, pushing myself up from my seat and getting a hold of all my books before stumbling out the empty classroom. Most of the people were at lunch right now. I walked to the cafeteria, taking in the lovely room. It was so pretty! I looked for a seat, taking one at a semi-crowded table.

But it was eradicated as soon as I managed to set my things down. That was fine, I supposed. I would make friends after I learned how to speak in the language properly. Then people wouldn't shun me for it. I sat there, opening up my translation book and recited words quietly. Some people gave me strange glances, but I didn't pay too much mind to them. I heard the sounds of footsteps approaching, and I lifted my head up in question. It was uh. …what was his name? …Haruhi! Yeah, that was it. He looked at me, making a gesture as if he were about to sit down. I nodded quickly, almost too quickly. If I kept doing that, I was almost sure my head would fall off my neck.

That wouldn't be too much of a pretty picture, I noted.

Several people glanced at him, before getting up and sitting down at my table as well. Company! It felt good to have company at last. It was nice, feeling like I had a sense of belonging. But even so, I felt like a trespasser for letting Haruhi sit with me. I'm sure that they had other things to talk about anyway. But still, they continued to sit by me though not directly talking to me. That was okay though. The language gap was understandable.

I only laughed and smiled when they did, not understanding whatever it was that they were laughing about. I could only hope that they were not making jokes about me. Haruhi was very kind to me, so I sat there quietly. Perhaps his friends were very kind as well. So I just sat there smiling, invisible to them all though Haruhi sometimes tried to get me into the conversation. But the twins would get fed up with how slowly I spoke and interrupt me. It was okay though. I didn't mind being invisible.

I was okay with just studying.

Author's Note: I apologize for a rather long, boring introductory chapter. I've been reading Ouran fanfics lately and it seems a lot of them have foreigners that don't seem to have any problem grasping the Japanese language. So I decided to make a character who is a foreigner and does have a language gap. Don't worry though, the gap will get lesser and lesser with every chapter until Kyung-mi can actually carry a conversation with the host club. I will publish a second chapter shortly, so please bear with me and Kyung-mi for now.