How To Speak Again

By: AtomicKokoro

Storyline

Shinra seeks the aid of Masaomi and Saki once again. The only problem is that they forgot how to speak Japanese! Izaya and Shinra's lives are on the line, and a language barrier just might destroy everything!

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Before You Read

Last chapter, Saki went to have coffee with Jacques-Francis. Masaomi gets jealous and Shinra and Izaya make their way to Paris.

I broke my backspace button while writing this.

On with the story!

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Chapter 4

How To Forget

"Shinra! Izaya!" the duo yelled, speeding towards the two confused young men. Izaya and Shinra glanced around at the sight of their names before Shinra spotted them and punched Izaya in the shoulder. Izaya glared at him before following his gaze and noticing the two teens running across the street.

Saki and Masaomi practically danced between the busy people to get to their two friends. Masaomi and Izaya stared at each other awkwardly while Saki rambled on (in Furenchi) about how excited she was to see them.

Izaya and Shinra blinked stupidly.

"Oh, mon Dieu, je ne peux pas croire que vous les gars sont en fait ici!" Saki gasped, brushing Shinra on the shoulder awkwardly and wrapping her arms around Izaya's waist.

Izaya and Shinra looked at each other for a moment. "Saki," Shinra began. "You're going to have to speak Houjin. We can't understand you."

Saki let go of Izaya for the moment, trying to catch her breath from running and speaking a mile a minute. "Pardon?" she asked.

"Speak in Houjin." This time, Izaya said it. "I can speak about a million other languages, but Furenchi isn't one of them."

Saki blinked and turned to Masaomi, confused, and muttered to him something. Masaomi shrugged and looked at them both, wondering what was wrong, when realization struck his face. "Ils parlent le japonais. Nous ne pouvons pas parler japonais. Ils ne peuvent pas parler français!"

Saki's jaw dropped and she turned back to the men before looking at Masaomi again. "Mais nous parler japonais. ...Droite? ...N'avons-nous pas?"

Masaomi shook his head. "Nous avons oublié," he said, sounding dreadful. Both teens glanced down then up at their friends, who were still standing dumbfounded. They didn't understand a word either of them said.

"Do you think they can understand us?" Shinra whispered to the black-haired male beside him.

Izaya shook his head. "Probably not," he said. "Can't you tell by the look on their faces? They forgot how to speak Japanese. They've spent too much time here in France. Some time in Ikebukuro, Japan in general, and they should be back to normal in no time, with the occasional accent, of course."

Shinra frowned. "How can we get them to help us?" he muttered, more to himself than Izaya.

"We don't," was the reply. Izaya turned on his heel and started towards the boat again. "We'll go to Tokyo and take care of this ourselves."

There was some more gibberish he didn't understand when he was grabbed by the arm by Saki and pulled back, her eyes pleading for him to stay. Izaya sighed. He thought she was done with him. Maybe that wasn't true? If that was so...

"Pourquoi quittez-vous?" Masaomi asked, stepping forward. "Pourquoi avez-vous venir à Paris?"

Saki turned to him and snapped at him to be quiet. Masaomi took a deep breath and scratched the back of his head. He turned around for a moment and put his hands on his hips, closing his eyes and opening them again to stare up at the sky. It was blue. A light blue, but when it turned to a darker, navy blue, he would have to go inside.

But that wouldn't before for another few hours.

He turned back and shrugged. Shinra sighed. "This really is hopeless," he muttered. "I guess they can't help us."

Izaya rolled his eyes. "That is the second time you've said that, Shinra-kun."

Shinra had half a mind to snap back, but stopped. His gaze fixed in horror at the side view of a bridge that cross over a river. Izaya had already spotted the woman long before Shinra had, hoping to escape her discreetly.

That wasn't happening.

"They're here," Izaya mumbled to Shinra, who nodded and swept his gaze to check for other enemies.

He spotted two others. "I wish we could tell Kida-san and Saki-san," he whispered, turning back to them.

"Don't you know sign language?" Izaya asked, which he was certain of since he and Shinra had taken it together in High School.

Shinra nodded. "Maybe Saki would know." He turned back and made some hand gestures, in hopes that would work. Masaomi and Saki stared at him, dumbfounded. "I guess not."

Suddenly, Saki turned to Masaomi. "N'avez-vous pas de prendre langue des signes avec Mikado?" she asked.

Masaomi shrugged. "Comme je prêter attention à quelque chose de si ennuyeux. Je suis seulement allé parce Mikado a fait."

Saki huffed. "Vous souvenez-vous quelque chose?"

Masaomi made the hand gesture for "Dammit". Saki asked him what it meant. Masaomi gladly replied. Shinra knew what it meant, too, and he rolled his eyes. Only Masaomi would learn what "Dammit" was in sign language. Saki asked if he knew anything else. Masaomi said no.

Izaya suddenly seemed uneasy. "Shinra," he whispered. "They're coming."

Shinra inhaled and nodded once. Masaomi and Saki were still trying to find a way to communicate with them. Shinra quickly grabbed Saki's hand and led her away from where he was sure the agents were closing in. Izaya wrapped an arm around Masaomi's shoulders and forced him along, too.

The doctor led them to the nearest alley. He turned to them and set his gray eyes dead straight into Saki's first, then Masaomi's. "We're in danger," he said slowly, hoping they could at least understand something he said. "The Robot Association is trying to kill us."

Masaomi blinked. "What?"

Shinra looked at him and opened his mouth to address the idea Masaomi had just spoken Houjin, when Izaya pulled out his knife. "They're here."

Shinra pulled out his scalpel (scaring Saki and Masaomi; who knew he carried one around?) and crouched defensively. Masaomi got the idea and stood in front of Saki, one arm up as though to protect her, using the wall of the building as a back-around shield. "How many?" Shinra asked.

"Three," Izaya replied, sounding certain. Shinra nodded. They stared at the mouth of the alley and, surely enough, three people walked in through the end. One woman (the first one Shinra noticed) looked like a typical Furenchi woman, dressed in a red dress and feather boa. The other two were men, one dressed in a black and white suit and the other dressed as a baker.

"Je le connais!" Masaomi cried, pointing at the baker. He had been there the previous day, when he bought the croissant. The day he asked Saki if she missed Ikebukuro. It was obvious the baker knew him, too. He whipped out a gun and aimed it at the four before him.

Izaya smirked and rushed forward. Shinra turned to Masaomi and yelled, "Run!" but Masaomi stood still, unsure of the command Shinra had just yelled.

There was a gunshot, but no yelling. The bullet had cut through the air harmlessly and embedded itself into a wall. Shinra took that moment to run into the fight. Izaya had already started slashing at what would seem at random to the normal folk, but he was carefully calculating each and every move of his own and the opponents. Shinra was blindly ducking and moving, improvising the whole thing. He couldn't bring himself to attack the girl, so he went for the baker since Izaya had already "called" the man in the suit.

Saki buried herself into Masaomi's coat, Masaomi whispering to her in Furenchi everything was going to be okay and that he would protect her. Saki dug her fingernails into her coat as Izaya whipped around and cut the woman across the cheek. She had tried to jump him from behind.

The man in the suit took that moment to grab Izaya's wrist, but the informant twisted himself gracefully and turned the tables so he had the man's wrist instead. He forcefully turned it and broke the bone. The man cried out and retreated for a second. Izaya then turned and narrowly avoided the woman's purse. Izaya started wondering if she was taking the fight seriously.

Shinra, on the other hand, was trying to keep a butcher knife out of his throat. The baker had used a variety of baking tools as weapons – a frying pan, a spatula, a rolling pin – and all Shinra found himself using were his spatula and a flu shot needle he had on hand. The fight could escalate from a simple fight to a horror story in a matter of seconds if he wasn't careful.

There was a glistening from the edge of the knife for a moment, and Shinra found out it was the reflection of another blade; Izaya's, and it was coming down on the baker's arm. The baker howled and turned to run away, once realizing his comrades had been defeated.

"Thanks," Shinra panted.

Izaya shrugged. "No problem."