Language Lessons
by vega
Rate: G
Spoiler: General third season.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Lane and Dave, a conversation in the car.
Note: Of course I would write something purely fluffy and happy instead of two essays. And I thought I was never going to write another GG fic.
***
It was a beautiful evening. The sun was setting slowly, the streets were shining with an amber glow, she was watching Dave drive beside her, and everything was absolutely perfect except for the knots in her stomach.
This was so not a good idea.
When her mother briskly informed her that she had invited Dave and his band for a dinner as a standard thank-you gesture, Lane was certain Dave would have declined the offer. Except, he hadn't declined. He had accepted gracefully, while his two friends had made excuses to get out from it. And now he was joining her family for the dinner, by himself, probably to be dissected into pieces.
She imagined herself looking at Dave at the dinner table and staring at him. She imagined herself blurting out, in between the dinner and the desert and one too many second of hopelessness, that she was liking this boy more than she ever should and pleading to let her go out with him. She imagined the disapproving looks on her parents' faces. She imagined Dave getting kicked out and landing on their porch.
Not good. Not good at all.
Dave was apparently oblivious to her thoughts. "Ssaranghae?" he tried again, letting out vowels and consonants in an entirely unnatural way, his eyes briefly on her before they went back to the road ahead of them.
"S-a, rang, hae," Lane corrected him.
"Ssa?"
"No, it's not 'ssa' with an accent on 's'. It's on the vowel 'a' sound. It's s-a, and 's' is not harsh. It's a soft 's'."
Dave, very dubiously, tried again, "Sar, rang, hae?"
Lane strained to smile. "Exactly."
"Not even close, huh?"
"Really, you sounded very Korean--"
A stern look. "Lane."
"--in a very non-Korean way?" she cringed.
To her relief, Dave cracked a grin. "Well, then, I'll just have to practice a bit more."
She had the most understanding boyfriend in the world. But, still. "Dave, why are you so set on learning Korean?" Lane asked, desperate not to proceed with more lessons that really weren't making him sound like Korean at all.
"So I can impress your mother with my Korean?"
"I highly doubt if my mother would be thrilled hearing you say you love her, in a very informal way no less."
He suddenly looked alarmed. "There's a formal way of saying 'I love you'?"
"Well, there's s-aranghaeyoe, but that's slightly less formal. There's always s-aranghapnidah, but I'm sure there's no one in their right mind who would declare their love in that restrictedly formal way."
"So, sar-rang-hae is fine if I were to say this, let's assume for a second, to you."
"To me, yes." Lane tried not to smile too broadly, while neglecting to point out that he still didn't get the 's-a' right.
Dave gave her a sidelong look before returning his gaze to the road. "What about, you look very beautiful tonight."
She blushed. "Well, let see." Oh god, this was hard and embarrassing on so many levels. "I think ohnl-nuenen-ahju-ahrmdawae might be close."
He considered it for a moment. "You look very beautiful tonight."
More blushing. "Thank you. You, too."
He gave her an amused, teasing smile. "I look beautiful?"
"Handsome? Manly? Cute? Any adjective would work in this case."
"Seriously though, am I okay with this suit?" Dave glanced down at his gray jacket and pants that he didn't look very uncomfortable in.
"I think the tie might've been an overkill, but, still good-looking."
"Good to know, but what I meant was--is my outfit appropriate for the occasion?"
"Well, it's just a supper, not a formal dinner."
"So I don't get to see you wearing traditional outfit or anything?"
"Believe me, you don't want to see me in it. Plus, my hair has to be braided in that scenario."
"Wow, *now* I really do want to see you in it."
"Don't jinx it. The next occasion for me to wear it might be me getting into an arranged marriage."
"And we can't have that, can we? Not if I have any say in it."
She liked the fact that they'd been going out for a short time but he was definitely giving a vibe that he was here to stay. She liked it. Very much.
She watched him nervously straightening his jacket while they stopped for the red light. She felt the need to reassure him. "Don't worry. My parents like you. Possibly like you more than they like me."
"As a very rarely tidy Christian boy, maybe. But not as your potential boyfriend."
"My potential boyfriend translates as their potential son-in-law. In that case, they'd want to murder you with a shovel."
"Ah."
Lane kicked herself inwardly. Now Dave must be wishing to get a girlfriend he could date without his life hanging on the line. "Maybe we should fake food poisoning or something," she tried miserably. "You mistakenly had an evil American hamburger today for the first time in your life and now you're being punished for it. Maybe you should just call in sick and bail out. Maybe--"
"Lane, it's okay. The more your parents get to see me and get to like me, the better, remember?"
"Yes, but..." Having Dave at her house and pretending as if she didn't want stare at him forever was hard enough, but having a dinner with him, and *with* her family? She couldn't *not* glance at him with every bit of rice into her mouth. Plus, he smelled entirely too good. She was plagued by the urge to lean over and smell him.
God. There was no way her parents wouldn't notice.
"Are you okay with spicy food?" she asked gingerly, trying to worry over more practical things.
"You mean kimchee and stuff? Don't worry. I've been practicing with jalapeno and entirely too much of hot salsa."
"Uh, good," she answered encouragingly, while thinking--oh god. We're doomed. They never seemed to realize hot sauce and Korean pepper paste were two very different things.
And then, something else occurred to her.
"Dave, you do know how to use chopsticks, right?"
He shrugged. "I had some Chinese food before, so yeah."
"Stop the car!" she half-screamed.
Startled, Dave pressed the break and pulled over to the side. "What, what?"
"I can't believe I forgot this part. How do you hold chopsticks?"
"Uh, how? Is that...important?"
"My mom can tell what kind of a person you are by watching you use chopsticks."
He blinked. "She can?"
"Well, no, she can't, not really, but she seems to think she can. Where do you hold them, close to the front, middle or the end?"
"What can she tell from that?"
"Well, for girls, if you hold chopsticks close to the front, you are supposed to be married to the household close to your home." Which was why she held them as far away from the front as humanly possible. "As for guys... the way you hold it shows your character. And class."
"Class, huh?" He thought about for a second and pulled out his bag from the backseat. "Let's do this then."
She stared at the two pens he'd pulled out from the bag. "Do what?"
He took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Practice. Show me the right way to use chopsticks."
So, it had come to this. Lane Kim was showing her secret boyfriend how to use chopsticks in front of her parents. This would actually be funny if he didn't look so grave and she didn't feel so bad about this. Swallowing, she began to demonstrate the way. "Okay, you have to hold one chopstick between your index finger and middle finger. And the other has to stay parallel, and between middle finger and ring finger. Oh, and they shouldn't touch each other except when they're picking up the food."
Dave tried, rather futilely, to hold them in the right way. Failed spectacularly. "This is harder than it looks," he admitted.
She felt sympathetic. "But you're doing so marvelously. I'm thinking yanban class, at least. That's the old bourgeois class."
"Really?" he gave her a small grin that weakened her knees.
"Of course," she said, thanking that she was actually sitting down. "The intellectual class, at least."
"And that's good?"
"That's *very* good."
"Okay, then. One more crisis evaded," he said pleasantly and changed the gear. "You ready?"
She only nodded, because she didn't feel like lying. Her mother was going to think Dave was of a peasant class. And, more to the point, her mother was going to think it didn't really matter anyway because Dave wasn't Korean. She sighed.
"So," Dave began again once they got back to the road, "is there anything else I should know? I shouldn't say?"
There were just so many, but she couldn't list them all and freak out Dave more than she already had, could she? She decided to go for the big ones. "Well, if my father begins to talk about March 1st, only nod as if you agree to everything he says. I'll jump in and change the topic."
"What is March 1st?"
"Uh, it's a kind of Independence Day for Korea. Sort of."
"From what?"
"That's exactly the question you should avoid asking."
"If I go informed, I could at least make some sort of an impression on your parents."
"Well," she thought about it. She really didn't feel like elaborating at the moment, but going in informed might have its merits. "It's a memorial day for the people who tried to free the country when Japan annexed Korea."
"When was this?" Dave asked, looking as if he was desperately trying to recall history classes.
"1919."
"Wow."
"Yeah, we Koreans hold grudges for a while."
"Seems like that might be a good enough reason to hold grudges. Taken over by another country doesn't seem like a good, happy thing."
"I agree and all, but don't say any of that to my father. Dad will illustrate in explicit details what Japanese scientists did to Korean people used for medical experiments and it'll get to the point too graphic that no one would be able to eat anything resembling food for the entire duration of the dinner."
"Okay, no questions will be asked and your father should not be encouraged. Check. What else?"
"Well, the usual. Don't start eating before your elders, don't go for dishes before they were at least tasted by the elders, and oh, you don't eat the last piece of any dish that's left."
"Why not?"
There was no way she could explain this. "You just don't."
"Okay, then."
When they arrived at her place, and her heart was beating too fast. She would never survive the night, she was sure. He parked the car at the side, turned off the engine, and turned to her. "Anything else?"
"No."
"Are you *sure*?"
Well, there was 'Run like hell if my mother decides to come after you with a shovel' line, but she skipped that part. "I think you're more or less prepared. If you do something that's inappropriate, I'll signal."
"Furiously blinking or twirling your hair?"
"I'll massage my temple with my index finger?"
"Got it." He was about to get off the car, but stopped and turned to her again. "How do you say 'good evening' in Korean?"
She almost sighed. "Dave, I don't want someone who can speak fluent Korean and knows everything about my culture and is liked by my parents in every aspect. That's not what I want from you, you know."
He faced her, his expression turning serious. "I think this is about the time we have the conversation."
A big uh-oh. "What conversation?" she asked meekly.
"Well, you don't seem to enjoy it too much, but you are a Korean."
"Korean-American," she corrected him.
"Exactly. You may not like it, but it is a part of who you are. And I'm not dating just the American Lane. I want you, the entire you. And if that involves learning customs and how to say hello in Korean, I don't have *any* problem with that. *I* want to do this. 'Cause, I love you."
She blinked.
It wasn't a dream. He *was* looking entirely sincere and infinitely adorable as he held her hands.
Oh, god, Lane thought. I'm so, so, so in love.
"Say something," Dave said, blushing slightly.
Her lips wouldn't move. Her whole body seemed immobile. After a long moment, she let out, quietly, "I just remembered another way of saying I love you in Korean."
Was he looking slightly disappointed? She couldn't tell. "Okay," he said, pulling up his sleeves again to hint his eagerness, "I'm ready to learn and willing. What?"
"This."
She leaned over and kissed him.
When she pulled away after a long, sweet, and definitely-need-more-oxygen-session of a kiss, he was smiling broadly. Happily.
"Wow," he said, his voice full of adoration.
"Yep."
"You kissed me."
"Yes, I did."
"In front of your house."
"I noticed."
"Somebody could've seen us."
"I don't think I care."
He looked at her admiringly, and she felt good. And happy. The expression 'butterflies in the stomach' made so much more sense to her now.
"It's definitely not something I can say to your mother," he decided.
"God, I sure hope not."
When she was trying hard not to imagine her mother's face, Dave leaned over again and kissed her again.
"How was that?" he asked, his hand on her cheek that felt really hot at the moment, his nose just lightly touching hers. "Did I learn it right?"
She blushed. "Mm-hmm. Very close."
"Once more just to perfect the skill?"
"Once more would be good. Very good."
So he complied.
"Yep, I think you mastered it very thoroughly," she declared breathlessly when they pulled away again.
He held her hand once again, tightly, and they both got off the car.
She breathed in the evening air, watched the dark-haired boy standing beside her. It was odd, this sensation. It felt as if she could do anything with anyone and not really care what her parents would think as long as he was looking at her like this. And never in her life had Lane Kim felt this way. Never this free. Never this free from the influence of her parents looking at her every step.
Maybe they were both learning new languages. Lane smiled.
"Dave?"
"Yeah?"
"S-a rang hae."
He smiled back. "Me, too."
END.
2/28/03
by vega
Rate: G
Spoiler: General third season.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Lane and Dave, a conversation in the car.
Note: Of course I would write something purely fluffy and happy instead of two essays. And I thought I was never going to write another GG fic.
***
It was a beautiful evening. The sun was setting slowly, the streets were shining with an amber glow, she was watching Dave drive beside her, and everything was absolutely perfect except for the knots in her stomach.
This was so not a good idea.
When her mother briskly informed her that she had invited Dave and his band for a dinner as a standard thank-you gesture, Lane was certain Dave would have declined the offer. Except, he hadn't declined. He had accepted gracefully, while his two friends had made excuses to get out from it. And now he was joining her family for the dinner, by himself, probably to be dissected into pieces.
She imagined herself looking at Dave at the dinner table and staring at him. She imagined herself blurting out, in between the dinner and the desert and one too many second of hopelessness, that she was liking this boy more than she ever should and pleading to let her go out with him. She imagined the disapproving looks on her parents' faces. She imagined Dave getting kicked out and landing on their porch.
Not good. Not good at all.
Dave was apparently oblivious to her thoughts. "Ssaranghae?" he tried again, letting out vowels and consonants in an entirely unnatural way, his eyes briefly on her before they went back to the road ahead of them.
"S-a, rang, hae," Lane corrected him.
"Ssa?"
"No, it's not 'ssa' with an accent on 's'. It's on the vowel 'a' sound. It's s-a, and 's' is not harsh. It's a soft 's'."
Dave, very dubiously, tried again, "Sar, rang, hae?"
Lane strained to smile. "Exactly."
"Not even close, huh?"
"Really, you sounded very Korean--"
A stern look. "Lane."
"--in a very non-Korean way?" she cringed.
To her relief, Dave cracked a grin. "Well, then, I'll just have to practice a bit more."
She had the most understanding boyfriend in the world. But, still. "Dave, why are you so set on learning Korean?" Lane asked, desperate not to proceed with more lessons that really weren't making him sound like Korean at all.
"So I can impress your mother with my Korean?"
"I highly doubt if my mother would be thrilled hearing you say you love her, in a very informal way no less."
He suddenly looked alarmed. "There's a formal way of saying 'I love you'?"
"Well, there's s-aranghaeyoe, but that's slightly less formal. There's always s-aranghapnidah, but I'm sure there's no one in their right mind who would declare their love in that restrictedly formal way."
"So, sar-rang-hae is fine if I were to say this, let's assume for a second, to you."
"To me, yes." Lane tried not to smile too broadly, while neglecting to point out that he still didn't get the 's-a' right.
Dave gave her a sidelong look before returning his gaze to the road. "What about, you look very beautiful tonight."
She blushed. "Well, let see." Oh god, this was hard and embarrassing on so many levels. "I think ohnl-nuenen-ahju-ahrmdawae might be close."
He considered it for a moment. "You look very beautiful tonight."
More blushing. "Thank you. You, too."
He gave her an amused, teasing smile. "I look beautiful?"
"Handsome? Manly? Cute? Any adjective would work in this case."
"Seriously though, am I okay with this suit?" Dave glanced down at his gray jacket and pants that he didn't look very uncomfortable in.
"I think the tie might've been an overkill, but, still good-looking."
"Good to know, but what I meant was--is my outfit appropriate for the occasion?"
"Well, it's just a supper, not a formal dinner."
"So I don't get to see you wearing traditional outfit or anything?"
"Believe me, you don't want to see me in it. Plus, my hair has to be braided in that scenario."
"Wow, *now* I really do want to see you in it."
"Don't jinx it. The next occasion for me to wear it might be me getting into an arranged marriage."
"And we can't have that, can we? Not if I have any say in it."
She liked the fact that they'd been going out for a short time but he was definitely giving a vibe that he was here to stay. She liked it. Very much.
She watched him nervously straightening his jacket while they stopped for the red light. She felt the need to reassure him. "Don't worry. My parents like you. Possibly like you more than they like me."
"As a very rarely tidy Christian boy, maybe. But not as your potential boyfriend."
"My potential boyfriend translates as their potential son-in-law. In that case, they'd want to murder you with a shovel."
"Ah."
Lane kicked herself inwardly. Now Dave must be wishing to get a girlfriend he could date without his life hanging on the line. "Maybe we should fake food poisoning or something," she tried miserably. "You mistakenly had an evil American hamburger today for the first time in your life and now you're being punished for it. Maybe you should just call in sick and bail out. Maybe--"
"Lane, it's okay. The more your parents get to see me and get to like me, the better, remember?"
"Yes, but..." Having Dave at her house and pretending as if she didn't want stare at him forever was hard enough, but having a dinner with him, and *with* her family? She couldn't *not* glance at him with every bit of rice into her mouth. Plus, he smelled entirely too good. She was plagued by the urge to lean over and smell him.
God. There was no way her parents wouldn't notice.
"Are you okay with spicy food?" she asked gingerly, trying to worry over more practical things.
"You mean kimchee and stuff? Don't worry. I've been practicing with jalapeno and entirely too much of hot salsa."
"Uh, good," she answered encouragingly, while thinking--oh god. We're doomed. They never seemed to realize hot sauce and Korean pepper paste were two very different things.
And then, something else occurred to her.
"Dave, you do know how to use chopsticks, right?"
He shrugged. "I had some Chinese food before, so yeah."
"Stop the car!" she half-screamed.
Startled, Dave pressed the break and pulled over to the side. "What, what?"
"I can't believe I forgot this part. How do you hold chopsticks?"
"Uh, how? Is that...important?"
"My mom can tell what kind of a person you are by watching you use chopsticks."
He blinked. "She can?"
"Well, no, she can't, not really, but she seems to think she can. Where do you hold them, close to the front, middle or the end?"
"What can she tell from that?"
"Well, for girls, if you hold chopsticks close to the front, you are supposed to be married to the household close to your home." Which was why she held them as far away from the front as humanly possible. "As for guys... the way you hold it shows your character. And class."
"Class, huh?" He thought about for a second and pulled out his bag from the backseat. "Let's do this then."
She stared at the two pens he'd pulled out from the bag. "Do what?"
He took off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. "Practice. Show me the right way to use chopsticks."
So, it had come to this. Lane Kim was showing her secret boyfriend how to use chopsticks in front of her parents. This would actually be funny if he didn't look so grave and she didn't feel so bad about this. Swallowing, she began to demonstrate the way. "Okay, you have to hold one chopstick between your index finger and middle finger. And the other has to stay parallel, and between middle finger and ring finger. Oh, and they shouldn't touch each other except when they're picking up the food."
Dave tried, rather futilely, to hold them in the right way. Failed spectacularly. "This is harder than it looks," he admitted.
She felt sympathetic. "But you're doing so marvelously. I'm thinking yanban class, at least. That's the old bourgeois class."
"Really?" he gave her a small grin that weakened her knees.
"Of course," she said, thanking that she was actually sitting down. "The intellectual class, at least."
"And that's good?"
"That's *very* good."
"Okay, then. One more crisis evaded," he said pleasantly and changed the gear. "You ready?"
She only nodded, because she didn't feel like lying. Her mother was going to think Dave was of a peasant class. And, more to the point, her mother was going to think it didn't really matter anyway because Dave wasn't Korean. She sighed.
"So," Dave began again once they got back to the road, "is there anything else I should know? I shouldn't say?"
There were just so many, but she couldn't list them all and freak out Dave more than she already had, could she? She decided to go for the big ones. "Well, if my father begins to talk about March 1st, only nod as if you agree to everything he says. I'll jump in and change the topic."
"What is March 1st?"
"Uh, it's a kind of Independence Day for Korea. Sort of."
"From what?"
"That's exactly the question you should avoid asking."
"If I go informed, I could at least make some sort of an impression on your parents."
"Well," she thought about it. She really didn't feel like elaborating at the moment, but going in informed might have its merits. "It's a memorial day for the people who tried to free the country when Japan annexed Korea."
"When was this?" Dave asked, looking as if he was desperately trying to recall history classes.
"1919."
"Wow."
"Yeah, we Koreans hold grudges for a while."
"Seems like that might be a good enough reason to hold grudges. Taken over by another country doesn't seem like a good, happy thing."
"I agree and all, but don't say any of that to my father. Dad will illustrate in explicit details what Japanese scientists did to Korean people used for medical experiments and it'll get to the point too graphic that no one would be able to eat anything resembling food for the entire duration of the dinner."
"Okay, no questions will be asked and your father should not be encouraged. Check. What else?"
"Well, the usual. Don't start eating before your elders, don't go for dishes before they were at least tasted by the elders, and oh, you don't eat the last piece of any dish that's left."
"Why not?"
There was no way she could explain this. "You just don't."
"Okay, then."
When they arrived at her place, and her heart was beating too fast. She would never survive the night, she was sure. He parked the car at the side, turned off the engine, and turned to her. "Anything else?"
"No."
"Are you *sure*?"
Well, there was 'Run like hell if my mother decides to come after you with a shovel' line, but she skipped that part. "I think you're more or less prepared. If you do something that's inappropriate, I'll signal."
"Furiously blinking or twirling your hair?"
"I'll massage my temple with my index finger?"
"Got it." He was about to get off the car, but stopped and turned to her again. "How do you say 'good evening' in Korean?"
She almost sighed. "Dave, I don't want someone who can speak fluent Korean and knows everything about my culture and is liked by my parents in every aspect. That's not what I want from you, you know."
He faced her, his expression turning serious. "I think this is about the time we have the conversation."
A big uh-oh. "What conversation?" she asked meekly.
"Well, you don't seem to enjoy it too much, but you are a Korean."
"Korean-American," she corrected him.
"Exactly. You may not like it, but it is a part of who you are. And I'm not dating just the American Lane. I want you, the entire you. And if that involves learning customs and how to say hello in Korean, I don't have *any* problem with that. *I* want to do this. 'Cause, I love you."
She blinked.
It wasn't a dream. He *was* looking entirely sincere and infinitely adorable as he held her hands.
Oh, god, Lane thought. I'm so, so, so in love.
"Say something," Dave said, blushing slightly.
Her lips wouldn't move. Her whole body seemed immobile. After a long moment, she let out, quietly, "I just remembered another way of saying I love you in Korean."
Was he looking slightly disappointed? She couldn't tell. "Okay," he said, pulling up his sleeves again to hint his eagerness, "I'm ready to learn and willing. What?"
"This."
She leaned over and kissed him.
When she pulled away after a long, sweet, and definitely-need-more-oxygen-session of a kiss, he was smiling broadly. Happily.
"Wow," he said, his voice full of adoration.
"Yep."
"You kissed me."
"Yes, I did."
"In front of your house."
"I noticed."
"Somebody could've seen us."
"I don't think I care."
He looked at her admiringly, and she felt good. And happy. The expression 'butterflies in the stomach' made so much more sense to her now.
"It's definitely not something I can say to your mother," he decided.
"God, I sure hope not."
When she was trying hard not to imagine her mother's face, Dave leaned over again and kissed her again.
"How was that?" he asked, his hand on her cheek that felt really hot at the moment, his nose just lightly touching hers. "Did I learn it right?"
She blushed. "Mm-hmm. Very close."
"Once more just to perfect the skill?"
"Once more would be good. Very good."
So he complied.
"Yep, I think you mastered it very thoroughly," she declared breathlessly when they pulled away again.
He held her hand once again, tightly, and they both got off the car.
She breathed in the evening air, watched the dark-haired boy standing beside her. It was odd, this sensation. It felt as if she could do anything with anyone and not really care what her parents would think as long as he was looking at her like this. And never in her life had Lane Kim felt this way. Never this free. Never this free from the influence of her parents looking at her every step.
Maybe they were both learning new languages. Lane smiled.
"Dave?"
"Yeah?"
"S-a rang hae."
He smiled back. "Me, too."
END.
2/28/03