Chapter 6: Foreign Languages, Fancy Writing, and Berry
A/N: Sooooooooooooooooo sorry for not updating for such a long time. I know a lot of you really wanted me to finish this story, but I've really been busy with schoolwork lately. (Really, I'm starting to feel as if the Ivy League is seriously overrated.)
Well, I'm on vacation right now... sort of. I've returned home to visit friends and relatives for a few weeks. So here I am, halfway across the globe from most of you, with a bit of spare time, so I guess I'll finish something that I've put off for way too long. Even though I haven't watched any anime at all for the past... Idk... long long time...
BTW, I don't speak French. Nope, yo hablo espanol. So I'll save the trouble. Haha...
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"Tell me what that was all about!" Ryou demanded angrily.
Berry paced back and forth across the room happily. "Oh, nothing," she sang cheerfully.
"Zakuro and I just had a friendly conversation."
Ryou was losing his patience for, like, the umpteenth time today. "Friendly conversation about what?" he asked anxiously.
Berry grinned. "About you and a certain girl we all know, of course!"
Ryou groaned. He knew pretty darn well who this "certain girl we all know" was. He was sort of beginning to wish he didn't like her so much.
Berry looked over at the desk and saw the stuff the other girls had made earlier. She decided to try to side-track the blonde boy. Then, she saw the CD he was holding. "Shirogane, why don't you put that CD down on your desk?" the bunny-girl suggested craftily.
Ryou could sense a trick coming. "Uhhh...why...?" he asked suspiciously.
Berry copied Ichigo's famous welcome-to-the-café pose. "Because..." she sing-songed, " we wouldn't want to get the sweat and germs from your hands onto it! You might damage it!"
Ryou furrowed his eyebrows. "Shirayuki, it's in a CD case..."
Berry stuck out her tongue cutely. "So...?"
Ryou sighed. "Whatever, Shirayuki." He started walking toward the desk, but the bunny-girl stopped him. He moaned. "What is it NOW, Shirayuki?"
Berry smiled cheerfully and took the CD from him. "Allow me!" she offered in a sugary tone and skipped toward the desk.
Ryou slapped his forehead (which was becoming very red and bruised). But he decided to go along with it anyway.
When Berry got to the desk and saw all the stuff the other girls had made, she became very giddy. When she saw the letter Ryou had written, she got even giddier. After she had thoroughly read the letter, she was giddy beyond biological possibility.
Ryou, on the other hand, thought that if there was another millimeter of giddiness, he would blow. "What is it, Shirayuki?" he demanded angrily.
Berry burst into a full-out-frenzy of giddiness. "You wrote a letter to her!! How sweet, Shirogane!!"
Ryou rolled his eyes, folded his arms, and sighed.
"But it needs a little work, though."
Ryou gritted his teeth.
"It's too formal. You could be a little friendlier and less...stiff."
Ryou looked confused. "Stiff?" he questioned perplexingly.
Berry scratched her head. "Yeah..." she said thoughtfully. "Like...here you say 'I give you my best wishes for you to get well soon'. Don't you think you can be a little less formal? I mean, you've known her for, like, over a year now."
Ryou sighed and stared out the window.
Suddenly, Berry's face brightened up with giddiness. "Hey, Shirogane, why don't you let ME help you write the letter?" she suggested giddily.
Ryou was very green around the gills from all the giddiness. "Sure, whatever," he stated plainly, not thinking about what he had just launched himself into.
"Great!" she exclaimed with all the giddiness she could muster.
Ryou gagged and handed Berry a pen and a sheet of paper.
Berry happily took the pen and paper. "So..." the blonde girl said giddily to herself while sitting down at Ryou's desk, "where should we start?" She painstakingly wrote something in fancy cursive letters.
On the other hand, Ryou lay down on his bed again and continued counting his ceiling tiles.
After about 10 minutes, Ryou bent over Berry's shoulders and examined her work. "What is that?" he spat. "If you're trying to write in English, then you're REALLY on the wrong track."
Berry turned around to face the older boy. "No silly, it's French," she stated plainly and rolled her eyes.
Ryou sighed. "How is she supposed to read French?"
It was Berry's turn to sigh. "She's not, Shirogane. Because you're going to read it to her."
"I can't speak French," Ryou stated in a very confused manner.
"French is the same as English. Pretty much," Berry said. She added a few more lines to her now-finished letter and handed it to the blonde boy. "Read," she commanded.
Ryou looked at the paper, thoroughly puzzled. Then he squinted his eyes. "What's that little line thing over the 'a'?" he asked.
Berry looked at where his finger was pointed on the paper. "That's an accent mark," she explained. "You put a stress on that syllable."
"Oh," Ryou answered and studies the letter some more. Finally he cleared his throat and started to read aloud. Unfortunately, because he was a native English speaker, his French pronunciation wasn't exactly top-notch.
The blonde girl listened with amusement as the blonde boy butchered the French language through trying to read her letter.
Ryou faltered and stumbled over the French words, reading them with an American accent. Berry tried to stifle her laughter as she watched him like he was a young animal at play.
When he tried to make one of those throaty French sounds, he ended up croaking like a frog, which sent the blonde into a frenzy of mental giggles.
When he accidentally put a stress on the wrong syllable and ended up saying a profane word instead, Berry had to smack herself to keep from exploding with laughter.
This went on for a while. It was until the last sentence of the letter when Ryou tried to make a nasal sound and ended up making something of a pig snort. Finally the bunny-girl couldn't contain herself any longer and burst out laughing.
Ryou automatically stopped reading and glared at the French-Japanese girl. "What are you laughing at?" he demanded as he popped a vein.
"Shirogane, just stop," Berry said, covering her mouth as she giggled. "You're getting it all wrong."
"Am I?" Ryou asked sarcastically and rolled his eyes, irritated.
"How about this," Berry suggested. "I'll just write out a Japanese translation for you. Then you can read that to Lettuce-chan. Because I think she'll be even sicker if she heard you trying to read French."
"Well, try to make it readable," Ryou said to the bunny-girl. "Your French handwriting was too fancy-ish. It nearly burned my eyes out."
"Alrighty!" Berry replied, giddy as usual. She turned the French letter over and started writing in her native Japanese on the back of the paper.
What is that girl thinking? Midorikawa doesn't even speak French, Ryou thought. Or does she? He wasn't sure. After all, they knew each other, but not THAT well.
Moments later, Berry finished writing the Japanese rendition of her letter. However, as soon as Ryou had read it, he immediately shoved it back into the bunny-girl's hands.
"What do you mean by this?" the blonde boy demanded? "I want to write her a get-well-soon letter, not a marriage proposal!"
"Really? I didn't know that!" the blonde girl said with all the giddiness she could muster (which was a lot).
"Seriously, Shirayuki, I don't think this letter is appropriate," the blonde boy said.
"Yes, it is," the blonde girl insisted. "I don't see any better words to express your true feelings. Oh... love is cruel, isn't it, Shirogane?"
Ryou grabbed a bunch of his hair and pulled on it ferociously. He was about to send Berry out of his room when a familiar voice called from downstairs.
"Berry-chan! Another cake needs to be delivered!"
It was Tasuku. Normally, Ryou didn't care much for the younger boy, but this time he felt as if Berry's little boyfriend had really saved his life.
"Coming, Tasuku-kun!" Berry called giddily. Then to Ryou, she said, "Sorry Shirogane, I have to go. But remember to give her the letter!" The blonde girl winked, and then skipped out the door and down the stairs.
Talk about saved by the bell! Ryou thought, then sighed. He crumbled up Berry's letter and tossed it on his desk with the rest of the stuff the other girls had made. Shirayuki is right... love is cruel. He promptly smacked himself for thinking about love again, and then proceeded to counting his ceiling tiles.
At that very moment... giddy Berry was throwing Tasuku into the game as well! Oooooohhh...