Hidden Meanings

Poljubac Mena [Cale]

VolarFinch
Key: Italics: Bosnian.

Casper Dalles and Aileen Parkinson had been dating for little over six years now, the two having moved into the same apartment.

"Cas?"

"Mhm?" The male answered without hesitation, pausing in where he was doing taxes and looking at his girlfriend.

Aileen was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. "Can you teach me Bosnian?"

Casper's tongue was thick when he answered, tempted to answer in Bosnian, seeing how he was prompted by the word.

"Why would you want that, Aile?"

"I want to meet your family and speak in fluent tongue with them," Aileen puffed out her cheeks.

"You've already met Mo, my mother, my father... They speak English too, I mean, so-"

She cut him off. "I mean your family who can't speak English. Your grandparents. Your aunts, uncles. Cousins."

Casper's lips quirked into a smile, walking over to the shorter female, sliding his hands into his pockets.

There was a moment of silence until he smiled, cocking his head to the side. "We start tomorrow."

With that, he leaned down to press a light kiss to her temple.

Aileen smiled up at him, grasping his shirt lightly to pull him down for a full kiss before releasing him.

OoO

The next day, Aileen propped herself on the back of Casper's chair, peering over his shoulder at his work.

"Dobro veće," Casper said in greeting, tilting his head back to look Aileen in the eye.

She raised an eyebrow in question.

"Good evening," he translated. "How are you?"

"How do you say 'All right'? Work's killing me."

"U redu. Or, if you want to say, 'I am all right', you say ja sam u redu."

"U redu," Aileen repeated.

And so it went like that. Casper inserting words of his native tongue into his speech, and Aileen slowly learning how to say those words and the meaning of them.

Aileen was working, fingers dug into the roots of her hair in irritation when Casper walked in.

Taking one look at her face, his face softened by worry, instead prying her fingers from the keyboard.

"Don't stress yourself."

Aileen glared up at her boyfriend. "Let me do my work, Cas," she huffed in irritation.

"... Very well. But I have one request."

He smiled, the action making his eyes crinkle.

"Yeah?"

"Može ja poljubac tebe? [1]"

Aileen couldn't tell what the question was, just that he was asking a yes or no question.

"Yes...?"

Pulling her face towards Casper gently, he left a lingering kiss on her lips.

"Ja volim tebe. [2]"

[1] "Može ja poljubac tebe?" Roughly translates to "Can I kiss you?"

[2] "Ja volim tebe." Translates to "I love you."