seven reasons to fall | hitachiin

Fifth

"PARLEZ-MOI de vous," Shiori began with a distinguishable and awkward drawl, breaking language to clarify, "Was that right?"

"Yeah, I think so." Kaoru nodded absently, eyes trained on the way her lips moved to create the perfect French that he could never quite master. He, in fact, had no clue if her pronunciation was correct or not. "Well," he replied, "I like long walks on the beach, deep conversation, holding hands..."

Shiori snorted with laughter- a new thing she'd never known about until being exposed to Kaoru Hitachiin long enough to pick it up. He always invented new, small ways for the girl to start discovering herself again.

"This is conversational French, Kaoru-san." She said, feigning seriousness long enough to grab his attention. "How's it going to look when we go up there and cannot, in fact, have a conversation in French?"

"We'll look damn good." He said without thinking, eliciting another fleet of laughter from the girl seated across from him. "Even if the only word I'll know how to say is 'conversation'."

It only took a small bout of silence for him to become completely entranced in the very essence Shiori once again, from the way her nose would crinkle when she couldn't conjugate a word to how her lips would purse slightly when she realized that Kaoru wasn't paying attention.

He was beginning to like this assignment after all.

Weeks ago, when Kaoru had only first begun to notice Shiori and everything that came with her, he found himself blissfully unaware of them signing up for the same conversational French course that him, his brother, and Haruhi had planned to take at the beginning of the semester. But when he had, finally, registered her existence in the room (four rows behind him and three seats to the left), Kaoru was already an embarrassed mess as he tried not to look back at her.

It was like a game of cat and mouse where they were both the mouse, one desperately trying to avoid the other in fear of what would happen. But there they were, in the third floor library studying for a project that they'd been paired up together to preform, and enjoying every minute of it.

As they spoke, the two didn't quite mind the idle chatter that made the library endlessly noisy, and instead partook in it. "But seriously, Shiori-san, tell me about yourself."

"Say it in French and I might consider."

"Parlez-moi de vous, Shiori-san." He spoke, mimicking her exact words and leaning over the table, just slightly, to get a better look at her in the fluorescent lighting. "And not just what you tell everybody else."

She hesitated and took a moment to think-- what could she possibly tell Kaoru that he didn't already know about her? Shiori, who was as open as anyone could be, didn't quite try to hide things, but also didn't think Kaoru was skilled enough to remember everything. So, she started from the beginning.

"Well, my family owns a string of nursing and retirement homes." She started.

"I know."

"Um, I've gone to an all-girls school twenty-some miles from here for a few years."

"I know that, too." He reiterated, a bit too impatient for his own liking.

"Well," She thought for a long ten seconds before trying again, "I have a twin sister."

Kaoru, in fact, knew this, but he thought she would be disheartened if he said so. Instead, he hummed in response. "Comment est-elle?"

Shiori positively beamed at him. Eager to talk about her sister (something she hadn't done in years), she paid no mind to the sound of her foot tapping anxiously against the leg of her chair. "Her name's Chiharu, and she's probably the best person I have ever met. We don't look alike, which means we're fraternal, but we're very close." The girl paused, if only to see if he was still paying attention. When Shiori saw his happy eyes lock with hers, she continued, "She was always very good at science, but very not good at talking to people and being nice about it, you know? That's where we're different."