Now You're in on it Too!

Today’s UN Training --- Never offer help for free

There comes a point in every politician's life where they give up on serving someone if there is no prospect of something in return. Tani is aware of it, and has gone the last three and a half years of his life never lifting a finger to help a person that didn't directly benefit his goals.

Even now that idea hasn't wavered, this is despite the fact that he enthusiastically dives headfirst into helping the members of his club learn a language; although he considers his students as important pieces of his life that he has grown to enjoy being around, first and foremost he is focused on getting what he needs out of them.

Their successes directly benefit him, and thus the two are inextricably linked.

Now, their arrival has shifted his perspective a little bit on the matter, especially when he considers the fact that both Ume and Anita have chosen to help him with no ulterior motives behind it. He had asked Anita on the VR night exactly why that is, and she gave him an answer that confused him to no end.

It was ‘fun’ she said.

That answer forced him to question the transactional way he chooses to help people.

And the results were…

He doubled down and committed to his original thoughts on the matter.

He knows he might be unreasonable, he knows that his viewpoint is not kind and is far away from the warmth of Ume and Anita, but he knows that their way won’t get him to where he still very much plans to be in the future.

Did you think Akihiro Tani would allow other people to sway his determination?

Never.

He understands that he has perhaps embarked on a great crusade for which he will inevitably leave pieces of himself behind. Surrounded by people he depends on who in turn depend on him for a mutual success, his iron bar of will has the potential to become as pilant as clay.

Steadily being chipped away and reshaped, all it would take is one major blow to soften the whole mess into a blob of molten steel.

And thus, he has prepared himself accordingly.

He won’t allow his desire to help his friends keep him away from his rightful spot atop the world.

No matter what kind of major blow awaits him on this particularly rainy day...

---------------------

Tani is currently in the process of presenting a box containing the board game 'Scrabble' and 'Mojipittan' to Anita, proudly rattling off history lessons about the games and how they can be used as a tool to learn a new language. Ume and Emilia on the other hand are chatting away working on Italian, and Charl is showing Mariko some drawings of his.

The heavy rain falling outside is pelting the large window with thick droplets and creating a very distinct background noise that accompanies the din of their conversations. The rain does nothing to dampen their ardour however, the energy of the room is just as lively as it is when hued in orange sunlight, but this time around the gray sky saps away the visual vibrancy normally present in the Languages clubroom, instead inviting in cooler and more pastel colors.

“Whoah, this is like, crazy good!” Mariko says, flipping through pages of manga drafts.

She is looking at Charl's panels, some complete and some are still being worked on. In it there is a boy and a girl on what looks like a date at a pizza restaurant. There are empty dialogue bubbles talking up space, so Mariko can only guess what they’re saying by reading their expressions and mannerisms.

The girl in his story looks bubbly and energetic, chatting the boy up with zeal and vigor.

“I’m pleasured by your reaction to my art. What do you think of my MC’s design?”

Charl directs her gaze to the boy he drew. The cool looking character has long strands of hair pinned back with his large eyes covered by reading glasses. The way Charl drew him in that distinct shoujo style makes him seem like he’s glistening in color although sketched onto plain white paper.

“Is this supposed to be Akihiro? Doesn’t look anything like him.”

“Haha, of course I know that. This is my idealized version of him, cute don’t you think?”

“I can admit that’s a good looking fella. When do ya plan on filling in the dialogue?”

“I plan on starting that really soon, I have been quite fortunate and was able to obtain some good inspiration over the weekend.”

“Over the weekend?”

Charl chuckles and replies, “You remember how we all got together to help Kimura-san cheer Akihiro-kun up?”

“Yeah?” Mariko asks with a tilt of her head.

“I followed them around for a bit that day. A lot of what you’re seeing here on these pages is from what I saw.”

“You followed them!?”

Her shout halts Tani's presentation. He’s stuck in place holding a stack of colored flashcards and sending Mariko an agitated glare. Everyone else in the clubroom stops what they’re doing and looks at her as well.

She cringes and lets out an awkward laugh before shifting her face away.

“....”

Tani sighs and proceeds to return to what he was doing before.

Mariko sweats and only allows herself comfort when she senses that his attention is off of her, and thankfully everyone returns to what they were doing as well.

With the coast clear, Tani’s voice once again becomes ambient noise along with the rain drops. She leans in towards Charl and hides her face with her hand when she whispers, “That’s hella creepy, dude!“

“I meant no harm from it. Simply think of me as a researcher studying their subjects.”

“Who are you, Jane Goodall??”

An image of him wearing safari attire deep inside a jungle imbedded with a pack of gorillas flashes into her mind.

“Look what it has gotten me though. Is this not a masterpiece in the making? Akihiro-kun is an even better romantic partner than I could have imagined. If only you could have seen what happened in person.”

Charl is starry eyed and sparkling.

Mariko lets her shoulders drop. “I feel like I shouldn’t be included in any of this, I’m an innocent bystander and I want out!”

“Now that you know my secret, you have your role in this story as well.”

“Why me though? I’m actually terrible at keeping secrets.”

Charl chuckles and flips through the pages of his manga, “I'm also bad at keeping a secret when it's this good, I just have to show you this last page---"

“Okay let’s get started.”

Charl is interrupted when Tani abruptly takes a seat on the other side of the U shaped table directly facing him.

“!!”

Charl inadvertently jumps in his chair and hides his manga behind his back. “A-Akihiro-kun, what?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“Started?”

“Did you not hear a word I just said?”

“I must apologize, my head was in the clouds.”

“We’re pairing up for the flashcard portion of the lesson before we move onto the board game proper, I’m partnering with you this round.”

Mariko is sitting next to Charl just as confused, her stiffened shoulders broadcast her discomfort once Tani’s gaze lands on her.

“Were you not paying attention either?” Tani asks suspiciously.

“N-No no, I was totally paying attention. Flashcards? I can do that, no prob!”

Mariko is bold face lying, and in the process is throwing Charl under the bus.

“Good.” Tani puffs. “Be sure to memorize the phrases I have written down in French for you.” He drops a box of items on her side of the table and slides a stack of small pieces of red, yellow, green and blue paper towards her. “Ume is ready with her items too, although you’re learning a different language than she is, with the intricate system I’ve created to match perfectly with the Scrabble tile pieces, you can mix Italian and French words with the Japanese script written on the other side of the cards to help with translating.”

Mariko is now certain that she has missed something very important, he might as well have been telling her what the physical properties of the internet are. She sends a guilty side eyed glance toward Charl and notices a beady eyed smile not so delicately hiding his own confusion.

The two have no clue what’s happening.

“Don’t just sit there, go on then.” Tani demands, pushing the items even closer.

“R-Right…” Mariko grabs the stack of colored paper and looks around the room.

Anita is sitting on one end of the table face to face with Emilia, and on the other side of the table she sees Ume waving at her.

“Yo, Mari-chan!”

“H-Howdy, Kimura-san…” Mariko places the paper between the two and whispers, keeping her voice from reaching Tani. “I would like to apologize in advance for being a total fraud. I have no clue what we’re supposed to be doing with these.”

“Hehe, same here." With a carefree shrug, Ume says, "Let’s wing it!”

Ume’s answer comes as a great relief, Mariko would have felt terrible if she had let a teammate down because of her lack of focus.

Lifting her arm out in front of her, she flexes her muscle and proudly proclaims, “I can wing it with the best of 'em.”

A little farther down the table, Emilia sits in silence as she watches Anita gracefully arrange the flashcards and Mojipittan tile pieces together in a neat and presentable order. Setting a small rack in front of the two of them, each rack carries seven pieces of tile with hiragana script on carved into them.

Because the other members of the club are learning Romance languages, the board game Tani has given Anita to play is catered specifically to Japanese. However, he knows that thrusting his student into that game would serve her no good, so he’s gotten creative with the use of flashcards and a partner to help her get through it.

Once she finishes setting up, Anita sends Emilia a heart fluttering smile and says, “You pick the first word.”

When she isn’t talking to Tani, her sentences and statements drag out a little longer than what would be considered normal. But her Japanese has gotten quite good despite being unable to speak very quickly.

Emilia is impressed either way, yet she still takes a while to reply in kind.

The reason why is that she has yet to figure out how to interact with Anita in a way that doesn't make her panic internally. As much confidence as she gained during her VR night with Ume, it hasn’t translated well when it comes to her foreign counterpart. She sees Anita as an almost God-like, untouchable creature that she considers herself unworthy to be around.

So any conversation is a colossal struggle.

“...Right...”

Emilia’s green eyes look down at the items on the table, and she nervously picks up a red card and reads it aloud.

“Yesterday.”

“Hmm…” Anita ponders, and starts arranging two cards and studies them before placing another red card along with a blue card on the table.

Emilia reads out the red card she flips over that says, [ I ]

Anita perks up in excitement.

Emilia then reads what’s written on the blue card, [Did not]

“Okay!” Anita now grabs one of her seven hiragana pieces and arranges it between the flashcards.

Her tile reads ‘odoru’, and she puts it in position so everything on the table makes a sentence.

[I did not dance yesterday]

“...Good job…” Emilia softly mutters.

Anita celebrates her success with a little clap of her hands. She ponders on what to say next, but realizing that she isn't quite at the level to explain what she's thinking aloud with words, she sneakily pulls her phone out and types into her translator app. Upon finishing, she leans in towards Emilia and presents it to her.

“Now I pick a card for you. I have 2 points. But starting with a yellow verb card and using the green 'i' or 'na' adjective cards will give us more points.”

Emilia hasn’t done a great job reacting in a way a normal human would to anything Anita says, so talking through the app will make it almost impossible. Her inability to convey emotion may very well be because they are communicating this way, but it's likely something else entirely.

All she can do is stare across at Anita's phone and reply in an almost identical fashion to the robotic voice in the app.

“...Okay…”

Now we slide to the other side of the table, where Tani is scowling at Charl, who currently looks like he’s on the verge of collapsing.

“How is it that you’re so bad at this?” Tani asks, leaning into the backrest of his chair in exasperation. “It’s really not that hard, you just need to connect the verb on the card to an adjective or noun card, then mix in an action or negative action card and choose to add any word you like with the Scrabble tiles to combine them and create an English sentence. I am so far ahead of you in points already that we’re going to have to keep starting over if we want to make this competitive.”

“My apologies, but isn’t this game a little too complicated?”

Tani gestures behind his shoulder. “Everyone else seems to be playing just fine.”

Charl looks to the rest of his club, and can clearly see that Ume and Mariko are enjoying themselves, flipping cards over and flicking the little wooden tiles back and forth. Their jubilance immediately serves as a slash to his self confidence; and seeing Anita and Emilia smoothly working together makes it even worse.

The rest of his club cruising along is enough to make him want to crawl under the table.

Despite all this, he pulls out a red card and reads, “Energy”

“Oh wow, great job! You pronounced the English ‘G’ very well when you said that.”

Surprised by Tani’s sudden flip from scolding to praising, Charl lets a little accomplished smile lift up the tips of his lips as he flips over a green card that reads, [Thorough].

“‘Th’eruuu...”

Tani narrows his eyes.

“Was that not good?” Charl asks.

“That was trash, do it again.”

As kind as Tani was when praising him, he’s just as ruthless when pointing out flaws.

Charl’s face scrunches up and he becomes hot at the collar. Pronouncing this word in English in particular is notoriously difficult for any French speaker. Figuring that there are still multiple pieces left in order to make a single sentence, the prospect of going any further in this game viciously rips away any motivation.

Even so, he tries again,

“...Th'eroo.”

Although this attempt was better, it was said with the avidity of a deflating balloon.

“Ugh!” Tani clasps at his hair and writhes.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“Alright it’s okay, it’s okay.” Taking a deep breath to collect himself, he points to his mouth and says, “Follow the movement of my tongue and say it with me.”

“Follow your tongue, you say?”

“Nevermind… don’t do that.”

“Actually, I think that may work. We should really explore your tongue.”

“Stop!”

“No really, this is------”

‘🎵RING RING RING🎵’

The sudden chime of a cell phone snatches their attention, and the distraction is welcomed.

Turning to the noise, Tani catches sight of Anita lifting her phone up to her ear and answering.

“Hæ, hvað er að?”

Tani perks up as though shocked by a volt of electricity.

Anita has answered in Icelandic.

The rest of the club stays silent so as to not interrupt her call. But unbeknownst to Anita and everyone else, Tani has spent the last two weeks spending equal amounts of time studying Icelandic as he has Norwegian. With the two languages being quite similar, he was able to grasp a sizeable chunk of grammar much faster than he initially thought he would.

Suddenly realizing he's the only one here who can understand her, he turns away and pretends like he isn’t in the process of eavesdropping.

“She’s coming to Tokyo later tonight!? But why so suddenly? She said she would leave me alone here…”

Hearing that, Tani’s heart begins racing, he sneaks a peek over his shoulder and notices that Anita’s expression is different. To him, she looks like someone who has just found out that their pet has died. Perhaps she's doing a good job concealing it from the others, but Tani is certain that he's spotted it.

“Is that so? I see…" She takes in a deep breath and turns towards the chalkboard. "Okay, I’ll be outside shortly.”

Unceremoniously hanging up the phone, she places it into her bag.

Tani stays silent, he doesn’t know if he should speak up or not.

“Is everything okay?” Ume asks, speaking up in his stead.

“O-Oh, yeah it’s all good.” Anita begins gathering her things. “Something came up at home, I have to leave for today.”

Ume looks a little concerned, but when Anita doesn't elaborate or express anything otherwise, she is able to shake it right off. “That’s a bummer, we’ll miss you!”

Anita looks to Emilia and says, “Sorry to leave you alone, Emilia, thank you for your help today. I’ll make it up to you.”

“...No problem…” Emilia has no idea how to respond to that. All she can do is choppily lift up her hand to wave goodbye.

After throwing her bag over her shoulder, Anita makes her way to the door.

“See ya tomorrow!” Mariko says with her patented dimpled smile.

“Have a good day.” Charl says next.

Tani, on the other hand, remains silent.

Anita stops in the doorway and looks at him.

“Tani…”

Now he’s compelled to turn to her.

“What’s up?”

“There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.” she says in Icelandic.

The two stare at each other like a tiger would if it stumbled upon a giant mirror in the jungle and came face to face with its own reflection.

“You want to talk right now?”

His reply has the effect of pushing her eyebrows closer to each other. She can feel it happening outside of her control, so she hides her face from him.

“Haha,” she lets a discomforted chuckle escape her lips and mutters, “I knew it…”

“Come again?” Tani asks, he wasn’t able to hear what she said.

“...Will you walk me to the front gate?”

Her reaction and the way she’s moving her body are entirely unfamiliar to him. The thought of this brings about a very unique emotion, both excitement and apprehension coexist within him and are fighting each other for dominance. He just might be on the verge of finding out more about her life outside of Kokusai. What else could she want to talk about after all?

He assumes that whoever she was talking about on the phone just now will act as a catalyst to a long awaited answer.

And yet, he finds himself feeling nervous.

Learning about her will probably affect their friendship, and he’s nervous about why she wanted to keep it from him for so long.

...What if she needs help?

“Sure thing.”

Tani isn't nervous enough to deny her his time. The desire to learn more about her outweighs whatever angst he has about the result of it.

He gets up off of his seat and follows her out, but not before addressing the rest of the class.

“I’ll be right back, I'm gonna escort Anita to her driver. I expect each of you to have at least 8 points a piece by the time I get back.”

With that, the two leave the clubroom and shut the door behind them.

Tani will finally take a step into her world.

Today’s UN Lesson --- To be continued!