Language Barrier:
The fast beat of chinese pop blared into Nekiros ears. This had become a common occurrence for him on his walk back to the dorm. Before school homework came his homework from Madoka. An ordeal worse than a fight with a villain; a 20 page essay! He had promised the girl to listen to 100 chinese pop albums and write a paper over it. The music was too fast and too upbeat for his taste, though it matched how he saw Madoka. Speaking of the devil….
“Neky!” a voice shouted over the music.
Nekiro took out his earbuds and turned around to find the cute golden haired girl.
“Oh…hey”
“Is that all I really get?! A “hey”?! After all I did for you” Madoka crossed her arms and turned her head, pouting.
Neiro let out a sigh and put on a big dopey grin “HEY MADOKA HOW'S IT GOING!!!”
She giggled in response “See, was that so hard?”
“Yes actually. I don’t know how you are so positive all the time”
“Positivity and smiling are basically muscles, you are just reeeeeeally out of shape in that department”
Nekiro glared at her
“And we are back to normal Neky”
“I told you not to call me that”
“Does “Dummy” work? Or how about “Shorty”
“.............................................................”
“Maybe you should just let me call you Necky”
“........Fine…….”
“Soooooooo Necky, how goes becoming cultured?”
“If you mean listening to your idea music, then fine. I've gotten through about half of the albums you picked out. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s that great though”
“You just don’t understand culture!”
“I certainly don’t understand it”
“Well maybe if you learned some Chinese…..”
“Absolutely not, that was not a part of our deal!”
“Awwwwwww come on. I’ll give you an account for this app my family owns. It is supposed to be able to teach the basics of any language in a couple weeks. You could be speaking like a natural in a couple months. It is usually pretty expensive but I am feeling generous.”
“I don’t think that is you being generous. I don’t feel like adding more work to the laundry list I have now. Especially not just to-”
Nekiro paused mid sentence and saw another girl from the class out of the corner of his eye sending a lightbulb to go off in his head.
“You know what, maybe I will try it, set it up for me”
“Huh? Really? It usually takes more than that.”
“No, uhh I just agree it will help me appreciate the music more”.
Madoka eyed him eye suspiciously, “Are you suuuure?”
“Ye-.... yeah”
“Okay, but you better actually use the app. I am going to be very upset with you if you don’t.”
“I promise I will use the app”
She took his phone and began installing the software. After a couple minutes she handed it back to him.
“Here it should be all set up now”
“Great thanks Madoka! Gotta run see ya!”
Nekiro waved to her before breaking into a sprint back to the dorm. Leaving his classmate baffled.
He hurried into his dorm room. Putting all of the days schoolwork on the table he settled onto his bed and grabbed his headphones. Immediately he dove into the app.
“Lets see, Albanian ,Arabic, hmmm, Chinese, no… There it is, Icelandic.”