|
Léan grumbled a bit, leaning into the hug nonetheless. "You also don't babble my ear off with mindless things...while he never shuts up about every single little thing when he's excited...I just don't want to deal with him until he cools down a bit."
|
"I could try, if you like," Glory teased. She noticed how he leaned into the hug, but didn't call him on it. They were both still far too new to relationships to call each other on such things yet.
|
Léan closed his eyes, then shook his head. "Oh, no...please don't. I think I'd go insane..." he drawled, in mock-terror. He watched the show unfolding on television with interest.
|
Letting him go, Glory went to grab her bag, intent on getting her homework done before she had to leave again.
"Don't forget, I have to head out this evening," she reminded him. "I need to be at the restaurant by five." |
Léan nodded, dully remembering. He peered over at her homework curiously. "What sort of homework is it? Can I help?" He seemed like he just wanted to be involved somehow.
|
"Sure, I guess," Glory replied. "It's just a bit of biology homework." Flipping open her textbook, she started working on the assigned questions, having circled them in the book earlier. "It's mostly just finding information in the chapter."
|
Léan leaned over, with interest. He was a little flustered by the large amount of written English in the book. He was much better with speaking English than reading it. "All right..."
|
Glory noticed how lost he seemed looking at the book.
"You look a bit confused," she said. "It's just simple biology..." |
"I...am not used to reading a lot of English," Léan admitted, squinting a bit at the slightly unfamiliar letters. "I can speak it perfectly, but...reading is a different matter altogether."
|
"That... actually makes sense," Glory said thoughtfully. "I can't imagine books holding up all that well underwater."
|
"We used a mixture of rock and thick sand to write in our language. I've heard the term 'book' thrown around before...but our books are nothing like...this." Léan poked at the paper. "They're engravings, on rock..."
|
"We have those in some places... They're ancient, though," Glory said absently as she flipped through the chapter. There were only a few more questions she had to answer for her homework.
|
"Ancient..." Léan mused, eyeing the book curiously. "Written English looks difficult...I don't know if I'll ever be able to read it all correctly."
|
"It's not all that hard," Glory protested. "Twenty-six characters in the alphabet, about half of which have two potential sounds instead of one. Some languages have upwards of three hundred characters, I think English gets off easy there."
|
Léan sighed and nodded, eyeing the pages with evident curiosity. "I recognize some words...but not a lot of them. I suppose I'm just English-challenged." He grumbled a bit at this.
|
"You just need practice," Glory said. "That's all. Reading has to be learned, after all. I can go dig out some of my books, if you want."
|
Léan's tail began to swish back and forth, excitedly. "I would like that, if you don't mind," he quipped, smiling. He seemed eager and ready to learn.
|
"Alright," Glory said, setting down her textbook. Getting up, she went into her room and started rooting around through her book shelf, looking for the least challenging books she owned. It was surprisingly difficult; she considered herself pretty literate, and many of her books were far above the standard for her grade level. After a few minutes, she grabbed a few books that looked easy enough and brought them back out to him.
|
Léan took the books curiously once she returned, setting some aside and slowly opening the first one he touched. He skimmed over the pages, picking out words he did know and trying to use context clues to figure out the rest.
|
Checking the time, Glory got up again.
"I need to go get ready for work," she said. "Those should keep you busy until I get back tonight. If you finish them before then, you're welcome to look through my textbooks, if you like." |
Léan nodded, looking up at once. "All right..." He seemed concerned, like he thought something might happen. "Be safe...especially if Selena shows up there..."
|
"I'll watch my back," Glory said. "I still have a little time, so I'm going to see if I can take care of that scratch on my car before I leave."
|
Léan nodded, smiling. "All right, then...take care." He went back to his hesitant, but curious reading. He was worried, but she could take care of herself.
|
Satisfied that he was busy for a while, Glory went to change and then headed outside to see if she could fix the scratch on her car. She was amazed to find that the scratch remover worked wonders, and she managed to get the scratch almost all the way off. She figured that was as good as it was going to get, and wasn't about to question it. With that, she made her way to the restaurant.
|
The Vittorios' restaurant was the most expensive eatery in the entire town. It was a dark, two-story building that seemed to loom over everything near it. There was a long line of hungry customers waiting to get inside. An employee entrance was on the side of the building. Viktor was outside, leaning against the employee entrance expectantly.
|
| All times are GMT. The time now is 05:02 AM. |