Chapter Text
Being trilingual growing up was a challenge, so Isagi never changed.
Learning Japanese from the day he was born was a given, as it would’ve been difficult to live in Japan without speaking the language. Learning French while learning Japanese was a little bit harder, as they are both entirely separate languages with different language rules. Verbs, tenses, transitional phrases – they all played a different role with each dialect.
Learning English only started in preschool. It was a little bit harder, as it wasn’t a romance language; however it had the same alphabet as French so learning how to read and write wasn’t entirely the issue.
His accent was the issue.
See, learning three languages at the same time is difficult in its own right, perfecting an accent in three languages while learning each is near impossible. His Japanese accent bled through to his French, and his French accent bled through to his English. He learned over time to try and keep each accent to their respective language, but it took a while for him to fully understand how to do so.
Even now when he speaks different languages his accents slip through. Speaking French with Charles after a few months of not practicing had been rough, but he was too impressed he could speak the language at all at first to realize his accent hadn’t been the greatest. Speaking English with Rin was a good refresher, as the language isn’t spoken much at home as French, and he hadn’t been to an English class since he had started Blue Lock. So, being in Blue Lock was one of the best things for his language skills, as he got to refresh his old ones and learn new ones too.
This information; however, had not been told to anyone within Blue Lock.
As the onlookers watched Isagi laugh at Loki as his mother scolded him, they realized he was not speaking Japanese – hell, he wasn’t even speaking English.
With furrowed brows, Lorenzo spoke up. “Woah. Woah woah woah woah woah, Isagi, you speak French?” He said in English, his voice wavering with confusion.
“Oh, yeah, you guys didn’t know that?” Isagi asked, looking over their confused faces with one of his own. “Jeez, I forget that they’re not in the loop…”
The professionals looked around at each other, getting more confused by the second. The table had diverged into an awkward silence as Isagi refused to elaborate.
Noa, of all people, spoke up next.
“...You never told me you speak French.” He said slowly, arms crossed tightly across his chest. His eyes didn’t meet Isagi’s as he turned to look at him, everybody watching on as the tension grew in the room.
“You never asked.” He said casually, shrugging his shoulders. “Same goes for all of you.” He gestured to the rest of the table with his free hand, slapping it down on the table before dropping back onto the table, spreading his limbs across the rest of the open space.
It was near silent for the next few seconds, only quiet whispers floating around near the other end of the table before Isagi promptly forgot about the situation entirely and turned towards Charles.
“You know what happened today?” Leaning closer, Charles cupped his hand around his ear in secret.
It was a few seconds before Charles’ jaw dropped and he immediately jumped in his seat, pointing fiercely at Isagi.
“That did not happen! You are such a liar!” He yelled, his voice cracking in between words. “No way you know them! No way!” He shook his head aggressively, as if to change the story with his mind.
“Uhm, obviously I know them, Chevalier, I had to tour them around my part of town when they were getting scammed.” Isagi laughs and reaches for his back pocket, bringing out his phone.
“Uh huh, then call them right now.” He demands, watching Isagi unlock his phone, going to his call log.
“Well, I can’t say they will be awake right now. I mean, it’s like, 3 a.m. over there right now.” Isagi says, a smile still plastered on his face. The other players watched as his call got sent to voicemail, a knowing sigh coming from Isagi.
“See, I told you he wouldn’t be awake. Or any of them for that matter.” He pulls up the messages app before showing Charles a picture on his phone, unbeknownst to the other stunned players. Conversation had started up in different places across the table, trickling down the line until someone suggested the stupidest idea for drunk professional football players.
“Who wants to play never have I ever?”