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Kylo had taken taken Spanish instead of French the first two years of high school, and he was really regretting it. His parents had convinced him into it, saying that he would use Spanish more, and it would look good on his résumé if he was bilingual. Unfortunately, the teacher, Ms. Finch, an elderly Canadian woman who didn't speak Spanish either, so the class spent those two years learning more from Spanish speaking students than the teacher, who liked to pretend she was in charge by shouting things like "This will be on the test!" and "You'll learn nothing if you keep acting that way!"
Wether it was the class's performance or something else, nobody really learned Spanish in her class, other than swear words (the bilingual kids made a list) and pronouns, which somehow got butchered by Ms.Finch.
Naturally, some kids had the sense to take a computer class, but not Kylo. He had given up on learning other languages, saying that if the system really wanted kids to learn languages, they'd start in Kindergarten.
Then, the school started to invite transfer students, some coming from as close as Brazil and as far away as Germany. Kylo's problem, though was with a French transfer student, who was annoyingly polyglot.
Rey (even her name is weird) Kenobi knew French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Polish, and was currently learning English.
Naturally, every other student who had a problem ran straight to her, and Rey, being the overly polite person she was, would always be willing to help. This was nice at first, but then she started insulting him.
Insulting, here, is used loosely, because Kylo doesn't know what she actually says, but just the tone she uses is enough to piss him off, so he took it as a declaration of war. Sometimes, she would speak English, like when they got put together on projects (which Kylo hated, because he hated group work and her) and he would snap at her, only for her to give him a confused, hurt look.
As if she had no idea what she was yelling at him, sure.
"Allez-vous avec moi au cinéma?" Rey would ask, in the beginning, her face flushed, only to receive an agitated "Fuck you!" in return.
For a while, she used various phrases, all of them earning her a hard look or a curse, but then she found the phrase that she had been using to annoy him for the past few months.
"Je t'aime avec tout mon coeur, mon petite canard!"
Clearly, he had no idea what the hell she was saying, but the French speaking students did, and they refused to tell him, all the while giggling and cooing at him. His friends and family had no idea either, and even though it didn't sound intimidating, Kylo refused to believe otherwise.
Their school was sleek, polished, and fairly well off, thanks to the donations from wealthy families around them (mostly Kylo's, his grandfather was best friends with the Dean, to the disgust of Kylo) When it came to his grandfather, Kylo had a fairly formal relationship, mostly seeing each other at parties, which is why it was a surprise when Anakin turned up, shiny Volkswagen and all, ready to take him home.
Whenever things like this happened, Kylo's mind went to Padme, his grandmother, because she seemed to have a knack for getting Anakin to do things he didn't want to do.
Opening the passenger side door revealed his cousin, Alissa, who wordlessly jabbed one perfectly manicured finger towards the backseat. Kylo rolled his eyes and slid into the backseat, seated next to one of his more decent cousins, Kar'tith, who, while nice, spoke several languages, and she seemed to love to annoy Kylo with curse words he couldn't understand.
Kylo rolled the tinted windows down, desperate for warm air- which, he had learned early on, was an enemy to Anakin, as was sand- and set his backpack between his knees while Anakin started the car with a sigh, as if he had better things to do than transport his teenage relatives (which, secretly he did, but not even Padme knew of his knitting hobby, and he wanted to keep it that way).
"Je t'aime avec tout mon coeur, mon petite canard!" Kylo turned his head, only to see Rey, dressed in hilariously bright colours, waving and smiling at him. With a groan, he dropped his head into his hands, avoiding the questioning stares of his family members.
Sure, she could insult him with that stupid, bright smile anytime, but in front of his family was another thing. He was the Emo cousin, how the hell was he supposed to keep up his reputation if he had random French girls shouting insults at him?
"Aren't you going to say something back?" Kar'tith said, nodding her head in Rey's direction.
"She's insulting me, why would I say it back?" Kylo snapped fiddling with his bag. "I don't know French, anyways."
"Oh my fucking God." Kar'tith exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Stop the car, gramps, this is important."
Anakin, visibly frustrated at being called gramps and kept apart from the socks that he was halfway done with, turned off the engine with a sigh, bouncing his leg impatiently.
"How can you say that you don't know French, but then assume to know exactly what she's saying?" Kar'tith demanded, waving at a now confused Rey.
"But the to-"
"No! Her tone was happy, you idiot!"
"Tell me what she said, then! Because nobody else will fucking tell me and it's getting on my absolute nerves."
"'Je t'aime avec tout mon coeur, mon petite canard' means 'I love you with all of my heart, my little duck', you asshole, what have you been saying back to her, oh my God"
Kylo sat, dumbfounded, wondering when in the hell he had gotten sucked into this Princess Bride "As you wish" bullshit, only to see Rey begin to leave, shoulders slumped, staring at the ground.
All at once, it made sense, why she had ran after him for months, exclaiming words he didn't know, and actively chose him for group projects. She was learning English, and she probably didn't know insults or curse words yet, so she probably had no idea what the hell he was saying either.
"Aw, hell." Kylo quickly jumped out of the car, leaving a confused Anakin and Alissa, along with Kar'tith, who was screaming and clapping at her cousins newfound skill of trying to fix things when he realized he had been an idiot.
Kylo grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. Rey looked confused, and Kylo finally felt the adrenaline wear off, leaving only embarrassment and blushing in his wake.
"Uh," Kylo began, searching for the proper words to display how he felt. "How come I'm a duck?"
Rey blinked, not understanding, and then a grin stretched across her face, her eyes lighting up. "I did not think you would like it if I called you a rabbit."
At that, Kylo had to laugh, both at the absurdity of his nickname and at his stubbornness of not just asking what it meant. Even from growing up around Kar'tith, she'd never called anyone she'd liked a duck before, but with his very limited knowledge and memory of the French language, he was able to remember a phrase she had said to someone over the phone, only because he had bugged her for the rest of the day to tell him the meaning.
"Mon..." Kylo searched for the right pronunciation, and Rey cocked her head to the side. "chou?"
"Do you even know what you said?" Rey asked, her face flushing red.
"it means something pastry related, right?" Kylo asked, face burning.
"Technically, you just called me 'sweet bun', which, I will admit, is better than duck."
"Do you, wanna, maybe, go get an actual sweet bun, whatever the hell that is?" Rey's face lit up, gently grabbing his hand and lightly pulling him along with her. Kylo gave his cousins and grandpa a parting wave, and tangled his fingers with Rey's.
"It comes from 'cream filled puff pastry'." Rey informed him, elbowing his side.
"So, wait, do you know any curse words? In English, I mean."
"No," Rey shook her head, looking up at him. "Why?"
"Thats an incredibly stupid and aggravating story for another time, joie."
"We really need to work on your pronunciation, er, Kylo."
Kylo, it turned out, was a fairly hard name to pronounce for her, and she was used to calling him a duck (even when she spoke English, she used 'mon canard' when addressing him, because she didn't want to screw it up) so the first time she said it, it came out like "Kay-loouh" and Kylo lost his shit, only for Rey to whack him over the head and call his chosen name stupid.
The puff pastries, it turned out, were amazing, even though Kylo ended up going home with cream on his face, shirt, and (somehow) hair. He ate four, only for Rey to call him 'gras', and after he looked it up on Google Translate, he smeared cream on her cheek, causing her, in retaliation, so break a pastry open and flick some into his hair.
Kylo's hair, of course, had to be defended, and they left after getting kicked out for throwing food at each other and sometimes (Kylo had a bad aim) at other people, accidentally.
Rey walked him home, also covered in cream, and he couldn't help but notice that she had cream on her upper lip. This, obviously, was an opportunity that could not be wasted.
"You have, uh" Kylo gestured to her face, and she blinked up at him.
Leaning down far more than what was nessicary, Kylo swiped off the stray cream with the pad of his thumb. Then, Rey's warm, soft lips were pressed together against his, and Kylo's head was filled with a chorus of ringing bells and his thought process was reduced to "holy shit she's kissing me and she tastes like strawberries this is the best day of my goddamn lIFE!" Rey pulled away first, gasping, and, with her limited amount of vocabulary to express how she felt, blurted out "You taste nice!"
Kylo was shell shocked, and Rey took this as 'hell, I've done something wrong' so she ran away, running like hell, and leaving Kylo standing there, covered in creme and his lips sticky with strawberry lip gloss.
The door opened, revealing his father, Han, who took in the rumpled and messy appearance of his son, not missing the smeared glittery lipgloss.
"Rough day at the office, kid?"
"Tell me about it."