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With his table of verb forms and a notebook, Han-seo plants himself on the bench in the garden, right beneath one of the citrus trees. The leaves let through just enough light so that he can bask a little in the sun without being at risk of getting sunburnt. It might just be his favorite place in the garden, or the whole estate even, 'cause he guesses he can call Vincenzo's abode an estate. His brother really knows how to live, and how to live well.
So he sits there and gives himself exercises on his own. Writing down verbs and conjugating them into the different tenses he’s been learning. Present tense goes easy enough, as does the future tense, but he has his problems with the past ones. Getting frustrated with the many mistakes he makes, he switches to making up sentences, and that makes it a little easier, more palpable.
He starts with a mix of imperfetto and presente. Things he used to do in the past and how that has changed in the present.
"I used to lead a conglomerate, now I'm… "
He looks up to the small cat that has shown her face once again. She’s sitting right before him, attention resting on him, undivided. “No, that's a little depressing." He laughs, a little awkwardly, but his animal audience isn’t bothered. She just tilts her head at him curiously.
"I used to have dinners with important shareholders, now I'm always eating with hyung." He smiles brightly at the cat and, echoing the sentiment, she waves her tail at him. “How do you say ‘shareholder’ in Italian?" The cat doesn’t know either.
Google translate says it’s azionista. He writes it down on his vocabulary list. The sentence goes separately on its own sheet of paper.
Un tempo cenavo con azionisti importanti, ma ora mangio sempre con hyung.
"Wait, that's not right!" With care, Han-seo scratches out the last part. "How do you say brother in Italian? I know this ah…." Squinting his eyes closed, he tries to remember the word he looked up. It was pretty much the first Italian word he looked up after buongiorno and grazie and mi dispiace, back when he was still Jang Han-seo, Vice Chairman of Babel. "Fratello," he exclaims. "Big brother. Fratellone!" He writes it down. "There. Much better, isn’t it?"
The cat doesn’t seem to care one way or another, but he thinks he sees Luca’s mouth twist a little at the corners, where he's standing in the shade a little to Han-seo's right. He doesn’t know how there’s a need to watch over him now, in the garden at the back of the house, when no one in Malta or Italy even knows of his existence but whatever. He'd rather Luca'd not be here and he guesses Luca feels much the same way.
Shrugging to himself, he looks up the verbs in his conjugation tables and checks them against the sentences he wrote so far. "Wait, that's not right, it should be andavamo. With a v." He hates the irregular forms, they’re kicking his ass for real. "Argh! How many times do you think I have to repeat this to get it into my stupid head?" Out of frustration, Han-seo knocks his fist against his head three times. Again, the cat can’t tell him.
His last sentence is correct at least.
"It's not sempre, though. He's got things to do." As though sharing a secret, Han-seo puts a cupped hand next to his mouth and whispers, "He's in the mafia, you know? The big boss even. But don’t tell anyone."
In retrospect, he doesn’t know when talking to a stray cat like she can understand him became his new normal.
"I used to not talk to random cats, now, apparently, I do." He writes the same sentence down in Italian and checks it. It's correct, more or less, but his mind is too exhausted to dwell much on the wrong parts. So Han-seo decides to take a little break and fetches the little box with cantuccini from his bag that he snuck into it earlier. Opening the box, he takes one biscuit out, mouth watering at the sight. "Ahh I'm addicted to these. I swear, I could eat them all day! You think since I can’t do a lot of sports right now, I should stop? I'm gonna get fat!"
Automatically, he translates that in his head too. Condizionale! Something else worth repeating. Aloud, he says, Se continuerei mangiare così, ingrasserò. He checks. It's correct, and isn’t that a little depressing too.
Dismissing the sudden thought of gyms and ice rinks, he turns back to his company. "Cat, do you want to come visit more often? Then I can’t keep calling you cat!" He chuckles. "Gatto. They call hyung gatto sazio. Are you sazio? Do you want some? Actually I don't know if it's good for you." Thinking better of it, he pops the biscuit into his own mouth instead. The hard texture grinds loudly and deliciously between his teeth.
"Do you belong to anyone?" He wonders. Maybe she's a street cat. "Can I give you a name? Then you'll be… well, not mine exactly, but we can be friends, yes? Chingu?" A sudden idea strikes him. "I'm going to call you Babel," he decides. The cat pricks her ears and comes closer, butting her head against his ankle before rubbing back and forth against his legs.
"Do you like that? Yes? Perfetto. Babel." He smiles at her. "Don’t worry, I'll take better care of you than the last one. Plus, cats always land on their feet, right? So even if you fall, like the towers – both mine and the real one! It won’t be too tragic."
"I thought you were studying," Comes a voice from behind him and Han-seo whips his head up.
There on the top of the stairs that lead down into the garden and leaning against the railing with his arms crossed over his chest, stands Vincenzo. Han-seo couldn’t tell how long he’s been standing there. He hasn’t heard or seen him approach at all. Silently, he berates himself for his lack of attention on his surroundings. "If you’re going to talk to a cat of all things, at least do it in Italian."
Han-seo looks up at Vincenzo, then back at the cat. "You don't think she speaks Korean?" Trying to keep in a laugh, he scrunches up his nose at the absurdity of a bilingual cat.
"Non credo che parli affatto, ma se potesse, parlerebbe italiano. Condizionale, ricordi?"
"Sì sì sì," Han-seo says. To the cat, he mutters, "He can be a real spoilsport." She waves his tail at him in what Han-seo interprets as agreement.
Vincenzo comes down the stairs and, mindful of the sheets of paper scattered across the bench, he sits down next to him. “So tell me. How’s it going?”
Han-seo flattens his mouth to a thin line. “It’s going.”
“Patience,” advises Vincenzo. “You don’t learn a language in a day, so don’t get frustrated with yourself.”
Pressing out a heavy sigh, Han-seo nods. So everyone keeps telling him but just like studying a new language, patience doesn't come easy to him. “How was it for you, when you started learning?”
“Well, I was eight.” Vincenzo shrugs. “It was a struggle, but you adapt quickly when you’re a child."
Right. Of course things would come more easily to him. He is Vincenzo Cassano.
"Here.” Vincenzo picks up one of the papers with Han-seo’s scribbles. “Go through the conjugation of vedere with me, im all the tenses you know."
Tipping his head back, Han-seo groans. "I'm taking a break here, hyung."
Vincenzo raises a brow.
Han-seo rolls his eyes. "Veni, vidi, vici."
"Cute, but that's Latin. If you like, we can do venire and vincere after, though."
Han-seo flicks a cookie crumb at him.
Vincenzo takes the whole bag away from him, ignoring his pout. "Come on. One for every tense you get right without a mistake."
Han-seo throws his head back and laughs. "At least one of us watches out for my waistline."
Taking out one cantuccio, Vincenzo dangles it in front of his eyes. "Have some confidence."
Han-seo pouts more loudly. "Is this how you usually torture your way into getting some information? I'm not one of your targets, hyung, there's no need for that."
Vincenzo doesn't snicker, but his mouth turns up at the corners in amusement, so Han-seo calls that a win. "No, I don't usually torture people with cantuccini," he says. "How effective would that be? Now quit deflecting. First person singular, presente."
Eyeing the biscuit in Vincenzo's hands, he ponders if it's worth it to keep whining until Vincenzo ultimately caves. He decides against it. Studying is that much more fun when hyung is helping him through it. So, "Io vedo, tu vedi, lei/lui vede,..." he starts.
The cantuccini are a nice reward, Han-seo thinks after he's rightfully earned his first one. But the small, pleased nod Vincenzo gives him along with the biscuit is that much sweeter.