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Denki rummaged through his room like a crazed bear. Where was it? He checked every drawer, looked under every stray item of clothing, dug through his mess of a closet and looked under his bed, but he couldn't find it anywhere. He needed it. He wouldn't survive without it! ….Okay, maybe he was being dramatic. But Still. Denki was growing desperate. He mentally went through his day to see if he could remember where he left it. It was a weekend, so he hadn't gone to school. It had to be somewhere in the building.
Denki was able to narrow it down to two places: Mina’s room, or the common room. Denki had been hanging out in Mina’s room earlier because the pink girl had insisted on doing his nails. At some point, though, Hagakure had shown up and dragged Mina away, so Denki got bored and left. There was a possibility he had left his missing item behind. Denki practically sprinted to Mina’s room, and was relieved to find that the door was still unlocked.
Although Denki felt a little creepy searching through his friend’s room, he knew Mina wouldn't have cared. The Bakusquad had an open-door policy. There was no such thing as privacy to them. Denki looked under her blanket, crawled around on the floor, and shuffled through her desk. Nope, nowhere. That leaves one last place that it could possibly be.
Denki made his way down to the common room. Surprisingly enough, practically the entire class was there— the girls were all crammed into one couch and were whispering about something, a good two-thirds of the boys were watching some-movie-or-other, and Kirishima and Sero were laying on the ground playing a card game while Bakugou shouted at them about not using furniture. Perfect. A populated common area ment that there were more people to help Denki look.
“Hey, guys!” Denki grinned. Some of them turned to greet him, and others ignored him. Rude. He cleared his throat to get more attention. “Um, has anyone seen my, my…” He trailed off. What was he looking for? Well, he knew what he was looking for, but what was it called? Denki got more than a few weird looks. His friends started laughing at him.
“Your what, Jamming-whey?” Jirou asked with barely suppressed amusement.
“My…” Denki groaned in frustration. Why was all of his Japanese suddenly failing him? And why did his friends find his struggle so amusing? That was awfully rude of them. “My thing! It’s boxy, and it’s…” his eyebrows furrowed. Someone snorted.
“Take your time,” Sero teased.
“It’s boxy,” Denki repeated, “And it’s black-and-yellow and… ugh!” He threw his hands up in annoyance, and he could hear Mina cackling at him. “¡Mi puto teléfono! ¿Cómo se dice teléfono en japonés? ¡Esto es tan frustrante! Nunca debería haber aprendido tantos idiomas, porque realmente, ¿cómo diablos se me escapa el japonés? ¡Fue mi primer idioma!” He ranted rapidly and angrily. If Denki wasn't so annoyed with himself, he would have found it hilarious when the entire room collectively stopped laughing at once.
“Was that fucking Spanish?” Bakugou said. For once, he didn't seem angry. He seemed more shocked than anything. Everyone did, judging by their wide eyes and gaping mouths.
“Yes,” Denki groaned, “I can’t think of the Japanese word, but I can think of the Spanish word just fine! Ojalá alguno de ustedes hablara español, porque estoy a punto de arrancarme los pelos tratando de recordar la palabra japonesa.”
“Why the— When the— huh?!” Kirishima stuttered. Instead of answering, Denki just stared mournfully at his empty hand, where his missing item should be if he could just remember what it was called.
“I understand your pain,” Aoyama said sympathetically. Denki jumped. Since when was he right there? “I forget words both in Japanese and in French. Such is the struggle of being a bilingual icon.” Denki nodded solemnly, before he froze. Okay, idea. French existed. Denki beamed, and the other blonde looked at him, confused about the sudden attitude change.
“Aoyama, you beautiful man, you might have just saved me! J’ai oublié que tu peux parler français, même si tu es la personne la plus française que j’aie jamais vue. Comment dit-on téléphone en japonais ? S’il vous plaît, aidez-moi s’il vous plaît ! Je suis sur le point de me faire griller le cerveau juste en essayant de me souvenir ! Il ne s’agit même plus de trouver mon téléphone, il s’agit simplement de se souvenir de son nom!” Denki begged. Aoyama’s eyes went comically wide. Denki could vaguely hear his friends absolutely losing it.
“You speak French? You sound like a native!” Aoyama said, thrilled. “Pourquoi ne me l’as-tu pas dit plus tôt ? Je meurs d’envie de parler ma langue maternelle!”
Denki looked guilty. “My bad, man. Je n’y ai même pas pensé. Mais tu sais maintenant, alors chaque fois que tu vas à la maison, tu peux venir me parler. Quoi qu’il en soit, à propos de ma question... Comment puis-je dire au téléphone?”
Aoyama stared at him like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, before he laughed. Man, even his laughs sounded French. “Phone,” Aoyama said simply. Denki gasped.
“Yes! That’s it!” Denki cheered like he had just won the olympics. He did a little victory dance before turning to the others. “I’m looking for my phone. That’s what it’s called. My phone. Has anyone seen it?”
Denki had expected someone to say 'oh, I’ll help you look!' Or 'I think I saw it over there!' What he did not expect, however, was silence. Dead. Fucking. Silence. Denki shifted self-consciously under all the stares. “...What?” he asked hesitantly.
“What? What?!” Mina screeched. “Don’t what us! I should be what-ing you! Because what?”
“I think you forgot to say what,” Sero snorted, before turning to Denki. “But seriously: What?”
“Oh. Surprise, I guess? I know Spanish and French. And sometimes I forget stupid words in Japanese, because my brain is not built to hold that much information at once,” Denki jokes. His friends looked like they were going through all five stages of grief as they tried to process.
“So what, you’re trilingual?” Kirishima asked.
“No,” Denki shrugged. A beat of silence.
“....What the fuck do you mean no?” Jirou prompted. Denki snorted. He had never thought that him speaking multiple languages would be such a big deal, which is why he had never told anyone. Was he crazy, or were his friends dramatic?
“I mean that I’m not trilingual. I’m… wait, what’s the word for 12???” Denki paused and looked up as if he could find the answer written in the ceiling. “Ugh, I don’t know. Multilingual, I guess.”
“12? Fucking 12?!” Mina said in pure disbelief.
“Yeah,” Denki shrugged casually. “I know Japanese, French, Spanish, English, Korean, Mandarin, Italian, Russian, German, Arabic, JSL, and ASL.” He dragged his eyes away from the ceiling. Everyone was still staring at him. “Damn,” he said, “Is it really that hard to believe?”
“Yes,” At least a handful of people said in synch. Denki huffed.
“I can be smart sometimes,” He said.
“Denki, knowing 12 languages isn't just being smart. It’s… I didn't even know that was possible. Like, what the hell, man. Do you have a second quirk or something?” Sero asked. Denki laughed.
“No, but that’s what my sister always says. And there is an American hero with a quirk that lets her speak every language. It’s metal as hell. I think she’s who inspired me to learn so many, actually,” Denki hummed. He had never really thought that hard about why he had such an intense interest in linguistics. He had always assumed it was just because he had found it interesting how languages had so many differences. Like, there were phrases in Japanese that didn't exist in English and vice versa. But now that he thought about it, that realisation had to have stemmed from somewhere— he was pretty sure it was when he stumbled upon the hero’s interview at the ripe age of two years old.
“I know who you’re talking about!” Midoriya piped up. “Mockingbird, right? She can speak any language and copy other people’s voices.”
“Yeah!” Denki said excitedly. “You know her? Most people in Japan don’t, even though she’s, like, number eleven in America. It’s impressive that she ranked so high when her Quirk wasn't even built for combat.”
“I agree!” Midoriya exclaimed, equally excited. “She’s so inspirational.”
“Okay, can you two stop geeking out for a second? I’m still confused,” Jirou interrupted. Both boys flushed.
“Sorry, rock star. What are you confused about?” Denki asked. She looked at him as if he was stupid. Then, wordlessly, she made some vague gesture to all of him. Denki stared at Jirou, blinking silently, until she elaborated with a groan.
“One: how do you manage to know all of those languages? Two: why haven’t you mentioned this before? Three: how the fuck? You’re supposed to be the stupid one,” Jirou rapid fired. Denki tried not to be offended at that last one.
“Um, I don’t know about the first one. Languages just come easy to me, and I grew up around a lot of people with a lot of different backgrounds. For the second one, it just never came up and I didn't think it was that big of a deal,” people immediately started protesting, but Denki barreled on. “As for the last one… You guys saw how I forgot the word for phone in Japanese, right? Things like that happen more often than you would think. It makes testing a little harder, because Kanji is hard to read, and it’s very different from most of the other languages I know. It doesn't mean I’m dumb, I just need a little longer to translate things sometimes.”
“Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Now I feel guilty for teasing you so much,” Kirishima admitted. Denki shrugged.
“I’m used to it,” he said. He was about to say more, but then Mina suddenly gasped.
“You bitch!” She shouted, although she seemed more exasperated than upset. “That means that this entire time, you could have been helping me with English?” After her words, an explosion immediately followed. Denki just smirked as he watched everything unfold. He loved causing chaos. Maybe he should drop his lore more often, because if his friends were going this crazy over languages, he couldn't wait to see how they’d react to the other stuff that he’d been hiding. But that’s an experiment for another day. For now, though, all he wanted to do was find his damn phone.