Work Text:
Language Barrier
It's the middle of the night and Denji found it hard to get to sleep, and as much as he hated to admit it, it's the fault of the two girls sleeping in bed with him. Normally he likes being in bed with Asa/Yoru and Reze, it's nice and relaxing to just laze about and cuddle with them, but sometimes they could just be too hot in a literal sense. Like, it's too warm with them both on him and he wishes he had turned the fan on before he went to sleep, but at the same time he's sleeping with two(three) girls so he can't exactly complain.
At the very least he can enjoy their company and how they've both snuggled up to him and relish in being in the middle spoon this night. Asa was mostly the middle spoon, and she always managed without complaint.
Unbeknownst to him, Asa sometimes did have trouble sleeping as the middle spoon, not just for the build of eternal body temperature, but how difficult it was to disentangle herself from her partners to go to the bathroom.
Suddenly Reze's head shot up off his chest, which surprised him, and her head lazily lulled around before she looked to him, but her eyes were barely opened.
“Reze?” he whispered, careful not to wake Asa, who was sleeping with her head on his shoulder.
She stared at him with an unblinking, tired expression, barely able to hold head up, before she finally spoke: “Net, solenyy syr dolzhen peredat' yozhik.”
Denji stared at her, confused. “What?”
“YA khochu travyanyye shtany.”
Reze's head then fell onto his chest with a thump, and if she was even awake to begin with, she was fast asleep like it was nothing.
He continued to stare at her for a time, trying to figure out what kind of gibberish that was, before accepting that nothing would come of it, and tried to find her way back to his own sleep, which thankfully wasn't too far off.
000
The next morning Denji made a breakfast of sausage, eggs and toast, setting aside a portion for Nayuta who refused to leave her room before 10 AM on the weekends, leaving the four of them to themselves. Technically three because Yoru, like Nayuta, refused to exist until a certain point on the weekends.
“C'mon Denji, are you sure you don't want some?” Reze teased, holding up her cup of coffee up to Denji, who stuck his tongue out.
“No thanks, get that shitty mud water away from me,” he said, pushing it back towards her. “I'm good with orange juice.”
“I'm fine with tea,” Asa said with a morning raspiness, taking a slow and tired sip.
“You know, I always thought that maybe you'd be a bigger fan of coffee, Asa,” Reze said before taking her own sip.
“Why's that?”
“ You're both bitter,” was the barely there reply.
“Quiet Yoru.”
Reze laughed at the exchange.
Denji dipped his toast into the yolk of his eggs, soaking the bread and its butter before taking a large bite out of it, looking between his girlfriends, before his view settled on Reze. He looked at her, studied her, like there was something on the tip of his tongue he wanted to say, but he couldn't remember what it was.
It didn't take long before Reze noticed his lingering state. “Is there something on my face?” she asked, brushing her fingers to the side of her mouth.
“No, it's just...” He lingered, trying to recall and remember, but then it struck him. “Oh! Uh, did you have any weird dreams last night?”
“Dreams?” Asa said, turning her attention to the conversation.
Reze had bad dreams sometimes. They all did.
“Not that I can recall,” Reze said, leaning forward on an elbow. “At least nothing that comes to mind. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you woke up in the middle of the night and kind of talked in your sleep, so I thought you were having a dream.”
“Talking in my sleep? Did I say anything interesting?”
“I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “I couldn't understand you, it's like you weren't speaking Japanese or something.”
“Oh? Maybe I was speaking Russian.” She took another sip.
Denji's eyes widened. “You speak Russian?”
Asa, who has also taken a sip of her own tea, almost spit it out, but thankfully had built up enough willpower to swallow first. “Denji! She's from Russia! Of course she speaks Russian!”
“Well I ain't never hear her speak Russian before!”
“Seriously?”
“Well she don't got an accent or anything!”
Asa was about to argue further, but stopped herself and thought about what he had said over.
“ He does have a point.”
Asa turned to Reze. “He does have a point, you don't have an accent, you're perfectly fluent in Japanese. So if I didn't already know you were from Russia, I wouldn't have ever guessed that.”
“Haha!” Denji teased, much to Asa's annoyance. “See what I mean?” Realization broke out on his face and he turned back to Reze. “Yeah what gives? Why don't you sound like that?”
With a sigh or reluctance, Reze took one last swig from her coffee and leaned back in her chair, letting herself decompress for the conversation ahead. “Well, back at The Room they taught me Japanese since I was fourteen, how to speak it to such a degree that I could completely hide my accent and pass as just any other Japanese girl.”
Asa frowned. “Why? I mean, it sounds like they were preparing you to go to Japan specifically?”
“That was the general plan, I think.” Reze turned and looked at Denji. “When we met, did you think I was anything else but some random Japanese girl?”
“No.”
“And there you have it.” She gestured to her face. “I pass as East Asian with no problem, I look more at home here than I do in most parts of Russia, so I think they always intended me to take missions regarding Japan, it's just the one with Denji was the first one that came up.”
She didn't like thinking about the implication of that, if that was the plan they came up with as she grew up, or if that was how it was from the start. At least one parent had to be East Asian, but did that mean she was taken from the crib, or that she was bred for the specific purpose of infiltrating Japan?
Reze did not like to think about the fact that she would never know her parents.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Asa said, looking regretful. “We didn't mean to bring up any painful memories.”
Reze shrugged. “It's fine.”
Denji meanwhile bit, chewed and swallowed a piece of sausage. “So can you still do an accent then?”
“Denji!” Asa snapped.
“What?”
“You just don't say things like that!”
“Why not? I wanna know what she sounds like! Russian accents are hot!”
“DENJI!”
Light laughter erupted from across the table, getting the two out of their oncoming argument, and they both turned to Reze, who was holding her hand to her mouth, trying her best to contain herself. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just funny to think about it like that!” Reze continued to laugh, letting the humor pass over her as she grinned before she allowed herself to be collected and bring herself down. “You know, it does make me wonder if I could go back to that? I haven't spoken Russian in years, and I've only been exposed to nothing but Japanese since I got here, so...” Sitting up straight in her chair, Reze's face shifted into one of concentration and she began to mumble something under her breath. “Leytenant, leytenant — Lakovy sapozhki, Yesli devki ne dayut — Poprosi u koshki!” she then said aloud before she frowned. “No, that doesn't sound right, I don't think...”
“What was that?” Asa asked.
“Oh? Just a limerick I know, I'm trying to see if I can, I don't know, go back to how I used to sound, but it's not coming out right. You two can't tell, but I sounded very Japanese right there.” She then beat a hand to her chest, clearing her throat in the process. “Rybka plavayet v tomate, Yey v tomate khorosho. Tol'ko ya, yebona mater', Schast'ya v zhizni ne nashol.” She shook her head. “No, that still doesn't sound right, give me a moment! I can do this!”
“Huh...” Asa took a sip of her tea, before she noticed Denji eying her. “What?”
He merely grinned. “See? I told you Russian sounds hot.”
“Pig!” Asa said even though she was completely in agreement with him.
Across the table Reze continued with her limericks.
000
For the next week, Reze would practice her Russian, reciting her lyrics and songs and other sayings in a language that neither Denji nor Asa could speak or understand, to the point that she went a few days without saying a single word of Japanese. When both of them said that she really didn't need to dedicate this much effort to this she was quick to shrug them off with a “YA khochu eto sdelat',” which was enough to convince them to let her be, even though they didn't know what she was saying.
One late night, after Nayuta had gone to bed, Denji and Asa had stayed up to watch a movie on TV while Reze went to the bedroom to read, and after the movie had ended she had marched into the living room with a proud expression and stood before them.
Denji was the one to address her first. “Hey Reze, we were about to head to bed, you finish that book of yours for the night?”
Reze coughed, clearing her throat. “I think I'm done for the night, so if you two don't mind I think I'd like to go to bed with you tonight as well.”
Both Denji and Asa were caught off guard by how she talked, after going a near week of hearing her mostly talk in her native language, it was odd to not only hear her go back to Japanese, but for that Japanese to have a very noticeable Russian accent to it.
“Hey! You turned your accent back on!” Denji pointed out.
“It's not that simple,” Reze said with a Russian giggle. “You don't just turn languages off and on, you sort of just learn, unlearn and relearn them with practice.”
“So is this how you're supposed to sound like then?” Asa asked. “I mean, if you didn't know Japanese, or...” She didn't know where she was going with this line of thought beyond the fact she was liking what she was hearing out of Reze's mouth.
“Something like that,” Reze said. “I still feel as though I'm putting active effort into trying to sound like this, but it feels a lot easier to slip into than it did last week. I'm certain with more practice on my part I could pass off as the foreigner I am.”
“So we're getting Russian Reze from now on?” Denji asked, and he was very much in favor of this.
“Maybe?” Reze continued. “But if I'm being honest, it's not something I think I'll do all that much.”
The look of disappointment on their faces was hilarious, she thought.
“What?”
“Why?”
“Well, I have no plans on ever going back to Russia, and I think the chances of me running into someone else who can speak only Russian are pretty slim, so it just seems like a lot of pointless exercise for not much.” She walked up to where they sat and the couch, and inserted themselves between them, cuddling with their warmth and presence as she leaned back into the cushions. “Also, I don't have much love for Russia to begin with, I don't really care if I ever see it again. It was only a place I was born and where I was kept, so I don't have any strong attachments to it, and the culture is basically alien to me at this point.” She then wrapped her arms in theirs. “I'm more at home here than I ever was there.”
Denji, Asa and even Yoru thought that was a sweet thing to say.
“That being said, if you three like the accent, then I'll make it a special something just for us,” she said with a devious smirk, before she leaned up to Denji. “Moya khrabraya sobaka,” she said and kissed him on the lips, before she shifted over to Asa. “Moi milyye ptichki,” she said and kissed her twice on the lips before she settled back into the middle. “YA iskrenne lyublyu vas, rebyata, ot vsego serdtsa.
They still didn't know what she was saying, but it was Reze saying it, so it couldn't have been too bad.