MPC 54B: Lost In Translation

MPC Number: 54B

MPC Name: Back to School/Work

Reward: Posts

There it was... the University of Tokyo. It was truly a grand building. Well, no, it was much larger than just one building, but the building a certain young man was standing in front of was huge! As Leith struggled with continuing to struggle with the weight of many, many books in a black bag over his shoulders in addition to the weight of a guitar in his right hand and a small modeling amp in his left, the young man thought out loud, "Holy... This is crazy."

"I'm really happy for you, Leith!" Veemon congratulated from the confines of the blue and black digivice which Leith wore on his left wrist in place of a digital watch now. After all, he always had his smartphone in the pocket of his dark gray jeans (at least in the real world), and a digital watch would serve him no purpose in the either world given that fact. Of course, the lack of practical use didn't deter Leith from showing off his metalhead pride with a Cynicism T-shirt, nor did that apparently prevent him from lugging a heavy guitar and amplifier around campus.

In most other cases Leith might have scolded Veemon for speaking in public, but the crowds around Leith all walked with purpose like they had somewhere to be and limited time to get there. So, he let it go and even felt brave enough to reply, "Thanks. Gotta admit I'm kinda surprised I even got in, but here we are... off to my first class. Pretty sure I want the science building..." As Leith responded, he took his phone from his pocket and accessed a map of the campus from a site he'd already pulled up, knowing he needed one. "And I'm, like, seventy percent that's not it. Or, no, closer to fifty five. Or, actually, is that it?"

"We're totally fuckin' lost, aren't we?" That voice was Shoutmon's, the other digimon who had come to adopt Leith's digivice as his home away from (Leith's) home. A little unlike an average Shoutmon, though, this one was made not of metal but of flesh, bone, and scales (though still data in the end, naturally). Actually, he stayed home most of the time Leith went somewhere besides the digital world, but he was curious enough about the college to come see it with Leith. Thus far, he was not impressed.

Leith self-consciously gulped and pursed his lips. "I know I have no sense of direction, but you don't have to be an ass about it." The problem was that Shoutmon was actually right on the mark, and it was quickly becoming very apparent that the map was little help to Leith, especially as he tried to keep flipping between it and the class schedule also stored in another tab on his phone. "Alright, I need some help here. Vee, can you tell me how to ask for directions in Japanese and translate the answer for me?"

"Wait, hold up!" Shoutmon interrupted, "Why do you always ask him to translate? I speak Japanese, too, you know!"

Of course, Leith understood Shoutmon's frustration. Maybe he feels left out or something? The young man's answer was, "Oh... I dunno. I guess I never thought of it because Veemon's always done it. I guess it doesn't matter as long as it's right. How do I say it, Shout?"

Leith noticed one detail immediately as he dropped his hand with the digivice to pick his amp back up from when he'd been holding his phone. "That doesn't sound like what Veemon was about to say."

"Eh, they both work! It's a real poetic language, you know?" Well, that was something Leith could believe. Too bad he didn't notice that within the digivice, Shoutmon had both his hands clamped tightly around Shoutmon's mouth, effectively keeping the blue digimon from speaking even though he really, really wanted to. Leith, though, was none the wiser, so he began scanning around for whoever he thought would be least annoyed by an American with awful Japanese pronunciation asking for directions... and his heart stopped when he thought he'd found one.

Sitting on a set of bricks that surrounded a bush was another young man, something like 20 and a Japanese native by the looks of him, reading a book in Japanese but whose cover picture was covered in scientific imagery like microscopes and test tubes. "That guy definitely knows where the science building is." However, there was another factor that made Leith want to approach him, a factor a little less tangible. Leith couldn't see it on himself, but he could feel the blood rush to his cheeks, turning them redder the longer he looked at this person. Still, he was just focused enough to swallow his desire and, "Stick to business... don't wanna be late on day one!"

The butterflies in Leith's stomach as he walked up to the young man were something he wasn't used to; he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen someone who tickled his fancy like this, and it was an even rarer occasion when he actually found the courage to talk to that guy. To his credit, though, he did successfully approach, get the man's attention, and quite smoothly, coolly, ask him, "Naze watashi no zubon wa mitsubachi de ippaidesu ka?"

Leith couldn't help but smile at the young man when he looked up to Leith and smiled at the Tamer himself. The metalhead could feel his hard heart softening uncomfortably and speeding up rapidly as the man looked up from his science book, and let his smile turn into a grin... but his heart sank into his gut when the Japan native began to laugh much too loud to seem appropriate, like he'd just heard a hilarious joke. Through laughs, the young man struggled to ask Leith in English, "You are new Japan, yes?"

Leith knew that whatever he'd just said was not asking for directions to the science building, so he prudently cut his losses and walked straight away, fuming. He was no fool; he knew exactly what happened. "Shoutmon, what the hell did you tell me to say?" Leith hissed.

"'Why are my pants full of bees?" Leith was able to predict Shoutmon's uncontrollable laughing fit then and promptly covered the digivice with his hands in order to try and muffle it.

Well, Shoutmon clearly was no help, so Leith returned to the original plan. "Yeah, ha, ha, very funny. Veemon, could please tell me how to actually ask about the science building?"

Word count: 1,121