Psychedelic

[9] Lingua Franca

Pairing           : Hankyung x Yuri

Genre/Theme : General, romance

Warning      : The writer's undoubtedly limited knowledge of language –and her pathetic attempt to resort to Google Translate and insufficient internet research. Feel free to correct me.

Pinboo’sspazzing on Hankyung x Yuri (or Lingua Franca, really):

The idea comes from an entirely predictable origin, eh? Hahaha. I just love SNSD’s Lingua Franca so much, and the word itself is just… beautiful. So a couple of days ago, I was in the airport and I listened to Lingua Franca and I just felt like I needed to make a Sugenfic about it. And who else fits the role more than Hankyung? While I could have used Henry and Zhou Mi too, I feel Hankyung would create a more dynamic in the relationship. And thus this was born, hehe. 

50 minutes before her flight's final call, Kwon Yuri fell in love.

...

No, that was an exaggeration. She might have been reading too many chicklits (too many for her own good, in fact), hence her almost belief for love-at-first-sight. But even the 25-year-old lady knew that it was only her poetic mind trying to romance herself. No one could fall in love that fast, and even if they claimed they did, there must have been something delusional about the whole ordeal. But for a side note, Yuri would not bother to deny that she was attracted. To a stranger that sat on the chair in front of her in the airport's waiting room.

And she thought it was legit for her to think that way. The object of her temporal object of attraction sat on the chair calmly while reading his book. He was an Asian descent –which would be quite noticeable there in the Glasgow's airport. It was not that she was trying to relate herself to him due to their racial resemblances. Even without the possible cultural similarities, objectively speaking, Yuri thought he was really an object deserving her attention. His black hair was cut neatly, styled in subtle spikes; his skin was fair –with only hint of tan that made him look more masculine. He was wearing a reading glasses, but behind those rims, Yuri could easily spot his deep onyx eyes –undisturbed when they were reading the passages from the book on his hand.

It was a good thing that people were often misled by her appearance. She was more of a tomboy at heart, but her sharp feature and rather serious-looking visage often made people assumed her as a mature and elegant young lady. She did not mind the stereotype though, because surely, it saved her the trouble of being suspected as a childish fangirl trying to check a stranger out.

Yuri took a sip of her cold beverage and tried to avert her attention back to the magazine on her lap. It was the fourth time she tried to do so, and failed to make a good commitment to read the content for even one good minute. Eventually, she found her eyes stealing glances to the man sitting across her again.

Stop this, Yuri. This is ridiculous.

She was about to begin her attempt to read her magazine for the fifth time, but then the man distracted her attention again in his most oblivious way.

"Ni hao."

Yuri looked up.

The man was already taking his attention off the book he was reading; he was apparently receiving a phone call. His voice was a good tenor, Yuri concluded as she tried to eavesdrop the reply he made to the phone. His voice was one that could send a pleasant tingling sensation to the tip of her toes. It was a comforting voice, and she unconsciously moved her body forward to get a better sound of his voice.

She blinked.

The man was Asian-descent, undoubtedly. But the words that came from his lips barely made Yuri understand a thing.

Not Korean.

Japanese?

Chinese?

She felt a little wave of disappointment rushing towards her. Sure, to begin with, there was a rare chance of her being better acquainted with someone she met at an airport. But in a deeper level, there was this bigger nationality issue and language barrier. Yuri never had an excellent linguistic skill –her English was broken and it would be miraculous for her to even understand other language.

And to begin with, Yuri, were you seriously considering to bond up with a stranger you had only seen for less than an hour?

Abort the mission, Yuri. Retract your body before he realized that you were leaning close to him and –

"Xu yao wo bang mang ma?"

Yuri blinked.

It was the same voice, the same man, but suddenly the voice came much closer and –

Yuri looked up –and nearly jolted back upon seeing the mystery man's face nearly inches apart from her.

She yelped. And in the midst of her own surprise and panic and embarrassment and everything that jumbled incoherently within her mind, she stumbled forward. She let out another girlish shriek as her forehead hit the man's knees. He was a lean man –and the collision between her forehead and his kneecap sent a jolt of pain right away.

But it was the humiliation that she could not take.

"Nǐ méishì ba?" the man asked her in panic.

Yuri often embarrassed herself. But all of the humiliation seemed rather insignificant then, because the only thing that bothered her at that point was the way the man's brows knitted together in puzzlement and the mild aghast on his face that seemed to signify his bewildered thoughts.

"E-erm..." she muttered.

"Nǐ méishì ba?" the man repeated. "Méiyǒu shānghài ma?"

"E-er..."

The man tilted his head for a second before apprehension hit him. "Ah," he muttered to himself. "Daijoubu desu ka?"

She grew more panicked. "H-huh?"

The line of communication was still not established, and the man tried other languages that Yuri had never heard of. The more the man showed his concern, the more that Yuri felt like she wanted the earth to swallow her alive. Oh, that was humiliation. She was humiliated –by the man she considered to be the most attractive one she had ever seen for the past months.

After nearly a minute of frantic one-sided experiment in language, the man finally demanded in one fluently-spoken English.

"Are you alright, Miss? You do not seem well. Do you want me to –"

Having at least one language that she could identify, Yuri immediately made her reply.

Which was far from being intelligent, and spoken in broken English at that.

"A-ai am o-olraitu!"

Saving herself from more hum