My deepest apologies for not updating last night, and as compensation I'll be giving a double update today.
***
_25_ (Jace Dreice Scott's Point of View)
Yesterday's exams were hard.
I needed to focus on the lessons because this assignment unintentionally made me study for our family's business.
I reported to the Commissioner General about the events that happened to the heiresses.
"Damn!" Lavalee, Irene, and Jess cussed in chorus and sat on the couch
"Language." Chelsea reprimanded them and I heard them chuckle
"Mianhe, Mama Chelsea." Irene and Jess teased her
I didn't really expect them to be this close, but I thought of them as a group of girls who talk more about love life, riches, and such.
I didn't expect them to be free-spirited in front of each other because I thought they'd be faking each other, but they proved me wrong once again.
"Can I ask something?" Elijah asked them
We've been with the heiresses for three months so I had to get used to the first-name basis.
The girls didn't like us to call them 'miss' or their surnames, and it's awkward to call each other by our title and position in front of the girls who are calling us by our first names.
"You're already asking, bro," Irene said which made them chuckle
"What do eomma and appa mean?" he asked a little confused
"No, Eomma means Mom. Appa means Dad. It's Korean," Lavalee said and I suddenly remembered something with those two words
"I miss Eomma and Appa."
"You can go to them."
"If I do that, it'll wreck my sisters and brothers more."
"Losing our parents is too much damage to be handled by my siblings, especially by my sister, Freia. If I choose to be selfish and go to Eomma and Appa, who would keep them stable?"
She was referring to them.
I looked at Lavalee who's smiling and laughing with her friends and my comrades as they translate the words that misleads the guys.
I didn't notice that I blurted out what I was thinking while looking at Lavalee and that took the attention of the people with us.
"What?" Irene asked but I looked at Lavalee
"You're referring to your parents," I said and she smiled before nodding
"Ne, I was referring to them," she said
"Let's go, we have to review," Chelsea said and we stood up
We went to the room that looks like a meeting room again.
"So, we're studying Japanese," Chelsea said and opened the PC and the screen.
"And the best teacher should be the one born speaking it," Jess said teasingly
"Not me, I grew up in New Yastrid," Irene said and Lavalee stood up so I looked at her
"What? I'm the only one who's born in Japatrein." She said and different signs began appearing on the screen
"So, let's start with the basics." She said and stepped on her chair.
"Hey! Be careful." I said and held her waist when she almost fell
She continued to reach for the ceiling and a little later, she reached something that looks like a rope and pulled it down. It revealed a whiteboard.
"Thank you." She told me before clearing her throat and began writing different signs on the board.
"These are Katakana characters. The Japanese characters consist of two types of characters, the syllabic kana which are hiragana and katakana, and the adopted Chinese characters which are called kanji." She said and began saying different terms like handakuten and dakuten.
"So, for the basic greetings, Kon'nichiwa is Japanese for Hello." She said and drew a table with three columns.
Romanization, characters, and English
She wrote Ohayo then three characters and the translation.
She did those swiftly which made me wonder how did she learn our alphabet then?
"Ohayōgozaimasu, is for the formal Good Morning and Ohayo for the informal, Konbanwa is Good Evening and Oyasumi is Good Night." She said
"For simple conversations. Irene." She said and Irene stood up beside her
"Kon'nichiwa, genkidesuka?" she said and Irene raised her brow at her
"Anata wa watashi ni sore o shinken ni tazunete imasu ka?" Irene asked
"Just play along," Lavalee said and Irene nodded
"Okay, again, guys please take note of how we enunciate the words," Lavalee said and cleared her throat.
"Kon'nichiwa, genkidesuka?" Lavalee asked again
"Daijōbudesu. Anata wa do?" Irene replied
"Watashi mo genkidesu." Lavalee replied and faced us after Irene took her seat again
"That is just a simple conversation. You just have a casual catching up, like when you meet somebody you haven't seen for a while," Lavalee elaborated.
It's amusing how she doesn't slang some of her words when in fact she's been speaking three languages simultaneously.
"I think the exam would be written so you do have to memorize the katakana characters." She said and erased the whiteboard, she began writing all the characters by row.
"I don't know how to make mnemonic notations on these characters though." She said and sat down while we're reviewing the characters.
Suddenly, the screen turned black and the lights went off.
A young girl's face flashed on the screen, her eye color took our attention.
It's gold.
"Ohayo, ane furamerin." She said and smiled but her forehead knotted when she saw us,
"E~tsu? Naze kaigijitsu ni mo dansei ga iru nodesu ka?" She said and looked at Lavalee
"Ohayo, Freia." The girls greeted
"Watashitachiha shiken no shinsa o okonatte imashitaga, anata no denwa o kitai shite imasendeshita." Lavalee chuckled while saying that
"A? Gomen'nasai." The little girl said and a girl with a pair of gray eyes appeared
"Ohayo, Hime Icey." Lavalee greeted her
"Likewise," The girl replied and bowed a little
"We should continue reviewing, Icey, Freia, we still have an exam this afternoon," Lavalee said
"Demo... onesan." The one with the gold eyes said
"Go fuben o okake shite moshiwakegozaimasen." The gray-eyed girl said and the screen turned off
"Freia missed you too much eh?" Irene told Lavalee.
"Let's just get back to reviewing." She said and started reviewing us again.
She then reviewed us with Music and Arts and Statistics.
"Oh, look at the time. We should get ready." Jess said and Lavalee turned off the alarm when it rang
We went out of the room and went to our designated rooms.
When I came out we were almost complete, only Chelsea and Lavalee were left.
"Young ladies, sirs, Young Lady Lavalee ordered it to be given to you." He said like a butler and gave us bottled water and pain killer patches.
Maybe for the Self-Defense Exam that we will be having later.
"Thank you, manang," Jess said and the maids went back to the kitchen and their duties.
Chelsea went downstairs and she was looking at me like she saw something weird.
"Sorry, we're late," Lavalee said as she rush down the stairs.
She looked at me from head to toe so I did the same to her.
We went to the garage and rode our respective cars, I drove to the Academy, and good thing it's not raining anymore.
She walked ahead so I held her wrist.
"You won't wait for them?" I asked her and she shook her head
"Nope, we'll see each other in the classroom anyway," she said and we walked ahead.
Most of the students are looking at us, I think Lavalee wants to be a model because she's walking like she's on a runway with her head held high.
We continued to walk until we stopped by our classroom.
We're almost late, that's why there are many students because our exam starts at 11:35 and it's already 11:30. I sat on the designated chair, and then I saw Elijah, Caspian, Ethan, and the girls arriving.
When we started the exam, I focused on answering the exam and Lavalee's right, it asked us to write both roman and character.
Good thing I memorized some of the katakana characters she wrote.
After 20 minutes, I raised my head and I saw Lavalee standing up.
I still have 20 questions to answer so I returned my gaze to the paper and continued answering.
After a while, I finished answering and stood up, I saw that the girls are no longer there so I went to the teacher.
"Anata no kotae wa tashikadesu ka?" he asked so my forehead knotted but I remembered what Lavalee told us earlier.
"Hai," I replied.
Lavalee told us that same question earlier and she said we must answer it with "hai" because the proctor is asking if we're sure of our answers.
"Anata ga iku kamo shiremasen." He said so I went out of the classroom
I saw my comrades looking so I saluted and I saw them saluting back before I left the room.
I saw the girls in the hallway.
"This is really unfair, Lavalee should've taken another exam," Irene said, which Lavalee just laughed in response
"I agree," Jess said making Lavalee shake her head
"What kind of exam do you want me to take then? Alien language? " Lavalee asked and smiled when she saw me
"You all know that Lavalee knows at least 7 alphabets," Chelsea said so I looked at Lav
"I don't remember that I know at least 7 alphabets." Lavalee denied
"Japanese, Phonetics, Greek, Russian, Thai, Korean, Chinese, what else huh?" Irene challenged her and she chuckled
"Whatever," Lavalee replied
After all the written exams, we went to the Gym II for our self-defense exam.
***
Kon'nichiwa, genkidesuka? - Hello, how are you?
Anata wa watashi ni sore o shinken ni tazunete imasu ka? - Are you seriously asking me that?
E~tsu? Naze kaigijitsu ni mo dansei ga iru nodesu ka? - Eh? Why is there a man at the meeting?
Watashitachiha shiken no shinsa o okonatte imashitaga, anata no denwa o kitai shite imasendeshita. - We were reviewing for the exams, and we were not expecting your call.
A? Gomen'nasai. - Ah, I'm sorry,
Ohayo - Good morning,
Demo... onēsan. - But... older sister
Go fuben o okake shite mōshiwakegozaimasen. - I understand, my apologies for taking your time.
Anata no kotae wa tashikadesu ka? - Are you sure of your answers?