Hiro's learning lots of new words from Charlie these days. He knows he needs to keep focused and save her (save the waitress, save the waffles? Hiro files that away to make Ando roll his eyes later), but it's really hard to concentrate when his brain is filled with all these cool new English words.

Like 'soft' ("Moe!" Hiro says when he's twisting a long strand of blonde hair between his fingers, and Charlie giggles because she worked out that word two days ago), and 'ticklish' ("That's so not fair," Charlie gasps, trying to grab his hands and adding something about console gaming calluses) and 'fifteen minute break' ("It's rain!" Hiro protests, but Charlie doesn't seem to care and he doesn't really either).

So it catches him off-guard when Charlie says a sentence that Hiro doesn't understand a single word of, except for the American inefficient 'a' and 'the.' And it makes Hiro a little disappointed in himself too, because he'd thought he was doing really well after all this.

Charlie's still staring at him though, hands folded behind her back and rocking on her heels just a little, expectant. Hiro clears his throat.

"I…" it's embarrassing, but Hiro can't quite bring himself to lie right to Charlie's adorable (he loves saying that one, because Charlie always laughs and makes him say it a few more times) face. And waitress uniform. "I didn't understand all of that."

"What did you understand?" Charlie asks, that sweet lilt to her voice that Hiro has come to understand from customer eavesdropping is called an 'accent.'

"Well," Hiro has to look away for a second to gather his thoughts, glancing over the rows of silver cans lining the shelves behind Charlie's soft-blonde-adorable head, "I understood 'you.' And 'my.' And…"

"Aaaand?" Charlie tilts her head, and her smile is not quite a smile, it's more of a…Hiro hasn't learned the word for that yet. Like a smile, but tricky.

Truthfully, there was one more word Hiro had understood in her statement, but even the thought of admitting he knew it to Charlie has his face turning redder than the tomatoes on the cans stacked on the stainless steel table behind him.

He really shouldn't know that word, but there was that time at university, when he and Ando had had the good internet, and they'd gotten a little bored of the usual hentai tentacle pretty nurse movies, and had used Hiro's high school English to hunt down a few American…

Charlie was still staring at him. Her smile was still tricky.

"Nothing," he said.

"Nakamura Hiro," Charlie says, and it makes Hiro's skin shiver a little when she says his name the right way like that, "are you fibbing to me?"

Okay, he's confused about 'fibbing' still, because it seems like it should be bad, but every time Charlie uses it, right after she smiles even trickier and pushes him back against the table and then puts her hand against Hiro, confirming that his vocabulary had been right on.

"No?" he offers.

"I can show you," she says, and drops to her adorable waitress knees.

Later on, Hiro learns the words 'bruised' and 'shameless' from listening in on the other waitresses, but they don't stick because Charlie is smiling at him from over the soda fountain.