I listen to my 'pupil' recite a sentence in English for the umpteenth time within the past five hours. I resisted the urge to smack my forehead as to not shame her.

Miyabi is one of the elite - the best of the best. Word through the grapevine is that she even leads the team of elites. It would be expected of someone of her stature to score top marks in all fields of study and she has.

All except for one.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to help her brush up on her English speaking skills. She has her own instructor so I initially wondered why she didn't go to her first.

After witnessing her ability, I can only assume her instructor knew exactly how bad her English was and avoided her like the plague. Oh well, I agreed to help her and I haven't let anyone down yet. Fortunately, I have my work cut out for me as she only has trouble speaking it. Reading and writing English is no issue for her.

She reads another sentence and I feel my ears beginning to bleed. Maybe these intermediate sentences are too much for her I realize, and so I instruct her to go back to the basics. The sentences she does work well with are, like her personality, short and direct.

"The sky is blue."
"The dog barks."

She says these lines confidently and I nod my head approvingly. Her booklet, as I've noticed, does not do a smooth transition into the mid-level work so I might have to get creative. I tell her to continue reading the shorter sentences as I write more lines for her to read. It's kind of cute to hear her say some of these simple things.

My thoughts darken.

Smiling, I had her my list of sentences for her to read. She begins to read them right off the bat.

"I am a very cute gir-"

She chokes on her words as she finishes that line. Internally, I'm laughing so hard that I've doomed my sides to hell.

"What are you making me read?" she asks in Japanese with a flushed face.

"Your book jumps from beginner to intermediate," I respond. "There is no in-between work for you to do so I came up with some things. You read that sentence fairly well, so please, continue."

She glares at me for but a moment longer before she continues reading.

"I am the essence of womanhood." My smile widens as her face reddens further.
"I have been blessed by the goddess of femininity." She struggled a bit with that line but she got through it.

The next one should be a pretty difficult line for her. I wait an anticipation.

"I have a voluptuous body that drowns the minds of men with lust and desire."

My eyes widen. The structure was a bit broken, but it could still be understood. Ignoring her embarrassment, I begin to applaud her.

As I begin to wonder if she performs while she's embarrassed, she crumples my list into a ball and throws it at me. It smacks me right in the middle of my forehead with enough force to make me lose my train of thought.

"You idiot!" she yells at me. "I don't want to read what you think of me!"

"Even if it's true?" I ask innocently.

She falls silent.