There are nods and understanding murmurs all around. "Welcome to Japan, then," she says, smiling. "Rosu, you said your family name was...?"

"Yes." He's got that embarrassed face again like he's personally responsible for the existence of dental fricatives.

"Roth," Akira corrects her.

"Ah, Rasu?"

"Ra-a-su?"

"Roth," says Kōji, quietly.

This would be a linguistically fascinating experience if it wasn't so mortifying.

"You have to kind of bite your tongue and then - thhhhh," says Nakano.

(The faintest sound of phonological experimentation from the back of the crowd.)

Yutaka glances between Aiko and Kōji with a slowly-forming smirk. "I see that I still have much to learn when it comes to using my tongue, senpai," he tells Kōji specifically.

Kōji shrugs and doesn't otherwise respond.

"Oof, ignored."

"Does your family own any hotels in Tokyo, Rahusu-san?"

Not even Yutaka's compulsive flirting habit can save him, apparently. "We only have a few right now," he says modestly.

Their acquisitions have already been pretty ambitious and are expected to get more so if things keep looking up, but it's always better to underplay than overplay, and he's not going to talk upcoming acquisitions in front of a crowd of strangers whose parents are all major players in the financial landscape.

"Sss," says a girl near Nakano.

"No, thhhhh. Mind I don't see how you'd do it right in the middle of a word but I can do it by itself."

"Nagao-san, I'm sure Adonis isn't looking to be grilled about his family's business on the day he transferred."

"Rahusu. Rahhhsu. Rahhhhssssss. This is hard."

Thank you Yutaka but that line of conversation is not the main problem here actually! He is INCONVENIENCING so MANY PEOPLE with his OBJECTIVELY UNREASONABLE CONSONANTS!!!

Calm. Calm. He is calm. Everything is fine. He is doing so good at being normal, in his second language, while surrounded by people chanting earnest mispronunciations of his name. Can it be time for the next class already???

Not quite yet. "Kobayashi, I think Fukuhara's looking for you," says Yutaka, nodding in the direction of one end of the hallway.

Both Kobayashis look up at their name being called but Toshiki rolls his eyes and looks away from presumably-Fukuhara.

"So he is. He's probably already getting nervous about the history group project, I should go sit on him until he chills out. Bye," he says, with a finger wave.

"I give up."

"I'm just gonna find myself a mirror and make faces at it until I figure it out."

"Raaaaaa...thhhhhhh."