Slight Hiro/Honey. Title from Jasmine Thompson - Riptide (originally by Vance Joy).

Honey Lemon's a natural at memorization. If she weren't, she wouldn't have been able to memorize the entire periodic table and name scientific compounds by sight, smell, and touch. Heck, she needs good memorization for daily life. How could she be a successful scientist without such?

This time, though, she's not poring over school notes and how such-and-such would react when paired up with so-and-so. This time, she's clutching a Korean-English dictionary in her right hand and an English-Korean dictionary in her left. She swears she's already gone cross-eyed from switching between both dictionaries every few seconds, but she wants, she needs to do this. She's going to learn even the slightest smattering of Korean, and she isn't going to stop until Hell freezes over.

The only other person who can help her with this is Hiro - no one else has decent proficiency in the language besides Gogo, and this is what the entire language-learning is about. She's determined to make it through with the boy's teachings and encouragement (however confused he sounds), if only so she can enact her 'master plan'. At the very least, Gogo doesn't suspect anything yet - from what she can tell, anyway - and Tadashi is cheering her on, albeit with an all-knowing smirk. She's grown quite used to it, though, so it's nothing new.

"Ppo ppo hae..." Honey Lemon mutters under her breath, staring down at the grammar notes she had written on the notebook atop the table. That, too, was an addition to the two dictionaries. "Did I say that right? I don't think it sounded right. Ppa ppa... ah, crap, no..."

"Why don't you, um, start slow?" Hiro suggests, twiddling his fingers uncomfortably. With his even larger-than-normal eyes, he looks horribly nervous and awkward in the blonde's presence. Under normal circumstances, Honey Lemon would pick up on his feelings quickly, but these weren't normal circumstances - these were, quite obviously, very desperate circumstances, because she wanted to say something nice to Gogo as soon as she came to the lab in Korean and it was only a few minutes left before Gogo's estimated arrival time. "Like, say... a nice sarang hae yo. Or maybe a... what was it? Meotji-shineyo." He blinks. "Did you understand those?"

"Hum..." Honey Lemon carefully sets the pair of dictionaries down and simply sits there, hands folded on her lap. "Sarang hae yo." The words roll off her tongue so naturally, like they were meant to be spoken by her. "Sarang hae yo," she repeats, her lips slowly stretching into a smile. "It sounds familiar. That's 'I love you', right? But the other one..."

"'You look great'," Hiro replies, feeling a smile of his own coming up, however shy. "You're getting better, I guess. Try saying it, then!"

"What'd you say? It was... meotji-shinayo... wait, I meant, meotji-shineyo." Her brow scrunches up. "Doesn't sound right... meotji-shineyo... sarang hae yo..." She's a little too excited at the idea of saying these to Gogo. Alright, a lot too excited. If "sarang hae yo" comes out sounding absolutely great, then all she has to know is a couple more cheesy little phrases in Korean and she's set. Gosh, just thinking about it makes her blush and smile uncontrollably that she's on the verge of wriggling about in her seat.

Hiro clears his throat. "Honey Lemon?"

"Ah, right!" She nods, determination flooding her once more. "Alright, let's try again. Sarang hae yo-"

There's a swoosh sound of the door swinging open, just at the same time the words leave the blonde's mouth. "Honey-"

Silence.

Gogo wavers, before slowly backing away. "Oh."

Hiro stands up, palms slamming on the table between them, face completely red. "It's not-!"

The biker, unexpectedly enough, laughs. In fact, it's so uncalled for that Hiro's face twists into a more confused expression. "That's how it is, huh? Glad to see you two are finally getting to terms. So called it with the two of you! Tadashi owes me fifty bucks." Gogo flashes another smirk, gives the stricken Honey Lemon a thumbs-up, then walks out of the room. She closes - no, slams the door behind her so hard Honey Lemon swears she hears a crack.

Another heavy silence descends upon the two of them, before Hiro breaks it by whirling around and facing Honey Lemon with a look that screams outrage. "What was that? What was that?"

"I..." The blonde's voice trails off. She clears her throat and forces herself to continue. "She... bet on us getting together? What? I'm about five years older than you?"

"That's not the problem!" Hiro exclaims, nearly flipping the table over. "It doesn't look like she has a problem with this at all! H-Honey? I can call you that, right? Right! Go out there and tell her about it!"

"... But she doesn't care," Honey Lemon says, voice cracking. "I mean, she even bet on us with Tadashi. And she doesn't seem to care at all. Doesn't that mean she doesn't like me in the least, in the romantic way?"

Hiro pauses. It's true, he realizes. It would be true, at least, if he weren't a tad too good at seeing right through the biker. "You're wrong there."

"W... What?"

"You're totally wrong. I can't see how you can't see it, but..." Right, how the heck do I say this? "But you've at least got a chance. Go out there and get going. You've got a lady to woo, right?"

Honey Lemon flinches. "But... she-"

"I told you you're wrong, right?" He forces a smile, if only to encourage her. "Come on, I know this sort of thing. Trust me! Just do it like you practiced, right?"

The moment Gogo shuts the door close, she rushes out as fast as she can, feet flying down the stairs, until she's right in front of Honey Lemon's apartment building once more. This time, though, her face is red, and her bottom lip is bleeding from being bitten on for so long and so hard, unlike when she had arrived, too-excited and anxious to see the blonde's face. Her tongue quickly swipes over where she can taste the blood. It stings. Just like her chest; though she's pretty sure it hurts more, so much more than just a sting.

She hadn't been expecting Honey Lemon and Hiro. Sure, she supposes they get along well enough, but they hadn't seemed all that close before. But she hadn't been hallucinating what she had just heard - though she had no idea why Honey Lemon had decided to confess through Korean - of all languages, it had to be Korean, God, it was just driving the stake through her heart and twisting it - the point remained. They were official.

Gogo's feelings, most likely, aren't going to stop them.

A shaky sigh escapes her lips. What is she, some lovestruck teenager? Well, technically, yes, but that isn't important right now. She hops on her motorcycle, readying herself to go speeding off back to her place, before a voice stops her right in her tracks.

"Gogo!"

It's that slightest hint of an accent that halts her, and she looks back over to where the voice had come from confusedly. Honey Lemon scampers down the stairs without trouble, even with her four-inch heels, and skids to a stop just right in front of the biker. She raises an eyebrow and forces a smile. It's more of a grimace than anything. "Honey? Well, what about that, not having fun with your new boyfriend?" I am really trying to kill myself today, huh?

"That's not it!" Honey Lemon blurts out between pants, planting her hands firmly on Gogo's shoulders. It's a little awkward, especially with the height difference between them, but she does it dramatically enough that neither of them notice. "It's just... look, it's not what you thought it was, yes? If I wanted to confess to Hiro, I would've, you know, said 'I like you'! I barely know Korean, after all!"

"Then..." Gogo's frustration slowly melts into confusion. "Then what was that about?"

"Sarang hae yo, Gogo," the blonde murmurs, now seeing her accent is still a tad noticeable even in the Korean words. Still, it looks like she delivered the point clearly enough, because the biker's face looks like it's frozen in a state of shock. "Um, that was a little sudden, huh? And I probably said it wrong, but now you can help me, 'cause I really want to give you stupid cheesy phrases in your language, and-"

A pair of arms wraps around Honey Lemon's midsection. "This's gonna sound weird," Gogo's muffled voice says. "But, Honey? Te amo, I'm really fucking gay, will you go out with me?"

Honey Lemon's heart all but stops, she's sure, but she can feel a stupid little grin creeping up onto her face. She's certain she looks like an absolute idiot to Gogo, but thankfully, the biker still has her gaze directed downwards, and so she can't see a thing. Nevertheless, Honey Lemon tilts Gogo's chin up for their eyes to meet. "Your accent is really kind of cute," the blonde says, nearly singing the words, returning the biker's hug. Almost kneeling down, she rests her chin on Gogo's shoulder and whispers, "Wanna take this to my room?"

"Your ex-boyfriend's still there." A pause. "... Though, I actually wouldn't really mind that."

If you don't know (though this is usually considered common knowledge in the HoneyGogo fandom): "te amo" is Spanish for "I love you".