Page 14 of Spoonful

At the moment, with Hiro to impress, Jaylin wasn’t sure he was up for Carlos’s antics. He was just soloud.

“Just been busy,”Jaylin replied in Spanish.

Carlos scoffed.“I’m in college too, you know! All work and no play, etcetera.”

Jaylin snorted, then realized Hiro was watching them and, possibly, was being left out of the loop. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Um, this is Carlos.” He shot Carlos a look. “I’m assuming he’s here to actually be our waiter, and not just give me a hard time.”

“You know what they say about assuming,” Carlos shot back cheerfully. “It makes an a–”

“Carlos,”Jaylin hissed, now kind of hoping Hiro didn't understand.“This man is someone I need to impress and he’s doing me a huge favor by giving me his time, could you not.”

Carlos blinked and looked at Hiro as if seeing him for the first time. He then did a very exaggerated double-take. For the second time in two minutes, Jaylin tried not to groan and shove his face in his hands.

“Hello,” Hiro said with a bemused smile, all cordial.

“Hirohito Miyazaki,” Carlos said, leaning in closer and waving a finger. “Right? Hirohito Miyazaki!”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Hiro said, while Jaylin inwardly gaped. CarlosrecognizedHiro? How? Was Hiro that big a deal? “Are you a friend of Jaylin’s?”

“How do you know Hiro?” Jaylin asked, before Carlos could reply to that. He didn't mean for it to come out suspicious, but it probably did.

He watched in real time as Carlos realized he’d stuck his foot in his mouth, darting a look at Jaylin.“He’s a local celebrity! He’s the guy who did that pro bono work to save Kit Kat Animal Shelter from that hostile takeover thing a couple years ago. How do you not know this? He was in the news and everything. I follow him on Instagram.”His eyes widened.“Wait, can he speak Spanish?”

“You’re being rude,” Jaylin pointed out in English. He threw an unhappy glance at Hiro. “Sorry about him.”

Carlos made some sort of choking noise, but then seemed to realize that yes, he was, in fact, being rude, because he cleared his throat. “Are you, uh, ready to order? Or I could get you drinks while you look at the menu?”

“Do you need more time?” Hiro asked him. “You just got here.”

Jaylin shook his head. “I’m ready if you are.” He tended to cycle between the same few orders. He knew what he liked at this point, and what would also leave him with plenty of leftovers.

“Alright,” Hiro said to Carlos. “Then I guess we’re ready. One check, please.”

“Of course, yeah,” Carlos said meekly. “What can I get for you?”

They both ordered, and Carlos seemed to be intent on making up for his faux pas, because he was back in a matter of moments with their drinks—coffee for Hiro, horchata for Jaylin. He assured them that the food would be ready in a few and left them to it.

“He seems nice,” Hiro commented. “Friend of yours?”

Jaylin’s cheeks darkened. “I don’t know him that well. It’s his abuela’s restaurant. Carlos’s one of many descendants who work here part-time in some capacity. He just likes to talk.”

Hiro nodded and took a sip of his coffee. “I didn’t know you could speak Spanish,” he said conversationally.

“I picked some up here and there,” Jaylin said, feeling self-conscious. “But I’m not that good at it. I can only speak and understand–I can’t read it or anything.”

“Just because you can’t read it doesn’t mean you aren’t good at it,” Hiro said. “I’m close to fluent in spoken Japanese myself, but I can’t read kanji for love or money. It doesn’t change the fact that I know the language.”

“Oh,” Jaylin floundered. “No, of course not–I didn’t mean–”

Hiro’s smile was soft. “You didn’t mean to put me down, by putting yourself down?”

Jaylin stared at him, not knowing what to do. “I…”

“Hey,” Hiro said gently. “It’s okay. I just know how easy it is to get stuck in your own head. How much easier it is to focus on your negatives and dismiss the positives. But putting yourselfdown doesn't benefit you. It doesn’t make you work harder or better, it just discourages you and adds stress. It takes practice to start recognizing your own accomplishments, especially if you’ve spent so long ignoring them, but there’s a lot of merit in it. There’s merit in being able to recognize all that you’ve done and how far you’ve come.”

Jaylin’s ears burned. It was easy for Hiro to say all that, being who he was. Successful, important, and admired. Hiro probably never had trouble with school. Never had to deal with classmates laughing at him for struggling to get through a picture book, or teachers looking at him with annoyance or suspicion for doing a math problem in his head because he couldn’t write down his work.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “Sure, okay.”

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