“I’ve been waiting for years,” Leander said. “I’ve been learning Armenian.”

“Awesome!” New York said, “great thinking!”

“Thanks, yeah,” Leander said, “I mean, it’s not great, but I should be able to understand the basics in the field.”

“Great, great,” New York said, “I haven’t been able to find a translator I think is solid yet, so, good.”

“Well, between the two of us, we could probably…” Leander trailed off slowly.

“Yeah?” New York asked.

“How’s your Armenian?” Leander asked.

“What?” New York asked. “I don’t speak Armenian.”

“But you’re a polyglot,” Leander said, “you speak like, what, five languages? Six?”

“Yeah, so?” New York asked.

“You’re good at languages, you’ve known for years that we were going life or death with Armenian gangsters, and you didn’t bother learning any Armenian?”

“I’m good at Romance languages,” New York said.

“You speak Japanese, asshole!”

“Yeah, but that’s special,” New York said.

“You piece of shit otaku!” Leander said. “We could die! We could be killed by Armenian gangsters and you spent the last five years learning Japanese!”

“Look, I learned Japanese to train martial arts more effectively,” New York said, “it’s relevant.”

“It is not!” Leander shouted. “Oh my fuck, I’m going to die because my partner was too much of an idiot to learn the language of our enemies!”

“Relax,” New York said, “did you forget they all speak English?”

“Not to each other!” Leander said, “not when they’re saying shit like shoot the tall one first, if you fucking remember!”

“Yeah,” New York said, smiling fondly, “that was cool.”

“You were wearing lifts! It doesn’t count,” Leander said.

“Hah,” New York said, “sidetracked by that, really? It’s okay, man. You don’t have to be so defensive about it. I’m not that much taller than you. I mean, just a couple of critical inches.”

“Oh my fuck,” Leander groaned, pacing around the room, “oh my fuck. We’re going to die.”

“You don’t need language to understand that kind of thing anyway,” New York said.

“What?”

“‘Oh shit, I’m gonna get shot’ sounds the same in every language you hear it in,” New York explained. “You can just tell.”

“Dios mio,” Leander said, “dear lord above, sweet baby jesus, how did I get saddled with such an idiot best friend?”

“It’s not my fault you’re tied to language above understanding,” New York said. “You need to let the borders of your perception expand.”

“I’m going to die young,” Leander said, hands to the sky, “I’m going to die young and as a casualty of gang warfare. My mom is going to be so pissed at me. This is so fucking tragic.”