Zelo was sat in his room, a half empty pack of crisps beside him, happily watching Akira for the third time that week, not really needing to read the subs anymore.

Glancing up at his clock the teen picked up the remote and switched his TV off, standing up he put away the unfinished crisp packet and sat at his desk slouching slightly. He was only waiting a few minutes before his uncle walked into the room carrying a maths textbook. Groaning Zelo dropped his head onto his desk and closed his eyes, shaking his head at hearing his uncle’s laugh.

“Come on Zelo, it’s not as hard as you make it.”

“Why do I even need to know that stuff?” Walking forwards the man put the book in front of Zelo and watched as the teen lifted his head and glared at the thing.

“Come on, you don’t want to grow up stupid do you?” Pouting at the older man Zelo shook his head and grudgingly opened the book, picking up one of his pens he read through the question he’d left last time. Scribbling out his workings Zelo wrote the answer and pushed the book towards his uncle, hoping it would be enough, the older man leant over him to read the work and smiling warmly he nodded before pushing the book back.

“Good, now try a more difficult one.” Pointing to a word problem the man put a sheet of plain paper on the desk to give Zelo more room for notes then stood to the side and watched the teen’s expression change from concentration, to confusion, to anger, to frustration, to realisation and back to confusion. The cycle continued for about 10 minutes until the plain sheet of paper was covered, both sides, with Zelo’s messy notes.

“Word problems are pointless anyway.” Scrunching up his notes the teen threw them in the his bin, his uncle caught the paper before it landed and flattened it out, he put the paper back on the desk in front of Zelo and leant over him to look the scribbled over. Taking the pen from Zelo the man pointed to a section of scribbles.

“You almost had it here, look.” Writing over some of the notes the older man explained where Zelo had messed up and how to change it. Once he’d gone through everything the man handed Zelo another piece of paper and his pen, pointing to a similar question the man walked to the other side of the room and waited while Zelo worked. Answering faster now he understood the method a little better Zelo only took half the page to finish the word problem. Happy with his work he stood up and walked to look out his window as his uncle check over his answer.

“Looks good.” Grinning at the praise Zelo turned around and, leaning on the windowsill, he ducked his head a little and spoke, his tone hopeful and a little nervous.

“Maybe my reward could be a trip outside?” Closing Zelo’s textbook slowly the older man shook his head and started writing a short list of tasks for Zelo to complete as he spoke.

“You know that’s not going to happen, what’s out there that’s so interesting anyway?” shrugging Zelo looked around his room and at his DVD collection.

“I don’t know, animals?”

“Animals?” Looking over his shoulder at Zelo the older man smirked at the teen before turning his back again to continue writing his list, “you see animals everyday Zelo.”

“Not real ones” the comment was muttered but the older man heard and getting slowly annoyed he spoke slower as if talking to a child.

“You’ve seen real animals.”

His own irritation growing Zelo straightened up and crossed his arms over his chest, “Never in real life. I just want to see one and then-”

“No Zelo.” Taking a step forwards Zelo spoke again, sounding more confident as he did.

“Why? I’ve been outside before, I remember. It was a Tuesday and I-”

“That was a dream Zelo. You’ve never been outside.”

“No. I was! There this really big tree and flowers and it was too hot and I-”

“Stop!” Jumping a little at the harshness in his uncle’s voice Zelo stepped back again and ducked his head a little more, “You have never been and will never go outside. You don’t need to, everything you need is in this house.” Leaving the textbook and list of tasks on Zelo’s desk the older man left the room. The soft sound of the door locking from the outside made Zelo cringe and turning again to look out of his window he teen pouted again and tried to remember being outside, sure it hadn’t been a dream.