It’s easy enough to avoid homework Monday night. It’s the beginning of the week, and most of his homework assignments aren’t due until Friday, anyway. He finished bullting his English translation while the teacher droned on about different tenses and grammar that none of them really cared about, and his Algebra II homework isn’t due until Wednesday, so he sits on his bed looking up cat videos and dumb flash games for six hours before Jinki yells at him to come eat something and then go to bed. Taemin rolls his eyes, mocking his brother behind his back as he nags him about the importance of studying and good homework habits for the fifty billionth time. His brother’s “I’m going to be salutatorian so listen to everything I say because I’m perfect and you’re a crap student” attitude was really starting to annoy him. It’s not Taemin’s fault he enjoys actually having a life, unlike Jinki.

He’s not really so perfect if he’s coming in second, now is he?

But Taemin wouldn’t dare say that, because their parents are so proud of Jinki, and Taemin is too, honestly he is, but his brother’s nagging seriously gets on his nerves.

Tuesday morning is hell, because he’s not completely awake but he had to get to school early because of Jinki’s decathlon zero period and he has no other way of getting to school so he has to sit at the lunch benches for forty minutes before anyone else even shows up.

Maybe he should have listened to Jinki when he told him to go to bed last night. But those nyan cat games are so addicting and then he got caught up on the internet and it was so much more interesting than going to sleep. He really hates it when Jinki is right about everything.

He completely blows off his Algebra II homework Tuesday night in favor of taking a nap the second he gets home, only waking up to eat dinner and then go back to bed. So his usual forty minute wait at the lunch benches on Wednesday morning is full of mundane, half-assed equations and extremely bullted English translations that he didn’t do in class yesterday because he decided to have an extremely detailed daydreaming session instead.

He can almost feel Jinki judging him from the second floor decathlon room.

Wednesday night, Taemin sits in the living room with his feet crossed on the coffee table, laughing at the cartoon that flashes on the screen. This time he really can feel Jinki judging him from the kitchen table, the older narrowing his eyes at his brother’s carefree attitude while he studies for his Physics test.

"Don’t you have homework to be doing?" Jinki sneers at him.

"Don’t you have Jonghyun’s to be ?" Taemin snaps back in a sassy tone, and Jinki huffs.

"You’re so gross." Jinki scoffs.

"And you’re so annoying." Taemin replies, not even moving his eyes from the colorful cartoon.

"Mom and dad will be home in like, five minutes and you haven’t even started your homework yet." Jinki informs him, and Taemin rolls his eyes.

"It’s not due tomorrow, so what’s the big deal?" He responds in a mocking tone.

"The big deal is that you’re procrastinating!” Jinki tells him.

"Procrastinating, shmastinating, I don’t care." Taemin waves his hand, "Now shut up, you’re interrupting my favorite show!"

"Little idiot." Jinki scoffs under his breath, going back to the equations in front of him.

Taemin daydreams through half his classes on Thursday, barely waking up in English to translate another passage from the book, half copying his friend’s work. He gets his math homework back, and is pleased to see he got full credit “for trying,” and stuffs it away in the wrong binder before he makes his way to lunch. He can see from his lunch table that Jinki is still studying, and he rolls his eyes at his brother before he starts laughing with his friends. At the end of the day, he walks out with his friend, Jongin, who asks if he’s almost done with his essay.

"What essay?" Taemin practically screeches, and Jongin only rolls his eyes.

"The one that was assigned on Tuesday? The first draft is due tomorrow." Jongin informs him, and Taemin feels like crying.

"What’s it on?" Taemin asks.

"The book we finished last week, smart one!" Jongin laughs before telling him the name of the book.

"Our History assignment is due tomorrow, too, and so is the Chemistry homework." Jongin tells him.

"Oh crap, can I copy your chem? Please, please, please?" Taemin begs, and Jongin rolls his eyes before handing him a sheet of paper that he pulls out of his backpack.

"Have fun." Jongin tells him sarcastically before he leaves, and Taemin nearly runs to Jinki’s car.

"Hurry up, we have to get home, now!" Taemin tells Jinki when he strolls over to the car at a leisurely pace.

"Why? Have some homework you need to do?" Jinki asks him in that super annoying, know-it-all tone of voice, and Taemin glares at him.

"Just drive me home, you ." Taemin snaps, getting into the car and pulling out a sheet of paper to copy Jongin’s homework on the way home.

"Are you copying someone’s work?” Jinki asks in a scandalized tone.

"No, it’s helping me figure out how to do it." Taemin tells him offhandedly.

“Liar.” Jinki’s seethes, but he doesn’t press the subject any further.

Jinki’s such a goody two shoes. Sometimes Taemin wonders how they’re brothers.

He’s finished copying Jongin’s Chemistry homework by the time they get home, and he works on his essay draft first thing since he has World Literature before History. His draft is crappy and half-assed, but it’s no worse than it normally is, he muses. It takes him a few hours, mostly because he never actually read the book in the first place, so he had to Google the damn thing before he could get anything done. Then there was the problem of not knowing the prompt, so he spammed Jongin with texts until his friend sent him a picture of the prompt sheet.

His History assignment took another few hours, especially since he never read the twenty pages the class was assigned to read last weekend in favor of playing video games and watching music shows for two days straight, and then completely forgetting about it this week. It’s a miracle he was never called on in class, to be honest.

He skipped dinner in favor of finishing both assignments, letting out a huge sigh of relief when he happily notes he finished before ten o’ clock. He eats the leftover food with a smug smirk on his face when he notes Jinki is still studying, and he goes to bed a full hour and a half before Jinki does.

He turns in his assignments the next day, and groans along with the class when his Chemistry teacher announces the quiz he apparently told them about on Tuesday. He answers the questions quickly and turns the quiz in first, going back to his seat to put his head down on the lab table and take a nap before his next class. The same thing happens in most of his classes; he receives a test he didn’t know they had, finishes first, and daydreams throughout the rest of the class period while everyone else struggles to finish on time.

He gets all his assignments and tests back on Monday, and sometimes he even surprises himself when he receives high grades on everything despite his lack of effort. After getting everything back on Monday, the process repeats itself, and he puts everything off until the last minute just like the previous week.

It really pisses Jinki off when Taemin aces everything without even trying.