January 11th 2015

With Aiko curled up in bed, still sleeping off his fever, the group wasn’t really doing anything productive at all.

Airi was refusing to leave Aiko’s side, sat beside his bed with her Nintendo DS on her lap. Aiko wasn’t quite sure what she was actually playing, but he had a sneaky suspicion it was either Dead or Alive or Nintendogs, there wasn’t really an in between with his twin sister. It was either death and fighting or cute puppy dogs and snuggles.

His twin sister was terrifying.

Rose was sat in the main room with Hatake, going over some homework she’d been given by school. She had meant to do it the day before, but with the excitement of moving and then the discovery of Aiko not feeling well, she’d been distracted from the work ahead of her. Now she was sat, irritated as she looked over the maths equations in front of her.

“Okay so the answer is 39…” She started as she put her calculator down, frowning at the multiple choice question in front of her. “…The answer isn’t even one of the options! What?!” She cried, glaring daggers into the piece of paper on the table.

Hatake couldn’t help but laugh at her as he looked over his own homework. His leader was often so quiet and collected that to see her lose her temper with a piece of paper was quite entertaining. However, the work placed ahead of him… not so entertaining. In front of him lay three different books, all works of fiction that he was studying in the class, and a series of questions where he had to find quotes and examples for each of them, while writing at least 3 paragraphs of answers for each.

He’d rather be doing Maths.

“Rose-sama,” Hatake started, looking up at the girl on the other end of the table, who was stabbing numbers angrily into her calculator. “Can you help me? I’m confused.”

Meoki sighed slightly before lifting her head, looking over at the boy. “Sure, Hatake-kun,” She ran her fingers through her hair, knocking the ribbon that Jiao-Long had given her when the groups had been announced out of place. She was so stressed with her homework that she didn’t bother to pick it up from where it had fluttered down and landed on the floor. “What question is it?”

“Um… Hatake started, looking down at the paper in front of him. “’Explain the symbolism and ism shown in the way that Curley’s Wife is presented,’ It’s for Of Mice and Men.”

Rose frowned slightly, trying to remember the book she had done herself a few years previous. Of course, she knew the book, but not every detail of it. “Well,” she began, putting down her calculator carefully. “If I remember right, her name in itself is a hint of it. Curley’s Wife is never given a proper name, is she? She’s always known as belonging to him, so anything else is a bit… bleak I guess. She’s not her own person in this book, that’s the first part of the ism to start you off.”

Hatake whined. “But Meoki-sama,” He sighed, trying to pull on her heart strings by using her given name instead of her stage name. “Please give me more?”

“Hatake-kun, it’s your work, not mine, I can’t do it for you.”

“I’ll do your maths for you if you do my literature homework for me, deal?”

“No, Hatake.”

He pouted at her, turning back to his own homework and beginning to flick through his book again, trying to find quotes and examples for his answer.

Meoki rolled her eyes, turning back down to the work in front of her, feeling her irritation grow. She hated maths so much, it just made no sense at all, and it wasn’t fair that she was being forced to do it.

“Hey, Meoki-sama,” Hatake called again, snapping her out of her fierce concentration.

“What?” She growled out. She was trying not to let her frustration be taken out on the other members, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded when she just couldn’t do the work she’d been assigned.

Hatake visibly cowered from her at the harsh tone, turning back to his book. “Nevermind…”

“No, it’s fine, really… what’s wrong?” She sighed, calming her tone so as not to scare the young boy. It was her role as leader to help him if he needed it, even if she herself was struggling. It was her job and she refused to back down from it because of a few irritating, aggravating puzzles.

“Um… I just wanted to see if you could check over this answer for me, would that be okay? You don’t have to if you’re busy…”

Rose nodded a little, climbing to her feet and stretching her legs out in front of her, wincing as her joints cracked from being stationary for so long. She’d been glaring at the piece of paper for over an hour now and now she just needed a break. She took a few steps over to the boy on the other side of the table, rubbing her sore knees as she did so. “Give it here,” She smiled over at him, putting out her hand as he carefully placed his notebook in it. She felt a splash of guilt at his hesitance, as it was obvious her snapping at him had affected his mood. He had been so happy and active just a few minutes before, but due to her being unable to control her temper, she’d made him fall back into his quiet, tired shell that he had been when they’d met all those years ago.

She knew it wouldn’t last of course, but it still upset her that she was the cause. She sat down beside Hatake, leaning slightly on him to give him the comfort that she couldn’t verbally express, hoping her apology went across while she read over the work in front of her.

However, as she went over the words, her brow furrowed and the frown deepened. It was odd, Hatake read so much, it was one of his favourite things to do, and yet… his spelling was terrible. Hardly any of the words on the page in front of her were spelt right, and she just couldn’t understand why.

Of course, the Maknae was only 12, she wasn’t expecting his spelling to be perfect, but for someone who read so much…

“Hatake-kun,” She started, turning towards the boy. “The content you’ve put is good, but the spelling…”

Hatake’s face dropped. “It’s really bad, isn’t it…?” He hesitated, not meeting her gaze and staring at a spot on the carpet below him. “I’m sorry, Meoki-sama.”

“It’s fine,” She sighed. “I was just expecting your spelling to be a little better with how much you read, that’s all, it’s no problem. I can correct the spellings for you when you’re done.”

“It won’t help,” Hatake told her sadly, to which Rose quickly turned to look at him.

“What do you mean it won’t help? You just copy the words down again spelt correctly?”

“No, I mean… it won’t help my spelling in the long run, I will probably copy them down wrong anyway, because…” He turned away from her, mumbling his words.

“What was that, Hatake-kun?” She prompted, looking over at the smaller boy who had suddenly gone really shy. “I can’t hear you when you talk away from me like that.

“I… I’m dyslexic, that’s all. I’m usually fine while reading, I can understand it alright even when the letters start switching around, I’ve had a lot of practice after all… it’s just that I can’t spell at all, when I try to write the word down, the letters just dance around and switch places, confusing me and becoming a major problem… it isn’t fair, I don’t understand why it has to happen to me!”

Meoki flinched slightly at his explosion of temper, not used to the boy having such a bad time. He was usually so calm and happy, even when he was hyper he was still a calm person, he so rarely lost his temper that it was almost… odd for her to see, especially as the temper was directed at himself.

“Hatake-kun… it’s okay, you can’t help if you know.”

“But it isn’t fair..! I love to read, I want to be able to write like the people whose books I read, I want to be able to move people to tears with my writing but I can’t because I can’t write! The words don’t make sense! Why do they dance around for me yet stay still for everyone else? It isn’t fair!”

“Hatake-kun, please, calm down, okay? Please calm down…”

“I just want to be able to spell!”

“I know, I know, it’s okay…” Meoki tried to soothe him, tried to calm the boy whose face was turning slightly red with anger as he continued to get angry with himself, his irritation growing as he started at the words of the page in front of him through a flood of tears.

“I just want to be able to write, that’s all I want…”

“And you can write, Hatake, there are several people who write stories despite being dyslexic…! It’s okay, you can still do it! Some of the most famous people in the world are dyslexic! It’s alright, really!”

Hatake sniffed weakly, pulling his gaze up to look at Meoki. “Really? Like who?”

“Um… F. Scott Fitzgerald is dyslexic? He wrote The Great Gatsby, that’s a very famous book…”

“Really…? He’s dyslexic?”

Rose gave a smile, nodding at the boy. “Yeah, he is, and he wrote that masterpiece that is known all over the world, so don’t mark yourself out before you even get chance to try, okay? Do you get any help for it?”

Hatake shook his head a little, looking down at the floor in front of him. “Nuh uh, I don’t have time for the extra classes to help me…”

“Hatake-kun, take the extra classes, okay? It’s alright if you miss a few practices, we can always move them so you have more time to do what you need to do. Your happiness is more important than practice…”

Hatake just gave a small nod before turning back to his paper, glaring at the misspelt words. “It’s not fair,”

“I know it isn’t…” Rose gave him a small, sad smile while rubbing his head and pulling out a piece of paper. “Here, I’ll rewrite the paragraphs for you, then you can copy them down and I’ll watch you and correct you if you start doing it wrong, deal?”

“You’d do that..?” He asked, frowning. “But, your maths homework…”

“It can wait, my first responsibility is making sure that my members are happy, and you’re not happy right now, are you?” At Hatake’s little shake of the head, Rose smiled a little. “Then that’s what I need to solve first, the stupid equations can wait.”

Hatake giggled a little, watching his leader as she pulled out a piece of paper, beginning to read what the younger had written and re-write it herself.

“Right,” She smiled, putting down the paper after a good 15 minutes of writing. “That’ll do, how about I get us some tea and then I’ll watch you write it back out, deal?”

“Deal,” Hatake grinned as Rose stood up, walking to their new kitchen that hadn’t had enough love yet. It was their second day living at the dorm, but none of them had used the kitchen yet. Meoki busied herself around the kitchen, trying to find the various tools she needed to make them some calming tea, most likely chamomile or regular green tea, in the unfamiliar area. She couldn’t help but tell herself that she’d be correcting the way the dorm was laid out soon enough, the pots and pans just weren’t in very good places at all, they didn’t make sense!

“Meoki-sama,” Hatake called from the main room, grabbing her attention.

“Yes, Hatake-kun?”

“Can I have sugar in my tea please?”

Rose flinched at the thought of adding sugar to her brilliant green tea. “Are you sure? You don’t usually have sugar in this type of tea…”

“I’m sure!”

Wincing at the thought, Rose continued putting the tea together, pouring the hot, green tea into Hatake’s cup before her own, watching the faint green liquid and almost shivering as she added a teaspoon of sugar to Hatake’s.

It was just wrong.