Yes, Math, Did I Stutter?

EmiRose

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When it came to academic subjects math was pretty high on Charlie's list of favourites. Sure, she enjoyed almost all school subjects, but maths and sciences were especially liked by her. In math there was always an assigned, predetermined answer, and if only you followed the instructions you would get there, no problem. It was very different from life, and in life Charlie was always feeling uncertain and like she could do something wrong and ruin everything with her next words or gesture. So when she did math Charlie was calm, and in her element. Her stutter almost disappeared too when answering math-related questions in class.

Even now Charlie's face was that of almost serenity, as she was solving the last problem on the problem sheet that had been given to them. And as always she finished ahead of almost everyone else. Charlie was above her grade level, but she couldn't skip grades because her social skills were behind and she had few subjects she was very bad at. Like arts and crafts and, surprisingly, history.
Charlie waited patiently for the others to finish, staring out the window in thought, listening to pencils scratch against paper, the hum of the air conditioner and some whispers and snickers between the friends in the back row. Charlie wasn't annoyed by these sounds, rather she liked knowing that there was life around her. As long as she didn't forcibly have to interact with said life.

"Alright everyone, once you're finished with you sheets pass them forward and then we can start with the next assignments. And you will be doing it in pairs."
Immediately when the teacher mentioned the words "assignment" and "pairs" in the same sentence Charlie's head whipped around to stare at the woman in panic. Pairs? Oh no, no one in this class was someone Charlie knew, she'd definitely be leftovers and assigned to another person who was leftovers and doing the assignment would be horribly awkward and make Charlie incredibly anxious. She already knew it. In fact, Charlie was so focused on conjuring up images of social horror that the person behind her had to poke her with their finger to get her to take the sheets and pass them on. Charlie did just that, and when the teacher got all the sheets on their desk people around Charlie started pairing up. She stayed still, she already knew everyone was going to pair up before she could even make eye contact with one of them, so there was no point in looking around. And just as Charlie had suspected, when the teacher asked "Are there are people who don't have a partner?" Charlie raised her hand, and now she looked around. There was just one person who didn't have a partner aside from her, a new boy with white hair.

"Just you two? Alright, pair up, and everyone get out your notebooks. I'm going to write the assignment on the board."
Charlie, hesitantly, was the one to approach the boy, since her seat in the middle of the class was kind of a hard place to set up in. So instead she went to the boy, who sat next to the wall. Charlie tried not to make direct eye contact with the boy as she nodded at him a bit, trying to give him a small smile but failing miserably.
"H-h-hello, I-I'm, um, Ch-Charlie."
Charlie's stutter was worse than normal, since she was nervous and anxious, and she swiftly sat down opposite of the boy, taking herself a free chair from nearby. She opened her notebook, which was neat and clean and full of very organized notes.
"T-then...s-sh-shall we d-do th-this?"


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Yuki sat miserably at his desk, his familiar companion the headache plaguing his body and clouding his thoughts in a smoggy curtain. It was impossible to think - let alone about maths, a subject he had regular trouble with. All the numbers in the brackets didn't make sense - they looked like a failed attempt at writing coordinates. Why were the numbers next to each other? Why did trying to work out what to do with them feel like arranging spaghetti to look like a painting done by Picasso? What on earth was he meant to do?! It was hard enough to move in to a different area with new people, new systems, heck - there were even new species that Yuki had never even heard of in his life! And what was with this weird bracelet that projected a glow around him? This all felt too unreal to be reality. Maybe it was all a dream? Honestly, it was all too much, even for Yuki. He wanted to go back. He wanted to return to England, to Madame Laforet's academy, to familiarity... He'd rather put up with the long, droning, daily assemblies than this hell.

...alright, perhaps hell was too strong a word for it. At worst, Yuki would continue to have this stupid headache for the rest of the day and not understand this lesson. He'd just have to look up the methods online. Whatever way this teacher was trying to teach, it really wasn't working. Ah, how he wished he could just take paracetamol right there and then in class... It'd look suspicious though, he guessed, so he did his best to ride it out with his head slumped on the desk. Luckily a tall person was in front of him, blocking him from the teacher's view. Yuki was so glad that the empty desk had been in this specific location - the far wall from the door, 2 seats from the back. He was nearly in the protagonist spot! This put him in the perfect position to get close to whoever the protagonist happened to be, and perhaps secure himself a place as quirky best friend... if real life were that cool. But it wasn't too bad to dream, Yuki supposed. At least dreaming would get him through the rest of the lesson...

"Alright everyone, once you're finished with you sheets pass them forward and then we can start with the next assignments. And you will be doing it in pairs." The teacher's words swiftly cut away Yuki's fantasies of napping through the period and commenced a whole new bout of panic. Soon Yuki found that everyone in the class had gotten themselves a partner before he even managed to muster a word in edgewise, leaving him alone to his disappointment. "Are there are people who don't have a partner?" As the dreaded question of shame was called out, Yuki reluctantly raised his hand and looked at his desk, unable to meet the gazes of anyone else for fear they might already be judging him. Quickly, Yuki found himself paired with a girl who gave him a curt nod and sat herself down across from him, seemingly flustered.

'She's kind of cute...' Yuki found himself thinking, then immediately winced at himself for such a thought. He couldn't possibly be thinking this kind of thing, especially not right now. What if she was already in a relationship? What if she didn't like guys? It'd just be wrong, in any case.

"T-then...s-sh-shall we d-do th-this?" The girl spoke, fixing her gaze on her notebook like her life depended on it. Yuki laughed - seeing her quake was somewhat endearing. He felt sorry for her straightaway, and smiled to help ease the tension. "My eyes are up here, you know," Yuki joked, his headache beginning to fade to his relief as he began to relax. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad, Yuki thought while laughing at his own joke. "My name's Yuki. Yuki Hayashi. Let's do this! But, I'm not so good with maths... Do you think you might be able to teach me?" Yuki picked up a pencil and copied down the exercises into his squared notebook - something he'd picked up from England.

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EmiRose

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Charlie quickly copied the exercises to her notebook, making sure she didn't make direct eye contact with the boy right away. But when the boy laughed a bit Charlie flinched, oh no, was this new boy going to make fun of her stutter as well? Some people in her grade did, it's not like Charlie could help her stutter, or talk back. She just didn't want to make things worse.
But thankfully, when the boy spoke, his voice didn't seem to have malice in it. He just made a joke, that made Charlie blush a bit from embarrassment. Hesitantly she looked up from her notes and at the boy, who introduced himself as Yuki. Though she wasn't able to keep up the eye contact for long, Charlie qyickly looked just a bit too up at Yuki's brow. Maintaining eye contact had always been a bit of a hurdle for Charlie.

"T-teach you? S-sure, I-I can d-do th-that."
Charlie nodded a bit, fidgeting with the pen in her hand. This wasn't the first time she would be teaching math to someone, she did it now and then for anyone who asked and could deal with Charlie's stuttering. Some just said "Nevermind" after seeing that Charlie stuttered even in a teaching situation. That wad reasonable, Charlie didn't expect people to have patience to listen to her when she had such a speed impediment.
"U-um, but i-if my st-stutter is, um, t-too much o-of a hi-hindrance I c-can t-try and sp-speak as li-little as po-possible."
Charlie said with an apologetic tone, and glanced at Yuki while waiting for his answer, being kind of afraid if he really would want her to stay quiet. That would make teaching a challenge.
 

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Yuki flinched a little when the girl's gaze jerked up to stare at his brow for a few moments, but then relaxed again once she nodded. For some reason, having her look at him suddenly like that made him nervous... To be honest, seeing someone more nervous than him was reassuring - it gave Yuki a sense of camaraderie; a sense that they were in the same boat. In fact, maybe Charlie's boat was in deeper waters than Yuki's - she looked pretty uncomfortable. Yuki decided to chalk it up to a generalised ineptitude at social interactions.

"T-teach you? S-sure, I-I can d-do th-that." The girl nodded shyly.

"Thanks," Yuki said, smiling back brightly. It looked like Charlie could be a good friend and a good influence, so Yuki decided that he should try and befriend her. After all, spend time with the wise and you will become wise, but the friends of fools will suffer... or so his brother would quote. The girl then proceeded to mention her stutter and offered to stay quiet, which um... well, it sounded strange. Why offer to teach if you weren't going to speak? Yuki wouldn't learn much that way. He honestly didn't think the stutter was that bad, but he supposed he could see why others might find it annoying. As someone who stuttered himself when feeling nervous, he supposed that the girl was similar, albeit suffering more severely. Perhaps she would just need to relax - then maybe the stuttering would get better.

"It, um, really isn't that much of a problem..." Yuki scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "I think that as long as you can function normally enough without too many problems, it's alright. I kind of find it awesome that you push yourself to live like everyone else! You're attending classes and everything, even though you seem to be this nervous... It's cool." Yuki found himself blushing a bit at saying such an embarrassing thing and didn't want Charlie to linger on it, so he quickly changed the subject.

"I, I mean, let's get started on the first question, shall we? Could you show me how to multiply these two matrices together?" Yuki pointed at his notebook, flustered.
 

EmiRose

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This boy Yuki smiled a lot, and seemed like a gentle person, so Charlie began relaxing more and more. Although she was still vary, sometimes people who smiled a lot could be bad news. The kind that acted overly nice towards you and then acted mean behind your back. Maybe Yuki would use picking on Charlie as a way to blending in with the more normal kids. Charlie wouldn't really blame him, people in their age rarely wanted to be alone and rather wanted to belong no matter what. Although Yuki didn't seem overly nice in the not so nice way, he was just...nice.
Charlie decided to just overanalyzing everything and get this assignment done, she could worry about it all later.

Yuki's answer to Charlie's question really came out of the blue, the boy even...complimented Charlie. She blinked at him, flabbergasted, before blushing from embarrassment and directing her eyes back on the desk.
"T-th-thank y-you, I-I g-guess..."
Charlie muttered, her ears were more red than her cheeks, and she drew small circles on the edge of her notebook. She quickly glanced at Yuki, he was blushing too. Somehow that made Charlie feel better about her own flustered state, and the smallest smile lingered on her face for a second.

Charlie was so relieved when Yuki changed the subject, and they could focus on the exercise. Charlie had actually already learned about matrices, she was way ahead in math and sciences than her peers, but she couldn't let anyone know that. Charlie would be treated as even more of a weirdo than now if people found out she was smart and actually liked math. So she pretended to be just slightly above average intelligence.
"U-um, well, he-here you start by d-doing this..."
Charlie focused on Yuki's notebook, and began pointing at the problem. Her voice was more certain when explaining about math, and she stuttered less. Charlie's directions were clear and rather clever, and while she was at it she gave Yuki small pointers about how to best remember the steps, or told him shortcuts in how to best solve the problem. It was clear Charlie knew what she was talking about, although she did try to avoid sounding too much like she knew all about this area in math.
 

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Yuki smiled as Charlie taught him how to do the exercise, suddenly finding everything so simple to understand as one single thought crossed his mind: 'how didn't I get this before? Charlie makes it all sound so simple...' And he liked that. He made sure to tuck the thought away in the memo of his mind - Charlie could help him with maths. Of course, Yuki wasn't a bad person and wouldn't exploit Charlie, but he decided that should he ever have any further maths problems, he could ask Charlie for some advice.

Before Yuki even knew it, the lesson was over, and it was time for lunch. Yuki decided that being with Charlie would be better than being alone at lunch, so when people started packing things up, Yuki decided to be bold and ask her straight-out: "Uh, Charlie, if you wouldn't mind, I'm going to have lunch and thought you might want to join me?" Yuki smiled, hoping that she'd accept the request. He wanted to make as many friends as he could, since he knew that friends were a useful thing to rely on in times of need or loneliness. He didn't want to make the same mistake he had back at Madame Laforet's - making no friends. That had made him a target of bullying, and it had been bad. His own previous best friend, betraying him... the memories were painful to bear; a fact reflected on Yuki's face. He sighed a bit, wistfully, staring into nothing and letting his thoughts carry him away...
 

EmiRose

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Charlie felt comfortable talking about math, she knew math and knew what to do and where to go. It was straightforward and Charlie liked it. This was why she could explain the exercises to well and clearly with hardly any stuttering, you could see a whole new side of the usually timid and shy Charlie when she talked about something she enjoyed. This was one of those moments, and whenever she or Yuki got an exercise right she smiled just a bit and inside her mind did a little fist pump of success. Yuki wasn't that bad at math, he just needed some guidance, in the end that was often what most people needed.

The lesson came to an end and everyone turned their group assignments in, Charlie and Yuki included. Charlie had already counted their points, they would most probably get full points. But she didn't tell that to Yuki, she wanted him to have a pleasant surprise and it would reveal how smart Charlie actually was.
Charlie gathered her things from Yuki's desk and was about to head back to her own desk and bag, but then Yuki surprised her and got her to stop with his question. Charlie blinked once, and then looked away, bit flustered and timid. What would the others say about Yuki if Charlie sat with him? Wouldn't they stay away from him? Charlie didn't want Yuki to become isolated. And Charlie felt a bit self-conscious, eating with someone, she ate a lot and they would have to talk and such too. But it would be rude to refuse after Yuki had asked, and he was nice too...
Charlie took a few seconds to think about all these things, but in the end she looked back at Yuki and nodded a bit.
"Y-yes, I-I'll jo-join you, i-if you're re-really o-okay w-with it..."
Charlie said, trying to give Yuki a small smile.
"I-I'll just gr-grab my b-bag, o-okay?"
Charlie went back over to her desk, put all her things in her bag and picked it up, hurrying back to Yuki. She didn't want to keep him waiting.
 

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Packing up his pencil case and notebook, Yuki watched Charlie gather her things with a smile. She was cute after all, he decided. The way she carried herself seemed so fragile, yet there was something about it that was somehow...beautiful. She seemed so shy, even though she seemed so smart. She wasn't a bad looker, either. In fact, it kind of made Yuki feel inadequate, in a sense. Almost as if he wasn't doing well enough to stand up to scrutiny, should the time ever come that the two would be compared. Yuki resolved to try just as hard as Charlie to be more sociable, more courageous and just...more. He felt the need to grow.

"Actually, if possible, could we stop by one of the music rooms? There's something I want to show you," Yuki said, joining Charlie over at her desk. "Since I feel like we might be friends, you might as well know this about me now..."

Yuki took a quick look around him to see that most of the other students were leaving or about to leave - either way, neither of them were paying attention to them: just how he liked it. "I'm a piano freak." He whispered conspiratorially, smiling with just a bit of mischief along with the shyness. "I've been playing since I was seven." He led the way out of the classroom, spare bento box dutifully prepared for him by Mahalia in case he did indeed manage to make a friend to share lunch with, packed with a favourite of everyone - rolled omelettes, chicken katsu, rice, even octodogs... surely Charlie'd find something she liked in there! (Spoon and fork included, of course.)

Yuki just hoped they wouldn't get caught eating in the music room...
 
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