Raiden had an uneasy look on his face as soon as his newest pupil Akira shared that she was a foreigner. It was pretty obvious from her appearance alone, but it was different being told so especially now that he was wide awake. It also explained her unique accent. I havenāt tried tutoring a foreigner before but on a positive note, that kind of excuses her from whatever difficulties sheās experiencing studying here. It canāt be easy to adjust to a whole new language and culture. What made the situation more humorous was when he noticed Akira sweating a bit at about the same time he started looking uneasy.
"I have pictures of homework I did towards the end of last year... We haven't really gotten much done since it's the first week of school.. I also have a picture of my class schedule... If any of that helps."
Raiden nodded, glancing to the side for a moment to avoid eye contact while rubbing the back of his head. Maintaining eye contact with a female for extended periods of time eventually felt uncomfortable for him. āYeah sure, thatās understandable. I can work with that.ā He returned his attention to the task at hand when she handed him her cellphone, reaching out slowly to make sure he only touched the phone alone. When he sat back down properly to look it over, he couldnāt help but stare at the dangling charm for a while. It looked awfully familiar but he couldnāt figure it out for the life of him. Setting the thought aside, he raised no comment to Akira about it. Raiden reasoned it was normal for girls to have cute charms on their phones. It made him wonder if Mai had one actually since he hadnāt seen her take out a phone at all during her stay at his household.
"Yeah. I barely scraped enough to earn a scholarship, but here I am. I'm still not sure how I managed it." He scrolled down the phone screen to read some of her homework answers only to feel a sense of hopelessness. It just seemed to be getting worse the further he read downwards. Akira wasnāt kidding or being modest when she used the word āscrapedā. āAh, alright. Well, algebra is a definite problem but most people I tutor experience difficulty in that area too so donāt fret.ā Even though I am really fretting that this may be a hopeless endeavour and for fuckās sake, did she really get an answer of 457.8 instead of 7 on this question?
He kept his thoughts to himself but on the outside, his emotionless gaze was slowly crumbling and giving way that something was wrong. It became pretty noticeable when he dropped the phone on the table and his lips started twitching as he tried to control himself from saying anything. If Akira was a male, he would have voiced out his concerns right then and there but he was dealing with a female who he believed to be more of the emotional sort. He couldnāt just burst out as he would with his buddies. Instead of saying anything, he resorted to placing his elbow on the desk and facepalming. At the very least, she was a senior. She had to have gotten that far somehow. Sheās a girl and a foreigner. At least, sheās a foreigner. Maybe thatās why sheās so bad at Mathsā¦
āThatās great, really great. I donāt know anyone at Airdalen besides Mai, my cousin but sheās in junior year.ā Raiden spoke in a strained tone before finally retracting his palm from his face and resuming being his normal self. He sighed and just had to warn her, āIām not sure how to put thisā¦ but at this rate, I donāt think youāll be able to pass the senior finals.ā Before allowing her room to respond in case what he said could be considered harsh, he continued. āSo, youāre going to really have to work hard for this and try not to skip classes. Have you been skipping any?ā It was a hunch.
His cellphone started vibrating in the middle of their conversation on the desk but he ignored it, hoping that she would admit to having skipped classes because it would account for her homework's effort.