❝ᴡʜʏ'ᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʟᴇᴛ ʏᴏᴜʀ ɢʀᴀᴅᴇꜱ ᴅʀᴏᴘ ꜱᴏ ʟᴏᴡ?❞

╰──➤ 𝙋𝘼𝙎𝙏 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙋𝙍𝙀𝙎𝙀𝙉𝙏

"He's suspicious, I'm telling you!"

"Teucer, calm down, he's not gonna do anything."

"He looks like he would murder you! I could see it in his eyes!"

You wanted to tell him he couldn't see shit, but you refrained from doing so.

"If you're so worried, you can supervise us," you chuckled.

"Okay, I will," he huffed.

"Can you eat your sandwich now?" You sighed, raising your eyebrows at him. "Please?"

"...Fine."

"Thank you. I'm gonna check on Scaramouche, you can come up when you're done."

He grumbled in response and you went back upstairs to see how far along Scaramouche was. When you stepped into your room, though, he wasn't paying attention to the packet at all. He was looking at your photo-wall.

"You're supposed to be working," you said, trying to act calm and not entirely embarrassed.

"You sound like my mom," he replied plainly, not bothering to look away from the wall.

"Well, I told you not to mind those."

You sat down on the floor, leaving the door wide open, and he did the same. You grabbed your notebook and began looking over your notes, acting like you were actually doing something so you wouldn't feel as awkward. Meanwhile, Scaramouche continued working. You wondered why his grades dropped as they did, but you didn't want to interrupt with any questions. But then you noticed he was stuck on the third question.

"All a review, huh?" You smirked.

"Shut up, I've got it."

"Sure you do," you said, closing your notebook and stealing his pencil from his hand. "That's one of our advanced vocabulary words."

As you spoke, you underlined a few of the words from the context of the sentence that they gave. Scaramouche almost wanted to storm out because of how stupid he felt, but he kept his composure while watching you write.

"Focus on these," you ordered, setting the pencil on your packet.

"A and B mean the same thing, though," he groaned.

You sighed and shook your head, refusing to give him any more hints as you picked up your notebook and began scanning the pages once again. He mumbled incoherent curses at you under his breath but took his pencil and continued, deciding to pick a random answer out of the two.

Around ten minutes passed and you were wondering why Teucer hadn't come upstairs yet since he normally ate rather quickly, so you made your way to the ground floor and noticed the TV turned on.

"Teucer?" You called as you glanced around before standing beside the sofa and seeing him laying down, napping. "Oh."

You took the blanket resting on the back of the couch and spread it over your little brother, smiling softly while you pressed the power button on the television remote. You knew you should've woken him up since he'd never go to bed on time while having extra energy from his nap, but you chose to let it slide.

Scaramouche, wondering what you went down for, decided to stretch his legs and follow you, so he watched your actions as you sent Teucer off to sleep.

"The brat's asleep?"

"Don't call him a brat!" You snapped in a low whisper while you walked toward him. "He's not a bad kid."

"Are you kidding? Right when he opened the door, he was glaring at me like I was gonna bomb his house or something," he rolled his eyes.

"Who knows? Maybe you were," you shrugged with a smile. "I guess we can take a break for a few minutes if you're that tired already."

"Stop making fun of me," he spat.

"Sure, sure. I'm going on the porch to get some air," you stated, opening the front door and heading outside.

There were three chairs on the wooden porch. You sat in the one closest to the railing, facing away from the street. When Scaramouche stepped out, he closed the door and took a spot on the one in front of you.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" You said.

"I don't know, can you?"

"Don't be a smartass," you scolded. "May I?"

"I guess."

"Why'd you let your grades drop so low?"

He obviously wasn't going to give a full answer to your query, but he didn't want to say nothing in case you pestered him, so he settled for the in-between. He just wasn't sure how to word it.

"I opened my eyes to the real world."

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. Wouldn't that mean his grades would be better? In the real world, good education was a key part of a successful life. You wanted more elaboration, but since he gave such a vague answer, you figured he didn't want to tell. So you put a zip on your mouth and remained silent for a while.

"...Can I have some of the pictures from your wall?"

Your expression after hearing that showed that you were flabbergasted. Why would he want more of them?

"Why?"

"So I can try painting them. You said they aren't very good, so you don't care about them, do you?"

"Well, I do care for them... They're a sign of how much I've progressed," you replied.

"Then give them to me temporarily and I'll give them back when I'm done," he offered.

"...I'll give you some of my least favorites," you agreed. "Do you like painting landscapes?"

"I guess. I've never tried anything else," he answered with a subtle lift of his shoulders. "Painting people feels awkward."

"I can't even imagine," you chuckled. "I hate taking pictures of people. It's like I can never get them to look right, and having people pose for me is even weirder. I don't wanna think about how awkward it must be for someone to sit there while you paint them..."

"Tell me about it," he said, rolling his eyes at the thought. "It's not like I have many people to paint anyway. Last time I did a picture of another person was my mom, and I was ten."

"Was it a finger painting?" You asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nope," he shook his head. "I was a classy kid."

"Wonder where all that class went," you commented, earning a short-lived glare from him.

"Serious question, though," you started. "Do you plan on being a professional artist?"

"I want to," he responded. "Are you gonna add to the list of people who tell me I won't be successful at it?"

"Uh, no, but I'm concerned that there's a list," you denied. "I think you'll do great if that's what you decide to do. I guess I'm not an art critic, but you seem pretty talented."

"You haven't even seen half of it," he smirked. "That piece I made for you was uninspired."

"I think we have different definitions of 'uninspired'-"

"I'm serious," he interrupted. "I've been out of inspiration lately."

"Is that why you want my photos?"

"Yep."

You didn't expect to have such a pleasant conversation with someone who was usually so... Unpleasant. But it was nice. It made you kinda wish you were actually friends with him, so you hoped to grow closer with him so he'd actually consider you a friend. Lord knew you could always use more friends since you only had one other companion.

"Let's get back to work."

"You say that like you were actually doing anything."

"Well I would've been if you'd finished the packet earlier."

"Yeah, whatever, let's just go inside."