Work Text:
“Hey Chase?” Guan said, sliding into the chair next to him at the library table.
Somehow, he knew this was coming. He’d only known the other boy for six months, but every time one of their teachers assigned them some sort of reading assignment, without fail, Guan would ask him to explain whatever it was. He didn’t mind at first, it wasn’t like he had much else to do and Guan was his friend, besides, it wasn’t like he’d gotten the same level of education he’d been fortunate enough to have.
Now though, he was tired and it was every time and he flat out didn’t have enough time or energy. He’d started private magic lessons and his teacher had high standards. Aside from running from angry shopkeepers and occasionally helping his father with his boat, he’d never had to do so much physical exercise in his life before coming to the temple, so training left him exhausted. He just wanted to relax, maybe goof off by the pond or something, but no, he had to do his friend’s homework for him.
“Having problems with the reading?” he asked, rerolling his own scroll. He normally loved spending time with Guan, he’d never once made him feel defensive or inadequate, but every damn time with the damn reading…it was getting old.
“Yeah,” he said, sheepishly fidgeting in his chair. “I just didn’t have time with the training and the golems the other day and…”
“I get it. Here, I’ll get the scroll.” The most frustrating part of this was once he explained what happened, Guan understood everything perfectly without further explanation. With a lot of the spiritual stuff, he understood it better than he did. He just never did the reading. Which was weird too because he’d never known Guan to shirk work. That was Dashi’s job.
He took the scroll back off the shelf and unrolled it on the table. “You see this section here?” he said, pointing to the paper, but looking at his friend.
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s the first rule of magic, which states that for every action…” he looked down at the scroll and realized that he wasn’t pointing to the right section at all. They were supposed to be studying the first rule of magic, yet he was pointing directly to a section on the discovery of Alchemy. Yet Guan was still following along like he was reading about the first law of magic. “…there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
“Oh. I guess I missed that.” Only now that Chase was paying attention, he noticed the way he scratched his ear, just like every game of Two Truths and a Lie. Despite Earth powers making him a human lie detector, Guan was himself a terrible liar.
Chase decided a further test was in order. He moved his finger down the page to a section on Alchemical Lab safety. “And then there’s a bunch of boring proofs of it and shit…” He knew he’d go for that. Guan liked to know exactly what he was doing.
“How do the proofs work?” He wasn’t following the characters on the page at all. Just what he was saying.
Maybe his problem wasn’t that Guan wasn’t doing his homework, maybe it was that he couldn’t. He’d never be able to get Guan to admit that though. He’d already told Chase that he was afraid their instructors thought he was stupid because of his background.
He knew that was a load of bull though. Guan was smarter than any of the scribes’ apprentices he’d worked with and they could read just fine. It was just that he’d never had a chance to learn. Guan was going to have to learn though, one of these days they’d get some reading that even Chase didn’t understand and it would come out in front of the instructors and that would just make everything worse. How to make it work though…
“There’s another scroll that explains it better. I’ll get it.” He left the table and made a big show of finding a scroll, but he really just grabbed one at random. “Okay, here are the more detailed proofs.”
“I still don’t get it.” And his suspicions were confirmed. He had to admit, now that he knew what was going on, Guan was good. He’d been playing off the fact that Chase was more than happy to show off how smart he was for months.
“That’s because it’s a recipe for goat soup.”
He watched, feeling more than a twinge of guilt for the trick, as his friend turned just about every shade of red he could name, and a several he couldn’t, and sank into his chair in embarrassment.
“No one was supposed to kn…” he murmured.
Chase put a hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s okay, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”
“It’s not okay, everybody’s going to think I’m stu…”
“You’re not stupid. You know things about plants and animals that nobody else here knows and…”
“But I can’t read. What kind of Xiaolin Dragon will I be if I have to have everything read to me?”
“A damn good one. Loads of people can’t read. My parents can’t.” His mother called him, “Witch Boy,” on more than one occasion because he could. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“It is here. Everyone else can. I don’t want them to think that I’m some stupid farm boy who can’t even read…” He leaned forwards and buried his face in his hands.
“They don’t have to know,” he said. Guan wasn’t stupid. Anyone who thought otherwise was in for trouble. Still, Chase would keep his secret. “I can teach you.”
“What?” Guan sat back a bit and looked at him, slightly stunned.
“I can teach you. You’ll be caught up in no time and until then we can do the homework together like always. What do you think?” he said, giving his friend a reassuring smile.
“I can’t let you do this for me,” he said, shaking his head and staring at his hands again.
“It’s nothing. It’ll be fun! I promise! There’s so many amazing things from all over the world in the library and I want to share them with you!” he said.
“Only if nobody else knows.”
“I swear on my honor as a Xiaolin Warrior.” He smiled at Guan as he waited for his friend’s reply.
“Okay. Let’s try this.” Guan gave him a weak smile in return. “If you’re not busy, could we start now?”
“Of course! Hey, you know a lot of stories from back home. Which one’s your favorite?” He jumped out of his chair and started searching the shelves.
“The Tortoise and the Lotus.”
“We have it! Gimme a sec, it’s right…oh. You mind giving me a hand?” One of the hazards of being short. Everything you want is on the top shelf.
“Of course.” Another thing he liked about Guan; he was much nicer than any scribes’ apprentice.