Chapter Text
He remembers his mom telling him about how smart he was at 4 years old. Apparently every bedtime story she read to him, he would repeat it word by word out of memory the next day, when he was 5 he was already at a 7th grade reading level. In kindergarten while everyone else played freeze tag, or played on the jungle gym, he would sit under a tree, and read books he shouldn’t have been able to read.
Long story short,
He was a genius.
He vividly remembers when some other kid who was average height, had brown hair, a voice that sounded like his nose was always stuffy, and cracked glasses because of his recklessness, told him that his dad said he’d grow taller than the whole school. He didn’t even look up from, “The Invisible Man” when he answered with,
“False, the tallest human ever was 8’11, and that is nowhere near how tall the school is. I highly doubt you’ll pass him. You seem to be at least 41 inches tall which is about average for a 6-year-old. If you give me your parents heights I can give you an accurate prediction of what your height may be when your older which means you might grow up to be tall if that makes you feel any better.” It seems that it didn’t make him feel any better because the kid started running away crying the second he was finished speaking.
He remembers a teacher taking him aside, scolding him, and calling his parents.
His reading skills were amazing. His math skills were even better.
He remembers in first grade they were all given a sheet with 100 simple addition, and subtraction problems. They had 10 minutes to finish, when he was finished he took out “Lord Of The Flies”. It wasn’t his favorite book, but he didn’t particularly dislike it. His teacher saw him reading, and asked him what he was doing.
“I’m done. Those problems were very easy I would like harder problems please,” he replied looking up from his book. His teacher looked shocked. He didn’t know why until he heard her mumble,
“How did you finish in 30 seconds?”
More than half of the class weren’t even on problem 5.
“I could have finished even quicker, but the students in the hallway were very distracting.”
His teacher nodded, and scolded the students outside.
He heard papers crinkling. She walked over to him, and handed him a paper with 200 simple multiplication, and division problems. They hadn’t even learned about multiplication, and division.
He finished that one even quicker.
Apparently his teacher had told his mother what had happened because the day after that he had taken an IQ test. He had an IQ Of 153. Average is 90-109. Albert Einstein had an IQ of 160. He was a genius. He knew that was something to be proud of, but to be honest he didn’t really care. You didn’t need a high IQ to do well In school.
He was only 8 when he had learned 3 languages by himself. He had taught himself to speak Spanish, French, and Arabic. He would try teaching Spanish to his father just for fun.
That year his father had died from an overdose while he was in school.
He remembers his mother very calmly trying to explain what had happened while he was reading about different bugs.
“Daddy flew up to the sky where everyone is happy, and smiling.” At that he seemed to have frozen, and he was convinced his heart has stopped beating, which he knew was highly unlikely, but that still didn’t stop him from convincing his self. He knew what his mother was talking about. He knew his father won’t be coming back any time soon. That night he tried calming down by repeating facts he learned from his book out loud by memory,
“Calliteara pudibunda is a moth of the family lymantriidae. The wingspan is 40–60 mm. The moth flies from April to June. Eggs are light yellowish brown with dark median spot. Larva usually light lemon-yellow, but sometimes brownish yellow, violet or blackish gray, with deep black segmental incisions, lighter dorsal brushes and red or brown pencil on the 11th segment. The larvae feed on oak, willow, birch, Prunus and Crataegus species.”
He woke up the next morning with red eyes, and tear stained cheeks.
Almost two months later he, and his mother had gotten into a car crash while driving to the mall.
The injury had caused him to get a spinal cord injury, which had resulted in paralysis. He was now in a wheelchair. Even that pain was minimal compared to the pain of losing his father.
He was only 9 years old when he was already reading books most second years in high school had difficulty reading. He was also doing math most third years in high school had difficulty doing. He was able to skip a grade, but his mother had decided it may do more harm than good. He was already having trouble communication with kids his age. Teachers told his mother that it made sense. Teachers told his mother that genius children had difficulty talking to kids, but had an easier time talking to adults.
They didn’t seem to actually understand his problem. He loved talking to kids older than him, younger than him, and especially his age. Kids just didn’t seem to like talking to him. Whenever he told them about an interesting bug he read about they would make a disgusted, or confused face at him, and leave. Whenever he told them about his favorite painting they would pretend to have to go to the bathroom, and never talk to him again. He did have two friends though. Izumi, and Kōji never rushed him to finish speaking. They are always interested in what he has to say about human biology which was one of his favorite topics to learn about, and they always seemed to appreciate his paintings.
He also had a new baby sister named Natsu. She wasn’t a genius like people had expected her to be, but that didn’t stop his mother from loving her. Natsu was adorable, and laughed at his weird faces. She also never thought he was bragging when he spoke to her in German, a new language he had picked up.
When he was 10 he had painted on his whole bedroom wall a birds eye view of Los Angeles, California out of memory of what he saw during a helicopter trip. They had been on a helicopter tour for a trip during the summer. The painting is still there to this day.
Now he’s 14 years old, and is already attending High School. He, and his mother had talked about him skipping a grade, and his mother finally agreed to let him. They both didn’t want him to go through another year already knowing everything, and having people force him to do work for them because of that. He actually could’ve gone to college, he was already at that level, but his mother had wanted him to interact with people near his age.
Tomorrow is his first day of high school, he’s in a wheel chair, he has no idea how to communicate with people, and he’s 1-2 years younger than everyone else. It already seems like it’s shaping up to be a great year.