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School used to be just another part of a daily routine for Mischa. And it still is. He’d never admit this, but he was glad to be with his friends (Or choirmates as he calls them) where at least he can escape the crushing isolation and loneliness of his home.
So why was this so hard for him?
In the basement of his adoptive parents’ house, he sat at his desk with his workbook on it. He keeps meaning to start. He’d told himself “just 5 more minutes” 4 times already, and once it was already midnight, he finally got started on his dreaded math homework.
He’d begun to bite his nails subconsciously until it bled, the pain distracting him even more than he already was.
He’d read the paragraph with the instructions for the math equation yet couldn’t take any of it in. He’d register the words individually yet couldn’t understand the math concept as a whole.
Everything the teacher had taught that day, everything he’d learned that past week has escaped his mind.
He found himself scrolling on social media or going on YouTube every few minutes.
And this supposed “homework session” had been going on for a while.
No matter how hard he tried, nothing worked. He tried watching YouTube tutorials, but got distracted by other recommendations. He tried ignoring those videos, but he’d gotten impatient with the amount of lag in the horrible basement WiFi (Even if it was just 10 seconds, he doesn’t know why he was so frustrated with it), and gave up.
He didn’t care about the homework anymore. He wished he cared more. He wished he cared about his success more. He wanted to have a good future, so why couldn’t he bring himself to care?
Crawling into bed and beginning to scroll on his phone, Mischa had already forgotten about the test.
-
“Oh, shit! I did better than I thought!” Mischa grinned. He’d told himself that as long as it was above 5/30, it’d be okay. Even though he was deluding himself. At least he managed to get 5/30.
“I was being generous, Mischa. I think you’d do a lot better if you did your homework.” The teacher was a kind and soft spoken woman, but even she would have her limits eventually. Mischa knew this, and he really hated pushing kind people to their limits, but he couldn’t stop himself from being impulsive. He couldn’t stop himself from angrily slamming Noel’s keyboard when he was at the latter’s house after he failed a game, earning him a light smack on the back of his head and a lecture from Noel.
“Why are you like this?” Noel groaned angrily. “You don’t use your head, and then you get mad.”
That shouldn’t have stung as much as it did, and he knew Noel didn’t mean it that way, but Mischa knew there was some truth to what Noel had said. He really did try using his head all the time, ignoring any other feeling other than anger. But he couldn’t ignore anger.
The fact that it was supposed to be a puzzle game just made it worse. The words were like a knife through his heart, and he felt even worse for being sensitive to it. He just flipped Noel off and continued to play, the two moving on from that interaction rather quickly. Or at least, Noel did.
-
Mischa hadn’t even realized that he’d spaced off during choir, thinking about something else when Noel looked over at him and grimaced.
“Geez, Mischa…5/30?” He teased. No one would expect someone as hard and gangster-like as Mischa to talk to the quiet kid that never really spoke out and always blended in with everyone else, but here they are. Being in the choir has really made the two get closer, whether Mischa likes it or not. They rarely hung out outside of choir, so the pairing was always interesting to see.
“Fuck off.” The Ukrainian’s smile betrayed his words.
“Seriously, though, want me to help you?” Noel offered kindly.
“Sure, why not.”
“Alright, you can come over after choir ends today, I’m sure my mom won’t mind since she’s gonna be working, as long as you behave better than you do at school and don’t break anything.”
“Am always well-behaved.” Mischa said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
“I’m being serious. One broken vase, and I’m kicking you out.”
“Okay, okay, calm your tits.” Mischa was secretly grateful. There was still that homework that he hadn’t touched, because he couldn’t get started for some reason.
“Did I hear that you got a 5/30 on your math test, Mischa?” Ocean came over and sighed. “Seriously? You really need to start focusing more. You need to start worrying about your future, because as the choir head, I am genuinely concerned-”
“Fuck OFF, Little A-Hole!” Mischa yelled. He did care about his future, or at least he wanted to. But it was hard to when you keep forgetting. Ocean jumped, and glared at him. “I’m just saying that if you ever need anyone to tutor you-”
“I’m already taking him to my house to study after school, Ocean.” Noel rolled his eyes and Ocean sneakily gave him the finger before going over to talk to Constance.
-
“So you take the-” Noel stopped abruptly, looking at Mischa, who was absently staring down at his paper. “Are you even listening, Mischa?”
“I am! Get off my dick, Gruber.” He rolled his eyes.
“Okay, then do this next question.” Noel confronted. Mischa tensed up and grabbed his pencil.
“I- Fuck off, I know this shit.” He said shakily, while the other boy just stared at him with disbelief.
It was fine. Mischa always somehow managed to get through the work. Even if he couldn’t take in any of the information because he couldn’t focus on it. He always pretended that he didn’t care that he got bad grades, because he didn’t. He wanted to care.
“Mischa, your pencil has been hovering above the question for a solid minute.”
“Shut up!” He put his pencil down, exasperated.
“We’re getting nowhere! This is the third time this happened!” Noel put his head in his hands, before pulling himself back up. “You can’t keep doing this!”
“No shit! I know that!”
“If you know that, why do you still get shitty grades?”
“Because I don’t give a shit about school!”
“Then why’d you come over?” Noel looked into Mischa’s eyes.
Because he wanted to stop forgetting about the information he learned in school. He thought Noel would be the first to understand anything about him at all, but judging by the way that the two had been arguing and how tense the room felt, maybe Mischa was wrong.
But it was fine, because Mischa would just forget about this again and go back to acting like he doesn’t care even if he did.
Even if he always forgot to care about his grades.
“...” He just stayed silent.
“See? You came over regardless to ‘study’, yet you aren’t focusing!” Noel sighed. “Did you come here so you could get out of studying?”
“You don’t know shit about me!” Mischa yelled angrily.
“I clearly do, judging by the way that you’re getting so worked up again!” Noel yelled right back, although a little less confidently than he would’ve hoped. “You aren’t using your head anymore, huh? You keep getting impatient with the smallest things, and then you take it out on others? Maybe Ocean was right, you clearly don’t care about your future! The other choir members are all concerned about your grades, including me. Ocean’s offered you so many free lessons, Constance’s tried so hard to hype you up for your tests, I’ve always given you homework answers, Ricky’s tried making excuses for you, and Penny even went as far as to threaten the teacher once! You clearly don’t give a fuck, do you?” Noel ended his rant, immediately regretting the words that came out of his mouth, and looked up to see Mischa looking away.
His words somehow managed to register itself into Mischa’s mind even though he tried to drown it out. Tears pricked at his eyes and he had to look away. Of course he was like this. Doesn’t use his head. Sensitive.
Stupid.
“Misch-”
“SHUT UP!” Mischa screamed, although this time a clear trace of sorrow was mixed in with pure rage. He wished he could contain his emotions. He wished that he could contain his anger. He’d been bottling up those feelings for so long now, so why was he like this now? “YOU DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!” He began to sob, putting his face in his arms on the table.
Tears slid down his face and fell onto the paper, smudging the little bit of writing that was actually on it, as his face turned red from embarrassment. Of course he breaks down now, huh?
“Of course I notice nice things friends have done, Заткнися, сука!” Noel wasn’t sure what Ukrainian phrases Mischa said, but he realized that Mischa called them friends, something he never did because of his whole persona. “I wish you guys knew I was trying! I wish friends understood me and why I cannot focus on work! I wish I knew too! I wish I wasn’t like this! I wish I was actually smart! I wish I didn’t forget stuff! I wish I stopped getting distracted! FUCK!”
Mischa clenched his fists, hard. He tried to stop himself from lashing out again, and slammed his fists onto his head instead. He sobbed harder until he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Mischa…” Noel began softly. He was clearly feeling guilty for saying all those things. He was wondering why Mischa’s academic performance was like that, but now it might actually make sense. “I’m really sorry for what I said. I-I know that an apology probably isn’t gonna help, but I still wanted to tell you.”
The Ukrainian said nothing, but slowly looked up. His eyes were red and he was a mess. He wanted to be mad at Noel, but he couldn’t bring himself to anymore. He realized that he’ll probably forget about this too, and with this crushing realization came more tears, and it was as if all his suppressed tears had come out. He pulled Noel into a tight hug as he sobbed into the latter’s shoulder.
“I-I do not want to forget…anymore…” Mischa cried as Noel realized that he couldn’t do anything else to help right now than comfort him. He rubbed the other’s back as he cried, all those unspoken feelings finally getting revealed. “I’m so tired…I-I wish I was more competent. I want to be more competent…”
After a while, the crying died down, leaving him in Noel’s arms. The shorter boy took this as a sign to talk to Mischa.
“Mischa…Do you think you might have ADHD?”
“...” There was no response for a few seconds, then the boy looked up and sniffled. “What?”
“Attention Deficit-”
“No, I know what it is.” Mischa cut him off, but continued. “I do not think I have that. Am not hyperactive.”
“You don’t have to be hyperactive, Misch. You could have ADD, which is basically the inattentive type.”
Mischa stopped and stared at Noel. It could all make sense. If that were true, it would explain everything. But what if it wasn’t true, and he was just stupid?
“I do not know. Maybe am just stupid.”
Noel cringed, remembering the things he said. “I’m sorry, Mischa, I genuinely thought you just didn’t care about anything. I didn’t realize that…”
“Is okay.” Mischa reassured him. “I do not care about that any more. I am worried people will judge.” He confessed, feeling safe and like he could be vulnerable for once. He might regret this later, but that was a problem for future Mischa.
“A lot of people have things that they hide, or things that they fear that people will judge them for.” Noel comforted him. “For example…” Noel felt in his gut that it was safe to tell Mischa. “I like daydreaming about being a woman in post-war France…” Seeing that Mischa showed no signs of judging him, he continued. “Ocean flipped me off today, Ricky reads smut, Penny has a literal criminal record, and Constance secretly has a perverted side to her.”
“What is smut?” Mischa asked. “Actually, is okay. I will ask Ricky.” He teased.
“DON’T ASK HIM!” Noel stammered. “It’s just that, uh…Smut is…”
“It is something bad or inappropriate, right?” Mischa spared Noel from the embarrassment. “From your tone, I can tell.” He laughed. “You should’ve seen the look on your face, Gruber! I could blackmail you with this!”
“I-I say these things to comfort you, yet you-!” Noel sighed, but realized something. He smiled. “You could tell that smut was something bad, yet I never specified it. There are so many English words people use that you haven’t learned yet, but you’re able to tell what they mean just by the tone of their voice. You also learned English pretty quickly. You’re definitely not stupid, Mischa. Your grades were just bad because you possibly have ADD.”
“Possibly?” Mischa looked confused. “I thought you said I did?” He stopped, embarrassed. He never said he did! Mischa had just realized that. Noel had just told him he wasn’t stupid, but then he spoke impulsively again. But Noel didn’t seem to notice nor did he seem to care. That made Mischa slightly relieved, knowing he didn’t judge.
“You probably have it, but I’m not a professional, so I can’t diagnose you. You should get a diagnosis, though.”
“Ah.”
The two stayed in silence for a while, before Noel spoke up.
“Never thought smut would be the thing that proved your intelligence to yourself, but here we are.” He laughed. Mischa joined in.
Maybe he would forget about the homework eventually. Maybe he would forget about more tests.
But he’ll never forget the kind way Noel treated him.