[ Jasper's POV - 1 months into the school year ]
I had known, from the start, that Alex is incredibly diligent. Diligent towards his studies, diligent towards his health and diligent towards his physique. He even has the tendency to correct my bad habits and drags my dead weight along.
The teachers, in class, seem to have picked up on this out too, and have made a point of always seating Alex next to me in class.
As a result, my total average has gone up from 52% to 65%! It's a miracle!! Soon, I'll be able to dream about an average of 70% or even higher! But I can tell that, even though he pulls my weight along, my negligence frustrates him greatly. Alex has pulled at his silky, darker than black hair more than once while teaching me.
But I think Alex is about to reach a whole new level of diligence, soon.
I watch him as we stand in the courtyard at school with our little group of friends; Jessy, Otto, Alex and I.
We're talking about a new smartphone game that's all the rage, but I can tell that his attention is with the conversation of the students that stand behind him. His brows are furrowed, and every once in a while he mumbles something under his breath.
Alex looks like he's ready to pull his hair in frustration. Are those students doing a bad job at something? I try to focus on their conversation, but all I can gather is that they have a written Latin assignment due to today and are desperately trying to figure out the correct answers together.
The moment that my brain reaches that conclusion, is the same moment that Alex snaps.
"Oh! For crying out loud! Give me that!" he says angrily as he turns around and snatches the paper and pen from the nearest unsuspecting student. "I've been suffering through your incompetence for long enough now! Seriously, these are all such standard sentences to translate, how can you struggle with these as forth years?!"
Alex raves on while the Latin students just stare at him completely flabbergasted.
Jep, there it is. Alex's habit when the frustration becomes too much; he starts throwing around witty remarks, right before an overload of important information.
"I think you've failed to recognise any of the commonly made mistakes the teacher clearly tried to address," Alex says as he corrects the homework he snatched, accentuating all the mistakes as he corrects them. "Puella poeta-M amat. Nos ambula-MUS. Magn-A porta… Librum poeta scribit? Seriously? Are you Yoda or something? You'd think a fourth year would know the correct word order!"
"We're fifth years," the boy he snatched the papers from says once he's recovered enough from his surprise to talk. I quickly hide a laugh behind a fist. Even I know that is the wrong answer.
"And you're proud of that?!" Alex asks, sounding absolutely horrified, but the boy merely blinks in confusion. I hear one of the girls behind him mumble quietly, but with a laugh in her voice; "Steve, did you really get the word order wrong?"
"Don't try your luck, young lady. I heard you say some really ridiculous things earlier too," Alex says without looking up at her as he continues to read down the page and sighs contently when he reaches the bottom.
I chuckle. I also recognise this part of his witty remarks rant; The moment when he fixed all the wrongs and runs out of steam.
"Feeling better now?" I ask and Alex looks up at me as if he'd forgotten that I was there.
"Yes, loads," he says as he hands the pen and paper back to its original owner.
"Are you a sixth year in the language major?" the boy Alex had snatched the homework from finally dared to ask.
"Does that matter? Even you should be able to tell that I know more about Latin than you do," Alex says, as he points a no-nonsense glare at the boy. The boy presses his lips together in a thin dissatisfied line. It is clear that he has a thing or two to say about the rude way Alex talks to him, but doesn't because he can't catch a height of him.
"Wow, Alex? Did you fix that guy's homework just now? What language was that?" Jessy asks, pulling everyone's attention back to our little circle of friends.
"O! Uhm, I might have," Alex says as if he only now realised that he rudely high-jacked some stranger's homework. I see him shake the regret from his mind and continues with a sigh. "It's Latin."
"Do you actually know Latin? Or did you troll that guy just now?" I ask, unable to hide my smirk at the idea.
"Jasper!" Alex says my name in a scolding way. And that's all he needs to say, truly. He has me feeling like a rude idiot with just my name. I swear, he has more influence on me than own mother has. But for good measure, he adds; "I'm good at Latin."
"Wait, … Does that mean you're good at languages in general? Then why aren't you in the languages major?" Otto asks.
"I used to be, at my old school. But I decided to turn over a new leaf. It was time for a change," Alex says.
"Hold on… You were in the language major? What other languages did you study?" Jessy asks with little stars in her eyes.
"I studied French, Arabic and Mandarin," Alex say with an unusually stoic expression on his face.
"What?! French I expected, but Arabic? And what is that last one, Mandarin? Isn't that a fruit?" Jessy asks, intrigued by the news, but is clearly in over her head.
"Mandarin is a Chinese dialect, Jessy," Otto informs her with a tender smile. It surprises me that she knows that. I had my suspicions on what it was, but I wasn't sure.
"Wow! Alex! So that means you speak the language of a huge part of the world population!" Jessy marvels. This time Alex chuckles and looks at her with a similar look in his eyes as Otto had earlier.
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"I never thought about it like that before. But uhm, guys? Could you please keep this between us? I really don't want to switch majors just because I'm good at languages."
"Sure thing," I say with a laugh. I look over at the group of Latin students, and catch the boy from which Alex had snatched the homework look at him with an unreadable expression. It looks somewhere between surprise and disbelief. At some point he must have noticed that I had been watching him, because his eyes meet mine. He looks at me as if he wants to ask me what I want, so I smile and raise my index fingers to my lips to signal him that he should keep the secret too. He flushes bright red, snaps his attention away from me and says something to his friends which causes all of them to leave.
I shrug and turn my attention back to my friends their conversation.
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[Jasper's POV]
About a week later, the boy from which Alex had stolen the Latin homework, approached Alex and me again on the school's courtyard.
"Hi, my name is Steve. I'm the student who's Latin homework you fixed," he says when we both look at him questioningly, but directs the last part to Alex. Suddenly, Alex looks as if he's seen a gost.
"I'm so sorry!" he says sincerely. "I swear that I usually don't act so rude, but this guy is a bad influence on me."
"Excuse you?! Why am I the bad influence?!" I ask exasperatedly.
"If I hadn't gotten so used to tutoring you, I never would have lost my cool like that!" Alex counters without missing a heartbeat. Damn, I can't deny that. We're both pulled back from our little quarrel when Steve chuckles and scrapes his throat.
"About that," he mumbles shyly. "I think I'm the one who should be apologising to you. I doubted your skill, while I should have been grateful that you helped me."
Alex barks a laugh, but doesn't comment. He definitely would have retorted something if I'd said that.
"Your name is Alex Black, isn't it?" Steve continues. It makes me conscious of the fact that Alex and I haven't introduced ourselves yet to Steve.
"It is, but how do you know?" Alex asks.
"My Latin teacher told me," Steve says as he recalls the moment. "When the teacher handed the corrected homework back, she asked me why I had whited out the correct answers and left the wrong ones."
"Why would you white out my answers?" Alex asks, he sounds almost offended. I hide a laugh behind a fist.
"Would you leave the answers of some random dude who starts to write on your homework?" Steve counters.
"If that person's skill is clear, then yes, I would. Is it so strange for people to help each other out here?" Alex complains, but Steve ignores it.
"Anyway, so I explained to the teacher what had happened and she spontaneously said your name. Saying that you'd scored the highest score on the entrance exam she'd ever seen and that it would be good if I could befriend you," Steve continues his story.
An awkward silence follows while he seems to consider his next words.
"Would you, uhm, please-"
"No," Alex cuts Steve's question short.
"No? But, you haven't-" Steve bristled.
"I won't tutor you," Alex cuts Steve's question short again.
"But, why?!"
"Let my ask you a question in return," Alex says, looking at Steve so seriously that even I feel a cold shiver run down my spine. "What was your score on the homework?"
"Full marks 10/10," Steve replies without missing a beat.
"And without my help?"
This time Steve stumbles.
"A zero."
"Exactly," Alex says with a sigh. "You are a fifth year, Steve. If your scores are that bad for such a simply test, don't you think it's time to give up?"
Steve stares at the ground stubbornly for a long moment. I'm frozen too. Alex his words are harsh, but I understand what he's saying. And at the same time, I'm grateful that he's never said such words to me. Ok, my grades aren't as bad as Steve's. Even with barely studying, I always got by. Perhaps that is what frustrates Alex so. Perhaps he can see that I'm not a lost cause, but that I'm simply not putting enough effort in.
"I have been thinking about giving up. Why struggle doing something that you're bad at?" Steve says after a long pause and then looks up to Alex with determination. "But then I heard your conversation with your friends last time, about how you were able to understand most people in the world, and I thought it was really beautiful. Like a goal I would like to work towards. Now, I realise that I have a huge disadvantage, but I think that, with your guidance and my new resolve, it might be not such a crazy goal."
Alex sucks in a large breath, almost sounding like a sigh, while he looks away from Steve, then to the ground, then to me and then releases his breath while he looks back to Steve.
"Fine!" He says while he releases the last of his breath. "I'll help you to get up to speed to where you should be, but it's all up to you from there! And the second your resolve weakens, is the moment I stop tutoring you. Got that?"
Steve nods energetically, clearly overjoyed.
"Let's start with an hour a day after school each day, we'll see how well you do. You can come to my house, it's not far and nice and quiet. If you don't mind, that is. Otherwise we'll look for a free classroom somewhere. And give me your phone number, so we can contact each other if something comes up."
I laugh as they exchange numbers. Jep, that's Alex. Harsh and strict, but the best role model you can have.
I guess I won't be able to hang around with him for a while…