Crimson and Clover (Tomer)

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar burst into the dorm room after classes had ended. "Ahhhhh! I have so much homework!" He announced, dropping onto the couch with his pile of books. His parents would have no sympathy should he complain to them about the amount of homework assigned, and he supposed that was fair given that school was intended for learning. 

But he still felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work he had to finish tonight. 

He didn't like to complain, but...

"I'm never going to finish this math homework. A hundred questions? In one evening?" 

[Tomer Berelowitz]

Sunar, apart from his dark hair, did not resemble Uncle Josh at all. But whenever the other kid was around, Tomer was reminded of his uncle nonetheless. Usually when Sunar spoke. Or... orated. Like his second namesake, Tomer often felt like a spotlight was beamed on his roomie whenever he opened his mouth.

Still, being the helpful lad he was, the second he heard 'math', he turned around. His door was open, and Clover was on his leash but loose, so he couldn't go too far outside the room. Rolling his desk chair to the doorway, he poked his head out, a skeptical look on his face.

"You don't actually have a hundred problems, do you?"

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar wrinkled his nose at his agenda. "Well, maybe only thirty, but that's just as bad!" 

He was no more likely to finish thirty math equations in one night as he was to finish one hundred; each problem on its own took him an inordinate amount of time even without delays by doodle. 

To that end, he asked, "Do you know how many questions I finished last time we had a test? Two! I only finished two questions in an hour! I'm never going to get this homework done." 

And it wasn't as if math was the only class he had homework in, either. If his parents weren't pestering him about his math grades he would have made that particular set of homework as his last priority with the full knowledge that whether he attempted it or not his grade was still going to be abysmal, so he might as well do the homework for the classes he was actually passing first. 

But no, he knew that wouldn't fly with his parents. 

"Do you think your rabbit would eat my homework for me so I have an excuse not to bring it in?" 

[Tomer Berelowitz]

With half a smile, he said, "Not if you really had a hundred."

Uh, okay. Two? Tomer couldn't help ask, "What were you doing?"

If he was really spending the entire test time on the test... two questions would be reason enough to move him to a lower level class. The teachers at Hammel seemed more into getting the concept across to the students than keeping them in classes due to age.

At the idea of Clover eating homework (okay, which he'd done once or twice when he'd been very young), Tomer turned mildly indignant. "I think he might have to go live with my uncle if he ate a lot of homework."

Something Mopsy would probably like, but not Tomer. "That, and he doesn't really eat paper, he just shreds it. They might make you find all the parts and tape them back together."

[Sunar Chugani]

"I was writing out the equation," Sunar explained. "You know, you have to carry over the whatever and then do the other thing and then that makes Y or something like that." 

And maybe he had drawn little frustrated faces in the margins of the test in between painstakingly counting out each addition and counting out multiplications because he hadn't actually succeeded in memorizing any of those. Sure, his elementary school had ostensibly taught that, but he had done just well enough to get passed along to the next grade regardless. 

Which was no help to him now, when he couldn't finish any math equations in under half an hour. 

"But if they taped the pieces back together maybe they still wouldn't be able to read it," Sunar suggested, hope in his eyes. "You wouldn't tell them I gave it to him, would you?"

[Tomer Berelowitz]

'Writing out the equation'... could Sunar hear himself? Tomer was the furthest thing from a bully and certainly didn't want to make his roomie feel bad about something he had difficulty with, but...

"It took you the whole test to show your work on two problems?" he asked, mostly for clarification. Mostly hoping this was an exaggeration like 'a hundred problems' but fearing it wasn't.

And of course he bypassed the more important aspect of Clover being removed for bad behavior. Not meanly though, and Tomer smiled, looking down at his bunny, who was deep into an inspection of their dorm room door.

To his credit, Tomer did not roll his eyes. "I think it would be pretty obvious what happened to your paper," he said. "Bunny teethmarks are hard to miss. And if they couldn't read it after taping it back up, they'd just give you a new one and you'd have to start over."

Leaning over, he gave Clover's head some light scritches behind the ears. In case it wasn't clear, he added, "I would tell. You shouldn't be feeding my rabbit stuff like that anyway."

[Sunar Chugani]

"Yes! Who can do that many equations in an hour?! It's like, impossible!" 

And although both his parents did well enough in math he couldn't ask either of them for help, not when they thought that his poor grades were due to simply not applying himself hard enough. And besides, he wasn't sure how well math lessons over Skype would go. 

"Connor said he would help me, but I don't know. The last time I tried tutoring it didn't go so well..." 

Namely due to the fact that no matter how many times his tutor explained it he couldn't seem to quite grasp what he was supposed to be doing. 

"All right, I won't feed Clover my homework. Would it hurt him if he ate something like that?" 

Come to think of it, eating paper with ink was probably not the healthiest of meal options. 

[Tomer Berelowitz]

The obvious answer was 'the rest of the class' but Tomer wasn't so rude as to say that.

"It might," he said, but then admitted, "I don't know positively, but I don't think the ink would go over well if he ate any. He shreds magazines, but they're printed different."

Standing on his hind legs, the little bunny raised his nose to sniff the full bouquet of adolescent boy.

Curious, he asked, "Why doesn't tutoring go well?"

[Sunar Chugani]

"Because math is impossible," Sunar repeated firmly. "No matter how much I stare at the textbook it doesn't make sense, and other people trying to explain just makes it more confusing." 

And then there was also the fact that he tended to get distracted and doodle all over his work; although that was in part a sign that he was trying to digest the information it tended to lead his teachers to believe he wasn't even trying. 

"Fine, fine, I won't feed Clover my homework. If I had a carrot I'd give him one, but I don't. Unless I go down to the cafeteria, maybe they'll have carrots I can borrow, what do you think?"

[Tomer Berelowitz]

Tomer had a very different opinion of math, but it came easy for him and he liked it. Math was comforting. Every problem only had one (or two, or sometimes three) correct answer, plus a very concrete way of getting there.

Sunar had more or less answered his own question as to why math was impossible as he kept talking. It was rather like Dug the dog interrupting himself for SQUIRREL. Tomer felt himself grinning. "Clover's had his dinner, and he has carrots in the fridge," he said, nodding at the common area's large humming rectangle. "But thanks."

Something about what Sunar said, however, itched at the back of his mind. Probably the math tutor in him. "Do you mean it really makes no sense, or you just have to spend too long on it?"

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar stared at Tomer for a moment, digesting this very reasonable question in silence. After a moment he sighed, shoulders sagging. 

"Fine, I can make it work, but it takes so long! It's hard to concentrate for that long, and then it's not like oh, I solved one, problem over! There are so many more! By the time I'm done with one problem my head hurts and I can barely keep my eyes open. I think math is really some evil wizard's way of fueling his magic, it sucks up student energy while we work!"