Three-step Self Improvement!

Persi didn't like books much. Unless they were art books, which got a pass, because they were art. He was especially unfond of nonfiction books. Fiction wasn't particularly bad, he only avoided it because there were better things that he could be doing with the time. Nonfiction books... were boring. Boring enough for Persi to dislike them.

That did not, of course, mean that he never read them. Among other things, there was an aunt who insisted on giving him (and everyone else, to be fair) self help books every year for his birthday, and who would ask enough questions that he had to read them. Mostly he tried to forget what he read, but some things stuck.

Step one: Identify your problems.

That was actually easy. Persi had no real trouble identifying what was wrong with him. The problem he had with that step was mostly in remembering all the things wrong with him. It wasn't that he forgot and thought something was right, it was just that he forgot things even existed. He really needed to stop doing that.

He had some ideas, though. Another book had talked about the various forms of learning, visual and tactile and whatever. Persi figured that, being an artist, he was probably a visual learner, and just thinking things to himself wasn't really enough for him to learn them. So he'd collected enough printer paper, waited until lunch, and snuck to an out of the way bathroom. His stomach was protesting slightly, but taping the paper in an arch around the mirror was enough of a distraction. (And really, what school had full length mirrors in the bathrooms? Didn't they get broken?)

With that done he stood so he was centered in the oval, and pulled out a marker. One of those cheap, washable kids' markers, like elementary schools had. It wasn't like he was using it for art, after all. But it was bright, teacher's pen red, and that was what counted.

First problem: he was a mutant. Persi was pretty sure that wasn't fixable, but it was a problem. So he bent down, and drew a large, red oval around himself, on the paper. Well, most of an oval; the bottom was cut off at the bottom of the mirror, but close enough.

Second problem... he was not nearly strong enough. Not that strength was something he ought to need, really, at least not in any way he associated with it, but he ought to have it. That took longer; he had to pull his shirt off, and trace the lines (gaps) between muscles. Which pointed out another; that was very definitely fat covering some of the muscles. Not much, and he was pretty sure he was normally lectured on being too skinny, but still. Fat. That was colored red too.

Third... well, fourth problem. Persi wasn't athletic. He ought to be a football player... well, maybe baseball. He couldn't exactly control his height, after all, and baseball was more forgiving. He had to think a moment before he settled on tracing the insides of his fingers, that ought to be calloused (differently, anyway) and holding a bat.

It went from there. Freckles. Bland colored eyes, so he colored in his eyelids. The roots of his hair, which he really needed to dye again, though he settled for just coloring what was obvious. Not smart enough. Not motivated enough, either; he was technically living on his own now, so why didn't he have a job yet? Why hadn't he had a job before? Not religious enough, didn't pray enough. Acne. He didn't have to shave enough. Clumsy. Selfish. Not brave enough; coward. His mouth was too large and his jaw was too small. Bad memory. Rude, bratty, immature. Lazy. By the time he finished his entire body was covered in interlocking blocks and lines of red. He ought to have colored solidly, technically, but then he wouldn't have been able to see the different sections, so he left bits of clear skin between. His face had an arch on his forehead, triangles on his cheeks, and a dozen other, smaller shapes filling in the pieces. Symmetrical, thankfully.

That didn't quite seem to cover it all, though. Persi imagined himself with all of that fixed, and... there was still something wrong. Not enough, too much; wrong. He couldn't think of any piece that it might be, but it still took a while to figure out the answer, and he bent to add another red arch on the paper. Him.

There. That was probably close to covering it all.

Step two: Think of a way to solve your problem. It doesn't need to be instantaneous, and could require multiple steps.

Well, he could get a job. And work extra hard to make up for when he didn't have one, maybe just get two. And study more. And... he didn't think he could make himself stop loving art, but maybe he could pretend he didn't. Pretend that medicine was art. Being a doctor would probably be good enough; maybe a surgeon. Working to pay for medical school and studying to pass it would probably be working hard enough. It seemed impossible, so it must be. Acne... well, when he had a job, he could buy some of those anti-acne soaps. That was probably okay. And he could redye his hair then, too.

He couldn't think of how to solve his memory, or immaturity, or mouth or jaw or selfishness. He realized he was glaring, and drew in red underlines for his eyebrows. He didn't know how to solve his temper, either. Meditation? He'd already tried that, he couldn't.

Step three: Whatever solution you come up with, stick with it. Don't let yourself give up!

Persi growled, tore the paper down, and threw it in the trash in frustration. It wasn't working. There was too much wrong, he just wasn't fixable. Or at least he didn't have the....

...Fine. Persi went back, and figured out a line to add for not being patient enough. A circle on the back of his wrist, like a watch. Then he left. He was too frustrated to think, which was another problem, but probably already covered by anger, laziness or stupidity. It needed to be fixed, but it stopped him from fixing anything, so for now the only practical (not the good, but he couldn't be good, so he'd try for practical) thing to do was try to calm down until he could think through some of these. He headed toward the doors. It was still way too hot outside, but there was a forest; there had to be a tree that could be climbed somewhere in there. Maybe even one with pinecones.

Between the heat and the unignorable presence of another person when he wanted to be alone, it was really not surprising that Aiden had fled outdoors. He'd been doing a lot of almost-thinking lately, and as such his moods had been extremely variable, ranging from almost content to black misery sometimes several times in a day. For the moment, with a gentle breeze filtering through the trees, a wash of heavily dappled sun on his face, and a soft collection of japanese instrumental music, almost content was by far the more accurate end of the scale.

Ai was leaning against the sloping trunk of an old, moss-choked conifer of some type. He really wasn't feeling very particular about it, but it was probably a pine of some sort. He smelled pine, anyway. He liked the smell of pine too. It was a relaxing, secluded scent. Pine meant privacy and as much solitude as he wanted.

A battered backpack with re-sewn seams (and re-sewn re-sewn seams in places) sat beside him, the main pocket's pull-less zipper left mostly open. The fabric was stained with both greens and browns, though mostly browns, and the zipper was even missing teeth in places. It did its job, however, though it was currently empty. Its contents were currently resting on top of the bag: a similarly ancient manga book easily an inch and a half thick, with most of the pages showing signs of having been dog-eared at one point or another, the spine creased and faded, and the outer covers curved with use; and a small ziploc bag with a handful of pencils and erasers. It had also held a small sketchbook of plain paper; that was currently on Aiden's lap, along with one of the longer pencils, with the open page an incomplete stylized version of the scattered trees around him. One some he had begun to pick out new buds, or the candles showing bright green against the darker green of old needles. The image also held a rough sketch of a squirrel that had darted past earlier, its eyes heavily shaded in an attempt to capture their black brightness, and a fanciful swirling of leaves and wind eddies so that he wouldn't have to draw the ground.

The crunching of footsteps on fast-drying pine needles crackled unpleasantly between the faint wind and his quiet music. Aiden looked up, intending to see if whoever it was was just passing through (in which case he could stay where he was) or showed signs of wanting to stick around (in which case he was finding somewhere else to sit), but found his roommate, of all people. Covered in... was that sharpie? Aiden stared for a moment before enough of his brain gave up on trying to process the sight that he realized his sunglasses were hanging off the neck of his shirt. He quickly slid them back on before peering at Persi again.

"Uh, hey Persi," he called carefully. "Is, uh, is everything all right?" His expression was distinctly one of disbelief, despite his attempts to soften it from anything that might bother his rather jumpy roommate.

Persi hadn't consciously been seeking solitude, but it was what he expected. A distraction wasn't entirely unwelcome at this point--and probably not a bad idea either--but he was still surprised he managed not to jump. Apparently his emotions were too tired to overreact right now. Well, he was hardly going to complain about that.

Instead he looked over, and blinked when he recognized Aiden. Thinking of him as a roommate was still... weird. Having a roommate--that wasn't Irri, that was a roommate instead of a brother--was weird. Fortunately, no one ever asked him about any of that.

He had probably better deal with the questions he'd been asked, though. He managed to smile, and it felt empty and fake and perfectly shamed and believable. That was... kind of scary, actually. But not the time to think about that. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" Within the limits of being a mutant, being kicked out, being stabbed and healed and dumped in a building full of mostly terrifying or weird people who largely seemed to dislike him. Considering all that, fine.

...Persi was suddenly significantly happier to have Aiden for his roommate, once he considered the alternatives.

It took another second to glance away from the sunglasses--Persi was pretty sure Aiden wore those while sleeping at this point--and down. He blinked again, and his tone became much more interested. "You're drawing? You draw?"

Why? HE WAS COVERED IN SHARPIE. And he really hadn't thought that Persi was that crazy. Or maybe that kind of crazy. At any rate, he didn't normally seem crazy enough to just randomly cover himself in sharpie. "Because I don't recall that being your usual colour," he said after a moment, and then paused. What if it was related to his mutation somehow, and Persi had just become that colour in the however many hours since Ai had last seen him? What if it was his actual skin?

Maybe he shouldn't have stayed up most of last night trying to get to the centre of the Spore galaxy. Or started playing Spore again, because he never could go back to a file he'd put down for more than a day or two, and anyway he always made it from cell to space in one sitting. At any rate, if he was being so paranoid about what was clearly sharpie somehow being actual pigment in Persi's skin, he needed more sleep. He would leave the subject alone, then.

Persi seemed quite happy to help in that regard, much to Ai's sudden alarm. He shot a horrified glance at the sketchbook still open on his lap, then back at Persi, then back at the sketchbook. The quickly deepening flush from his forehead to his ears to the back of his neck set the unchanging white of his scars out in stark relief as he hurriedly fumbled to flip the sketchbook closed and shove it under the backpack as if it didn't exist.

"Oh." Yeah, he... had probably better explain that, somehow. "It's basically a superhero from a comic in middle school. I think it might have been something someone in my school drew. I remembered it and I was bored, so...." He shrugged. "It should wash off in the shower." Maybe two showers. But it was a washable marker, so not many. And that was... kind of a stupid excuse, but it was the best he could think of.

...That was an extreme reaction to asking if someone drew. Not that Persi hadn't wanted to react like that sometimes, but he generally refrained from actually doing so. At least that blatantly. "Uh... I guess that's a yes?"

That was also probably a demand for a new topic. Persi shifted where he was standing as he tried to think of something. "You... know lunch is almost over, right?" Probably, but it was all he could think of for now. He really needed to be able to think better....

A superhero. Really. Aiden did tend to prefer manga to comics to satisfy his need for graphic novels, but somehow Persi's... embellishments... weren't really giving off much of a superhero vibe. Well, none at all. Best to be honest. Now, if it was the creation of some random middle school kid, that made more sense. Kids weren't exactly the normal fount of quality ideas. "I hope it does wash off," he said seriously. "Going to class once like that's got to be bad enough."

Clamping his hands together, Aiden tried to hide or still the nervous twitching in his fingers. He figured he had a better chance of doing that than of getting his blush to fade away any faster. "Maybe," he allowed, a little bit of indignant petulance slipping out. He wasn't going to let Persi see, though. That was out of the question. Speaking of questions, though... was the lunch break really almost over? That was unfortunate. It was a nice day, up until his roommate had shown up he had been feeling quite decent about things, and nothing was gnawing the edges of his minds and patience raw.

He didn't want to go to class. Go back indoors, where there was no cooling breeze drifting past the pine needles. Be surrounded by people again. He couldn't skip class, though, so what choice did he have? With a sigh, he went to check just how much time he did have left, only to realize he wasn't wearing a watch and his only electronic item, his music player, didn't have a clock. With another sigh, he looked back to Persi. "What time is it?" he asked, voice fairly even despite the still-receding flush. "And... are you actually going to go to class like that?"

Persi... had not thought about class. Or about being seen in general, really. As demonstrated by his lack of an explanation. Yeah, he hoped it washed off. "It ought to. It's one of those kids' washable markers they make for kindergarten." Not that those ever cleaned up as easily as they were supposed to, of course, but they were supposed to wipe off with a paper towel, so that still left a lot of room for easy removal.

Maybe. And maybe art was not a good subject to keep talking about. Just possibly, like most things that made peoples' hands shake. Moving on, then.

"Um...." Persi didn't have a clock either. The only one he'd had was his phone, and that had run out of batteries before he even got to the Mansion, and not been charged since. It seemed safer to keep it that way, anyway. There had been one in the bathroom though, so considering how long it'd taken him to get out here.... "Maybe about twelve fifteen? Something like that. I'm not going to class, though." Climbing trees sounded nice. And distinctly lacking in people, which helped with the 'nice' part. Besides, if Persi had classes, no one had told him yet. "How much longer do they go, like a week? No one's teaching anything this close to the end of the year anyway." Persi didn't need to take these classes to know that; it was true of all the classes he'd ever taken. Even art classes aimed to be finished with official projects by now, since no one was ever done on time, and anyone who did finish was generally happy to think up another project of their own to fill the time. Free art supplies, and all.

Did Persi go out and get washable markers just for this? Somehow, they rather seemed like the sort of thing everyone knew about but no one actually had lying around. Then again, there was a bit of a wide range of ages at this school, since some mutants showed up early and ended up dumped here before others, so maybe there was a supply of them somewhere or other.

Quarter after? He had a little bit of time, then. It wouldn't take him long to walk back, and it wasn't as if he needed to be the first one in the room. Sometimes it was safer to arrive at the same time as the teacher, depending on the particular classmates and their... energy levels.

Aiden's thoughts of minimizing risk in the classroom were horribly disrupted, however, and he gaped at Persi. "What? Why not?" he said, bewildered. Students went to class. That was why they were students, and that was why classes existed. Besides, the rules said so. Skipping class was not allowed, and that was that. He eyed Persi warily. "Probably to the end of the month, then exams," he said. "Maybe a little later. I don't know this place's plan. For all I know, there's a full summer term to keep everyone from getting bored over the summer and blowing the place up. Besides, even if there isn't much going on, you still have to go to class."

"Well, no one's told me I have classes yet, or where or when they are, so they can't be that bothered by it." Of course, the recently ended riots could have something to do with that, but still. They hadn't told him; that was their problem.

"Anyway, what would I actually learn that's any use? Have you ever learned anything useful from gym? Like, elementary school was useful, and maybe middle school, but now all they're doing is teaching up how to look fancy for colleges, and I'm not going to college. So they're not teaching anything that's worth anything for me." Except for art classes, but frankly, even that was just practice and critique. Some books of techniques or suggested projects, or the same things on the internet, and Persi would do just as well as in an art class. Better, even, since he'd be able to spend all his time on it, instead of wasting most of his time with symbolic books and dates and math.

"Anyway, it's been months since I got to climb trees." Except for the ones when he'd been kicked out, but he was kind of trying to ignore those. Well, and the one when the trash can exploded.... Alright, so he'd gotten to climb trees fairly recently, but it still wasn't nearly enough. "That sounds much more fun."

"Oh." That complicated things. "I guess they figure it's close enough to end of term for you to just start next term," he mused aloud. "Still, even if you don't have classes to skip, I can't skip mine." Skipping was only for delinquents. Aiden might not be social, but he was no delinquent.

Aiden had never thought of school that way. He'd just taken it for granted. Kids went to school until they graduated. Then they went to college and had decent, useful lives, or just started working and were worthless for the rest of their lives. And probably smelly and dirty and disgusting to be around. Those were the two main classes of people not in school. Useful, proper adults and gross, worthless bums. No one in their right mind would choose to become a gross, worthless bum.

But wait - was Persi saying that that was what he was choosing? "You have to learn all the basic stuff before you can learn the useful stuff," Aiden tried to explain. Of course, he did kind of have yet to actually explain something to Persi properly. "Besides, did the stuff you learned in middle school seem all that useful at the time? It didn't to me." It didn't seem all that useful for anything except current school now, but he did have a feeling that that wouldn't help his argument. Whatever his argument was.

And this kid had to be stuck as his roommate. Aiden freed a hand to point to the trees all around them. "I see plenty of trees, and some of them are pretty easily climbable," he said just flatly enough to have traces of humour. "If you don't have class, or even around classes, there's plenty of time to go climb them all you like." So long as he didn't track sap into their room. Cleaning sap off his stuff was really annoying.

Persi shrugged. "Probably. And why not? Just say you're sick. Most of the time they'll just assume you are anyway and not even ask." At least, so he had been informed about a variety of schools. He hadn't actually tested it, since there was nowhere decent to hide in or around his school, and he couldn't stay home without actually being sick. But it made sense.

"Yeah, but I've learned the basic stuff. Calculus isn't any use, I'm going to be an artist. And dissecting old stories definitely isn't any use. They ran out of useful things to teach already." Persi shrugged. "It's only useful if you're going to go major in it, and I'm not, so there's no reason for me to go. I can learn art better from books and practice with all my time to spend on it than I can with most of my time on useless stuff."

And as for middle school... well, actually, Persi hadn't thought about whether most things were useful or not in middle school. He'd just been stuck there; something being useful wouldn't make him any more tolerant of it at the time. When he tried to think about it, though.... "Some of it. English wasn't, but who's ever going to need to write sonnets?"

...Okay, so either Aiden was back to disliking him, or he had a secret sarcastic streak. Either way, Persi nodded solemnly. "Yeah, turns out there aren't any inside. You'd think they'd at least grow them in the gym."

"You want me to lie?" Sometimes, Aiden just couldn't believe Persi and the things that came out of his mouth. "I'm sure that wouldn't work. They'd probably send me to the infirmary to get checked out. I mean, think about some of the people here and what might happen if everyone started coughing or sneezing. Bugs running around normal schools are bad enough. Even if they probably wouldn't ask or send me off, what if they did? I can't pretend I'm sick."

"There are worse things than calculus," Aiden said reprovingly. "Besides, you can use it to figure out where things will intersect, or what route to take, or the price that'll get you the most profit for something. It's plenty useful." Yeah, Aiden also happened to be good at math, good enough to help his brother with stuff his own classes were a full year away from covering. "Even an artist needs to be able to do more than just their art anyway. No one starts out rich enough to hire people to handle the marketing and editing and publishing, or whatever is needed for the particular field." He had to toss in a quick generalizer there, else he get too specific to his own old plans. Persi didn't need to know that stuff.

"English isn't about writing sonnets," Aiden retorted, having had this particular case drilled into his head whenever he needed help with something english-y - which was essentially every assignment. "It's about learning how to actually get all the information contained in some chunk of communication out and into an understandable form. If you don't get what people are trying to say - and it's everyone you don't get, not just one, because sometimes people are useless at giving out information clearly - then you aren't going to get anywhere in life." Not that that had actually helped Aiden do any better in the subject. It just kept him from quitting before ever starting.

"Why would there be trees inside?" Aiden asked, confused once again. "Trees need lots of space and light and dirt and water. If the gym had enough dirt to grow trees, there wouldn't be any space for them to grow, much less enough light to keep them alive. Besides, where would people run and stuff if there were trees in the gym, especially in bad weather? Gym classes need gyms."

"You don't need to lie, just let them assume. Or not care, a lot of teachers don't even know if you're there or not." That one, Persi had experienced. It was typically followed by 'so that's why class seemed so cheerful!' and Persi doing his best to make the following class as uncheerful as possible. That wasn't what his mutation happened to be good for, though, so he was mostly limited to sitting and glaring, and refusing to raise his hand when he knew the answer to a question. It didn't seem to have much effect. Though he had managed to stick random phrases in the minds of the teachers who did that, which occasionally resulted in some amusement for him when they lost track of what they were saying and mixed words up. And, more rarely but even better, when they got annoyed at whatever was stuck being stuck and complained about it.

"Addition works for profit, and I don't need to plan intersecting trains or whatever." Persi felt perfectly justified in making a face at it. "And my English classes have been for years. Or why this character is actually the church and the other one is actually a Queen and the story is actually an essay on proper morals. They stopped any of the how to communicate stuff a while ago."

That... earned another face, but this one was confused and blinking. Persi seemed to be doing that a lot recently. "You... know I was joking, right? Trees wouldn't be... actually I think they were growing some inside some school I heard about, in the hallways... it seemed really stupid though."

Aiden did have to admit that most teachers probably wouldn't notice if he were missing. It wasn't as if he made much of an impact, if any, in any of his classes, except maybe in math if the teacher felt like tearing into the class for doing so poorly when 'it clearly wasn't a hard test, because someone aced it.' "It's still not right and probably won't work," he insisted, though his voice had dropped a little and he wouldn't look at Persi - though, to be honest, Aiden not looking at people even when speaking to them was hardly news.

"What, you want to caveman how your profits for every single possible scenario?" Aiden asked, his disbelief write large across his face. "You're going to waste a ton of time and effort doing that. Once you have the basic equation, it's just a matter of putting in the particular parameters of the situation and then running the calculation. Getting the equation isn't even an issue, since you can just look those up most of the time. They're pretty standard." He probably shouldn't be wasting the time and effort to try to explain this to Persi. Even with Conri, it had really just become a set argument for when he got too lazy and didn't want to bother with his work. English, though, well. That was far more personal, and Aiden raised an eyebrow sharply at Persi. "Of course they seem like that," he said drily. "Can you imagine a class that was actually openly useful and interesting? It'd get shot down and cancelled by the end of the first week. School has to be shrouded in uselessness to survive." And maybe he should stop reading that manga before class. Some of the characters' takes on school, while humorous, had a potentially unfortunate tendency to make him repeat their arguments.

"Why would any school grow trees in the hallways? Or were they mini trees or something, as a science project?" He'd had to grow a bean plant earlier in the year. Well, he'd been assigned to a group and told to grow some. Were his erstwhile classmates taking care of his ugly scrawny hairy plant thing? Probably not. They'd probably tortured it to death or something. Or, more likely, just forgot to water it and let it die without even noticing.

Persi tried not to roll his eyes. "It probably would, and if it doesn't, the world won't end." Honestly. Persi would go to class when he didn't want to because it was easier than not going, but he wasn't actually bothered by the teachers' opinions. Aiden seemed to be the type who panicked at the idea of being less than a perfect student, no matter whether the difference actually mattered or not.

Persi was pretty sure that 'caveman' was not a verb. He was also pretty sure that pointing that out wouldn't really be useful. "Addition and basic equations work better for me than all the stupid calculous ones with thirty-digit decimal points." Eye rolls might be a problem, but snorting was probably allowed. Mostly because this one was directed at school, rather than a certain apparently school-obsessed roommate. "When they stop being stupid about that, maybe I'll care. I still don't think anything they want to teach is any use for me. I'm not going to college."

And speaking of school idiocy.... "No, they were full sized trees. Well, going to be, I guess, since you can't plant them full size. Because it would make the school environment nicer and therefore the kids would be healthier because seeing leaves does that, I guess." It was really stupid.