Successive

Chapter 7

Sorry this took so long. I took the weekend off of writing and this week has been all kinds of crazy bad. I hope you enjoy reading though! :)

"That's all for today, class."

Michio watched his teacher say goodbye through the screen before signing off. Other students stayed to chat with one another after class, but he sighed and closed his computer. He finished up his notes from the lesson, scribbling in his notebook things he wouldn't study again.

School is his least favorite thing in his adolescent life.

It's always been a touchy topic for him and he finds most things difficult and boring. Mainly, his hatred for school comes from the beginning.

When he turned 6 and started his first year of elementary, his parents enrolled him in a private school focusing on deaf studies. It was small, with a limited number of students and even fewer teachers. Some kids were born Deaf like Michio, others became deaf later on or were hard of hearing. Other students were hearing with Deaf parents and apart of households who used sign language to communicate. Most wore hearing aids or cochlear implants and only a handful were without devices, similarly to Michio.

Because of the mixed hearing abilities, some classes or lessons were not taught in sign language. The school accommodated Michio with a translator but that proved to be a lot for the 6 six-year-old. He had a hard time paying attention to the translator because of other distractions such as classmates and what the teacher was doing.

Michio fell behind in his studies at a young age. His parents tried their best to make up where the schooling lacked, but by then Michio lost interest.

School always left a bad taste in his mouth so around the age 8, he asked for online schooling. By 9, they enrolled him in an online school which wasn't quite the foreign concept to Keiji. He helped his son along with a schedule and supervision until he was at the age to continue on his own. Michio caught up quickly once everything was taught by a sign language fluent teacher.

The timing worked well for him at age 9 considering he no longer had to deal with classmates presenting as alphas or omegas with scents. His nose is still sensitive and when people started to present it made things worse.

Now, he's 13 and while he's not a phenomenal student like his brother and sister, he's average and passes. Average is mostly due to his high intelligence, but boredom with school and lack of interest in any particular subject keep him from becoming stellar. Except anything art related— he does like learning about art. Photography especially as he finds cameras fascinating. A scenery shot or portrait photo capturing someone's emotions is beautiful to him.

The phone beside him lit up with a notification. He barely looked at his phone all day let alone took the time to scroll social media.

Keiji and Koutarou had to uphold a substantial amount of trust with their younger son. Michio stays home alone for online school why they're at work and his siblings are at school. He had attendance for online classes, sure, but that didn't mean he wasn't playing on his phone or computer all day. For the most part, he performed well with his studies and stayed off his phone. His parents trusted him a lot.

Some mornings Keiji made him a lunch or Michio ate leftovers from the night before. Rarely does he cook a meal for himself other than instant ramen and snacks. When he did decide to make his own lunch, his parents could trust him with the stove by himself.

The Bokuto house sat quiet all day even with one inhabitant at home.

Michio's world may seem silent, but sometimes everything and everyone is very loud. There's bright colors and fragrant scents, sometimes putrid scents that wrinkled his nose. Trains are loud as they're big and fast. Same with a city of that feels crowded and overwhelming. That's why he stays at home. Without hearing, he still finds things are loud. Not many people take the time to understand that about him, they don't have the patience.