Escape artistry

5. The most patient teacher (then)

Tobirama was an amazing teacher.

Not only was he incredibly good at finding ways to explain things to Izuna in a way that he could understand, but he was also incredibly patient, never minding explaining the same concept again and again.

"Look at this function", he would say. "2x + 4 = 12. Find x. Explain to me how your mind works."

He always seemed to say this. Explain to me how your mind works. Izuna loved it. Was this what having a friend was like? That feeling of being special, of someone being interested in your inner world?

"Is it 6?"

"Explain to me how your mind works", Tobirama persisted.

"2 x 6 = 12, so..."

"Yes, but we have an extra 4, see. Try again."

"Okay, so I add 4 ad get 16...

"Look at the function again. 2x + 4 = 12. When it was 2x = 12, you could easily find x; it was 6. So we want the function in the same format. We do that by removing 4 from 12.

"So... 2x = 8?

"Bingo!"

"4!"

"Good, Izuna!"

The feeling was unimaginable. Izuna did function after function, and when he struggled with the negative numbers, Tobirama kept his patience.

Suddenly, the church bell tolled, and it was time to switch to Tobirama's first reading lesson.

The atmosphere changed. Suddenly, it felt like they were on pretty dangerous grounds.

"I don't mean to offend you, but..." Izuna began. "Can you read? I don't mean anything by it!" he added hurriedly. "It's just, I need to know how I can help you."

Tobirama looked down, looking defeated.

"I don't know. I was taught to read in school but... I never seemed to learn. Nobody understood why."

"Let's try", Izuna said and pulled out Moby Dick. "This has a pretty large print that's pleasant for the eyes. Let's start."

Tobirama stammered the words as he read them, as if he was cutting through them with a slow pair of scissors. One sentence took him over a minute to read, and when he was done, he looked exhausted.

"It's useless. Maybe I'm as stupid as they say I am."

"Explain to me what happens", Izuna said, not taking the bait.

Tobirama pulled his fingers through his hair.

"I don't know!" he said frustratingly. "I see the letters, but one moment they're there, and the next they're gone, and then they're in another place and everywhere at the same time!"

Izuna frowned. This was sounding oddly familiar to him. Could it be...

He finally lit up.

"You have dyslexia", Izuna said.

Tobirama frowned.

"What's that?"

Izuna couldn't help but smile.

"It's nothing wrong with your intellect. Dyslexia is a common condition that causes the letters to dance before the eyes. I read about it in a book."

"The irony!" Tobirama burst out and laughed. Actually laughed. Izuna thought it was the most wonderful sound in the world. "If only I could read, I would have known why I can't!"

Izuna laughed with him. But then, Tobirama asked hon a question that made him go dead silent again.

"What's the cure?"

Izuna shook his head.

"There is no cure. You will always have it. But I'll keep practicing with you. And we'll read the book of the week together."

Tobirama looked down, frowning again. Izuna was afraid he had offended him somehow, and was just about to say something when Tobirama turned back to him.

"Would you do that for me?"

Izuna smiled.

"We're friends, aren't we?"

Tobirama smiled and just like that, Izuna felt as if all was right with the world.

"We're friends", Tobirama repeated. 

Izuna believed he learned maths so quickly now because Tobirama was such an excellent teacher. Tobirama, however, was of the opinion that Izuna had all of it within him, and it had just required someone to take the time to explain things to Izuna in a different way for him to understand.

A whole new world opened up beneath Izuna's feet, a world of functions and percentages and graphs and other amazing things. It was something liberating with the black-and-white of mathematics, so different from his familiar but versatile literature world.

Tobirama's progress was much, much slower and much more painful. Whereas he was an endlessly patient teacher, his patience didn't reach out to encompass himself.

"There's no point!" he said.

Izuna tried to approach it with some humour.

"At least you have a disorder to blame on. When I'm slow, I'm just dumb."

"Oh. That's true", Tobirama said, seemingly content.

"Hey! This is when you're supposed to say I'm never slow!"

Tobirama laughed. He did that a lot more nowadays. The bullying had somewhat stopped after everyone learned what a genius he was, but even the little that he was exposed to seemed to run off him like water. Izuna liked to think that he had at least a little to do with it.

"But seriously", Tobirama said. "One month and it's still agony."

Then, Izuna smiled triumphantly and took out a piece of paper from his shirt pocket.

"You know what this is?" he asked. "I've clocked how long it takes you to read one hundred words each day. I've even made a graph! You taught me last week!"

Izuna proudly showed what he had done.

"Wow, Izuna..."

"And see how it slopes downwards steadily? It has steadily gone down from 5:38 to 2:20!"

Something seemed to ease from Tobirama's chest then. Izuna didn't know if it was because he had learned he was improving or if it was because someone had done something so nice for him, but he knew what he hoped for.