In Bocca Al Lupo

4- Time for Crime

After the grueling walk back to the restaurant Mista had taken me to last night, I took a seat and yawned loudly, covering my mouth and waiting for something to happen. Bruno didn't seem like he really wanted to say anything, quickly wandering off to who knows where. Without a second thought, I reached into my backpack and pulled out my Switch, wanting to finish my Minecraft house.

Bringing my feet up to my chest, I furrowed my eyebrows and leaned in closely, getting myself immersed into the game. Faintly registering footsteps coming towards me, I looked up briefly to see Fugo and Narancia taking seats silently, Narancia edging his seat closer to Fugo's. Fugo had pulled something out that looked faintly like a packet of math questions, along with notebook and a few writing utensils.

Wondering what the two were doing, I stared for a moment, then immediately lost interest and returned to trying to finish off my Minecraft house. Minutes began passing, until Fugo suddenly snapped at Narancia, "YOU STUPID LITTLE SHIT! IN WHAT WORLD DOES 60 DIVIDED BY 3 EQUAL 15? YOU THINK I'M A JOKE OR SOMETHING?"

Watching the spectacle unfold, I visibly cringed when Fugo began slapping Narancia's forehead with a soup spoon repeatedly, continuing to shout insults at the smaller boy. Eventually, Fugo threw the spoon down with the force of a God and left to go cool off, or as he put it 'to get away so I won't catch the stupidity'.

Things were completely silent, myself not really sure if I should see what Narancia was trying to do or go on with my life. Turning off my Switch, I slid it back into my backpack and scooted my chair closer to Narancia's, the boy in question glaring down at the math problems written down.

Staring at them for a moment, I blinked slowly. Was he that bad at math? This is the stuff 3rd graders do...

Seeing as how the silence at our table had become even worse with me leering down at the math problems, I looked up at Narancia and asked, "Yo, need help?"

"Huh? Nah, I've got it, don't worry," Narancia did not look like he understood it at all, "watch this."

Doing as he said, I watched as Narancia began scribbling down the answer to 10 times 36. Genuinely amazed at how he managed to get 53 from that, I stared at the paper blankly, barely registering Narancia looking over at me with a seemingly proud look on his face, "See? I've totally got it down, I just slipped up that one time!"

"Um... no, that's wrong," I tried to be as gentle as possible in correcting him, "When you multiply something by ten, all you have to is add a zero at the end. The answer is 360."

Narancia's shoulders slumped slightly, as his face fell. Immediately, he perked back up and erased his answer, then did as I had told him. Starting on the next one, I watched as Narancia tried to solve another relatively simple multiplication problem.

"This one's right, right?" He looked up to me for help, hope shining brightly in his eyes. Cringing, I felt bad that I was going to destroy that hope.

"Errr... no," I said a bit slowly, then gently snatched the pencil from him, "You hafta carry the one."

"Ohhhhh... I see. Then in that case-!" Narancia snatched his pencil back, did as I told, and got another incorrect answer. Feeling bad for the poor dude and not wanting to nag him about every wrong answer, I reached up to rub the back of my neck.

"... You wanna see the kind of math I had to do in America?" My suggestion was quiet, but it caught his attention anyway. Looking at me for seemingly the first time, Narancia pondered it for a moment, then nodded and flipped the packet over so I could write freely. Writing down a relatively simple Algebra problem- X*4=16- I put the pencil down and looked back at Narancia.