rakuen | Math time shenanigans

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Math time shenanigans

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Location: Math class

It's a bright and sunny weekday morning. The sort of morning one should be spending sleeping in, or failing that, outside playing with friends.

Sadly for all of you, you're in this classroom studying logarithms. (Well, except for those of you who are cutting class. Good luck when finals roll around!) Right now, you've been split up into groups of three and four and should be quizzing each other on the questions from the end of the chapter in your textbook. If you're anything like ordinary high school students, though, you're probably discussing something completely different.

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Grenn was starting to regret not skipping this class too. She'd thought that math would be one of the classes alike enough that it wouldn't clutter her brain up with things from other places, other times, that would be of no use. Well, she'd been partly right.

With time, all things get elaborated, changed, further explored and new ideas are found. The way she'd been taught maths and what was being explained here, didn't exactly match up. Matched enough she could do it, if she concentrated (math had never been one of her strengths), but this sort of open quizzing? It wasn't working.

And she had her suspicions about the teacher(s), too. There was something off that was almost familiar. With a groan, Grenn hid her face behind her hands.
"No more questions."

Reiko looked up from her textbook, across the table at Grenn. "You don't like math?" she guessed. She wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; who did?

Looking up from her shield, Grenn grimaced and shook her head.

"... No. But I know this. I worked hard for my not-too-bad grades, but we did things differently," Grenn was aware she probably sounded a bit petulant, but, by the love of the Name, no she didn't like math. And being presented with things she was fairly sure she knew, but in a way so that she didn't immediately understand, was just insult to injury.

"If the universe could work without math, I'd... find some way to get rid of it." Ahh, sweet, sweet memories of math-related frustrations, she did not miss you.

"That sounds like a nice universe to live in," Reiko commented, hiding a smile. No, she's not a big fan either.

"But-- differently? I thought everyone would learn math the same way. Where are you from?"

Grenn stared, blinked, looked down at the book and then, finally, shrugged, as her conversation a few days ago with Yuki entered her brain.

"I... think it's the translation that's, um, being troublesome." For all that Grenn knew, that may partly have been in, except she could actually tell that her math book was in Standard Common Chinese, which all her schoolbooks ever had been in. So, no, it was simply the time difference.

"The book's probably written in the wrong language, and, er, attemtping to translate it for someone who isn't good at math..." Grenn paused and shrugged.
"You're not having any trouble?" When in doubt, reflect!

"...oh, huh..." That could be it. (She was a little jealous of all of these weird people who claimed they didn't actually understand Japanese and that all of the books were showing up as their own native languages. They didn't have any trouble reading something that Reiko was absolutely certain was written in her native language. They didn't have to carry around kanji dictionaries and hunt down every single character they came across. They didn't get scolded by the teachers for writing in furigana in their textbooks.) "Not really. I've studied this already, so..." She shrugged. "I don't like math a lot, but I had to do a lot of homework for my owners back home, so I... got pretty good at it."

"... You'd think..." Grenn paused and gave the teacher, who, of course, had nothing to do with this, but got to act as a stand-in for general school authority, a glare. "That people who get others to do their homework for them would be punished..." she muttered, but wasn't sure why she felt so affronted.

There were those times when, suddenly, someone who'd lagged behind badly had shot up in the simulation results, but that wasn't the same... and that had nothing to do with getting someone to cheat the results for you, she knew this. No, it was something else. Something that was a big gaping hole in her head. Damn those memories.

"It's not like anyone's going to believe a girl's word over a boy's," Reiko pointed out. "Maybe it's different here, though..."

Anyway. "I could try to help you out if you're having trouble with it."

Grenn nodded, she was aware of that attitude, though she had to transpose it to "it's not as if anyone's going to believe the poor/less socially privileged person above the rich one" or the like.

Giving a sigh, Grenn put the book flat down on the table and waved at the open pages.

"That'd be nice..." And it was, but it would probably involve trying to unlearn changed formulas and whatnot. "But will that work? I mean," she pointed to a certain problem on the page. "I recognize this, but to me, there's something missing." In fact, to her, a whole step seemed to have been lost, the problem not yet finished as it was, even with the solution at the back of the book.

"Really?" She peered over at the other's book, at where she was pointing. There really didn't seem to be anything missing to Reiko. But who was to say whether that was because they just taught math differently where Grenn was from, or if it was because...

"But even if they took away my memories of how to do math properly, the textbooks would still be right. Wouldn't they?" She put a hand to her chin in thought.

"I... suppose so?" She didn't think that had been one of the taken memories, though the thought was kind of sweet. If only she had forgotten how to do math. A period of mathemathical, memory-loss induced ineptitude seemed preferable to this.

Still. Frowning, Grenn looked at the book again. Whether it was true or not, it could work... "Maybe they just took away how you learn math, not my knowledge of it..?" Talking of memories, though...
"I wonder what sort of... logic they follow when memories are taken..."

"That could be... It would be strange to have the textbooks match up with my altered memories, though. They still have kanji in them, and I forgot how to read it..." Whether or not that would make sense to Grenn, Reiko didn't consider. "There doesn't seem to be any logic. They just want to make us fight in their ridiculous little game."

Sherlock has decided at last that he cares enough to attend a class.

He doesn't care enough to take off Tony's jacket for the occasion, however.

This may cause his entrance to the classroom to be something worth recording.

Interestingly enough, Russel is not fazed by the entrance, he's far too focused on his work. Which he's flying through, by the way, but he's not getting it done so quickly that he's not answering Fletcher's questions along the way.

Fletcher is a little piqued by the entrance, though. A lot of the other students he's seen around have been wearing the school uniform without anything too unusual about it -- though many of the girls have been wearing the pants version -- but he figures that's mainly due to practicality. Then again, he's been wearing the uniform along with his funny green hat, so he can't say anything about a jacket anyway.

He's getting the hang of logarithms pretty quickly. His brother is the best.

Nodding, Grenn looked down at the open pages for a moment, tapping her fingers on the table.

"That must be frustrating," Grenn said with a sympathetic smile, but at the same time that resparked her thoughts about memories. Some things they had forgotten were undeniably important, to who they were, or their present wherever that was, but other things...

"I noticed this morning I've forgotten the taste of oranges." That seemed completely random to her, and, while a bit annoying, technically not something she'd probably miss, in the long run. She hadn't even had that many oranges in her life.

Leaning forward, Grenn drew distractedly drew nonsenical shapes on the table.
"What if what's missing is both 'integral' and 'not integral' to us as persons? We don't know what memory we're getting back with each charm... we can't choose." Because, well, if she could, she'd get that big empty thing, Lyra's missing kisses and that stuff about flying back, cut her losses and demand to be taken home. Maybe the others weren't that important.

Well, if she's going to get some kind of normal high school experience out of this place, classes are kind of an unfortunate necessity. As such, Mai has shown up here despite the subject matter that is...not exactly her favourite. And now to have to quiz each other on this?

On top of that, she's got a bit on her mind, so she's not exactly paying the sharpest attention to her groupmates. She's been unable to call Takumi or her parents. At least at her last school run for mysterious reasons had let her keep her cellphone...

No trouble from the teacher, then? Good. He takes a seat in a corner well away from everyone else, but he does take the time to give Fletcher a smile along the way.

Reiko tapped a finger on her textbook, idly. Both integral and not integral... That could explain some of the things she'd forgotten. How to read kanji, what Sumita's face looked like... "Huh, that's odd. I noticed this morning that I can't remember how to peel oranges." She wasn't even a big fan of oranges herself. So why...

"If we could choose, it would be too easy. Some of us might remember how to stop this game..."

Maths. Suzaku disliked it, his schooling had been none existant from when he was ten and Britannia had invaded up until Euphemia had sent him back to school that he was always behind in all his classes. This was far too complicated for him to understand. Why wasn't Lelouch here? He hadn't turned up to any classes since they'd got here, and no one was making sure they were in class.

Still, any knowledge was good and maybe the classes would help them work out where they were and how to escape. Suzaku frowned and looked back at his maths book reading the question.

Then he blinked as he realised it was in English, so they were in Britannian territory, if they were anywhere recognisable at all. Well of course, Yuki had told him they were in Japan, it was still ruled by Britannia, well the small part of Britannia that Lelouch hadn't dissambled.

Glancing to the side he realised Sora was two seats down. She did not look happy, in fact she looked like she was about to cry, or maybe throw the book across the room. Leaning over Suzaku gave a small polite small. "Is it the maths that your stuck on Himoto Sora?" He was no help there, "If it's just the English I can help you," after all Yuki hadn't even known where Britannia was so he didn't know if Sora and her princesses knew any English at all.

"It's everything," Sora said, before her head thudded to the table. It looked a little like she was trying to commune with the sheet of questions with previously unexplored psychic powers. Or maybe just that she'd finally given up on trying to understand it. Then what he'd said hit her, and she sat up abruptly just so she could stare at him in complete and total horror. "There are questions in English? I can't speak English..." She looked down at the paper, trying to work out which ones he was talking about. "I can't do maths in Japanese as it is!"

Suzaku's eyes widened slightly, "The whole book is in English..." He peered over to look at her book, but yes it was the same as his, all the questions in english. "What do you..."

Wait wasn't she speaking in English, he thought back to his conversation and realised that yes, he had spoken to her in English and she had replied in the same. But... she had just said she couldn't speak English.

Maths forgotten for the moment he looked at her intently, "What language are we speaking?"

"Japanese?" She wasn't really paying attention to his confusion, too busy still searching through the questions for the dreaded English ones. "Suzaku, all of these are in Japanese."

And then her head hit the table again. "And I still don't get any of it!"

Suzaku wasn't completely ignoring Sora's despair but his mind was racing. Japanease? He looked back at the book but everything was still in English and he was sure they were speaking English while Sora had claimed they were speaking Japanease.

"Sora!" He wanted to touch her shoulder, to check if she was alright or if the despair of maths had consumed her entirely, but he didn't want her being in pain because touching her would invoke the warning penalty.

"We are speaking English, at least I am hearing English," he paused and thought. He opened his mouth to say something in Japanease, but... there was nothing, no Japanease words in his head at all.

He panicked slightly, no... "Himoto Sora, do you know any English words? Try and say them, or any other language..."

"Um," she blinked, and rolled her head so she was looking his way. "I can't, I don't remember any English." Maybe it was one of her memories? Back rolled Sora's head, and her next sentence was muffled by maths book, "I was really bad at it anyway, so that's fine..."

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Math time shenanigans

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