Who We Are (A Zodiac Story)

Flashback: CANCER (2)

Disclaimer: *All flashbacks are written in 1st person*

FLASH = Time Skip

*...Two weeks later*

Scorpio was a peculiar guy.

He didn't understand basic math or have any reading comprehension skills.

So... I taught it to him.

Gripping the rectangular whiteboard in my hand, I scrawled the simple math equation across its surface. "Two plus five?" I ask, holding it out as I study the way Scorpio eyed the problem.

We were seated at the dining room table, its surface cluttered with a jumble of worksheets - stories, equations, and exercises that I had meticulously printed out for our tutoring session.

Scorpio rolled his eyes dramatically, his head falling back with an exasperated groan. "I don't know," he muttered, the words laced with petulance as he blew out a frustrated breath. Leaning his head against the table, his messy hair fell across his forehead, partially obscuring his face.

I let out a soft sigh, a twinge of impatience creeping into my voice. "It's easy," I insisted, watching as he pointedly avoided engaging with the lesson.

"For you," he shot back, his tone dripping with bitterness.

I'd learned that Scorpio had never set foot in a school before, but whenever I tried to ask about his past, he would brush me off or grow irritated. The most I knew was that he didn't have a mother and harbored a deep hatred towards his father - enough to make him run away, it seemed.

"What did I teach you?" I ask, pointing to his hands as I refuse to let him off the hook, determined to guide him through this.

He responds by pushing the worksheet aside, a frown tugging at his lips. "This is stupid, why am I even doing this?" he mutters, the frustration clear in his tone.

My eyes narrow as I level him with a stern look. "You want to be known as a dumbass?" I retorted, snatching up the reading comprehension worksheet and quickly scanning over his answers.

I tended to be more of a tough-love kind of girl.

Scorpio's gaze darkened, but he didn't argue. Instead, he brought his hands up, slowly counting out the numbers on his fingers. I watched, transfixed, as his lips silently mouth the words, "six, seven," adding another finger with each syllable.

"Seven?" he finally answered, his brow furrowed in concentration as he recounted frantically.

A proud smile spread across my face. "See?" I exclaimed, reaching out to give him an enthusiastic high-five. Our fingers interlocked, and I could feel the warmth of his skin against mine. "You knew it all along."

At that, a grin broke out on Scorpio's features, "Thanks, Cancer," he murmured, the simple words laced with heartfelt gratitude.

He barely knew how his powers worked.

So... I trained him.

FLASH

"This is how you send a water spiral," I say, my voice steady and authoritative. I demonstrate the technique, my arms moving with graceful precision as I twirl them in a circular motion, gathering the energy of the water around me. With a fluid extension of my arms, I release the pent-up power, and a spiraling, translucent torrent of water bursts forth, slicing through the air in a mesmerizing display.

Scorpio watches intently, his eyes wide with fascination. "Oh, that's easy," he declares, a confident grin spreading across his face as he tries to reciprocate the move, his limbs moving with surprising fluidity as he mimics my actions.