Separated: 5SOS BSM

59. You're Young and Your Parents Passed Away So He Gets Custody - Michael

Part 4/4
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Requested by:
@StaceyStonier
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Ah! I'm so pumped for Christmas (break)!!!

Sorry this took forever to write :(

lol my update schedule at this point is like 3 chapters per weekend one chapter per week 😂😂😂

Michael:
You were a proud first grader. You were proud of your pencils, you were proud of your pretty backpack, and you were extra-proud of your lunchbox that had Michael's face on it. What you were not proud of was your grades. Even though you were a social butterfly, you were still struggling academically. Not because you were dumb, because you overthought things. You would get so caught up in the 'why' the answers were what they were, "but why does Joe have so many cookies? Does his tummy hurt?", that you completely missed the purpose of the problem in the first place.

You were rather inquisitive in nature, which of course drove Michael crazy. It felt like the only words in your vocabulary were, 'where', 'when', 'why', and 'how'.

For example, when you were sitting down watching him play guitar the conversation went along the lines of, "Mikey, how does it work?"

"What?" He asked, tuning the strings.

"The sound, where does it come from?" You asked, looking up at him puzzled.

"Uhhhh, the strings..." he trailed off, knowing that there was no way this conversation would end well.

"Why?" And so it began.

"Uh..." he had to think about how to explain this to you in the context of your limited elementary knowledge, "when the string moves, a sound comes out."

"Why?" Unbeknownst to you, you were asking frustratingly difficult questions.

"Errr," should he try to explain sound waves and vibrations to you? Could he? Should he tell you to stop asking questions and risk upsetting you? Michael chose... none of the above.

"Magic," he smiled, knowing full well that he was lying to a six year old.

"Oooooooh! Like Cinderella?" You giggled, referencing your favorite movie at the time.

"...yes?" He coughed out his answer, internally cringing, "Speaking of which, why don't you watch Cinderella now?"

"YES YES!" You bounced excitedly as you were handed over a tablet with the movie ready to play.

That was how Michael usually ended conversations like those. Once he no longer knew how to explain the answer, he diverted your attention elsewhere. Let's just say you were led to believe that Luke was named after Luke Skywalker, and that babies came from storks.

Michael dreaded the time when he had to sit down and help you through your homework, it always brought up a lot of deep questions he wasn't ready to answer.

Unfortunately, missing several weeks of school due to a bout with the flu meant that there was a LOT of homework to catch up on. Michael thought you were going to tip over from the weight of your backpack with all of the paper in it.

Nevertheless, being the diligent brother that he was, Michael sat down with you anyway. He helped your focus on math, sound out words for English, learn your spelling for tests, and work on your handwriting. It was a labor-intensive process that took probably four hours in total. Even then, you still had coloring to do. You of course thought that that was stupid, and that you shouldn't be forced to color anything that you didn't want to. But Michael was not on the same page.