IF TIME STOPS 『nico di angelo x reader』

chapter 24

"You are though?" Annabeth titled her head, another sigh of exasperation coming out of her mouth. "In terms of knowledge, your level is of an elementary student's. You've never been to school have you?"

"Incorrect." I sat up on her bed, shooting her a pointed look, "I didn't have the time to go to school."

"And your point is?"

"It doesn't necessarily mean I'm dumb." I told her slowly, emphasizing on dumb.

Annabeth's eyes narrowed, "Hold on, I never called you dum—"

"Oh." I interrupted her with a deep sigh of feigned distress. "If only you knew about the long years of spartan math torture my measly brain had to endure. Woe is me." I placed the back of my hand on my forehead, looking up longingly at the ceiling, for extra damsel in distress effect.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Annabeth roll her startling gray eyes as she crossed her arms against her chest. "Oh yeah? Let's see if that spartan trained brain of yours is still in shape, shall we?" She bent her body down to gather up a box that was placed beneath her table, with one swift movement she swiped out a thick worn out book from the box.

Just the sight of it made me sweat in fear.

"Starting with calculus." She gave a chilling smile as she tapped the book lightly with her finger.

I gulped, grabbing the thin workbook before Annabeth could take it away. "Why don't we stick with the dummy textbook instead?"

She raised an eyebrow, her smile still intact. "Are you sure? I'm pretty sure that with such a trained brain, your level should be —"

"YES." I clutched the workbook against my chest, as though protecting something precious from robbery. "Now put that away, it hurts my eyes." I whined, waving towards the thick math book Annabeth held in her arms.

She chuckled, putting it away. "Well then, Ms. Genius, will you answer the page that you missed?" She handed me a pen.

"Fine." I grumbled, taking the pen away from her hand.

Learning with Annabeth is fun, he said. I thought to myself, silently cursing my brother for praising Annabeth's teaching skills too much. I flipped the textbook to the page I missed and started answering.

For a few minutes after that, the only sound that could be heard was the scribbling of my pen and our tiny puffs of breaths before Annabeth decided to break the silence once again.

"By the way," She said. "I noticed you were close with Nico."

"Close?" I looked up from the textbook, wondering if Nico and I were even close enough to call each other close. Sure, we've shared a meal together, done skinship...probably a couple of times, but we've only met each other for days and there's still alot I don't know about him — asides from the stories Will used to tell me. "Do we look close?" I asked.

"Well, Nico has always been quite hard to approach." She admitted, shrugging. "But it's surprising how soft he is when he's around you. It's almost like I'm looking at the younger him."

I furrowed my eyebrows, "What do you mean...younger him?"

"Well," Annabeth leaned back on her chair, she sounded nostalgic. "When Percy found him, Nico was only 10 years old. At the time, he was still happy and actually acted his age, not to mention he used to obsess over myth-o-magic."

I felt myself smiling at thought of Nico nerding out to figurines of greek gods, but it seemed impossible picturing him doing something a kid would do.