"Speak for yourself, I'm a terrible student."

"Suppose it does depend on which class you're in. English? I'm not as rapt as in my science courses."

"I'm taking most of the boring ones this semiquarter so I can leave the fun ones for later. So English and Spanish are now."

"I think I mentioned this before, but the way they teach languages in school is kind of terrible. I'll do it, but it's not fun like it could be, comprendes?"

"I have no idea what fun language-learning even looks like."

"Total immersion has its fans, but that only works if you're talking to interesting likable people in a variety of scenarios and topics so you get well-rounded, and even then..."

"I'm just really bad at it," he says cheerfully.

"Admittedly, some of the reason I'm pushing to finish my memory is that it will make vocabulary trivial."

"Sometimes I'm so jealous of psions."

"There's pros and cons to both types! I bet I could give other people perfect memory with enough work, just like you're planning to learn de-aging."

"That would be so cool. No one's managed it permanent on others like that yet but I'm holding out."

"I still think virtuality is what I'm going to work on after I have my brain rigged up though."

"Yeah, that's fair."

"First world problems: Too many cool magic powers to get them all at once!"

He giggles. "I'm pretty sure the other worlds also have magic."

"You get my point, though."

"I do, I do."

"Speaking of which... Huh. Give me a sec..."

He looks intensely thoughtful for a good thirty seconds, then blinks.

"It clicked. Congrats, you're my first perfect memory."

"...awwww! That's flattering. And congrats to you!"

Teacher chooses this moment to walk into the classroom.

"Thanks!" Wink.

And now he's focusing on class.

...why was that wink hot. Darn. Now he'll be thinking about it.

It's almost like he's showing off his studiousness, asking thoughtful questions about the syllabus and all. And getting strangely excited when Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is mentioned as a possibly book report topic.

He is so adorable this is ridiculous.

Eventually class ends.

"How'd you like your first official English class? I'm going to the library in a minute. The original Frankenstein... I've wanted to read it for itself for a while, and now it can count as schoolwork. Two birds, one stone."

"It was super boring, but I admit I'm curious about Frankenstein, too. It's kind of fascinating in that it's even theoretically possible."