"Oh!  Cool, I think I maybe missed something?  For a second I thought you maybe just suddenly got way more delusional."

"Well, maybe your uncle is just humoring me, that'd be a fucked up thing to do though."

"Sounds it!  I don't think he would do anything like that."

"I certainly hope you're right. He says governments are already after means to move between dimensions or something - I don't have that exactly right, I usually take notes on things I want to remember and I can't focus on writing now, but something like that."

"Woah.  I mean, that totally sounds like a thing governments would be doing.  I really hope it works out for you."  Band-Aid?

Now he has a Band-Aid and all is right with the world except for the things that are not. "I hope so too. It would be an incredibly huge ripoff to do an entire esper awakening for powers I can't then use safely and a completely different worse ripoff to just be psychotic to no end whatsoever."

"I guess I don't know things but this really doesn't seem to me what being psychotic is like."

"Yes, well, I don't think so either but if I were psychotic I would probably also not think so."

"Hm-mm.  - You got any Homer?  On tap, for summaries?"

"Sure, you want the Illiad or the Odyssey?"

"Isn't there an order?  And what about the Aeneid, is that in there too or is that someone else?"

"That's Virgil and I haven't read it yet. The Illiad comes before the Odyssey but is a little less fun for the typical modern consumer."

"Well, do you think you're more likely to run out of stories or to get tired of telling me about them."

"If you're definitely going to want both I can start with the Illiad, I don't know how much of the week to expect you around for."

"I don't have anything else going on and it seems like you could use the help."

"That's very kind of you."

He Sparknoteses the Illiad.

(Xavier rejoins them, back in his armchair, without interrupting to announce any test results.)

Ari is somewhat worse at coming up with literary questions while receiving a massage, though she can produce plenty of comments about what exactly Haru should and shouldn't be doing to her back.

That will do at least well enough that he isn't inspired to complain.

Aaaaaaaand that's enough of that.  "You can braid my hair if you know how to braid hair."

"I have not had a lot of opportunity to practice braiding hair."

"You can, like, try."

He will, like, try, sure, he can get the basics like "be gentle" and knows the over-under pattern.

If he gets a decent result he can have a hair tie off her wrist to finish it with.

He wants to redo it but his second attempt is finishable.