Impossible (Mha fic)

Just two kids hanging out

After dropping us off Morgan gave me the memory card I thought she was only joking about all this time. I mean, it's been around two months, I think, and she's only now giving me the memory. Her excuse is that she did indeed intend for it to be a joke, but got it for me anyway as a reward or something. She doesn't know what she's rewarding me for, but she's rewarding me. Doesn't matter, what does is that I got an amazing memory for an amazing camera. That's what I've been occupying myself with while Mina tries to solve the simple problem I presented to her. It's not that incredibly hard it's just complex and requires insight. I think she's struggling though, if those groans are anything to go by. She had made herself right at home on my bed, complimenting its softness before unpacking her books. She requested Math first so this is where we are right now.

"I can't find X because I don't know what a is" she's scratching her head rather aggressively right now. "But I'm supposed to find a with these numbers"

"Well yes," it sounds far harder than it actually is.

"I don't get it"

What follows next is a thirty-minute explanation on how she should solve the problem, with each step being explained as simply as I could manage. I've never tutored anyone before in my life and seeing Mina still struggle makes me think I'm a terrible choice for her, but after I took the time to explain in detail as well as solve the problem with her, she got the hang of it, so I am not a terrible teacher. Good to know.

"Are you usually home alone?" She asks, already distracted from the work she's supposed to do.

"How about I answer that when you solve that problem"

"Oh come on"

"Gotta focus"

She huffs but doesn't protest, probably deciding it best to just get things over with. No one actually likes math so I understand the struggle, but if you know how to do the stuff it's pretty fun. Say that to any normal kid and they'll think you're messed up in the head, but it's the truth. The minute you understand how it all works, it stops being this thing you loath and becomes something you can actually enjoy. The only times I have a problem with math is when I find a needlessly complex problem and that's made even worse by the teacher wanting us to use this long solution to the problem when it doesn't need to be that long.

Twenty to thirty minutes pass before Mina proudly presents me with her notebook, the five problems I had tasked her with solving had been completed. I do believe she's proud because she finished sooner than she thought she would be able to.

"Now you need to answer my question" she declares happily. "And a question for each problem I've solved correctly"

She's making a game out of it now, huh?

"Okay, then you get four questions because you messed up on the last one" I point out.

"What? I did what you told me to" she's baffled and her face is quite funny.

"You did and you didn't" she did do what I told her to, but not exactly what I told her to do. "Yes you did divide everything by the highest power, but you were supposed to divide everything by the highest power under the fraction bar"

I point out her mistake by circling the highest power as well as the highest power under the fraction bar. I understand the mistake she made, as I used to mess it up like this as well. Using the highest overall power and the highest power under the fraction bar are drastically different as the answer will vary.

"Instead of dividing everything by x⁴, you should have decided everything by x³ because it is the highest power under the fraction bar" if she did this on the test the entire thing is wrong and she's be losing points due to a dumb mistake. Though it is the most common mistake in this subject.