It was a Sunday, the only day of the week that Seth let himself sleep in on. However, his sleep didn't last as long as he intended for it to last. He was awakened by a tugging at his and Kate's bed.

Seth's eyes slowly opened, and he quietly and lethargically stretched himself awake. He sat up and looked at the boy standing at his bedside.

"What is it Bran? It's too early for you to be in here."

Brian didn't seem to understand what the problem was, so he just ignored it and continued with his question anyways. He held up his 2DS to Seth's face, the bright screen blinding the groggy professor. "This word?"

Seth wiped the sleep from his eyes and picked up his glasses from the nightstand. He put them on and squinted at the word. "Withdraw? It means to take out."

Brian tried his best to comprehend the meaning of the word and remember it, but he only was able to catch part of it. Instead he just plopped down on the floor next to his parents' bed and kept on playing. The tune of the little game was emanating from the slate-like device and penetrating the room.

Kate stirred on her side of the bed.

Seth shushed his son. "Turn that down! You mother is sleeping!"

"Not anymore," said Kate, rolling over with a yawn. She stretched her arms far into the air then looked over at what was happening. She saw Brian and was surprised. "What are you doing here, Bran?"

He ran over to her side and thrust his game into the air. "Playing pokemon!"

"He asked me what 'withdraw' meant," explained Seth.

"Even though he can't read?"

"He just pointed to the word."

"But don't you find that a little bit strange, dear? That means he could recognize that word, even if it was just recognizing that he didn't know."

The professor looked at the boy. This was an interesting point. He might be hindered by his low learning speed, but he was still learning. Not in the way that he would if he was at the level of a normal child, but even remembering how the words' looks differed from each other was a great step.

-----

A Few Days Later

The Hartmann family sat around the dinner table, enjoying their meal. Kate was the first one to speak.

"So Bran started tutoring today."

Seth cleaned his face with his napkin. "How did it go?"

"He was working very hard, and was able to read a few words! The tutor said that he might not be as far behind as we originally thought!"

Seth looked at his son, who was currently playing with his vegetables instead of eating them. It looked like he was trying to make a forest out of the broccoli.

Once Brian noticed that his father was looking at him he stopped playing around and smiled at him. His face was completely covered in food.

Kate sighed. "Here we are, saying how great you are, and then you decide to make a huge mess of yourself." She went to the kitchen and grabbed a wet washcloth. She cleaned Brian's face, as much as he tried to avoid her cleaning. "He also was trying his best in the other areas, including speech and math. It'll be a long road, but I think it's good that we started early. I wish we would've started a few years ago actually."

"We probably should've," said Seth, "but we also have had quite the bit of trouble simply raising him."

"You mean I had a lot of trouble," she said. "Oh, and that reminds me. Can you take him to tutoring tomorrow? Something came up and I can no longer do it myself."

Seth sighed. He would have to give up some of his rare free time to take him, but there was no helping it. "I mean, I have lots of paperwork that I need to do, but if I need to I can."

"Why don't you just take the paperwork with you?"

"It's something I'll need a proper desk and peace and quiet to do."

"How about you take the game with you?"

"The game?" He had forgotten that he had that thing, yet he didn't get rid of it after his first obligatory hour.

"Yeah!" shouted Brian. "Daddy play game!"

"Well I guess I have to now..."

Kate just smiled. She had done her work.

-----

Seth drove Brian to tutoring and sat bored in the waiting room. He had intended to simply drop off his son and head home, but the weather wasn't cooperating, and got really bad shortly after arriving. If the storm kept up like this, he would be stuck here until it would no longer be worth it time-wise to go home and come back later.

He sighed as he listened to the heavy raindrops hit the roof of the building. He tried to entertain himself with his phone, but quickly ran out of new messages to check and respond to. Finally, knowing that he would be bored for the entire three hour block if he didn't do something, he pulled out his 3DS from Brian's backpack.

He pressed the power button and started up the game where he left off.

This time he got to continue from the same spot that he left off, and he jumped right in. He took a few gyms badges, and learned of the existence of an evil team, the so called "Team Magma." This made sense, and he was glad that if there was fighting in the game, that at least it was directed towards a bad group of people. That way it can enforce at least a few good morals.

Seth continued playing for the remainder of the time, more engrossed than he would like to admit, when Brian burst out of the door leading to his tutoring room with arms in the air.

"Daddy!" he yelled, only to be hushed by the tutor. He ran over and stood next to Seth with a huge smile.

"Hi Bran. How did it go?"

"Good," he said. He looked at his father playing on the game, and then he dug into his backpack and pulled out his 2DS from it.

"Not now Bran, we need to go home first." He tried taking away the system, but he was interrupted by the tutor.

"It's fine, Mr. Hartmann. We're open for a while longer," she said with a wink.

Now he didn't have any excuses. He sighed. "Alright, but hurry. I still have work to do when I get home."

Brian smiled and switched on his game. Pretty soon the two of them had set up their second battle.

This time was different than last time. The two were now at similar points in the game, and Seth's pokemon were almost at the level of his son's. Brian's random button pressing wouldn't let him win this time.

Surprisingly, Brian seemed to have developed the beginnings of strategy, and at least managed to pick a few type effective moves. However, Seth had figured out what he was doing, and he one by one picked off Brian's team without too much effort.

Brian's brow furrowed as he started to lose more and more, and he started grunting when he lost.

"Now Bran, don't get so mad about losing. You're playing for fun, right?"

The boy looked up at his dad when he said this, and he smiled. "Yeah!"

Seth did something slightly uncharacteristic of himself then. He smiled back. Brian's eyes lit up when he saw this, and Seth immediately felt like he had done something the he shouldn't have and tried to make a straight face. He wasn't very good at it though, and it looked like his lip was confused to how it should look. Brian, however, thought that was hilarious, and burst out into laughter.

Seth was confused, but he let out a laugh too.

The battle animations kicked in on their own because Seth had failed to pick a move in time, letting Brian's correct move land, while Seth was stuck with an inadvantageous random move.

He realized his mistake and immediately was drawn back into the game. He lost a pokemon due to this, and Brian also found this to be hilarious.

However, Seth won the battle.

Brian looked like he was about to cry. He had beat his dad last time, but now he had been surpassed. His father knew that he should try and comfort him, but didn't know how.

Instead, he settled for patting him on the head. "Good job, son."

The almost tears disappeared from his eyes and he smiled. He had successfully gotten the attention that he wanted.