Matthew was flipping through some old sketches when his cellphone rang. He immediately recognized the ringtone, "American Idiot", which was assigned to his brother. Sighing, he pulled out his phone, pressed the answer button, and immediately regretted this decision. "Matt!" Alfred wailed, as Matthew held the phone away from his ear, wincing.

He sighed deeply. "What is it, Al?"

Panicked, Alfred stammered, "M-Matt, have you ever read classic literature? It's so long! It takes so much longer to read than I thought! This list is gonna take me way longer than a week!" He sobbed pathetically into his brother's ear.

"How far did you even get?"

"I finished one chapter," Alfred sniffled. "It wouldn't be so boring if there weren't so many words. Look how many I still have to go! I just looked and some of these books have, like, so many chapters! And they're not all the same length! What's up with that? Where's the consistency? How am I supposed to keep track?! They should have rules for this kind of stuff!"

Matthew sighed. He knew his brother well enough to know what would happen next. He would decide he wanted something that was a lot of hard work, begin working towards it, then whine that it was difficult, get bored, and move on to something else. He always did.

"You finally gonna give up?"

Al sighed and went quiet for a moment. "No. No way. I'm gonna own those books, just you wait and see," he replied determinedly, hanging up.

Matthew was stunned. "Well, that's more time than he gives most things," he thought to himself. "But he surely won't get through all of it." After all, it was a long leap from taking the easy route your whole life to actually working your hardest for something.

Having just showered, Gilbert came out from the bathroom wearing only a pair of jeans. Matthew glanced at the water droplets dripping down his sculpted chest and gulped. "C-can I sketch you again?" He blurted out.

"Hm?" Gil paused and then laughed. "What, you checkin' me out, Birdy?"

Matthew turned red in the face. "No! I was just thinking you're got a nice physique so it would be a nice opportunity to draw it... since you work out and all. I mean, nice from a purely artistic point of view! I just wanna practice my anatomy! It's perfectly innocent!" He squeaked. Gil laughed again.

"Aw, don't worry, Birdy. I'm just teasin'. You're too cute when you get all flustered."

He plopped down in his chair while Matthew quietly got so flustered he practically shook.

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Toris glanced up like a curious puppy as Alfred posted his new training regime. He was decked out in work-out gear once more and "You're the Best" blasted from his iPod dock. Toris looked the list over apprehensively. "I see you're trying to be a little more realistic."

"Yup! Gonna read just a few books a day, depending on the length, for about four weeks. I won't check everything off the list, but it'll be enough for a start. Then I'm gonna use my newfound knowledge to woo the pants off that Russian bombshell!" He pumped his fist into the air victoriously.

Toris frowned. "Alfred, these books are complex. I doubt you'll understand the intricacies of them if you just blast through them as fast as you can. And even if you know what happens, studying them is a whole different—"

Alfred waved his hand at Toris and went "psh" as though to write off what he was saying. "Man, it's no biggie. I've got a brain, like, the size of my ego. I'll be just fine, Tori." Toris sighed and held his head in his hands, fraught with worry for his friend, but held himself back from nagging.

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Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave me a review on your thoughts from this chapter!

Thanks again to Anon990 for editing!