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The physical training was, while sometimes painful, always something Shun preferred to what he was doing currently. He knew it was something he needed to learn, but it was incredibly frustrating for him. At least with the exercises and whatnot, he could rely a little on instinct, muscle memory, or anything else. Here, he was pretty much starting completely fresh.

Sitting at the table, he had a few books and several paper sprawled out. He furrowed his brow while staring down at them all, unable to really make much sense out of anything.

Alister was probably carrying to many books, but he had long arms, so he had assumed he could do it. Overestimation was something the purple-haired boy was very good at. So, when he overbalanced, he was almost expecting it. Almost. He had swerved to miss knocking into Harper, whom he only knew in passing. Pink hair stood out. Unfortunately, he overcompensated and his hip cracked into the side of Shun's table with enough force to both topple a few of his books and knock some papers to the floor.

"Wahhh! Ack, I'm sorry, Harper, Shoot! That's your name, right?" Shoot, shed, shuuf? Something. The boy didn't seem to talk very much. Maybe it should be Shilence. He chocked back a chuckle. With a worried expression, Alister deposited his stack of books onto the table top. He crouched and began to gather up a few papers he'd knocked off. Glancing at them, his mouth rounded.

"These're reading exercises. Oh! Homework! Do you need any help?"

While Alister didn't appear to be very good at names, Harper made an effort to memorize the names of everyone she met. It was important to her to be able to greet her friends properly - and yes, Shun and Alister were officially considered friends. Harper liked friends. One could say she even... collected them.

"Oh. Alister, are you okay?" Harper gave the boy a concerned look before turning her attention to Shun. If the reading exercises weren't homework, then Harper wasn't entirely sure what Shun was doing... with... them...

Oh.

Oh.

Harper took a seat next to Shun and scooted in close.

"How can we help?"

Shun was about to slide further away from Harper, but his 'escape route' was cut off as Alister sat on his other side. He glanced between the two that boxed him in at the table, then rubbed his head lightly. The man really didn't like to admit it, but he was struggling enough on his own here. He was going to need to swallow his pride.

"I only know a couple letters," he grumbled while closing his eyes. Even with the handful, he still had some trouble.

Alister's mouth rounded prettily. At least he had a starting point to jump off of! Grabbing one of the sheets of paper, he flipped it over to the blank side. Producing a pen from... somewhere, he began writing the alphabet in a neat script. Normally, his writing was full of unnecessary flourishes, but for today, he restrained himself. It would do Shun no good to learn off of anything but basic letters. Next to that, he wrote a series of short words.

cat
harper
bag
food

And et cetera. "It's good that you already know a few words! It helps a lot. Here, take a look at this. I want you to point out which letters you know and their sounds. I wrote a small list of easy words next to it too. So we'll work on that today?" He beamed. Suddenly, his face fell just a bit. "I, uh... I mean, if that sounds okay for you, Shun!"

"Sound it out," Harper offered very unhelpfully. She had never actually taught anyone to read before. "HUHHHHHHHH. HHHUUHHHHHH."

She was silent for a moment.

"It's an H. Like for Harper. Actually, that's what it says. Harper."

Shun's fingers twitched as Harper began to sound out the letter h, narrowing his eyes at her as well. His attention was thankfully diverted for the moment as he looked over towards the rest of the alphabet.

For now, he didn't verbally sound anything out. It sounded stupid to do that. He just went over it mentally to the best of his ability.

Alister shrugged a little, almost apologetically. "She's right, though, Shun. You've got to say the sounds out loud to cement them in your mind. It's like... how if you don't expose mortar to the air, it never dries properly!" He shoved the paper closer to Shun and looped his arm around the shorter boy's shoulders. Shun was a silent kid, kind of grumpy looking. Maybe a little Stephen-ish? Nahhhh. He shook his head at his own folly.

"Anyway, I'm gonna sit here until you sound it out," he said, and his grin was just the tiniest bit calculating.