Showing Off [Matthew]

The sun was unusually bright today, a little too much so to Clementine's taste. She did adore the sunlight, it reminded her of her home in Southern France but her skin didn't tan well. She was far more likely to blotch and burn during prolonged exposure to direct sunlight and any attempts at sunbathing usually ended up with uneven tanned areas at best. So, to avoid the dry air-conditioned air of the library and classrooms, Clementine thought she might seek refuge outside under one of the many trees that littered the campus.

Choosing a spot on the edges of the courtyard, Clementine removed her laptop from its bag and opened up her email, she owed quite a few people emails pertaining to her current status abroad and since she was, or she hoped, quite up to date with her course work, she thought it would be a good day to take a break and catch up on her social life. Re-adjusting her screen not to catch in the light, she started replying to the great number of messages that had seemed to amassed in her inbox over the course of the semester. Somehow, time seemed to go so quickly when you were busy and away from your friends and family. One friend had managed to get engaged, another divorced. Her childhood friend had adopted a puppy and another had moved to Paris. She really wished she could be with them for their joys and sorrows but since her schooling had kept her preoccupied, conversing over the internet had to do for now.

Answering what seemed like the hundredth email and writing a great many new ones, Clementine sighed and closed the laptop. It was nearing noon and she was planning to go out to lunch soon, coffee at least. Putting her laptop aside, she carefully stretched herself out, first the arms, then the back and finally the legs. Endless years of private ballet training not only taught her about the style of dance but how important it was to stretch the muscles and not allow them to become cramped. Also, it was a quiet sub-conscious effort to at least become a little taller.

Glancing something out of the corner of her eye, Clementine stopped mid-stretch and turned her head to have a closer look. There was nothing there. Slightly perturbed, Clementine sat back down and started to rearrange her books in preparation for her departure but stopped to look again to ensure that there was nothing there. She had been seeing such strange things recently, just little things seen from the corner of her eye, or sudden flashes of images. The strangest thing was, these images seemed always to happen in the next few moments dismissing it as a silly notion caused by her mind being confused by the past and present due to a lack of sleep or whatnot. Dismissing it once more for a trick of the light, Clementine returned to packing her books away.

The last lecture of Matthew's shortest school day had just ended, much to his relief. He was one of the first out of the lecture hall, shuffling and neatening up his notes and packing them in the correct folder to be reviewed later. He slid his folder into his back pack and headed towards the gates of the school before pausing. There was a girl underneath the tree right by the stone steps leading up to the garden. She was on her laptop, but that didn't matter, because Matthew had the greatest idea involving the skateboard he had under his arm. He dropped his bag by the wall where it would be safe and put his skateboard down, hopping on it and giving himself a push. The metal wheels glinted in the sun and Matthew had to shield his face as he skirted around the steps.

Now that the girl had put her laptop away, Matthew had a great chance of her seeing him and his awesome skating moves. Speaking of which... He kicked off, jumped and flipped his skateboard up in the air, landed on the metal railing of the steps, skidding down them at a fast rate, whistling in the direction of the girl as he went. When he hit the end of the railing, he leapt up, letting his skateboard fly off the end and land on the ground in front of the steps. Matthew himself landed onto the skateboard perfectly, turned and grinned at the girl. He really hoped she'd been watching, he didn't think he could do that again.

Clementine's thoughts had quickly been disturbed by the sound of wheels rolling across concrete, lifting her eyes just in time to see a boy, around her age, skid down the railing of the stairs, whistling in her general direction before dismounting perfectly back onto the skateboard. Clementine's lips pulled back into a small smile, he certainly has style, she thought as she zipped up her bag. In a neighborhood such as this it was not uncommon to see skateboarders going around, showing their capabilities and talent on a glorified plank on wheels, which was what she viewed them as. However, this skateboarder was a little different from the rest, he was very cute.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Clementine approached the now grinning male. "You certainly are very skilled" she remarked, looking away slightly. " I'm Clementine Bonnefoy, I believe we live in the same apartment block"

Pleased that the girl had noticed him, Matthew flipped his skateboard up and caught it under his arm. He only pulled that trick off sometimes, so he was chuffed that he'd managed it then, a small pleased smile on his face. "Thank you," He replied bashfully, cupping his cheek with a hand in a vain attempt to hide his flush, which was only mostly due to feigned embarrassment. He held out a hand for her to shake and said, "I'm Matthew Williams, and I thought I might recognize you! Where in the apartment do you live? I'm all the way at the bottom, and I live there with uh...." He paused, trying to remember why he started saying that, before changing his mind and saying, "I live there alone. I think."

He quickly hurried to the wall of the school to grab his bag where he left it before coming back and offering his arm for her to hold. "Well then, my classes are finished for the day. Are yours? Because if so, I should like to accompany you back~!" He had actually been planning on going for a wonder through the park, and it seemed a bit rude to ask her to go out of her way to spend time with him for no reason. Offering to take her somewhere she was likely to be going anyway was a better option. Yes, definitely. Maybe when they got there, though, he could show her his collection of video games! Did girls like video games? Surely some must.

Smiling back at the blushing male, she took his hand in a brief handshake, Clementine was more used to a simple greeting during introductions and cheek kisses among closer friends and relatives so a handshake was a rather rare occurance for her, even after living in London for two years. " I see, I live on the fourth floor myself." Strangely enough, she thought to herself, the blush made him look all the more adorable. Choosing to ignore his slight slip of the tongue, Clementine smiled, now meeting his eyes " It certainly saves time waiting for the elevator every day." Living on the fourth floor really wasn't a problem until you were in a hurry and had to either wait for the elevator that was most likely still in use or run down four flights of stairs, most of the times while carrying large objects.

"Yes, my classes are finished for the day, I only came in for a morning lecture today so I have the rest of the day off" She had hoped to get lunch and go straight home for some more study and hopefully do some much needed housework but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have company on to talk to. Taking his arm gingerly, she nodded at Matthew "That would be my pleasure, in fact, there's a very nice coffee shop down near the edges of the park nearby, I wonder if you'll be interested in accompanying me there. They also have a rather comprehensive lunch menu." Clementine hoped he wouldn't take the invitation as too much of a stretch, after all, it was just as likely that he was simply being polite and had plans for the rest of the day.

"Oh!" Matthew lit up with a big smile, "Coffee shop? That sounds good! I think I know which you're talking about, let's go!" He had to restrain an excited wiggle, reminding himself that he wanted to look cool to this girl, 'Clementine'. He slowly started walking with her to the exit, careful not to drop his skateboard which was held carefully under his other arm. "So, do you have any relatives around? Siblings or something?" He asked. Getting to know Clementine would be fun, he hoped, or at least interesting.

The breeze blew gently around them, and Matthew shivered slightly. Glancing down, he realised that sitting in that overheating lecture hall, plus riding around on his skateboard probably wasn't the best idea. Maybe if he put on his jacket he could hide the stains, or maybe he'd be lucky and Clementine would be too distracted by the surrounding area to look in his direction while his shirt dried out. Or maybe she'd already seen them but didn't mention anything to be polite? In which case, he should already be embarrassed! And sure enough, his cheeks were heating up at the mere thought.

Clementine allowed her gait to match that of her partner's, a somewhat difficult feat since he was much taller and therefore took larger strides that were almost twice the size of her own. Wearing high heels certainly didn't help with her efforts and she found herself going just a little slower than she would have liked to be progressing. " I have an older brother, Francis, I believe you might know him,he lives in the same apartment block as us" She addressed his question casually, too concentrated on equalling his stride to look back at him, though still maintaining a more cheering tone "He's the only one I have here, the rest of my family is in France" She elaborated, trailing off at he end, wondering if this was too much information to be sharing, he certainly wouldn't ant to hear her entire life story "So what about you ? Do you have any family members here? " She looked up at him now, smiling broadly.

A cool wind blew past and she felt Matthew shiver beside her. Clementine sneezed suddenly, the cold getting to her, the sun had been covered suddenly by a cloud and she wished she had brought a light coat or at least a scarf to ward away the cool breeze. " Excuse me" she apologized for her sudden start " I'm afraid I am rather susceptible to colder weather" her body instinctively leaned towards the closest heat source which was unfortunately, Matthew.

Matthew felt the instinct to smile back when Clementine looked up at him, but nodded and replied, “In the same apartment block lives my brother, and-” He hesitated. There was someone else, he was sure of it. But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember who, or what his name was. “Well, uh, yeah, my brother lives at the top floor!” He did smile this time, “Though the rest of my family is kind of split up and spread throughout North America. Parents are divorced and all that.” He explained briefly, but didn’t really feel like expanding on the subject.

When the breeze which chilled Matthew made Clementine sneeze, Matthew immediately started feeling around in his pocket for that packet of tissues he always carried around. It didn’t seem to be in there (Which was odd, because Matthew always had to have tissues on him, among other things, as a precaution). He forgot about them easily enough, though, when Clementine leaned towards him, probably cold. This wasn’t good, he probably smelled like sweat and she wouldn’t want to go near him if she noticed! He automatically swerved away from her slightly. “Uh- uh- If I had a jacket, I would offer it to you, but uh… I didn’t think it’d get cold-” It was probably silly to get worked up over sweat, but Matthew could probably be considered a silly person. He could take off his shirt and be even colder, but look and smell fresh… But up ahead, there was a public bathroom. Perhaps he could use that somehow. It would give him more time, at any rate.

Through his panicked flailing, as things liked to not go the way he wanted, the skateboard decided to fall out from under his arm, and give him a good thump on the foot. Well, he thought, as he let out a loud cry, he probably deserved it if even his skateboard wanted to smack some sense into him.

Clementine nodded back and smiled back politely " I see, so we're both the youngest of our families then. Smiling apologetically at the mention that his parents were divorced, she kept quiet, she didn't really want to comment on anything she had no knowledge in, lest she offend people. Clementine herself had a very distant relationship with her parents, growing up without them she was not really used to relating to others with parental problems. " North America, so you are from there originally? She'd visited the continent once or twice when she was very young, though all she remembered was the cold. Now that she was older it did sound like a very interesting place to visit once more.

Quickly taking out her handkerchief to muffle any more sudden sneezes, she blushed suddenly when she realised that she had inadvertently leant towards Matthew. Quickly taking a step to the side, pretended to dab at her nose and let her eyes trail away. Realising he had offered his non-existant jacket, she smiled at his courtesy. " No no, it's my fault for not remembering London weather and forgetting to bring a jacket of my own. Thank you for your consideration though" There weren't many people who would still offer a lady their jacket, it would have been considered old-fashioned, Clementine however, found it incredibly endearing.

A loud yelp distracted her from her musings and turned to see the skateboard that he had been previously holding roll away down the road. Seeing Matthew was more occupied with what looked like a very pained foot, she ran quickly after the runaway plank, stopping it in its tracks and picking it up carefully. Thankfully she was still wearing her gloves today, the skateboard looked very well-worn and much loved judging by the chips in the varnish on the underside of the board and signs of re-painting. Holding out the skateboard to Matthew she waited patiently for him to take it " Is your foot alright? It sounded like quite a solid impact"