Faults in Our Stars [Lyra]

To his knowledge, it would have been just him on the training field, concentrating on popping the soccer ball with his foot. If there had been others, they may have been few and far between. The bleachers would have been empty on any given sweep of a gaze.

At least, that was the supposition. There would be no one at first look, then a girl in a second look, sitting on the bleachers. A skinny thing in a long-sleeved tartan hoodie and simple black skirt appeared but without certainty of where she came from. They would be close in age, though one would never venture a guess just by looks alone. And she was solid, as being translucent would be rather creepy.

And she was observing him.
Whispering her own count of how many times before the ball bounced off the edge of his shoe and rolls to her, a bare bounce off the tip of her boots. A brief smirk crosses her face, she hops off the bleachers to pick up the soccer ball.

"Couldn't make it to ten? Lame."

Total constructive criticism can be applied to EVERYTHING. The girl approached him, all to kick the ball back to him.

"Try again."

Don't mind her, the dark haired girl sits in the grass again just to observe. Yes, staring was totally a form of silent but intent observation.

The girl raised her eyebrows but said nothing to his annoyance. Normally a mutual fuck you too would have sufficed, but his initial reaction to her sudden appearance may have pleased her just enough to bite her tongue.

Not about to quit the staring though, or the whispered counts until his attempts slip. She did offer a smile and gave him a thumbs up when he reached nine, but it may have been a fluke.

"So you try it."

She flicked her gaze at him a moment, eyebrow quirked. Wise decision on his part, there? She gave no other indication than a brief, Cheshire-cat like grin.

"Yea?" Her faintly-tinged Boston accent surfaced. Was he serious? "Challenge accepted."

Lyra allowed the ball to roll up along the slope of her boot, immediately noting the difficulty given her choice in footwear...but she was challenged to! The girl balances the ball on her foot and bounced - three, seven, eleven, four, ten, six before it bounced on one of the studded belts of her boots. It may have bounced to the right, but she totally passed ten twice!

"Got forced to play soccer when I was like, ten." She says with a shrug, moving just to wrangle the ball. That already felt so long ago despite that it really was just a few years ago! "Sucked balls, 0-0 ties got really pointless after a while. Honestly? I'm surprised I remembered to do it."

She'd lightly kick the ball his direction for him to try again, sitting back in the grass, seiza style, just to resume her observations. He was such a short thing, shorter than herself for once. Usually she was surrounded by taller people, so a short one was like finding a white elephant.

"No offense, but you don't look like a sport guy. Trying out for somethin'?"

"So what did you want to play?"

"God, just anything but fuckin' soccer. But dad has this fanatic, like batshit-European-level-love for soccer that I will never understand. The field's too big and there's not enough actual action. Know what? I so wanted hockey, because being on ice and beating the piss out someone with a stick? Way more fun, yea?"

Hockey made a lot of sense given the girl's Boston accent surfacing between a few of her words, tried as she might to keep it proper. Figures that out of all the sports that were big in Boston, her dad had to like the absolute gayest one. The girl dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand.

"But my parents were really not okay with me playing a 'violent' sport," Air quote fingers right then and there. "Even though I used to play street hockey with my brother and his friends. Sucks being a chick sometimes, makes people think you can't handle a shot to the face."

Could she? How does one know if you're not allowed to try? Her acquaintance, as she learned, wasn't trying out for anything. Didn't do clubs for that matter either.

"Then what do you even do for fun?"

"Are you just gonna... like, watch me?"

The dark haired girl blinked at him before a dip of her head so that her hair covers one eye and allowing an unsettling smirk to surface.

"Hah? Silly question Shortstack, you generally watch someone when you're talking to them, ya know? Is it thaaaat creepy?" Lyra holds her smirk a moment before allowing it to break into a smile. She'd flip her hair back, it was messy enough that an attempt to properly fix it would mean nothing.

"Nah dude, I was staring like that just to fuck with ya. People react differently to it that I make a game of it. If you were creeped out, means you're sane."

Psssh. Lyra’s little smirk is a dry but cheery one. She loved the sport of hockey, for all of its violence and prone to injury.

“Dude, there’s a reason why they wear so much padding. You’re playing a game on ice skates, with stick and a puck that can be shot at high speeds. Hell, you even get to fight. Now all that in mind, take away skates and padding, you get street hockey.” And she’d point at him, because there was a grand difference between the two.

“My brother’s friend got whacked in the face by a stick playing it, broken nose. Another dude I heard about on my street had to get his junk surgically removed from inside his body.” The girl puts her hands up in surrender, because honestly she had no idea how the hell THAT happened. All she knew was street hockey was involved.

“I could teach you the game proper come wintertime if ya want. It’s not the same to play hockey without the ice and snow outside. It loses some magic, like spending Christmas in Florida. And promise, no horrible injury.” Besides, if he hasn't figured out what to like, maybe he would find something to like at some point. A sport would be a good start for Shortstack, and preferably with the correct equipment. It was Vermont, they’d better have that somewhere and if not, she would request it.

"Nareul manmanhage bojima."

Blink and a quirk of her eyebrow. Say what? It wasn't Japanese, defiantly not any language she knew right away.

"You got weird habit. So what do you do for fun? Besides stare at people."

Lyra lifts her finger to point at him again: “Oi. Non è giusto, testa di cazzo. Io non capisco.”* And spoken with a smile. Lyra could play that game too, with the exception that it was in her own language and minuscule Portuguese. She wouldn't care to translate either, besides, he had a better question to offer answers to.

“I get that a lot, really don’t mind being weird. Normal is boring anyways.” She’d make a motion with her hand, dismissing the very idea of normality entirely. “Personally, I like horror movies, I like watching really good ones. And not shit remakes because they lack imagination. A good horror game is worthwhile if you stumble on it.” She leaned her head back in brief thought. It was so rare to actually consider her short list of things that didn’t piss her off.

“Actually any movie that’s romance or shitty foreign art-house; both are a waste of my time. I like skee-ball, playing with fireworks, rock music…oh and I’m pretty good at reading symbols. Hobos have an interesting system like you would not believe. And the whole people watching thing, it may be weird but it can be fun to watch people interacting, as long as they’re not grating to watch.”

Yeah a little weird, but it was obvious from the girl’s nonchalant tone in her explanation that she had stopped caring at some point long ago.

“That and you can poke fun of them without them knowing. Never did any of that before, Shortstack?” She’d pause a moment then sighed slight annoyance. Augh, doing the normal thing! “Also, got a better name-thing to call you by? I keep thinking about pancakes.”

_{*Roughly translates to: "Oi. Not fair dick-head, I don't understand that."}