Faults in Our Stars [Lyra]

[Clement Evans]

It had been almost two months since the fight. There was shiny pink skin over his burns. Still tender if he touched it and still itchy, but the pinkness was fading back to his natural skintone and he didn't have to be as wretchedly careful as he had been. The broken nose had healed and was no longer tender; Clement could blow it without wincing. The ribs... ah. They'd taken the longest, but Dr. Nik had finally given him the all clear. Clement had spent so long moving and breathing carefully that it was a little weird to be able to do things normally again.

There wasn't a great deal for Clement to do past the studying he had to get him ready for classes. He didn't own a computer or electronic device of any kind (and didn't like looking at screens anyway), any kind of sports equipment, and past the books he had to read, didn't like doing that either. He'd read the letter Ajima and Minho had left him in the box, and had written them back using the stamps Ajima had enclosed. He'd written in his notebook about Vermont, about the fight, about Mia and Xavier and Dr. Nik and Dr. Neville and Jesse and Tyrone. About the car wash and the horse and seeing Mr. Dietrich again. About speaking English and speaking Korean, rabbits and cream soda, burns and broken bones, scratchy grass and the abundance of trees.

It was a lot to think about.

So Clement had been more than glad when he found out he could borrow a soccer ball from the gym, and even gladder that he could move enough to play with it. He took it out to the training/football/soccer field and dribbled it down one side and the up the other. Clement wasn't anything to write home about, but his footwork was decent for a kid who'd played casually in empty lots in L.A., and he could do basic juggling. He tried that now, knowing he was rusty, popping the ball up with his foot to see how many times he could catch it.

Six, looked like. He caught it on the edge of his shoe on the last one and it bounced off, rolling away...

[Lyra Caruso]

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.

[Clement Evans]

Involved with the soccer ball and his own thoughts, Clement hadn't paid much attention to other activity. Birds, wind, kids in the background. He was alone on the field, but he knew he wasn't the only one out enjoying the weather. Clement let the ambient noise flow past him as he reacquainted himself with the ins and outs of this particular ball. A little hard, a little more padding than he was used to. Bouncy. So he wasn't surprised when it got away from him.

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

Clement damn near jumped out of his skin. His hands armored to his elbows; he briefly closed his eyes as the pain passed. When they opened, the armor disappeared and he regarded the girl with annoyance.

"Fuck you." It was said with the same force as an off-hand 'shut up' and meant basically the same thing. She passed the ball back though, didn't keep it or kick it hard some other direction to make him run after it.

"Try again."

He'd been going to before she said to, but he ignored it and flipped the ball up with his toe. Seven. He tried again. Nine. Again. Four. Clement could feel her eyes on him. Annoyed, he kicked it over to her. "So you try it."

[Lyra Caruso]

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'?"

[Clement Evans]

Challenge? Clement hadn't meant it as such, but he wasn't very competitive. At least, not in this sort of thing. It had driven Minho a little mad, how Clement didn't much care if he won or lost when there was a contest. Even a stupid one. Like... juggling a soccer ball. She was wearing boots, but she still managed half a dozen tries, two of which made ten. Clement wasn't exactly impressed, but he nodded at her in acknowledgment.

"Got forced to play soccer when I was like, ten. Sucked balls, 0-0 ties got really pointless after a while. Honestly? I'm surprised I remembered to do it."

Soccer was one of the old stand-bys back in California. No formal team, not for a pair of poor kids like Clement and his best friend Minho, but there had never been a lack of kids to play a pick-up game of that or baseball or whatever else anyone had a ball for. "So what did you want to play?"

The whole 'parents making kids do things' thing was strange to Clement. Why a parent would sign a kid up for something they had no interest in in the name of... he didn't know, maybe trying to make the kid 'well rounded'? It was a waste of money. Sure, sometimes it worked out and the kid ended up liking or being good at the piano or gymnastics or whatever, but he knew a lot of times it didn't.

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

Shrugging, Clement knew he didn't look very athletic. But he shook his head at being on a team. "No. I don't... I don't do clubs."

Besides, didn't being on a team cost something? And Clement was so short and small, he'd probably be put on the middle school team and not the high school one... though with soccer size didn't matter as much as say, football.

He looked over at her. "Are you just gonna... like, watch me?"

Because that was kind of creepy. And weird, because Clement was not anything exciting.

[Lyra Caruso]

"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."

[Clement Evans]

With native or Korean-fluent Koreans as his primary source of influence, Clement still did not have their national love of either soccer or baseball, though he liked playing both just fine. He didn't have a mania for them, but then, Clement didn't have very intense feelings like that for anything. As a Californian, he could not relate to winter sports (though there were rinks and the Anaheim Ducks), though he could easily see the appeal of 'beating the piss out of someone with a stick'. Clement could remember floor hockey units in gym and that there had not been any of that, but... maybe wherever the girl was from it was different. It was kind of a shame there was no hockey team for a school in Vermont, but given powers and tempers, on second thought maybe Hammel knew exactly what they were doing.

"Yeah, maybe." Thoughtful. It did sound fun, though Clement didn't know if he could ice skate and use a hockey stick at the same time. There was ample proof the two were not mutually exclusive, but Clement had his doubts as to how effective he'd be on ice with knives strapped to his feet.

"But my parents were really not okay with me playing a 'violent' sport. 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."

Clement had no doubt she could indeed handle such a thing, but... "Aren't shots to the face... not supposed to happen?"

The way she talked about it, they happened all the time and were an accepted part of gameplay. Expected, even. Maybe even anticipated.

"Then what do you even do for fun?"

"Still figuring that out." At home, in the trailer, just being left alone was a godsend. Clement had had no problem sitting under the table listening to the TV or thinking his thoughts. If his caretaker was in a good mood, Clement had cleaned, using the all-purpose Windex he'd bought himself or washing the few bowls and spoons they owned. With Minho, Clement had been talked into learning kpop dances and watching variety or music shows, there had been the aforementioned soccer and baseball, and there had been a lot of talking, a lot of 'what is this in English' and 'what is this in Korean', and the usual teasing, squabbling, and jokes that brothers have. Away from Minho and the stresses of his old life, Clement's world was reconfiguring itself and coming up with a lot of blank spaces. There was a soccer team, but team sports could get serious and Clement just wanted the activity.

"Hah? Silly question Shortstack, you generally watch someone when you're talking to them, ya know? Is it thaaaat creepy?"

"Yes."

"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."

"Nareul manmanhage bojima." It was out of his mouth before he could think about it. Clement shook his head, but didn't bother to translate. Instead, he said, "You got weird habits." And then, "So what do you do for fun? Besides stare at people."


*Nareul manmanhage bojima - 'Don't think I'm that easy'. Slang. Informal.

[Lyra Caruso]

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."}

[Clement Evans]

"...Another dude I heard about on my street had to get his junk surgically removed from inside his body."

Still absently juggling the ball, at that Clement let it drop and winced a little, pressing his legs together briefly. That sounded like more than a puck to the nuts could do, and it both things were way more involved than he wanted to get in any sport. Not that it didn't sound exciting in its own way, but if he was going to fight, he was going to fight. He didn't know if he could separate the two (though enough people thought hockey and fighting were one and the same).

“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.”

She was preaching to the wrong choir about winter; Clement had never seen snow and wasn't looking forward to it. A native of Los Angeles, Clement still considered temps in the 40s to be unreasonably cold (though he might've felt differently had he appropriate clothing... okay fine, LIES).

But - "If 'no horrible injury' is the best thing you can say about it..." but he rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I guess it's something to do."

Proving one bit of crossed transmitting deserved another, Clement didn't much have to guess at what she was saying. He was familiar with the tone and was pretty sure the word for 'dick' was in there somewhere. Listening to her list of things to do, they certainly didn't have anything in common there - Clement disliked movies because he couldn't see them very well (or afford them), had no idea what skee-ball was, knew playing with fireworks were the one sure way to get to the ER, preferred Kpop to rock, and still had yet to read anything for "fun". His interests included cleaning, helping Ajima cook, writing in his journals, and sometimes pitching if whoever was catching had something visible enough to aim at.

“That and you can poke fun of them without them knowing. Never did any of that before, Shortstack?”

"Not really." If she couldn't tell, Clement wasn't exactly a great conversationalist. In English, anyway.

“Also, got a better name-thing to call you by? I keep thinking about pancakes.”

Depraved enough not to get the reference, he looked at her askance but with a bit of friendliness in his eyes. "If I tell you, will it matter?" But he relented. "Clement Evans. You?"

((close it up?))

[Lyra Caruso]

"If 'no horrible injury' is the best thing you can say about it..." but he rolled his eyes and shrugged. "I guess it's something to do."

Something to do! Better than doing absolutely nothing. Lyra was amazed she had been unable to draw anything from the boy – none of her interests sparked recognition in his eyes, and that made it all the more interesting. If there was anything that made the girl interested, it was picking apart people who were not as easy to read or said little. Those types always had something interesting underneath the surface.

“Well then! We’ll see if you get any enjoyment out of the game. If anything it’ll expand…well, whatever horizons you may have already. I mean seriously, picking up a language like that must’ve been a lot of work.” And dedication was a silent nod of admiration.

"If I tell you, will it matter?"

The dark haired girl smirked in response. For a moment, she was certain he'd resist as most usually did, but instead he relents.

"Clement Evans. You?"

What an easy name to nickname, that and she could immediately stop thinking of pancakes! Thank god, the urges of wanting brinner was getting stronger with every mention of short stacks.

“Ahhh, you’re getting my vibes already. No, no choices Clem.” New nickname cemented! She started to walk off back towards the school but stopped, remembering to offer further information. How the hell else were they going to practice at this time of the year?

“Tell you what. I’m gonna be at the gym Wednesday. If you still feel interested, pop by and I’ll start teaching you the basics before we even try skates and ice. Ciao!”

Lyra dashed off, resuming a run to the school with a mission in mind. Whether or not the boy takes up the offer was up to him, but she could never resist the call of hockey.