Moving in! Time to get friends! *Open*

"Thank you! I hope it tastes as good." She said. She was always anxious when new people were to try her food. Negative comments stuck on her like post-its, although she tried her best to hide it.

She waited for her guest to start first. As she waited, she thought of something to say to get rid of the past awkwardness.
"So what do people usually talk about when they meet each other?"

With this smell, it's impossible for it to taste bad... 'Matt' thought. He didn't mind people being modest, though he, like everyone, got at least a little irritated when someone made a huge dip on being modest. He was a really big hypocrite on this, since he does this a lot.

So far Cyra had done no wrong except bursting his personal bubble. Everyone had flaws, and he understood this well.

'Matt' never liked to be the first one eating when he ate with others, but Cyra was making it rather plain that she wanted him to start first. Sinking the prongs of his fork in the noodles, he snagged a few and spun the handle casually, making tiny whorl of noodles. He didn't like it when he ate more then five noodles at once; it felt like he was going to choke on them any moment.

'Matt' slid the bundle of noodles into his mouth, chewing carefully. The flavor of the Italian dish, which he obviously wasn't used to, exploded on his tongue. He swallowed and smiled. "This is really good!" he complimented, pointing down at his dish with his fork.

The junior chuckled kindly at her question. Was she still anxious? "I don't know. I'm not sure if you can call me normal." he explained, spinning his fork in his hand. It was harder to spin a fork than with chopsticks, but he got the hang of it when he moved to America. "Hmmm.. Well, my first friend here.. The first think she asked me was if I liked ice cream, then we had a whole discussion over it.."

Ah, reminiscing. Wasn't that a crazy experience? "Hmmm, I dunno... What do you think?"

Her heart leaped a mile when she heard him praising his food. He did like it, even though it was just something she had managed to scramble together from things from the fridge. She still knew how to cook, no-one could take that away from her.
"Great! It's a relief to hear that!" She said with her warmest smile. She started eating herself. She wrote a note to herself in her mind to mix in a little more pepper next time though.

As she listened to him talking about a girl he had met, she couldn't help but to giggle. She tilted her head, like she always did.
"I'm so sorry, but ice cream? Is there really something to discuss there?" She asked, trying her best not to make it sound mean. She was just curious.

She has a nice smile and laugh.. he observed, eating more noodles. ..... This could use less pepper. he thought as his tongue detected the tiny spices pricking at his tongue. Pepper was only good with noodles when it was in a soup, soup!

"I'm not really sure," 'Matt' replied, shrugging but keeping a good expression. "The girl I met, Cecilla, doesn't know what an awkward conversation--in fact, she's oblivious to anything awkward.

"It was also my fault, I guess," he added sheepishly. There was nothing to blame on the freshman; after all, if you looked at it closely he might as well have started the conversation. "I was singing random songs that played on my iPod, and one of them was about ice cream and she recognized it. That's how our conversation started."

"You, singing? Somehow I can picture myself that. It doesn't seem farfetched for some reason." She said and took another bite of her carbonara. The picture in her head about Matt singing about ice cream by himself made her blush. She covered her laugh as a cough, as to not try to hurt his feelings.

"I guess there's no manual for how you talk to someone you've just met. YOu just do it, right?" She said, waving her fork as if trying to prove a point in a debate.

What're you so happy about... 'Matt' thought, eyebrow twitching. He rather regretted telling her that he had been singing before. Cecilla accepted the fact that he sung like the fact that peanut butter and jelly taste good together. That was probably because she heard him singing at first... Is she making fun of me? he wondered. He was used to it, but he was never teased for his singing before--he had only gotten one compliment, from Cecilla, that he was really good at it. Jeez...

To take his mind off of it and to hide any signs of a sour expression on his face, he resumed eating the pasta, only to stop again when she started talking again.

"Of course," he answered when he swallowed his mouthful of pasta. She might've been trying to argue, but 'Matt' was one to agree with someone unless they said/did something REAAAAAAAALLY stupid. "That's what we did, wasn't it?"

"When you put it that way, yes, I guess." She was far too much of an airhead to concentrate on things such as these, and she thus wrinkled her foreheadas she struggled to understand exactly what this all meant.

"Fuwah! I just don't know what to make out of this." She said, face resting in her palms, more to herself than to Matt. It didn't occur to her that she had been thinking out loud.

'Matt' watched her rather confused expression, a puzzled expression on his own face as well. She seemed to be concentrating on something. Exactly what? I haven't said anything to make her think like this...? he thought, blinking twice through a mouthful of noodles.

He swallowed when she said her little exclamation. It didn't sound like she was directing to him, did it? "... Huh?" he replied. He didn't make head or tail of what in the world she was talking about.

Damn, she had thought out loud. She couldn't just tell him that she was this stupid, right? She blushed as she searched for something, no, anything to say. She opened her mouth several times, but changed her mind quickly. Finally she decided to give him the real explanation. He did look rather confused himself.
"Sorry, I was thinking out loud. I just can't understand how people manage to get friends this way. It doesn't seem like a way to get to know someone..."
She thought about it. Only asking someone questions like how old they are and what interests they have seemed like a bad idea too. What was the reason some people decided to meet again?

Funny. he thought, slightly amused–but still confused-as he watched her seem consider giving him the answer or not. It seemed so obvious when people lied to him, he'd be able to catch it if she tried anyway. However, when she gave the answer, it seemed rather truthful.

... He chuckled. "You shouldn't worry about those type of things, how to make friends," he suggested, pointing his fork at her. "Either someone will think of you as a friend or they won't. If you continue to be anxious about it, then they'll sense it and it'd become awkward."

He smiled. Man, 'Matt' could be so optimistic sometimes. "You should really just try to be yourself and let the situation flow. Unless you're a Medusa in disguise, people here won't mind being your friend. Even I got friends in this school."

Cyra rested her face in her hand, studying Matts face and found herself lost in his eye(OOC: I was about to write eyes x3). She wondered about his hairstyle. Did he hide something or did he just like the hairstyle?

"I guess. I'm not good at this thing. Ema was the social one." She sighed, still fixated on his eye. It took her several moments to understand what she was doing. She quickly staggered back and pressed both hands into her lap, now fixated on them. She was red as a tomato by now. What did she do that for? His eye was so captivating. She hoped he wouldn't say anything, but that was probably inevitable.

By now 'Matt' had finished his pasta. It was a rather good meal, though since they were still talking he wasn't sure when he should thank her. When the conversation is over?' he guessed. It was just like him, his thoughts trailing to other subjects while still focusing on a conversation he had with people.

He glanced at the girl, looked away, then quickly looked back when he noticed that she was staring at him with a rather... odd expression. Ara? he thought, blinking when she seemed to be... Flustered?

"... Is there something on my face?" he asked, pointing at himself. Aaah--how embarrassing if he was. He didn't TRY to be messy, but that didn't stop him from getting a milk mustache when drinking milk or sauce on his cheek when he ate noodles with sauce on top!

Damn... He caught me.

"No, it's nothing." She laughed nervously and hoped he didn't get the wrong idea. Had she gotten the wrong idea? Why would she stare into his eyes like that? This was wierd even for her, and she knew she was really wierd.

She put down her fork as she finished the meal and let Jazz jump up on her lap as he always did after she'd eaten. She scratched him behind his ear as she knew he loved and directed all of her attention to him for a moment.

".. Huh..."

He watched her for a moment as she pet her cat, then glanced around the kitchen for a clock. Ah, he found one, but he couldn't read it. Apologetically, he looked back to her.

"Um, can you tell me the time? You were right when you concluded I have bad eyesight," he said. The air was probably going to get more awkward, but he was pretty sure he had to leave soon. He had been heading back to his dorm for a reason, neh?

Cyra looked at her watch by instinct rather than the clock in her kitchen. Oh, it was getting late.

"4:24 pm. You have anywhere to go?" She decided to leave the eyesight out of the conversation. She had done enough mistakes for one day.

"Ah... Yeah, I have some online classes to take, actually," he said with a sigh. The shortage of teachers in the school were quite severe, weren't they? Ah, but his classes didn't cost anything; 'online classes' just meant looking up stuff what would be useful in his junior year and taking notes on them. "There are little to no teachers here, so the students are taking up education on their own."

It was amazing the school didn't shut down. Probably because it was such a nice school. "I suggest you study on your own... You'll be able to do that?" he added, remembering a conversation he had between Cecilla and Ibumoto, a guy who left the school. Cecilla kept on saying that she wouldn't be able to study by herself...

"Oh..." She looked down at Jazz with a sad look on her face. Study by herself? Cyra could hardly study in class with a teacher! This wouldn't end well...

"Yeah, I think I might be able to do that. Thanks for the heads up." She said, although she knew that she wouldn't. She put down Jazz on the floor and started to pick up the dishes. Great, mom and dad are going to get really pissed when I show them my failed grades.

'Matt' caught the look on her face. Aah... Don't tell me.. he thought.

"You can give me a call if you want to study together sometime," he suggested, taking his phone, a Samsung Gravity, out of his pocket. He held it out to her, silently asking her to put in her phone number. "It's hard to study by yourself, since there's a lot of distractions around, right?"

He smiled. No, he wasn't flirting, he was just being extremely kind at the moment... Though it can be seen as flirting.

Matt was holding out his phone towards her. Slow as she was, she didn't understand what he wanted to prove by doing that. She was happy that he offered to study but why the phone? Oh! Her number, of course!

"Thanks, I'd love that." She said as she took his phone and added her number into his contacts. Not until after that she realised that he might have been flirting with her. She blushed and looked down on the floor as she gave the phone back to him, and then rushed away to find her own. She couldn't give him a call if he was the one with her number, and not the opposite, right?

"Here!" She said, throwing her nokia phone across the room towards him. It was an old phone, so it could take a hit or two. She knew by experience.

Why in the world do people always throw phones at him?!

Aaah shit. he thought as he threw out his arm to catch the phone. It successfully slapped against his palm, and he quickly typed in his number, name (just as 'Matt') and saved it. He was never good at catching things, but luck was always with him when people tossed phones at him. Just... Not the same with stuff like cookies or pencils..

He set the phone down at the table, then flipped through his own phone to recheck the time. "I guess I'll be going now," the junior announced. He'd be sleeping late if he didn't start studying now. He smiled at her. "I guess I'll see you later?"

Cyra nodded happily.

"Yeah, I hope so." She walked him to the door, even though that only meant a few metres. She might actually have made a friend, and on the first day at that. She just had to make sure she didn't offend him again by any of her personal "traits". She took a hold of his sleeve at the doorway.

"Matt?" She paused, not really knowing what she was meaning to say to him.
"Thanks. The fact that you spent some time with me really meant alot to me, in more ways you can guess." She looked him straight in the eye when she told him this, so that he would know she really meant it. She resisted the urge to hug him, she knew that he probably would not like that.

'Matt' was about to leave the dorm when he felt a tug at his sleeve. ...? He looked back at Cyra, blinking twice in a question. Of course, she answered.

"..." He smiled, gently removing her hand from his sleeve. He barely touched his hand (the one holding her hand, against his chest. The poor child didn't really know what got over him, but this gesture was meant to keep a promise. As if anyone else saw it that way, though. "I'd be happy to do it again any other time."

Calm, he let go of her hand, took a step back and, in an almost princely manner, politely bowed to her. Now that he thought back on it, he couldn't believe he didn't do this yet.

"See you," he said again, smiled, then walked away.

-- Ten steps later --

What the hell was that... 'Matt' thought, pressing his palm against his face.

If he hadn't walked away after he bowed, Matt would've seen Cyras face turn more red than it had been the whole day. The way he had moved her hand to his chest and then bowed just seemed so... gallant? When she had closed the door she leaned towards it and slowly slid down to the floor. Jazz leaped into her lap. She absently patted him on his head as she let her gaze wander.

"Whisper Hallow, huh?" This could be interesting...