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The new boy was weird. Too weird.
Matteusz didn’t know what to think of him. He showed up one day out of nowhere, not that this was in any way unusual for Coal Hill. It was more his complete lack of knowledge about everything.
Matteusz knew what it was to be new. He was more than aware that a growing understanding of a new town, a new language, and a strange accent was a set up destined to set you apart from your peers. He himself was dealing with a complete lack of friends because no one cared to get to know the foreign boy.
Until Charlie.
One day in the school and this strange boy takes notice of him. Matteusz would keep catching his eye when he looked to the board. This strange new boy from Sheffield with the soft hair, kind eyes, and bright smile. Matteusz could already tell Charlie was going to be a distraction to his learning.
As he listened to Miss Quill begin to verbally attack another student for daring to ask a question, Matteusz found himself looking to Charlie for his reaction. The brunette looked disdainfully on as the oral assault continued, but he seemed to sense eyes on him.
Charlie turned around with a soft smile. Matteusz lifted his hand in a short wave and watched Charlie’s eyebrows scrunch together in confusion and his teeth make an appearance as he bit his lip. After a moment’s consideration, Charlie lifted his hand and mimicked the gesture. Matteusz couldn’t help the small huff of laughter that escaped his mouth at the movement. It was almost as if Charlie had never seen that form of greeting before. Strange indeed.
That small noise of amusement may have been a mistake however. It seemed Matteusz had stolen Miss Quill’s attention from his poor classmate. She gazed at him in an unimpressed manner before opening her mouth, intent upon sharing her opinion of him with the class.
Before she began her speech anew, she stopped short. She seemed preoccupied with something to Matteusz’s left. Quill closed her mouth before turning around stiffly and with a swift hand, she wrote an equation on the board for the class to agonize over.
Matteusz was preoccupied with the fierce look that he had caught on Charlie’s face. The face that was usually marred by a perpetual pull of confusion, had twisted to something strong. His eyes were fierce, and his jaw set. Charlie had seemed almost regal, as if he was used to having all the power in the room.
Matteusz found it extremely attractive.
Charlie noticed him watching and nodded in his direction. When Matteusz did not react immediately, Charlie lifted his hand in an awkward imitation of his wave from earlier. As far as he was concerned, it was virtually impossible not to smile at such a cute attempt to interact.
The moment was broken when Ram sighed loudly and proclaimed, “She is such a wanker!”
There was a general huff of agreement throughout the room, but Matteusz did not miss the quiet question that Charlie directed to April, “What is a wanker?”
As Matteusz settled into the lesson, that now consisted of more watching of the clueless boy in front of him in the lesson than paying attention to the learning, he reconciled himself with the fact that it seemed his learning was going to suffer due to the distraction in the room.
But as Matteusz watched his distraction run a hand through his hair and inquire to those in the seats next to him about who the celebrity they were gossiping about was, he found that he wasn’t too upset about the strange boy who entered his school out of the blue one day.
In fact, Matteusz found himself very interested in the strange all of the sudden.