[OOC: Permission to use office granted, courtesy of Cold Steel.]

"I guess I just need some time to get used to checking what's behind the doors before I enter,"

“I’m guessing that you’re gonna learn the hard way.” Alexandra said with a feigned dramatic look. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” The molecule manipulator kept the serious look on her face for a few more minutes before starting to laugh. Seriously, the kid was gonna learn it the hard way.

"So... Where are we headed?"

After glancing slightly at the office’s door, she turned back to Matty once again. “This is Sam and Shawn’s office, they’re in charge with the enrollment stuff.” Taking a breath, she turned her attention to the door and knocked a few times. Blinking lazily, she waited for an answer.

None.

Okay, where were the two? Alexandra looked at Matty, smiling slightly as she knocked again. Still receiving no answer. So what was she supposed to do now with Matty? Have him stay around doing nothing until Sam came back? She could have stayed with him but she was already late for her job at the Infirmary. Oh well. She could try-

Her hand moved on to the knob, rotating it. Lucky Matty. The door creaked open as she stuck her head trough. Nope, no one was there. Hmm, who would leave and let the door of the office unlocked. Pulling her head back, she looked at Sammy, shrugging slightly. “Well, apparently, none of them is here… but let’s go in. I’ll get you the enrollment form and find you a room then talk with one of them later.” Pushing the door open, Alexandra entered the office and walked toward Sam’s desk.

“I’m guessing that you’re gonna learn the hard way. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Matty laughed with her. It was good that they could joke around like this. It really did clear any tension that had been in the air. Before he had sworn that he couldn't cut it with a fine-edged sword, but not he could step lightly through it like the early morning mist. Besides, he was going to learn it the hard way.

"This is Sam and Shawn’s office, they’re in charge with the enrollment stuff." Names didn't quite help right now. Sam and Shawn? Hopefully he could connect faces with names. He was told they were in charge of enrollment, so he knew that much. Maybe he could meet them, too.

Or maybe not. She knocked again. Or was it the first time? He didn't know. He was a bit tense and confused. Shouldn't people always at least be there? He could fell himself tensing up and getting antsy. He couldn't control it. He had to just go with it and hope that it'll all work out in the end. Even when they don't, and will not in any foreseeable future. He swallowed air, feeling a lump in his throat. He breathed out silently, but it did wonders for his psyche. He was becoming slightly more relaxed. Not much at all, but it was a start, and practice as this will make perfect eventually.

She turned the knob and opened the door. He had no clue what was up. Were they in there, sleeping? Or something worse? He imagined the worst case scenario. Someone would run up with a rag soaked in chloroform and take him, and he would wake up in a bathtub full of ice with no kidneys. Or maybe they'd be nice enough to leave him one.

He put his hand against his head and smoothed back his hair a bit. That was enough of those thoughts. Of course that wasn't going to happen. His imagination was playing tricks on him again, forcing him to believe the false. He was so weird sometimes. And he acknowledged it.

"Well, apparently, none of them is here… but let’s go in. I’ll get you the enrollment form and find you a room then talk with one of them later." And find him a room? He grinned. On the outside, he was simply pleased with the situation. But mentally, he was throwing a party. He was knocking over lamps that fixed themselves with strobe lights everywhere and every single person from every single band Matty liked was on a stage performing a huge group rendition of some song he had never heard. But it was great. And there he was, with Alexandra, and his parents, and his old friends, and Roxy. And as soon as the thought entered his head, it retreated; it gave him only a taste. He had to focus on now and the future, not any of this stuff.

"Yeah... That would be great. I'm just gonna need to get some stuff from home, though. Are there any cars or something here? I'd rather not have to jump all the way back to Connecticut." Maps were funny things. On them, the distance from New York to Connecticut was minuscule, almost negligible, like Connecticut was just a large residential area of New York. Matty really knew the distance. And it wasn't negligible. But there was also the problem of having to deal with his parents... Maybe he could ask Alexandra to go with him to get his stuff? After all, he didn't have his driver's license with him, as his parents probably thought he was dead...

No. No, he couldn't shove his own problems on her. They weren't hers to deal with. Matty had to deal with them on his own. Right? Even so, having someone there always will help, even just a little bit...

All that aside, what could he possibly say?

'Sorry mom, I ran away because I'm a mutant who can jump abnormally high and far and now I'm in a school somewhere in New York but I promise I'll be safe!' He sounded like he was trying to convince them to buy a new puppy. Maybe they would just tell him to get out. In that case, he'd have to do some kind of stealthy move or something to get his stuff... That or he would have to do without. He doubted he'd be getting any sleep for months after the encounter with his parents. It could go incredibly good, or incredibly bad. He was leaning toward incredibly bad. Wasn't he always? Add that to another list of things he needs to just stop doing...

He fiddled with his zipper. Maybe he should just focus on what he was going to say rather than the sensitivity of the whole situation? Whatever. He didn't want to think anymore. He just wanted to have five seconds to himself on a comfortable bed. Matty was exhausted.

"Yeah... That would be great. I'm just gonna need to get some stuff from home, though. Are there any cars or something here? I'd rather not have to jump all the way back to Connecticut."

Alexandra stopped for a moment, turning her body back to Matty, chuckling at his jumping comment. Jump back to Connecticut? That would have been pretty interesting to see. “Cars you say?” she asked as she walked over to Sam’s chair and let herself sink into it. “As far as I know the cars around here have owners.” Placing a hand on the desk, she tapped her fingers against it as she thought about the situation.

So what exactly she could do with the boy? But first: “Well, take a seat for now till we think this over.” The molecule manipulator gestured toward one of the two empty chairs in front of the desk as the tapping on the wooden surface continued.

“Listen, you wanna go now to get your stuff?” After looking at Matty for a few more moments after her question, the movement of her fingers stopped and her eyes shifted to the drawers to her right. Rotating the chair in the same direction and arching her back, Alexandra reached for the bottom drawer. “Cause if you can wait for a few more days I think that I can drive you over there. If you’re in a hurry I can ask around the mansion, maybe one of the residents can help you.” The drawer was pulled open. No enrollment forms over there. Instead, she found other interesting items in there. From what she could guess, a change of clothes, complete with underwear which lay on top of other pieces. Oh dear. Blue colored underwear and an half naked lady holding playing cards drawn on them while ‘lady luck’ was scattered all over the texture. With a blank look on her face she straightened up. “Oh my-”

Matty. Was still there. And he didn’t need to know what tastes in underwear her boyfriend had. “I think I just saw a huge cockroach under the chair.” Alexandra continued, disguising the shocked expression with a cough. She couldn’t do much about the reddish hint that her cheeks had gained except turn her head back to the right. After glancing for another moment at the piece, she shook her head and pushed the drawer back. Taking a small breath she reached for the top drawer and opened it, wondering if anything as surprising as blue underwear would make an appearance. Fortunately, it was just paper. Enrollment forms. Super. Her fingers grabbed one and with the other hand she pushed the drawer back. The paper was pushed forward toward Matty and with one short move she picked one of the pens from their support and placed it on top of it. Now. Back to Matty. “Ah, also I think that you’d like to know that the mansion has clothes and other items which you can borrow until you get your own things.” Smiling slightly, Alexandra leaned on the chair. Lady Luck underwear, huh? Man, it was like she had peeked at Sam’s behind. Again.

The Koch snowflake is a mathematical curve and one of the earliest fractal curves to have been described... Shin thought to himself as he walked down the hall, book in-hand. Based on a special case of the Césaro curve, where a = 1/2 + i/sqrt2... hrm... Shin tried to imagine that equation in his head. His forehead crinkled as he pictured a line segment, then recursively altered it. A triangle shot across the green field of his imagination to divide the line into three equal segments. First step down. That was good. His chin rose towards the ceiling as he stumbled onwards, dreamily imagining step two. He took up the middle segment of line 1 from step 1 and created an equilateral triangle using it as a base, pointed outwards. As the final step, he removed the line segment that was the base of the triangle from step 2.

He let out a sigh of relief, and went over the process again in his mind, mumbling thoughts to himself... "Start with equilateral... rather than... line segment... repeat, ad infinitum." Each time the process recurred and the curve was repeated... each time the process was repeated on a line segment in the figure, the effect made four times as many line segments, the length of each being one-third the length of the segments in the previous stage.... into infinity... Shin's eyes widened as he glanced back down at the textbook in his hand and nearly ran into a wall. "Fascinating." An infinite length... "Continuous everywhere, differentiable nowhere." The mind boggled. An infinite perimeter enclosing a finite area! And so...

What did that mean? Shin frowned. He tried to imagine the applications. With increasing complexity came increasing difficulty dealing with the math... if he could understand the underlying principles of it, then maybe... maybe...

"Maybe. Shin paused. His eyes rose to look where he was.

In his wanderings, he'd seemed to move towards his office. He was nearly there, but now... now, he was outside Sam and Streak's office, and the lights were on... but hadn't Sam told him they'd both be busy today? Something like that... Shin frowned as he walked towards the door and peered inside. He snapped his textbook shut, creating a loud sound behind the two people within the room, then slipped the closed text underneath his arm. An eyebrow arced. "Just what's going on in here?"

"Cars you say? As far as I know the cars around here have owners.” Matty couldn't tell if she was being serious or slightly teasing him. He thought of laughing a bit, but she wasn't. So, what, was she serious? He cleared his throat a bit and didn't speak up. He wasn't trying to get attention either. He didn't know how clearing one's throat turned into asking for attention over the years. But that was the wonder of hundreds upon hundreds of years of evolving mannerisms.

Even the middle finger was older than Matty had originally thought. Until one day, bored, he decided to look it up on the internet. He found that English longbow-men would show the French their middle fingers, which was the finger they used to fire their arrows. When the French captures the longbow-men, they typically cut off their middle fingers. The finger was an act of saying 'You can't have this!', which evolved into what it is now. It was interesting. Maybe Matty could be an expert on mannerisms in Europe and the United States. That would be a great thing to have a PhD in.

He found himself wandering away from the topic at hand, just in time to hear Alexandra talk. Lucky him. “Well, take a seat for now till we think this over.”[/color] He took a seat, and decided to switch the tracks underneath his train of thought. Or, at least, he laid the tracks before she spoke once more. It wasn't like he didn't value her trying to help him. Matty was extremely grateful for that. It was Matty's issue, not hers. He had an active mind.

“Listen, you wanna go now to get your stuff?” She looked at him, and he only shrugged. He was going to speak, he didn't even get to take a breath for speaking when she continued. “Cause if you can wait for a few more days I think that I can drive you over there. If you’re in a hurry I can ask around the mansion, maybe one of the residents can help you.”[/i]

This was good. He wanted to go as soon as he could. He had too much stuff that his parents might throw away. Or keep in a safe. Matty didn't know which was more likely.

"Um, if you don't mind, I'd rather get my stuff as soon as I can." He left it at that. He didn't want to go into details until he was at his house or on the way back or something. Just... Not now. He didn't want to think of what he was losing entirely too much. He might as well just start having an emotional meltdown now. After all, everything he had even known or loved was now completely unavailable to him until he mustered up the courage to finally tell his parents that he's a mutant.

She pulled open a drawer. Were the forms there? She was looking at it. So, maybe she had to scan it over first. That seemed perfectly reasonable. After all, schools tended to have many forms... “Oh my-”[/i]

He cocked his head to the side. What did she just find? Whatever it was, it didn't appear to be the forms Matty so desperately needed. He knew this was going to happen, he knew he wouldn't get in and he knew that he would have to wait out on the streets until they got more forms and then he'll be forgotten and fade into non-existence, just another bum on the streets... He coughed and partially hid his face under his hand. He took a short, but deep breath and let it out as silently as he could before returning his hand to his lap.

“I think I just saw a huge cockroach under the chair.”[/i] Right.

"...Oh." He didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. He was fine with letting the topic switch. She coughed as well. For the same reason as Matty? Or was it more embarrassing?She checked another drawer. He wondered, how many more chairs could she see cockroaches under? One thing was certain, she was running out of smooth escapes like that one.

The forms! His morale, and faith, restored, he looked it over. It wasn't... Exciting. It was normal. Well, as normal as it could get in a place like this. She put a pen on top of the paper, and he took them both, reading it over, and beginning to fill out the relevant information. How to list his parents? He thought of having them listed as deceased. But that was dumb, and full of holes that could possible be poked. He'd save that for later. He was lingering on that one for too long.

“Ah, also I think that you’d like to know that the mansion has clothes and other items which you can borrow until you get your own things.”[/i]

"Oh, great!" So now he didn't have to go naked. Wonderful.

"Just what's going on in here?" Matty jumped slightly at the new, unexpected voice. His thoughts then returned to when they entered. They weren't exactly allowed in, so he figured they looked suspicious. But wouldn't this person know Alexandra? He turned to her, hoping that she can handle the situation. Matty knew he couldn't.

(Sorry for the late post, I've been sick. Getting better, though, so that's always good )

[OOC: No problem Matty. Glad you're feeling better ]

Her fingers started to tap against the desk again, this time at a slowed rate as she leaned back on the chair. From time to time, her eyes would trail to the ceiling watching the rotation of the ceiling fan absently. Apparently, besides Lady Luck underwear Sam also had a thing with ceiling fans. Although she admitted that ceiling fans were good for distraction. Blue eyes lowered back to Matty from time to time to see how he was doing. Alexandra could see him thinking for a longer time before writing and wondered what exactly it was causing problems. Something to hide, perhaps. Not her business anyway, and she turned her attention back to the ceiling fan. That is, until a sound caught her attention. Blue eyes snapped to the door to see Shin’s figure standing there, a book in hand, an eyebrow arched quizzically at her and Matty.

"Just what's going on in here?"

A smile wasn’t late to appear on the molecule manipulator’s face. The tapping stopped as she shifted her position slightly. “Hello, Shin.” she replied. Alexandra glanced at Matty. He was looking at her. Smiling reassuringly for him, she looked back at Shin. “This is Matty.” A small hand gestured toward the boy for a moment before being placed back on the desk. “He want to enroll here and I came here to look for Sam or Shawn to help him with the papers. Didn’t find any of them apparently” She sighed softly as she looked around the room as if to prove her point. “There was no point in keeping Matty waiting. I could help him fill a paper too.” With a shrug, she tapped her index finger against the desk once, blue eyes locked on the Asian’s figure.

Shin's eyes rolled from Alexandra to the other person in the room and back, as she explained.

>>"This is Matty. He wants to enroll her..."

Shin nodded understandingly. "Oh, okay. Need any help? There are a couple more forms in that drawer there." Shin pointed to the one she'd opened prior to finding the actual forms within. The one with the nude lady playing cards? Yeah. "Here, can I?" He slid past her, darting his hand underneath the layer of junk to retrieve an important form. He held it out for her with a half-smile. "Sam always did have a 'mess' problem."

Stepping away, Shin turned to face Matty with his arms crossed. "So, what brings you to the mansion? I'll bet she already asked, but I haven't been filled in," He added the last part with a smirk. "Tell me about yourself."

“Hello, Shin.” So, his name was Shin. Just knowing his name made things a bit less tense, and he immediately felt like a fool for flinching like he did. He looked back down to his form. His parents were left blank, but he proceeded to check over everything else. It was all fine. He hastily scrawled his parents' names: Nicholas and Christina. Wait, did he need to put last names, or his mother's maiden name? He figured he didn't. He was done. He set it back down. He let them talk to one another to give him time to think.

He wondered how his parents were doing back home. They must be worried sick, absolutely sick. Even more reason to get back home as soon as possible. He imagined their reactions. His mother would be in disbelief and overcome with joy. She would practically smother him, she would offer to do this, that, everything. His dad might crack a smile. He wondered which was more improbable, his mother literally suffocating him or his father grinning, heaven forbid actually giving Matty a hug. His dad was great to him when he was a kid, but as he got older, his father must have assumed that Matty was too old for all that stuff. He became more like a college roommate rather than a father.

Still, he was the only dad Matty had, and he was a pretty good one at that. He was good at giving advice, Matty knew that well. He could turn to him for anything. Anything except emotion. His dad wasn't one to show his emotions too much. Sure, he laughed and cried and did everything humans did, but... Matty didn't know. There was something distant about him. Like he knew something Matty didn't. He dismissed the thought to the back of his head. That was preposterous. Now, it was nothing more than a wispy breeze of a thought.

He gave her a form. Was that another one for him? Matty doubted it. It was probably something the staff had to fill in. Or just... Someone else that was trusted. He didn't know how these boarding schools worked. He hoped he was old enough. Or, on that note, young enough. He had completed high school not too long before he left, and was looking at different colleges. 'No rush,' his parents always told him. After all, fifty year olds go to college. Being a year late wouldn't be weird at all.

"So, what brings you to the mansion? I'll bet she already asked, but I haven't been filled in, tell me about yourself." Matty now noticed that she didn't really ask him a whole lot. He appreciated that, silently.

"Well, I kind of... Dropped in. My... Mutant power, I guess you'd call it, is just jumping really high and far, and I was trying it out, and I could barely see where I was going, so I ended up falling right on the lawn here. Alexandra saw me and... Yeah, here we are now." He hoped that would be sufficient.

Shin seemed nice enough. Most people did at this place, which was something Matty was thankful for. At his school, there were two cliques and they barely interacted at all. It was kind of sad, but that was high school. It seemed a lot more mature here. Maybe he should ditch the jacket... No. He wouldn't. He couldn't. It was his favorite article of clothing. That, and it was really comfortable.

He thought, at least from first impressions, that he was going to like it here. It was such a new experience... Matty hoped it wouldn't overwhelm him, at least not more than it already had.

“Shin-”

Alexandra closed her mouth helplessly as Shin slid past her and opened the drawer, Lady Luck smiling at her once again. Sighing as the red on her cheeks gained another shade she decided to extend her hand to receive the piece of paper. “Yeah, mess.” she agreed when she was handed the paper. A small though about how Sam would feel about her and Shin discovering his tastes in underwear crossed her mind before it was dismissed back in a secret corner of her mind.

While Matty was answering Shin’s question, the molecule manipulator glanced slightly at the paper, half listening to Matty. “I think I heard you first.” she added with a smirk, eyes trailing to Matty as she spoke then back to the paper. After reading for a few more seconds, she placed the paper down as she looked up at Shin. “Shin, do you happen to know someone around the mansion who can drive Matty to Connecticut to pick up his stuff?” she asked before shifting her attention to Matty. “You ready with that? If you are, then read this then sign here and here.” A finger tapped lightly on two dotted lines upon the paper before pushing it toward him, blue eyes focused on the young man as she waited for the answer.

Dropped... in. Well, there'd been more vague descriptions he'd dealt with. And then came the mutant's description of his mutation, and Shin got the joke. Oh, dropped in, like he fell... aha!

"So, you jump good? Wish I could jump good," Shin replied. Like Samurai Jack, or some sort of ninja. Wait... this kid... Matty... wasn't, was he? Ninja these days didn't wear the crazy masks and black jumpsuits they did in samurai geisha films. They wore headbands and looked American... if American anime conventions were any meter by which to gauge... Which, Shin hoped, they weren't.

A moment later, Alex asked Shin a question.

>>“Shin, do you happen to know someone around the mansion who can drive Matty to Connecticut to pick up his stuff?”

Shin paused and turned the thought over in his mind, like a child in need of a spanking. Someone who could drive him to Connecticut, drive him to Connecticut, drive him to... That was kind of a long ways. Who had a free day and would be willing... a sudden thought struck Shin (kinda like a slapping hand). Of course!

"Hold on a minute, let me call someone and check." Shin held up a hand, and walked out of the room to lean against the hall's wall. A minute later, he popped back in. "Well, I just got off the phone with a certain guy at my work place, Full Circle. Aurum has a day off the day after tomorrow. I begged and pleaded, and eventually he agreed to help you out. He's going to borrow his family's van. That should give you enough room."

Shin walked back into the room and had a seat. He crossed his arms. "That work for you?"

((OOC: Aurum is an NPC. You all can handwave the trip to get the stuff from Connecticut and say they did it off-camera. Plus, this gives Matty a chance to meet Aurum/visit Full Circle if he wants. PM me if you have any questions. Aurum's profile is up in the NPC section of the site.))

(Sorry for not responding in so long, I've been really exhausted lately! Dx)

“I think I heard you first.”[/color] He grinned at the joke. Did he shout? He doubted it. He bet it was just from the impact of his body to the ground. And he did roll. That was kind of embarrassing. But did he say anything after? Probably.

He was an odd person, if he wasn't odd already. Talking to himself helped calm him down and helped him sort out his thoughts. He never really understood why, maybe it was just the fact that voices helped him calm down, and his was the only one available all the time. That had to be it.

"So, you jump good? Wish I could jump good,"[/color] Matty nodded. Well, if he wanted it so bad, he could have it. Matty doubted they'd both be that lucky. Even though he would shortly have a new place to call home, a new place to live, he wanted things to be the way they were before.

He wasn't keen on meeting many new people at once. It was overwhelming to him. He wasn't exactly antisocial, but he preferred to be alone. It was introspective. Yeah, introspective. He knew he should save that one for later. It would be great. Or, rather than antisocial, simply unsocial. He wasn't against it by any means, he just wanted to be alone sometimes. Most of the time.

He didn't talk to himself while he was alone. He wrote a lot. He didn't ever write on one specific topic. He wrote whatever came to mind that was worthy of being saved. Stuff that he couldn't normally access on his computer. He had notes on everything, strewn across his old desk. His parents would always make him clean them up, and all he did was gather them up and put a rubber band around them. By the next day, there was his small pile, surrounded by more assorted notes.

He wished he had his notepad now. Or anything, really. He just wanted his stuff so that this place would feel like a home to him. No matter how comfortable he gets here, it won't be home. It'll be a home, but not home. There was a difference. A big difference that Matty never explained to anyone. But there was, like the difference between plant and animal.

"Hold on a minute, let me call someone and check."[/color] He nodded. He hoped that someone would come through. He needed to go home, just one last time, to say goodbye to everything. He wouldn't literally pick up the objects spread across his room and his house, but he would take one last look and walk away from his old life. How cliche. Matty hoped he could use less of those in life. He never liked cliches, they annoyed him. They were just... Everywhere. He wanted to be himself, not everyone else. That in itself was a cliche. How ironic.

"Well, I just got off the phone with a certain guy at my work place, Full Circle. Aurum has a day off the day after tomorrow. I begged and pleaded, and eventually he agreed to help you out. He's going to borrow his family's van. That should give you enough room. That work for you?"[/color] Matty didn't know what Full Circle was. Or what kind of a name Aurum was. Regardless, Matty was glad for Aurum at Full Circle. He missed the kindness of strangers. It was much more genuine than the kindness of friends. Many friends are kind simply because they are just that: friends. Strangers had no need, no possible reward for being kind unless explicitly states beforehand. Matty had said nothing, offered nothing on his part but his thanks. And they would grant his wish.

"Yes, of course, that will be great." He smiled once more. Maybe he could shave and shower at home and come out looking like a whole new person. Or, at least, looking like he had no more disguise. Maybe the stubble look would work for him, though. That would be cool. Guys with stubble looked tougher, or at least older. Either way, Matty would rather not pick a fight with them if given the option.

Still, he would be going home. That was definite, concrete now. How would he break it to his parents? He'd think of it on the way there. Connecticut wasn't exactly a hop, skip and a jump away.

Well, depends on who's hopping, skipping and jumping.

Alexandra cleared her throat to get Matty’s attention as her finger continued to tap on the paper. A smile appeared on her lips. “Have you finished that paper?” she asked again. The molecule manipulator retracted her hand from on top of the paper and placed it on her lap. Letting out a small breath, she leaned back into the chair casually glancing at Shin.

“If you’ll sign that paper” Blue eyes traveled to the piece of paper and stopped there for a moment before trailing up to Matty. “then you’re officially enrolled to Xavier’s Sister School.” Placing her hands on top of the desk Alexandra pushed herself up. “But read first.” With this last advice being told, Alexandra walked around the desk, sliding past Shin and moved toward a panel that hung on the wall, several keys pinned to it. “Free rooms, yes?” Alexandra asked, glancing at Shin over her shoulder before returning her attention to the panel.

The panel was separated into three sections, one for the boys’ wing, other for the girls’ and the last for adults. Pursing her lips together for a short moment, Alexandra turned around. “Matty, how old are you?”

>>"Yes, of course, that will be great."

So it was settled, then. Shin turned towards Alexandra with a stupid smile on his face. He was a hero. Now where was his confetti?

It wasn't on that wall. The wind faltered in Shin's sails as Alexandra slipped past him to grab a key. "Yup," The Asian nodded with restraint. "Though, usually I double-check on the good ol' PC. That way, I can see if the room is for a guy or a girl, whether he'd have a roommate, see if that key was a spare. You know. Basic stuff."

And usually, he got his keys from the desk drawer. He supposed Sam changed the arrangement of his office while Shin had been away.

The panel separated. High tech. Yup. Definitely new.

Shin skittered to the good ol fashioned PC and drummed up some information the low-tech way. "Let's see here..."

>>“Matty, how old are you?”

Shin glanced up at Matty, listening for the answer. Fingers tapped on the keyboard silently as he waited.

"“Have you finished that paper?"

He glanced upwards quickly at Alexandra, a look of almost 'Don't hurt me!' on his eyes. Way to make a first impression by completely disregarding the paper. Ten points. Maybe he can be awarded a gold star while he's at it? League MVP? He looked back down to the paper. It was all filled out. He nodded.

"Yeah, it is. Sorry!" He figured apologizing could close the rift, sew the tear of first impressions. So, what had they learned? He was forgetful. Great quality. Mentally, he sighed. First impressions weren't always right, and they should know that. After all, they were mutants. Nobody's first impression of mutants is right. Even Matty's. His wasn't really too long ago. Maybe it didn't count. Or maybe he was right. He hoped he wasn't. Oh dear, he hoped he wasn't.

“If you’ll sign that paper then you’re officially enrolled to Xavier’s Sister School.”[/color] If. Hah. Like he would hesitate. Like he knew what he was getting himself in to.

He signed it quickly. His signature was messy, as was the rest of his writing. It still had some kind of pleasing aesthetic underneath the messiness. It was kind of like street graffiti, but quicker. It was rather funny, Matty would never do any graffiti on anything. He wouldn't even write on his desks in school, let alone spraypaint under a bridge or something.

“But read first.”[/color] He nodded, "I did."

He did read. He wouldn't ever sign anything without reading first. It was his level of comprehension that would be the thing to look out for. All of this excitement could have clouded his better judgment. He could have read 'cage matches every monday' and agreed, noting 'I hope there's extra tickets!'.

Maybe it was his paranoia, or his parents always telling him to make sure of what he got himself into. How ironic. They were the very people one could say he was running from.

“Matty, how old are you?”[/color] Oh boy. That was the second question he didn't want asked. With his stubble, he doubted that she'd believe him at first.

"I'm 19. Really, once I shave you'll see it. Facial hair makes me look ten years older than I actually am." Sure, he was a little tense. He wasn't lying, but would she know that? Would Shin know that? He hoped so. He wanted to shave. He really, really wanted to shave and stop looking homeless.

He wondered what the room would look like. He bet it would be kind of like a college dorm, but maybe a bit bigger. Would he have a roommate? He hoped not. At least, he hoped that he would have someone that he could stand if he had to have a roommate. Someone that liked the same kind of music as him. And someone who could suggest new stuff for Matty to enjoy. He liked new things. He should be ecstatic about this situation. This is all as new as it gets. He was basically starting his life over completely. It'll hit him later. And when it hits him, it'll be much worse than any wall he might miscalculate.

Alexandra found herself laughing at Matty’s comment. Turning around with a smile still on her lips, she looked at the boy, actually trying to imagine him without the facial hair. Her head was tilted to the side. Yeah, he’d probably look much younger if he shaved. But… back at the problem at hand.

“19?” A hand was brought up to her chin in the perfect imitation of the thinking pose. “That means the adult rooms, I think.” Blue eyes traveled at Shin as the Asian was checking the virtual data on the Mansion free rooms. “Am I right Shin?” She asked as the hand slid away from her chin and rested upon her hip as she shifted her weight from a leg to the other.