As Per Usual Meeting You

By: InkFlow

Chapter 1: We Meet Again and Again

It had been a boring day at school for Ivan Braginski. He went to classes, did his work, and ate lunch with his two sisters, as per usual. He felt that this would just be another day that would pass by, unimportant. But today was important, even if nobody knew it. It was November 7th, a beautiful fall day with a light wind and gorgeous autumn trees dropping their faded orange leaves everywhere to blow in the wind.

For Ivan, it wasn't until the end of the school day that normality decided to take a break and let chaos take over for a bit. Ivan's life would take a skip on its path simply from the coincidental running into Matthew Williams twice in the hallway.

Ivan was at his locker getting the items that he needed for his last class of the day. The hallway was generally quiet with a few students chatting with each other here and there. About to close his locker, Ivan heard it; a voice. There was laughing and the fast pace of feet hitting the ground coming closer and closer to Ivan. It He turned around to see who it was, but he recognized the obnoxious laugh and felt his skin crawl unpleasantly. That was undeniably Alfred F. Jones' laugh.

"Hahahahaha! C'mon it was just a joke Mattie! Hahaha!" Alfred roared behind him as he ran through the halls past Ivan and the few other spectators.

Another prank, Ivan sighed internally for the poor soul that has been on the receiving end of whatever trick Alfred decided to conjure up this time. Ivan was amazed that Alfred was seen in school as much as he was, considering how many times he must have gotten suspended when his pranks went too far, and many a time that was the case.

Ivan and Alfred had a mutual distaste and distrust for each other. The latter for seeing Ivan as too imposing and violent, and the former for being on the receiving end of Alfred's pranks few too many times. It wasn't quite hate in Ivan's mind. They avoided each other enough not to let it get too out of hand, and they were able to put their differences aside to do at least one school project together. Ivan recalls when he and Alfred worked on a small project in their chemistry class without any snide remarks or problems. Granted, Alfred was abnormally quiet and not quite his usual nuisance self, he didn't even attempt to start any fights between them. So Ivan guessed there was a certain degree where they could handle each other.

Ivan caught a quick glance at the running figure of Alfred in his typical wear of clothes and his strange WWII bomber jacket. The Large 50 stitched on the back stared at Ivan as Alfred continued past and pushed through the crowds of the hallway not stopping for anything, much less anyone.

Ivan took note of the set of clothes swinging from Alfred's hand as he ran. It looked to be the standard school gym uniform along with jeans and a red t-shirt. And... underwear? Alfred was holding someone's boxers; little red maple leaves were printed all over them in a dancing manner. Ivan frowned to himself as he realized what Alfred's prank was this time; steal someone's clothes while they showered after their gym class. The prank was classic and evil in every way possible, but Ivan doubted the boy would actually conjure enough trouble to actually be suspended.

Another voice followed after Alfred's. This voice was much quieter, especially when compared to Alfred's own, and had a familiar ring to it that Ivan couldn't quite put his finger on. Even though the second voice was furious at Alfred, it lacked the harshness one would find in any other that had faced the same prank. Ivan tried to listen to what the other was saying before realizing they were yelling in another language. It took a moment before he recognized, of all things, a French swear thrown into the mix of unknown words.

Ivan watched as the receiver of Alfred's prank came into viewing range, and was greeted by an odd and rather disturbing site, but nothing less than what he had expected.

Streaking by was a rather pale dirty blond that look abnormally similar to Alfred, as if they were twins, siblings, or something preposterous like that. As far as Ivan was aware, though, Alfred was an only child. The student was stark naked with nothing more than his hands to cover his shame. As they sped pass Ivan, he noticed a small tattoo on his left shoulder blade in the shape of a little red maple leaf.

The two kept running down the hallway, far beyond Ivan's locker. Ivan couldn't keep from smiling to himself at the strange and amusing scene that had just played before him and the few other students. A hall monitor was not far behind, desperately chasing after them and panting hard from trying to keep up with the two sprinting students. He wore a bright pink vest lined with neon yellow reflector tape, not the typical hall monitor uniform Ivan saw.

"Like stop guys! Jeeze!" Called the little hall monitor. Ivan recognized Feliks, the strange polish boy who has a not-at-all subtle distaste for Ivan. "Like seriously guys, stop! I can't keep up, this is so not cool!" And he ran on trying to keep up with naked boy and Alfred, the two speeding rockets.

Ivan felt his mind wander to naked boy as he painted in his art class. He couldn't wrap his head around the strange look-alikeness to Alfred, and the lingering familiarity of his harsh-lacking French voice. If Ivan recalled right Alfred called naked boy Mattie? That rung some kind of bell, he had heard Alfred talk about a Mattie before, but other than that, Ivan had no clue who he was.

'Someone important?' His head supplied. 'Ridiculous,' Ivan thought.

It was the end of the school day, just after Ivan's art class, and Ivan was feeling well. He may have had a pile of homework to do for the night, but his art class never failed to make the day feel better than it had been.

Ivan slowly walked up to the office to exit through the less crowded side door, Ivan reminded himself that he would be walking home alone for today as both of his sisters were busy. He did not mind, the silent walk would be welcome as opposed to Katyusha's typical chattering about her day and Natalya's constant close contact and murmuring under her breath.

Ivan was walking passed the office when one of the doors leading into the office flew open right in front of him. He was startled by the door and a figure crashed into him upon exiting the office doors. Ivan stumbled from the force of the contact but managed to stay standing. The other who had crashed into Ivan was not so lucky and fell backwards onto whoever was following close behind them. The two screamed as they fell over each other.

Ivan easily regained his balance and curiously looked down at those whom had run into him. He recognized Alfred and Naked boy... Only this time naked boy wasn't naked. He wore the jeans and t-shirt that Alfred was running with earlier, and held a gym uniform in his arms. Naked boy glance up at Ivan through his crooked glasses with wide eyes.

"Oh, sorry about that," Ivan mumbled as he grabbed naked boy by the arm and hoisted him up.

"O-oh, s-sorry. Désolé," the boy whispered in a low, quiet voice while adjusting the wire rimmed glasses on his face and fixing his eyes to the ground, as if afraid to make eye contact with Ivan.

Ivan was about to help Alfred up as well, against his better judgment, but Alfred simply hopped up and onto his feet with a little "Hahaha!" Then promptly turned towards naked boy and started chatting away with him.

"Mattie! Dude! What the-" Alfred stopped himself, noticing Ivan in their way, "Oh, I get it," he growled and glared in Ivan's direction. Alfred's eyes looked up and down Ivan, as if scanning him for any potential weapons that could be hidden on his person.

Ivan couldn't say that he was much to look at right at the moment. His hair was mussed up with bits of paint stuck in his bangs, and his eyes had deep bags under them from staying up late some nights working on his homework after helping Natalya with her own. The rest of his face and hands had various paint splotches on them from his previous art class. Not to mention Ivan's clothes, they were his same worn out jacket, scruffy pink scarf, and dull black boots that he wore near every day. He wasn't surprised to see Alfred scowl at his appearance after looking him over.

"Ya damn commie! Waddaya think you're d-"

"Alfred!" Naked boy hissed, effectively stopping Alfred's tirade before it truly began. Naked boy turned to Ivan, "Sorry about that Ivan, he can be a little quick to judge."

Ivan was going to shrug it off, but stopped upon realizing something. Naked boy called him Ivan, he called him by his name. Did naked boy know Ivan? As far as Ivan was concerned he didn't know naked boy... Did he? They had never met, right? He looked down at the other with confusion on his face before slowly asking "How…How do you know my name?"

Naked boy was confused but took only a moment to comprehend what Ivan had said; he sighed in a way that suggested the question was typical for him and immediately made Ivan feel bad of all things.

"Ivan, we share our chemistry and art class. You do know that, right?" Naked boy said the second part dryly with his arms crossed over his chest still holding the gym clothes. His eyes peered up at Ivan through his glasses squinting slightly as he gave Ivan a look. Are you kidding me right now?

Ivan paused and thought for a moment, a little alarm went off in his head as he vaguely recalled a quiet student in both of the classes. He had assumed them to be Alfred.

"We worked together on a small chemistry project together..." The teen continued his attempt to refresh Ivan's memory.

"But, I thought that was Alf-"

"Please." Naked boy sneered in a way that made it seem as if he was anticipating Ivan's comment.

"Hey!" Alfred finally felt it time to intervene in the conversation he obviously held little interest in, "C'mon bro. Let's go home. He obviously doesn't remember who you are, so we don't have to deal with this," he snaked his arm over naked boy's shoulder, giving Ivan a look of disdain.

Naked boy looked thoroughly pissed at that point, he grabbed Alfred's arm and jerked it off his shoulder. "OK! For one thing, you have detention to go to again, because of that stupid prank you played on me earlier. And who are you the one to go off judging people on who remembers me and such? You're my goddamn brother and you forget who I am sometimes. Not to mention how you almost always ignore me unless it involves pranking me with help from your bloody friends or dragging me into one of your stupide pranks when your friends won't agree to help! Now go to detention before I drag you there and insist on a worse punishment for dad to give you than what he already has planned!" Naked boy's voice had gone dark as he spoke, and while he couldn't understand all of what was said, Ivan could feel the anger and venom in every word. Naked boy huffed from his rant and began to stomp off towards the now clear front door, leaving Ivan dumbfounded and yet very amused; while Alfred sputtered words, scared at the sudden outburst directed at him.

"Bu-but Mattie..." Alfred's voice trailed off, "I won't do it again, I promise," Alfred said softly.

"Whatever," naked boy, no Mattie, grumbled, still heading to the front door, "Hoser," he whispered for no one but himself to hear.

Alfred immediately turned to face Ivan and glared at him shoving his pointer finger in Ivan's face, "This," he gestured to his brother, "Is all your fault," and then headed in the direction of the detention classroom, leaving Ivan without a word in otherwise.

Ivan was pissed that Alfred blamed his brother's rant on him. However his anger was shoved aside and replaced by curiosity for dubbed brother, Mattie.

"Wait up!" Ivan called, jogging out the door in Mattie's direction.

Mattie slowed and turned to partially face Ivan. His face softened a bit when he saw it wasn't his brother, but remained strained regardless. Ivan easily caught up with him.

"What do you want Ivan?" Mattie asked, his tone biting with Ivan's name.

"I was wondering if you would like to walk with me home until we have to part ways. Da?" Ivan suggested.

Mattie stopped and looked up at Ivan skeptically. Ivan once again felt amusement at the other's actions.

"Well... umm, sure. That sounds fine, I-I guess," Mattie said almost reluctantly. He fixed his eyes back down to the ground as they slowly began walking away from the school together.

"Good," Ivan replied smiling like a kid who was trying to show off a tooth he had just lost, though most of it was covered up by his scarf.

There was a long pause between the two. They walked in silence turning at certain corners as they needed. Much of their path home was identical, and Ivan could not help but feel the increasing awkward air that the silent walking provoked with every turn. Ivan couldn't stand it, he needed to break it, but carefully, something he was never good at.

"So, Alfred is your brother?" He made sure not to ask 'you're Alfred's brother?' in feeling that it would poke a sensitive spot for Mattie, where people only recognized Alfred and Alfred's brother.

"Yeah. We're twins, I guess you could say. But everyone always mistakes me for Alfred," Mattie looked down and fixed his eyes onto his feet.

Ivan nodded and looked down to the ground but still kept his head high enough to see when he would need to turn. "Like I did," he said apologetically, "I am sorry for that, I didn't mean to get you two mixed up," Ivan hated apologizing, it always brought a dirty feeling to his mouth, but he knew that if he didn't do it now, in this circumstance, he would feel like a complete ass and he did not want that.

He wanted to know Mattie, Ivan did not know why, he never felt that way about other people, but now the genuine curiosity was undeniable. And the only way to learn about others was to be delicate around them. Use the right mix of humor and send the right social cues and your one-time conversation partner could turn into someone worthwhile. Something Ivan had never been good at, making friends, but Mattie's demeanor gave him a strange twinge of hope.

Matthew looked up at Ivan, who was still keeping his eyes near the ground. No one had ever really apologized so sincerely for forgetting or mistaking him for his brother. The only other person to actually do that was Gilbert, and even he wasn't as sincere as Ivan was being right now. Matthew smiled at Ivan's apology.

"Thanks Ivan. And it's okay, people get us mixed up all the time, I'm fairly used to it," he replied still smiling, that apology had made his day.

"You mean to tell me that no one ever mistook Alfred for you?" Ivan joked.

"As hard as it is to believe, no one has," Matthew followed the playful tone.

Ivan looked up turning a different direction from Matthew who continued forward into the park he needed to go through. Ivan spoke up, "I'm sorry but I need to go this way to reach my house."

Matthew's smile faded as he saw his new friend heading the other way. He didn't want Ivan to go so soon, they were just beginning to hit it off. He couldn't let Ivan leave now, "Do you wanna walk through the park with me?" Matthew asked looking back at Ivan, "It gets pretty lonely walking on my own and the park isn't too large so it won't add much time to your own walk back to your house," he smiled softly hoping to convince Ivan to elongate their short conversation, or at least spend a bit more time with someone so sincere.

"It wouldn't hurt," Ivan shrugged, "I don't need to be home right away since my sisters are both busy after school today," he followed Matthew who was heading into the park.

"You have sisters?" Matthew asked.

"Da, I do."

"What are their names?"

"Katyusha, my older sister, and Natalya, my younger sister," Ivan walked on more and furrowed his eyebrows a bit, "You know, I still don't have your full name."

"Hmm?" Matthew picked up on Ivan's use of the words "full name" as if he did know Matthew's first name at least, and didn't blatantly ask who he was earlier, "My name is Matthew, Matthew Williams," he answered.

"Matthew?" Ivan looked as if he had remembered him, just a little though, "There are many Matthew's at our school, can I give you a nick name?"

"Uhh, sure," Matthew had never been asked if he could be given a nickname, he just assumed they were dealt out freely as a term of endearment or, more often than not, as mocking chants to those no one bothered to learn the name of, like himself.

"Hmm…" Ivan thought over it long and hard, every passing second made Matthew's stomach flutter with anticipation, "If I remember correctly there is a nice Russian variation to the name Matthew, it's, Matvey. Do you mind if I call you that?"

"No, it's wonderful." Matthew felt a burst of happiness from his stomach, a nickname that was all intended for him and held no malicious intent. Matthew couldn't keep the smile from his face.

This was going to be a wonderful friendship indeed.

A/N: I'm cleaning this mess of a story from four years ago. I'm cleaning it and then I'm going to fucking finish it. Don't think I've forgotten or given up on this story, it's been haunting me for years.

Matthew unknowingly switches from French to English in his rant.