He's watched her just as the many hoards of others who roam their school halls have because, in all honesty, who wouldn't? She is absolutely stunning both in conventional beauty and so much more. It is that 'much more' that no one else bothers to look for, it is that 'much more' that has his gaze lingering longer than those around him and it is that 'much more' that had him noticing the invisible weight pulling at her shoulders, that had his brow furrowing as he watched her jaw clenching, her bottom lip disappearing between her teeth to stop its trembling and the bounce of her curls against her back as she rounded the corner into a room he knew to be unoccupied for his class had just let out, his teacher having left the room only minutes ago.

She doesn't know him, has maybe seen him around the corridors once or twice for their school is only a small one but she wouldn't know his name, wouldn't be able to distinguish him from the rest of their classma-

"Robin?"

He'd been looking in the wrong corner of the room for her, had missed the hunched figure on the other side now looking over at him with question in her watery brown eyes. His head snaps to the left, eyes softening at the sight of her, the tracks on her cheeks shimmering in the summer light pouring in from the age dusted windows and he realises that perhaps he's never seen her looking so beautiful, broken but still beautiful.

It is when she repeats his name that he realises she knows it at all, asks how in that idiotic sort of way that will have her throwing him out in seconds with a roll of her dark eyes and no second thought but then her lovely mouth is opening, explaining that they'd had chem together the previous year, had almost been assigned as partners until that Australian student had been transferred in and given to Regina to look after, Rose was her name? He'd damned that girl to the deepest depths of hell that day, until he'd found her to be quite the interesting and lovely of girls.

It didn't matter now, was completely irrelevant because Regina Mills knew his name. It was after he'd gotten over the initial shock, had deemed it acceptable to move further into the room, clicking the door shut softly with his weight against it that he finally asked what he'd followed her to ask.
"Are you okay?"

She looks out to the window now, her jaw jutting ever so and he can see it's not sorrow but anger that had her escaping into the solitude of an empty classroom.

"You don't have to talk about it," he gives then, "you can seethe in silence and I'll leave you to it or," and she looks at him then though he continues looking forward, ignoring the way his heart flutters with just the knowledge that her gaze has finally fallen upon him, "we can ditch this horrible place and go have a little fun, what do you say?"

She lets out a little huff of air at that, a little laugh that he finds completely adorable before she's answering with a raised brow, "promise you're not some kind of stalker creep who's gonna steal a lock of my hair and lock me in the basement for safekeeping?"

And it's him laughing then in both relief and pure amusement, he never really knew of her wit for she wasn't known for much humour in the halls, The Evil Queen Bee was what many called her, idiots who knew nothing of her. "On my honour m'lady."

"I prefer Regina," she adds somewhat quietly, a little vulnerability showing through the mask he makes it his duty to break through.

He smiles warmly then when he turns to find her eyes now light where a deep darkness had been only moments before, "as you wish, Regina."