The boy looked at him quizzically and nodded with a polite smile on his face, "Alright. Well about that tour, did you want one?"
The people that were huddled in the group that the guy had just walked out of were all grumbling to themselves, complaining and grumbling about lots of different things.
"He's leaving us for him?" one asked.
"That guy's so weird..." said another.
Whilst others were just laughing at Josh and Tom, instead of doing anything, the guy that had walked up to them pretended to be unable to hear his friends talking about and mocking them. Josh could almost feel blood vessels surging in his head, he felt as though the veins in his forehead were all about to pop. However, Tom just stood where he was, rooted on the ground, an indifferent expression plastered on his face.
Tom grasped Josh's arm gently and pulled it back slightly to stop Josh from doing anything rash, not that he would've anyway, but Josh turned his head to gaze at Tom and understood what he had meant. His intense gaze softened and he also chose to ignore the group of gossipers.
"Sure, I'll take the tour," he replied, an expression of indifference, greatly mirroring Tom's.
Tom looked him over and nodded when Josh looked his way, indicating that if he wanted to go he wouldn't mind following along too. Then the guy started walking away, but as he walked he turned so he could wave them over. The boys both chose to follow him and they were led through the campus grounds into the university.
As they were walking along the grounds with the guy they'd never seen before, lots of different people walked up to them and started talking to them. After the people gathering had greeted Josh and Tom they would instantly move away from them to talk to the guy who Josh and Tom were following.
He was supposedly well-liked, which was shown by the number of people who had come over to ask about his holiday and other trivial matters such as this. After beginning to talk to the guy, no one paid another glance at Josh or Tom.
They were practically invisible to everyone, no one cared about them but only about the guy who had offered them a tour. Josh sighed at the difference in treatment and smiled to himself, it didn't honestly bother him if people chose to openly ignore him. He held little care for their opinions and was only really concerned about Tom's since they'd been such good friends for so long.
He took this opportunity to steal a glance at Tom, Tom looked utterly bored, the guy they had been following had stopped due to getting pulled into a seemingly lengthy conversation, so they'd been standing here for the last few minutes or so. Tom still had an indifferent expression on his face and he was playing with the straps of his bag as he waited.
Josh smiled at the sight and moved closer to Tom to join him, he carefully took one of the straps Tom was holding, this cause him to look at Josh questioningly. "What's up...?" his smooth and quiet voice had asked.
Josh pouted slightly, "I'm so bored... and everyone's treating us so coldly. It's so sad." his words were empty and he didn't truly care about them much or at all.
"It is kind of boring," he started, letting go of the other strap and instead began pulling gently at the hem of his shirt. "Do you just want to go in with me? We can just leave him... I mean, we don't know him anyway. Might as well just go."
Josh looked back at the guy who was surrounded by girls who were joyfully chatting with him about nothing important and nothing in particular, he sighed in their direction then turned back around to look at Tom once again. He smiled once he saw Tom then took his arm and started running with him towards the entrance of the school.
As soon as they'd both gotten to the entrance to the school they stopped in front of the huge brown wooden doors and slowed their pace down to a slow walk, they were about to walk in when someone grasped Josh's shoulder and he almost jumped out of his skin in surprise.
Josh turned around briskly and noticed that the guy who had just been surrounded by girls and some other guys was standing behind him, huffing and puffing as though he had just finished a marathon.
"Not very fit, huh?" asked Josh who was looking at him over his shoulder.
"Hey! I-I'm, huff, getting there, huff." he let go of Josh's shoulder and instead placed his hands on his knees and tried to get air into his lungs again. "What, huff, are you, huff, some kind of, huff, track star?"
Josh looked at him quizzically, then turned back around to look at Tom, Tom wasn't sweating nor was he out of breath. If anything he looked the same as usual. "It wasn't that quick," he said when he noticed Josh staring at him.
Josh nodded his head, "Yeah, it wasn't that quick. If anything I was holding back." he turned his head back towards the guy and smiled when seeing him still dying from the short run.
"Why'd you leave them?" Josh asked him as he turned slightly to point out the group of people who were hurriedly walking towards them.
"Ack, they're coming, hurry, let's go. Come with me" the guy exclaimed as he took hold of Josh's arm and dragged him into the building.
"Ah, wait, Tom..." Josh called as he got pulled away, his voice was muffled out by the sounds of the incessant chattering filling the halls.
Tom heard it though and tapped Josh on the shoulder, he had been walking on the other side of Josh as soon as the guy had pulled him away but Josh had failed to notice. Tom laughed lightly and flicked him on the forehead gently.
"I'm here, dummy," he called with his voice soft.