Noah had his head bent over the phone in his lap with his legs extended out in front of him and his ankles crossed, as he intently responded to a message. A frown marred his usually light-hearted beat that she normally saw casted over him. She lightly tapped her knuckles on the wooden table, and he lifted his chin up to acknowledge her.
Alice pulled out the chair across from him and sat down, motioning that he can finish up what he was doing. She wasn't in a rush today, but it was quite the unexpected situation. Alice didn't want to seem awkward and moved about like nothing was amiss in the world.
She took out her laptop from her briefcase, powering it on and reached forward for the notebook that he had placed down earlier. Alice flipped through his notes to try and find the page that he marked but realized that they were all bare.
All the margins were empty, mostly blank, and she tilted the notebook to the side in wonder. She glanced over at the textbook that had no sticky notes either unlike hers, and she flipped to the cover of the notebook to check if his name was there.
It was, and she sighed. At least he did the bare minimum. Hers was the complete opposite with notes and scribbles for days on every page. There was no blank space left untouched with her flowery handwriting.
He placed his phone down on the table. "Sorry about that. I had an important message."
Alice shook her head. "It's okay. I could tell."
It was around the time when she normally had a snack or dinner, and she could feel her hunger pains start to kick in. She had a fast metabolism and ate a lot while also being able to maintain her weight.
Although, Alice did learn the hard way in middle school that if she got carried away, she would bloat like no one's business the next day.
"Would you like to grab something to snack on? I'm craving some ramen," she said unabashedly.
Noah grinned. "Sure."
Alice stood and grabbed the small basket stack near the entrance and came back to him. Noah had already picked out some chocolate candies, and he dropped them into her basket. Alice meandered over to the ramen aisle to grab her favorite sesame ramen that had an egg block inside.
Noah had come to her side, putting various kinds of packaged jellies into the blue basket, and placed a hand underneath his chin as he perused the selection of ramen.
He dropped a spicy cheese ramen into the basket, and Alice gave him an approved nod. She then pivoted down her foot to the next aisle that had reheatable food.
She had her fair share of eating a ton of processed foods, but she paced herself to not eat it so much since she needed a balanced diet. Her parents were like that as well, and while they were at home, they would always make their food from the supermarket.
Alice lifted the steamed dumplings package off the hook and placed some cheese strings in her basket as well for her noodles. She needed something heavy to offset the calories that she was about to consume and cleanse her palette.
For her veggies, maybe some carrot sticks? She dropped those in the cart and went back to find Noah.
He was waiting over by the magazine stand, and the corner of Alice's lips hiked up when she saw that he was reading an animal life one. "Ready?" she called.
Noah nodded, placing the magazine back, and they walked to the register. Alice didn't need to pay for anything in the store, but she still needed to get her items rung up so that the count of inventory sold could be counted.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Noah dig into his pocket for his wallet, and she placed a hand on his arm.
"I got this," she said.
Noah smirked when she said it proudly. "Okay."
Her mother handed the food items to them, and Alice decided it would be best to introduce Noah now. She shifted her hands between the two while shifting her eyebrows up at her mother to hint at being normal, trying to make it at least bearable.
"Noah, this is my mom."
"Mom, this is my classmate, Noah."
Noah inclined his head. "Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Marozi."
Jane brought a hand to her mouth to hide her laugh. "You're so polite, Noah. Jane is fine."
He nodded, and Alice lifted her items from the table, lighthearted at the thought of finally heating after the long day made her all but waltz over to the microwave bar that had all the utensils needed to eat food.
She heated her ramen beside Noah, dumping all the content packets into the water. It felt very domestic with the soft silence falling over them.
Alice glanced at him and to her horror was about to mess up the noodles since it wasn't a broth base like hers. She pushed his hovering hand away and finished preparing his ramen.
"You can't cook ramen?" Alice said with her lips twitching.
His ears had a touch of a flush, and Noah brought a hand to his neck. "Ah, I have a housekeeper. My family doesn't keep ramen at home."
"Hm, that is unfortunate."
He pressed back on the balls of his feet. "I guess."