Rowan pulled the door open to the homeroom class that was the first in the third-level halls, and Claudia and Alice leaned on the adjacent walls with their sides to the windows looking down at all the students still making their way to the main gate below.
From above, it was easy to tell that there were still lots of sports and clubs busy. The field that was preoccupied with many early had all filed out, so the track club had regained its territory and had begun stretching.
Alice didn't tend to interact with other people from different homerooms since people in there were normally designated to the same or similar classes meaning that Alice was only in classes that had people in her homeroom with the occasional large lecture class that held more students from other classes.
The structure made it straightforward to make friends in the sense that they were all in similar classes having to see each other often. There were a lot of familiar faces, so over time everyone could easily get to know everyone's personality and feel just from being in the same classes.
Some friends she was able to meet up outside of school, but other than that, she didn't get to see them around school except by passing by each other in the hallways.
It had both pros and cons considering if there was a friend in the class, Alice knew that they would be able to see each other often like how she and Claudia had a lot of similar classes.
However, there were other people like Noah, who she was stuck seeing often since they were in a lot of the same classes, but it seemed as though luck was indeed on her side with him not showing up to classes, so all in all, she didn't see him often.
It was quite ironic that she was now pushing him to come to his classes and sit through the boredom that she had to every day as well.
She wasn't going to let him take the easy way out of school despite a lot of students paying their way through, but she knew that wasn't the case for Noah since he would have done well in school without actually showing up either way.
Still, she found it unfortunate for him to give his life away for trying to give his grandfather more life and support than he already was giving.
Alice did want to meet his grandfather one day since Noah had talked about him a lot and was a huge part of his life, but there was a little piece inside of her that was wavering because she didn't know if she was ready yet. To take that next step by any means. Alice frowned since she couldn't tell if she was overthinking it or not.
To be able to give a bit of her time to his grandfather was no hardship, so she wanted to at least reach out to Noah and talk about it. Claudia was still looking at her nails, and Alice landed her chin down on Claudia's shoulder to whisper in her ear since the door was still open which made it possible for Rowan to overhear if they were too loud.
"Aren't you being a bit too obvious?" she whispered.
Claudia rolled her eyes. "There's no problem on my end."
"I can't tell if you like him or hate him," Alice laughed lightly. "I'm hoping it's the former."
"It's not the former or the latter since I'm completely neutral."
"Oh, what is it like to be lying through your teeth?"
Claudia squeezed Alice's side to try and get her to shut up, but Alice looked at Claudia innocently while fluttering her lashes. "He seems like a nice guy."
"He's okay enough."
"Cheer up, buttercup," Alice sang.
Looking up, Rowan went to the desk in the far corner in the front to grab his briefcase that was hanging on the hook on the side of the desk before walking back out briskly.
Rowan slid the door open without a care in the world, and Alice nodded at him. "Ready to go?"
"Let's head out," he said.
They walked down the steps of the staircase instead of going the elevator route considering that most teachers would like to use the elevators after a long day of school teaching, and Alice couldn't blame them, because the stairs were tiring going up and down them so often it made the uniforms more stuffy than one could imagine.
Alice looked behind her knowing that they needed to pick up their pace if they didn't want to get absolutely lectured by Mr. Anthony if he found them later, and she didn't know his rounds as clearly as she had imagined, so it was possible that he could be another building by now, but it was safe to assume that he was still inside the one that they were in.
The clock chimed on the nearby wall, and Alice's eyes went to knowing that it was beginning to get late since it had just hit eight pm with the sun blazing through the windows to hit their faces. She blocked the sunlight as they went around the corner, and she smiled at Claudia who had her antics getting caught up to her.