It Won't Be That Bad

Ch 11

"Mr. Alexander!"

The tip of his mechanical pencil immediately broke as soon as he heard his name being called out by his lecturer, he looked forward in surprise—the others also seemed a little surprised by this. Even though he wasn't doing anything but often listened to the lesson and wrote back in his notes, did he make a mistake? "Yes, Professor?" Noah answered quietly and hesitantly, he glanced at Caleb and Caleb glanced back at him, Caleb just shook his head; didn't know why the woman in front of them was suddenly called him.

"Nothing." The lecturer gave him a faint smile, Noah frowned deeply. "You seem to have a lot on your mind and I don't want you to lose your focus in my class, okay?"

"Oh." were the first words out of his mouth in response, so he simply rebuked her. "Yeah, sorry, Professor."

She waved it off at him as if it was no big deal. "Also, please bring this to my room in a moment," she said again as he placed her hand on the pile of books on the lecturer's desk. Noah restrained himself from exhaling in annoyance and nodded again. "Okay, 10 minutes of free time before I go out, I'm going to correct the quizzes from the next class for a bit."

It felt like the atmosphere in the room quickly changed completely and became warmer, conversations began to be heard throughout the room and laughter followed. Noah rubbed one side of his face tiredly, he didn't get much sleep last night, he had a nightmare. He would rather not dream at all as usual rather than have flashes of the past flash by like fast shadows with eccentric colors that change every second while he was unconscious in his sleep. He threw his head back on the table, still feeling a little dizzy. At least he had time to eat breakfast, even if only two bites, that was enough.

Even though he knew very well, Vincent would definitely nag to him because he just left after (not) finishing his breakfast. However, what else can he do? He had no appetite at all because of the nightmare, and when he woke up from it he didn't find his husband at all beside him. Michael didn't even come back when he left for college at half past eight in the morning. He knew Michael wouldn't do strange things behind his back considering that the short man sometimes liked to wander around until daylight, but this anxiety often rose and peaked.

"Are you okay?" He could hear Kayana's voice from in front of him. Noah raised his head again and leaned his back against the back of the chair. "You look pale, you know?"

"I don't care," he replied nonchalantly. "I'm alright."

Kayana pouted. "I'm just worried! At least accept a little of my concern for you before my patience runs out," she frowned irritably, Noah rolled his eyes lazily. "You do have an attitude problem."

The man with straight black hair sitting next to him immediately intervened. "Have you eaten this morning? Mrs. Tina suddenly advanced her schedule very early. Well, even though our second class was cancelled." Caleb sounded worried about him, Noah nodded his head slowly and opened the phone. "After class, we can at least go to the cafeteria together," Caleb suggested then enthusiastically, Kayana agreed happily even though after that Caleb narrowed his eyes at the girl. "And no introducing girls to Noah again."

"Come on." Kayana laughed. "Who knows, maybe he might be interested." She shrugged her shoulders playfully, she seemed to be joking but Noah gritted his teeth at her, Kayana didn't seem deterred at all.

"That's not something you can joke around about." Caleb scowled at Kayana for a moment.

While the two of them started arguing again, Noah chose to ignore them and scrolled through his phone screen boredly. He opened the file and selected a digital file of sketches of Circus Baby, Elizabeth had complained to him yesterday that parts of the animatronic wasn't very pleasing, perhaps there were some loose gears in the machine. It's time to update the Funtimes spare parts, after all. He would likely do it after his exams were over, but for starters he would fix his sister-in-law first.