After walking past the two girls, Eiden resisted the urge to glance back. His body itched with curiosity, but he refrained, fixing his eyes straight ahead as he made his way toward the classroom. The hallway buzzed faintly with scattered conversations, and the tap of his footsteps mixed with the ambient noise. His thoughts were scattered, trying to digest the recent whirlwind of events from Linda's strange behavior to Deuel's pointed questions. But he had no time to unpack it all.
As he reached his classroom, the door creaked open, and a petite figure stepped out. Eiden instinctively halted. It was Airie. Her head barely reached his chest now that he stood at a solid six feet tall, and when she looked up, her wide eyes had to travel all the way to meet his gaze. There was a brief flicker of recognition or maybe surprise in her soft, unassuming eyes. But her expression quickly returned to its usual neutrality.
