Checkmate ⚢

Chapter 20 Friends

Althea walked down the halls towards the library after all her Monday duties. Silently cursing at herself when she checked her phone to find 52 missed calls and about 107 texts from Hana while Professor Oakley's letter was still unread, neatly tucked inside her coat's pocket. She still hasn't found the free time to read it.

Madeline and Heather noticed her parading and immediately accompanied her. A routine Althea essentially found solace to.

"Good morning Althea!" they both greeted. "How was your weekend?"

"Good morning, Madeline, Heather," she greeted back with a smile. "It was productive as it could be."

Before Althea could take a further step, she heard someone whistle from a distance. She spotted Samantha and her companions sprawled upon the grassy floor of the courtyard: Hildegard doing experiments with her AI robot, Natalya sharing her sweets to random passersby, and Samantha dancing around, holding a flag baton as she twirled it around.

"Look at those students, horribly advertising their confectionaries. They are disrupting the community." Madeline expressed disgust at the sight of them. "I wonder what prompted them to decide to do that here."

However, Althea gave no attention to her friend's ramblings. She never knew that she'd found the mischief trio by the courtyard of their department rather their respective ones. She wasn't prepared to see Hana's friends on the campus grounds and certainly don't know how to casually act with them even though she wanted to show everyone that she is genuinely interested in the Japanese girl. She knew she persuaded herself to explain herself to Hana's friends and at this moment, the chance was given to her, a lump of air got stuck in her throat.

"It's them," Althea murmured.

"What?" Madeline asked.

"It's them," Althea said louder and clearer this time, gathering valor. "I need to have a word with them."

"Althea," Heather snickered. "Are you going to tell them off?"

"No, I am acquainted with them."

"EHHHH?" the girls gave a collective gasp.

"Miss O'Reilly!" Althea called and failed to remember the surnames of the Superwoman and the German girl.

Heads whipped up towards the caller. Samantha, Natalya, and Hildegard were unperturbed with her while the other students in the vicinity had their eyes bulging out at the sight of Althea Lancaster calling people casually.

Even Madeline's and Heather's eyes widened slightly, sculpted brows shooting up for just a second before they must have realized they looked like a deer in headlights. It took them a moment to wipe the expression clean, replacing it with smiles.

Althea didn't ever approach anyone just to greet them. Matter of fact, Althea never approached anyone, period. People were always coming up to her with greetings and salutations, presents, and gossip.