Asking For A Friend

13.

"Is everything okay here?" came a familiar voice. I turned away from the cheerleader in front of me and saw the guy from yesterday, Bai Long Qiang, strolling through the classroom like he owned it.

"She is sitting in my spot," snapped the cheerleader, but Bai Long Qiang simply shook his head in disagreement.

"You know that there is no assigned seating in this class. It all depends on who your lab partner is," he refuted with a shake of his head. He grabbed his backpack and, put it down on the floor between the two stools, and sat down beside me.

Well, that explained why the cheerleader was so pissed. She probably wanted to sit beside her boyfriend.

"You are my lab partner," she hissed at him, and I wished to God I had a bowl of popcorn to be able to enjoy the show.

"No," he said, drawing out the word. "You were my lab partner. Now you aren't."

"Really? That's the way you want to play it? What? Are you becoming a pedophile now? Is that why you dumped me?" screeched the cheerleader. I rubbed my ear, trying to get it to stop ringing.

"Wow," I said, looking at her with a smirk on my face. "You don't handle rejection well, do you? And seriously? Pedophile? You are something special, that's for sure. Now, the teacher is wanting to start class, so if you could just be on your way?" I made a shooing motion with my hand, the smirk on my face never leaving for a second.

Did I just shoot myself in the foot? Probably.

Did I care? Nope. I really didn't.

She had made it perfectly clear that she was going to make my life a living hell either way, might as well give her another reason to be pissed at me.

"Bai Long Qiang," said my new lab partner as he held out his hand to me.

"I caught that yesterday," I assured him as I watched the cheerleader stomping off to find some other poor sap to sit beside.

"I never got your name, though," he said with a smile on his face. He wasn't flirting with me, despite what his ex thought, but he was being friendly.

"Wang Tian Mu," I answered, reaching out to grip his hand.

After a firm shake, he let go, and we turned our attention to the professor.

"Welcome, class; I hope you enjoyed the show," laughed the teacher, not at all caring about the look the cheerleader was giving him. I was pretty sure that if looks could kill, he would be six feet under, and I wouldn't be far behind.

"But now that it is over, we are going to continue our unit in cellular biology and the differences between plant and animal cells." I let his soothing voice drift over me as he explained both the obvious and subtle differences in the cell structure.

After an hour, the lecture portion of the class was done, and the teacher handed out microscopes and slides and asked us to identify which cell belonged to what classification and any identifying feature that we could find.

Bai Long Qiang turned to look at me once we had the box of sides in front of us. "I probably should apologize now, but I am not going to be much help. Biology is not one of my better subjects." He wrinkled his nose at his confession and, with a sigh, took out the first slide.

"Don't worry about it," I assured him, taking it from his hand and placing it correctly under the microscope. "It's one of mine."

He looked at me, startled as if he just realized that I was in the same class as him.

"So, you're a genius?" he asked with a smirk on his face. He twirled his pen around his thumb in a gesture that I found absolutely fascinating. Mostly because I wasn't able to do it.

"Or I am an adult trapped inside a child's body. Either way, I'm here," I replied with a chuckle. He can't say that I didn't tell him the truth. Not my fault if he didn't believe it.

"Okay, genius, want to teach me?" he asked, leaning closer to the microscope between us to see the slide.

"What do you see?"

"A weird jelly thing," came his response, and I burst out laughing.

"Yeah, I get that. But do you see how this one seems to have two darker layers at the outer edge?"

"Yeah."

"The inner one is called the cell membrane, and it is only found in plant cells," I explained. "It is one of the easiest ways to differentiate between the two. Although there are many more differences."

"Okay, what is another one?" he asked, looking up at me with a smirk.

"See the big round thing off to one side?"

"Yup."

"That would be the nucleus. It is the center of the cell. While animal cells have them too, they are in the center of the cell while plant cells will have them off to one side."

I went on to point out all the minute details between the two cells, and by the end of the hour, he ended up getting almost all of them right.

"Huh, I didn't see that coming," he muttered as he picked up his bag and waited for me to get my stuff together. It was lunchtime, and I was not looking forward to the cafeteria situation, so I was taking my time.

"What didn't you see coming?"

"The fact that I could actually learn something in this class. Up until this point, everything had been flying over my head, and I was barely passing. You should think about becoming a teacher."

"A pass is still a pass. It's not like any employer is going to ask what you got on a test in grade ten bio. And no to the teacher thing. I am not good with kids," I joked with him. Putting on my backpack, I took in a deep breath.

I really didn't want to go to the cafeteria, but I remember seeing a vending machine nearby. Did chocolate bars count as lunch?

Asking for a friend.