I climbed the stairs out of the subway and squinted as my eyes made contact with the sunlit scene in front of me.
Columbia University: the prestigious Ivy League school of NYC.
The school that I both loved and hated, depending on what week of the semester it was.

And I was so not looking forward to midterms week.

Mark appeared behind me and nudged my shoulder. With my laptop and a couple textbooks in my backpack, I almost tipped over and faceplanted.
“We’re suppose to meet Jackson before class, miss pre-med junior,” he said as he walked past me.
“I know,” I sped walk to catch up to him, trying to get my legs match his long strides. “Lecture starts in 10 minutes. We should hurry anyways.”
My speed walking turned to a light jog in my attempt to pass him. He was probably laughing at me right now, watching me try so hard.

To be honest, I didn’t even know why I was trying this hard.
It was like I was trying to prove to this kid who hasn’t been in my life for 14 years and then just decided to reappear.
I didn’t even have anything to prove to him!
So why the heck did I find the need to get his attention?

“Whoa there missy,” I heard Jackson’s voice, followed by the pressure of his hand on my forehead, holding me back. “Where are you rushing off to huh?”

I looked at him and pointed into the lecture hall, “We have lecture dude. Peniel’s probably in there already so shouldn’t we-“
“You honestly thought I was gonna be early on the first day of class?” Peniel walked up behind Mark, slinging an arm around his neck. “We obviously haven’t spent enough time together then.”
When the heck did those two get all buddy buddy?
Was my food coma actually that bad last night that I didn’t even remember this?

Jackson tsked from behind me, his hand still on my head. I stole a glance at Mark, not really knowing what to expect and not really knowing why I even wanted to look at him anyways.
He was looking down at his phone, his fingers flying across the touch screen.

Great.
He was probably texting some girl from back home.
Let’s be real, someone as good looking as him was bound to have a girlfriend waiting back at the west coast.
Why did I even think he wouldn’t have one?

I felt my heart sink lower in my chest as I picked Jackson’s hand off the top of my head and dragged him into the lecture hall with me.
Not that I actually wanted to sit through a 2 hour Advanced Anatomy lecture, but slides about the human skeletal system would be so much more bearable for me to look at than Mark texting his-

“Ohhhhh is she your girlfriend?” Peniel asked as we sat down, nodding in Mark’s direction. He shook his head, not taking his eyes off his phone.

Oh my gosh.
He shook his head.
He actually shook his head.

Peniel’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
“Who’s Grace then?”
“My older sister,” he hit the lock button on his phone then slipped it onto his lap. “She’s just checking up on me, but it’s getting really annoying since her and my other sister literally take turns sending me a text every hour.”

Grace.
Mark’s older sister.
The more I thought about her name, the clearer her face became in my head. An image of her playing with me when I would show up at Mark’s house before he came back from swimming practice on some days popped into my head as I continued to watch him text her.

“Tell her I said hi,” I made eye contact with Mark across Jackson and Peniel, who finally looked up from his phone. The corners of his mouth twitched as if he was going to smile, but he didn’t.
“She says she remembers you actually,” he replied, sticking his phone into his backpack and pulling out the desk attached to the armrest of the seat. “Her and Tammy both asked me about you.”
“Whoa,” Jackson raised an eyebrow at me, “seems like you’re popular with the Tuans.

I didn’t want to blush.
Believe me, I didn’t.
I seriously do way too much of that around Mark.

But somehow, I felt my face getting hot again as I watched him bend over and pull his laptop out, the light shining on his hair so that it made the dark red stand out.

“I mean, my sisters have known her since she was one. They used to babysit her back when she used to live in LA,” Mark replied for me, opening his laptop and letting it wake up on the desk, his fingers already on the track pad.
“You used to live in LA?” Jackson exclaimed, attracting weird looks and the unwanted attention of almost everyone in the lecture hall. He mouthed sorry before turning his attention back to me. “When did this happen?”
I leaned back in my seat, looking at my black laptop screen.

“I was born in LA and lived there until 1^st grade,” I responded to him, my mind filling with memories of the house we used to live in, the school I used to go to, the roads and scenery of California, and all those play dates with Mark.
“She moved after I moved to Brazil,” Mark added, keeping his eyes fixed on his laptop screen. “I moved back after a little bit and thought she was still going to be in LA but she was already here.”
“Cause I thought you weren’t coming back,” I whispered, hitting the spacebar on my keyboard, waking up my laptop. “You never told me it was only temporary.”

He finally looked up from his screen. I could feel his eyes fixed on me as he said, “What’d you say?”
Words wouldn’t form. The same ones that slipped out so easily before seemed to all be stuck in my throat now. I just couldn’t force them out so I just shook my head and croaked out, “Nothing.”
By then, the professor had finally finished setting up the projector and was looking around the hall. It looked like the guy was counting the number of people sitting in here but counting at least 200 hundred students crammed in a lecture hall was honestly just stupid. So he probably wasn’t counting. My brain was just jumbled up. 

“Hello everyone,” the professor’s voice ran in the hall, silencing any existing side conversations. I trained my eyes towards the front of lecture hall, trying to avoid eye contact with Mark as much as possible.

Cause lord knows the professor would call on me cause my face would be bright red.

The professor paced up and down the front of the lecture hall, explaining the objectives of the course, what we could expect, how things would be graded, attendance, his background, blah blah blah.
You know, typical information for syllabus day.

2 hours later we emerged from the air conditioned building and poured out onto the hot, humid streets of NYC. My brain was pretty much dying.

“He actually lectured for the entire 2 hours,” Jackson stumbled down the stairs, holding his head with his face scrunched up in pain. “He freakin actually lectured for the entire 2 hours! What happened just reading the syllabus and letting us go? Does no one do that any more?”

Peniel patted him on the back as he followed Jackson out. I could hear Mark laugh quietly behind me as we both stood there and watched Jackson slump onto Peniel’s back.
“I can’t go on anymore,” he whined, making Peniel cringe, “Bro, you’re gonna have to carry me back.”
“Dude we still have the entire semester left. Pull it together,” Mark yelled from the bottom of the stairs.
“What Mark said,” Peniel plucked Jackson off his back then quickly ran down the stairs to join us. “Plus we can’t even go home now. We still have lab to go to.”

I pulled up my schedule on my phone and scrolled down.
If it was possible, Jackson’s face scrunched up more. “Ugh, that more than just sitting there and listening to the professor talk about God knows what.”
“Let’s not talk about it until we actually get there,” Mark replied back, swinging his backpack onto his shoulders again after doubling checking if his lab coat was in there, “cause I think I’m gonna be doing these experiments with my eyes closed half the time. I keep yawning.”
 

He wasn’t the only one. It was only the first day of classes but that first class literally just drained whatever energy was in me. I could feel the motivation leaving me as we walked down the street in comfortable silence, listening to the cars rush by and feeling the slight breeze as it rustled branches on the scattered trees lining sidewalk.

In front of me, Mark stopped walking but I was too occupied with my phone to notice. So as the oblivious klutz that I am, I ran face first into his back.

“You know,” I rubbed my nose as I followed the rest of them into the building, “the next time you find the building where our class is, give me a heads up before you stop walking so I don’t actually break my nose on your back!”

Crap.
I shouldn’t have snapped like that.
What the heck is wrong with me?

Mark turned his head slightly, “Well someone’s a bit moody today,” he kept walking forward, but I could tell that he still had his eye on me. I instinctively narrowed my own at him, trying to stare him down while dodging the people walking in the opposite direction as us.
“I wasn’t even being moody,” I retaliated, watching his backpack sway back and forth since he only slung it over one shoulder. “You’re just being over sensitive right now.”

Seriously. I really needed to shut up.

“Whatever you say,” Mark strolled into the lab room and sat down at a table. I scanned the room quickly before following him to the table. We sat next to each other but at separate tables, which bothered me a little. Not gonna lie. But then again, I have no idea why I was pushing him away unconsciously.
And then as time ticked on, his table quickly filled up with other students.
Other female students.

My head was telling me not to care.
But my heart was telling me something totally different.
And for once, my heart was winning.

I pulled my death glare away from his table long enough to look around my own.
Filled with guys.
This is so not what I needed right now.
Even if two out of the three guys were Jackson and Peniel.

“Afternoon everyone,” the lab instructor walked in, his white lab coat flying behind him as he sped walked in. I have no idea what is it with lab TAs but they always walk as if they have somewhere else to be in the 2 hours we were stuck in lab. “I’m Mr. Moore, you’re TA for this semester, and as long as you do the work and not do anything stupid, we should all get out of here a good half hour early every session. You’ll be done the course before you know it. Quick and…almost painless.”

While he explained the lab for this week, my eyes kept flickering from him to Mark. He was looking down at his lab book and flipping through it, the same bored expression that he had when he walked into the room was plastered to his face.
But honestly, who could blame him.
Lab wasn’t the ideal place to be when you’re drowsy and exhausted after sitting through a long, tough lecture.

“Alright guys,” the TAs voice cut into my thoughts, causing my gaze to shift off of Mark and back onto him once again, “put on your lab coats and goggles. Don’t need anyone getting into any accidents.”
I pulled my coat out of my bag and slipped it on along with my goggles. Somewhere in between putting on my coat and my goggles, I stole another quick glance at Mark.

My stomach unconsciously did a somersault.

The boy seriously looked good in anything.
And if I kept sneaking glances like this, I’m gonna end up looking like those creepy girls at his lab table staring at him from behind their own books.
Not about to get that desperate.

“_______________________?”
“Hmmm?” I turned around and gave the boy that just called my name a quick lookover. He had short, dark brown hair that was swept a little to the side sitting on top of his boyish like face. For a second there he almost reminded me of…
“Aron?” I took my goggles off, clearing my vision of all the smudges. The boy nodded, giving me a smile that made his eyes almost disappear.

“Wow I’m impressed,” he put his own goggles on as the TA came around to Mark’s table, recording down who was here in his notebook, “you still remember my name.”
I put my own on while giving him a look from behind the dirty, smudged plastic. “Of course I still remember your name! We were lab partners last semester too.”
“Ohhhhh so you two were lab partners before,” Jackson leaned across the table and gave me a smirk and a couple eyebrow lifts. If the TA wasn’t standing right behind me, I would’ve punched him.

“Names?” He droned out, tapping his pencil lightly on the attendance sheet attached to his notebook.
“_____________________________.”
“Aron Kwak,” the eye smile guy replied, slipping on his gloves.
“Jackson Wang.”
“Peniel Shin.”

The TA scanned the list over and nodded, checking off everyone’s name. “Do you four know what you’re doing or are you just as clueless as the group next to you?”
I literally had to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing in his face.
He got the clueless part so right.

Aron patted his open lab manual on the table, “I think we’re good, thank you!”
I nodded, giving the TA a small smile as he made his way to the next lab bench. “You actually know how to do the lab this semester?” I raised an eyebrow at him, trying to sound sarcastic as possible.

He let out something like a mix between a scoff and a smile, grabbing the graduated cylinder that was next to him. “Shut up and hand me the distilled water. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get outta here.”
“I’m so with Aron on this,” Jackson said, grabbing the materials for the next step. “Cause I’m seriously about to pass out soon.” As soon as he said that, a yawn escaped my lips. For once, the kid didn’t have a bad idea. I scanned the instructions and got ready for part two of the experiment while Peniel helped Aron.

After three years of putting it off, organic chemistry quickly became a reality that I couldn’t avoid anymore. I hated chemistry with a passion and it hated me right back. I mean, my grades in these classes aren’t horrible, but I’m constantly on the struggle bus when it comes to actually getting them.
I yawned again, blinking away the tears that formed in my eyes after every time I yawn.

Focus ___________________________.
Finish the lab so you can get the hell out of here and back into your bed.
Ignore the voice in the back of your head that’s telling you to look at Mark and his little lab group of long legged, skinny Asian girls who all seem to paying more attention to his face than the actual experiment.

“Why’re you staring at Mark’s table?” Peniel’s voice suddenly popped beside my ear. I almost dropped the beaker I was holding.
So apparently I’m completely incapable of ignoring that little voice.
“I was so not staring.”
Peniel’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes narrowed, “Right. Cause part of the lab totally says to stare off at another lab group and-“
“Ok! So maybe I was staring…”
“You worried about him?”

My mouth opened to respond but nothing came out.
Cause honestly, I don’t really know what I’m feeling right now.
Worried?
Confused?
Jealous?
All three?

Ugh. This is way too complicated than it needs to be.
And Peniel wouldn’t be able to understand either.

“Yeah,” I rolled with the whole worried thing, watching Jackson pour a clear liquid into the beaker in front of him. “He just came from Cali and people are so much different here than the west coast so you know….I don’t want him to screw up lab because he can’t work with his lab group.”
“Oh trust me,” Peniel scooted closer to me to get a better look at the lab manual, “he is definitely getting along with his lab group. Don’t worry. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

Which, for reason, is the exact reason why I was worried in the first place.

Author's Note
Chapter title: Reflex-Infinite [x]
ok...i think i've basically put up all my completed chapters so far! xD this one was a long one haha. didn't think it would be this long, but i literally couldn't find a place to cut it so i just uploaded the entire thing in one. i'm working on another chapter right now and it includes a thunderstorm ;) hehehe