Daniel felt that he was on the verge of stumbling to a solution for his biostatistics tutorial question when he saw a familiar figure sweep in through the library door from the corner of his eye. That nearly-would-be-solution was instantly demolished, but Daniel was too preoccupied to care. He watched, as inconspicuously as possible, Grace and her friend Angel, take their usual seat. Daniel shifted his eyes down to his tutorial just before Grace glanced his way, closely averting from an awkward eye contact moment. It was uncanny how she always seemed to know when he was looking at her. Daniel kept his eyes on his tutorial, counting down to a time that would be safe for him to look up at her again.
The perfect moment came when Angel gave a series of earth-quaking coughs. He shot his head blatantly towards Grace’s table, and instead of looking at Angel, he took the opportunity to take an un-concealed look at Grace.
Beside him, Andrew clenched his fist under the table. Didn’t he pass Angel the cough syrup already? Why didn’t she take it? He watched as Angel took out the cough syrup and beamed an inconspicuous smile at him. Apparently, Grace made her take the syrup right in the library, for which he was thankful to Grace. Andrew visibly relaxed after Angel took the medicine, ignoring the deadly glare Grace was sending his way. For some strange reason, Grace seemed to hate him. He could always feel this negative vibe coming strongly from her every time they were in the same space.
But he couldn’t care less about what Grace felt about him. After all, she wasn’t Angel.
Daniel reluctantly withdrew his attention from Grace after losing a legitimate reason to continue to stare. He let his eyes wonder over his statistics tutorial, but nothing was registering in his mind. Somehow, he thought that studying in the library should increase one’s productivity, but it was having an opposite effect on him. He didn’t feel like asking himself why, incase he didn’t like the answer. But he had a vague idea anyway.
Almost involuntarily, his eyes flirted towards Grace again. She was writing in that baby blue book of hers again. Daniel couldn’t fathom what could upset her so much, the way her eyes gleamed with deep loathing and disgust. He wished she didn’t screw up her eyebrows like that. It made her look so much less palatable.
Without a single notice, Grace looked up, and for a solid moment, Daniel saw murder in her eyes. It was either that, or the suddenness of the action that made Daniel’s elbow slip and knocked over his pencil case. Great, Daniel thought to himself, I just drew her attention to my clumsiness. He bent over the table to collect his scattered pens, hoping the opaque table will shield as much of him from Grace as possible. He took his time with it, completely unaware of the incredulous look on Andrew’s face. From Andrew’s point of view, Daniel was moving in a comically slow-motion.
“Daniel, is that you under the table?” Gabriel’s voice made Daniel turn his neck towards him at an awkward angle, for Daniel was still trying to hide from Grace.
“Where did you go? I didn’t even notice when you were gone.”
“I had to meet another friend. I did tell you guys at lunch, but apparently the roast duck rice was more engaging,” Gabriel said dryly.
“Well, it is,” Andrew admitted nonchalantly and grinned, “Let me guess, was it Emily?”
“Emily what?” Gabriel grew defensive.
“The one who you had to meet.”
“How did you know?”
“You came in right behind Emily, duh! Everybody knows two plus two equals to four,” Andrew tilted his head towards Emily’s table with mischief in his eyes.
“I don’t like the way you said the two-plus-two-equals-four thing,” Gabriel narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Surely Andrew was too thick to notice anything right?
“So are you two going out?” Andrew couldn’t resist pursuing the matter. Ever since that day at the library, he was at least seventy percent sure something was brewing between the two. Gabriel had never snapped harshly at Daniel before, much less snapping at Daniel for staring at a girl. Andrew was most amused at the sharp look that Gabriel was giving him now.
“Yeah, we’re going out to shop for a gift on Saturday. In fact, we’re going out for a movie before that too,” Gabriel pinned Andrew with his look.
“That’s not what I—”
“Oh, you’d like to come too? I’m sure Emily wouldn’t mind.”
“No thanks. I admit that I am ‘bright’, but that was restricted to mean ‘intellectual’ only.”
“Huh?” Gabriel feigned ignorance, “by the way, can I borrow your biochemistry notes for Thursday’s lecture?”
Andrew sighed and resignedly flipped through his unorganized file for the notes. It was nearly impossible to get Gabriel to admit anything with regards to love interests. But at least now, he was ninety percent sure Gabriel has a thing for the bubbly girl.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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