"Yomi," said Tomo, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Yomi," said Kagura, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Yomi…."

"I told you," Yomi said to Osaka, "N-O."

"What are you talkin' 'bout?" asked Osaka. "What does that have to do with Chem class?"

"It's asking for the formula for nitrogen monoxide," said Yomi.

"Yeah," cried Kagura, "What's the answer?"

"N-O."

"Okay," said Tomo, "What do we have to do to get you to help us? Do we need to give you money?"

"Let's just ask Chiyo." The three of them walked away as Yomi shook her head. "Oh wait, now I get it," said Kagura.

"Get what?" asked Tomo.

"Oh I get it too," said Osaka, "How could we have missed it?"

"Missed what?" asked Tomo.

"The answer."

"What is it?"

"NO."

"Come on," said Tomo, "Tell me!"

"But that's the answer," said Kagura.

"If you won't help me with this I'll just ask the teacher!" The "Wildcat" stomped off towards the instructor. She then let out a scream of frustration when he also answered NO. "Why won't anyone tell me the answer?"

"Well let's think about this. Nitrogen monoxide is made up of how many atoms?"

"I don't know."

"Oh come on…think back to the naming rules for covalent compounds."

"Uh." Tomo struggled to remember the events of the previous day. She had felt that her teacher was simply moving along too quickly. He had kept saying terms and words that she didn't understand. And she had the feeling that she never would understand them.

"Remember, the prefix always designates the number of atoms of each element the compound is composed of. Since nitrogen has no prefix, how many nitrogen atoms are in nitrogen monoxide?"

"Uh…Mr. Hwikek?"

"Yes?"

"I don't know."

"Well, when there isn't a prefix that means there is only one atom of that particular element." He drew a capital N on the board. "So what would our next step…. What did you call me?"

"Mr. Hwikek."

"Dear God," said Hwikek, "Can't I escape that nickname anywhere?"

"But you have to tell me!"

"Okay, okay. What does monoxide mean?"

"I don't know!" Tomo squeezed her hands against her head. "This is like rocket science!"

"Oh come on," said Hwikek, "I've been teaching you students how to do this for the past three months! What is mono?"

"A disease that…."

"No," Hwikek "face palmed", "Not that mono."

"One?"

"Yes!" he smiled, "And what does the prefix do?"

"What prefix?" asked Tomo.

Hwikek nearly died. Three months…three months that I'll never get back. He wrapped his hands around his head and started to cry. Tomo was shocked. No, thought Hwikek, must…try…to educate!

"The prefix mono."

"That's a disease," said Tomo.

"Um…you're kidding right?"

"No," said Tomo, "It's a disease."

"Mono means one right?" asked Hwikek, who was still hoping to teach his student.

"Yes," said Tomo.

"So if mono means one, then monoxide can be thought of as one oxide and if we think of it that way, how many oxygen atoms do we have?"

"Zero 'cause you said oxide is an ion and that ions aren't atoms."

"Ions aren't atoms, but we'd have one oxygen atom."

"Are you sure Mr. Hwikek?"

"Please call me by my real name," said Hwikek.

"Isn't that your name?" asked Tomo.

Why does this keep happening? Hwikek felt like sobbing again. This is almost as bad as Community College!

As the loser teacher was being all emo Tomo walked back to her desk. The rest of her questions seemed to be just as incomprehensible as nitrogen monoxide. She turned to her friend Yomi.

"What does this mean?" Tomo held up piece of paper with NH3 written on it.

"Nitrogen trihydri—"

"Uh Miss Yomi, that's not what it's called," said Chiyo.

"What are you— Oh! I can't believe that I even said that. Yeah that's ammonia."

"Ammonia?" asked Tomo, "That's not what teacher said."

"That is what Mr. Hwikek said," Chiyo corrected as Hwikek started to do more girly crying, "Were you paying attention during his lecture?"

"I was texting," said Tomo, "So I only caught snippets of it."

"Okay," said Kagura, "So this would be hydrogen dioxide…right?"

"No," said Osaka, "That's monohydrogen monoxide."

"You mean dihydrogen monoxide," said Yomi.

"But that's called water," said Chiyo.

"Oh! Why do I keep forgetting that?" asked Yomi.

"So this is copper chloride?" asked Tomo.

"No," said Yomi, "When it's a type two binary compound you have a transition metal and you have to designate the charge of the cation with Roman numerals."

"The cation?" asked Tomo, hopelessly lost.

"Yeah, that's why copper is a metal," said Yomi.

"But what's a cation?" asked Tomo.

"I know!"

The five of them watched as Hwikek raced over towards their group. "A cation is a positively charged ion and since the formula says CuCl that means that it has to be a copper (I) cation to balance out the charge of the chloride anion."

"Wait," Tomo complained, "You've totally lost me."

"Chlorine forms an anion with a negative one charge turning it into chloride," said Hwikek, "This is because chlorine wants to gain a stable electron configuration and it must therefore gain one electron to have an electron configuration that is the same as that of the next noble gas, which in this case is neon."

"Con…figur…ation?"

"The configuration of the electrons in the chlorine atom," said Hwikek.

"What are electrons?" asked Tomo.

"Negatively charged particles that exist in orbits around the nucleus of the atom. These particles are so small that they have almost no mass."

"I…I don't understand," said Tomo.

"Well chlorine is a halogen, and what group are halogens?" asked Hwikek.

"S…even?"

"Yes!" he shouted, "NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!"

"Will you keep it down?" asked the math teacher, poking her head through the door, "Some of us are trying to teach."

"Oh shut your pie hole," said Hwikek, "I could teach your students more efficiently than you can."

"Really?"

"Indeed I can," said Hwikek, "And I'll be happy to prove it."

"Then," the woman had a dangerous smile, "Teach Tomo to derive the quadratic formula!"

"Ha!" said Hwikek, "I can do that before lunch!"

"No!" said Tomo, "I don't want to be a nerd like you two!"

Hwikek and the math teacher's mouths gaped as they slowly crouched into balls. Yomi rolled her eyes as her emotionally weak instructors rocked back and forth on their knees. Okay, thought Mizuhara, what am I supposed to do on this math problem?

"That's easy!" said the two teachers.

"Hwha? You guys can read minds?"

"All you have to do to derive the remainder theorem is write down…." The two teachers continued to give a virtually unintelligible answer. Yomi just stared at the two of them as they used the chalkboard to write out the steps. Chiyo and Osaka nodded their heads as the two continued to talk.

"So," Chiyo raised her hand, "Then to get f(a) to equal r, you just need to multiply the terms together?"

"Uh huh." The two young adults nodded their heads in unison. "This would work because when we plug a into f(x) = q(x)(x-a) + r we would get f(a) = q(a)(a-a) = r where one of the terms would then become zero. And since anything multiplied by zero equals zero, we would be left with f(a) = r."

"What does this have to do with copper (I) chloride?" asked Kagura.

"Nothing," they both answered.

"Aw shoot," said the math teacher, "I left my class in the middle of teaching them about Pascal's Triangle!"

"Hey before you go," said Hwikek, "What are you doing this weekend?"

"We'll talk later." She then left the classroom, leaving a certain chemistry teacher distraught. Gathering what remained of his composure and self confidence, he turned to face his students. And they were all busy texting, except for Chiyo.

"I had a question," said the girl.

"What is it?" asked Hwikek.

"Why do you and the math teacher fight all the time if you like each other?"

"We don't fight that much," said Hwikek, "I mean it's only about once a month…if you know…."

"Know what?"

"I'm the chemistry teacher," said Hwikek, "I'm not paid to teach biology."

"Hey Hwi-lame!" yelled Tomo, "How the fuck do I do this math problem?"

"Okay," said Hwikek, "That's detention for you Takino!"

"Wha?"

"You'll have plenty of time to do those math problems when you sit your butt in here for detention!"

"You can't do that!" screamed the "Wildcat", "My mom would kill me!"

"Th-that's a low blow! How did you know that my mother pushed me and pushed me in school?"

"I didn't I just said that…."

"Everything had to be perfect," Hwikek faced the chalkboard, leaning against it with one hand. "Everything…everything…." His head drooped down as he started doing that weird emo thing again.

"Hey Hwikek." He raised his head up. "Didn't you say that you knew biology pretty well?"

"I just want to go home and cry," said Hwikek. "My students don't like me, my social life is a joke, and I don't have a girlfriend! It sucks to be me!"

"Uh, can you help me with problem number sev—"

But when Hwikek heard that one of his students had a question, he was completely revived.