Teacher Zick

Cezille07

Preview: Advanced graduate Zick has taken over his ill professor's post as chemistry teacher. His student Elena adores him in a lab coat, and is willing to do anything to be close to him, which includes being a lowly assistant for random experiments.

Note: They're in college here, and by chance they all landed in the same chemistry elective! Anyway, I know little if not nothing about the topic, so please don't mind whatever errors I might mention about the subject.

Disclaimer: For the nth time I shall repeat this little phrase you may have already gotten all too used to, alright? I own no rights to Monster Allergy whatsoever. There you go, start reading and promise me a review after!

Chapter 1: Project Stage.

He came into the room with a worried announcement, "Classmates, Professor Smith will be absent for the next couple of weeks for his surgery. They couldn't find a good kidney donor for now, so they're still keeping him in the hospital to monitor him."

The class would really look better if they gave any reaction at all.

"In the meantime, I'll be taking over his post, in this class at least," he continued.

"What?!" Now that was a reaction. It could also sound better if it was concern, but it wasn't—it was disbelief.

Sure, he was just a college student. What did set him apart and possibly qualified him for the job was the fact he's already graduated and is pursuing an additional degree in chemistry. He finished studying quickly thanks to all those accelerations he made through the earlier years of school. Then he finished summa cum laude of the entire batch.

I wish I was among his batch.

"He gave me the lesson outline for today and it looks like we'll just carry on with the project he gave last time," Zick was saying. Oh, wait, it's Professor Zick now. He went on, "I hope I don't have to clarify anything for now. I assume you've read the given text he sent to our e-group. We've divided the class into groups last time, so please meet with your groupmates and start working. Any questions, ask me."

I sighed. Why did I have to be in a group with Annie? The only good thing it's done is get me some free time; Annie was only too enthusiastic to even let me touch the draft of our report. So what I did last meeting, and what I'll surely do this time, is watch Professor Zick discuss with his groupmate David.

"Elena!"

"Huh?" Oh, it was just Annie. "So can I please read our report?"

"No, it's still not perfect yet—"

"That's why we're working in pairs. Can I at least see what you've done so I have some idea what happened to our compound?"

"I have some minor adjustments to check, but it's nearly done. Look, I need you to ask David if he's got some extra gloves I can borrow so I can take home a set and do a little work with the compound," she explained.

I didn't even think David would bring extra gloves with him all the time. "Why don't you do it?" I asked, though I wasn't sure I needed to. I knew she's been dying to talk to David since...forever. "And if you're such a nerd why don't you have your own gloves?"

She crossed her arms and raised her nose in the air. "Excuse me, I won't take being spoken to like that. And I do have my own gloves, but I've used them too much since the semester began."

I didn't answer. Fine, I was wrong to call her a nerd and maybe I was wrong as well to assume all geeks had gloves and their own chemistry sets at home. But I won't talk to that jerk David for her no matter what.

"Please, Elena," she half-pleaded. "I just need this one favor of you."

I shrugged. "Alright, alright." I already started walking towards David's group, but remembered to tell her this, "Then you're promising to share whatever you've done with our paper so far!"

She nodded energetically, but it was to hide her blushing. But that was fair enough.

So I approached Zick—Professor Zick, I mean—and David, and said as blankly as I could, "Hey David, Annie wants to borrow some gloves."

"Sure," he said and pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his backpack and handed them to me.

I kept my eyes off them as much as I could, but of course I really couldn't. "Thanks," I mumbled, and turned away.

Phew. What an encounter.

"Wait, Elena," called David.

I looked back. Darn! Zick was looking at me. "What?" I asked as if it were just by-the-way.

"Tell her...tell her I'll see her after class."

"Yeah, yeah." Darn, I felt my face turn red. Zick was smiling there! "Yeah," I said again and almost ran away, back to our place.