Balls

42

"Yo Mirna, there will soon be new fries in the lab. Wanna come over and see if you can baby talk with them?" Micah's jest could be heard across the short line of students queuing for hot ramen at the main cafe.

Ballqis, Iqball and Molly were waiting for Aga at the nearby table when they heard their senior's voice.

Mirna played dumb and walked away with her hot ramen.

With a nod from Iqball, Ballqis hailed the red head. As if they could read each other's mind, Ballqis knew Iqball was saying 'we should rescue her' with the nod. And Iqball seemed to sense the sympathy in Ballqis' stare at the girl who had wisely avoided more of Micah's silly cracks by feigning ignorance.

Grateful to see familiar faces waving her an invite, Mirna plonked next to Molly with a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness I'm not in your faculty. If he gets on my nerve like this, come enough times I would have severed a particular limb that that guy doesn't need," she vented.

Molly introduced herself before the Balls could get a word in.

"Nice to meet you too, Molly," Mirna said, her grey demeanour lit up at the offer of friendship.

"Any friend of Ballqis is a friend of mine," Molly said. "Plus Micah is in one of my classes, he's a genius but I hate him for egging me about Aga," she added.

Ballqis could not help but ask.

"Is he telling you things like Aga likes you... and such? Because he's doing the same thing to Aga."

Molly nodded miserably.

"He's always insinuating that I am unavailable because Micah is waiting for me on the dais or something along that line. I wouldn't be so mad if he hadn't said it in front of this gorgeous exchange student from Russia who has green eyes," griped Molly.

"Ooh, Lev! He's in my Project Management class!" Mirna caught on.

"That's right! Lev Boyko. He's so pretty!" Molly agreed, leaving Iqball and Ballqis wondering how come she had never once mentioned this.

The exchange students group did visit the fish lab but there were 12 of them, all equally attractive. Ballqis did not see anyone particularly prettier than the rest, let alone noticing a boy with green eyes.

"But Molly I thought you like the other Moscow boy, Andrei?" Iqball said.

Molly scrunched her face.

"You like an Andrei too?" Ballqis asked, amused.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks Iqball for not telling everyone that I nearly hit the water fountain while gawking at that Russian," Molly chided.

"I kept that part of the secret safe," Iqbal replied with a guffaw.

"You almost dived into the water fountain?" Mirna repeated as if once wasn't enough.

They all laughed hard, even Molly joined in after a couple of seconds.

"Well all the Russian boys are pretty," Molly conceded.

"So are the girls..." Iqball said, nudging Ballqis.

Ballqis had only a second to feel the sting if jealousy but it disappeared at the sight she caught right after.

Aga came, arms swinging with an especially hot looking student by his side.

"Hey everyone. This is Nastia. She's my new fish lab partner," he introduced.

The girl happily inquired everyone's names and Aga pulled a chair for her to sit. He then squeezed between Molly and the newcomer.

"What happened to your old lab partner?" Mirna asked after she was introduced to Aga as a former volunteer.