A Gift From a Far Away World (A Seven Knights Fan Fiction)

Round 5: Deeper, Wider, All Angles

Rachel was working on her biochemistry project when Eileen barged into her lab. Well, the campus lab precisely, but it was kind of an unspoken agreement that at this hour, meaning over time (because she was the professor's assistant and had the key), the lab was hers to utilize as she pleased.

"Eileen, please, you're going to cause an accident in my lab one of these days if you keep barging in without notice like this. What if I put something contagious at the counter near the preparation room door?" Rachel straightened her back, away from the microscope and the chemical-molecular reaction that she was observing on the deck glass under it.

"Ah, sorry... but I did call you two hours ago, you know. You just ignored the call like usual. I even left a message to give you a notice that I was coming today," Eileen complained, dropped her bag inside an unoccupied locker, removed her outdoor shoes, changed into laboratory sandals and put on a lab coat before she stepped into the sterile area of the lab.

"Huh, I see you learned your lesson in minimizing contamination to my babies," Rachel smirked at the strawberry blond woman for finally memorizing the rule of entering the sterile environment.

Eileen scowled at her. "How many times do you think I have done this? Of course I did. Anyway, why do you call those germs your babies? That's pretty disturbing," she looked rather pale as she stared at some glass tubes with colorful liquid inside, near Rachel's arm on the counter she sat at.

"Rude. Don't call them germs. Some of them are very useful microorganisms. They're artificially engineered to develop vaccines and medicines, and some even can be applied in food products to enhance their taste or nutrient," Rachel pouted at Eileen for being mean to her subjects and objects of experimentation.

"I'm more afraid that you're developing biological weapon with the way you keep increasing their cultures and variation," Eileen deadpanned as she looked behind Rachel, where a large peculiar refrigerator with various plates and tubes were visibly stored, tagged and labelled, arranged in alphabet according to the species name and their level of hazard.

"Oh? That's a nice idea, Eileen. I'll keep that in mind. Who knows if something like that will be necessary in the future, right?" Rachel smiled at her with fake politeness since Eileen had so little faith in Rachel's moral. She would make Eileen be the one responsible of the idea itself if Rachel indeed had to create biological weapon someday.

"Don't say something so scary like that! It was just a joke!" Eileen seemed alarmed at the idea and Rachel had to chuckle seeing how panicked she looked at that moment. Noticing Rachel's amusement, she huffed and glared at her while she sat at the chair beside her. "Seriously, I never know when you're joking. Your false courtesy always makes Goosebumps appear on my body," she nitpicked some more as she rested her cheek on her palm, leaning her body against the counter top.

"Well, it's your own fault for not taking my own jest well." Rachel answered with a smirk and Eileen pouted at her. After that, she was quiet and Rachel was back in observing her experiment.

"Hey, Rachel," Eileen called again after five minutes of comfortable silence.

"Hmm?" Rachel acknowledged her, but she didn't release her eyes from the ocular lenses of the microscope.

"I'm a bit worried about Kris," Eileen said, sounding worried indeed. Rachel sighed slowly before she straightened her back once again, putting off the observation for a moment, as she turned to give Eileen her full attention.

"What is it that you're worried about? If it's about his hopeless crush on Rudy and his complicated cat and mouse game with Dellons, we all already decided not to interfere with it, right? It's their private business, and unless Rudy does something about it, nothing we do will help them," Rachel raised one of her eyebrows, as sensible and logical as usual.