When Janu Met Ry

avogardo, ace and the asshole

"For the mol ratio, it's what you want over what you don't, right?" Colin asked as he pointed at the error in Bea's solution on the white board.

We were doing practice problems on some white boards after our rapid review. We just studied the material as though we were memorizing it for a test, and it came back to us quite quickly.

Colin's living room was covered in scraps of paper, empty pop cans, and dirty napkins from our junk food snacking. We had moved from our seats on the couches to sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table in order for all of us to reach the large white board Colin brought out.

At first, everything was awkward but as we got on, we became more relaxed. I could really see a study group forming with these guys. Josh was super cool and an amazing teacher at that, so he fit right in with Colin, Bea and me. We weren't distracted and so, this chem review has went a long way.

"Ugh, I forgot the rule. I didn't know if I had to put oxygen at the top or bottom. Now, the whole thing is messed up." Bea raised her hand to erase her answer when Josh's hand held it back.

"Well, actually in this case, it didn't matter if you put it at the top cause the mol ratio was one to one so the answer should have been the same." Josh smiled at Bea causing his dimples to appear. Bea retracted her hand after shooting Josh a grateful smile.

I picked up the calculator in front of Colin to double check Bea's math when I noticed Colin's face. Colin's eyes were looking back and front between Josh and Bea and his face looked anything but amused. He was glaring at Josh and looked at Bea with an unreadable expression.

Well, then. I guess Bea's crush isn't one sided after all. My face morphed into a smirk as I realized what had to be done. I immediately went into scheming mode and made a note to ask Colin about this later.

"I have to remember to do that normally though. What if the mol ratio was two to three or something? I'd mess up all the stoichiometry." Bea played with her hands which she did when she was stressed or nervous.

"It's fine. Just remember what you want is at the top. So, if you want the mols of oxygen in the end, then in your mol ratio, oxygen should be placed at the top." I bumped my shoulder with hers, trying to cheer her up.

Josh, who was on my left, started to write another problem on to the board. "Who's next?"

"I'll go." I grabbed a purple marker and started to write my answer on the board. The first part was conversions which was easy but as I made it to the application of the numbers, I couldn't figure out how to get what I wanted.

I put the back of the marker against my lips as I did often when I was thinking. Random units were passing in my mind and I couldn't figure out what I had to do.

"Nice one, J. You've stumped everyone." Colin said while staring at the problem with a similar confused expression.

"It was a textbook question. You know those do stupid twists." Josh said while flipping to the back of the textbook to see if there were any answers. A sticky note had been strategically placed to mark the answer section as every student does.

Bea had started googling to see if any hints could be found. I sat there stumped by the question. Have you ever had that feeling where you knew what the final answer would look like but had no idea how to get there? Yea, that was exactly this moment.

"You have to use Avogadro's number in order to find the number of aluminum ions in the amount they gave you."

I turned around to see who the voice behind me was and found the last person I expected to see.