Next To You

2

The hallway leading to Lab3 was quiet with the usual second day energy, not quite the chaotic noise of orientation. She was walking beside Shery, Cassie, and Trish as they made their way to their next class: Research Laboratory.

“Please, this room better have an ac” Cassie muttered.

“If not, I might fake a fever,” Trish added.

Jade smirked. “Then I’ll fake passing out just to upstage you.”

They all laughed, Jade’s mood had lifted a bit from earlier, and she welcomed the distraction of a new subject.

As they reached the door of Lab 3, Shery turned and pushed the door and led the way inside.

Jade stepped in then froze.

There, sitting near the front of the room, in front of an entire row of empty seats was Neil.

He was already settled, his elbows on the desk, back straight, looking like he was ready for a presentation even though the class hadn’t started yet. A few students had taken seats farther back, but the area around him was completely empty, like an invisible barrier had been drawn.

Why is he always early? Jade thought. And why does he look like he owns the room?

Before she could decide where to sit, she noticed something else.

Cassie and Trish greeted him.

“Hey, Neil,” Cassie said casually, pulling out a chair in the row behind him.

“What’s up,” Trish added, tossing her bag on the seat next to Cassie.

Neil smiled. “Yo, Trish. Hey, Cassie.”

Jade blinked, stunned. Since when did they know each other?

She glanced at Shery, who raised her eyebrows and whispered, “What’s with you?”

Jade didn’t answer. She simply slid into the seat directly behind Neil, still trying to process the casual greetings between her friends and this guy she’d only met yesterday.

Before she could ask, the door shut and the professor walked in, a short guy with sharp glasses and a sharper tongue. He looks so young to be a professor.

“Settle down, class,” she said, placing his pencil case and laptop on the front desk. “This is Research Lab, not recess. Second meeting means we’re already behind.”

Groans echoed softly through the room.

Mr. De Leon clicked his laptop open and connected it to the projector. The screen lit up with a document titled “Lab Orientation + Icebreaker Quiz bee.”

Jade blinked. Icebreaker what?

“Now,” Mr. De Leon continued, adjusting the projector. “Before we dive into the semester’s research modules, let’s see who’s awake. I’ll be asking a series of trivial questions. If you answer correctly, I’ll write your name down for bonus points on your first practical exam.”

A wave of excitement and nerves swept across the room.

“Let’s begin,” the professor said. “First question is how can you tell if a diamond is real or fake?”

Hands stayed down for a moment. Then Neil raised his, confidently and high.

“Yes?” Mr. De Leon nodded at him.

Neil straightened in his seat. “You can test if a diamond’s real using the reflection test. If you shine a light on a diamond and the reflection is white, then it’s real. But if the reflection has multiple colors, then it’s fake.”

“Correct,” Mr. De Leon said, typing something on her laptop. “Name?”

“Neil Dela Vega.”

Mr. De Leon wrote it on the white board.

Jade narrowed her eyes. Show-off.

“Next question,” Ms. De Leon continued. “Which gas makes up most of the Earth’s atmosphere?”

Jade’s hand twitched toward the air, but Neil’s shot up faster again, and this time, he didn’t wait to be called.

“Nitrogen!” he shouted.

A pause.

Mr. De Leon raised an eyebrow. “Please wait to be called next time, Mr. Dela Vega. But you are correct.”

Neil lowered his hand with a grin.

Behind him, Jade’s jaw tightened.

Okay, calm down. No one likes a trivia hog, she thought.

But her heart was already speeding up. Competitive mode: activated.

More questions followed.

“What organ in the body regenerates the fastest?”

Neil raised his hand again. Jade groaned internally.

“What planet has the shortest day?”

Neil.

“What was the first element discovered with a spectroscope?”

Neil, again.

Jade clenched her pen. Her grip tightened with every correct answer he blurted out. Who even knew about spectroscopes anyway?

She glanced sideways at Shery, who was too busy doodling in her notebook to care. Cassie was half listening. Trish had tuned out entirely and was quietly chewing gum.

Then came a question that made Jade sit up.

“Next,” Ms. Herrera said, “True or false: Fever is a sickness.”

Neil’s hand went up. Jade froze but didn’t raise hers.

He opened his mouth, ready to answer but hesitated.

Mr. De Leon didn’t call on anyone right away.

Then it hit Jade. She’d watched a video just last week about something by that doctor Youtuber she liked.

She raised her hand.

“Yes,” Mr. De Leon said, pointing at her.

“It’s false,” Jade said, voice calm but firm. “Fever isn’t a sickness. It’s the body’s natural response, a symptom of an underlying condition, not the condition itself. It means the body is fighting something.”

Ms. Herrera blinked, then nodded. “Correct. Name?”

“Jade Natividad.”

A rush of satisfaction surged through her when Mr. De Leon wrote her name on the board. Neil turned slightly, just enough to glance at her with a raised brow. She looked straight ahead, avoiding his gaze, a small smirk creeping at the corner of her mouth.

Finally.

She answered two more after that; one about mold and another about pH levels but Neil still ended the quiz bee with the highest number of correct answers.

“Alright,” Mr. De Leon said. “Top scorer for today’s icebreaker is Mr. Neil Dela Vega. Seven points, followed by Ms. Natividad with three” he then listed the rest of the students who scored.

Jade tried not to let it bother her, but the little jab of second place stung more than she expected.

As if to rub salt in the wound, Mr. De Leon clicked to the next slide on the projector.

“Groupings for this semester’s lab project will be done now. Groups of four. Write your names and submit it before class ends.”

Instantly, Jade turned to the girls and without needing to speak, they all nodded at each other. The unbreakable quad.

Shery fished out a pen and notebook, scribbling their names quickly like someone afraid the slots would run out. Jade saw her underline the list twice for good measure.

Neil didn’t look around. He pulled out his phone and tapped away, likely messaging his groupmates. Probably already has people in mind, she thought.

Class ended not long after.

Students stood, chairs scraping the floor as the room buzzed with chatter and the occasional clatter of zippers.

Jade was gathering her things when Neil suddenly brushed past their group near the door.

“Excuse me,” he said quickly, stepping through them.

Jade jerked her head up at the sound of his voice. Her backpack strap had barely gone over her shoulder, and already he was rushing off like he had a race to win.

“Rude,” she muttered.

As the girls exited the lab, heading to their next class which is Biology II, Shery noticed her glare.

“Everything okay?”

Jade frowned. “He’s starting to irritate me.”

“Who?” Trish asked, adjusting the strap of her bag.

Jade pointed her lips forward with a furrowed brows.

“That guy.”

They all turned to see Neil halfway down the hallway, weaving between students, practically running.

Trish squinted. “Neil? Seriously?”

“Yes. He acts like he’s in some trivia competition with a million peso prize.”

Cassie laughed. “You’ve got that look again.”

“What look?”

“The I-need-to-beat-this-person-at-all-costs look.”

Trish snorted. “You only met him this week?!”

Jade nodded. “Yesterday, in Philosophy. He sat beside me.”

Cassie raised a brow. “Wait! I thought you knew each other.”

“Nope,” Jade said, sounding more annoyed than she intended. “Apparently I only know, like, a quarter of our class.”

Trish chuckled. “Well, he was in our Chem group last semester. That’s why we know him.”

Jade blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

Shery nodded. “Yup. He was kind of quiet at first but got more talkative after a while.”

“Well, he’s definitely not quiet now,” Jade muttered.

They all laughed.

As they walked into their next classroom, Jade glanced back down the hallway.

Neil had already disappeared into the crowd.

She didn’t know what it was about him, maybe the way he answered like he knew everything, may e the way he ran ahead, or maybe the way he’d inserted himself into her morning, but he was getting under her skin.

And somehow, that bothered her more than it should.