College Shenanigans: Part 2

Mid-February had the outgoing second-years scrambling to finish their record books and cramming in experiments for the up-coming practicals. Students who did not yet feel confident enough to perform the experiments spent the days holed up in the labs, tinkering around with the instruments and chemicals. The other students whose records weren’t complete would sit in the classrooms, on the floor, Indian-style (since the building was new and not ready yet for the benches) while being supervised by a lecturer. These records were completed under constant laughter, gossip, scandals and general banter. Upon one of those days, we were again welcomed by a disastrous fit of insubordination.

For the new readers, I have a group of eight people, four of whom were introduced in the previous post. This narrative will now include the other three members. Misaki, Sora and Fumi.

Misaki is the quietest yet outrageously vocal girl in our group. She is a girl of fewer words and rarely talks about her real and deepest troubles (I mean, I don’t do that either). Her actual name, ironically, is literally the word 'smile'. She smiles sweetly and lulls the onlooker into thinking that she is a girl living her best life. Life’s ups and downs never come unannounced. For Misaki, it was being constantly compared with her cousin who is similar in age with her.

Being compared to someone of your age is by far one of the biggest trials and it is never sweet if that someone shares your blood. No matter how much you let the comments slide off of you, envy and hurt will grow and make you feel discouraged and unsatisfied.  During our Annual Day, the Principal selected a whole bunch of students for the Appreciation Awards. By a twist of fate, Misaki was the only one in our group who did not receive one. Being the big-hearted, absolutely lovable girl that she is, she did not let that bother her…until everyone else did. Her cousin had received the award and Misaki had to spend that day berated by her kinsfolk for being an absolute dunce in her studies. Look, I am in absolutely no position to say this but Misaki deserved her award and not the complaints. I get that parents want their children to reach the heights that were dreamed by others, comparison is not the way to go for encouragement. That little sting will never fade.

Anyhow, we were not feeling welcoming towards her cousin for Misaki had informed us about it weeks later after the actual incident. It took a lot of wheedling out of her to get the story out because she looked miserable.

That day, Misaki, Aki and Hana were busy doing their labs whilst the rest of us were chilling in our classroom. I was sitting in the last line with Fumi, Haya and Kasumi while talking under the pretext of memorizing our viva voce. For whatever reason known to her, Fumi flicked a water bottle towards the window beside Kasumi, not knowing that the bottle was not closed properly. It ended up spraying Kasumi with water as Haya dodged it, dotting the wall behind her with droplets. For everyone’s sake, Kasumi bit back her urge to fling the entire contents of her own bottle on Fumi which was unbelievable as she has a knack for being very mischievous. A few minutes later, I joined Sora who was sitting on the bench in front of us and started talking with her. Behind us, I could hear Fumi apologizing for her ‘accident’ and Haya adamantly vowing that she will drown her in water for Kasumi’s sake. 

And of course, she did take her revenge.

Sitting next to Fumi was Misaki’s said cousin. When we overheard Haya’s vow, Sora’s eyes flicked next to Fumi and widened with absolute mischief. She and I told Haya to project the water such that the cousin will bear more of its brunt rather than Fumi. Our downright disgusting intentions, even if Haya had performed the action, led to a rather frightening disaster. 

When Haya tried to douse her in water, Fumi dodged it so cleanly that the water ended up splattering a guy sitting behind her who was completing his RECORD BOOK.

His effing RECORD book. 

We were in disbelief. It felt so absurd yet so terrifying that we ended up in giggling fits. The most embarrassing thing was that the water dripped from his face too. It felt outright disrespectful and disgraceful. We weren’t marveling in his agony, in fact we couldn’t believe that we could be THIS stupid.I could physically feel the nasty feeling of being caught off guard by a splash of water in your face.

“Sorry’’, Haya apologized profusely, “we’ll dry it for you, here.”

He merely blinked.

“You think apologizing will dry it?” he said rather testily.” That wasn’t mine to begin with”.

“I’m telling you”, Haya persisted, “Give me that book”.

And so, they started to dry it. To be honest, the damage was not bad but it could have been worse. 

“Why the hell did you dodge that ,stupid?” Haya groaned.

“Reflex”, Fumi giggled.

As we were stifling our laughter and drying the record book,Sora gasped.

“Do you think it might have happened because we had bad intentions to begin with?”

I looked at her, my mouth forming an OH of comprehension.

‘It could be!’ I said, thinking hard

That incident taught us not to avenge anyone so randomely. We were outsiders to begin with and we should be thankful to God for the patient boy. Atleast , he did not throw a full-on tantrum for a few splashes of water. When Misaki heard the incident, she laughed and commented on how thick-headed we are. It ended well for us.

It ended without a full-blown lecture from the faculty for not taking the finals and our life seriously.