HERS was a face he had seen before, he was sure of that. He had moved school twice before finally getting his diploma, but university is a bigger campus. Had he seen her at the uni cafeteria? Or was she in his faculty?

Somehow his mind said hers was a face he had known before uni days started. That would mean high school, but Iqball was pretty sure he would have recognised everyone in his batch, a majority of his seniors as well.

"Ballqis, please enter," the clerk at the lecturer's door called out after answering a phone call.

The girl in front of him walked into the lecturer's office.

Balqis. Balqis. Ballqis? Ball-kiss? Was she really Ball-kiss, the girl whose face was hit when she was a volleyball benchwarmer during sports week?

Goodness, she's Ball-kiss!

Iqball almost jumped off his seat.

The girl who did not mix with girls her own batch. She only talked to seniors, and once that batch left school, she was pretty much a lone wolf.

Some of the boys thought she was cute but way too weird to be considered as girlfriend material.

How come she didn't say anything to me? He wondered, not because he was still living in schooldays memories, in which he was the reigning 'king' amongst his peers. He knew he was pretty popular but that's not the reason why he could not fathom why she would not acknowledge him.

Iqball remembered their last day at school.

They shared a trophy, which she had graciously let him keep.

"They'll have another one made for me and post it to my home later, so you can keep this one," she said. Then she began to walk away but he managed to kill her steps with just one word.

"Ballqis," he had said then, as they were leaving the backstage area.

She turned, her face looked so surprised, as if he wasn't supposed to say her name out loud.

"Thanks, for this," he said with a shake of the trophy he had held in his left hand. His right hand was already extended towards her.

"Congratulations, Ballqis," he said.

She took his right hand and shook it just a little.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Sometimes it felt as if that did not happen.

"Iqball," the clerk called out, snapping him back to the present moment.

He quickly stood.

"Your turn," the clerk motioned the door, which was closed.

Had Ballqis left while he was reminiscing about their last day at school? Iqball shook his head with regret.

***

How did Iqball and I ended up with the same lecturer as course advisor? Ballqis wondered as she made her way down from Mrs Jogh's office on the second floor.

Was he also a biotech student? Mrs Jogh said just now this year she was assigned with five biotech students from the freshmen batch because the university had offered her a grant to work on the local tilapia species study. 

That was the reason Ballqis was called to the office. Mrs Jogh needed more student scientists willing to put in at least four hours of lab time to observe the tests done on the species.

"It may require lab hours, I may also have to ask you to capture wild tilapias, be it at the lakes, rivers or local wet market. Are you interested? There will be a stipend, not much but I supposed by the end of the semester you could get a decent smartphone upgrade," Mrs Jogh said.

A chance to not bother mom and dad about money! Ballqis was only too happy to agree. Hence her meeting with Mrs Jogh had been a short one after she signed the necessary forms.

Would Iqball be part of the study? She wondered as she slip a ringgit into the mineral water vending machine. A bottle of cold sky juice came out and she picked it up gratefully.

Ballqis was not sure if she could face anyone from her alma mater. She had such a terrible year there last year. She bet Iqball must have heard all those rumour about her.

She thinks she's too good for her own batch. How arrogant.

Now that all the seniors have graduated, she'd rather be a loner than talk to us. What an loser.

She's just weird.

Those were some of the things she had heard her peers said about her, behind her back, not knowing she was within earshot.

No blanket of hers were spared of her tears. Her pillows are almost always damped from her cries. There wasn't any toilet mirror that had not seen her broke down.

She never figured out why the girls in her batch thought she had stopped speaking to them. Maybe she had spent more time with a few seniors when they were around, but that was only because they had Discworld books to trade and discuss. No girls in her batch had read Terry Pratchett. She could not talk about the witches and wizards and the orangutan Librarian character with anyone else.

"Forget it Ballqis. School is over, even if any one of the batch is here, uni is a different game," she resolved quietly.

Ballqis did not see Iqball looking for her furiously on the corridor on the second floor.

She left the vending machine and crossed the park in front of the lecturers office building. The majestic flame of the forest trees covered her as she made her way back to her accommodation hall.

Iqball thought he saw a figure walk slowly under the trees. 

It was too late to call out her name without being reprimanded for making noise while the lecturers are still working.

He ran down and went straight to the park.

She was gone.