“And pass me the sulphuric acid,” I asked Emiria who did as I asked. It’s a month into the new semester and that means less than a month until my old man returns. Carefully I added the acid into the mixture, all seemed calm at first that is until it bubbled and popped, the glass falling to the floor on impact and my goggles being covered in the mixture we concocted. I laughed, removing the goggles to regain my sight and threw them into the nearby sink. “Back to the drawing board huh?”

I looked over and couldn’t help but laugh as I never noticed Emira fell flat on her butt, her mouth dropped open in confusion at the mixture covering her sight. I leant forward, removing the goggles for her. “Thanks, I guess,” She murmured.

“We’ll see you guys tomorrow,” A couple of the other members waved as they left the room.

I looked up to the clock, never even noticing it was time to leave. “Alright, lets clean up so we can leave too,” I stretched upwards, loosening my body. I stopped hearing a buzzing sound from the far end work bench. “I assume that’s your phone?”

Emiria sighed, nodding and getting up to answer the call. She removed her gloves throwing them into the trash before answering. “Hello,” She answered. It was a couple of moments before she spoke again. “Late? By how long?” Again, things fell silent for a while before she spoke. “Can I really not just. Oh, I understand. I’ll wait in the classroom until then. Bye.”

She sighed heavily before using a closed fist to hit the bench, making me jump. What in the world? Okay, if she’s this angry I'm not getting within one millimetre of this situation. I took a step back, continuing to clean up as she merely sat there, looking at her phone that now lay in front of her. I growled to myself, why do I care? I sighed, pulling up the stool next to her. “Alright, what’s up?” I asked, begrudgingly.

“My father is stuck in traffic,” She muttered. Why is that a problem? How bad is the traffic that she decided to punch the bench? “I asked if I could walk home but rules are rules and I now have to wait for him to get here. He’s been sat in the traffic for 20 minutes, only moving a mile or so from the university.”

That short of distance in such a long time? “Why not walk home? You live close by, right?” I questioned and she shuck her head. Possessive parents perhaps? Or maybe overprotective seeing as they have not long been in town. Though she mentioned, ‘rules are rules.’ “So, you’re stuck here until your dad arrives?” She nodded. Why do I care? Why am I about to take sympathy on her? “Finish cleaning up, I'm going to grab us some drinks from the vending machine. I don’t feel like leaving you alone to wait.”

I left without another word, exiting to the hallway to the nearest vending machine. It would be illogical to leave her alone while she has to wait x amount of time before her dad shows up. I entered a couple of coins before hitting the drinks button. It’s logical that at our age, parents start to let you go off on your own. Perhaps something happened in London that has made them over protective? I’m 10 billion percent sure that whatever happened has caused insecurity in the family for everyone to be cautious.

The drinks dispensed and after retrieving them it was right back into classroom, where is seemed to be cleaned rather quickly. Super human cleaning abilities or doesn’t like wasting time? I looked over and her hair was flowing freely rather than constricted by a hair tie. She looks more relaxed. Bump bump! What was that? “You spacing out?” I snapped out of my trance as she asked the question. I walked over to the bench, placing her drink beside her with mine opposite and removed my lab coat. “You don’t have to stay you know?”

“Then who would lock up?” I sighed taking my seat once again. “I guess we can play 20 questions while we wait for your dad.”

“You can ask the first question then,” Emiria smiled. I never really noticed; she has a nice smile.

“Alright,” I laughed. “So, Caswell, where does that name come from?”

“My father’s side is from England,” She answered. “So, why science?”

“I want to go to space,” I laughed, the memory coming back from first grade. “And I wanted to go there as soon as possible. I dove into books and that Christmas; Santa gave me all the gifts I needed to start my journey.” It was quite for a moment, I looked up from my drink and saw the look of, almost admiration, in her eyes. I blushed, was she really so moved by a silly little story. “Okay, so the same question, why science?”

“I like the stars,” She breathed happily. “Whenever I felt alone as a child or when I was with my grandmother in England, we would sit outside and look up and there they were. Beautiful balls of gas that never failed to appear every night.” She chuckled slightly as she continued; “Most kids had a night light but not me. I would open the curtains and I'd stare into space for hours until I just feel asleep. Some people have their head in the clouds, me, I have mine in the stars.”

“Well I guess that’s as good as an answer as any,” I said. “Next question, favourite colour?”

Emiria laughed at me. “Getting simpler now?” She laughed. “But I like purple. You?”

“White,” I replied. “It’s a blank canvas and anything can be applied to it. You can use white to re-erase your mistakes and make new ones. A white board gives you the canvas to create anything you want.”

“That’s um,” Emiria looked lost for words. “That’s pretty deep. I just think purple is a pretty colour.”

We were both quiet before we burst out laughing. Who would have thought a game of twenty questions could be so fun. It’s just a game where you ask dumb questions to get to know someone but I never realised you can see a different side of a person depending on the questions you asked. Got to admit, I’m getting excited.