"Eddy, dude, what the heck is that?!"
It's early in the morning and Brett exclaimed as he walked into the organic chemistry laboratory and saw his friend. For starters, Brett wasn't expecting anyone to be there so early and secondly, his friend Eddy was wearing a PINK lab coat!!!
"I'm setting up for a 7-hour reflux."
"No, no, not that, I meant what are you wearing??"
"A lab coat."
Mumbled Eddy, his eyes focused on the equipment at hand, inside the fume cupboard in which he was assembling his experiment glassware together.
The whole set up in the fume hood was a bit too low for Eddy's height and so he had his legs spread apart so that he could see what he was doing.
Brett rolled his eyes.
"Yes, Eddy I can tell it's a bloody lab coat but what's with the colour?"
"Huh? Oh, it was like this when I got here."
Brett couldn't help letting a smirk emerge from the edges of his lips. Whenever Eddy was focused on something he just wouldn't give a toss about anything else. Brett turned away from Eddy as he approached his workbench. This was when his eyes rounded out wide under his spectacles.
"Aaaaaaaaaaagh mine's pink too, WTF?!"
"Chill dude, it's a prank by the Inorganics. They dyed all the Organics' lab coats. Some or yellow, some are green. They did ours pink."
Brett heard his friend shouting from the other side of the laboratory, his voice travelling over the workbenches and shelves stacked high with papers and bottles of chemicals.
"Oh shiiiit, it's sooooooo... pink, I might just start glowing in the dark with this?"
Brett hears Eddy giggle.
"Put it on, mate. I wanna see how you look in it."
Eddy's voice got louder. He was approaching Brett's little workspace.
"Aaaawe, mate you look so cute, pink is def your colour"
"Crap Eddy, I'm not too fond of you using those words in the same sentence..!"
Eddy grins.
"What? You, cute 'n pink ?"
Brett blushed. Eddy was weird sometimes and said sh*t like that. Actually, he said sh*t like that all the time. Brett thought it was actually him that's weird for getting so affected by it.
"Brett can I borrow your mag stirrer?"
"Sure, you need an extra one ?"
Brett opened up his stationery drawer to retrieve a small plastic film canister, which contained what looked like a small white painkiller tablet. It's a magnet that you pop into your flask and set on a stirrer machine which made it spin and stirred your experiment mixtures. Other students would go through your cupboards and took things without asking, which was a major trigger for PhD students like Brett and Eddy, so Brett has kept his hidden with his stationary as a precaution.
"Nah, I don't have one anymore. Mine got nicked. They replaced it with a f*cking tictac."
Brett couldn't help himself laugh out loud.
"Dude, that's the funniest thing. I'll have to try that stunt on someone "
"Don't."
Eddy said rather sharply, somewhat out of his character.
"The tictac wrecked my material. That's why I'm starting all over again.
"What, your starting material?? Oh sh*t, what a setback, I'm so sorry to hear that."
Eddy smiled.
"It's okay. I was getting to a point where I knew had to make a new batch sometime soon. Anyway, thanks for this, now are you sure you're not gonna miss it till I finish with it? I'll need it for 7 hours' reaction time plus time for it to cool down and work up. That would be... like till tomorrow ?"
"No, I'm good, just running NMRs today, oh sh*t, My time slot is due. Here"
Brett takes out the magnet and places it into Eddy's hand.
"Great, thanks. I owe you one. Coffee at 8:30?"
"Sounds great, see ya then"
And Brett ran out the lab, down the stairs to the NMR room, still in his pink lab coat.
"Hey Eddy, sorry I'm late. The next guy didn't show so I took advantage of the opportunity to run a couple more extra spectrums"
Brett was slightly out of breath upon arrival at the cafe where he was supposed to meet Eddy 15 minutes ago.
"Spectra"
".. Ok, plural. Geez who the hell says spectra, you knew what I meant. Are you pissed that I'm late?"
"Huh? Oh no, no no, it's ok, I just got here myself" Eddy lied as he looks up from his phone he'd been staring at for the last 20 minutes. Then Eddy smiled.
"Dude, you really do look cute in that."
Brett realised he was still wearing his lab coat. The colour of Brett's face changed to match the colour of the lab coat.
"Will ya stop it with that cr*p."
"Don't worry about it, you're not the only one with a lab coat on around here"
Eddy sat up proudly as he tugged on the collars of his lab coat.
"Yeah, sure. But you do realise we're the only ones with pink labcoats...!"
Eddy looked around and shrugged.
"Hmm. Oh well, I guess it all makes it more special, aye ?"
There he goes again.
They were in one of the coffee shops on the university campus, the one closest to the science/engineering faculty. Here they were surrounded by a herd of Asian engineering/science students. Naturally quite a few of them would rock up in their lab coats to grab a quick coffee. Brett and Eddy could have easily blended into the rest of them if it wasn't for their fluorescent pink lab coats, highlighting their presence amongst the otherwise rather drab looking sea of engineering and science students.
They didn't care though.
Together they sat and chatted while they enjoyed their morning coffees. They would talk about everything and anything, being best friends since meeting for the first time in their first year chemistry laboratory class.
"Hey Brett, remember how we first met at uni ?"
"Yeah, of course I do"
Then they both secretly said to themselves almost simultaneously;
I think I've been crushing on him since.
"Hi I'm Brett, can we sit wherever we want or is it alphabetical?"
"Eddy. Alphabetical. I'm a Chen".
Eddy pointed to his full name written on a piece of masking tape that had been stuck onto his workbench. It looked as though each student was allocated a bench space by the lab manager in alphabetical order by surname.
Brett groaned.
"I'm a Yang."
Eddy laughed out loud as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the back of the laboratory.
"Sucks to be you"
Eddy did say it in a kind tone with kind eyes though. Brett grinned.
"Oh well, nice to meet you Eddy, if you ever need me for anything, I'll be at the back"
"Ah, ok, thanks. Likewise. Anything."
Strange thing to say to someone you've just met? I suppose he's just trying to be friendly.
20 minutes later their laboratory session started. Eddy was straining to hear the lab manager talking and explaining laboratory procedures when Eddy felt a little tap on his shoulder. It was Brett with his lab folder and stool in his hands and a pen in his mouth. He mumbled.
"Hmph phephi.."
Eddy cringed and took the pen out of Brett's mouth.
"..Thanks. Hey Eddy, you mind if I join you here for a bit? I can't see or hear a thing from back there."
"Sure Brett, of course you can."
Since uni started 3 days ago, Eddy's been sitting alone in lectures. He was naturally shy and so was always a bit of a loner and most of the time he didn't mind it so much. He'd rather be on his own than be part of a large group of people he didn't have an affinity to. But this particular boy seemed really nice and Eddy's intuition told him that he would get along nicely with him.
So for all the laboratory sessions that followed that semester, Eddy was happy to share his bench with Brett when they had to listen to the lab manager's briefings.
And as Eddy thought, they've become best friends since. After they both completed an honours degree in organic chemistry, both boys commenced their studies for their PhD straight away.
"Mate, we oughta head back, we have a lab session to supervise from 10"
"First years? Sh*t, yeah we really shouldn't be late, you leave them on their own, they might set the lab on fire."
The boys got up and walked back together to the science building. They walked around towards the back of the building as a shortcut and arrived in a small courtyard. The jacaranda tree above was in full bloom.
Eddy suddenly whipped out his phone.
"Hey Brett, can we take a pic together?"
"What? Why?"
"Oh c'mon, gotta capture the moment dude"
And with that, Eddie put his arm around Brett's shoulder, pulling him in close. Brett saw the image on Eddy's iPhone, two geeky chemistry students in a pink lab coat, side by side, almost cheek to cheek, Eddy's face grinning on the top right corner, Brett in the bottom left.
Eddy squawks "Bah, wrong angle, we need to see our lab coats"
"'Tis okay, just take one like that, it's nice"
Whoops. Cr*p, maybe I shouldn't have said that.
"Yeah? Sure, okay, say chemistrieeeee"
Brett had to try hard not to roll his eyes and maintain a smile.
Following the click, Eddy wrapped his other arm around Brett.
"What the.."
"Chill bro, just swapping hands, I'll get a longer reach this way"
Eddy passed his iPhone to his left hand and extended it out in front of them, his right hand resting gently on Brett's shoulder.
"Chemistrieee"
"Chemistrieee"