My new Mandarin Teacher

Empathy

The weekend was coming up and I was glad that we didn't have such a long class on Friday. I had enough time to prepare my things and later to spend the night at Alya's house.

School wasn't that spectacular. The last double lesson we had was chemistry and Ms. Mendeleiev announced that she was correcting the assignments we handed in at the beginning of the week.

Immediately, quiet murmurs were heard as the assignments will be a part of the final grade. She handed out the assignments that had been turned in. I took my assignment slips and saw that everything was in fine order except for a few tiny mistakes. I was happy, this will be good for my chemistry grade. Alya had done similarly well. We high-fived and Alya asked Nino how he was doing. Nino looked less pleased and Alya stood up and comforted him. Adrien also assured him that everything would be fine.

I looked at the three of them and it warmed my heart to have such great people around me. People who not only cared about how they felt about themselves, but also cared about the other person's well-being and didn't make them feel bad.

Adrien turned to the back and I smiled at him. With his eyebrows raised, he wordlessly asked me how I was scoring and I held up my slips of paper. He was pleased and clapped very softly. Then I asked him just as wordlessly how he did and he held up his slips as well. He had also done very well, even better than me. I was happy for him and held up my hand for him to clap. In great amazement, he looked at my hand and clapped it in. We both started laughing and he turned back to his seat.

" Please be quiet," everyone readjusted their volumes and some, including Alya, sat back down in their seats. When the class quieted down again, Ms. Mendeleiev continued.

"I was positively thrilled and proud by the performance of very many students. I am pleased that you understood the topic of acids and bases so well. We will write a test on acids and bases as we do after each topic. The test will be on Friday in two weeks. This is the end of the class. Have a nice weekend!"

Everyone rushed out of the chemistry lab to enjoy the sunny day. One faster than the other. I relaxed and packed my things and walked out of the room with Alya. On the way out, she nudged my elbow and smiled.

"You know Marinette, it makes me immensely happy to see you having such a light-hearted conversation with Adrien. I sincerely hope your self-confidence stays that way and that you get together soon," I looked at her, feeling guilty that I still hadn't told my best friend about the fact that my feelings for Adrien had died. I took a deep breath.

"Yeah, we'll see," I replied curtly. Alya smiled at me. I wondered if I ever helped her over Nino like she helped me all the time over Adrien. Just because they were together didn't mean there weren't problems in their relationship. I looked at her. She really was a very compassionate person and I didn't deserve her.

Once outside, Adrien stood with Nino waiting for his bodyguard. We stopped by them for a moment. Nino was still embarrassed because of his chemistry assignment. I felt sorry for him.

"Nino, it's not that big of a deal about the assignment. It won't go into your final grade that much anyway. It's much more important that you do very well on the upcoming test," I told him, trying to cheer him up a bit.

"It's not that easy, dude. I suck at Chem.", he looked down at the floor in embarrassment. I thought about it for a moment. I wasn't the best at chemistry either, maybe I could help.

"I'm not that good at chemistry either, but maybe my study skills are better than yours. If you want, we can both study for the chemistry test together and I'll help us both get to our best with my study methods," I offered. He looked at me and I felt like I saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes.