The next day, I went to Carlos's grandma's room to deliver the photos I had promised her. Because of everything that happened yesterday, I didn't even remember to tell Maria about the earlier incident, Carlos's photos, and his grandma; everything was happening just too fast.
Standing at the front of her door, I was about to turn the doorknob, but got surprised when it was opened from the inside, just for someone to come out of it and almost run over me, which didn't happen because I jumped to the side and evaded it (I got some training the last days, if you know what I mean). To my surprise, or not so much at that point, it was Carlos, who this time, acted a bit different than last time:
"Uh, I'm sorry" - He said to me, in a very melancholic tone.
"N-no, that's okay."
Wait, what? What is this aura?
Carlos seemed very different from the other days. Previously someone who appeared to always be in a hurry and with a determined look that revealed someone who cared only about his affairs, now seemed to have a more contemplative and sad expression. As he walked away, I could only wonder what could have happened to him…
"Ms. Miyuki" - I heard the voice of his grandma picking me off guard.
"Y-yes!"
"Please, enter."
"Thanks. Uh, here are the photos you asked for. I once again apologize for jeopardizing your deal with the journal!"
"Oh, please, I've already told you it isn't your fault. Carlos had plenty of opportunities to deliver his work beforehand; if you leave everything to the last minute you are indeed susceptible to unexpected events. Again, please don't worry about it. Anyhow, I've already discussed this with Carlos, he will have to do some work for us, but everything is settled now."
"Right…."
"You're free to go now."
I thought that would be the last tense moment of the day. But I was wrong. At the lab, I could feel the tension in the air. Maria was absent again today. And it took a bit for her to start coming back to the laboratory regularly. Apparently, Alberto tried contacting her a few more times, but with no success he eventually gave up and left her alone for the time being. Unfortunately, as an outsider, there was nothing I could do to effectively change the situation, other than to give my emotional support to her, which helped to a certain extent. Although still stressed, with the passing of the week she no longer seemed overly depressed or stopped actively avoiding her academic duties, which, by the way, were starting to really pile up and began to require more and more of our time. We then had our first tests and some project presentations for the subjects we chose to do so. Prof. Fukuda and the boys at the lab were really helpful, especially Ricardo as he was a postgraduate, he offered much appreciated help that led us to obtain good grades.
Regarding Prof. Fukuda, he was really starting to give us more assignments. Maria began researching microbiology, with some samples she obtained from sea rocks on the nearby shore, while I was responsible for trying to understand and describe the feed patterns of some fishes from the region. To be fair, everybody was starting to get a bit stressed out with the amount of work we had to do. Because I had fewer classes than my colleagues and was in the final year of my graduation, Prof. Fukuda really pushed me harder than the others. I had an average of more than one paper per week to read compared to Maria that only needed to read at most two papers per month, and on top of that, he asked me to always present my results first on every Wednesday meeting and was even harsher on my evaluation than compared to the others. Some days, stress hit hard to the point that I felt some horrible headaches; thankfully, Oliver always had some medicine with him, so it kind of helped me when I had sudden attacks of headache in the lab.
"Hey, Miyuki... "- Maria tried to me one day at the lab.
"..."
"Miyuki?"
"..."
"Er… Miyuki! Miyuki!" - She started to vigorously shake me to wake me up, and of course, was successful in doing so.
"Uh??? What!? What"? - I responded in a very sleepy voice.
"Hey, Maria! Stop it, you're going to hurt Miyuki!" - Ricardo intervened.
"I'm sorry, but for a moment I thought Miyuki fainted."
"Fainted? How did you come to this conclusion? I was just a bit sleepy."
"Hum…. You sure have some dark circles under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?"
"I sure would want to have some more, you know…"
"You can rest your head on my lap anytime you want, my cute Miyuki!"
"Oh, don't be silly" - I could see the boys blushing a bit as she said that. They really appreciated it when Maria gave them a "personal show."
"Miyuki don't worry. Things will be better in the next couple weeks." - Said Oliver to me.
"Why do you say that?"
"Heh, I don't want to spoil the fun, but I overheard Prof. Fukuda on the phone, and he has something that I'm sure will please you all."
"Oh! What? What?" - Jumped Maria towards Oliver.
"I-I just said! I won't spoil the surprise." - She was awfully close to him, which made him get very embarrassed.
"You cannot raise the mood this way and then hide something from me like this. You know I'm dead curious right?"
"No, I won't tell."
"Have you ever experienced losing something important out of nowhere?"
"Wait, what?"
"Has it ever happened to you that a relative of yours suddenly disappeared?"
"Stop trying to convince me with your stalking personality, it won't work on me."
"Tch, you're no fun. There will be payback! Prepare yourself!"
It was very nice to see Maria all pumped up again, laughing and making her silly joke while being overly pushy. She got some good laughs out of me, something I hadn't done in weeks, and for a moment I even forgot about how tired I was. It'd be good if she could maintain this high spirit constantly, it is very sad to see her down and depressed, it didn't fit her personality at all.
While Maria was teasing Oliver, Ricardo and me, Prof. Fukuda suddenly came into the lab, surprising all of us. It was Tuesday, and on that day he told us he had some important meetings, so he would only appear at the lab around the evening, but it was only noon.
"Afternoon, guys! Sorry for coming in so suddenly, and no, this is no surprise pop up quiz or whatever, I have an important matter that I wanted to discuss with you guys" - Oliver smiled at Maria the moment Prof. Fukuda said that which prompted a disgusted reaction from her part, because she really wanted to know beforehand what our professor would say.
"So, guys, come a bit closer" - We left our desks and created a circle of chairs around Prof. Fukuda - "I know I've been a bit harsh on you these past weeks..."
You don't say….
"And so far, I think you've been doing an awesome job this year, and I'm sorry if I haven't been as present as I wanted to be. Hope you guys have been nice with our new lab member, as I couldn't give much attention to her recently."
"That being said, knowing of your hard work I prepared a surprise for you guys" - That grabbed everyone's attention.
"I was in contact with the research department of the navy… "The navy!?" ... And told them about our common project in the lab and how we are achieving some progress. Presenting some of the material you guys worked on, they got really impressed and because of it they offered us something that I think you guys will very much appreciate" - Everybody was on the edge of their chairs and curious to hear what Prof. Fukuda had to say.
"So... The navy gently offered us a scuba diving session for our research on the shore of some of the nearby islands, with everything being sponsored by them."
"HURRAAAAAY!" - Maria and Oliver shouted in excitement, jumping out of their chairs and hugging each other.
"Really!? Is it really true?"
"Yes Ms. Miyuki, every word I said."
It has been so long since I did scuba diving for research purposes. Professional marine biologists do it all the time, and it is something that I always looked forward to. So glad to have an opportunity here in Brazil!
"I hope this can be a stress relief for you guys. We will leave next Sunday, is everybody okay with it?"
"YES!" - Shouted everyone, while Maria threw herself at me, being overly clingy like she usually is.
"Guys, guys. I know you are all excited for the dive but remember this is first and foremost a field research, and you do have some assignments in this dive. Ricardo has worked really hard with the engineering team and he was able to prepare the first few prototypes for the "automated radio and sonar deep sea supervisor." My plan is that you guys, during the dive, find some good spots to place radar/sonar probes. Although we will be in shallow waters, this is just a test for evaluating the machine's functioning.
"Cheers for Ricardo!" - Shouted Maria.
"Hurray!" - Everyone followed.
"I think this deserves a party!" - Oliver suggested.
"An in-lab party because I still have much to do…" - Ricardo pointed out.
"Don't be such a bummer, Ricardo!"
"It isn't you who has to do the final software adjustments for the dive at the weekend..."
And so, we all continued joking and fooling around at the lab till later that day in commemoration for all of the hard work we had done and for the imminent scuba dive session.
This is such a banger! I'm feeling so happy right now, I can't wait for Sunday morning!