~ WHy is the world so small? ~
As decided, this day, after class, a team meeting for the competition was held. Evelyne had been waiting for the team in front of the university library, the place they agreed to meet. She was busy behind her laptop, trying to focus on her work. But in reality, she failed to concentrate because she was nervous about meeting Rainier.
She regularly checked her phone, waiting for her teammate to come. "Excuse me?" A man's voice disturbed her focus. As Evelyne raised her head, she looked at the man and her face turned pale.
"Are you Evelyne?" Asked the man, as if he didn't notice Evelyne's pale face.
Evelyne who was lost in words could only nod her head. The man standing before her had a similar face and even voice to the Rainier she knew. 'It can't be real!' She tried to look normal, without showing any unnecessary expression.
The man smiled at her. "Ah, I'm Rainier. Nice to meet you." He took a seat in front of Evelyne. "This is our first time meeting in person."
"Yeah, you're right. Hope we can work well together," answered Evelyne. She was quite annoyed that Rainier appeared first while the other teammates were still nowhere to be seen, putting her in an awkward situation. To deal with the awkwardness, Evelyne tried to change her focus to her laptop, back to her work.
"Sure. Anyway, I'm amazed at your work. You managed to finish them all really quick."
Evelyne stopped typing with her eyes still glued to the screen. "Well, those are basics for me. So I have almost no problem with it." Her hands continued typing on her laptop while she maintained her serious face. 'He even has the same way of talking with Rainier. Even identical twins won't have this many similarities.'
Fortunately, other teammates came, so Evelyne could relax. "I'm sorry for being late," they said as they took their seats.
"No problem. Anyway, I'm Rainier, nice to meet you all!" Rainier introduced himself to everyone there with a smile on his face.
"Nice to meet you too." They reintroduced themselves one by one and had some talks. Basically, this was their first full team meeting.
Not wanting to waste more time, Evelyne finally talked. "Hmm… should we start now?" Evelyne moved her focus from her laptop to her teammate.
The others nodded their heads. "Sure, let's check it!"
They started with the writing report. They read the document together, slowly to make sure there was no problem with it. Sometimes changes were made to fix mistakes found.
Two hours needed to check and recheck everything. "Evelyne… you really have a good eye. How can you find all those mistakes?" Praised Rainier. During the two hours of working, Rainier gave attention to Evelyne. He watched her every move, talked every chance he had and acted as if they were close already.
"Evelyne is literally good at everything she does. It's not a surprise anymore if she does something cool," commented Felix. He already witnessed so many amazing things done by Evelyne till it didn't surprise him anymore.
"Then, we're lucky that we have her in our team!" Bridget shouted, happy.
"You're right. We can surely win this competition," added Bryan.
Enough with talking and resting, it was time to check the prototype of their project. "Don't expect that this will work perfectly for now," warned Evelyne before they even finished connecting every wire and component.
"It's okay. I understand that it's impossible to be perfect on the first try," answered Bridget as her hands were busy building the housing prototype.
In fifteen minutes everything had connected and the system was about to be tested. In the count of three, they turned the system on and Evelyne was ready with her note. At first, everything worked well, letting them smile.
Yet, after the second test, something went wrong. "Oh my gosh, the motor here should work when the sensor detects the water! Because it doesn't work, that heater won't work either." Evelyne sighed and jotted down the problem they found.
"Another problem here. The door isn't enough to generate a signal to be read by the sensor." Bryan found another problem.
Slowly, as the testing continued, new problems kept coming, until they could only laugh. Moreover, if the error appeared in such a funny way. "Alright, so this is the list of the errors we found." Evelyne handed the note and a serious discussion started to solve every problem.
In four hours, the sky had black and they finally found solutions. "Let's fix everything in a week. Next week, we will meet again and check if this works or not."
"I'm okay with it," said Rainier.
"Agree, the deadline is near already." With that, they agreed to meet next week with the hope that everything would be solved really well.
Since the meeting was over, Evelyne walked to her car that was parked in the parking area. She was so tired from today's activities and her tense body. 'Oh my oh my. I'm dizzy.'
As Evelyne had arrived at the parking area, she opened her car door and entered. She took a deep breath and sighed a few times. 'Is he pretending just to know me or what? It's unbelievable if he didn't notice me!' She was confused by Rainier's actions during the work.
She noticed that Rainier paid much attention to her, watching her every move. She suspected he was confirming that she was the Evelyne he knew, just like her toward him. 'If that's right, then he really is that Rainier. Why is the world so small?'
The memories of the old days came to her mind. The day when she spent her time with Rainier. It was a nice day, Rainier cared for her so much. Yet unfortunately, their story wasn't as sweet as Evelyne wished for.
'Oh come one Evelyne. Just let the old story go! There are a lot more important things to do in front of you!' She slapped her face so she could get back to her senses. After taking a few deep breaths, she turned her car engine on and drove back home.