Imperfectly Perfect 3

48 : Apprehension

Chaeyoung slowly walks to get the attention of the boy who she remembers is Mina's work hour teammate. "Hey."

"Oh." Min Hyuk, who is currently carrying some plastic chairs to one side of the pool, promptly notices the smaller girl and responds. "Yo!"

"Min Hyuk, right?"

"Yep!" The council guy flashes a grin. "That's me. What's up, RM's best friend?"

"Ugh." Chaeyoung subtly rolls her eyes. "That soccer addict told you that?"

"Ahh. Yeah." Min Hyuk chuckles. "He kind of blabbers about you sometimes like he is some kind of proud father."

The soccer ace shakes her head a bit and smiles. She quickly takes a look around and recognizes that no one else is around. "Anyway, where's Mina? Did she... go to the common villa already? I didn't see her on my way here."

"Ahh. Too bad, you missed your sweetheart." The council guy glances at a direction to his left. "She went to the storage building near the garden to that side about... twenty minutes ago? Ms. Sandara asked her to get spare buckets for one of the pool games later."

"Buckets?" Chaeyoung scrunches her eyebrows. "Won't that be hard for her to carry alone?"

"She wasn't alone. Well— she went alone at first but Ms. Sandara realized it and asked me to help her a minute right after she left." Min Hyuk explains. "However, when I was about to go, Bambam jumped the gun and volunteered instead. He even jogged away telling that he could handle—"

"THAT GUY IS NOW ALONE WITH MINARI?!"

"Ye— yeah. That would normally be the case if Bambam caught up to her by—"

Min Hyuk wasn't able to finish whatever he was about to say because Chaeyoung quickly ran towards the direction of the storage where the council guy just hinted.

"Please be safe, Minari." After about three minutes of running towards the storage room, Chaeyoung's legs slow down as her eyes witness a crowd outside the destination she was aiming to reach.

As the soccer ace continues to tread closer to the storage room, she is suddenly starting to feel weakness in her knees. She did run as fast as she could but she could swear the fast beating of her heart and the sweat in her palms is caused by something else. Something else that she didn't want to accept in her mind or even exactly point out.

There is an ambulance a few meters away from the place. A few people in arm badges saying 911 are brisk walking around. There are three other people in civilian attire, who are most likely staff or caretakers of the retreat place, standing right outside the door.

"Minari." The soccer ace mumbles under her breath as she nervously looks around. She was about to step inside the storage room when a hand suddenly grabbed her arm. "Mi—"

"Son Chaeyoung?"

"Mi— Ms. Sandara?"

The faculty teacher scrunches her eyebrows. "What are you doing here?"

"I— I need to see Mina. Myo— Myoi Mina." Chaeyoung is absolutely looking lost and disturbed at the moment. "Where is she? Is she safe? Please tell me she's safe. Please tell me where she is, ma'am. I need to see her."

"Chaeyoung..." Sandara slowly lets go of the smaller girl's arm. "You— you can't. Not at this moment."

"What— Why? Miss, I— Mina. My Minari, I—"

"She is currently in shock." The instructor slowly utters with worry. "I'm afraid we can't let you—"

"Why?! Why can't I? What happened?!" Chaeyoung starts to raise her voice in agony. "What happened to her?! What happened to—"