Fire & Silk

9. After Party Crimes

   "Ya! Ray! Where did you hide your rope? I'm going to be late!" Mina was running around the house, her blouse half tucked in her pants and one heel on. She was almost out the door heading for work until she heard Ray whining from the bedroom. She went to check on him and saw that his favorite rope toy was nowhere to be found. Much like Mina, Ray was also meticulous about things. He woke up at the same time, ate at the same time, and kept his things in the same areas around the apartment.

   Mina wouldn't have been so panicked if it weren't for the fact that it was supposed to start storming today. With April, there were a lot of rainstorms. The only things that calmed her dog when the weather was bad were his rope toy and a blanket Mina had gotten him a few years ago. If one of those was missing, she knew that he was going to have a terrible day.

   "Is it under the couch?" She bent down, groaning a little as she looked under it. She was only a month out from her birthday but she felt like she had aged 20 years from how hard it was to bend down. She scanned under the couch and her eyes lit up when she saw the tattered end of the rope toy. She stretched her arm as far as she could, barely grabbing onto the end of one of the strings. "Success! Here you go." She handed it to Ray who happily trotted off back to Mina's bed, completely unphased by how frantic his owner was just seconds ago. "Okay I'm off! Be a good boy and I'll see you when I get home."

   The sky was dark and there wasn't an ounce of sunlight. Even though the weather was supposed to be warming up, it seemed like it had only gotten colder. Mina quickly got into her car and started the short drive to work, turning the radio up to try and drown out the feeling of the gloomy weather. Unfortunately, it did the complete opposite. 비 (Rain) by Paul Kim came on and Mina's mood got even worse.

   She reached to turn the volume down but her hand hovered over the button. It reminded her of Jeongyeon. Mina remembered that she would always play this song whenever it rained. She had always argued that it made the rain even more sad, but Jeongyeon claimed that it made her feel comforted. She decided to let the song play out and by the time she pulled into the parking lot, the last few seconds were playing out.

   Mina was already late but she stayed in the car for a few more minutes. The rain started to fall and gently thudded on the windshield. Mindlessly, Mina turned the ignition off and unbuckled her seatbelt. She hated that she still thought about Jeongyeon sometimes and she hated even more that she had to work with her. They worked on different floors and had only done that one task for President Park almost a month ago but it still felt like she saw her too much.

   As Mina ran out of her car to try to avoid getting too wet, she thought of what Jeongyeon said to her the last time they were together on the elevator. It had already been almost a month but the words were ringing in her ears like the woman had said them yesterday.

"Thank you for the acknowledgement, and Happy Birthday."

   It shouldn't have surprised Mina that Jeongyeon had remembered her birthday, given that they both had really good memories and they had been friends for quite a while, but it still did. Once they parted ways she thought that Jeongyeon had cleared every bit of information about her ex-friend out of her brain. Mina just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, trying to get herself into work mode. She had time to think about all that later. Right now she needed to figure out how to get more work done than she had time for.

   Mina stepped out of the elevator and walked toward her office. She turned the handle to the door and only cracked it open as she heard a voice call her name. She stopped and pulled the door shut, spinning around and bowing immediately. "Good morning President Park. I'm so sorry I'm late. I had to take care of my dog since he's really afraid of thunder storms and-" Mina stopped herself once she noticed President Park was just watching her babble on in amusement.