The Ninth Life of Min Yoon Gi

27.

Ji Min... I have to do this for... Ji Min.

Yoon Gi kept taking deep breaths, letting the scent of the silvervine permeate his senses and keep him from drifting off to sleep. This was close. Too close. He couldn't... he couldn't fail again.

Okay, I got the teapot sorted out. Next I have to do a practice run from the garden to here to make sure the tea could be brewed in time.

Time...

It only just occurred to Yoon Gi that, as a cat, he didn't have a cell phone in his pocket, a watch on his wrist, or a stopwatch around his neck. How was he going to know if he could make the run in time if he couldn't actually track his time?

Like a lightbulb turning on, the chime of the cuckoo clock on the wall gave him the idea he needed. He would study the ticking of the second hand to learn the rhythm of time. He could then test himself by leaving the room and coming back to see if he was accurate in his calculation of time. Genius!

He jumped on the back of the couch and stared sideways at the clock, his eyes marking every swing of the pendulum as the seconds passed. It was almost hypnotic.

When he felt like he had a good feel for the seconds, he noted the time on the clock and then jumped down from the couch. Trying to focus his mind on the echo of the clock in his mind, he wandered into Jimin's room.

He found her sprawled on her bed, looking at her phone.

"Aish, this kid. He's almost too sweet for his own good." She said to herself.

Yoon Gi jumped on the bed next to her and peered over her shoulder to see who she might be talking about.

Jungkook?! He wasn't exactly surprised, but the smile on her face as she typed a reply to his text message suggested to him that Jungkook's feelings may not be one sided after all.

He curled up next to her side and tried to relax, all the while keeping his mind on how many seconds had passed since he left the clock.

"What do we want for dinner?" Jimin asked Yoon Gi.

He gave a half-hearted meow in response.

"Tuna it is," Jimin giggled. "Jungkook said he would stop by with dinner after he closes the shop this evening. Oooo, I wonder if that tea I ordered will be delivered today? I was telling him about it last week and he said he wanted to try it. He doesn't usually drink tea, but when I told him about this banana tea I was gonna try to help me sleep, he seemed interested. It would be nice to have it with our dinner, because it also helps with digestion." She was swiping on her phone, apparently looking up the tracking information for the order she was talking about.

This all seemed almost too good to be true. If Jimin was going to be making tea for Jungkook, maybe he could trick her into using the resurrection plant instead.

This gives me very little time to get everything worked out.

"Yes! It's due to arrive this afternoon! What perfect timing," Jimin said.

Time! He needed to check to see if he had done a good job at tracking it. It had been 12:03 when he looked at the clock, and he estimated about five minutes had passed. Jumping down from the bed, he went back to check the time on the clock.

He was off.

By over three minutes! This wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.

Focus, Yoon Gi! He admonished himself.

Once more, he stared at the clock and, slowly, he could feel his breaths synchronizing with the ticks of the clock.

That gave him an idea. If he could regulate his breathing pattern to follow the seconds, he would be able to count more accurately.