{Michaeng} For Just a Minute

Chapter 4: My Task Begins

"Chaeyoung..." A voice flickered in my ear.

"Ummm...whaaaaaaaaaat..." I groaned as I put an arm over my face in attempt to stay asleep. "It's too early, go away..."

"Dude, it's seven already. Time to get your butt out of bed, or we'll be late for our early dance rehearsal. Come on, lazy..." and I felt a pair of hands pulling my forearms off my face, and effectively toppling me out of bed.

"Oof."

"Get dressed!! We have to be there by seven-thirty or we'll all be screwed to high heaven." I cracked open my eyes and made out of the figure of my roommate, Yoo Jeongyeon. "Agh! You left such a mess here last night, it's driving me crazy!" Her voice became shrill as she raced around tidying our room. She's a cleaning fanatic, I observed, recounting the hundreds of times she had already done this.

Throwing on a comfortable blouse and a pair of shorts, I found myself wandering out of the room and down the hall, to a room where two other people lay asleep. I gave a gentle tap with my knuckles and then called softly. "Hey, Sana...Mina...you awake? It's seven o' clock!" My friendship between the two had deepened over the course of the last couple weeks, and I routinely obliged myself to get the deep-sleepies in a state of semi-conciousness.

"I am," Sana poked her head out. "But Mina's still snoozing in Lalaland. Maybe you'd better wake her as well," she added with a sly grin. That stupid Sana.

Have I ever described how cute Mina's face is while sleeping? She has this tranquil and serene aura when her face is relaxed and her hair is still in perfect form. I reached out a finger and poked her shouldler gently. "Mina-penguin, it's time to get up."

Now, let me explain. Like I said in the first chapter, Mina walks like a penguin; feet out, akwardly waddling, and it's adorable as f*ck. Seriously - Sana has had three or ten mini-heart attacks over her cute antics, and I am unwilling to unveil how many I've had (I'll just put this out there: It was over 9000). Another funny Mina thing is that she's obsessed with ketchup. Yep, that acidic tomatoey sauce used on hamburgers and hot dogs. She likes put it on everything; eggs, sausage, rice, etc... everything except Jokbal, that is, because Hirai Momo called it blatant disrespecting of the pig's humble sacrifics to spread such an cheapy sauce on such a work of marvelous culinary satisfaction. Not that it stopped Mina anyways.

I successfully roused the sleepy and slightly grumpy girl from her dreams, and let her to a restroom to wash up. I stood back and viewed with amusement the drowsily languid way Mina scrubbed her own face with a soapy wash cloth. The way she yawned profusely, and even the way she whined when I told her I'd fix her hair for her was inexplicably endearing.

"What style do you want?" I asked, as I smoothed her thick and lucious wine-red hair over her shoulders.

"Does it matter?" She shrugged.

"For conveniance's sake, maybe," I prompted.
"Okay, just a ponytail, then."

"Low or high?"

"Low. High hurts my scalp."

"You got it."

I worked quickly in silence, combing her hair into the neat hairdo she desired. When I finished, I only remarked. "You're done. Do you want to come to breakfast with us?"

"Wait, Chaeyoung-ssi. Look at me." My heartbeat quickens to to the point of almost overtaking a F-18 fighter jet, but I did as she said. Abruptly, her hands began to score my face - against my forehead, down to my temples, but when she reached around my eye area, her fingers moved slowly, gently kneading the bridge of my nose, aross my cheeks, and to my jaw-line. I was taken-aback; I hadn't expected this kind of nature of Mina, and here...

"I'm sorry," she finally apologized. "Ever since I met you, I wanted to know what your face looked like but I was too shy to ask you if you'd let me feel your face. It's always like that."

"N-no, it's okay," I stuttered heavily. "You gotta do what you gotta do, right? So how am I?"

"You have a nice face," Mina decided. "I also think your jawline is pretty. I don't know what you really look like though, only the blueprints." Her face turned wistful, and she whispered under her breath,"I wish I could see." In a louder voice, she pointed out, "But you do know you have a gigantic pimple on your forehead, right?"

Aghast, I took a second look in the mirror and pinpoint the large, hideous facial blemish that marred my facial features. "Oh my God! My skin!"

It was as if a windchime had sang in the distance when Mina laughed out loud. "You'd better treat it promptly. I can go tell Sana and Momo where you are," she quipped in a cheery voice, and she waddled out of the room with her cane.

I stared dejectedly at my reflection in the mirror, feeling more embarrassment seep into my soul by the second. However, I didn't have much time to do that, because a glance at my watch indicated I had overstayed my bathroom refuge by ten minutes too late, which caused me to yelp and sprint to the dining hall in order to grab a banana and a carton of milk.

Sana smirked at me as I sped into the room, grabbing my objectives and plopping myself down next to her. "How was your date?"

"Fin-wait, what!? It wasn't a date!" I seethed. "I was helping Mina achieve mandatory cleaniness codes! I was doing my duty!"

"Did you have to stand on a stool to do her hair?" Momo snickered from across the table, addressing my short stature.

"No," I huffed indignantly. "Mina's not that tall either...I-"

"YIKES, GUYS! IT'S TIME TO GET RUNNING OR WE"RE GONNA BE DECKED AT DANCE PRACTICE," shrieked Momo without warning as she read her phone.

She and Sana jumped up and sprinted from the dining room, but then I remembered Mina couldn't run (due to obvious reasons) and I decided to help her out. "Get on my back," I said, squatting down and placing her hands on my shoulders. She was hesitant at first, but eventually did so. She's so light, I noted as I stood up. "Alright, I've got your cane. Let's go." With that, I set off at a swift pace, trying not to bang into any walls or adjacent structures that would injure my passenger. My ears had turned red, alright, but overall I felt more calm and collected than before. We arrived at the training room at the same time as the instructor, who shot me a dissaproving expression, but allowed us in the room. I let Mina down, handed her her cane, and scurried to my place - hair messy and out of breath. Sana snuck a coy smile and a thumbs up, which I pointedly ignored.

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"Sorry about deserting you and Mina," Sana later apologized as we walked back to our rooms together, with Mina trailing silently behind us. "I was in a hurry."

"Weren't we all though?" I grumbled. I knew she had done it on purpose so that I could strengthen my relationship with my visually impaired friend. "I mean, I don't hate you for for it, but geez! At least you could've helped me out!"

"But you gave her a piggyback, right?" Sana pointed out. "Something as little as that meant a lot to Mina. She told me herself how much she was surprised by your compassion. She said she wanted to talk to you later."

"To me?" My head began to feel strangely fuzzy and light, and nervous, as my innards began to flutter rapidly. "Why do you think she wants to talk to me?"

"Because," stressed Sana. "I think she likes you too."