Chapter 22: Twenty Two

Seulgi was in the groove.

She was running at an even pace. Slower than normal due to not wanting to overstress her ankle yet. So far, so good. It’s been a few days, she has also been very careful. Especially under Jackson’s iron fisted tender mercies.

Slow and easy, that’s how to take it. She’ll build up speed and endurance again. Not that she lost much, as it has been fewer days off than it felt like. Getting pampered at work was nice, but it was also smothering at times.

She took the care of everyone with grace and poise. But she was also looking forward to everything back to being normal.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. This was the only thing she was thinking about at the moment. It was almost becoming Zen.

She wanted to speed up as it was nearly dusk and she was jogging in a nearby park. The shrubbery was fairly thick and sight lines were truncated. The part was very popular with families and joggers during the day. Another, less savory, sort was in the park at night.

She put two fingers on the carotid arteries on her neck to check her heart rate. Her heart rate was a bit high, but still within acceptable BPM. She found that her heart rate was near the same beat as the music that she was listening to.

She supposed it was a good thing she was not listening to 180 beats per minute 80’s speed metal.

She ran on.

She was on her way home when the street lights started coming on. She was stopped, jogging in place at a stop light, waiting to cross when the song she was listening to stopped. That’s when she hears “Azaleas” again. This time, it was still being sung by a woman. Live. And close, too. She turned off her music so she could see if she could find the source of the singing. She was absolutely positive that it was the same person singing as the one in the street fair.

She took out her earbuds so she could hear better. She stopped moving altogether so she could focus. Unfortunately, they were in a concrete canyon and the vocals were being bounced around and she was listening to an echo. She could not get an exact location, but she was sure the person was not in the park and was moving away from her.

But she could not tell which direction. Needless to say, this was playing merry hell with her near obsession with finding this woman. Since one direction was as likely as another, she chose to go north. She figured that if she chose wrong, at least she would be on the way back home.

She chose wrong.

Frustration, thy name is Seulgi.

She was grumpy enough that she did not respond to the guard’s greetings when she got home. That was more than a little bit of a shock to the guys on duty. She was unfailing in being cheerful and courteous whenever they greeted her, even on the worst days. But not tonight.

The guards looked at each other and shrugged. Everyone has their off days. Even Seulgi.

She needed to burn off some of this mood, so she stomped up the stairs. Until the fourth floor, which is when her ankle reminded her that stomping was a bad idea.

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She stepped more lightly and carefully up the rest of the way and made it to her apartment without any further instances. She was still grumpy, though. And for more reasons than not finding the singer.

Suki, in loving mode, started stropping around her legs soon as she got in the door. Unfortunately, she focused on one leg – the bad one. Suki nearly tripped her mom, causing Seulgi to exclaim a bit, nearly using a word her mother would definitely not approve of.

Rather than starting dinner right away, she ran a bath. While the tub was filling, she threw all of her sweaty gear into the dirty clothes basket and got out another set of nighttime, post work out, clothes.

She set the clothes on the toilet for when she was done with her bath. Suki materialize upon her fresh clothes to make sure she marked them by laying down on them as to maximize the sheading coverage. Seulgi sighed in fond exasperation.

Suki just blinked at her. This was part of her job, after all. She was very devoted to her duties.

She tested the water temperature with her fingers and lightly hissed. The water was hotter than normal, but this was expected as she was planning on soaking her ankle which had started throbbing a bit. She removed the rest of her clothes and sat on the side of the tub. Seulgi started by putting her hurt ankle in to start soaking before submerging the rest of herself. This was also to give the water time to cool a bit. She did not want to scald herself.

After a couple of minutes, she got the rest of herself into the water. It was still a bit too warm, but she was fine with it. The hot water soaked into her being, loosening her muscles and getting her to finally relax. She did not know just how tense she was until everything just relaxed all at once.

Had the bathtub drain opened just then, she might have been melted enough to empty down the drain with all of the water.

She slept.

When she woke, she was in tepid water with wrinkly fingers and toes. After a moment, she realized how foolish she had been, she could have let herself drown. Needless to say, this shook her something fierce.

She sees a lot of showers in the near future.

She toed open the drain, got up, and then started toweling off. She got out of the tub when dry and got herself dressed in the recently adorned semi-furred clothes. It’s amazing how the cat's fur will stick to anything. Stinky sweats, smooth silks, satin undergarments, business suits, curtains, neighbors, random people the next building over when Suki was sunning herself on the balcony for all she knew.

One of the joys of owning a cat was being at work for four hours and suddenly finding a single cat's hair in her mouth. It baffled more people than her that this happens.

Let’s not bring up how that flying fur finds it into her sealed lunches.

Seulgi brushes herself off as well as she can as she toddles off into the kitchen, unconsciously humming.

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