This week has been crazy for me so I'll treat myself and y'all with a new chapter. I'm tired, sleep deprived, and reaaaaaaly love to see your comments.

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Some days, when the sun shines brightly, the wind flows lightly, Mina has free time to make herself a cup of tea and Chaengie’s fur. She would call it the perfect day and secretly thank her parents to bring her to this world. Today is not that day. She is drown in works for weeks and doesn’t have much time to even eat properly. There’s a special case that made the head of her department, and eventually everyone in her department, go crazy. But it ended today. Tomorrow is Saturday and she will have the whole two days to rest.

She feels like sleeping through the whole weekend but she can’t, because of the cat. Maybe wake up twice a day to feed the cat and then go back to sleep? That sounds like a great plan. Chaengie doesn’t like dry food so she normally cook for two of them, but she has a stack of canned fish and pork for the days she’s too busy. Poor Chaengie has to eat canned food for the whole week, and probably for the whole weekend too, since she’s too tired to cook something. She’ll make up with cuddles and a nice meal with chicken, the cat’s favorite.

However, things rarely go as planned. Just a few block away from her condo, Mina is caught up in the worst downpour ever. The rain doesn’t seem to end soon and she is dying to get home. She couldn’t wait for a few hours under some building, no, she needed sleep, now. So she runs as fast as she can, which is not much in this blinding rain. A normally two minute walk seems like miles to go.

Fighting hard to keep her eyes open when rainwater keeps flowing down, it takes her another minute fumbling with keys. Finally, seems like hour after, she manages to step inside the darkness of her house. Warm air envelops her, but Mina still has to fight back shivers running down her spine. She is soaked, from head to toes, droplets of water dripping down the welcome mat like a mini rain indoor. A meow coming from the direction of her bedroom and to where she stands. Chaengie is home, the cat doesn’t go out much like before, and this is how Chaengie likes to welcome her. It warms Mina’s heart; at least she has someone waiting for her to come back.

She turns the light on and catches the familiar sight of an orange fur ball running towards her, meowing loudly, fluffy tail upright. She misses the cat too. Lately she’s been swamped with work and didn’t spend much time with Chaengie. Instead of rubbing on her legs as usual, the feline stopped, watching water dropping from her clothes with disgust, the cat hates water, and… concern. Sometimes, she thinks she catch a glimpse of mixed feelings in the cat’s big round eyes that she couldn’t quite put it. Sometimes, it’s as if she’s looking in human eyes, a person with full range of emotions and feelings. She did meet the other cats, went to cat café (it felt like she’s cheating on Chaengie) but never seen eyes full of emotion like this.

Every time she confides something she couldn’t say to others, the cat offers her knowing look that soothes her worries. She must be crazy to think the cat could feel such complicated emotions; it must be the result of living with a cat for so long. The loud meow from Chaengie snaps Mina out of her thoughts. She looks down to see the cat has come to her feet, popped up on her fluffy hind legs and scratched Mina’s coat as if asking why she’s still wearing this soaked abomination. The human crouched down to pet the cat’s head. Yep. Crazy or not, she’s thankful to have Chaengie with her.

Mina struggles to get her shoes off when a migraine shot through, making it hard to look down. She takes off her coat and tiptoes to laundry basket, trying in vain to not make a mess on the floor. Still, small puddles form behind every step. Mina groans as she reaches the bathroom, headache has been increasing after every move and she feels like cracking the head open to get rid of this throbbing pain. She wiggles out of her clothes, which is much harder than usual as the drenched fabrics is heavier and sticks to her skin. Why does the work clothes have so many buttons? She would have ripped them all out if she’s not too tired with every move.

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