Hearts Aflame

013: Do Tell

Teet. Teet. Teet.'

Mina's sluggish head, full with sleep and drool, recognized the small but annoying ring of, not her alarm clock, but her phone, tinkling irritatingly right inside her head.

Teet. Teet. Teet.

She released a loud, agonizing groan, and shifted on her bed to drop on her stomach, easily burying her face into her pillow, stretching her arms over her with a mellow moan of relief, and then dropping them right on the bed. The peeping sound of the phone, thankfully, didn't ring again, and she was blissfully smiling by now, her head getting lost into the shallow darkness that sleep greeted her with on the other side of consciousness.

Teet. Teet. Teet.

For fuck's sake. Mina thought, grumbling and whining, turning on her back again, kicking her legs over her body, then whimpering at the black spots that danced for a whole ten seconds in her vision. Damn, she needed nourishment. She sat on her bed, yawning and removing the oily hair that fell on her eyes and mouth away, reaching for her phone on her night stand groggily.

XingXing Oppaya <3

Oh. It's Yixing, she thought. Wait, why is Yixing calling me?

"Yixing?" She swiped the call on and placed it on her ear. She heard a small crackling voice from the other side, and she realized the boy was doing something God only knows what. "Why are you calling so early in the morning?"

There was a small pause, where Yixing was on motion. Mina heard the sound of many papers being flipped over and over again, and her heart warmed at the idea of Yixing revising before lectures. He was such a diligent student. "Mina, sweetheart. Are you Okay? I heard about what happened to your mother by Jongdae."

"Oh." She murmured unsurely, not knowing how to feel about Yixing knowing her things from someone else's tongue. She decided she was exaggerating and breathed through her nose, closing her eyes and ignoring the sad, lonely beating of her heart at the matter. "I'm fine, Yixing, I don't care about that woman. She could perish and I'd dance on top of her grave."

"Even though I know you feel strongly for her," Yixing's accusative voice attacked her from the phone, a tone of amusement hidden beneath his scolding. She pouted. "I don't think it's proper to use such language."

"Why?" She scoffed aloud, playing with the fleece of her blanket. "You wouldn't dance with me? And I thought I'd invite you too."

"I don't think dancing on someone's tomb is legal to begin with, Mina." Yixing released a small, lovely laugh, followed by the noise of his books. She was positive he wasn't focused at all in his reading.

"I'd do that for her." She scoffed animatedly, snorting after that at once.

"Mina, why are you not in class?" How did he even know that? Mina widened her eyes. Was her voice throaty? Croaky even? Did it give her away? Damn it, she needs to practice more on alternating between her voice tones. "Don't you have classes half an hour from now?"

"Uh..."

"You set the alarm ten minutes before class, didn't you?" His voice came deadpanned and her cheeks lightly flushed, knowing that she was caught and she didn't have an excuse at all. So what if she set her alarms only ten minutes to university? Who even takes more than ten minutes to university? She only adds five minutes more if she wanted to apply some make up, and usually she'd rather choose sleep over beauty.

"Uh..."

"Mina," Yixing's voice sounded tired but expectant, already used to her childish, irresponsible actions. She didn't it in her to feel ashamed, really. "I can't believe you still do that. How do you even get ready in ten minutes? Do you brush your teeth right? What about your hair? Weren't you the one constantly fixing my alarms one hour before my classes?"