Imperfectly Perfect 2

47 : Her Voice

—— Summer, Six years ago ——

It is a hot summer morning in April. Classes are already finished. The regular students are no longer attending school and it is just the athletes and devoted club members who drop by the place for practice and organizational responsibilities.

Chaeyoung, currently in the last year of junior high school, is sitting on the grass at the edge of the open field. She has just finished her usual morning run and is definitely exhausted. "Nothing beats a good morning exercise. I just hope this doesn't kill me anytime soon."

She was spacing out when she heard a feminine voice sweetly humming. She immediately looks around and spots no one, but the voice is still heard like a music on continuous play.

Then, the soccer player slaps herself really hard on both her cheeks. She rapidly blinks a couple times and mumbles to herself, "This is a first. Don't tell me I'm so tired and dehydrated that I'm already having hallucinations?"

And then the voice stopped humming. However, not for long because it then started talking. "I'm giving you enough nutrients so you have to grow up really well, okay?"

"Is the voice even mocking my height now?" Chaeyoung scoffs. She squints and looks around the area again. "Where is that even coming from?"

The voice continued to talk. "It is summer vacation right now so there aren't a lot of students around. And it is still relatively early so there are only some athletes here. I even saw someone running frantically in the field earlier on my way here."

"Wow. I think that's me. The voice is even telling a story about me now." The soccer player unknowingly smiles to herself. She shakes her head a bit when she hears the feminine voice faintly laughing. She simply listened a bit more to the voice's anecdotes, finding it entertaining and smoothing to her eyes.

Then, Chaeyoung's eyes slowly widened when she felt some drops of water on her shoulder. She was about to stand up to run for cover as a reflex, thinking that it was a sudden rain when the sprinkle of water stopped. She scrunches her head in confusion. The water she felt was just for about a second and the sun high up above the clouds won't make enough sense for a sudden downpour.

And like a lightbulb suddenly turned on, without standing up, Chaeyoung slowly turned around while mouthing a big 'oh'.

There is actually a small butterfly garden right behind her. The place is covered with nets all over like a proper greenhouse. The nets that act as walls to the garden have vines creeping on it all over. The plants have grown so massive that they are covering the place properly you can't see the other side of it.

Another smile is drawn to the soccer player's face when she hears the sweet voice hum again. She faintly chuckles to herself in realization, slowly nodding a couple of times. "So someone from the gardening club turns out to have a hobby of speaking with the plants while she waters them, huh?"

After that encounter, for all of the remaining days of their summer vacation, every after her early morning run, Son Chaeyoung always sits by the edge of the open field right behind the butterfly garden where she first heard the voice. She listens to the sweet humming voice and even joins the soft chuckles that the voice does when it finds its own stories funny.

She never knew how long the owner of the voice stayed in the garden though. This is because she would always have to leave first after just a couple of minutes of eavesdropping since she had to go to her team's practice.

As the days go by, Chaeyoung found herself inevitably addicted to the voice that sounded more like music to her ears, pulling her closer every single time.

However, she never had the guts to approach the person. She may be curious but that wasn't enough to give the soccer ace the strength to stand up, open the door to the butterfly garden, and witness perhaps a beautiful girl smiling all to herself while humming and watering the plants.

And so Son Chaeyoung's summer vacation ended like that without knowing who the owner of the voice was.

—— First day of class, Six years ago ——

Son Chaeyoung is sitting on her designated desk right beside the room's window, mindlessly tapping her fingers on the wooden old desk. She is waiting for her name to be called in the class introduction. It is her first day of being a freshman in senior high school.

The teacher is now calling the people with surnames starting with the letter 'M' to the front, going through the class name list alphabetically.

The soccer girl is sleepily staring at the window, watching the trees outside sway in the morning breeze. She definitely is not interested in any academics and bored in other class stuff, seemingly to just want to play soccer all day if she could. She is not even paying a glance at the students introducing in front, although still listening to the voices in the classroom so that she would know if it is finally her turn to come in front.

A shy girl walks to the front in a lousy ponytail and bare face, not even a lip tint on. She heaved in a deep breath before starting her supposed mini speech. "Umm... He— hello everyone."

Chaeyoung's face visibly perks up the moment she hears the voice of the student who is currently speaking in front. Her eyes slowly widened and her hand movements on the desk suddenly stopped.

"My— my name is..." The girl fiddles with her fingers. She is not even looking at the other students with her eyes glued to the floor. "My name is Myoi Mina. You can simply call me Mina."

"No way." Chaeyoung roughly shoots her head to the direction of the classroom's front table for the first time after the introductions started. "How could this be— no way."

And the girl bows while some of the students lightly clap. "Nice— nice to meet all of you."

The soccer player momentarily seemed to have been detached to her surroundings. She wasn't able to hear anything for a moment, shaking her head and mumbling to herself. "Wow. How is the voice in the garden— no way. Just— no way."