[Razahir Kōri]

845

Raze stood dumbfounded in front of a large pile of freshly washed clothes. Today he was ordered on laundry duty once again, but for the first time, he was supposed to fold and pack clothes instead of taking parts in the washing procedure. Not that he minded it, but soon the young boy was forced to face the fact that he had no idea how to fold clothes in the first place. Back then he never really had to do such a thing. His aunt never washed his clothes for him - well she rarely did any laundry, to begin with - and the clothes of Raze were only washed when the boy was playing around the lake with Marla. Even at those times, folding was something unknown to them as they just left their clothes scattered around on the riverbank so it could dry on the sun while they continued to play around...

A faint smile appeared on the face of Raze, but it quickly disappeared as the 13 years old reminded himself that daydreaming won't help him progress with today's task. First, he tried to do the good old "learn by trying" method, however, the boy failed miserably once, twice...and then numerous times. After that Raze tried to observe the others in the hope of producing better results. While his knowledge grew, somehow it seemed like that each person had their way of folding clothes plus as he could see, the different types of clothing had their way of folding. After observing for a bit Raze thought that he maybe got the nick of it and tried again. Now the clothes resembled some sort of package but in his view, they still looked pretty messy and disgusting compared to the clothes folded by the others. Slowly but steadily he started to get desperate.

As he glanced around, the boy couldn't see any familiar faces. He still didn't have anyone he could call a friend. However, somehow he became acquaintances with a fellow cadet. A loud, cheerful girl who never stopped teasing him, but as they stick together Raze learned a thing or two from her. However now she was on a different errand than him and no matter how much he looked around, Raze couldn't find her face. On the other hand, he was way too shy and proud to ask help from anyone else. Raze could already feel a few glances on him, and perhaps heard whispering as well. Several cadets already avoided him and he didn't want to fuel the rumors and such. The boy desperately wanted to show off that he can be just as good as them...he just needs a bit more time. Because of that, he started to become more frantic, his movements became more disorganized and harsher...thus he started to lost the few achievements he reached so far.

Even when no one laughed at him or whispered around him he could still hear they mockery and laughs despite it only being the part of his imagination. ~ Don't laugh at me! Don't whisper about me! I'm as good as all of you! I just...I just! - H gritted his teeth a bit as he tried again and again, his dark ringed golden-brown eyes fixated on the large pile of clothes in front of him. « Last Edit: December 01, 2019, 10:08:33 PM by Razahir Kōri »

[Mina Carolina]

Mina did not mind laundry duty. By the Walls...she had done enough of it at home.  So she was not terribly upset when she saw her name under Laundry on the duty roster. Mina had not been assigned to washing, but to folding. That was alright. It was better than cleaning the latrines.

Mina had to blink at the sheer amount of laundry piled up to be folded. Were there really that many cadets. Maybe they took care of other group's laundry as well...she knew there was a large barracks for Garrison members...or maybe high ranking officers had their laundry sent out. Well...it really did not matter where it was from or where it went. It just needed to be folded.

Mina began with a pile of pillowcases. Those were easy enough. Fold into neat squares and set off to the side.  Done and done. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a boy who seemed to be having a bit of a struggle. The larger sheets could be unwieldy and often took two people to fold. Mina took a moment to straighten her pile and then approached the boy. She was not sure of his name, but she had seen him around plenty.

"Here," Mina said as she lifted the corner of a sheet, "You take these two ends and stretch the sheet out. These need two people to fold." She waited for the boy to do so and then added, "Okay - now fold the corners together and walk towards me."

"Good job," Mina said as they folded the sheet, "Okay about fifty more to go."

[Razahir Kōri]

It wasn't the job itself that made Raze upset. He did way wors works than that for a few pieces of something one could barely call a bread, so folding laundry was like a promotion to him in terms of available tasks. What made him upset was his apparent stupidity and lack of skill. While most of the other cadets seemed to fine and progressed smoothly with the task, Raze on the other hand continued to struggle to make very little progress. He was also reluctant to ask for help from others as he didn't know anyone from the group.

By the time when Raze started to lose his cool while panicking he suddenly received unexpected help from another member of the group. Although they never talked before Raze was familiar with her. If he could remember correctly her name was Mina...or Caroline...nor Mina Caroline was her full name...it took him a few seconds until he concluded her name. Raze was pretty dumbfounded at the unexpected development and for a few minutes, he blindly followed the instructions of the other cadet without any questions or objections.

"Thank you!" He said while his cheeks started to redden. "I'm not good at stuff like this..." The boy said instead of -I never had the chance to do that before so I didn't have the slightest idea how am I was supposed to do this. - just to be safe and avoid unnecessary questions. "Really...I owe you one. I'm not the type to ask for help so likely I would be here even tomorrow if you wouldn't help me out..." He added with a gentle voice as he tried to hide his embarrassment.