Dakota applied shaving cream on a small area on his chest to start with. Grabbing a disposable razor from his bathroom kit, he guided the blade across his chest. Expecting a smooth glide, his skin was painfully yanked as the razor got caught in his dense chest hairs. No matter how he pulled, the razor refused to continue on his path. Dakota had to gently and repeatedly tug on the razor so he could cut it free, careful not to yank out any hairs that it was caught in. That would only cause more pain. Once free, he saw there was a considerably large chunk of hair stuck in the blade. There was no way he could use this one again. Luckily, because his chest hair was so dense, it wasn't obvious that some of the hairs were cut.
Dakota sighed in defeat. If he grabbed another disposable razor, he was sure the same thing would happen again. He would have to go out and buy an electric razor later. "Where did all this hair come from?" he thought while studying himself in the bathroom mirror. He was sure he would have noticed in the shower while washing his pecs. Also unnerving was the black color of his curtain of chest hair. Dakota and his twin were natural blondes. Most of his body hair was so light, it was barely noticable on his pale skin.
His thoughts were interrupted by a ping on his phone. "Muslim Student Association Meeting" the notification read. That's right, the first meeting was tonight. Well, there wasn't much else he could do about the hair situation now. Dakota put on a high collared sweater to try and hide the hair before making his way to the meeting room. He was thankful that Drake wasn't back yet. He had no idea what he would say to his twin about this whole situation. Perhaps Drake was busy preparing for that karaoke thing he had with the Asian Student Alliance. Dakota hoped Drake would have fun with them.
Dakota placed his focus back on the Muslim Student Association. He told Drake he was going to have a positive outlook about joining them. He couldn't let this chest hair situation distract him. Inside the meeting room Dakota got his first glance of MSA. The first thing that caught his attention was the diversity of the group. Many were middle eastern, but there was a good amount of African, Indian, and even South Asian attendees. It made sense since Islam was such a large religion, not everyone would fit the stereotype he had envisioned. Scouting the room, he eventually found the man he was looking for. Jamil, Vice President of New Student Affairs, who he recognized from the organization's website.
"Hi" Dakota greeted, "I'm Dakota from Professor Martinez's class. I'm here for the project."
"Pleasure to meet you" Jamil took Dakota's hand and gave it a firm shake. He wore that same friendly smile that was on his photo on the MSA website, "I'm Jamil, can I help you with anything?"
"Thanks, it's nice to meet you too. Yeah, I think I need to get my attendance taken for this?"
"Oh yeah, we have a laptop on the counter you can just fill out with your info for attendance today. Our President, Mohammad, is in charge of your project. He's pretty good with faces so I'm sure he'll know if you're coming in and completing all your requirements. I'm the Vice President on New Student Affairs and Mohammed had shared a lot of the project information with me, so please feel free to ask me questions too".
"Ok, well you mentioned requirements. What else do I need to do besides attending meetings and events?"
"Professor Martinez wants you to participate in the organization too. For certain events you might be asked to volunteer or practice some of our customs. I promise it won't be anything extreme though. We actually have a requirement for you for today's meeting".
A requirement already? Professor Martinez doesn't waste any time. "What is it?" Dakota asked.