Petty Not Pretty (HueningKaiXReader They/Them Pronouns)

13

  When you miss someone, they consume your thought process. Maybe you won't think about them all the time, but when they come up in your mind, they keep coming back continuously and every time you think about them, you become sad or nostalgic.

It was hard to go from seeing Kai every day to not seeing him at all. Kai was like my painkiller and I was addicted. Whenever he was around, my never ending headache was eased. The feeling was addicting. I like to think that I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms but as with any addiction, being deprived of a person brought the symptoms crashing in like a wave of unstoppable emotions and thoughts.

I was sad and gloomy all the time, and I felt like all energy was drained. That, and my migraine worsened day after day and nothing could make it better. I was never hungry and it started to become harder to study without getting distracted. Most of all, if there was one phrase that took up the majority of my vocabulary, it was "I miss Kai." If I could give a rough estimate of how many times a day I said it, it would be around once every hour.

The teasing from the four boys I spent my lunch hours with, slowly turned into concern, which was weird, considering they had really only ever teased me. They would ask me if I was okay, to which I would respond with the fact that I was fine, I just missed Kai. They would bring up funny stories to help me get my mind off of it, and usually it would work, but there were the odd few days where it wouldn't, and then Soobin would pull out my textbook and aid me through some chemistry, testing me on the polyatomic ions that I needed to know, anything to get my brain active.

So when I showed up to lunch one day with a huge smile on my face, they were immediately relieved. I could see them all sigh breaths of relief. I think I even saw Taehyun thanking the lord.

"What's got you all happy?" Beomgyu asked, genuine interest plaguing his tone.

"Tomorrow's the concert," I smiled, plopping down happily in my seat.

"Ah, of course," Yeonjun sighed, relieved that Kai would be back to deal with me soon.

"Chef also decided to let me try my hand at being a kitchen porter after work today. Like a test, and if I do well, I'll be a kitchen porter," I cheered.

The surprise on their face was evident. I hadn't really brought up anything about the apprenticeship for a while because nothing interesting had happened. I had been taught a lot in the past few weeks and I had been practicing hard at home. Being a kitchen porter was simple. It only required doing the simple tasks such as basic preparation and cleaning, but where I was coming from (basically no knowledge of any formal processes whatsoever) the training and test was much needed. From being a kitchen porter, I would be able to progress to a commis chef once I entered post secondary, and study under a chef de partie to learn about the specific station.

  "That's great! You'll be a head chef before you know it!" Yeonjun cheered, definitely too loudly.

  "Today is a good day," I sighed, stretching backward.

  "I've never been so simultaneously excited and exhausted in my life. Did I mention I'm nervous? Because I'm also nervous," I sighed in distress.

  The next day was stressful. Between picking out the best outfit to go see the national orchestra in, and thinking about how I did during my test the night before, my brain was spinning, and it didn't help that I would have to attend school that day too. As I walked to school, I felt dizzy with all the things zipping around in my head. I could barely even focus on my lessons. I was constantly fidgeting and the closer it got to the end of the day, the more nervous I was. When lunch came around, I finally got a break. My brain was still aching and dizzy, but at least I didn't have to focus on lessons anymore.