New World | SOOKAI

Chapter 5

The remaining afternoon of my work day went by faster than usual with my lifted mood. I was more motivated to speak to customers, which in turn rewarded me with higher than average sales, much to Jack's unusual delight. I arrived back home not long before sunset and decided to make a start on dinner.

I turned my Bluetooth speaker on and connected my phone to it to play some music as I worked in my kitchen, in the hopes that further inspiration would come to me. I decided I needed just 1 more song to the 2 I had already decided upon for performing for Soobin.

I preheated my oven and started cutting up a rather large pineapple for the homemade Hawaiian pizza I decided to make. It took me far longer to cut up than it should have though, with how the music was distracting my purpose. I stopped at several points in time to drum my hands against my kitchen counter to match the beat of songs and sang unashamedly into the small space of my kitchen. I heard an older song that I was quite fond on start from the random list of songs I had going and instantly felt myself distracted once again.

"Oh yes.." I nodded in approval at my fine taste of music as the song progressed. My cutting of the pineapple suddenly slowed as some of the lyrics spoke to me in a way they never had before.

Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore

His.. beauty. I had always missed, never had I seen a face like his before. Just what the truth was? As the song suggested, I couldn't say. I gazed down at the tropical fruit before me on the chopping board and felt my vision turn to a yellow blur as I continued cutting it.

"Ah, shit.." I pulled my hand back from the fruit and dropped the knife, having slightly cut the edge of my finger with my distracted thoughts. It stung deeply from the juice that it was covered in. I brought it up to my mouth and nursed it with my lips with an attempt to ease the pain, tasting the metallic traces upon my tongue as it bled lightly.

I leaned against my kitchen counter as I listened to the rest of the song while I waited for my finger to heal enough to resume dinner preparation.

Gazing at people
Some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through
They can't understand

Just what I was going through.. They can't understand? I didn't even understand.

"Okay, this is definitely going on the set list.." I decided. Although I knew I had to adapt it to playing solo again. But I didn't mind the creative venture. I lived for it, in fact. The song had no piano in it though, and it was backed by an Orchestra of strings.

"Strings.." I said out loud to myself in thought. I could perhaps do an acoustic guitar version of it, just for a bit of variety. I.. wanted to show Soobin that it wasn't just piano I could play. I wanted to make an impression upon him, to show him my skills with a range of instruments. I could play the drums too, but.. Maybe that could wait for another time. I didn't quite know if that would have been his style in particular.

I walked over to the top of my refrigerator and brought down a pack of band aids, wrapping one of them around my finger and resumed preparing dinner.

"3 songs should be enough.." I said as I slid the pizza into the hot oven, feeling the heat of it push against the skin of my face and making me squint from the feeling.

I smiled as I sat down at my dining table, waiting for the Hawaiian variant of the Italian dish to cook. Maybe I was getting carried away with my thoughts, maybe I wasn't, my impatience for that coming Saturday night only increased as I sat there. I realized I hadn't even put my name down to play and thought I should fix that while dinner cooked.