Sweetness and Light ✓ || Hueningkai X Reader

Chapter 7

The next day, you get a message from your best friend. And she flies in the next week, to spend a few days with you at Aunt Mary's in L.A.

"This is amazing," she says, looking out the balcony of Aunt Mary's apartment, watching over Venice and the Ocean Front Walk. "Your family's got it loaded, man."

"Yeah, but that doesn't answer the question of what I'm going to do with my life." Your friend is aware of your dilemma, but so far hasn't come up with any solutions other than find someone cute to marry, which you're decidedly not interested in yet.

"I know, I know. So where are we headed?'

You have the week off of Michi's to hang with your friend, but you go there first anyway for lunch. Lunch is on the house, and Holt brings you both cold udon noodles. Then, you walk down the Ocean Front Walk, stopping in several small stores looking at souvenirs. "Man, if I was any good at skateboarding, I would totally ride my skateboard down here. It would be like all those old cheesy surf movies." She flashes a peace sign at you. "Groovy."

"Oh, my God, stop before you get one of us arrested. You look ridiculous."

"I know, right?" Her eyes trail over to another place. "What is that?"

You look behind you, and the Magnificat is behind both of you, all nine glorious stories of it. "Oh, that's the mall."

"That's the mall? Wait, isn't that the mall your friend works at?"

That's putting it loosely, you think to yourself, but she's not wrong. So the two of you walk in together. Nobody's performing at the moment, so you wander around, get an iced coffee from a vendor, and stare in windows at clothing you're never going to be able to afford. You do wonder to yourself what Kai might want for his birthday. What would you get the boy who's going to become a worldwide superstar? In theory, wouldn't he be able to buy anything he wanted with a company card?

"You're in your head again," your friend says, giving you her empty iced coffee drink. "I'm going in here to try on a dress." And you follow her in, looking at the clothing on the wall. Would Kai like something like this? But other than buying Kai a tie, you wouldn't know what clothing to get him. And you don't even know if he would consider the tie to be too tacky to wear out in public.

You go three stores down to a jewelry shop, one of those pop culture places that has items from every fandom known to mankind. "Oh, my God, they have BTS here," your friend says, immediately isolating herself in the corner. You laugh and walk further in, taking a look around. Scarves hang on one corner, earrings on another. JoJo Siwa is advertising some sort of gacha item. Some cute pop music is playing on the radio. And a pile of stuffed animals is in the other corner.

You pick up one of them. It's a penguin, with glassy blue eyes and a smile on his face. It somehow reminds you of Kai. But what would a fifteen year old boy do with a stuffed animal? Probably nothing. He would probably think this is ridiculous.

"So when am I gonna meet this Kai you keep talking about?" your friend asks you as you walk to the other side of the mall and back.

"Probably never. They keep him on a tight schedule. I only really ever get to text him."

"That's too bad. Hey, perhaps you could work for the mall. Then you would see him all the time?"

"What good would that do? All of their applications are full right now. And Kai's leaving next month. So by the time I get hired here, he'll already have left. It's moot."

"Yeah, but...not gonna lie, this is a pretty sweet place to be. I would work here."

"Of course you would. You would just want the discounts."

She grins. "You know me too well."

You walk back along the boardwalk for a while before heading back to Aunt Mary's. She has a full course meal set for the both of you when you arrive, then your friend shows off the new dress she bought. As you sit down to watch a movie together, you notice Kai has texted you. When do you go back to work? I want to see you again.

You smile. And then you feel your phone get lifted out of your hands by your best friend. "Ooh, is this Kai?"

"Give that back," you say as you reach for the phone.

"Are there pictures?"

"No, no pictures. I'm not allowed to take pictures of him." You get your phone back. "He will just have to be ingrained in my memory for all of time after he leaves."

"Yeha, until after he makes it big. Then you'll be telling people that you knew him when!"

You shake your head and smile. "If he still remembers me in the future."

"Oh, he definitely will remember you. You're kind and exciting and fun to be around. I've been around you for this long, and I will always remember you, even if I go jetsetting off across the world. So who's to say he's going to just randomly forget you the moment he gets on a plane back to Korea? He won't, because you're awesome. That's that." Then, there's a long pause, and, "Omigod, I wonder if he works with BTS?"

You start laughing. Perhaps your best friend is right, but she's always stayed true to her colors. Even now, she's chosen what school she's going to go to, flying all the way across the country to be a fashion designer. You wish you had that kind of ambition.

And you start to wonder: maybe you do. Maybe it's just hidden.