Burned (Hate at First Flight #2) ✔️

40. Surrealism That Leaves One Silent

Song : 봄날 (Spring Day) - BTS

(Recommended Song - Just Came Out TWO DAYS AGO)

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"I'll do it." My lips were already used to having to say those words after endlessly saying them over the past three days.

I studied Nancy, who had in the time it took me to shower, managed to get up from the couch where I had left her and started boiling water in a pot. An array of other things were on the counter along with an opened pack of ramen noodles.

Standing there wearing a pair of grey sweats and a black T-shirt with the words 'I'm just a T-shirt' in bold red lettering, a pair of chopsticks in hand, she looked at me with guilt like she'd just been caught with the crown jewel of England in hand. I couldn't help but think that right then, she looked the most relaxed that she'd been in the past three years.

"I can handle it, Krystal," she replied just as she had done ever since she'd been back from the hospital.

After a couple more checkups the day after her fainting spell, she'd been discharged with the doctor telling me to lighten her workload for the next week or so and to simply make sure she was eating and sleeping properly.

Nancy had no intention of course of following through with those. She had even expected to go back to the bakery she worked at the next day.

It took a phone call to her boss, a cup of coffee and a fifteen minute conversation where I might have guilt-tripped her before she agreed on taking a week break from work.

"No," I said whilst shaking my head for emphasis, the towel over my soaked hair almost fell off. "I'll do it."

I went around the island over to her side and took the chopsticks out of her hand just as I saw that the water was already boiling. "You could've told me you wanted some ramen before I went to shower. I could've handled it." As I said this I was already pushing her back to the other side of the island where I told her to sit at one of the stools there.

Nancy shot me a skeptic look which I caught. I smiled at her to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about.

"I can handle making a pot of ramen," I said with an air of mock hurt at her distrust in my skills in the kitchen. "It's just water and a packet of ramen noodles. How hard can it be right?" I said even as I tried to rip the packet open.

I could almost feel Nancy appraising me like a person watching a baboon staring at a beach ball with apprehension.

My skills in the kitchen are at best a three out ten. I can make toast, if you like it on the burnt side that is, put PB&J on it before giving it to you. What I can't do though is use a stove, or anything else. Usually it resulted in the fire alarm going off. The fire department didn't like me very much the last time they had to come over.

The last three days we'd ordered in an array of takeaway, after I stopped Nancy from going near the kitchen and we both silently agreed I shouldn't either. But how hard can it be right, especially now that she'd already boiled the water and everything was ready?

Five minutes later, I concluded that I should either be so rich that I hired a personal chef to cook for me or resign myself to a life of takeaways and frozen foods.

The noodles were so soggy that they resembled gigantic earthworms in a watered down red soup with roughly chopped onions and even as I placed the bowl in front of Nancy, I was smiling at her awkwardly.

RIP Ramen, I thought.

Nancy was either sympathetic to my lack of culinary skills or she was just starving for anything home cooked because she dug into the bowl with joy that didn't fit the state of the ramen.