Infatuation

➳ 4

Rachel

Spending one's summer in the kitchen was not always a bad idea. I loved the smell of food, the colors of the different ingredients, and the sights of people busying themselves with orders.

Ever since that dreadful incident a year ago, I had been closed off, trying to let everyone around me not come too close. I knew that I'd built a wall around me, but I couldn't help it--life was simply too difficult with the constant remainder of death.

So this year, I didn't need to worry about the sympathetic smiles, the pitying responses. No one knew me here, I was just one of the many kitchen helps in the Riverwood resort.

Heaving a sigh, I lifted one of the crates and waddled my way into the domain of Ryuu Takashi, the head chef.

He lifted a spoon and tasted the soup he had been working on the whole afternoon.

"Still emphasizing on perfection, Ryuu?" I smiled. Ryuu's eyes lit up and he waved the spoon in my direction. "Nothing is ever perfect, but one can come close to it," he pronounced, giving me a toothy smile.

"Then why don't you just leave the stove for a while and come outside with me? This place can be so daunting," I muttered, looking around the kitchen.

The place certainly contained the newest technology and everything, but it wasn't cosy, or very heart-warming; just a place to work.

Ryuu shook his head, albeit a bit sadly. "No can do, little princess. Have a little more patience, and palli, as they say in your language. Those crates aren't going to put themselves into place."

His blatant disregard of my sulking amused me, but he knew that I liked it whenever he tried to say something in Korean, my native language.

My parents were immigrants, and still struggled with their English from time to time. I was born in Busan, a big town in the south of Korea. They spoke the satoori dialect over there, and it sounded funny to even native speakers. When I had first used it on Ryuu, who actually knew how to speak a little, he'd burst out laughing, pointing out how ridiculous I sounded. But I was proud of my dialect, it set me apart from the rest, and I had liked it up to a certain point. Now, I just wanted to blend in, not attract too much attention. No one here could know what had happened last year.

Whenever my thoughts would dwindle, they would always dwindle that way, and even up to a few months ago, I would have still gotten riled up. Mom, always the helpful one, had tried getting my mind off of it--to no avail though.

I was damaged goods. I had already even decided that God was punishing me for whatever I'd done wrong throughout my life, which was a lot, mind you: The one time I'd stolen a cookie from the jar, when I came home with a C for physics, the day I'd announced--falsely of course--that I was adopted and the worst one of them all, when I'd kissed the guy my best friend was infatuated with.

Thinking back about that time still made me blush with shame. Back then, I would have justified it by saying that she couldn't claim a guy, or that I had seen him first, that I had actually liked him ever since freshman year. But those were just silly things to say.

Anyways, it didn't matter now. Not after everything that had happened.

"Rachel, you still there?" Ryuu was waving his hands back and forth to get my attention.

"Yeah, I'm going to take care of the crates now. Don't worry 'bout it."

The smile he gave me was a little sad. "I wish you'd tell me what happened. But I'm not going to pressure you, I'm sure you have your own reasons for being like this."