diff --git a/.github/workflows/test.yaml b/.github/workflows/test.yaml
index b67c2ea9..a8e10af0 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/test.yaml
+++ b/.github/workflows/test.yaml
@@ -19,29 +19,29 @@ jobs:
       matrix:
         include:
           - db: "mariadb:10.4"
-            py: "3.8"
+            py: "3.13"
 
           - db: "mariadb:10.5"
-            py: "3.8"
+            py: "3.11"
 
           - db: "mariadb:10.6"
-            py: "3.11"
+            py: "3.10"
 
           - db: "mariadb:10.6"
-            py: "3.13"
+            py: "3.9"
 
           - db: "mariadb:lts"
-            py: "3.9"
+            py: "3.8"
 
           - db: "mysql:5.7"
             py: "pypy-3.10"
 
           - db: "mysql:8.0"
-            py: "3.8"
+            py: "3.13"
             mysql_auth: true
 
-          - db: "mysql:8.0"
-            py: "3.10"
+          - db: "mysql:8.4"
+            py: "3.8"
             mysql_auth: true
 
     services:
diff --git a/pymysql/connections.py b/pymysql/connections.py
index fe4d0c45..91825f75 100644
--- a/pymysql/connections.py
+++ b/pymysql/connections.py
@@ -576,9 +576,9 @@ def affected_rows(self):
         return self._affected_rows
 
     def kill(self, thread_id):
-        arg = struct.pack("<I", thread_id)
-        self._execute_command(COMMAND.COM_PROCESS_KILL, arg)
-        return self._read_ok_packet()
+        if not isinstance(thread_id, int):
+            raise TypeError("thread_id must be an integer")
+        self.query(f"KILL {thread_id:d}")
 
     def ping(self, reconnect=True):
         """
diff --git a/pymysql/tests/test_charset.py b/pymysql/tests/test_charset.py
index 85a310e4..1dbe6fff 100644
--- a/pymysql/tests/test_charset.py
+++ b/pymysql/tests/test_charset.py
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ def test_utf8():
     assert uppercase_utf8 == lowercase_utf8
     assert mixedcase_utf8 == lowercase_utf8
 
+
 def test_case_sensitivity():
     lowercase_latin1 = pymysql.charset.charset_by_name("latin1")
     assert lowercase_latin1 is not None