Love Comes In Different Ways

“Would you get out of there?”

“No. I don’t think I will.”

“Oh, will you two shut up!”

“Safiya, let her be.” The same voice roared.

“She needs to go asshat,” Safiya yelled to the boy who was lazily eating his chips on the couch.

“If she doesn’t want to leave, why are you forcing her?”

The boy got up fed up of all the commotion between the two girls. He made his way to the room.

“Xan, tell her.” The muffled voice of a girl yelled from the closet.

“Oh no, Xan is going to stay away from this.” Saf growled while she banged the dare once more.

“Yes. Xan is going to stay away from an angry Safiya.” Xan mumbled while grasping her shoulders lightly. He directed her to the nearby bed.

“I will go talk to her. She just has cold feet.” Xan whispered lightly looking into Safiya’s annoyed eyes. His eyes moving to her pouting lips.

“It’s not like she is getting married.” Saf grumpily mumbled to herself.

He let out a small smile and made his way to the closet.

His knuckles gently hit the closet door, rhythmically.

“No.” Was all the girl said.

“Oh, come one, this is your fave roommate.” He earned a scoff from the female seated on the bed.

“Let’s just talk okay?” He asked.

A few minutes passsed by as the man patiently stood on the other side.

“Fine” The girl hiding inside the closet grumbled in a not-so-inviting tone.

The closet door slide opened revealing a woman with her red hair spread all over her face.

Xan moved in glancing back at Safiya, who eyed her roommates in complete disbelief.

Okay, we clearly know your favourite among us now.

She thought.

He smirked before heading inside the closet.

“So, are you trying to create the time we first met?” Xan teasingly asked while moving his fingers to run through her hair, trying to fix the dishevelled hair.

She let out a pained chuckle causing Xan’s heart to go numb.

“Listen, I know you don’t want to leave but you have to. It’s for your own good.”

“No, it is not. It’s just what the therapist says, not everything she says is true okay?” The crimson haired girl snapped.

“She is a professional Li. She knows what she is doing. Besides Safiya and I think it is a good idea for you to go visit your hometown. Think of it as a way of moving on.”

He gesticulated using his hands.

“No, it is not. I hate that place.” She fidgeted with the sleeve of her sweater that was hung carelessly, inside the closet.

“You are situating that place with all the bad memories. Now go make some new good ones. We can’t always have perfect lives, but we can at least try.”

“Someone get Xan, here a philosophy degree,” Li screamed.

They both chuckled.

“Besides why are you so scared to go back? You won’t be alone. Don’t you have that one friend of yours.”

“Sana” She whispered, letting go of the sweater. Her mind flooded with all the memories of her. She instantly froze.

“Li.” He held her hand.

She broke out of her daze and clutched against his hand.

“You just want me to leave so you can have girls here all night.” Li jokingly mumbled.

“Don’t forget, I still have Safiya to deal with.”

“Fine. I will go. It’s only for a month or, so right?” Li convinced herself.

“Yeah.”

Xan moved to grip the handle and open the closet, successfully retrieving the girl out of the closet.

They were taken aback when Safiya slipped against the closet door.

“Looks like we have caught an eavesdropper.”

After Safiya regained her balance she immediately spoke, “Look who decided to come out of the closet.”

Xan smiled at the double meaning while Li mumbled an audible ‘shut up’ and let Safiya engulf her in a hug.

“We are going to miss you.” Saf breathed against her shoulder.

“I am not. I already have another girl ready to take your place.” Xan teased.

“Oh, please, we all know you are going to be the one to burst into tears when we drop her.”

Li chuckled and tightening her grip on Safiya.

“No, I am not.” His mouth widened, forming an ‘O’ shape.

“You kept whining about her absence that one time she went on that trip.” Safiya let finally let go of Li and moved into Xan and continued the argument.

Meanwhile, Li took this opportunity to absorb the moment and especially let Xan’s flustered face be engraved in her mind. She never wanted to forget his expression when someone pointed out his feelings. She didn’t want to leave them.

“Liar” Xan mumbled before moving to grab Li’s suitcase.

“Time to go. Come on.” Xan was officially out of the conversation and the room while the suitcase rolled by his side.

Safiya and Li shared a few peeps before bursting out into laughter.

Xan simply smiled to himself listening to the girls.

“You don’t want to miss the flight, do you?” Xan reminded them. He soon heard their feet hitting wooden floors alerting their arrival in the living room.

“Let’s go.”

******

“It won’t just suddenly go on sale if you keep staring at it.” The shopkeeper mumbled grumpily and went back to doing his work.

The raven-haired simply quirked her head to the side, still staring at the cloth that hung behind the bald man. Her elbows that were placed on the counter moved even further in.

“How long have we been friends for?” She cutely asked.

He cleared his throat.

“We have known each other for 3 months.”

“Yeah, and yet you can’t do this simple favour.”

“I can’t just give you something that is not on sale. It’s against the policy. This whole shop is filled with different cloths, just go buy anything else.”

He lazily roamed his hand around the shop, but his eyes not leaving the notepad where he was noting down things.

“I want that exact one. It’s perfect.” Picking her pointer finger in the air she lazily rotated her finger in the direction of the teal cloth with her eyes squinting.

The bald man glanced once more at the cloth thinking whether the girl in front of her was worth getting fired. He simply concluded with an immediate no.

The male looked over at the woman who was squinting her eyes at him.

Does she think she can just hypnotise me or something?

The man casually shook his head once more. The patience of the man is beyond this world.

“I prefer your brother. The store was livelier when he was in charge.” She glanced back at the three customers that were lethargically caressing their hands over the fabrics.

The man closed his eyes and heaved out an irritated sigh, but he refused to give in to her taunting.

“Diara. Leave.” The man’s eyes radiated sternness.

But Diara wasn’t a bit scared or bothered.

“You know, that will help me a lot.”

The shopkeeper ignored and started billing another customer’s items.

“It will put food on our table.” The female took a different approach, but he was way too familiar with her tactics. The sentence didn’t catch the man’s attention, but it did, however, grab the customer’s attention.

The lady eyed the girl up and down. Diara spared a single peek at the woman who seemed to have a mix of pity and disgust in her eyes.

“Here I am trying to survive in this cruel world. Trying to help my brother and me and you are simply saying no? Our parents were never there which means I have to do everything, and I work 24/7 just so that we can have a meal on our table and a roof over our head.”

The bald head spun around at Diara’s sudden approach. He seemed to not buy her words one bit but the other customers who started crowding at the door sure seemed to. They all were attracted to the voice of a girl crying.

Truth be told, this was the most crowded the store had ever been.

He gulped as he overheard whispers about him and he glared at the girl who started weeping, hands clasping her mouth trying to control the whimpers she let out. The man saw right through it.

The mumbles and whispers grew louder, and the man had enough. He may seem like a patient guy, but he couldn’t take bad publicity for his store. This can damage future sells. He eyed the crowd and back at the girl.

Giving up, he reached back tightly holding onto the fabric which crumpled against his hold. He slammed it in front of her.

The girl looked up and smirked. The bald man glared at her as his jaw clenched at the sight of the façade that she just broke.

“Leave and don’t ever come back.” He said through his clenched teeth.

Diara faked sniffles and removed a certain amount of money before placing it on the counter. Turning on her heels after taking hold of her desired item. She moved through the crowd keeping her head low. It was easy for her to exit because everyone seemed to give her a wide berth.

Not giving a flying eff about what they all must be thinking she pranced through the streets of Seoul.

Her eyes seemed to attract to the shimmering lights that littered the street shops.

“Diara?”

Turning back

“Cody?”

Her mind went fuzzy after eyeing the figure up and down.

What the hell...