Seasons Of Love ❤️

3. You don't seem to know a lot.

Now that Mahir is 100% aware of his crush, flower shop girl takes up a permanent recesses of his mind. She worms her way into all of Mahir's absentminded daydreams, and even carves out her own section on Mahir's shelf in the tattoo parlour staff room - there is a whole stack of scrap paper dedicated to Flower shop girl's likeness; these drawings stay hidden and unassuming (well, he hopes they do) in the back corner of his shelf, behind his preliminary sketches for former clients and pencils that have been reduced to stubs.

-

"Is that the girl from Flower shop next door?"

Mahir startles and hurries to flip over his sketchbook. Unfortunately for him, the opposite page also has a half sketch of Flower shop girl's pretty smile. He curses, and Vish just laughs.

"Chill, I'm not gonna call you out on your little crush." Vish says, leaning against the wall beside the tattoo station that Mahir has commandeered during the downtime
between clients.

"But I definitely will." Amelia teases, rolling her office chair across the floor in oder to join them.

Mahir exhales heavily, and wishes that he'd taken over any other stations besides the one directly behind the front counter.

"What do you want to know?" He asks, flipping the sketchbook closed and turning to them resignedly.

"Who is she?"

"How did you meet?"

"What's her name?"

"Are you gonna ask her out on a date?"

Mahir isn't quite sure who asked which question, but he ticks them off on his finger as he answers.

"I don't know who she is, just that she works at the flower shop next door. We met a couple weeks ago when I went outside the parlour ok my break. I don't know what her name is. I don't know if I'm gonna ask her out on a date."

Amelia wrinkles her nose at Mahir's response. "You don't seem to know a lot."

Mahir shrugs. "What do you want me to say? I don't really know that much about her."

"You know enough to draw her over and over and over," Vish says playfully. "Don't act like there aren't a thousand pages of her face on your shelf in the back room."

Mahir gapes at her, affronted. "First of all: that is called snooping and you just admitted to violating my privacy. Second of all: rude, much?"

"I didn't snoop on purpose," Vish says defensively. "I know you keep your prelim sketches back there and I needed to find a design you drew 'cause one of my clients was interested in it; I just happened to accidentally find those instead."

"Accidentally on purpose," Amelia whispers to Mahir conspiratorially.

Vish rolls her eyes. "Amelia is the one that stole your Reese's Pieces that one time, Mahir. It's when you really got angry because you'd been looking forward to them the whole day and I had to stop you from interrogating all the other artists, remember?"

"When you leave chocolate in plain sight in the staff room, I'm gonna assume it's for everyone to share," Amelia says airily, not in the least bit fussed that she'd been outed. "Not my fault you put the box right on the edge of your shelf, logo side up."

"I hope you both step on Lego bricks for snooping through my stuff and stealing my chocolate," Mahir says coolly, eyeing his co-workers and giving a satisfied smirk when they both look away guiltily. "But that doesn't change the fact that the thing between me and Flower shop girl is just a silly crush. Nothing to get worked up about."

"Who are you telling that to? Us or yourself?" Vish asks meaningfully.

Amelia winks at him as she rolls back to the front counter, and Vish leaves him with a pointed smile. Mahir shakes his head at their antics and flips his sketchbook back open.

Instead of the page he was working on before Vish and Amelia interrupted, it opens to the most finished sketch of Flower girl outside her store - the one he drew on the day they met. It was still missing something, but Mahir just couldn't figure it out.

With nothing better to do, he sighs and resolves to try and finish the sketch.