1. A bit different
1221 Words
Appreciation
Shout-out to A sign of affection, Cherry Magic, twinkling watermelon & Tell me you love me for the inspiration to write and learn sign language.
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"She has mint hair." Moon read the words aloud. Standing by the entrance of the shop her gaze fixed on her brightly lit phone screen that she held in her right hand, her left hand held onto the handle of the now open the glass door.
Mint hair? with her eyebrows furrowed she took her gaze off the phone to the plant filled floral shop—tulips and roses where a sight her eyes could easily identify in the variety. She couldn't however, see a mint haired woman or anyone for that matter—but her furrow deepened spearmint? peppermint hair? Was that what Nia meant by mint hair.
She needed confirmation, maybe even a better description.
Moon's gaze fell back to her now dim phone screen, switching it back on with her fingerprint to question the nonsense of a description her friend, Nia, wrote.
"Mint, is a type of green. Moon, she has green hair." Reading the text aloud again. Nia had responded immediately as soon as Moon sent the question, Mint?—Moon pursed her lips afterwards, growing a bit annoyed.
From the time on the top left corner of her screen, it read 17:05 pm still standing by entrance of the floral shop. Trying the hardest she could to find the mint haired woman, she was ordered to collect coffee beans from for Nia—who, she could guess was resting comfortably in bed right now binding a book or something.
Unlike her, who had freshly gotten off work with strained eyes and a growing headache—her code was a piece of s**t today.
Moon's tie hanged loosely around her unbuttoned collar, a third of her brown coloured dress shirt was untucked with the sleeves rolled up and her bag pack was sliding down her left shoulder, that she had to constantly push the strap back.
"Be grateful I'm even doing this." Moon hissed into the voice note she was recording as she stepped further into the shop. Releasing her hold on the door that let it close behind her, the phone screen turned dim before she slipped it into her right pocket—she was going to find this mint haired woman and her over with it already.
With the impression she got, there was no one else—no customer—apart from her here, which meant it would be easy to spot her target in a herd of plants. All she had to do was find the front desk, because it wasn't close to the door at all.
As gloomy as she was today, the interior design as well as the flowers and plants she knew absolutely nothing about—be it name or how to describe most of them, made her mood a little less worse and gloomy. The forest green walls and shelves with red brick flower pots, and a lot of green stems were lively and well maintained—the pollen those, made her nose tingle.
"Anyone there?"
Moon stood in front of the cashier desk—she assumed as it had a cashier machine & a variety of different coffee beans nicely packed along side it.
No response came.
Her hand curled into a fist before knocking on the wood, no reply came again. Another knock against the wood, she pursed her lips as silence followed again—they couldn't be closed without well, locking the goddamn door—would they?
She was gonna wait.
Running her right hand through her slightly above shoulder length hair. The wolf cut she had gotten about two months ago was barely visible as such, with the way her curls looked like a untamed wolf's mane—all puns intended.
One thing about Moon, she loved experimenting with her black loose curls. She had the basic afro then turned it into a mullet, a buzz cut at some point and her latest yet favourite, a wolf cut. She looked cool the first two weeks she got it then well, her curls were everywhere including covering her eyes which just irritated her at moment.
Taking the rubber band from her forearm, she pulled her top half of her curls into a bun, standing up like an antenna.
Her attention fell towards the squeaky noise made as the back door, she assumed was the staff room, opened.
"I'm very sorry." The mint haired woman signed with an apologetic facial expression.
A furrow came over Moon's face once again, because one, she was extremely gorgeous she nearly lost her train of thoughts and two, Moon didn't know sign language—not even a simple hello to be polite.
Her face gave it all out, as the mint haired woman turned opening up a drawer searching through it for her whiteboard and maker, she always had around.
Moon simply watched.
She first took note how long her mint hair was as it went over her shoulder and the tiny bit of black in her roots, mint was definitely not just green—she could agree on that because her apron was green—forest green like the walls. The second thing hand been the withering flower around her wrist, the stem frail with flower petals falling off—that almost looked like metor shower with the amount of pedals. The last thing she noticed were the sky blue coloured hearing aids in both ears.
Moon was so focused on studying her, the light knocks against the wood startled her. Looking up, Moon met her gaze before falling down to the whiteboard that she held up.
'Sorry, I didn't hear you. I'm Aster, how can I help.' it said, well that's what she could make out of it—her handwriting looked like a scribble with words barely clear, maybe it had been because she was rushing.
"Can you read my lips?" Moon asked, her speaking pace a bit slower as she pointed to her lips. Aster held up her hand giving Moon a thumbs up, that being her go ahead to continue.
"I'm Moon." She introduced herself as she pulled out her smartphone, sliding it towards Aster with the picture of Nia on it—Her friend did say and she quotes, "Just show her my beautiful face and she'll know." with a smirk on her face as she wiggled her eyebrows.
"Nia!" Aster signed a smile on her face. Dropping the whiteboard down, she went back to the door making it squeak twice. Upon returning, she held a small brown bag.
Placing it down, Aster scribbled something down then held it up once more.
"These are coffee beans, I hope she likes them." Moon read aloud before taking the bag into her own hand.
"Wait." She mumbled as she looked down her phone, opening her search engine before and scrolling through a few images before switching it back off and sliding it into her pocket.
"Thanks." Moon spoke as she signed, as best as she could from the image she saw. Aster smiled even wider and Moon swore her eyes light up, her hand instantly went to the whiteboard.
"See you later." Aster signed, Moon couldn't help it but smile.
- Writer
