; stalia au imagines/one shots ;

"my cup of tea"

"She waits in the coffee shop that was always theirs, holding onto the hope that fate might make an exception and bring him back to her."

It's been three years, but Malia still sticks to her routine of going back to the coffee shop that's around the block.

It's stupid, she constantly tells herself, but maybe its her naive hopefulness that she still has.

Hanging on her neck is a silver-plated necklace that has been in the same exact spot ever since it was given to her. It's a locket - that she never considers opening, worried about what might overwhelm her if she did.

Her long, agile fingers grazes the necklace. It's been so long and it still aches when she touches it. Maybe that's why she has never had the courage to take it off. It wasn't only the weight of the necklace, but the heartache that she's willing to bear just to know that she still has something of him.

So she sits near the window with a slice of pastry and a cup of green tea as she looks out, watching all the people passing by, wondering what she's been looking for.

But she knows - she also knows that it's beyond pathetic that she's clinging onto the hope that she'll be able to see his face after all this time.

Stiles never shows up and Malia is never surprised. The odds of meeting him at the same time on the same day would just be some twisted fate.

Malia can only just cling onto the hope that maybe just this once, fate is on her side.

It's December and the still, yet chilly air forms goosebumps on Malia's bare skin of her exposed legs. She doesn't go into work until late noon so she is, as per usual, spending her every morning in the coffee shop with her untouched contracts that she was supposed to look at but never brought herself to do so. Her fingers, playing with her locket as she taps her feet to the beat of the classical music that plays from the piano.

She's twenty-four years old and yet she's been doing this for so long. Waiting for someone who she knows will never come back. She knows she would have to give up eventually. Giving up meant leaving this coffee shop and never coming back like it was never theirs to begin with.

Maybe today she'll finally be strong enough to do it.

But maybe isn't enough for her to back down.

It's 12:00 p.m and Malia prepares to leave. Her workplace is in the opposite side of the town so it takes her at least half an hour to get there and Malia is never late. She takes the last sip of her tea and begins packing her stuff feeling the disappointment she feels on a daily basis. As soon as she does, she hears the bell ring, signaling the door opening. Usually she's gotten use to it and barely looks up when someone opens it but somehow, at this exact moment, she gets this twisted feeling and she does. Just then, she felt her heart jump and chokes on her gasp.

She only sees the back of his head and its possible it isn't him as they've been seperated for years now. Even so, there's this heavy feeling in her heart and the way he holds out his hand that Malia knows it's him. Stiles is here, in their coffee shop, the same exact 'dejavu' moment of how they met.

After all these years, waiting for Stiles to walk through those doors, Malia never thought of what would come next if he actually did.

She stares despite the feeling of wanting to look away and pretending that he was never there in the first place, but she couldn't. It was him. Stiles. She had never been able to keep her eyes of him before and even though its been so long, some things never change.

Her knees are shaking and her heartbeat quickens as it registers to her that Stiles might see her. She's nervous that he might not even notice and she's not quite sure which would be worse.