WRITTEN IN THE STARS [ discontinued ]

CHAPTER ONE

QUEENS, NEW YORK — OCTOBER 15, 2000

The light autumn breeze brushed against the skin on Asia's face as she walked down the block towards the corner store. Her hands were stuffed inside the pockets of her black Guess puffer jacket, black jeans sported on her legs, black timberlands on her feet, and hair tied up into a perfectly sleeked high ponytail.

Asia quietly groaned when she noticed all the guys out in front of the store that were either surrounding their cars or standing off to the side making their 'sales'.

While approaching the store, she ignored the heavy stares she was getting, but was caught off guard by one of the men who was seated on the hood of his car.

"How you doin', beautiful?"

Asia looked over at him. It was Kadeem. On the streets he went by the name 'Unique'. He was a very well known drug kingpin in Queens. She didn't need to know him personally to know who he was or what he did. He was well respected, feared, and talked about by everyone and their grandmothers. This wasn't the first time Asia had run into him, they crossed paths plenty of times and it was always the same thing.

Unique glared at Asia with a smirk, displaying his gold grill planted on his top row of teeth. He wore a large light brown fur coat over his burgundy coloured tracksuit while his gold jewelry shined around his neck, fingers, and wrist.

Asia rolled her eyes, completely ignoring him and made her way into the store. Unique was cocky and ignorant as fuck. Every time they saw each other, their encounter never went past him cat-calling her. She never spoke a word to him and had no desire to.

"Hey, Manny." Asia greeted the store owner at the register.

"Asia! How are you doing today, sweetheart?"

She chuckled softly, "I'm good. How's everything with you?" She asked as she began making her way through the aisles, scanning all the snacks.

"Not too bad. Wish these boys would move away from my store, though." He responded and shook his head.

Asia snickered. "Tell me about it." She said with her eyes focused on a bag of chips that she ended up grabbing off the rack, along with some skittles and starbursts.

She walked towards the refrigerator, taking two cans of Arizona. One grape and one watermelon.

The bell from the entrance went off, indicating that someone had entered the store. Asia didn't pay any mind to it until she heard his voice again.

"Yeah, lemme get a pack of Phillies." Unique told Manny.

Asia lowly kissed her teeth, closing the fridge and heading to the cash register. Unique immediately fixated his eyes on her while Manny picked out the pack of Phillies behind the counter.

Unique side grinned and licked his lips as leaned against the counter, staring at Asia. She placed her things down, avoiding eye contact with him as she waited for Manny to cash him out.

Manny slid the box to Unique, and Unique handed him the money without breaking his focus off Asia. "Keep the change, boss."

Asia slowly looked over at Unique and eyed him up and down, disgustingly, before cutting her orbs back to Manny.

"Damn, baby. It's like that?" Unique chuckled.

Asia remained silent, pulling her money out of her pocket and paying for her items. Manny bagged them up and handed it to her.

"There you go, sweetheart. Get home safe and tell your mother I said hi."

"Thanks, Manny. I will." Asia flashed him a smile.

"Oh shit, she talks." Unique chimed in, pretending to be shocked at words finally coming out of Asia's mouth.

"Yeah, just not to you." Asia said blandly, brushing past him and out the store.

Unique followed behind and smoothly circled around Asia, stopping right in front of her and causing her to pause from going any further.

"Can you move—"

"I wanna formally, introduce myself." He cut Asia off and remained standing firmly in front of her.

"I already know who you are, Unique. Everyone knows who you are."

"Well shit, you know my name. Why don't you tell me yours?" Unique smirked, biting down on his bottom lip as he lustfully glared down at her.

She stared back at him, unamused. "Get out of my way."

All he did was laugh. "Yo, why does it always have to be like this with us? I see you like.. every other day and try to be nice. I just wanna get to know you but you stay actin' cold. What's up with that?"

"Get to know me for what? So you could try and pimp me out to make some more money for yourself? I'm good. Have a nice day, Unique." Asia concluded and attempted to walk around him but he continued to block her way.

"No. That's not why. And what the fuck I look like pimping out some females? I make enough money from what I do already. I ain't into all that other shit." He explained.

"Good to know." Asia spoke uninterested and tried to walk again but he still wouldn't budge.

"Just tell me your name and I'll let you go... or I can give you a ride." That same clean, evil side grin appeared across Unique's face yet again.

Asia sighed harshly knowing this man wasn't going to give up, and it wasn't like it was summertime. The wind was gradually causing her cheeks to grow cold.

"My name is Asia, and I'll walk. Thanks." She replied and finally made it past Unique.

His eyes followed her as she walked away, his smirk still plastered on his face as he glided his tongue across his bottom lip.

"See you around, Asia." He taunted as she ignored him and kept it moving.

Unique walked back to his car where a few members of his crew were surrounded, getting back to discussing business.

Women and relationships was far from his mind. He didn't care about chasing any of that. But him and Asia had been crossing each other's paths way too much these days, and he figured it was for a reason. He just didn't know what it was yet.

If it was just to fuck, cool. But it had to be more than that. It was something about her that he was fascinated by. She was stubborn, it was cute to him. Unique could tell she had strong head on her shoulders and he liked that.

He didn't know what the reason was, but it was all written in the stars and everything would unfold in due time.

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