serendipity » |ziam au|

i.

London acquires a special sparkle around Christmas time. The weather is frosty, the Christmas lights are twinkling, and shoppers line the streets. Christmas carols sound around every corner, people dress up as Santa is asking for money, some of them even for charity, and you can smell sweet coffee and eggnog in every bakery and coffee shop.

Again, a lot of people line the streets looking for last minute gifts.

It’s nearly Christmas, only three days to go, so it’s really no surprise when SELFRIDGES & Co. (which is a really expensive but rather fancy department store) it’s full of people, not able to walk in the halls, from one department to another and people are desperate to get the best sales and gifts for their loved ones.

Somewhere in the store, there’s a pair of black leather gloves. They are the last pair of their kind and they are on sale, so when the gloves are shown on the counter, destiny doesn’t hesitate to meet a desperate Zayn Malik and a worried Liam Payne, grabbing each one glove at the time, making both of them to turn to look at each other, waiting for the other to let the other glove to go. Thing is, neither of them is letting go.

“Sorry, I—,” Liam turns up so see this other person, but when he is face to face to the rather smoking hot, good looking, almost-as-good-as-dark-chocolate, Zayn Malik, his face goes from worried to soft in less than 0.2 seconds.

“M’ sorry,” Zayn looks up to see Liam, giving a light smile.

Liam seems to be frozen, not able to process any word come out of his mouth, his gaze lock with this dark honey eyes in front of him, “You—you want them?” Liam says, offering the other glove to the lad in front of him.

“No, no,” Zayn says, shaking his head, “You took them first, take them.”

“Well, technically, we both took them at the same time, that’s why we are having this conversation,” Liam says, earning a chuckle from Zayn.

Liam nods, getting the fact that either one of them forgets about the gloves or they can look for an exact same pair.

“Miss,” Liam says to the lady behind the counter, reaching over to tap her shoulder, “Excuse me, do you have another pair of these?”

The lady, not even bothering to look up from the screen in front of her, shakes her head, “No, the things shown here are the only things left.”

“Not even in the basement?” Zayn now asks.

“Nope,” the lady answers, already done with this kind of conversation every day since Thanksgiving.

“Or maybe in other department?” Liam asks again, not decided to give up.

“No,” the lady says again, now more harshly, and she looks up from the screen, to look at both faces, before turning and leaving the counter. God knows where she’s going.

Liam turns to see Zayn then, shrugging his shoulders, making Zayn smile and wave his hands, “Don’t worry mate, I’ll find something else or—,”

“No, no way,” Liam interrupts him, “You take them, I don’t really need them.”

“You serious?” Zayn asks, looking at Liam with those long thick eyelashes of him.

“Yeah, yeah, here,” Liam takes the pair of gloves and puts them on the counter, “Now take them.”

But before Zayn could really take them, a man from behind reach over them and take them, making both guys to turn to see the old man behind them.

“Excuse me, sir!” Liam calls out, taking again one glove in his hands, “This gloves are taken.”

“They were in the counter,” the old man says, giving a confused look to Liam.