The Arranged Married

Chapter 2

15.40 PM, at Hang Nadim Airport, Batam.

Rose is in a convenience store to buy a drink for herself. She is standing in front of beverage fridges and looking for the drink that she wants. Vanessa is going to have a flight to Surabaya with Dave by this evening. Right now, Vanessa and Dave are waiting for Dave's luggage which is left in the lobby of his apartment to be delivered by driver from the apartment.

"Eighteen thousand rupiah just for one can of coke? It's like a daylight robbery."

Rose looks at a man besides her who just saying something about a coke's price.

The man looks at her. "Don't you think so?"

"Oh, are you talking to me?"

"No, I'm talking to the potato chips behind you."

Rose looks at the potato chips behind her and she says, "Do we know each other?"

"No, maybe not yet.", the man answers her without looking at her and takes out a bottle of mineral water from the fridge. "I'll drink this instead. Much cheaper."

When the man goes to cashier, Rose just realizes that the man has a nice looking and quite tall. However, the man's outfit looks too old and not fashionable enough to be compared with his look.

"Rose, have you done?", suddenly Vanessa comes into the store.

Rose takes out a bottle of green tea from the fridge and walks to the cashier. "Yeah. Do you need anything?"

"A bubble gum, please. I'll be waiting for you at the outside.", Vanessa says while she's walking out from the store.

"Wow, she's hot, isn't she?", the man says to Rose after he knows Rose is queuing behind her.

Rose startles. "Hey, weird guy. Can you stop talking nonsense?"

"What? I'm just saying the truth. Are you jealous of your friend?"

"Of course not. Can't you see the ring on her finger? She's engaged, dude."

"Hey, hey... Stop it right there, weird lady. I'm saying she's hot, it doesn't mean I want to sleep with her or have any relationship with her. It's just a compliment to someone's look! And it's not illegal to do that.", the man says while taking his mineral water from the cashier. "You should hang out more."

Rose is speechless by the man's words. She looks at the man walking out from the store testily.

"He's hot too.", the lady cashier says while looking at the man amazedly.

Rose puts the green tea bottle and a bubble gum from the rack in front of cashier's rack on the cashier's table. The cashier is startled by Rose then continuing do her job.

"What takes you so long, madam? Where's my bubble gum?", Vanessa asks to Rose when Rose approaches Dave and her.

"Here you go. I met a weird guy in that store. He's so annoying.", Rose answers while passing the bubble gum to Vanessa. "He kept talking nonsense to me, we don't even know each other."

"Which guy? The man that queued in front of you?"

Rose nods then drinks her green tea.

"He looks cool actually, but his fashion is so yesterday.", Vanessa says while chewing a piece of bubble gum.

"I don't care about him. He just couldn't stop talking and acted as if he knew me."

"Maybe he's interested in you, Rose.", Dave says chucklingly.

"Dave, we finally met and knew each other only by 30 minutes ago. But I feel like I want to punch you in your face right now."

Dave and Vanessa laugh.

Not long after that, Vanessa and Dave farewell to Rose then they go to the check-in counter. Vanessa will only come back to Batam in next two weeks. This morning, she invited Rose to go with her because Dave will be busy with his family businesses and he won't have time to accompany her. But, as what Vanessa had predicted, Rose refused to go with her. Because Rose is a workaholic who only cares about her job.

Rose is going back to her apartment by airport taxi. She has a car, but she rarely drives. It has been few weeks Rose didn't go out from her apartment until today. What she had been doing for the past few weeks was only staying at home, replying messages from her customers, packing the customers' orders, and asking the courier picked up those packages. She didn't even step out for buying her meals or groceries, because nowadays there are some online service applications that can help people like Rose. Therefore, she often orders her meals by online, some groceries by online, she even orders house-cleaning service by online. Sometimes she cleans her apartment by herself, but not rare she feels lazy and asks those services to help her.

Mostly, Rose goes out from her apartment when she craves some instant food from the nearby convenience store. She likes to eat new flavors of instant noodle, some microwavable food, and coffee when she needs to stay up late. Sometimes, Vanessa cooks for Rose before she leaves the apartment for working. When Vanessa feels irritated with Rose's activities, she will drag Rose to shopping mall and have fun together by shopping on her off day. But lately, Vanessa doesn't do that because she is busy with Dave. Fortunately, Rose never mentioned about that and she always understands fully of Vanessa's priorities.