It Doesn't Matter (Matter #1)

27. Planning for the Trip

They were leaving for Moor right after school so everyone who was going had to carry their bags to school. And that meant that Malkia had to carry her clothes to school, the others were ditching school or having their drivers bring the things to them.
“Did you carry everything you might need?” Ryuu asked her as soon as she got off her dad’s car. He’d taken his time to talk to her dad too.
“I think so,” she said looking at her shoes; she thought it might be gaping open but she was simply paranoid. It was a sign that it might fall apart soon.
Ryuu saw her looking at her shoes and took her arm to stop her from walking “Come on,” he said to her turning away from the school and towards the gate.
“What? I have a pop quiz first period, Mathematics.”
“You don’t need to be tested for Maths, you always get the perfect score.” He said opening the door to his car for her “Come on, I promise I will make ditching school worth it.”
Ryuu wanted to take her shopping, he wasn’t sure if she was going to accept the offer but she had to get a few pairs of shoes at least and there was something else he was getting made specifically for her.
“Mama will flip and I never want to make her flip,”
“Come on,” he said forcefully and got in after her.
She agreed because she was the kind of person that liked to skip school but her mother was not the kind of mother that let that kind of habit fly. She could actually get away with it if her mother knew it was Ryuu’s idea.
Ryuu took them to the place where he usually got his clothes, it was this high end street that had all the designer shops, you could get everything you need there; from clothes, shoes, bags to accessories.
He entered the shop that he noticed his mother and even Jamila liked to frequent; The Louvre.
“Mr. Chen.” The attendant there said as soon as he crossed their threshold.
“Hello,” he said absent mindedly, he wouldn’t have been so polite usually but Malkia was with him and she liked it when he was polite. He was getting used to it as well because it made things easier in a way, people didn’t cower like they used to.
“How can we help you today?”
He turned to look at Malkia, she was looking around the room like she was seeing everything for the first time “My girlfriend wants some new pairs of shoes-”
“Ryuu, no!” she whispered to him “you can’t.”
“I want to,” he said and then kept on talking to the attendant “nothing with heels, we like her height as is and she doesn’t want to walk around hurting herself all day,” he smiled at her like he was proud of thinking all those things “and something sporty, like tennis shoes, some sneakers and let’s see some ballerina shoes as well.”
“Ryuu,” she said but he noticed that she wasn’t walking out.
“Please?” he said.
The attendant asked them to follow him and he took them to a lounge area that was empty, Ryuu didn’t expect anyone to join them because that was the best part about shopping here. You get the entire room to yourself as the help brought you pairs they thought you might like. It felt as good as clothing the entire store for your use.
They checked a lot of pairs and Malkia tried them all on greedily, they all looked good on her so when they were done, fifty pairs later Ryuu said “We’ll take them all.”
“What? No!” she turned to the attendant and said “We’ll take these,” she had selected a simple white pair of tennis shoes with red bottoms and red lines running across it that matched the shoe laces. She found herself eyeing the ballerina shoes she had tried on, they were quite comfortable and they were appropriate for the streets, they needn’t even be called ballerina shoes really they were simply styled that way and she really liked how the laces looked all tied up all the way to her knees so she timidly said “And these.”
Ryuu didn’t want to intimidate her so he didn’t try to push her “Are you sure?” he asked looking at her, his eyes were filled with so much care she looked away before she nodded.
“Thank you,” she said to him as they were walking out.
He hugged her from behind instead “Thank you,” he said.
“What did I do?” she said tilting her head back to look at him.
“People like to let me have my way because of who I am and what I am expected to be one day but not you,” he said “you tell me no and I feel like I finally get to learn to act normal for the first time in my life thanks to you.”
She moved from his embrace and turned to look at him “What do you mean?”
“Why do you think I act so mean? Because I get away with it, I’ve always gotten away with it. No one ever tells me no, I mean except for my sister but she’s just like me, no ever tells her no so we both just do whatever we please.”
“Oh,” she said feeling a bit bad about calling him mean, he was mean and a bully but no one had ever taught him how to not be so “it’s nothing, you’re the real hero here,” she said showing him her feet, she was in her new ballerina pair and the old tennis shoes were thrown out because they had holes in their soles.
Ryuu looked at her genuine smile and felt his heart expand just so it could make more room to love her.
“I have something else for you,” he told her as he took her hand and walked with her down the street to the vintage accessory section.
“No, no, no,” Malkia said digging her feet in so they weren’t walking anymore “you’ve done enough I can’t accept anymore.”
“Just the one thing,” he said tugging her hand.
“No,”
“Well this one comes from me as your boyfriend and that one comes from me as your friend,”
“No!”
“Please?” he’d noticed that she let him have his way when he said that.
She was thinking that she really liked the way he said that, maybe it was because it was so different from his usual vocabulary, maybe it was because he said it like he begging with a smolder on his face but she relented.
They went into L’lao, it was one of the oldest accessory makers in the planet and they sold old pieces, stuff that was owned by queens and kings from not just their planets but from other solar systems as well.
Ryuu had asked them to modify a certain bracelet so it could fit her arm, it was a Tanzanite bracelet, the stones were basically part of the metal material that held the piece together.
It was plain and simple and no one could guess the value of the peace. That was why he chose it, because it was something that Malkia would accept.
It used to be his grandmother’s, he had gotten it from her to give to the woman he loved, his grandmother had warned him that that woman might not be his wife.
“This is really beautiful,” she said “it didn’t cost you a fortune did it?”
“No,” he said looking at her hand, he might of have as well given her a ring where his family was concerned but that’s just how much he loved her.
“I don’t know if I should take this,” she said but she was still looking at how well it fit her hand.
“You should,”
She hugged him then, she was telling herself that he deserved it but her heart told her that it was more than that. 
“I was hoping this would get you to ask me to kiss you,” he whispered in her ear.
She laughed, amusement in her voice “I will never do that,”
He did what he’d done when he promised her that he wouldn’t kiss her and pressed his lips on her neck. She shivered and he smiled pleased that he could get that kind of reaction from her.
“And what about liking me?”
“I don’t hate you, that is something right?” she kept her voice playful.
Ryuu smiled, they were moving in the right direction.
Ryuu had offered to buy her clothes as well but Malkia had refused, he knew she was serious when she started heading towards the train station so they went for lunch instead and then the drivers took them to the Ship Port.
Malkia had never been there before, only rich people ever went to the Ship Port, you had to be very rich to leave the planet. Unless you worked outside the planet but everyone knew that people who worked out there were paid really well so they might as well be classified as rich.