As these hurtful and hateful words came spitting out of Yana's mouth to attack Luka like poison, she clearly saw the genuine pain in Luka's eyes but this time she truly didn't care about it.
He could act all he wanted, he could sugarcoat and drip honey from his mouth over his words, his actions could be as sweet as a sky full of cotton candy but Yana wouldn't be moved from it.
Instead, she continued to stab his fragile heart that was already littered with scars.
"Especially at work, if you want to work here, do it properly and don't touch or treat me anything other than a coworker, or else I'll tell the manager you're not suitable and you can finally leave."
During the whole time, Yana unloaded the barrage of attacks, Luka stayed quiet and lowered his head. His fingers twitched and his lips quivered but Yana didn't stop. In the end, a tiny 'I'm sorry' from Luka made Yana let him off and turn back to the store.
"Now pay attention properly, I'll only show you everything once. After that, ask someone else to help you and stay away from me as much as possible," Yana's back faced Luka as she started to explain his work.
She didn't notice the painful gaze riddled with longing but Luka made no attempt to go any further. He had gotten Yana's message clearly. It hurt. It hurt as if 10 000 needles stabbed into his skin, pried it open and filled his veins with venom before crucifying him over the dead corpse of his heart.
Luka didn't know Yana hated him so much, but his stubbornness slowly gave him a ray of hope and he started to believe that Yana didn't really loathe him. There must be a reason why Yana disappeared. There must be a reason why she pretended to hate him. Giving himself many excuses, Luka stood straight and listened closely to her explanations.
For now, Luka should give her space and properly work and do his job. He could slowly find his way into her heart again and uncover her reason for acting so coldly to him. There was a lot that Luka didn't know about Yana, e.g. the reason she moved here, how she got this job and knew about flowers and many other things but they would take their time to get closer to each other. Luka was sure of it.
After Yana set the relationship between her and Luka straight, she was relieved to see that Luka had gotten the message. Initially, she was worried that despite what she said, he'd continue acting all lovey-dovey towards her but she was glad he didn't.
Maybe her hurtful words properly got through to him. Although it was awful of Yana to do, she made sure to hurt him enough with her words, so he really left her alone.
Since it was the weekend, there were quite a lot of customers, so Yana didn't have to worry about dealing with Luka or him trying to get her attention. Yana didn't want to admit but Luka was a fast learner and was able to perfectly tend to the customer.
"So, it wasn't a joke that he knows about flowers, huh?" Yana mumbled under her breath but then jumped as she heard someone behind her say, "So, how is he?"
The manager came out and looked at Luka who earnestly took care of the store while Yana was at the counter counting the money and noting it, "Ok."
"Ok?" the manager laughed seeing Yana's grim expression, "Did something happen? You don't seem to like him very much."
"Nope, everything's fine," Yana smiled angelic as if her previous grumbling anger was just a pretence, "Are you finished counting?"
"Yes, of course! Heaven, the store's closed already, I'd die if I have to overwork."
"So honest," Yana giggled but instantly stopped as Luka approached them.
"Ah Luka, good job! Yana was praising you a lot," the manager heartedly laughed and patted Luka on the shoulders whose face lit up when he heard that Yana was praising him, however, Yana's expression remained unmoved and she shot his dreams down, "I wasn't, I only said he's ok. Don't let anything get to his head."
Yana hmpfhed once and noticed how childish she was.
"Don't worry, my man, Yana might be like this but she's actually nice. She's just worried for Nini, I guess and hasn't forgiven me," the manager was good at coming up with excuses and deluding himself.
"I know, she's very good," Luka was very gentle when he said this but Yana instantly turned around, "I've finished counting the money and noted everything. I'm done today. Good job manager, I'll see you tomorrow!" with that Yana quickly dashed to the changing room while Luka was held up by the manager and pulled him to a talk.
When Yana passed them to exit the store, she wore a smug seeing that Luka still couldn't escape the chattery manager. Yana suddenly was in a very good mood. When she closed the door behind her, she saw Luka's glance but to her own surprise instead of ignoring him like she wanted to, she gave him a triumphant smirk. She wanted to exert dominance for whatever reason she couldn't understand herself.
However, the moment Yana stepped out of the quiet store and closed the door behind her, an overwhelming force greeted her. It was almost as if she entered a new world.
The loud shouts and chaos that unfolded before her, clashed with the peaceful world she just left behind. It was just a door difference yet it felt as if the world was going to plunge down.
Yana narrowed her eyes as she walked through the crowd, relentlessly pushing others around and holding up their signs. Day after day, the situation saw no improvement, it only started to escalate more and more.
The people were let loose to direct their anger at the government, but as the latter didn't react, even ignored the mass, worse even refused to let the police handle the crowd, their anger now, nowhere to go, was pointed at each other.
And so more than often, brawls erupted between the people with no police, no one, but a few with common sense to stop.
The actions of the government got increasingly suspicious and weird. It was as if they started to abandon the people, disregarded their opinions and freedoms, and just did as they pleased. In a mere month, the situation was about to hit rock bottom.
There was something off. Why didn't the government react? Why were they hiding behind their closed door with their eyes, their ears covered and their mouths shut? Just what were they thinking? Just what was actually going on? Could this be really where they started to make a move?
The streets were filled with people who had nothing better to do than to use the protest against the government as an excuse to ditch work. The employers were at a loss too. With the influx of money, should they raise the wages? The stores also started to accordingly raise prices. If this went on, hell would be let loose. Yana skilled squeezed her way through the crowd to get home while avoiding the more aggressive people.
But it was inevitable for a fight to break out just as Yana tried to pass through and witnessed the brutality innocent people could muster. Everyone was tense. It was in the air and it was in their bodies. They had to relieve it.
Yana took a deep breath before she rushed towards a victim on the ground and pulled them away with her into an empty alley. Bleeding from their head, they thanked Yana.
Yana asked others to call the ambulance before she hurried home. This couldn't go on.