hiraeth | lisoo

20

"Huh.."

Lisa murmured to herself, eyebrows meeting into a frown as she scanned the data in front of her. She tapped the pencil against her lips, with her mind deep in thought.

"Your business is booming."

Somi looked over Lisa's shoulder, who was busy studying the stats of her new branch on her laptop.

"It's only one month old but the difference is quite noticeable..." Lisa mused as she scrolled down to see more details. Somi scoffed.

"Noticeable? It's very obvious there, bub." Lisa laughed softly. Somi moved over and sat beside the busy girl.

"I guess this was a good strategic place to put the second branch? It's a hit."

"It is. There was one time that I was in the branch to check and I found your staffs working under pressure because apparently, someone ordered twenty large boxes of wings and drumsticks. It was during peak hours too so it got pretty hectic."

"So that was true. I thought there was just some wrong input in here..." Lisa turned to see Somi with wide eyes. The girl nodded.

"And it was just an order from one person. Can you believe that?"

"That's quite unbelievable but it's reflecting the audit... Maybe they had a party or something." She shrugged.

"Ten also said it also happened a few times already. You might have to give that person a big discount next time or a membership card." Somi chuckled as she went on and grabbed two cans of soda from the fridge, tossing the other one to Lisa.

She opened the can and took a big gulp, face crunching at the sparkling feeling going down her throat.

"That's crazy but I don't mind. Looks like I snatched a regular customer."

"Well, cheers to Freakin' Chicken for the great start of its second branch."

They both clinked their canned sodas together, spending the rest of the night chatting up about anything like they usually do and it's nice. 

Everything's nice. Just alright.

Until it got so routine-like that it felt a bit boring to her. It is fun and she's glad that her business is going well, but what now? What's next?

What is there for her to discover?

Should she start venturing on another business? Maybe.

Should she go on a vacation and spend a good time alone somewhere in a nice beach resort?

Sounds good, but maybe too early for her to lay off the monitoring of her new branch. Knowing Somi, she'll surely push her to go and leave it all to her.

And then it suddenly hits her out of nowhere.

Her friends.

It felt like forever since they talked. It almost feels like she abandoned them. Maybe they thought of that already, which she couldn't blame them. It makes her a bit hesitant to reach out now, ever since she started declining all the calls and ignoring the messages sent her way.

She shut them out until they stopped reaching out too, and it became ordinary for her to just focus on herself and her present as she left all those things behind her in the past.

Lisa doesn't know what got into her but the next thing she knew was absentmindedly sending a message to one of them, hoping it's still the phone number they're using.

And it didn't disappoint when she got a response just minutes after.

------

She scanned around the small coffee shop and it didn't take long before her eyes catch the figure of who she's looking for.