#it's very chaotic with all of the bickering and hot and cold remarks HSDBFHD

[sugcrxspice]

Cheeks growing pink in a flush of irritation when he stuck his tongue out at her, the brunette scrunched her nose up in response. "Do I need to start keeping a running list of your fuck-ups so we can forget about this little lapse in judgment and call it square?" Ava warned, jabbing a finger in Min's direction for good measure. "Okay, I'm not gonna fight you on that one." Truly a feat for the young Adler, given her penchant for picking all kinds of fights. "I wouldn't have traded London for this snowy wasteland where dreams go to die. But still... uprooting your life sounds hard. Can't imagine that was easy on you." It was simply the way their friendship worked: childishly sticking their tongues out at each other one minute, and giving each other more sincere and heartfelt compliments the next (albeit begrudgingly and often through layers of sarcasm). This dichotomy was perfectly exemplified at Ava's reaction to his remark about her friendship making the move worthwhile, her eyes widening into a misty, affected pout. "Aww, Minnie, are you calling me a silver lining?" she jested, blowing right past the implication that their friendship also wasn't enough to constitute a step up in the world. But although the two seemed like polar opposites in terms of personality and how they preferred to engage with the world, Ava could empathize all too well with Min's compulsion to puff his chest out and save whatever was left of his pride, as she had been doing much of the same since she was a teenager.

Eyes following Min around the salon, too petrified by the idea that somehow, she'd make one wrong move and would risk ruining the designer bag, the brunette allowed her more straight-laced co-worker to take the reins just this once. She was typically inclined to take on leadership roles in all avenues of her life, no matter to what degree. But times like this brought out the panicked little girl in Ava, looking to anyone with a firmer grip on reality to keep her head screwed on straight. At his last ditch effort for a solution to her little conundrum, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah, okay... I think keeping it in your bag could work. Do you have anything in there that could stain it, like pens or lip products?" she worried, anxiously shifting from foot to foot. "Oh, who am I kidding? You're way more organized than me." The sacrifice that Min was making just to keep her Tory Burch purse safe was not lost on her. Though she often came off as a superficial and destructive young girl, seemingly too focused on herself to notice the plight of others, Ava was more thoughtful than people gave her credit for. She knew just how much Min valued his space, so it seemed like a natural leap in logic that the real estate in his bag was no exception. Holding her breath as she carefully slipped the purse into his backpack, she let out a long breath when it slid right into place. "Thank Christ. I really owe you for this. Maybe I can pick you up a little thank you gift on my next paycheck," she offered with an earnest grin, her panicked expression softening considerably.

“All I said was that I wasn't stupid,” Min said, shrugging. “But if the shoe fits.” It was a jab obviously made in jest and his playful tone should have suggested as such, if the way he stuck out his tongue at her didn't. Now, to Min's mind, gutsy was just another word for stupid, with the sole thing setting the two ideas apart being whether or not you succeeded at the end of it. Min wasn't sure he had succeeded at very much but it was hard to say he'd failed either. Where did that leave him? “Then maybe I'm insane for coming here all the way from London, of all places,” said Min, with a slow, emphatic shrug. “Well, I mean, you're here so it's not all bad but it's hardly a step up in the world.” Yet the closer to ground he remained, the softer the fall would be. He'd been chased all his life by a fear of failure so great that it had caused him to stumble at every hurdle, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. He dressed up nicely and stood tall so as to give the impression of certain confidence but he wasn't someone with a whole lot of pride in himself. Anyway, he was no at accepting compliments that weren't purely superficial so, to save himself the embarrassment, he moved on.

Min finally stood up straight, moving to act rather than lounge around offering sarcastic remarks. He looked about himself, as though the ideal hiding place would just spontaneously reveal itself somehow. They couldn't leave it out anywhere too open because that was a theft risk; the chances of it actually happen, particularly without anyone noticing, weren't high but anything above impossible was best avoided. Even leaving it in the usual private places for staff seemed difficult. It didn't seem like Ava wanted anybody else asking questions, not from the way she'd conspiratorially revealed the bag to Min. He took a few trips up and down the main room of the salon before finally giving up right in the centre “I could put it inside my bag?” he offered, finally, as he turned to face Ava. “I don't know if it'll fit but we could give it a go?” This had actually been his very first idea but, for whatever reason, he felt a little strange about anyone seeing the contents of his work bag. He always felt the contents of a person's bag told a story, at least if you thought about it long enough. Although Ava likely had no way of knowing this, Min was making quite the sacrifice for her. (Or, maybe, just maybe, this was more of his usual overthinking.) He hurried off to retrieve his bag from its proper place and returned with a decently-sized leather backpack, which he dropped down on the counter in front of Ava. “See if you can cram it in.”