[His POV]
The café quiets around 8 p.m.
The dinner crowd trickled out an hour ago, and now it's just the hum of overhead lights, soft indie music looping in the background, and the occasional clink of a spoon against ceramic.
She's still here.
Her latte cup is mostly empty now. The foam dried in a crescent near the rim. Her coat hangs over the back of the chair, scarf folded neatly on her lap like she's not in a rush to leave.
I should be wiping tables. Refilling napkin holders.
But I keep finding myself polishing the same corner of the counter, glancing her way like she might disappear if I look away too long.
She catches me again.
This time, she doesn't look away.
Instead, she tilts her head toward the empty seat across from her. Just a small motion.
Come sit.
I hesitate. Mira's still in the back doing inventory. The place is slow. No one's waiting.
So I wipe my hands, slip around the counter, and sit down.
Her fingers trace the rim of her cup.
"You always pick the music?" she asks.
"Only when I open or close," I reply. "This one's on shuffle."
She listens for a beat.
"Hm. Still feels like you."
I raise a brow. "Is that good or bad?"
She shrugs, but there's a softness in her voice. "Familiar. That's all."
The song playing now is a piano track. Something slow and open-ended. No lyrics—just keys that sound like thoughts being sorted out one note at a time.
"I used to write to this one," I say without thinking. "Back in high school."
"What did you write?"
"Mostly bad poetry. A little prose. Nothing finished."
"Did you ever share it?"
"God, no." I laugh, then glance at her. "I wasn't brave enough."
She's quiet for a second.
Then: "You still aren't. But you're trying."
I look at her, and she meets my gaze without flinching.
There's no accusation in her voice. No challenge. Just quiet observation, like she's been reading the space between my words all along.
"You always this good at seeing people?" I ask.
"Only when I want to," she answers.
I don't know what to say to that. So I shift in my seat, let the silence hang.
She picks up her cup, takes a final sip, then sets it down with a small sigh.
"You write like someone who's lost something," she says.
That catches me off guard.
"Sorry," she adds quickly. "That was too direct."
"No," I say. "You're right."
The pause that follows is different. Not empty. Just… full of all the things I've never said out loud.
I rub the back of my neck. "I stopped writing for almost a year."
She doesn't ask why.
Doesn't need to.
I continue anyway. "I thought maybe I didn't have anything worth saying. Or that I already said it, and no one cared."
"Then why start again?"
I glance toward the window. The city outside is a soft blur—streetlights glowing like distant thoughts.
"Because one day I read something that made me feel seen," I say quietly. "Like someone wrote exactly what I'd been too afraid to say. And it reminded me why I wanted to write in the first place."
She goes still.
I don't realize how much I've said until I see the look in her eyes. Like something hit too close.
The piano song fades, replaced by another. Slower this time. Even more delicate.
"I think writers underestimate how much people remember," she says. "One quiet line in the middle of chapter twelve can stay with someone for years."
I look at her again.
She doesn't smile.
But there's something in the way she says it. Like she's not just talking about me.
Maybe not even just talking about writing.
Maybe about herself, too.
"I'm glad you came in today," I say.
She looks surprised. "Why?"
I shrug. "You're the only person who's ever made this place feel like a scene worth writing."
She exhales a soft laugh, like she didn't expect something that honest.
"You're dangerous with compliments, you know that?"
"I don't give them out often. So when I do, I mean them."
The silence after that isn't awkward. It's something warmer. Something that feels like understanding.
She gathers her things slowly—scarf, coat, the slight chill of goodbyes in the air.
"I should go," she says.
"Yeah," I nod. "I get off in an hour."
She hesitates near the door.
"Same bus tomorrow?"
"Unless the world ends," I say.
She smiles again.
"I'll take that as a yes."
⸻
[Her POV]
I didn't mean to stay that long.
The latte's long gone, and the playlist looped at least once. But he came and sat across from me, and something about the moment asked to be stretched just a little more.
He talks like someone who doesn't think he's interesting. But everything he says makes me want to keep listening.
He said he stopped writing.
That he felt invisible.
And I didn't know how to tell him that I've read words like his in comment sections—fragile, buried, anonymous—and wondered what kind of person had written them.
Now I know.
He's the kind of person who dries cups in spirals. Who plays soft piano when he thinks no one's paying attention. Who notices when you quote chapter twelve and doesn't brush past it.
And I…
I wanted to tell him who I was.
Nymphaea.
The author who made him write again.
But I didn't.
Not because I don't trust him.
But because this—whatever this is—is fragile.
And I want to keep it real for just a little longer before names and profiles and pen names start to matter.
He said I made the café feel like a scene worth writing.
I think he is the reason I might write a new one tonight.
Something short. Something honest.
Maybe something about a boy behind a counter, and a girl with too many secrets in her coat pocket, and how sometimes the smallest kindness is sitting across from someone and staying until the end of the song.