The Café

The bell above the café door chimed softly, like a whisper no one noticed. Rain pressed gently against the windows, blurring the world outside in watercolor greys.

Rhuhaan stepped in — all earth and stillness, like he brought the forest in with him. His eyes scanned the room, not for anyone, but for silence.

And there it was.

In the farthest corner, by the window — she sat. The girl from the mountains. Her leg no longer bandaged, her posture straight, her expression unreadable. She wasn’t crying this time. But her eyes still carried the storm.

She didn’t notice him.

But on the table near her coffee cup — a book. No, a journal. Leather-bound, edges frayed like it had been opened too many times in pain.

She stood up, buttoned her coat slowly. Her fingers lingered on the book, then… left it behind.

She didn’t look back.

Innaya (softly to herself, unheard):

“If someone finds these pages, I hope they see the parts of me I never dared to speak.”

Rhuhaan watched, frozen.

He didn’t know her name yet. But something inside him whispered it wasn’t the first time she’d left something behind — just the first time someone would choose to pick it up.

He reached for the journal with slow hands, as if it might burn him.

He opened it.

"I don’t speak because I’m afraid no one will understand how loud my silence truly is."

— Page 3, her handwriting.

His breath caught.

He sat in the seat she had left warm, and for the first time in years, he spoke out loud — to no one in particular.

Rhuhaan (quietly):

“What kind of soul writes like this… and walks away as if none of it matters?”

He looked out the window.

The rain was heavier now. She was already gone.

But she had left behind her scars, sealed in paper, and Rhuhaan had picked up more than a journal —

he had picked up her silence.

And somehow, it felt familiar.