The silence was still settling on the rooftop, but it was no longer a heavy silence as it had been at the start. It was closer to a comfort that comes after crying... to a moment when the heart stops resisting the pain and begins to surrender to the calm. (8)
Ahmed, sitting beside her, didn't have many words, but he remembered his mother's voice, who always used to tell him:
"Sad hearts don't need advice... but a sincere touch and warmth that makes them feel they are not alone."
He took a clean tissue from his pocket and slowly handed it to her, as if offering something precious.
Then, with a warm smile that held a trace of old Yemeni kindness, he whispered gently to her:
"Don't be sad, Misaki... the sky is beautiful today, and it is one for all of us. Everything will be okay."
Misaki looked at him, her eyes still moist, but now there was something else in them... a small surprise, a faint gratitude, and perhaps something that resembled reassurance.
She took the tissue from him calmly, as if she didn't want to hurt the moment with any harsh movement.
Then, for the first time, a small smile appeared on her face... it wasn't clear, but it was real.
A shy smile, as if it had escaped despite her sadness, and existed because someone cared.
She placed her hand shyly on her stomach, and in a moment of childlike honesty, a faint sound escaped her... a small whisper of hunger that betrayed her.
She whispered, as if she were afraid the air would hear her:
"I'm... I'm a little hungry."
Ahmed's eyes laughed without a sound, and he looked at her as if he had found in her the beginning of a story.
A story not born from words, but from a simple meeting between two wounds... a meeting from which healing might begin.