Lita said it the same way she said everything else.
Casually. Like it didn't deserve special attention.
Like it wasn't a fault line.
"I might switch to mornings," she said, stirring her drink. "Not permanently. Just… soon."
Kirsch didn't respond right away.
Not because he didn't hear her—but because his mind took a second to register the words as real. They floated in the space between them, light and unthreatening on the surface, heavy underneath.
"Mornings," he repeated, mostly to himself.
She nodded. "Yeah."
She didn't look at him when she said it. Her eyes stayed on the cup, on the slow spiral of liquid settling back into stillness.
Kirsch felt something tighten in his chest. Not sharply. Not painfully. Just enough to remind him that something important had shifted.
"Oh," he said.
It was the safest response he could manage.
Lita glanced up then, searching his face—not anxiously, not apologetically, just checking. Like she wanted to see whether the sentence had landed.
"It's not decided," she added. "Just… an option."
"Right," Kirsch said. "Makes sense."
It didn't. Not to him. But he wasn't about to question it.
They sat in silence for a moment longer than usual.
Kirsch tried to trace his reaction, to name it. It wasn't anger. It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't fear, exactly.
It was disruption.
Mornings didn't belong to this world.
Mornings were loud. Bright. Demanding. Mornings were when people became their daytime versions—the ones with expectations and masks and edited sentences.
The ones who didn't sit in a café at 2 a.m. talking about nothing and meaning everything.
"Is that… good?" he asked finally.
Lita thought for a moment. "I think so," she said. "It feels like progress."
Progress.
The word stung in a way Kirsch hadn't expected.
"That's good," he said anyway.
And he meant it. He did. Or at least, he wanted to.
She smiled faintly, relieved. "Yeah. I mean—it's exhausting, being stuck in one mode all the time."
"I get that," Kirsch said.
He really did.
They returned to safer topics after that. Complaints about schedules. An offhand comment about the café raising prices. Something about a broken vending machine at his workplace.
The conversation flowed—but differently.
Like a familiar song played slightly out of tune.
Kirsch noticed himself listening harder, memorizing details without meaning to. The way Lita tucked her hair behind her ear when she was thinking. The exact phrasing she used when she was unsure versus confident.
He wondered how many nights they had left like this.
Not because she said she was leaving—but because nights, once acknowledged as temporary, never felt the same again.
"You don't hate mornings, do you?" Lita asked suddenly.
He hesitated.
"I don't think I exist properly in them," he said carefully.
She smiled. "That sounds about right."
"What about you?" he asked. "Do you want to exist there?"
Lita leaned back, eyes drifting upward. "I want to try," she said. "I'm tired of hiding from the day."
That word—hiding—settled heavy between them.
Kirsch hadn't thought of it that way. Avoidance, sure. Comfort. Survival.
But hiding?
"I don't think nights are hiding," he said slowly. "I think they're… choosing where you can breathe."
She considered that. "Maybe," she said. "But I don't want to need them forever."
Kirsch nodded.
He didn't say what he was thinking.
That he wasn't sure he knew how to exist anywhere else.
That the idea of this café without her felt wrong in a way he couldn't articulate.
That something quiet and essential in his routine had become fragile.
Instead, he asked, "When would that happen?"
She shrugged. "Soon-ish. I don't know."
Soon-ish.
The word echoed unhelpfully.
They finished their drinks in near silence after that—not uncomfortable, but weighted. Every clink of ceramic felt louder than it should've.
When Lita stood to leave, she hesitated.
"I hope that didn't sound like I was saying goodbye," she said.
Kirsch looked up at her. "It didn't."
That was only half true.
She smiled, relieved again. "Good."
As she walked toward the door, Kirsch realized something unsettling: this was the first time the future had entered the café.
Before, everything had existed in an endless present. Night after night, same table, same silence, same safety.
Now there was an after.
Kirsch stayed longer than usual after she left.
The café felt different without her. Too quiet. Too exposed.
He imagined coming here tomorrow night, ordering his drink, sitting alone.
He imagined seeing her seat empty.
The thought tightened something in his chest.
It's fine, he told himself. People change shifts all the time.
But that wasn't it.
This wasn't about schedules.
This was about what happened when the one place you felt understood started to slip out of reach.
When Kirsch finally stood to leave, the sky was already lightening at the edges.
Morning was coming.
For the first time, it felt like a threat.
And somewhere between the café door and the street, Kirsch realized the truth he hadn't allowed himself to see before:
Nothing romantic had happened between them.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing forbidden.
And yet, the idea of losing her presence hurt more than any breakup he could remember.