The café smelled like burnt coffee and tired people.
Ayana didn't mind. After four years of working here, the smell had become something like comfort — familiar in the way that ugly things become familiar when you live with them long enough.
She wiped down the counter. Checked the clock.
11:47 PM.
Thirteen minutes.
Two customers left. A college boy in the corner who hadn't looked up from his laptop in three hours, and an old woman by the window who came in every Tuesday night and ordered chamomile tea and never drank it. Just held the cup. Like she needed something warm in her hands.
Ayana understood that.
She refilled the old woman's cup without being asked.
The woman looked up and smiled — small, tired, grateful.
No words. They never needed words.
Her manager came out of the kitchen at five to twelve, coat already on.
"Close up when you're done," Mr. Kim said, keys in hand. "Don't stay too long."
"I won't."
He left through the back.
The college boy packed up ten minutes later, headphones around his neck, backpack hanging off one shoulder. He dropped exact change on the table without looking at her.
The old woman finished — or didn't finish — her tea. Set the cup down carefully. Stood with the slow effort of someone whose bones remembered too many winters.
"Goodnight," she said softly.
"Goodnight," Ayana said.
The door closed.
Silence.
Just her.
She exhaled.
This was the part of the night she didn't hate — the quiet after everyone left. The hum of the refrigerator. The rain against the window. The particular stillness of a place that had been full and was now empty.
She started wiping tables.
She was on the third table when she saw him.
Standing outside the glass door. Still. Hands at his sides.
A man. Dark coat. Dark hair plastered flat from the rain. He wasn't knocking. Wasn't trying the handle. Just standing there — looking in.
Ayana straightened slowly.
Drunk, probably. Lost, maybe.
She walked to the door and pointed at the sign. Closed. The letters were big enough to read from the street.
The man didn't move.
She tapped the sign with one finger.
Still nothing. He just looked at her. His face unreadable through the rain-streaked glass.
Something made her uncomfortable. Not afraid — not exactly. More like the feeling of a word sitting at the edge of your tongue that won't come.
She unlocked the door and opened it two inches.
Cold air rushed in.
"We're closed," she said. "Sorry."
He didn't answer immediately. Just looked at her — really looked, the way people don't usually look at strangers.
Then he said, quietly:
"I know."
His voice was low. A little rough. Like someone who hadn't spoken in a long time and was remembering how.
"Then—" She paused. "Are you okay?"
It was an automatic question. The kind you asked without thinking.
But he seemed to think about it seriously.
"No," he said. "Not really."
She didn't know what to do with that.
"There's a 24-hour place two blocks down," she said. "They'll let you sit."
He nodded once. Slowly. Like he was filing the information away somewhere.
He didn't move.
"Is there something—"
"You cut your hair," he said.
Ayana stopped.
"Sorry?"
He blinked. Something shifted in his expression — like he'd just heard his own words and didn't know where they'd come from.
"Nothing," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. I don't — " He stepped back. "I'm sorry for bothering you."
He turned and walked away.
No drama. No lingering. Just — gone. Swallowed by the dark and the rain before she'd even processed what had happened.
You cut your hair.
She hadn't. It was the same length it had been for two years.
She closed the door. Locked it.
Stood there for a moment with her hand still on the latch.
Weird.
She went back to wiping tables.
She finished closing at half past twelve. Lights off. Chairs up. Cash drawer counted.
She put on her jacket, slung her bag over her shoulder, and stepped out into the rain.
It wasn't heavy — just persistent. The kind of rain that didn't make noise, just made everything wet.
She walked.
One block. Two.
She had her hands in her pockets against the cold when her fingers touched something.
Paper.
She pulled it out.
A small square of paper — folded twice. Old feeling. Soft at the edges, like it had been handled many times.
She stopped under a streetlight and unfolded it.
Her own handwriting looked back at her.
One word.
Kael.
And underneath, in the same hand — smaller, like an afterthought:
Don't forget.
She stared at it.
Turned it over. Blank.
She had never seen this paper before in her life. She was certain of that — completely, inexplicably certain — the way you're certain of things you can't explain.
And yet.
Her own handwriting. Her own words.
Don't forget.
The rain kept falling.
She folded the paper carefully — without knowing why she was being careful — and put it back in her pocket.
She walked the rest of the way home with her hand pressed flat against it through the fabric.
Like she was afraid it would disappear.
She didn't sleep well.
No nightmares. Nothing dramatic. Just — shallow, restless sleep that kept dropping her back into half-waking. The ceiling. The rain. The ceiling again.
At some point before dawn she gave up and sat at the window with a cup of tea she didn't taste.
The street below was empty. Wet. Yellow under the streetlights.
She took the paper out and looked at it again in the dark.
Kael.
She said it quietly. Just to hear it.
The word felt — familiar. The way a place feels familiar when you've only ever seen it in photographs.
Like knowing without knowing.
She folded it again. Set it on the windowsill.
Watched the rain.
Somewhere in the city, something she couldn't name had shifted.
She didn't know what.
She didn't know why.
But she kept her hand near the paper for the rest of the night —
— and she did not throw it away.