The one that didn’t taste like coffee anymore.

The one that tasted like beginning to care too much.

There are things that never start loudly.

They grow, quietly—like warmth from the first sip of coffee,

like how you don’t notice when the rain stops, 

or when someone begins to matter

The first cup was coincidence.

Rain, book, silence, and a man with an Americano.

The second was comfort.

A shared table, the sound of two cups clinking, 

and that simple, habitual smile he gave whenever I spoke too fast.

The third was attachment.

The seat by the window was no longer just mine.

It was ours, by default —no texts, no plans, yet we both somehow knew.

The barista stopped asking. She would simply look at us and nod, 

“Vanilla Latte and Americano?”

But the fourth— 

the fourth was something else.

He came later than usual that day.

I was already on my second sip when the door chimed.

Brown coat, hands tucked into his pocket, 

his eyes catching mine before anything else.

“You waited?” He asked, half teasing, half unsure.

“Maybe.” I smiled, stirring the melting ice.

“It’s your fault for being predictable.”

“Predictable?” He chuckled, placing his Americano down.

“I thought consistency was attractive.”

“It is,” I admitted.

“Until it starts feeling like a habit you can’t break.”

He raised his cup slightly, as if to toast.

“Then let me be your bad habit.”

And there it was— 

that uninvited flutter beneath my ribs. 

The kind that didn’t ask permission to stay.

We talked about the usual: 

book, the weather, the songs we didn’t finish listening to.

But that day, something shifted.

Between the pauses, between the quiet stirs of coffee and breath,

I realized—- 

we no longer needed the rain to make us stay.

I thought, for a brief second, 

how strange it was that some people arrive unannounced— 

and before you realize it, 

they’ve become part of your routine, 

as essential as breath, as caffeine, as waiting.

The scent of roasted beans was heavier that day.
The afternoon air was calm, unusually windless, as if the whole world paused to listen to the whispers between coffee steam and heartbeats.

He came earlier.
Or maybe I was too late.

There was a quiet surprise that stirred when I saw him already sitting by the window, the same spot we both unconsciously claimed as ours. The sunlight filtered through the glass, kissing his brown coat, making him look almost cinematic. His eyes were distant, tracing something invisible outside.

He turned just in time, catching me in the middle of my hesitation.
“Vanilla?” He said, as if my name was that drink.
I smiled. “Always.”
He nodded, faintly, “I guesses.”

He looked tired, maybe from work, maybe from life. But his tiredness was strangely comforting— it matched mine. Like two unfinished sentences left hanging in the same paragraph.

I placed my book on the table. Not Le Petit Prince this time. The Great Gatsby again — he teased me once that I never finished it, that I was stuck somewhere between “old sport” and heartbreak.

“Did you ever finish it?” He asked.
I shook my head. “Maybe I don’t want to. I like it better unfinished.”
He chuckled softly.
“That’s just like you.”
“Like me?”
“You like to stay in the middle of stories. Not ending them, not beginning again. Just… staying.”
I didn’t answer. He wasn’t wrong.

The drinks came —mine, pale, and sweet, floating in glass and ice; his, dark, and restless, in porcelain and heat. The contrast looked almost symbolic.

“Do you ever think,” i began quietly, “why people have favorite drinks?”
He looked at me, tilting his head slightly. “Hmm?”
“I think it says something about us.
Vanilla latte —it’s the comfort I never got to have.
Warmth with sweetness, but still cold enough to hurt a little.”

He smirked, lifting his Americano.
“And me?”

“Bitter. But pure.” I said it without hesitation.

He raised his eyebrows, amused. “That’s harsh.”

“It’s honest.”

He stared at his cup, then at me. “Then maybe you’re right. Maybe I like bitter things because I want them to stay real.”

There was silence again.

But this time, it wasn’t awkward —it was mutual, soft, like the foam fading on coffee, like words unsaid that didn’t need to be.
Outside, the street was still wet from last night’s rain. The glass reflected two figures —one dark, one light, both framed by the faint golf of afternoon.

He broke the quiet first.
“Next time,” he said, “I’ll have vanilla latte.”

“Why?” I smiled. “You don’t even like sweet things.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But maybe I just want to know what you taste like.”

My pulse tripped over itself.
My vanilla latte almost slipped from my hand.

He looked down, hiding a grin. “I mean— what your favorite drink tastes like.”

Sure. 
Of course.

And just like that, Mr. Americano melted the ice in my vanilla latte faster than the sun outside could.
That afternoon didn’t need rain to be remembered. 

It was enough to have coffee, sunlight, and his unguarded smile—
And the sudden awareness that maybe, just maybe,
He wasn’t just a chapter anymore.