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.