Chapter 2: Half-Finished Sentences

Link (Chapter 1) - Chapter 1: The Sip

Arin didn’t sleep well.

Not because he wasn’t tired but because every time he closed his eyes, his mind replayed the cafe.
Mira’s laugh.

Her teasing smile.

The way she said “next time” like it was inevitable.

By morning, he had reread his own poem twice and pretended it didn’t bother him that she’d liked it.

Around noon, his phone buzzed.

Unknown Number:
So did your poem survive the night?

He stared.

Then typed back:
Barely. Why?

Three dots appeared, vanished, then returned.

Because mine didn’t. Coffee today? I need help deciding if my draft is terrible or just mildly tragic.

He smiled, despite himself.

Same cafe?
he wrote.

No, she replied instantly.
I said quieter. I meant it.

A beat.

Meet me outside the bookstore across from the park. 5 PM.

She didn’t wait for his confirmation.

At 5 PM, Arin found her leaning against the bookstore window, her hair loose today, flowing over her shoulders like she’d walked out of a page she wrote herself.

“You came,” she said, sounding unreasonably pleased.

“You texted,” he shot back.

She grinned. “Fair enough.”

They walked into the bookstore, the door chiming softly behind them. Inside, it smelled like paper and dust and old secrets. Mira drifted toward the fiction aisle, touching spines like she was greeting old friends.

Arin followed her at a safe distance, mostly because being too close made it hard to pretend he wasn’t noticing everything about her.

She caught him looking.

“What?” she asked, pretending offense.

“Do you read all of these?” he countered.

“I read the ones that don’t look too pretentious.” She paused, tapped a thick classic novel. “This one? Definitely pretentious.”

He laughed. “You judge books by their covers?”

“I judge books by their energy.” She stepped closer. “Same with people.”

He raised a brow. “And what’s my energy?”

Mira tilted her head, studying him, not playfully this time, but with actual curiosity.

“You’re quiet,” she said slowly, “but your thoughts are loud. And you feel more than you admit.”

It hit him strangely hard.

“What about you?” he asked, softer.

“Me?” She smirked. “I’m complicated on purpose.”

He didn’t disagree.

They wandered between shelves, touching covers, trading jokes, slipping into small silences that weren’t uncomfortable. At one point, she stood on her toes to reach a book and he stepped behind her, close enough to catch the faint scent of warm vanilla on her hair.

Her fingers just brushed the spine when he reached up too, his hand lightly touching hers.

She didn’t move away.

Instead, Mira looked down at their hands, then up at him with a crooked little smile.

“You’re getting bolder,” she murmured.

He swallowed. “Maybe.”

She let her hand stay under his for a moment longer than necessary. Then she slid the book out, stepped back, and held it against her chest.

“Walk with me,” she said.

Outside, the sky was tinted pink, evening settling gently over the park. They walked slowly, Mira hugging her notebook to her body, Arin with his hands in his pockets trying not to look as thrown off as he felt.

Finally she stopped under a tree, opened her notebook, and held it out to him.

“Don’t laugh,” she warned. “I wrote this after meeting you yesterday.”

He took the notebook carefully.
The page wasn’t long.
It wasn’t polished.
But it was… about him.

A few lines stood out, written in her slanted, stubborn handwriting:

"Some people enter quietly,

but their presence rearranges the whole room.

He said his poems were small

but he didn’t notice mine growing."

Arin looked up at her, stunned.

“That’s… about me?”

Mira shrugged lightly, but her eyes didn’t hide anything.
“Don’t get excited. Writers romanticize everything.”

“I’m… not sure everything deserves to be romanticized.”

“You do,” she said, the words slipping out without hesitation.

Silence stretched between them, warm, charged, careful.

Mira closed her notebook. “So now you owe me something.”

“What?”

“A poem,” she said. “A real one. Not the one you read yesterday.”

“I didn’t bring my laptop.”

“You don’t need it.”

She stepped closer. “Just tell me a line. One line. Right now.”

He swallowed, thinking faster than he wanted to.

Then quietly, he said:

"I didn’t expect you.

But you showed up anyway."

Her breath hitched, barely noticeable unless someone was really paying attention.

“I like that,” she whispered.

They stood too close now close enough that the air between them felt like something alive.

Mira broke the moment first, closing her notebook with a soft thud.

“Arin…”

Her voice dipped, gentle but sure.

“Next time… I want to show you where I actually write. Not a cafe. Not a bookstore.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

Mira smiled — slow, mischievous, full of promise.

“You’ll see.”

She brushed past him, letting her shoulder graze his.

Then she walked away, leaving him under the tree, notebook lines replaying in his head.

Arin exhaled.

He wasn’t sure if he’d just stepped into something beautiful…or something dangerous.

Either way, he wanted more. 

... Chapter 3