It had been a long morning.
It was after her first viva. She was on her way home, but the thought of the library pulled at her. Maybe, if she went there now, she could prepare for the next one—get ahead of the panic, tame the day. She picked up some sweets from the grocery shop, a small comfort, and made her way there.
She wasn't expecting to see what she did.
He was there.
There he was—sitting outside, wrapped in sunlight like it had been made just for him. Calm. Unbothered. Serene in a way that didn't seem quite real. He looked... peaceful. Disarmingly so. As if the world had never asked anything of him, and he'd never had to resist.
She took her time getting out of the car, lingering just in case he noticed. Spun a story to her driver about not being able to decide whether she needed her coat or not. And when the moment came—the one where he might've seen her—she slipped quickly inside. Her coat hanging awkwardly from her backpack.
It was laughable, really. She didn't need the coat. But she'd taken it anyway, a nervous prop. A flimsy excuse to come back out, just to put it away again. A quiet, ridiculous hope tucked inside the gesture: maybe he'd look up. Maybe he'd see.
Maybe he did, and she couldn't tell—she was too aware of him, too afraid to look.
Still, she smiled. Because she'd seen him. And for now, that was enough.