Oryn sat at his desk, fingers curled around his pen, tapping absently against the wood. The half-written letter in front of him stared back, its unfinished words heavy with hesitation. He had never struggled to write before—not like this. Words had always come easily, flowing from his mind like ink bleeding into paper.
But this wasn't just any letter.
This was the letter. The one that would pull them from the safety of ink and margins into something real.
His fingers clenched around the pen. It wasn't just about curiosity anymore. He had felt it in her letters—the quiet ache between the lines, the way she understood him without even knowing his face. Lana—he had started to think of her as Lana, even if it was just an initial—was no longer just an anonymous presence in a café. She had become something more.
And maybe that was why this felt so terrifying.
But hesitation had never been his style.
He exhaled sharply, steadied his hand, and let the words pour out.
"Meet me tomorrow. Same place. 5 PM."
No flourishes, no overthinking. Just a time, a place, and the weight of every unsaid thing between them.
He slipped the letter into the book and returned it to the shelf, his heart hammering in a way that had nothing to do with nerves and everything to do with possibility.
Now, all he had to do was wait.
Lana hadn't planned to go to Café Amour that afternoon.
It was Noa who convinced her, nudging her toward the idea with playful insistence. "You can't leave him hanging forever," she had teased.
As if that was what this was. As if she wasn't already half-lost in the anticipation every time she cracked open that book, fingers trembling just slightly as she turned the pages.
And today, when she reached that now-familiar spot between the margins, there it was.
His invitation.
Her breath caught, the words simple yet pressing against something deep in her chest.
Tomorrow. 5 PM.
A quiet kind of thrill coursed through her. She wasn't ready—she was ready. It was ridiculous, it was terrifying, it was happening.
By the time she left the café, she had already decided.
Tomorrow, she would meet him.
Tomorrow, she would finally know the face behind the words.
And she had no idea that she would be waiting alone.