Here you go—the full continuous text of Chapters 1 through 10, ready for you to copy-paste into Webnovel chapter uploads without formatting issues:
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Chapter 1 – The Girl Who Waited in the Rain Indoors
The ceiling was leaking again.
Not in the way ceilings normally do — with slow, stubborn drops that stain the plaster — but in a steady curtain of rain that fell as if the sky had simply decided to move in.
Elian sat in the corner of the café, watching her.
She was at the table by the window, though the window looked out onto nothing but fog. Her dress clung to her in damp folds, her hair dripping a quiet rhythm onto the pages of a book she didn't seem to read. She didn't notice the rain. Or maybe, Elian thought, the rain didn't notice her.
The air smelled faintly of oranges.
No one else in the café seemed to find this odd — not the rain, not the fog, not the fact that the sugar bowls were full of tiny glass marbles instead of sugar. The old man behind the counter hummed tunelessly as he polished a cup that had no bottom.
Elian had been coming here every Wednesday for a month, and every Wednesday she was there, waiting. Always in the same chair. Always in the rain.
He didn't know her name yet, but he knew the way her eyes would occasionally lift from the book — never to look around, but as though she were listening for something. As if someone had promised to arrive, and she was holding her breath in a way no one could see.
Outside, somewhere beyond the fog, a clock tower chimed thirteen times.
The sound slipped through the café like a slow knife.
The girl finally closed her book. She looked directly at Elian for the first time.
"You're late," she said, though he had never spoken to her before.
And then she smiled, as if she'd been waiting for him all her life.
Elian opened his mouth, but the rain grew heavier, drowning his words before they reached her.
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Chapter 2 – The Stranger's Name
The rain had stopped. Not outside — outside was still fog and silence — but inside the café, where the ceiling now held itself together as though nothing strange had ever happened. The girl's hair was dry. Her dress was a soft cream now, not the soaked grey Elian remembered from moments ago.
She didn't seem surprised that he had walked over to her table without thinking.
"You should sit," she said, and her voice had the texture of an old vinyl record — warm but slightly scratched.
He sat.
"I'm Elian," he offered.
"I know."
Her fingers traced the rim of her teacup, though it was empty. "I'm Liora."
It was a name that felt like it belonged in another century. He tried it in his mind — Liora — and it left an aftertaste of rosewater and something heavier, like dust from an attic where no one had been in years.
"You've been waiting for me?" he asked.
Her smile was quiet. "Yes. But don't ask how long."
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Chapter 3 – A Clock Without Hands
The café door opened, though no one stepped in.
A gust of air brushed past them, carrying the faint scent of burning paper. Liora didn't look up.
"Do you believe in accidents, Elian?"
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
Her gaze drifted to the wall where a clock hung — a beautiful brass thing, except it had no hands. "There's no such thing," she murmured. "Only arrangements we don't remember making."
The hum from the old man behind the counter grew louder, though Elian could have sworn the man's mouth wasn't moving. The sound was coming from somewhere else.
Liora leaned closer. "You won't understand tonight. But soon."
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Chapter 4 – The Fog Breathes
When Elian left the café, the fog outside moved like a living thing. It pulled back from him, as if giving him room to pass, but when he looked over his shoulder, it was already closing in again.
In the distance, the clock tower stood taller than seemed possible, its spire bending slightly toward the street where he walked. The windows glowed with a soft blue light.
For a moment, Elian thought he saw Liora's silhouette inside one of those high windows — even though she had been behind him a second ago.
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Chapter 5 – The Rain Returns
The next Wednesday, the rain was back inside the café. Liora sat in the same place, but now there was another cup on the table — his. Steam curled from it, though he hadn't ordered anything.
"You came back," she said softly.
"Of course."
"You always say that."
Elian opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but then the clock outside struck thirteen again. The rain fell harder, and for a heartbeat, he was sure the world had tilted — just slightly, like a book sliding off a shelf.
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Chapter 6 – The Promise in Reverse
That night, Elian dreamed of Liora.
But in the dream, she was leaving him — not walking away, but walking backward into the fog. Her lips moved, forming words he couldn't hear.
When he woke, his hands were wet. Not with sweat — with rainwater. The window in his apartment was closed, the air dry, yet his palms glistened. In the faint light, he saw a single word written across his skin, fading even as he read it:
"Stay."
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Chapter 7 – The Cup That Shattered Twice
When Elian arrived at the café, the old man behind the counter was staring at the floor. At his feet lay a broken teacup, its shards scattered like white petals.
He bent to gather them, muttering under his breath, "Twice… twice in the same place."
Liora was at her table.
"There's a shadow following you," she said without preamble.
Elian laughed softly. "That's… poetic."
"It's not poetry," she replied. "It's patient."
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Chapter 8 – The Photograph
Liora slid something across the table to him — a photograph, its edges curled and yellowed.
It was of the café. But the furniture was different, the walls darker, and through the fogged windows, no fog at all — only a bright street. Two people sat where Elian and Liora now sat, leaning toward each other.
It was them.
Exactly them.
"You see now," she said. "This isn't our first meeting."
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Chapter 9 – The Man at the Window
That evening, Elian noticed a figure standing in the fog outside his apartment.
Tall, still, wearing a coat too long for the weather. He stood there for hours. Elian didn't sleep.
When he looked again at dawn, the man was gone — but the pavement where he had stood was wet, as if it had rained in that single patch and nowhere else.
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Chapter 10 – The First Loss
On the next Wednesday, the café was closed.
The windows were boarded, the door chained.
Elian stood in the street, the fog coiling around his ankles like curious smoke. He pressed his face to a gap in the boards. Inside, the tables were overturned, the counter smashed. No rain. No hum. No Liora.
A slip of paper lay on the floor, half-hidden under debris.
It was a page from her book — the one she never read. Across it, in her handwriting:
"Don't follow the man in the coat."
The clock tower struck thirteen.
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