I watched Lior carefully, noticing the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. Ten years hadn't dimmed that quiet intensity. Did he still remember the promises we never got to keep?He could have asked too—Where were you all this time? Did you ever think about coming back?—but the questions felt like brittle paper, ready to crumble if touched. He didn't want their first conversation to be about what they had lost; he wanted it to be about what they might still have.
Lior's lips curved into a faint smile. "The coffee's good here, next time let's come here again,okay!" he said, a safe, ordinary thing, as if to prove they could start with something simple. Kaein nodded, returning the smile, grateful that neither of them had reached for the old wounds. The silence between them was not awkward—it was a shared agreement to let the years be what they were.
As Kaein left, Lior leaned back slightly, his gaze soft but unreadable.Lior's fingers traced the rim of his coffee cup, his eyes lingering on the man across from him.
He began wondering,' Haa! My dear Kaein, Ten years passed, and not once had he asked the simplest question: Why? Why there were no letters, no calls, no chance meetings.'The words hovered at the edge of his mouth, but he swallowed them with his sip of coffee. Maybe he didn't want to reopen a chapter that had already been closed.
In that quiet moment between words, both men had already realized the same truth without speaking it: the past had already done its damage. Digging through it now would only stir up the dust. And yet, sitting here, across from each other, it didn't feel like they were picking up broken pieces—it felt like they were beginning again.
Somewhere deep inside, they both promised themselves that they would not waste the second chance they had been given. The reasons for their absence didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that they were here now, and that there would be more moments like this. Not a reunion of the past, but a quiet investment in the future.