The sun was already leaning low when Rowen noticed the light change on the counter.
He had been replacing a cracked phone screen, the kind of repair that usually absorbed him fully, but tonight he was aware of the silence pressing against the glass door. Evening always carried a different weight—still familiar, but expectant.
The bell chimed.
Lira stepped in, her hair slightly windblown, cheeks touched by the last light of the day.
"Still open?" she asked, voice low.
"For a bit," Rowen said, setting his tools aside.
She walked in further, slower than usual, and leaned against the counter without anything in her hands. No phone, no tablet, no excuse this time.
"It's quieter at this hour," she said, glancing around. "Even the air feels… heavier somehow."
Rowen didn't answer. He didn't need to.
She tapped her nails lightly on the wooden edge of the counter, then paused. "Sometimes I think about how… everything just gets arranged for you as an adult. Where you live, who you're with, what you do. You start moving along lines someone else drew, and before you know it, that's your whole life."
Her voice wasn't bitter. It was almost detached, like she was testing the sound of her own thoughts.
"You don't feel that, do you?" she asked after a beat, tilting her head at him.
Rowen's eyes flicked up briefly. "No."
"I didn't think so," she said, a faint smile forming. "You always looked like… like nothing could touch you. Back then. Even now."
Her finger traced an idle line across the counter's surface, slow and deliberate. It didn't reach him, but the motion filled the space between them more than words could.
Neither of them moved for a moment.
Then, almost as if breaking the spell herself, Lira pushed off the counter. "I should go. Didn't mean to keep you."
"You didn't," Rowen said.
She gave a small, knowing smile—one that didn't belong to politeness—and slipped out into the evening.
The bell chimed softly, then left the shop in its old stillness.
Rowen stood a while longer before returning to his bench. The phone waited where he'd left it, but his attention lingered in the doorway.
The quiet wasn't the same anymore.
It was leaning toward her.