It was late one evening when Zen finally closed her shift at the café, exhaustion clinging to her body as she stepped out into the cool night air. The campus grounds were quiet, the buzz of the day giving way to the soft hum of distant traffic. She pulled her jacket tighter and began her walk toward the nearby street where she usually caught a ride home. Her thoughts drifted, as they often did, back to Peter. She had not seen him that day, and though she scolded herself for noticing his absence, she could not deny the faint hollowness it left behind. She sighed, pushing the thought aside, only to stop short when she caught sight of a familiar figure just a few steps ahead of her, walking with the same steady stride she had seen so often in the café.
Peter.
Zen hesitated, unsure if she should call out, but her steps carried her forward until the distance between them closed naturally. For a moment she walked in silence, listening to the sound of his shoes against the pavement, until curiosity overcame her restraint. "You live around here?" she asked softly, her voice breaking the quiet. He glanced at her briefly, his expression unreadable, before giving a small nod. "Yes." The simplicity of his reply frustrated her, but the realization filled her with a strange excitement. They had crossed paths by accident, not by choice, and it meant that their worlds overlapped in ways she had not expected. She smiled faintly to herself, finding comfort in the thought that perhaps fate was weaving their encounters closer, no matter how he tried to keep his distance.
They walked together without planning to, their paths aligned by circumstance. Zen found herself stealing glances at him, noting the weariness etched on his face, the way his hands were shoved into his pockets as though to shield himself from more than just the evening chill. She wanted to ask more, to know what his days were like, where exactly he lived, who waited for him at home. But she kept her words light, choosing instead to remark on the neighborhood, on the quiet streets lined with old lamps and the way the air smelled fresher than in the heart of the city. To her surprise, he responded, not warmly, but enough to keep the exchange alive. His voice was even, his answers brief, but the fact that he spoke at all felt like a door opening just slightly, enough to glimpse the shadowed room beyond.
When their walk ended at a corner where their streets diverged, Zen stopped and offered a smile that was both hesitant and hopeful. "I guess we will be seeing more of each other then," she said, half a question, half a statement. Peter looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable in the glow of the streetlight, before giving the faintest nod. Without another word he turned toward his street, leaving her standing there with a racing heart and a lingering thought. The neighborhood she had always found ordinary now held a new weight, because it connected her to him, and though the distance between them remained, she felt it shrinking in small, quiet steps she had not expected.