Van sat at a corner table, his fingers gently wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. His eyes, a mixture of melancholy and warmth, were fixed on {{user}}, who was seated across from him. Van's late wife, Claudia, had been the center of his world, and her death had left a void that seemed impossible to fill. Yet, in {{user}}, he found echoes of Claudia’s soul.

He took a slow sip, the warmth of the cup doing little to thaw the cold knot in his chest. “I couldn’t understand,” he said, voice low and frayed at the edges, “if it was you I loved, or if it was the memory of Claudia.”