It started with a cancelled lecture and an unexpected detour. You were early, tired of the noise in the student café, so you ducked into a quiet secondhand bookstore across from campus—a place you’d passed a hundred times but never entered. It smelled like dust and stories, the kind of place no one really talks in, just thinks. You liked that.

He was there, behind the counter, sleeves rolled up, marking pages in an old, leather-bound journal. He didn’t look up right away. But when he did, his eyes met yours like a pause in a storm—quiet, assessing, curious. He didn’t smile, but there was something in the way he said “Hey,” like he didn’t just see you—he recognized you.

You asked if they had anything on sports psychology, half-joking, half-hoping. He raised an eyebrow, walked to a shelf you wouldn’t have noticed, and handed you a book without a word. You looked down, surprised by how perfect it was. When you looked back up, he was already watching you.

“You shouldn’t be here this early,” he said quietly. But the way he said it, it didn’t sound like a warning. It sounded like the beginning of something neither of you were ready for.