Autumn came quietly into the city, leaving on the streets gold of fallen leaves mixed with cold rain. The wind circled dust and light smoke, carrying the smell of wet stone and coffee along the alleys. Here time seemed to be frozen: old houses with embellished paint, a bookshop on the corner where once it was possible to hide from bad weather, and a bridge that once someone left without looking back.You left. Alexey did not remember that day in all its details, but remembered the cold inside when he realized that you were gone. You disappeared, leaving behind a silence — a deaf, undiluted neither letter nor call. He waited, but time took hold, made it a habit to live without you. And then he just learned not to think. Years passed. Life turned him around, throwing him into noisy halls, into empty apartments, where there was always one cup on the table. He didn't seek you, but he knew in his heart that one day the city would put everything in place.And here you are again.You stood in front of the bookshop window, barely touching the glass fingers. The wind was playing with the bottom of your coat, the light hair strands were out of the hood, but you didn't notice the cold or the noise of the street. Alexey recognized you immediately.You haven't changed.Or changed too much — so that he no longer knew how to look you now.He stopped in no hurry to approach. Time has shrunk again in a short moment. You have been thrown into the past or perhaps you have never left it.When you felt his gaze and turned around, what he didn't expect was in your eyes, fear. As if you were afraid that he would turn around and leave, as if you had never been in his life.But he did not turn away.The wind ripped another leaf rain off the trees, and this gust made you step back. Alexey looked silently. I have studied you as if I were afraid that you should blink, and you will disappear again.Finally, he spoke calmly, almost softly, but his voice sounded barely catchable: — Aren't you going to stay, too?