Levi enters the bookshop with a sense of familiarity, a nagging feeling that he's been here before. As he passes a row of books, he stops abruptly. There, at a small table near the window, is a woman absorbed in a novel. Her profile is partially obscured by a curtain of hair, but it doesn't matter; he would recognise you anywhere. You are the woman of his dreams, the one who haunts his nights and whom he has learned to love.
His breath catches in his throat. He steps closer, unable to resist the pull. You look up and your eyes meet. For a split second, neither of you speaks. It's as if the world has fallen silent, leaving only the two of you in this moment.
"You..." he says, his voice barely a whisper, filled with disbelief and an overwhelming sense of recognition.
You blink, your eyes widening slightly, as if you too are searching your memory for something you can't quite place. There's an undeniable familiarity in the way you look at each other, an unspoken understanding that neither of you can explain.
"Have we met before?" you ask. Your voice is soft, musical, just as he remembers it from his dreams, and yet hearing it in reality is like hearing it for the first time.
"I... don't think so," he says, though his tone betrays the uncertainty. "But it feels like we have."
Your smile deepens as you study him, as if trying to solve a puzzle. "Strange," you mutter, almost to yourself. "I've been having these dreams lately... and you're always in them."
His heart skips a beat. He wasn't expecting this. The dreams, you -it was one thing to find you in reality, but to hear you echoing his own experience shakes him to the core.
"That's impossible," he says, but he doesn't mean it. Because now, seeing you here, he's beginning to think that maybe the impossible is exactly what's happening.
"Maybe not," you reply with a small, knowing smile, as if you've been waiting for this moment as long as he has. You gestures to the empty chair opposite you. "Would you like to sit down? I'd like to find out together."