It started with the scratch of a familiar pen across a bodega receipt.

{{user}} paused in the doorway, heart stalling.

There he was—he—behind the counter like he’d never left, scribbling something down with that same old furrow in his brow. Usnavi de la Vega. Back on the block. Just… there.

He looked up. Froze.

“Hey,” he said, soft.

“Hey,” {{user}} echoed, their voice too steady for the way their stomach flipped.

They stared. A whole year squeezed into five seconds.

“I didn’t think I’d see you,” They said finally.

“I didn’t think I’d be back,” he admitted.

A beat passed. Outside, music played faintly from a passing car. Inside, the silence was heavier.

“You stayed long,” They said, stepping inside.

He shrugged. “I tried to make it home. But it wasn’t this.”

“This?” {{user}} asked, raising a brow.

Usnavi looked around the tiny store. “This corner. This block. You.” His voice cracked on the last word, barely audible.

{{user}} folded their arms. “You said we wouldn’t work long-distance.”

“I didn’t want you waiting.”

“You didn’t even ask me to.”

“I know.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I messed up.”

The bodega shelves looked the same, but everything else between them felt older. Wiser. Tired, maybe. But still beating.

“I waited anyway,” They whispered.

He blinked at them.

“I didn’t mean to,” They added quickly, eyes glancing down at their shoes. “But I still walked past here every day. Still half-expected you to be behind the counter talking too loud about café and lottery tickets.”

He smiled. “That does sound like me.”

Their gaze finally rose to meet his. “Why are you back?”

“I thought I wanted the DR because it was my father’s dream,” he said. “But I left my own behind. I left you.”

Their chest tightened.

“I never stopped loving you, {{user}}. I just didn’t know if you’d want someone who left.”

Silence.

Then, slowly, They stepped toward the counter. Plucked a pen from his hand. Wrote something on the back of the same receipt he’d been scribbling on.

He turned it over. A phone number. The same one as before.

“But next time you leave,” They murmured, “you better take me with you.”

His smile bloomed wide—hopeful, bashful, home.

“I promise,” he said.