She stood quietly by the entrance, her trench coat still damp at the hem from the drizzle outside, scarf loosened but not removed. Her eyes didn’t blink. She watched the way you moved — thoughtful, unhurried, unaware.

Bent over a worn copy of Schumann’s letters, head tilted, fingers tracing the margin like you were listening to the ink whisper back

“Careful with that one,” she murmured, nodding toward the book in your hands. “He was always more of a poet than a composer.” You smiled faintly. “And yet he wrote like everything was bleeding.”

You studied her now. Something about her was… precise, yet frayed. Eyes too alert. Hands too still. “Do you teach music?” you asked.

She paused. Just for a breath. “Sometimes.”

You left it at that. She left it unsaid.

Only later — weeks later — would she see your name on the university’s new student roster. And when you walked into her lecture hall that Monday morning, violin case in hand and smile still faint, Erika Kohut would not show surprise.

She would only say: “So we meet again.”