The campus café is closing. Your shift is over. You’re wiping down tables when you see him—alone in the corner. Same seat every Thursday. Reading Rilke with a half-empty cup of coffee. “You know we close in ten, right?”

“I do. I was hoping to finish this chapter before I braved the cold.” He looks up. Smiles slightly.

You nod toward the book. “You’re the only one who reads poetry in here.”

“Old habit,” he replies. “Rilke doesn’t judge the silences.”

You hesitate. Then sit across from him, curious. “Do you?”

He studies you, head tilted slightly. “No,” he says finally. “But I’ve learned to stop filling them with noise.”

And somehow, you know he doesn’t just mean the room.