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I don’t know why I came back here.
Maybe because it was raining.
Maybe because every time it rains, I start thinking about her again.
The café looked smaller than I remembered. Warmer, too. The windows had fogged up from the cold outside, and somebody near the counter was laughing quietly over something on their phone.
Normal stuff.
The kind of normal that makes you feel out of place when your chest already hurts before you’ve even sat down.
The bell above the door rang softly when I stepped inside.
And before I could stop myself, I looked toward the corner by the window.
Same seat.
Of course.
Cafe sat with her hands around a cup of coffee, staring outside like she’d been there long before I arrived. The rain sliding down the glass caught the city lights in strange colors around her face.
For a second, I just stood there.
Because suddenly it felt like nothing had changed.
Like if I walked over and sat down, she’d ask how training went, and I’d complain about paperwork, and she’d hum quietly while pretending not to smile at me.
Like maybe the last several months never happened.
Then she looked up.
And there it was.
That feeling.
The awful kind.
The kind where you realize you never actually got over someone—you just got better at avoiding places that reminded you of them.
“…Trainer.”
Her voice was still soft.
Still calm.
Still unfairly familiar.
I walked over before I could think too hard about turning around.
“You still come here?” I asked.
Stupid question.
She looked down at her coffee for a second.
“…You do too.”
Right.
I pulled the chair across from her out slowly. The legs scraped lightly against the floor, loud enough that a few people glanced over before going back to their own conversations.
Neither of us spoke after I sat down.
The silence wasn’t awkward.
That probably said enough on its own.
A waitress came over after a minute. “The usual?”
I opened my mouth to answer.
Cafe did first.
“Americano. No sugar.”
The waitress nodded immediately and walked away.
I stared at her.
“You remembered.”
A small pause.
“…I remember most things about you.”
God.
I looked away first.
Outside, headlights blurred through the rain. The weather forecast said it was supposed to stop around midnight, but it didn’t look like it would.
I used to hate coffee.
Not real coffee, anyway.
Too bitter.
Too strong.
The first time Cafe handed me an americano during a late-night training session, I nearly spat it back out.
“You drink this willingly?” I asked.
“It helps me stay awake.”
“Tastes like punishment.”
“…You get used to it.”
Back then, she said it while looking down at her cup.
Now I think she might’ve been talking about more than coffee.
The waitress returned and placed my drink in front of me.
Black coffee.
No sugar.
No cream.
I wrapped my hand around the cup carefully.
Still too bitter.
Still drank it anyway.
“You changed,” Cafe said quietly.
I laughed once under my breath. “That obvious?”
“You stopped sleeping properly too.”
“…You can tell?”
“You rub your eyes when you’re exhausted.”
I stared down at the coffee.
Right.
That too.
She always noticed things I didn’t realize I was doing.
Back then, I used to think it was comforting.
After we broke up, it became unbearable.
Because I’d catch myself doing something small—checking my phone before races, reaching for an extra coffee cup out of habit—and immediately think:
She would’ve noticed that.
And then I’d have to sit with the fact she wasn’t there anymore.
“…How have you been?” I asked after a while.
“Busy.”
“That sounds familiar.”
A tiny nod.
Another silence.
The café speakers changed songs quietly overhead.
Someone near the counter laughed again.
Rain tapped softly against the windows.
Everything kept moving around us like this wasn’t the first time we’d seen each other in months.
“…The others ask about you sometimes,” I said.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“They stop speaking when I walk into the room.”
I snorted before I could help it.
“That’s creepy.”
“…I’ve been told that before.”
There it was.
That dry kind of humor only she could pull off while sounding completely serious.
It made my chest ache.
Because for a second, I remembered exactly what it felt like to fall in love with her.
Not all at once.
Slowly.
During late nights in the training office while the coffee machine hummed in the background.
During train rides home where she’d quietly fall asleep against my shoulder.
During convenience store stops after races where she’d stand beside me under harsh fluorescent lights holding warm canned coffee with both hands because her fingers got cold easily.
Tiny things.
Stupid things.
The kind you never think will become memories until they already are.
“…Do you remember our first date?” I asked.
Cafe looked at me over the rim of her cup.
“You were thirty minutes early.”
“You were too.”
“…I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t keep you waiting.”
I laughed softly.
“I remember being so nervous I couldn’t even drink properly.”
“You spilled caramel macchiato on the table.”
“Please don’t remind me.”
“You apologized to the waiter four times.”
“Cafe.”
There it was again.
That almost-smile.
Small.
Brief.
Gone too quickly.
But enough.
Enough to make me miss her so badly it physically hurt.
I looked down before she could notice.
Too late, probably.
She always noticed.
“…I thought we had more time,” I admitted quietly.
The words came out before I could stop them.
I didn’t even know exactly what I meant by it until after I said it.
More time together.
More late nights.
More races.
More chances to fix whatever started breaking between us before it broke completely.
Cafe lowered her cup slowly.
“So did I.”
No anger.
That was the worst part.
If she hated me, maybe this would’ve been easier to carry.
But Manhattan Cafe loved quietly.
And she grieved the same way.
Softly.
Privately.
In ways nobody noticed unless they were paying attention.
And I had stopped paying attention near the end.
That guilt still sat ugly in my chest even now.
“I thought giving you space was the right thing,” she said after a while.
I swallowed hard.
Because I knew exactly what she meant.
The unanswered calls.
The shorter conversations.
The way she stopped asking me to walk her home after training.
Not because she stopped wanting me there.
Because she noticed I was tired.
Because she loved me enough to make herself smaller around me.
And God, I hated myself for not realizing it sooner.
“I thought you were falling out of love with me,” I admitted.
Her eyes widened slightly.
Just slightly.
“…No.”
That one word nearly ruined me.
The café suddenly felt too warm.
Too small.
I looked down at my untouched coffee because I couldn’t look at her anymore.
Funny.
All this time, and somehow we were both wrong in the exact same way.
The rain outside started slowing down.
People near the counter gathered their things and left one by one.
Eventually the café became quieter.
Just us.
Just the sound of dishes clinking softly somewhere in the back.
Cafe looked outside again.
“…I still visit the training office sometimes,” she said.
“At night?”
A nod.
“The coffee machine still makes the same sound.”
There it was.
That ache again.
Sharp enough this time that I had to laugh quietly just to keep myself together.
Because I remembered those nights too clearly.
Her sitting beside me while I finished paperwork.
Her head resting against my shoulder around two in the morning.
The smell of coffee and rain clinging to her jacket when we walked back to the dorms together.
I used to think those nights would happen forever.
That’s the embarrassing part.
You never realize you’re inside the good days while they’re happening.
You think there’ll be more of them.
Then one day you’re sitting across from someone you still love, drinking cold coffee in the same café where you first held their hand, wondering how the hell you let each other go.
“…Do you still think about me?” she asked softly.
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because I didn’t know what else to do.
“Cafe,” I said quietly, “everything reminds me of you.”
Coffee.
Rain.
Late-night train rides.
Convenience stores.
Warm paper cups.
Even silence.
Especially silence.
Her fingers tightened slightly around her cup.
Then, very quietly—
“…Me too.”
And that should’ve made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Because love was still here.
That was the problem.
Not gone.
Not dead.
Just sitting between us with nowhere to go anymore.
The café lights reflected softly in the windows behind her.
For one awful second, she looked exactly like she did back then.
Like the girl I loved so much I changed the way I drank coffee without even realizing it.
I looked down at my americano.
Cold now.
Bitter.
Still impossible to put down.
Across from me, Cafe finally lifted her cup again.
“…The aftertaste remains,” she murmured softly.
I think that was the moment I realized some people never really leave your life properly.
They just stop standing beside you.
And somehow that’s worse.