Reyan D’Souza
The First Red Light
It began, as many quiet revolutions do, with something small. Aria was running late again—not disastrously, not enough to be fired—but just enough to skip breakfast, mutter at the broken coffee machine in her apartment building, and step onto the pavement at exactly 7:58 a.m., breathless. The traffic light in front of her office glowed a fierce red, holding back the swarm of pedestrians like a patient conductor. That was when she saw him. Standing across the street, half in shadow, half in light, holding a book in one hand and a bag slung over his shoulder, he looked more like a still from an indie film than someone waiting for the signal. She couldn’t make out the title of the book. It annoyed her, oddly. What kind of person reads while crossing the street? Someone interesting. Someone not from her world of pixelated presentations and client calls.
The next morning, he was there again. Same crossing, same time. Different book. He wore the same black jacket, his hair slightly tousled like he’d left a conversation with the wind. He didn’t glance at anyone around him. Didn’t check his phone. Just read and waited. Aria stared longer than she meant to, long enough to miss the signal turning green, earning a shove from an impatient man behind her. She stumbled forward, cheeks warming.
It became a pattern. Not just for her, but perhaps for the city itself. Each morning, at 7:58, the same light stopped time for exactly eighty-five seconds, and within that stillness, Aria looked forward to seeing him—signal guy, as she began to call him in her head. She started adjusting her arrival, choosing flats instead of heels, skipping eyeliner to save time. She wondered if she was going mad. He didn’t even know she existed.
By the seventh morning, she knew the exact shape of his book-holding hand. The way his left foot pointed outward when he stood still. That he sometimes mouthed words as he read. She never thought of herself as a romantic, but this—this quiet, waiting ritual—was beginning to make her feel like the universe had conspired to give her a glimpse into someone else’s private rhythm. And she liked it. More than she should have.
That day, the signal took longer than usual. Some mechanical glitch, perhaps. The red light held for nearly three minutes. Aria arrived breathless, as always, but this time with a folded umbrella tucked under her arm. Rain was threatening the sky, the monsoon impatient on the horizon. She looked up—and he was looking at her.
She froze. Their eyes met across the street, and for the first time, she realized his eyes were not dark like she’d imagined, but a shade lighter, like honey in shadow. Her lips parted slightly in surprise. She didn’t know what to do. Smile? Wave? Pretend she hadn’t been staring for days?
She chose the smile. Small, unsure. A curve that didn’t reach her eyes but carried sincerity.
He didn’t smile back. But he didn’t look away either. And somehow, that was worse. Or maybe better. She couldn’t tell. He just… studied her, like he was trying to match the name to a face, or a dream to a memory.
The light turned green.
People surged across the street. She was pushed again, but this time she didn’t stumble. She kept walking, eyes still on him. He stood still, like a painting framed by horns and rushing footsteps. And then, just as she passed him, just as they stood shoulder to shoulder at the center of the crossing, he said something.
She wasn’t sure if it was a word or her name or just a breath, but it lingered in the air between them like heat after a storm.
She turned to look at him.
He was already walking away.
That night, Aria lay in bed replaying the moment like a scene from a film she couldn’t stop watching. She should’ve stopped. Should’ve said something. Anything. But the truth was, she had no idea what this was. A coincidence? A crush? A connection built in silence and cemented in delay?
All she knew was, it mattered. More than she wanted to admit.
The next morning, she woke up before her alarm. Her coffee tasted different. Her steps felt lighter. And at 7:56, she reached the signal with a strange sense of calm. She stood there, waiting, pretending to look at the sky.
But he wasn’t there.
The light turned red. And then green.
Still no sign of him.
She waited until her boss called to ask if she’d forgotten there was a 9 a.m. review.
That evening, she told herself it was nothing. Maybe he took a different route. Maybe he was sick. Maybe this whole thing was a fantasy she’d stitched together out of boredom and wishful thinking.
But the next day, he was back. This time standing on her side of the road. No book. No headphones. Just hands tucked in his pockets and eyes scanning the crowd—until they landed on her.
She didn’t smile this time.
He did.
And just like that, the city fell away again.
Crossroads
There was no logic to it, really. Two people meeting at a traffic signal in a city of twenty million. But then again, the heart had never been known for its logic. Aria walked up to the edge of the pavement, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He stood a little awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to another. No book this time. Just a nervous glance at her and a hesitant smile, the kind that says, I want to talk but don’t know how to start.
She stepped closer. “You switched sides.”
He looked down, sheepish. “Thought I’d try something bold today.”
She laughed, and it surprised her—how easily it came, how natural it felt to be near him now that the silence had cracked. “So, what do you usually read at the crossing?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You noticed?”
“I’m observant,” she said, trying to sound casual while her heart tap-danced against her ribs.
He grinned. “Mostly fiction. Sometimes poetry. I have a rule—no screens before 9 a.m. So books keep me company.”
“That’s… unusual,” she said, impressed.
“Maybe. But I think the world feels clearer when it’s not pixelated.”
Aria nodded, warming to him with every word. She liked that he thought in metaphors. That he stood at a crossing not to escape the city but to look at it through different eyes.
“I’m Kian,” he said, offering his hand. “And you’re the girl who always arrives at 7:58 with urgency in her steps.”
She laughed again and shook his hand. “Aria.”
“Nice to officially meet you, Aria.”
The light turned green.
They crossed together for the first time, steps matching in quiet rhythm. The sound of honking cars, bicycle bells, and stray dogs barking filled the morning air, but neither of them heard it. It felt like walking in a bubble, the world blurred just enough to forget how loud it could be.
At the corner, where her office lane forked left and his path continued right, they paused.
“I usually get coffee before work,” he said, pointing to a small café she hadn’t noticed before—just a shuttered front with a faded board and a cracked door.
“Looks… closed,” she said.
He smirked. “Not if you knock twice. The old man opens it for regulars.”
“You’re a regular?”
“I’m about to be,” he said, bold now.
She hesitated, then smiled. “Okay. Let’s have coffee.”
Inside, the place smelled like forgotten stories—dust and cinnamon, ink and stale bread. There were only four tables, a counter that leaned sideways, and a cat sleeping on top of a stack of newspapers. Kian ordered two black coffees. Aria sat near the window, watching the street, wondering how it felt both entirely new and deeply familiar.
“So,” she said, once they sat, “what do you do besides haunt traffic signals and old cafés?”
Kian chuckled. “I write. Mostly mornings, sometimes nights. I freelance for content gigs. But the real stuff—the messy, beautiful, unread stuff—I do for myself.”
Aria’s eyes lit up. “You’re a writer?”
He nodded. “Unpublished, unknown, underpaid. The triple crown.”
She laughed. “I work at a design firm. Mostly brand campaigns, color palettes, pitches, and convincing clients that millennial pink is still a thing.”
Kian leaned in. “Do you love it?”
She blinked. “Sometimes. Some days I do. Other days, I imagine quitting and photographing forgotten places across the country.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because rent,” she said, shrugging. “And fear. And adulthood.”
Kian nodded, silent.
They talked for an hour. About books they’d both loved and ones they’d lied about reading. About trains and tea, first heartbreaks, forgotten hobbies, and why they both secretly loved Bollywood endings. She told him about the camera her father gifted her in college. He told her about the short story he wrote but never showed anyone.
The coffee turned cold. Neither of them noticed.
“I should go,” she said, standing reluctantly.
“Me too,” he replied.
At the door, he hesitated. Then reached into his pocket, pulling out a coin. He showed it to her—a simple five-rupee piece.
“Heads,” he said, “I ask for your number. Tails, you ask for mine.”
She smiled. “What if it lands on the edge?”
He grinned. “Then we both pretend we’re brave.”
He flipped it. The coin danced in the air, caught a sliver of morning sun, then landed in his palm. Heads.
He extended his phone.
Aria took it and typed in her number, heart fluttering like pages in the wind.
“Text me,” she said.
“I will.”
As she stepped into her office building, she glanced back. He was still standing outside the café, watching her, the coin in his hand, smiling like a secret.
That night, at 8:12 p.m., her phone buzzed.
Kian: “I think the light changed in more ways than one.”
She stared at the screen, fingers hovering.
Then replied: Aria: “Let’s not wait for the signal to turn red again.”
Coffee and Coincidences
It wasn’t love. Not yet. But it was something in the family of love—like a distant cousin who had come to stay unannounced and refused to leave. After that first message exchange, Aria and Kian began to carve out space for each other in the middle of their very separate lives. Not all at once, and never with dramatic declarations. Just steady, like water filling the shape of a container it hadn’t known it was missing.
Mornings became more than routine. It was no longer just about making it to work on time or surviving another packed metro ride. It was about those ten minutes near the crossing—where they’d meet before parting ways. Sometimes they walked, sometimes they just stood and talked, and sometimes they sat at their now-favorite café, sipping steaming black coffee that always came slightly too bitter and slightly too perfect.
The owner of the café, a balding man with a permanent frown and a heart of soft clay, never asked their names. But one day, he slid a note with the bill that read: Love brews quietly. Drink slowly. Aria kept that note in her bag, tucked behind her ID card. She didn’t know why.
It was on a Saturday—one of those cool, clear Delhi mornings that made even the traffic sound like a song—when Kian suggested something different.
“No books today,” he said, holding up empty hands. “No café. Let’s get lost.”
Aria blinked. “Get lost?”
“Let’s go somewhere we haven’t been. Pick a metro station. Any random one. We get down there and see what the city has to say.”
She stared at him, then laughed. “You really do live like a poem.”
“And you,” he replied, “need a day without plans.”
They chose a name off the metro map at random: Raj Bagh, a place neither of them had ever visited. The name sounded like a forgotten garden. It turned out to be a quiet suburb, dusty lanes winding through sleepy shops, old houses with peeling paint, and bougainvillea cascading over broken fences.
They walked for hours. Talking, pausing, sometimes silent. They stopped to pet stray dogs, bought kulfi from a vendor whose hands shook as he served, and took photos of odd things—cracked tiles, shadows on walls, a rusted bicycle leaning against a tree.
“I haven’t done this in years,” Aria said, sitting on the edge of a low brick wall.
“Done what?”
“Wandered. Let time spill without measuring it.”
Kian nodded. “Me neither. That’s probably why we needed this.”
As the sun began to lean westward, casting long shadows and golden light, they stumbled upon a small temple pond. It was mostly dry, ringed with moss and silence, but somehow beautiful in its decay. They sat there, feet dangling above the cracked stone edge, sharing a packet of potato chips and stories that hadn’t been told before.
Aria talked about her childhood—how her mother sang while doing chores, how her father taught her to ride a bicycle in the rain, how she used to think love meant rescuing someone. Kian told her about his college heartbreak, about writing letters he never sent, and how he once stood outside a girl’s house for three hours and never rang the bell.
“I was waiting for a sign,” he said, shaking his head.
“Did you get one?”
“She switched off her lights. That was sign enough.”
They both laughed, but beneath it, there was a tenderness—a sense that pain didn’t disappear, but it softened in good company.
When the sky turned dusky, they stood and walked back toward the metro. The city felt different now. Not just because of the neighborhood or the light, but because something had settled between them—a quiet, mutual knowing. No promises. No need for them.
At the station, they hesitated.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” Aria said, almost too softly.
“Then don’t,” Kian replied. “Say—see you tomorrow.”
She smiled. “At the signal?”
“Of course. Where else would magic live?”
As the train doors closed between them, Aria stood watching him until his figure blurred into motion. She leaned against the window the entire way home, still tasting the salt of the chips, the laughter in her throat, and the strange comfort of a day without destination.
That night, she found herself writing in her long-forgotten journal:
Some people enter your life like songs—simple, short, unforgettable. You hum them under your breath for years without even realizing.
She closed the journal, held it against her chest, and smiled into the stillness of her room.
The city outside moved on, fast and indifferent.
But somewhere near a traffic signal, under a fading streetlamp, love had begun to whisper.
Rain in Mid-June
The monsoon didn’t arrive with drama that year. No thunderstorms crashing open the sky, no furious winds flipping umbrellas inside out. It came quietly, like a guest slipping into a room mid-conversation. One morning, Aria woke to the sound of gentle rain tapping against her window, soft and steady like a heartbeat.
She messaged Kian: “Rain’s here. You’ll need a book waterproof jacket today.”
His reply was instant: “Or I’ll just stand under your umbrella.”
She smiled, standing at the window in her oversized T-shirt, the city wearing its first wet shimmer of the season. Something about rain always made her feel like a page had turned. Like time had decided to slow down and listen.
They met at the crossing, both holding umbrellas they didn’t open. The drizzle was light enough to endure, and neither of them wanted to break the moment with something so practical. Kian wore his usual black jacket—slightly damp—and carried no book today. Just a grin and that now-familiar way of looking at her like she was the answer to a question he hadn’t meant to ask.
“Do you want to walk?” he asked.
“In the rain?”
“In the rain.”
They didn’t have a destination, just the rhythm of footsteps on wet pavement and a city softened by mist. They passed shuttered shops and slow-moving rickshaws, crossed puddles reflecting the tangled wires above, and talked about nothing important—favorite smells, weird childhood habits, the strange magic of old songs you don’t even remember learning.
At some point, Kian stopped beside a tea stall. “Let’s get chai.”
The stall was barely a tin sheet propped up with hope and bricks. The vendor gave them glasses of steaming, overly sweet tea and a nod of approval—perhaps for their courage to stand in the rain, or maybe for simply being young and alive.
Kian looked at Aria over the rim of his glass. “You ever think we met because of timing?”
“All the time,” she said, no hesitation. “If I’d taken a cab that day, or if you’d looked down at your phone…”
He nodded. “The universe is weird.”
“Or kind,” she offered.
He tilted his head. “Do you believe in fate?”
Aria took a sip before answering. “I believe in choices. But sometimes, choices feel guided. Like something nudges you without asking.”
Kian smiled. “Maybe that’s fate. The gentle kind.”
They finished their tea and continued walking until they reached a narrow alley that led to a park she’d never noticed before. Everything there was green and drenched—trees dripping like they were crying joyfully, benches darkened with moisture, and a swing set swaying slowly, as if remembering children who weren’t there.
Kian pointed to a wooden gazebo near the far end. “Shelter?”
They ran for it, laughing as the rain grew heavier, soaking their sleeves and shoes. By the time they reached the structure, they were breathless and wet and entirely without regrets.
Aria shook water from her hair and leaned against one of the pillars, her breath rising in small clouds.
“This feels like a scene from a film,” she said.
“Which one?” he asked, stepping closer.
“One that doesn’t exist yet.”
He was close now, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the faint scar near his eyebrow, the raindrop clinging stubbornly to his lower lash.
Kian didn’t touch her. But he looked at her the way you look at someone when words aren’t enough.
She looked back.
And in that suspended moment, something passed between them—not lightning, not fireworks, but something slower. A warmth that spread from the chest outward. A recognition that didn’t need language.
He exhaled. “Aria…”
She shook her head gently. “Don’t say it yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to remember this exactly as it is. Before anything changes.”
So he said nothing. Just stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder, as the rain played its quiet music on the rooftop above them.
After a long silence, she whispered, “I’m scared of how easy this feels.”
Kian replied without turning to her, “Maybe ease isn’t a warning. Maybe it’s a reward.”
She closed her eyes for a second, letting those words settle.
“I’ve always fallen for the wrong kind of love,” she said. “The messy kind. The one that asks you to bleed for it.”
He looked at her then. “Then maybe I’m here to remind you that love can also be calm. That it doesn’t have to shout to be real.”
They stood that way until the rain slowed into a mist. The sky above had turned the color of pewter, and the world smelled of wet earth and unopened possibilities.
When they finally walked back, it was without umbrellas. Their hands brushed once. Then again. And then, slowly, like a scene she would remember forever, Kian took her hand in his.
He didn’t squeeze it. He didn’t swing it.
He just held it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
And Aria didn’t let go.
The Pause Between Songs
It didn’t happen all at once—the shift. It crept in slowly, like music changing tempo in the middle of a song. Aria and Kian still met every morning. Still walked, still talked, still shared stories and silence. But something in the air had grown heavier. Not with conflict, but with questions neither of them had asked out loud.
One Thursday morning, Aria arrived at the signal to find Kian already there, earlier than usual. He wasn’t reading. He was staring at the sky, brow furrowed, lips pressed into a line.
“Hey,” she said, brushing her hand against his lightly.
He looked at her and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey.”
They walked to the café. The tea stall had become too crowded lately, too noisy. Inside the café, the table by the window was free—just like always. It should have comforted her, the familiarity. But Aria couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, stirring his coffee too long. “Just tired. Stayed up late writing.”
“What about?”
He hesitated. “Something close. Maybe too close.”
She didn’t press. She knew the look in his eyes—the look of someone facing something from before, something unfinished.
After a moment, he said, “Can I read something to you?”
“Of course.”
He pulled a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and smoothed it on the table. His voice was steady, but soft.
“I once loved someone who looked at the world like it owed them pain.
And I gave them mine, in pieces.
Bit by bit, I emptied my hands until I had nothing left to hold.
And when they left, I realized
It’s not love if only one hand is open.”
Aria’s breath caught in her throat. The poem wasn’t long, but it felt like it echoed inside her, hitting walls she’d put up years ago.
“Did you write that recently?” she asked.
Kian nodded. “Last night. It’s not polished.”
“It doesn’t need to be,” she whispered.
They didn’t speak for a while. Their coffees sat untouched between them.
“I’m scared,” she said finally. “Of how this is growing. Of how you make it feel like I can trust again.”
Kian looked at her. “You can be scared. Just don’t run.”
“I don’t want to,” she said. “But I’ve made mistakes before. Big ones. I held on to people who weren’t holding me back. And I told myself it was enough. That just loving someone was enough.”
He reached for her hand but didn’t take it yet. “I’m not asking you to love me, Aria. I’m asking you to let this become whatever it’s meant to be. Slowly. Honestly.”
She looked at him, eyes searching. “What if I don’t know how to do that anymore?”
“Then we learn together.”
The bell above the café door rang as someone walked in, but they barely noticed. The sound of rain had returned—light, steady. A familiar backdrop to a conversation she hadn’t realized she’d been craving.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, voice cracking slightly.
Kian shook his head gently. “You’re not a blade, Aria. You’re healing.”
They walked after that, under a single umbrella this time, her arm looped through his. They passed their favorite wall—the one covered in ivy and political posters—and paused beneath a tree shedding yellow flowers like confetti.
“Let’s sit for a bit,” she said, pointing to a low step.
They did. He took her hand this time, no hesitation. And she let him, no fear.
“You know what I like about us?” she asked.
“What?”
“That we don’t rush. That we leave space between words. Like pauses between songs.”
He smiled. “That’s where meaning lives. In the silence between notes.”
A stray dog came and sat by their feet, wet and shivering. Kian took off his jacket and laid it on the ground for the dog to curl into.
Aria watched him, heart warm. “You’re not who I expected.”
“Who did you expect?”
“Someone louder. Someone who’d chase me, press for answers, turn this into drama.”
“I’m too old for drama,” he said, grinning.
“You’re twenty-nine.”
“Exactly.”
They both laughed. The kind of laugh that doesn’t break tension but melts it.
As the rain eased into a fine mist, Aria rested her head on Kian’s shoulder. It wasn’t an admission. It wasn’t a promise. It was simply… peace.
And for someone who had lived too long preparing for storms, peace felt radical.
When they stood to leave, Kian didn’t say goodbye. He kissed her forehead and whispered, “Until tomorrow.”
Aria walked the rest of the way with a strange stillness inside her.
Not the stillness of loneliness.
The stillness of knowing she didn’t have to carry the weight alone anymore.
The Window and the Wound
The weather changed again—hot days punctuated by erratic rains, skies unsure of whether to weep or burn. Aria started waking earlier, sometimes before sunrise, just to sit by her window and feel the air shift through the grille. There was something about the hour before the city stirred—a kind of truth that only quiet could reveal.
That morning, she didn’t meet Kian.
Not because she was angry. Not because she didn’t want to.
But because the night before, she’d had a dream that unsettled her. She stood in the middle of a crowd screaming Kian’s name, but no sound came from her mouth. He kept walking, his back to her, unaware she was fading behind him. She woke up with her throat dry and heart racing.
It wasn’t the dream itself—it was the memory it pulled up. A reminder.
Years ago, she had loved someone who made her feel alive and invisible at the same time. Someone who wrote poems for her and disappeared when her father was admitted to the hospital. She had stitched her grief alone. And ever since, she had been afraid of depending on anyone but herself.
Kian was not that person. But love, even the possibility of it, triggered old alarms.
She needed space. So she stayed home, staring at the phone, willing it to buzz.
It did.
Kian: “Did the signal miss us today, or did we miss the signal?”
She smiled, despite herself. Then stared at the message for a long time before typing back.
Aria: “I needed to listen to myself today. Sorry.”
The reply came instantly.
Kian: “Always okay. You come first. Even before the light.”
She read those words again and again. There was no guilt in his response, no expectation. Just space. And that made her ache even more.
By evening, she found herself writing in her journal. Words she hadn’t meant to say out loud.
“When someone is kind to me without needing a reason, I panic. Because I’ve been taught that kindness is a trade, not a gift. And when it’s freely given, I wonder what I’m meant to give up in return.”
She closed the book and exhaled.
The next day, she did go to the signal. And there he was—reading again, a new book in hand, a subtle smile playing on his lips as she approached.
“You’re early,” she said.
“So are you.”
They walked in silence for a while. Not the tense kind, but the kind that feels like the first deep breath after holding your lungs too long.
At the café, they didn’t order coffee. Just water and time.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Aria said, staring at her glass.
“You haven’t,” Kian replied.
“I might. I overthink. I disappear sometimes. I doubt good things.”
“I know,” he said simply. “And I’m not asking you to change that.”
She looked up at him. “Then what are you asking?”
“Just this,” he said, gently. “That you don’t walk away alone. If you need to pause, pause with me.”
Her throat tightened. “I don’t know how to be with someone without preparing for the moment they leave.”
“I don’t know how to be loved by someone who’s still looking for the exit.”
His voice wasn’t angry. It was honest. A mirror, not a hammer.
She reached across the table and touched his hand. “Can we write a different ending this time?”
He turned his palm up and held hers. “Only if we stop writing it in fear.”
That evening, Kian sent her a photograph. It was taken from a distance, through the glass of a bookstore window. The photo showed a little boy holding a giant picture book, lost in its pages while the world blurred around him.
Kian: “Found this today. Reminded me of you. The way you disappear into stories. I hope you always do.”
Aria: “And you. The way you stay in them. Even when they’re sad.”
Later that night, she sat again by her window. The air was warm. Somewhere a song was playing from a neighbor’s flat—an old Hindi melody full of longing and peace.
She didn’t cry. But she did feel something loosen. Something that had been clenched for years.
When the lights dimmed and the city fell asleep, Aria made herself a promise. She would not run from what felt right. Not this time.
Not from someone who waited at the signal, not from a love that walked beside her, not from her own softness.
Because for once, the wound and the window had opened together.
A Love That Waits
July folded into August with the ease of silk turning in warm hands. The city grew stickier, heavier, more impatient. But in the small world Aria and Kian had created between signal lights and rain-soaked pavements, time held a softer rhythm. No milestones. No labels. Just presence. And presence was enough.
They continued their mornings. Still met under the flickering traffic light. Still exchanged half-smiles before words. Sometimes they talked about silly things—like which spice best described their mood or whether they believed in parallel universes. Sometimes they spoke of harder truths—about their parents, about old loves, about loneliness that doesn’t look like loneliness until it’s named.
And sometimes, they just walked without speaking, letting silence carry the weight of things too delicate for language.
One morning, Aria surprised Kian with something small: a sketch she had made on the back of an office memo. It was him, reading at the signal, a traffic light above glowing red. The lines were imperfect, the proportions slightly off, but the feeling was precise. Kian stared at it for a long time before saying anything.
“This is how you see me?” he asked softly.
Aria nodded. “It’s how I saw you before I knew your name.”
He folded the paper carefully, tucked it into the notebook he always carried. “Then I’ll keep it. Proof that sometimes, strangers recognize you before friends do.”
They sat at the café, sipping chai. Outside, the city roared and honked and strutted. Inside, they were still.
“I haven’t dated in years,” Kian said suddenly.
Aria looked up. “Why?”
He stirred his tea. “Because I didn’t want to pretend. Most people… they want versions of you that make sense. Clean ones. I’m not very good at being clean.”
Aria reached across the table and gently flicked his forehead. “You’re not dirty, you idiot. You’re layered.”
He laughed, the sound pulling smiles from everyone within earshot.
“And you?” he asked.
She took a long sip before answering. “I forgot how to let people in. And then, when I remembered, it felt too late. Like the rooms had already been cleaned and locked.”
Kian looked at her seriously. “Then let’s build a new room. One with windows and messy floors and no doors that slam.”
Something inside her fluttered. Not panic. Not fear. Just a lightness she wasn’t used to carrying.
That evening, they took a different path—one that led through a colony neither of them knew well. Children played cricket with plastic bats, women argued gently over vegetables, and a group of old men laughed too hard over something too small. It reminded them that life, in its simplest forms, was enough.
As they walked, a sudden downpour began. No warning, no drizzle. Just full-blown monsoon rage. They ran for cover under a narrow tin roof beside a small abandoned shop.
Aria’s hair was soaked, her kurta sticking to her skin, her sandals squelching with every step. She looked ridiculous. And free.
Kian looked at her like she was a miracle.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“I know,” he replied.
“I look like a drowned librarian.”
“You look like a painting that never needed to be framed.”
She rolled her eyes. “God, you say things like that and then wonder why people think you’re fictional.”
He stepped closer. “Maybe I am. Maybe you dreamed me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why are you trembling?”
She hadn’t realized it, but she was. A little.
“Because I’m standing in front of someone who sees me,” she said, “and I don’t know what to do with that.”
He didn’t reply.
He just took a slow step forward and kissed her—lightly, reverently, like she was something sacred. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t dramatic. It was soft and sure and slow, the kind of kiss that says, I’ll wait. I’ll always wait.
When they parted, her eyes were wet—not from rain, not entirely.
“I’ve never been kissed like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like you meant it for me. Not for the moment. Not for the story. Just… for me.”
He touched her cheek, brushing away a drop that lingered.
“I don’t want this to be a chapter,” he said. “I want it to be the book.”
Later that night, lying in bed, she thought of that kiss. She thought of how he held her hand after, without needing to. How they walked again under the rain like nothing had changed, and yet everything had.
She wrote in her journal again:
“There is a kind of love that waits.
Not because it has to, but because it wants to.
Because it knows the world moves fast,
but hearts don’t.”
When the Light Changed Again
The rain finally left the city, but its scent lingered in walls, trees, and memories. Autumn began its slow crawl in, unnoticed by most, but not by Aria. She always noticed transitions—the shift of shadows on her balcony, the earlier setting of the sun, the thinning crowds at the tea stalls. Change had always scared her. But this time, it felt different. It felt like shedding skin she’d outgrown.
She hadn’t told Kian, but she had begun taking photos again. Not for Instagram or clients—just for herself. Rusting gates, flickering bulbs, children’s shoes left on doorsteps. Little things. The things that don’t shout but stay.
One morning, she arrived early at the crossing. The signal blinked yellow, and the road shimmered under the sun. She waited with her camera in hand, pretending to adjust settings, but really—just watching for him.
When he appeared, she clicked the shutter.
Kian shielded his eyes from the sun. “Did you just photograph me like I’m a streetlight?”
She grinned. “You’ve been my landmark for months. About time I documented it.”
He walked up beside her, mock-offended. “Hope you caught my good angle.”
“You only have good angles.”
They crossed the road together as the light turned red for the last car. On the other side, he slowed his steps.
“I have something,” he said, pulling a book from his bag. It was The Little Prince—a worn-out copy with the spine nearly giving up.
“I found this at a secondhand stall. Thought of you.”
Aria held the book gently. “It’s my favorite.”
“I remember. From that day at the bookstore.”
She flipped through it, pausing at a folded paper inside. It was a sketch—of a girl holding a camera, standing at a crosswalk under a red light. Her scarf fluttered behind her like a flag of hope. Beneath it, Kian had written in small, neat handwriting: “When the light changed, my world did too.”
Her throat tightened.
“I didn’t know what to say,” he said, suddenly shy. “So I drew.”
Aria looked up. “You just said everything.”
They walked without words. Past the café, past their bench, past the ivy wall, until they reached a quiet cul-de-sac where bougainvillea fell like soft flame over old fences. Kian stopped there.
“I never asked you for anything,” he said. “Not really. No big promises. No answers. Just mornings. Just walks.”
“I know.”
“But today,” he said, “I want to ask. Not for forever. Just… for more.”
More mornings. More tea. More glances across traffic lights. More sentences unfinished and forgiven. More days where time bends around two people who don’t rush.
Aria stepped closer. “I want to say yes.”
“You don’t have to rush it—”
“I’m not,” she interrupted. “I’m just… ready.”
The word felt strange in her mouth, like an unfamiliar flavor. But it was true. She was. Ready to be seen without bracing for abandonment. Ready to walk without scanning the path for exits.
She took his hand.
“I’m not promising you neatness,” she said. “I’m still learning how to hold joy without checking if it has a receipt.”
He laughed. “Joy doesn’t come with return policies.”
They sat on the curb, legs stretched out, the world passing in quiet hums. He showed her his latest piece—something short, unfinished. She read it aloud, stumbling over one metaphor and grinning when he corrected her.
They talked about dreams. About homes they might one day build. About kitchen shelves and mismatched mugs. About the idea of waking next to someone and feeling peace instead of panic.
When it was time to go, Aria hesitated.
“What?” Kian asked.
“I used to hate this part.”
“The part where we say goodbye?”
“No,” she said. “The part where I have to walk back into a world that doesn’t have you in it all day.”
He stood and offered her his hand. “Then let’s build a world that does.”
They walked back to the signal, the same one where it all began. The light was red. A cycle paused, a dog crossed, a boy sold balloons in the median.
Kian turned to her. “You know, this signal’s going to mean something forever now.”
She nodded. “It already does.”
The light turned green.
But they didn’t cross right away.
They stood there, in the hush before movement, in the breath between beeps. And then she did something she hadn’t done before. She leaned in and kissed him. Not tentative. Not shy. But full and sure and soft, like punctuation at the end of a poem she had waited too long to write.
When they pulled apart, the light had turned red again.
Kian laughed. “We missed it.”
“There’ll be another,” she said.
They crossed slowly, hand in hand, no longer just signal strangers, but something more—something with weight and wonder and room to grow.
That night, Aria printed one of the photographs she’d taken. The one where Kian stood at the signal, book in hand, unaware of being seen.
She pinned it to her wall.
Below it, she wrote:
Sometimes, the smallest moments change everything.
Like a red light. Like a look. Like a name you never expected to carry inside your heartbeat.
And in the hush of that room, in the quiet click of her pen, she knew—
She hadn’t just found love.
She had found herself.
The End
