The restaurant carried a quiet that felt intentional, the kind of quiet places adopt when something fragile has entered the room and everyone, including the walls, seems to understand that it should not be disturbed.
It was not empty. It was attentive.
Candlelight drifted between them in slow, unhurried movements, catching briefly on glass and porcelain before settling again. Beyond the tall windows, the city continued in its distance, alive and unconcerned, but inside the restaurant, time had narrowed until it held only two people and the space between them.
