The days grew heavier in City 2, and yet I kept finding my way back to the café, as though some invisible force pulled me there beyond reason. For Rimora, my visits became a faint light in a world that seemed to have swallowed her whole, though I knew she would never admit it aloud. Every time I stepped through the door, the scent of bitter coffee and burnt bread wrapped around me like an old cloak, and I could see her walls tremble ever so slightly. I could feel it in the way she looked up from wiping the tables, her hands trembling—not from weakness, but from the endless labor that chained her to this place. The conversations we shared became small sanctuaries carved between the clatter of mugs, the grumbling of customers, and the quiet hum of the café. We spoke of those we had lost, of the fractures left behind by pain, of the way memory had become both curse and lifeline. I wondered sometimes if fate had stitched us together from cruelty or kindness, if this bond between us was born of shared ruin or a promise yet unseen. I didn't believe in miracles, but I began to believe in her silence, in the steadiness of her eyes that never judged me, that saw me as I truly was.
In those hours, Rimora peeled away layers she had long hidden from the world, and I watched her courage bloom quietly. She spoke of nights spent beside her father's still form, whispering speeches into the silence as though she were leading an invisible nation. She confessed her guilt for not saving her mother, for failing to bring the child she had lost into a world that might have let her laugh again. I listened, my own chest aching with echoes of a life fractured too soon. I told her of Blue, my younger brother, whose innocence seemed doomed to break against the sharp edges of reality. I spoke of my father, crushed under the weight of debts, and of Pema, my mother, still clinging to life even as her body betrayed her. Our words intertwined like threads of grief spun into rope, sturdy enough to hold one another's weight. For the first time in years, Rimora's suffering was not solitary, and neither was mine; we were part of a larger symphony of brokenness, our pain harmonizing into something fragile and undeniable.
Yet, the shadow of Lbow lingered constantly between us. Whenever he arrived at the café, his presence disrupted the unspoken intimacy we had built. Rimora's eyes would darken with a fire I could almost feel, the way she despised him. He leaned back in his chair as though the world itself were his servant, his laughter smooth and full of arrogance even when the words seemed harmless. I knew he was my friend, perhaps even more, but I couldn't ignore how he stood as the embodiment of every wall she hallucinated breaking, every injustice she had suffered. His family's wealth was woven into the gold threads of his clothes, in the casual ease of his speech, in the silent assumption that his existence was somehow worth more than hers. Rimora never looked at him as my friend, but as the thief of her life, a symbol of the empire that had thrived while her mother lay in a grave. Each time his gaze lingered, she turned away, not with shyness, but with fury she refused to voice.
I felt the tension, pulling at me from all sides, caught between loyalty and resentment. Lbow had offered help when the world was cold, yet I could not forget that his father had contributed to my family's ruin. Every frown from Rimora felt like a tug at my heart, two halves of my existence warring silently. I wanted her to see Lbow as I did—flawed, yes, but capable of genuine kindness, even amid arrogance. But I also understood her hatred; it was not born of prejudice but of wounds too deep to heal, and I could not ask her to forgive what life had carved into her so mercilessly. Together, the three of us formed a fragile triangle, a battlefield where unspoken truths cut deeper than swords, and every glance carried the weight of years we had all endured.
Weeks passed, and Rimora's visions grew sharper, almost prophetic in their intensity. She imagined herself standing on stages that did not exist, declaring an end to divisions, building bridges where once there were chains. Sometimes, in those hallucinations, I stood beside her, a shadow of resilience that steadied her, a partner in a revolution she could only conjure in her mind. But with each morning came the hammer of reality. The café remained the same, her father remained unconscious, and the power she had felt in her dreams returned to the hollow corners of her room. The visions tormented her with glimpses of possibility she could not touch. Yet, when I spoke, when I shared the quiet determination to rise beyond the ashes of my own life, I saw her begin to believe—not in hallucinations, but in possibility.
One night, after the last customer had left and the café fell into silence, she turned to me, her voice low, hesitant. "Why do you keep coming back? Why spend your precious hours with someone who has nothing to offer you but sorrow?" I looked at her, my jaw tightening as I chose each word carefully, my voice low, carrying the weight of truth. "Because your sorrow is real, and it doesn't scare me." Her throat tightened at my words, and I felt her shiver as warmth spread across her chest. For a fleeting moment, I imagined what it might mean to love in a world where love had become a luxury. I imagined her leaning into my silence, finding a refuge in the steadiness I offered. But the memory of Lbow, ever-present and watchful, made her chest harden again. She would not allow herself to dream while injustice still ruled.
Still, love is a seed that blooms in barren soil. I saw her smile when I entered, hands trembling when our fingers brushed as I passed her a cup or plate. She hated herself for feeling so fragile in a world where everything broke, yet the fire that sparked each time I lingered near was undeniable. She insisted it was not love but survival, that our connection was nothing more than shared pain—but I saw the beginnings of something greater etched in her eyes. Even as she tried to resist it, she could not ignore the way her dreams carried my face, the way her imagined future always included my shadow.
Lbow, meanwhile, grew restless. He noticed the glances, the invisible current flowing between us. Though he laughed and feigned ignorance, the silence in his heart thickened with each passing day. Rimora could feel it simmer, the tension tightening like a wire ready to snap. Part of her found it satisfying—perhaps, for even a fraction of a moment, he understood what suffering meant. Yet she also knew that the fragile triangle could not endure forever. Something would shatter, and when it did, the rope binding us would unravel. None of us could predict when or how, but the tremor was in the air—the calm before a storm none of us were prepared to face.