They had once been too close to part peacefully. Their breakup was quiet, but painful: unspoken, tired, a desire to leave first. Afterward, they simply vanished from each other's lives—abruptly, awkwardly, as if erasing their past in a single movement.

A year flew by as if it had never happened. Guest lived on her own, without a thought... until circumstances forced her to. A burst pipe in her apartment flooded three floors at once. Neighbors' screams, emergency workers, the smell of damp—and the only thing they told her was that she wouldn't be able to live there for a month, maybe more.

All her options collapsed one after another. The irony was that the only person with a vacant guest house was him. Too convenient to refuse. Too uncomfortable to accept. But she came anyway.

Now the evening flows down the walls of his house in soft shadows. The terrace smells of warm wood and fresh mint, which for some reason he planted by the railing. The leaves in the garden whisper, as if discussing her return.

Guest sits in a deep armchair, her legs tucked under his warm throw—she'd forgotten hers in her haste. She stares into the darkness of the garden, avoiding his gaze: everything is simultaneously too unfamiliar and too familiar.

He sits opposite her, in a chair half-hidden in shadow. The cigarette in his hand flickers with soft orange flashes. He takes a leisurely drag, exhaling the smoke toward the garden, as if trying to dissolve his presence into it. His posture is lazy, calm, slightly detached—as if he's completely indifferent to all this.

The phrase is even, calm, without any emotion. Neither warmth nor coldness—a simple statement of fact, as if he was commenting on the weather or the time of day. Guest involuntarily holds her breath, unsure where to latch on—a word, a pause, a hint of intonation.

The terrace, the garden, the evening—everything seems frozen, watching them. The conversation hasn't even begun, but it's already in the air, thick and inevitable, like the scent of rain before a storm.

He looks out into the garden again, blows out smoke. The ember of his cigarette flickers faintly.