He chose the corner seat because it allowed him to see every exit.

Old habit.

He didn’t come here for food or company only for noise loud enough to drown the noise inside his head.

It never worked, but he still came.Routine was easier than healing.

His eyes were fixed on the empty wall, the way a man grips something invisible to avoid falling. He was somewhere far  hospital lights, antiseptic smell, pain that had outstayed its welcome when he sensed movement.

Her.

He knew even before she sat.

Her presence was not loud but it pressed against the air, urgent and trembling.

She didn’t speak at first.

He didn’t help her.

The chair scraped, announcing her arrival.

He didn’t look up right away because he was scared of what he already knew:

She remembered yesterday.

And he couldn’t afford to.

But fate, or cruelty, or something between the two, forced his eyes to hers.

Aira.

The girl who could make breathing look like breaking.

She was trying not to shake. Trying to look normal. Trying too hard.

He saw everything.

He always did.

Aira: "uh..I never properly thanked you.”

He felt it the pull the part of him that wanted to say you don’t have to thank me, I wasn’t scared of the guy, I was scared of losing you to your fear.

So he said nothing.

Thank-yous were dangerous. They built bonds.

Aira: “For yesterday.”

His chest tightened. A reflex.

If she called what happened yesterday, it meant she had replayed it.

He didn’t want anyone replaying him.

She chose the only line that could bruise her enough to keep her safe from him:

Don’t respond.

She introduced herself.

Aira: “I’m Aira.”

He should have ignored it.

He should have ended it.

Instead, the truth slipped out of him:

Arman: “Arman.”

Saying his own name to her felt like handing her a weapon.

She looked at her cup, then looked at him not flirtatious, not needy just human.

And that was more dangerous than desire.

Aira: “What… do you do?”

He could have lied.

Instead he chose the truth that sounded like emptiness.

Arman: “Entrepreneur.”

He watched her absorb that word carefully not impressed, not intimidated, just listening.

No judgment.

He didn’t know how to handle people who didn’t judge him.

Her turn.

Aira: “I’m a physiotherapist.”

The word was a punch he didn’t see coming.

Muscle memory:

hands gripping parallel bars, sweat running down his spine, someone saying forcibly man handling, someone saying try harder, the falling, the pain, the failure, rage

He shut down before the memory could reach the part of him that still bled.

Jaw locked. Breathing stopped for one beat.

She noticed. Of course she did.

She had the eyes of someone who learned to read damage without a map.

Don’t flinch again. Don’t reveal anything. Don’t let her see where it hurts.

She apologized with silence instead of words.

He hated and admired that.

Aira: “I know you don’t want conversation. I just didn’t want… to be rude.”

He should have let her believe she was rude. She’d leave, and he’d be safe.

Instead, betrayal slipped from his mouth:

Arman: “You weren’t.”

He wanted to drag the words back. Too late.

Silence returned.

Not comfortable charged, magnetic, frightening.

She stared at her untouched drink.

He stared at the middle distance because looking directly at her felt like stepping into fire.

Her breathing was uneven.

He remembered yesterday.

His voice remembering how to steady her.

He clenched his fist under the table.

Don’t say it again. Don’t comfort her. Don’t become anything to her.

They both sat In silence 

Then across the room someone laughed loudly, a burst of sound that made her flinch.

His head turned toward her automatically.

Instinct. Not intention.

She didn’t see that he looked because she didn’t lift her eyes.

Good.

She didn’t need to know how much he noticed.

She didn’t thank him again.

He didn’t ask if she was okay.

Both mercies.

He didn’t move, didn’t leave, didn’t push her away.

That was the first mistake.

He stayed.

Not for himself for a girl whose breath had matched his rhythm once, and he hadn’t forgotten how it sounded.

Her shoulders eased just a fraction.

And he knew painfully that she was breathing easier in his presence.

That alone made him want to get up and run.

No attachments. No dependencies. No salvation.

He looked at the wall again, tightening the cage around himself, refusing softness.

She is safer without you.

You destroy whatever needs you.

You don’t get to be someone’s anchor. Not again.

You are not capable of the softness she deserves, you are rugged ,brutal .

Arman raza ivankov you don't deserve to be in someones heart when you don't have one yourself, the one which you tore to shreads years ago.

But she sat there.

And he didn’t leave.

That was the second mistake.

He didn’t look at her because she was beautiful.

Beauty never interested him.

He looked because something about her felt wrong. Familiar.

Like a memory he’d spent years burying suddenly sitting across from him.

She sat there quietly, but not comfortably like someone who had learned silence by force, not by nature.

A stillness that didn’t soothe it unnerved.

Her hair fell in unplanned waves around her face, but there was nothing gentle about it.

It made her look like someone who slept badly, thought too much, woke up already exhausted.

Her eyes weren’t doe-like or dreamy they were tired in a way that shouldn’t belong on a young face.

Not the tiredness of lack of sleep the tiredness of living

She wasn’t glowing.

She wasn’t radiant.

She wasn’t trying to be anything.

And that was what got to him.

Most people wore masks confidence, charm, flirtation, indifference.

Aira didn’t.

She sat there bare, not physically, but emotionally as if she didn’t know how to pretend.

Her faint, forced smile didn’t look sweet.

It looked like a survival tactic a way to keep people from asking questions she didn’t want to answer.

Her posture wasn’t elegant it was guarded.

Shoulders slightly rounded, neck slightly tense, hands too aware of themselves.

Like her body expected impact.

He had seen that posture before in mirrors, in hospital beds, in people who had forgotten what safety felt like.

And that was the problem.

She wasn’t a distraction.

She was a reminder

Of pain that didn’t kill, just lingered.

Of wounds that scabbed over but never healed.

Of the kind of loneliness that doesn’t show until someone sits too close.

She didn’t draw attention.

She triggered memory.

And nothing was more dangerous to a man who survived by forgetting.

Arman didn’t stare because he was captivated.

He stared because something in her silence matched something in his darkness, and the recognition was corrosive.

Aira sitting beside him didn’t feel like fate.

It felt like a warning.

Not she’ll ruin your life.

Worse:you’ll ruin hers.

And yet he didn’t move.

Didn’t push her away.

Didn’t leave.

Because deep down in the part of him he hated the most 

for the first time in a long, miserable time,

he didn’t feel like the only ghost in the room.