The rain was lighter that night. More like mist — the kind that didn't make a sound but soaked through everything anyway. Lina stood outside the store a little longer than usual, her breath clouding the glass just enough to blur her reflection.
Behind her, the store was still lit — half fluorescent, half gold from the lone fridge that always buzzed too loud. She didn't want to turn off the lights yet. The silence would be louder without them.
She hadn't seen him. Not that day.
Not during her shift.
Not on the footage.
Not even in her thoughts, which surprised her.
It should've made her feel free. It didn't.
Inside, the register blinked green. The mop handle leaned against the corner, like it was waiting for her to finish something. But her body felt reluctant. Like walking inside meant ending something, and she wasn't sure what had started in the first place.
She pressed her palm to the glass. Cold. Thin. Nothing on the other side but streetlight and damp asphalt. Still, she waited a moment longer.
No chime.
No shadow.
No mistake.
She turned and locked the door.
—
Twenty minutes later, she sat in the break room, legs curled on the plastic chair like a child trying not to be awake. The ceiling buzzed faintly. She hadn't touched her phone. Music felt too deliberate. Silence felt easier, even if it pressed in on her lungs like static.
The CCTV monitor looped overhead. Four angles of a store she knew too well. Candy aisle. Beverage fridge. Front register. Door.
All empty. Still.
Except…
Something flickered. Not a full glitch — just a rhythm out of step.
She leaned forward. Rewound.
There.
Her own body, walking toward the fridge. Reaching in. Taking something. She squinted. A bottle of lemon tea.
Normal.
But then: a can. Rolling across the floor, coming to a stop without a push. Right in her path. Like someone had gently nudged it toward her.
She hadn't noticed it earlier. Hadn't stepped around it. Hadn't picked it up.
And yet, in the video, she did. Bent down. Held it. Turned it in her hand. Then… blink. Cut to black.
Static for a second. The feed resumed.
No can. No hand. Just her, standing still in the aisle, as if she'd paused and forgotten why.
Her throat tightened. She rewound again.
Same. Exact. Thing.
Her fingers hovered near the power button. She didn't press it.
She turned instead — and nearly gasped.
There, on the counter by the door, was a can of lemon tea.
Closed. Dry. No condensation.
And definitely not one she'd seen or sold.
Lina approached it slowly, as if it might vanish if she got too close. She picked it up. It felt wrong — not heavy, not cold. Like it had been there for days. Like it had been waiting.
A note lay underneath.
Folded once. Tidy. Not taped. Not stained.
Just… placed.
She hesitated, then unfolded it.
Two words.
"Keep watching."
No signature. No explanation. No context.
And yet, she felt as if she'd seen that handwriting before — not on paper, but somewhere in the rhythm of her nights. In the way he stood. In the way he listened.
She turned around fast — no one.
The camera blinked once.
And then again.
—
By the time her shift ended, she hadn't moved for twenty minutes.
She didn't open the can. Didn't throw it away either.
She wrapped it in a plastic bag and tucked it under the counter, behind the stack of old price tags and a broken label gun.
Safe. Out of sight. Not gone.
Outside, the street glistened like melted metal. Her jacket clung to her arms. The night didn't feel cold — it felt neutral. Like a room that didn't care who walked through it.
At the bus stop, she waited. One earbud in. No music. Just the buzz of nothing trying to be something.
Headlights passed without stopping.
She looked up at the building across the street — the empty one, with the dusty windows and crooked blinds. For the first time, she wondered what floor he might live on. Or if he did. Or if he was ever really from here at all.
Maybe he walked. Maybe he disappeared into the mist like the soundless rain.
She hated that she wanted to know.
—
Later, in her room, she undressed in the dark.
Laid on her bed.
Stared at the ceiling.
There was no knock. No second note. No evidence.
Except she still had the can.
And the paper.
And the footage.
Which she told herself she wouldn't watch again.
But she would.
Not because she believed something impossible was happening.
But because she wasn't sure it wasn't.
And somewhere in that narrow gap, something had started to bloom.
Not trust. Not hope.
But attention.
And she didn't know if it was hers… or his.
She turned to the ceiling again, tracing the faint cracks where paint met plaster. They weren't new, but she had never noticed how they looked like a branching map — like veins, or fault lines.
Places something could break. Or had already.
Her hand drifted across the bedsheet, stopped on the edge of her phone. She didn't pick it up. Just let her fingers rest there, as if the warmth of it might reveal something.
What had she said to him, really?What had he said to her?
Words were just smoke in that place. It was everything else that clung to her.
The way he looked at the can before handing it over.
The way his fingers didn't brush hers — but came close enough to hum.
The way silence always stretched one second too long after he left, like it needed time to follow.
Lina closed her eyes.
And behind them, something flickered.
Not light. Not memory.
But presence.
She turned to her side, facing the window.
Outside, the streetlights blinked in slow rhythm, as if tired of illuminating nothing. A car passed — no headlights. Just the shape of it, suggested by its absence of light, a silhouette moving through wet air.
Her breath fogged the glass in a soft oval. She stared into it, waiting to see her reflection. But it was faint tonight. Fainter than it should have been.
Like even the mirror of the world had forgotten her outline.
A thought passed through her — quick, sharp, uninvited.
What if he had never left?
Not physically. But from here. From this room. From her quiet.