Chapter 4

                                                                         Not Just the Rain

The bell above the bookstore door didn’t jingle because of the rain this time.

Kai stepped in, brushing off the breeze from his jacket sleeves. His hair was dry. No storm chased him today. But something else had drawn him here—and he didn’t even know what.

Yuna was behind the counter again. She looked up, surprised. But not shocked. Like she’d expected him… eventually.

 “It’s not raining,” she said, tilting her head.

Kai smiled sheepishly. “I noticed.”

There was a pause—warm, not awkward. The kind of silence that asked no questions but left plenty of room for answers.

“So, what brings you here?” Yuna asked, her fingers still idly tracing the edge of a book she hadn’t put away yet.

 “I don’t know,” Kai admitted. “Just… felt like coming.”

Yuna looked at him for a moment, as if trying to read the spaces between his words.

 “Then maybe the bookstore is starting to work,” she said with a soft grin. “It calls people back.”

---

They didn’t talk much at first. But somehow, that was enough.

Kai wandered to aisle three again. This time, Yuna joined him.

She sat on the floor beside him, pulling her knees up, resting her chin lazily. The jazz was still playing somewhere far off. Between them, a book lay open, its spine soft and worn.

 “Ever wonder why books smell the way they do?” Yuna asked.

 “Like… nostalgia?”

 “Exactly.”

Kai looked at her, noticing how her hair curled slightly near the ends, like it, too, remembered rainy days.

 “Maybe it’s not just the rain that brings me here,” he said quietly.

Yuna turned to him. Her eyes weren’t surprised.

 “I know.”

---

When Kai left the shop that evening, the sky was clear.

But his chest felt like it was still drizzling—soft, slow, and full of something he couldn’t name.

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