“Remind me why I agreed to do anything that requires standing outside in November,” Aria muttered, tugging her sleeves over her hands like armor.

“You mean, apart from your undying love for cookies?” Maya replied without looking up, her pencil sketching lazy spirals in the corner of her page.

Aria gave a soft, unamused snort and curled deeper into the café couch. She didn’t like the cold. Never had. Not the kind that crept in quietly, wrapping itself around your neck and slipping beneath your coat, no matter how many layers you wore. The kind that turned mornings into fog, made thought slow, and left you needing something warm to hold.

And yet here she was. Warm drink in hand. Surrounded by the comforting mess of their group’s planning chaos.

Outside the wide windows, November had painted everything dull and quiet. The university fest—delayed thanks to budgeting issues—was finally happening. A couple of weeks late, but students had thrown themselves into prep like it had always been scheduled this way. Rolls of fabric lay draped across benches. Half–painted banners dried against bicycle stands. Someone had definitely trailed glitter through the humanities block. No one claimed it, but everyone sparkled.

Even the professors had declared the week “free from formal classes” due to workshops and department meetings—which really meant: use this time or fall behind. Final assignments had already been dropped like confetti before their escape.

Inside, their table was a storm of doodles, paper scraps, a crumpled cookie box, candy wrappers, and more pens than anyone had touched.

Aria glanced around—Maya still bent over her sketchpad, Kian reclined so far back in his chair he seemed to be testing gravity on purpose, and Reyhaan, elbow on the table, pencil tapping lightly against his lip as he half-listened, half-sketched something of his own.

It had been a few weeks since the tram shoot. Since the rain, the silence, and Reyhaan’s jacket around her shoulders. Since he had looked at her—not with questions, but with a kind of quiet understanding. Like he’d seen the things she hadn’t said. And hadn’t asked for more.

She didn’t know what exactly had shifted. But after that, something between them had settled. Not closer, not louder—just... clearer.

He fits now. Not just in the project, but in this group. In the rhythm of shared jokes and creative noise. He teased Kian with the right timing. He nudged Maya’s ideas in exactly the way that kept her excited, not defensive. And with Aria, there was this strange... ease. Like neither of them had to fill the silence unless they wanted to.

And today, she’d taken his advice.

Sort of.

“You’re really going to do a cookie stall?” Maya asked, eyes glinting as she flipped to a fresh page.

“Yes,” Aria said. “But not just that. It needs... something more.”

“An edible existential crisis?” Kian offered from his reclined position.

Aria raised an eyebrow. “Tempting.”

“You need a hook,” Reyhaan said, his voice light but attentive. He didn’t look up, but his pencil paused mid–line. “Something that pulls people in. Why cookies?”

She glanced down at the cookie box, fingers brushing over the soft edge of the flap. “I like making them,” she said simply. “But also... I wanted to do something that feels like all of us. Something that holds a little memory of what this semester has been.”

Maya sat up straighter, abandoning her sketch. “Ooh. Sentimental concept. I’m in.”

“We can name each cookie after a shared experience,” Aria continued, warming to the idea. “Something ridiculous or specific or quietly important. Like… the first script meltdown. Or the café brainstorming. Even the shoot that got rained on.”

Kian leaned forward suddenly, chair legs thudding down. “I want mine spicy. Very spicy. Emotional damage in a bite.”

“I’m making that,” Aria promised with a small smile.

Maya twirled her pen like a wand. “If you give me the mood, I’ll design the display. QR codes, little doodles, a memory blurb for each flavor.”

“I’ll help with the copy,” Reyhaan added, glancing up. “Cryptic but catchy.”

Aria laughed, soft and surprised. “I should’ve known you’d want to write cookie poetry.”

“It’s not poetry,” he replied, mock–offended. “It’s branding.”

“And what’s the stall called?” Kian asked, already sounding like he regretted it.

There was a pause.

Aria wrapped her fingers around the warm mug, eyes drifting to the window, where students in coats rushed past like brushstrokes. Then she said quietly, “Flavor of Us.”

Maya looked up. “That’s... actually kind of perfect.”

Reyhaan met Aria’s gaze across the table. His pencil stopped moving.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

And for a moment, the café faded. The hum of cups clinking, chairs scraping, students passing in hurried streaks of color—all of it softened.

This, Aria thought, was exactly what she’d wanted to hold onto. Not just the cookies. But this feeling. This group. This strange, beautiful rhythm they had built together.

“Thank god for the weather,” Kian heaved a sigh, shattering the stillness. “We’ll be in hoodies. No one can see the stupid t-shirt I was forced to approve.”

Aria narrowed her eyes. “What stupid t-shirt?”

There was again a pause.

Too long.

Maya grinned like someone about to detonate a glitter bomb. “Correction: not t-shirts. We’re doing hoodies.”

Reyhaan looked at the ceiling, visibly holding back laughter.

Aria’s eyes narrowed further. “What did you two actually do?” she asked, scanning both of them. Kian did the same, clearly out of the loop.

Maya reached into her backpack with theatrical flair, then turned around and held up a white hoodie backwards.

In bold, unrepentant letters: Bake cookies. Burn ego.

Kian groaned. “Nooo.”

Aria stared. Then turned to Reyhaan, pointing accusingly. “That’s from something you said. And that’s not a quote. That’s a warning.”

Reyhaan gave her a half-smile. “You were being self-critical. I wanted you to stop.”

“And you said that. Out loud.”

“I say many things out loud. Some are worse.”

She kicked him lightly under the table. Kian applauded the violence.

“Hyy! She made it into merch,” Reyhaan said, pointing at Maya. “You’re kicking the wrong person.”

“I made sure it’s soft and warm,” Maya said with a grin too wide to trust. “You can’t take it off now. That’s the curse.”

Aria sighed, then pulled the hoodie closer. It was, annoyingly, very warm.

Their table returned to its familiar hum of scribbles and half-jokes. They argued over cookie names. They passed Maya’s sketchpad until no white space remained. Someone spilled sugar. Someone else tried to eat a marker cap.

Outside, the sky darkened into early evening, a smear of grey-blue dusk.

But inside, their table glowed—half-empty mugs, chocolate fingerprints, tangled chargers, and the slow, steady feeling of being part of something. Something gently unfolding around her.

And even in the cold she hated, where breath turned to mist and fingers stayed half-numb, this warmth between them held. Not loud. Not fleeting.

It wasn’t just a good day.

It was the start of something quietly real. A season etched in cinnamon crumbs and shared jokes. A chapter baked into ginger plans, mismatched hoodies, and the kind of closeness that didn’t need explaining.

The flavor of them.