By late afternoon, the city had found its rhythm again.  

The air was cleaner after the rain, the kind of clarity that made everything seem closer than it really was.  

Everspring shimmered—signs reflecting off puddles, clouds sliding past mirrored buildings, every window collecting its own version of light.

Aria finished her last appointment just before five.  

Her client had thanked her too many times, the way people do when they want to sound sincere but mostly want to leave.  

She smiled through it, then stepped outside, letting the cooler air brush past her cheeks.  

Her reflection followed her briefly in the glass door before fading into the street.

The sidewalks were crowded again.  

Office lights turned on floor by floor, as though the buildings themselves were waking up for a different kind of work.  

She walked without a destination, her coat open, hair a little tangled from the wind.

At a corner café, a saxophone played through old speakers.  

The sound was soft, imperfect, but it reached her before she entered.  

She stopped under the awning, listening.  

The melody felt familiar, but she couldn’t place it—it might have been the same song from that first night at the lounge.

She thought about going in, then didn’t.  

The idea of sitting alone in another dim room felt too close, too similar, like replaying something she hadn’t yet learned to understand.

Instead, she kept walking, the music fading behind her but lingering somewhere inside her chest.  

It wasn’t the tune that stayed, but the rhythm—the pause between notes that made the silence hum.

The sky deepened toward violet.  

Streetlights flickered on, one after another, creating a line of small suns that belonged to no one.  

She crossed a street slowly, the soles of her shoes clicking softly against the wet pavement.

At the next block, a window display caught her eye—vintage records arranged in neat stacks, each with faded covers and looping cursive titles.  

Her gaze lingered on one: *Autumn Nocturne.*  

The same title, she remembered, was written on the vinyl cover near Elias’s bar.  

She hadn’t noticed it until now, but the memory returned with startling clarity—the faint music, the amber light, the way he’d turned when she entered.

She took a deep breath and stepped back from the glass.  

Her reflection hovered among the record sleeves, almost blending into their sepia tones.  

For a moment, she looked like she belonged there—half memory, half presence.

Inside The Halcyon Lounge, the same song was playing.

Elias hadn’t chosen it; the playlist had looped on its own.  

He recognized the opening notes instantly—the soft brass, the slow descent of melody that always felt like it was leaning toward something unfinished.  

He didn’t change it.

The bar was half-lit.  

He was alone, arranging coasters, checking the bottles again though they didn’t need checking.  

Outside, the light had turned the color of amber whiskey, soft and reluctant to fade.

He looked toward the window once, just once.  

The street beyond was quieter than usual, the kind of stillness that happens before the first real wave of evening.  

He wiped his hands on a towel, then stopped when the music reached the bridge—  

that slow, weightless moment before it resolved.

He listened.

For a heartbeat, it felt as though the sound came from somewhere outside the bar,  

like an echo returning from another place.

He didn’t move.  

He just breathed in time with the rhythm until the song ended.

The silence that followed was long,  

not empty,  

just full.