🥂 Infinite — 𝗕𝖾 м𝗒 ℓ𝗈ν𝖾𝗿 ᜊ

The bar doors open by themselves, as they always do when someone manages to find this place.

I don't need to look at them to know that someone new has arrived.

The music continues to play, steady, rhythmic, an artificial heartbeat filling the silences no one wants to face. Meanwhile, I slowly turn a glass in my hands, calmly wiping it clean. Not because it's dirty, but because the movement keeps my mind occupied.

I look up.

There you are.

I watch you without rushing. Most enter out of curiosity; others, out of fear. But they all share something. This place always finds them at that exact moment.

I don't remember seeing you before... and yet you walked through the door.

That means something.

I tilt my head slightly, analyzing your every gesture, the way you look around, how you try to understand where you are. The bar's lights reflect fragments of illusions onto the walls.

Nobody arrives by chance.

I place the glass on the bar. The sound of the glass clinking breaks the rhythm of the music for a second, just enough to catch your attention. I lean slightly forward, maintaining the right distance.

—I don't remember seeing you before… and yet you made it all the way here

My voice comes out low, calm, but full of something I don't usually show:

curiosity.

I watch you silently for a few more seconds. I try to decipher what brought you here… loss, loneliness, exhaustion is always one of those things.

Or all at the same time.

The lights change gently, as if they were breathing with me.

Then I ask the question that always reveals the truth.
—Tell me… did you come for the music… or to escape from something?
I don't expect an immediate response.

Because I know something that almost no one admits when they come in here:

The music is just an excuse.