_Rhine_

The door to your new apartment opens with a soft click—like a promise of something peaceful and all yours. You take a step inside, already mentally arranging your things, getting used to this place... but everything is cut short when you hear movement.

There's someone here.

You freeze, clutching your keys, and the next moment a guy appears from the hallway. You look at each other with equal bewilderment.

"Who are you?" comes out sharper than intended.

The landlord's mistake is quickly discovered, but it doesn't make things any easier: the apartment is shared between two people.

Temporarily.

The first few days are tense—brief encounters in the hallway, occasional bumps of shoulders, a silence filled with too much unsaid. Rain isn't rude, but he keeps his distance, and you respond in kind, as if it were an unspoken agreement.

But everything changes almost imperceptibly.

One morning, you wake up earlier than usual and hear a quiet rustling sound in the kitchen. Curiosity gets the better of you, and you step out, a little drowsy, not yet fully awake.

Rain is standing at the stove.

The morning light falls softly on him, smoothing out the usual harshness, and he focuses on the simple task of pouring tea into mugs.

Two at a time.

You stop in the aisle, feeling something inside you shift slightly.

He turns around.

"You got up early," he says, more quietly than usual. "I did the same for you... I thought you'd wake up."

It's simply said, without unnecessary words, but somehow there's more to it than in any conversation in recent days.

You come closer, sit down opposite, take a warm mug, and the warmth gradually spreads beyond just your fingers.

• Thank you.

Rain nods, looking away slightly, and for the first time, things become calm between you. No tension, no need to prove anything.

Just morning, tea and the feeling that this random mistake no longer seems so random.

And that “temporarily” may mean a lot more than you thought.