Ever since the day he walked through the front door of your cafe hand in hand with his sweet daughter on one gloomy afternoon in the middle of winter, he had captured your heart without him even knowing it. All the time, you had chosen to stay on th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
✣✣✣
chapter i. chance encounter
✣✣✣
Prologue
It was right in the middle of the coldest week of winter when he first stepped into your small cafe.
You had caught the sight of him walking past the front window before he finally made his way through the front door. He was dressed in all black, with his black coat falling low enough to reach his ankle, waving with the cold wind with each footstep he took. In your eyes, he looked almost like an archangel, marching through the snow outside as if he was floating above the ground before opening the door as gracefully as one could.
His presence felt strong enough that you could have sworn that you felt the air in the room moving steadily like a ripple just as he walked into the room. The air and space around you seemed to shift when he stopped just by the door, looking as if he was taking up the space inside your shop just by standing there, even while he was looking terribly lost and unsure of himself for one second. Then took a moment to look around and began to look more determined and relieved that he might have found himself in the right place.
But the sight that had your heart lurching up to your throat the moment he turned to face the display counter had not only been him. Not even if he was probably the most beautiful man you had ever seen, with his face looking as if he was moulded by the Gods themselves. Not even when his dramatic entrance had been accompanied by the dusts of snow, sparkling white around his flowing coat like a ghosting fog until he let the glass door fall shut behind him.
No, the sight that had caught you completely entranced was the little girl in his arms, cuddled tightly against his chest with her arms around his neck and her face pressed against his broad shoulder. She was shivering in his hold, but judging from the warm-looking black coat she was wearing and the ghostly look in her eyes, you knew immediately that it was not only from the cold. And it was more than enough to leave a tug at your heartstrings, to have you jumping out of your stool behind the display counter to guide them to find an empty booth by the side windows, before offering them free hot chocolate to warm themselves with.
Ever since that day, the pair would always return at the same time every other day, ordering the same drink and the same cinnamon roll bun that the little girl had come to love. Every day, you would be the one to leave the counter to welcome them in, to give them the warmth that they would need even as the weather and seasons kept changing.
Sometime between the passing time, you had come to realise that you had felt a strong bond with the pair. That you had made it your personal calling to cater to their needs, to be their friend, the source of their comfort, even if you could only share one hour of your day with them on every visit they had made.
