Morning, an unfamiliar street. The air is still soft, warm, soaked with the night. He walks along the sidewalk from nowhere, without a goal, without direction. In front of a small café by the school, a line is already forming, so he joins it and waits. When it’s his turn, he realizes he doesn’t know how to say anything. He takes out his phone and quickly looks for a translator. “Coffee mai?” comes from behind the counter. He lifts his head and nods. The cashier hands him a ticket with a number. It went surprisingly well.
He holds his phone in his hands and tries to translate the order number. 40, sí sip. He nods to himself, as if he has just understood something important. He stands by the window and watches cars heading toward the school. Children in uniforms, a morning movement that passes him by.
Suddenly, the number is called. He turns and reaches for the coffee, but instead of a cup, he feels the warmth of a touch. Someone else is trying to take the same coffee.
He stops. He hasn’t felt that in a long time.
He lifts his gaze and their eyes meet. Dark, deep. Energy flows from their depth into his sky-blue eyes without a single word. For a moment, he gets lost in them. She smiles gently and quietly says “ji sip,” pointing to the 20 written on the cup.
He pulls back. He realizes what happened and quickly lets go of her hand. His heart is beating stronger than it should. He doesn’t know if he crossed a line, nor how to fix it. “I am sorry,” he says, holding onto that sentence as if it were the only one he has. “It is OK,” comes in a quiet voice, and before he can even process her words, she is gone.
The time it takes to get his coffee passes too quickly. He doesn’t even notice its taste. He is still drowning in those eyes.
The next day, the same morning. He opens his eyes with a single thought and heads to the café at the same time. He waits, but she doesn’t come. “Hopefully she wasn’t just random,” he thinks. Another morning comes—she’s not there. He waits, watches the door, the people, the emptiness. A moment of inattention—she walked in.
34, her order. He waits.
This time, he does it again. On purpose. Their hands touch, briefly, but knowingly a little longer. She looks at him and smiles. He smiles back. He takes a breath. “Sorry, I don’t want to disturb… but I want to ask if maybe we could have that coffee together sometime.”
Days pass, coffees become routine, closeness becomes a need.
They meet at the same place by the window every time. She orders without hesitation, he still with his phone in his hand, but he needs it less and less. He learns slowly, through her. He enjoys the way she smiles when she explains something to him. The way she corrects him when he says something wrong, laughing in a way that makes it impossible not to be offended.
Once, she takes the phone from his hand. “Not like that,” she says and writes the sentence for him. She hands it back.
“How do I ask you if you want coffee in Thai?”
“Kafé mai? All questions are simple, you just add mai at the end.”
“Ok, so… Kiss mai?”
She looks at him sharply. “I will kill you leou.”
He leans closer and kisses her on the cheek.
A new day. She is reading a book under a tree in the park. He sits on a bench with his phone in his hand, but his gaze is fixed only on her. On the calm she radiates. On her beauty.
“I would like to be that book,” he says quietly. “I want you to look at me like that and hold me in your hands.”
She lifts her gaze. At first, she just watches him. As if storing him somewhere deep in her memory.
She smiles.
“I will kill you leou,” she says quietly.
“With that sweet kiss?”
She frowns. “No.”
She smiles and dives back into reading.
They sit in silence for a while, fuller than other moments.
“What if we grow old?” she asks suddenly, still looking at the book. “Really grow old.”
He looks at her.
“I would want to die with you,” she says softly.
He watches her a moment longer than usual. Then, with a completely serious tone, he says:
“I’ll master time. And I’ll bring us back here. So we can live this life again.”
She bursts into laughter.
“I will kill you leou.”
Coffees are replaced by strong hugs, hugs by kisses. They already walk hand in hand like a couple made for each other.
A lot has changed, but something remains the same: “I will kill you leou.”
“That would be beautiful, to die by the hand of such a beautiful woman.”
She hugs him and they go to sleep together.
Sleeping together is what recharges them both, fills them with energy, connects them.
“Good morning,” comes from those deep, half-awake eyes.
“Good morning,” answers from the other side.
“Coffee mai?”
A daily ritual begins, now as steady as the beat of their hearts.
Sometimes, for a brief second, he feels as if he has already lived this exact moment. The same light, the same words, the same look in her eyes. It slips away before he can hold onto it.
Evening comes. The usual joke, the usual reply: “I will kill you leou.” But the tone is different. Serious.
She didn’t have a good day. Something is bothering her. He doesn’t know.
He steps closer, kisses her forehead, and for a moment hesitates, as if considering something.
“It won’t change anything,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to exist without you.”
She looks at him. She doesn’t understand the words, but she doesn’t have the energy to ask.
He watches her a moment longer than he should. As if storing the moment.
In that moment, he decides.
He won’t let it leave.
“Come lie down, sweetheart. It will be better in the morning.”
But morning isn’t better. She feels off. She has to go to work, which she no longer sees as hers, which brings her more suffering than joy.
Evenings become quiet. She is lost in thoughts, reality just flows around. He watches her from a distance, but the sight no longer pleases him. It hurts him. He wishes she were the happy person she used to be. He doesn’t dare to make a joke, afraid it would disturb her even more. At this moment, their love is the only thing that matters to him.
A new day comes, a new evening. He gathers all the strength he has and tries a joke. The wrong moment. Words hang in the air. They are not spoken, but their tone is loud.
He sees it. He feels it.
He steps closer, strokes her cheek, and kisses her forehead.
For a split second, everything feels familiar. Too familiar.
As if his body remembers something his mind does not.
In that moment, he feels pain.
Her gaze slips aside.
A knife.
The sound comes first. Metal hitting the ground.
Then silence.
He closes his eyes.
What if he hadn’t come? Why was she holding the knife?
A new day comes.
“Good morning…”
Was it a dream?
She looks at herself in the mirror. Something feels off. Déjà vu. Not just a feeling — a trace. Like something already lived, already lost. All day she feels like this has already happened.
Evening comes. A touch. A kiss.
A fall.
A new day.
“Good morning…”
The same tone. The same light.
Evening.
The same words form even before he says them.
A fall.
Again.
A week passes.
It is still Tuesday.
Evening comes. That mood. That feeling. That impossible joke.
She looks at him.
“Hasn’t this already happened?” she asks.
“Several times,” he replies.
“I told you I don’t want to exist without you,” he says.
“What did you do?”
“I knew it might come,” he says calmly.
“So I didn’t let that day end. I held it… so I could return to you.”
She stays silent for a moment.
“Why, if you know what will come, do you keep doing the same thing? Why do you keep coming? Why do you let it end like this?”
He looks at her calmly.
“I don’t want to interfere. Changing one moment won’t change reality. I want to live every single day of my existence with you… even if it’s just this one, over and over again. I want to see you in the morning. I want to kiss you in the evening.”
“You’re crazy,” she says.
“I will kill you leou.”
Familiar words. This time, a familiar, gentle tone.
He steps closer.
He strokes her.
He kisses her forehead.
This time, he doesn’t feel pain.
Only the warmth of her embrace.
“I love you,” is heard.
Her deep eyes close into sleep.
No one knows how this story ends. Whether they live happily ever after, or need this time loop countless more times. One thing is certain. They belong to each other.