A cafe by Daria Voshchatynska

“I’d like to drink some raf with… with a weißer Schokoladensirup.

I mean white chocolate, please.”

A man — about twenty-five, tall, confident, dressed in a flawless black suit without a tie — stood in my favorite coffee shop and recited my order. Raf with white chocolate. Coincidence? 

“Ah, bitte, can you add croissant with cream, bitte?”

German again. That made two bites and a syrup name straight from a Berlin menu. His accent wasn’t heavy, but the intonation gave him away. Probably German. Maybe Austrian. Foreign, in any case. And yet, somehow, he ordered like a regular.

Of course. He took the croissant, too. My favourite one.

And then — naturally — he sat down. At the window. My window.

Of course, he did. Why not?

I exhaled through my nose, defeated, and repeated his order word for word — minus the charming linguistic detours. Not copying. Synchronizing. Let’s call it international synchronicity.

Outside, the wind whipped my coat open twice while I fought with my scarf. I was running late. My shoe had stepped into a mystery puddle near the curb. And the barista gave me someone else’s cup first. Not a morning — a polite disaster.

Meanwhile, he had made himself entirely at home. Jacket off neatly hung. A black leather bag was placed precisely on the floor. A ring-bound notebook appeared, and he started writing. Not scribbling — writing. Slowly, with the kind of concentration reserved for old painters or chess players, three moves from checkmate.

From my seat, I could only see his back. Still, I knew — he hadn’t looked up once.

His fingers moved lightly over the table’s surface, pausing as if brushing off invisible crumbs of memory. Then he picked up the pen again. Every gesture carried an air of ritual — like he was composing a letter to someone who mattered. Or to no one, which was somehow sadder.

I learned a little. Just enough to catch a glimpse of his page:

“…the coffee is delicious, even excellent. Though it lacks cinnamon.”

I grinned. That line. Elegant, unnecessarily precise — and somehow delightful. He noticed the cinnamon. Or rather, the absence of it. Which, ironically, was the one thing I’d also thought about this morning. 

His whole look was oddly exact. Tailored trousers, not a crease wrong. Their shirt collar is open just enough to show the start of his collarbone. His hair was pale, nearly white, cut to the ears, and almost silver in this light. Not dyed, I’d bet. Skin like porcelain, a little too perfect. High cheekbones. A slightly crooked nose. And — a plain black Casio on his right wrist.

Lefty. Foreign lefty. Probably a poet. Or a spy. Or both.

I stayed a bit longer than necessary. I checked my phone, opened the same app twice, and adjusted my scarf again. I was not stalling. I was just… preparing for something, maybe.

Then — it happened.

He turned. I was there the whole time slowly, deliberately, like he’d known. Our eyes met.

Grey. As I’d imagined. It is not icy — it is more like smoke or Berlin fog. A sort of in-between color. 

He smiled — faintly. Not to me, perhaps. To some memory. And I flushed. Not from shyness — from exposure. And I hated how much I liked that.

I grabbed my bag and stood so quickly that I nearly knocked over my chair.

Outside, the air bit at my ears. I exhaled a laugh. I didn’t get his name or even a real glance at what he’d been writing. But still.

He was beautiful. And strange.

And I was late. Again.

But this time, I wouldn’t mind running into him twice.