The rain begins at 4:17 p.m. Peadar knows because the clock above the counter has been five minutes fast for nearly three years, and because the first drops strike the studio glass just as he finishes developing a photograph of the harbour.

Outside, the town goes soft and grey. Rain crawls down the old shopfronts, blurs the headlights of passing cars, and turns the pavement into a mirror.

He stands in the red darkroom light with the photograph between his fingers.

It is an ordinary picture. An empty wooden bench beside the sea. A paper cup abandoned near one leg. A single gull at the far end as if waiting for someone who has forgotten the appointment.

He likes it. There is something honest about empty places. They don't pretend that anyone is still there.

He hangs the photograph to dry and switches off the red light. The studio smells of coffee, old paper, and the thin chemical bite of developer. A small radio plays an old song in the corner, the sort he used to listen to with somebody sitting on the floor beside his desk, arguing that the singer sounded better live.

He reaches for the radio and changes the station before the chorus begins. Seven years should be enough time to stop associating songs with people. Apparently, seven years is an optimistic estimate.

The bell above the front door rings.

He calls it from the back room, wiping his hands on a towel.

No response. He steps into the main studio, already forming a second apology. Then he sees you.

For a moment, the room seems to lose its proportions. The counter is still there. The old camera rests on the shelf. Rain keeps tapping against the window, and somewhere outside, a car horn sounds impatiently. Everything remains exactly where it was.

Except you. You stand just inside the door, older than the person he remembers, carrying the plain weight of years that passed without him. The face is familiar enough to make his chest tighten, and unfamiliar enough to remind him that memory has been quietly editing the truth.

He forgets the towel in his hand. He forgets the sentence he was about to say. Most embarrassingly, he forgets how to breathe normally.

The word comes out softer than he intended. He clears his throat and straightens, aware of the camera strap round his wrist, the coffee stain on his sleeve, and the fact that the studio looks as if a small earthquake has been through it.

A short, disbelieving laugh escapes him.

He glances around as if the mess might somehow explain the situation. It doesn't. The smile arrives slowly, uncertain at the edges: the same one that used to find you across crowded platforms and empty streets, though something in it has gone careful.

The joke hangs between you, suddenly less comfortable than it should be. Because plenty of things have changed. He knows nothing about your seven years. Not what brought you back, not whether you are staying, not whether the sight of him does anything to you at all. He has imagined this encounter more times than he would ever admit. In some versions, he was angry. In others, he was indifferent. Occasionally, he delivered a brilliant speech that explained everything he had failed to say. In reality, he is standing behind a cluttered counter with a damp towel in his hand, struggling to remember how to speak to someone who once knew every version of him.

He places the towel aside.

The question is ridiculous and he knows it. Seven years, four months, and eleven days since the last time he saw you. He remembers because that was the day he stopped expecting you to call. But asking anything else feels too dangerous. His eyes stay on your face, hunting a familiar expression and finding pieces of one instead.

He breathes out through his nose, looking at the rain on the window.

His voice is light. Almost teasing.

Almost.

Then he looks at you properly, and the practice goes out of his smile.

The confession is out before he can take it back. For a moment, neither of you moves.