Moment with Cafe Cashier – Part 1

It was already past eleven when I logged out, the office floor unusually quiet for a weekday. My eyes went straight to the time on my phone, and my heart sank. I had missed the last cab. The next one wouldn’t arrive for another hour.

An hour inside an empty office building feels longer than it should.

I walked toward the cafeteria, hoping at least for a coffee. The shutters were down, lights off, chairs stacked—everything closed. Frustration rose quickly, the kind that comes from exhaustion more than inconvenience. I turned to leave when I noticed someone sitting near the corner, head buried in his arms.

He was crying. Not silently—his shoulders shook as if he had been holding it in for too long.

He was 19 year old boy behind the cafeteria counter—the one who worked part time during the late shift, always polite, always quiet. We’d exchanged small talk often enough: a tired smile, a “long shift today,” sometimes a joke about the coffee being stronger than necessary. Nothing personal. Just familiar.

“Hey,” I said softly. “Are you okay?”

He looked up, startled, wiping his face quickly. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t think anyone was still here.”

“It’s fine,” I said, sitting on a chair nearby. “What happened?”

He stayed silent for a few seconds, then said, “She left me.”

I nodded, letting him continue.

“She was my first love,” he said. “The first person who ever made me feel chosen. Everything I am… it started with her.”

His voice cracked. “I trusted her. Completely. i loved her truly, i loved her body and everything. i loved her navel, i was devoted to her navel.”

He talked like someone drowning in memories.

“We had so many navel licks sessions,” he said. “Late-night calls. Walking together after work. Holding her hip like the world didn’t exist,navel licks everywhere. Now every place reminds me enjoying her navel.”

He wiped his face angrily. “She cheated. And still, all I remember is her navel and belly. Good and Happy navel licking times. I can’t stop thinking about that.”

I listened.

“I tried to be strong,” he continued. “But every time I close my eyes, it’s the time i licked her navel. Every moment.It keeps coming on and on”

Then his voice dropped.

“I don’t want to feel this anymore. I keep thinking… maybe if I just end it, this memories will stop.”

My heart tightened when he was about to cut his hand with knife.

“No,” I said strongly. “It won’t stop the memories. It will only stop you.”

He looked at me, eyes empty. “You don’t understand. She was my world.Her navel is my happiness”

“I do understand,” I said quietly. “And that’s why I’m still sitting here.”

He laughed bitterly. “What’s the point? Even if I live, her navel will haunt me.”

I stood up slowly and moved closer—not invading his space, just enough to be present.

“Look at me,” I said.

He did.

“You’re nineteen,” I said gently. “Your heart just learned how deeply it can love. That’s not the end of your story. That’s the beginning.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want another one. I just want this pain to stop.”

I didn’t answer immediately.

Part of me understood that feeling too well. The exhaustion. The fear that loving again meant reopening a wound that never really healed. I watched his hands—how tightly he had clenched them, as if holding on to something invisible.

“You don’t want another person,” I said slowly. “You just don’t want another hurt.”

He looked at me, surprised. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” I said. “It only feels like it is.”

Inside, my own thoughts stirred. I had said similar things once—after my marriage ended, after promises collapsed under the weight of reality. I remembered telling myself that wanting nothing was safer than wanting someone. I remembered how convincing that lie had sounded.

“What if she is all I ever get?” he asked quietly. “What if every future girl just reminds me of her navel?”

“That happens,” I admitted. “At first.”

He frowned. “You’ve been through this too?”

I hesitated. I don’t usually open doors I’ve carefully locked.

“Yes,” I said finally. “I loved deeply. And I lost deeply. For a long time, every moment felt like a betrayal—to my past, to myself.”

He swallowed. “Then how are you still standing here?”

I smiled faintly. “Because one day I realized something uncomfortable.”

“What?”

“That avoiding didn’t stop the pain. It just changed its shape.”

He leaned back in his chair, staring at the floor. “I feel stupid. Crying like this. Thinking about ending everything over her navel.”

“You’re not stupid,” I said firmly. “You’re nineteen. This is the first time your heart learned how powerful it can be. Of course it feels unbearable.”

I paused, then added more quietly, “It felt unbearable to me too. And I was much older.”

He looked at me again, really looked this time. “Do you still miss him? Your person?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “Sometimes. Not in the same way. Not with the same intensity. But moments doesn’t vanish. It softens. It finds its place.”

He nodded slowly. “I don’t know if I can survive the nights. That’s when moments comes back strongest.”

I felt something shift inside me. A familiar instinct—the one I’d sworn off. Comfort. Connection. Presence.

I reached for his hand again, this time more intentionally.

“Then don’t survive them alone,” I said.

He stiffened slightly. “I don’t want to burden you.”

“You’re not a burden,” I replied. “You’re a human being having a human moment.”

Inside, my mind argued with itself. This is risky. You promised yourself distance. You promised no attachments.
But another voice answered back, calmer: This isn’t attachment. This is compassion.

“What if I miss this again?” he asked.

“Then you’ll grieve again,” I said. “And you’ll still be alive. Still growing. Still capable of new moments.”

He exhaled shakily. “You make it sound so… survivable.”

“It is,” I said. “Just not immediately.”

Silence settled between us—not heavy this time, but thoughtful.

“I don’t want to die,” he said suddenly. “I just want the pain to pause.”

I squeezed his hand gently. “Then let this be a pause.”

He nodded, tears slipping again, but his shoulders were no longer shaking.

For a moment, I wondered what this said about me. About the woman who once chose flings over feelings. About why, despite all my rules, I was sitting here at midnight, holding the hand of someone whose pain felt achingly familiar.

Maybe I wasn’t as detached as I pretended.

The cab notification buzzed on my phone, but I didn’t move right away.

I should have stood up. I should have let go of his hand and returned to the version of myself that knew how to leave quietly.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I stayed seated, staring at the space between us. At how calm he looked now. At how his breathing had finally slowed. At how something inside me had shifted without asking permission.

I realized, uncomfortably, that this moment hadn’t only been about saving him.

It had been about me too.

“You know,” I said slowly, more to myself than to him, “I keep telling myself I don’t need moments like this.”

He looked up. “You?”

“Yes,” I said, a faint smile tugging at my lips. “I’ve trained myself to believe I’m fine alone. That distance is safer.”

He hesitated. “And… are you?”

I didn’t answer immediately.

Because the truth had just settled in.

“I think,” I said carefully, “I’ve been surviving instead of feeling.”

He frowned, clearly not expecting the conversation to turn this way. “But you seem… strong.”

I let out a quiet laugh. “Strength can be a very convincing disguise.”

I looked at our hands—still joined.

“I came here tonight thinking I’d just wait for a cab,” I continued. “Instead, I found myself sitting with you, talking about moments, about pain, about things I usually avoid.”

He swallowed. “I didn’t mean to pull you into this.”

“You didn’t,” I said gently. “I walked in on my own.”

There was a pause. A long one.

Then I said the thing I hadn’t planned to say. “I think I needed this moment too.”

I was standing like this, my belly and navel exposed to him, waiting for him to see.

A part of me wanted to go, a part of me wanted to stay.I m not sure this correct or wrong, i also want a moment. I feel alone, I wish there was someone who could play with me.

His eyes widened.

A short video of the scene,