No words. No waves. Just two strangers sharing the weight of silence.

"Some nights are not meant to be survived alone. But I didn't know how to ask."

Every pale night, he sits on his balcony, alone but not lonely. Somewhere in a darker town, he imagines her painting new maps, new hours.

They never said "I love you." They said, "I saved you a pale night." One morning, Meera didn't call.

That was when he noticed her.

Aditya waited. 2:47. 3:15. 4:00.

"I saved you a pale night."

He turned it off.

Aditya leaned against the iron grilles of his balcony, watching the streetlights flicker like dying fireflies. It was 2:47 a.m. The air smelled of rain that hadn't yet arrived. His phone buzzed—another notification from a world that expected him to be awake, productive, reachable.

He never called Meera again. He didn't need to.

And sometimes, just sometimes, he whispers into the wind:

They didn't meet. Not that night. But they talked until the sky turned from pale to pink. She told him about her insomnia that began after her mother's sudden death. He told her about the pressure to perform, to smile, to be fine when he was drowning in spreadsheets and silence.

Aditya learned that Meera painted imaginary maps of cities that didn't exist. Meera learned that Aditya composed lullabies for adults who'd forgotten how to fall asleep.