The café was nearly empty when we ducked inside. Just a man in the corner reading a paper and the low hiss of the siphon behind the counter. The air smelled of beans and damp wood, warm against the rain still coming down outside.

Rain kept streaming down the front window. The glass had fogged so much the street was just shapes — umbrellas bobbing past, headlights smearing into the puddles, bicycles leaving thin trails that disappeared almost right after.

I sat down across from Merry. She wrapped both hands around her cup, though she didn't drink yet. Just stared at the steam curling upward until it faded.

I propped my chin in my hand. "So this is your grand idea of a Saturday? Getting soaked just to sit in an old café?"

Merry smiled faintly, eyes still on the window. "Old cafés are full of stories. Can't you feel it? The wood remembers."

I glanced around. Scratched tables, dark walls polished smooth, the counter shining from years of elbows. She wasn't wrong, but still. "Feels like any other café to me."

Her spoon clinked gently against the cup as she stirred. Then, almost under her breath: "Funny, isn't it? All of this started as someone's dream."

"...Huh?"

"The city. The streets. Even your coffee." She lifted the spoon, watching a drop slide back into the cup. "Somebody imagined it first."

I leaned back. "Coffee as a dream? That's pushing it."

She shrugged. "Farmer dreams of beans. Merchant dreams of selling them. Someone dreams of this shop. Everything starts out invisible."

I let out a breath through my nose, swirling my cup. "...Sounds flimsy."

"Of course it's flimsy." She finally looked at me, eyes a little distant. "Dreams always are." A pause. "But maybe that's why it all feels alive."

Her words sank into the quiet, carried by the patter against the glass.

I watched the drops slide down, tiny streaks racing to the bottom before they vanished. Every one looked like it had a story, and every one ended the same way.

The man in the corner folded his paper, left without a word. The bell over the door chimed. I watched him outside, his umbrella snapping open like a pale flower before he drifted into the rain. His reflection rippled once in the puddles, then broke apart.

We stayed a little longer. My coffee cooled, the warmth slipping away before I noticed. Merry finally drank hers, slow, like even that was worth remembering.

By the time we stepped out, the rain had softened. The street shone in reflections — neon signs doubled in puddles, umbrellas drifting like quiet lanterns.

I opened mine, drops drumming on the fabric. Merry tilted hers, listening to the rain as though it had something to say.

I thought about what she said — how everything real had once been invisible, fragile. And as we stepped into the street, with the sound of rain softening the world around us, the thought hit sharper than I expected.

Maybe that's what reality is. Just fantasy that stayed long enough to get wet in the rain.