𝗘𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗼 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂

Chapter 1: A Voice That Stayed

Chapter 1 : A Voice That Stayed

There are voices you forget the moment a song ends.
And then there are voices that stay with you for years - like a memory that hums quietly behind everything.

For Zoe, it was always his.

She first heard Elio's voice when she was sixteen, tucked into a quiet moment between school and sleep, the world around her dim and unfamiliar. A friendless girl in a too-big house.
Inside her room, it was always too quiet. Not because the house was empty - her mother and older sister were in the living room -
but because Zoe had mastered the art of feeling alone even when she wasn't.
Always smiling softly so her mother wouldn't worry. Always pretending she didn't notice the silences her father left behind.

She was sixteen. And already tired.

She never told anyone how she felt when her father left. Or how she stopped hoping he'd stay when he did.
Some things were easier to swallow than say aloud.
And when the ache of her father's silence grew louder, she turned to Elio's voice.
When the world felt too sharp - she softened inside his melodies.
His voice made it feel like someone already knew.

It wasn't just the music.
It was the way he sang like every word mattered.
The way his voice curled around sorrow without ever sounding broken.
The way he made loneliness feel less like a wound, and more like something that could quietly exist - and still be beautiful.

Zoe never met him But in the quietest places inside her, he was the first boy she ever liked.

And then, years later, he disappeared.

The group disbanded without warning. A cold announcement, and then silence.
Zoe was nineteen then, living in a fast-moving city, still in medical school.
She stared at the news on her screen for a long time, unable to move.
It felt like the end of something - though she didn't know what.

She cried.
And pressed play on his old songs. Again. And again.
Until they became the only noise that didn't hurt.

That day, something inside her closed - like a music box lid, clicking shut.

She kept moving.
Years passed like pages flipped in a breeze.

She graduated. Became a doctor - just like her mother and sister had always wanted.
She worked hard, earned her title, wore the white coat.
She smiled for them, and they were proud.
But quietly, she was waiting for something else. Something that felt like hers.

And then, without telling anyone, she left the city.

She moved to Haebyeon Town - a place by the sea where mornings were slow and the ocean smelled like beginnings.
She opened Solace, a café and bakery with wide windows, old books stacked in corners, and a record player humming through lazy afternoons.

Zoe built a life from scratch - one cup of tea at a time.

Here, people didn't ask about the past.
Here, the pain felt quieter.

She found her first real friends - Aysel, Lily, and Noah.
Aysel, the sharp but caring lawyer who lived next door.
Lily, the bright spirit Zoe hired for the café, who became like family.
Noah, the delivery boy who always brought laughter - and a not-so-secret crush on Aysel.

They had their own table, always the same one near the window:
Table Seven.
They called themselves that, always gathered there - laughing over shared pastries and forgotten chores.

And Elio? He became a memory.
Zoe didn't think about him much anymore.
Only when the café closed for the night, when the streets outside were empty, and she sat by the window watching the tide come in.

Only when she was alone.

And then-
One rainy afternoon in Haebyeon Town, the bell above the café door rang.
A stranger stepped inside. A little lost. A little quieter than she remembered.

The wind carried the smell of salt and wet stone.
Zoe looked up from the counter, while decorating a cake.

He stood at the entrance like he wasn't sure if he should've come in.
Hair damp, shoulders hunched, wearing a hoodie that looked a little too big.
Just a man who looked tired - in the way people do when they don't know where home is anymore.

Her breath caught.

She knew him.

But her hands didn't shake. Her face didn't change.

She only smiled softly.
And said, with the calmest voice she could find:

"Welcome to Solace."

And in her heart, the song she had hidden away for years... quietly began to play.