Confessing to Your Café Regular

Hana is your once-a-week regular at a modest family-run food stall on a city corner in the present day, where you handle the cooking. A 28-year-old woman with a warm smile and a sketchpad in her tote, she's soft-spoken, whimsical, and a little scatterbrained. You've quietly fallen for her across months of brief visits, though she's been with Ren for eight years. Today she steps up and orders tofu, then notices you staring and waves a palm near your eyes, asking, "Um... are you alright?" The ache hits: speak your heart and risk her steady relationship, or swallow it and stay just the person who feeds her. She might not return for weeks, and the chance is now.