Genre: Soft angst | Found connection | Slow-burn
Characters: Fuma (café owner), K (mysterious regular)
Setting: A cozy, slightly magical café tucked between time and tired hearts

Fuma doesn't remember when the tradition started.
Maybe it was the rainy Tuesday when someone scrawled "I should've told him I loved him" on a napkin and left it beside their empty cup.

He didn't throw it away.

Instead, he folded it and pinned it to the corkboard above the counter. A quiet place for things people never got to say.

Soon, more appeared.

"I regret not calling her back."
"I didn't take the scholarship because I was scared."
"I broke his heart to protect mine. I don't think that was love."

People didn't sign them. But Fuma read every one.

He didn't expect someone to read his.

Tucked into the bottom of the jar beside the register, scribbled on an old receipt, he wrote:

"I wish I hadn't let my dream go cold."

The next morning, there was a reply on a folded post-it inside the tip jar:

"Then start warming it up." —K

Fuma stared at it for a long time.

He didn't know who K was.

Could've been anyone. The girl with the sketchbook. The office worker with sunken eyes. The quiet man who sat in the back with a novel and never asked for sugar.

But the notes kept coming.

"I was afraid of failing."
"That means you cared."

"I miss my mother every time I make this cake."
"Then she's still in the recipe."

They never pushed. Never signed with anything but a looping K. But Fuma began to smile when closing each night, waiting to see if a new note was tucked between the coins.

One day, he wrote:
"Who are you?"

And K replied:
"Someone who's trying, too."

They began writing more.

Fuma started folding his regrets smaller, hiding them beneath trays and inside sugar tins.
K kept finding them.

It felt ridiculous. Magical. Addictive.

He started baking with more care. Arranged flowers at the windows again. Opened early on cold mornings just in case K came by.

He began dreaming again.

Until one stormy evening, the bell above the door jingled—
—and Fuma saw a familiar face hesitate at the threshold.

Wet hair. Black hoodie. The regular who always ordered the herbal tea and tipped in exact change. Quiet eyes that saw too much.

"Rough day?" Fuma asked, like always.

K smiled, tired.

"Thought I'd try warming something up."

Final Scene:

The café is closed for the night. Only two mugs remain on the table, half-drunk.

Fuma slides a napkin across the counter.

On it:

"I think I know now. It wasn't the coffee I loved. It was waiting to see if you wrote back."

K leans in, writes under it:

"Then maybe we both get a second chance."

Cozy Epilogue: The Rainy Day Bar Shift
Setting: The Café of Second Chances, late afternoon. Rain soft against the windows. A kettle steaming. Fuma and K behind the counter.

The storm had come in gentle this time—soft drizzle against the windows, a hush over the city like the world had taken a long breath. Inside the café, it smelled like cinnamon and damp wool, warm and quiet.

K sat on the stool behind the counter, legs pulled up, sleeves pushed to his elbows. Fuma poured tea into their mismatched mugs, one of them cracked but still holding strong.

The regret jar sat between them.

Overflowing, as usual.

K picked up a napkin from the pile—creased, coffee-stained.

"I wish I'd told her I didn't want to move out."

He read it out loud, softly.

Fuma leaned in, thoughtful. "Write: You can still visit home. Or make a new one that feels right."

K wrote it slowly, in his careful block letters. Folded it. Slid it into the reply tin.

Fuma smiled, fingers brushing K's as he reached for the next.

"I kissed him because I thought I had to. Not because I wanted to."

K frowned. "Too real."

They both chuckled.

Fuma scribbled:
"You're allowed to want. That's how we learn what we don't."

They kept going.

One after the other.
Unfold.
Read.
Breathe.
Reply.

The regrets were messy. Some sharp. Some quiet. Some... so familiar it hurt.

At one point, K stopped. Held up a note.

"I regret not asking him to stay."

They didn't answer it right away.

Fuma looked out the rain-dotted window. Then down at their hands—his and K's, now resting together between napkins and ink and mugs of cooling tea.

"You stayed," he whispered.

K nodded. "You asked."

By closing time, the regret jar was empty.

The reply tin was full.

And Fuma was smiling in that quiet, crooked way he hadn't in years—like something soft had finally settled into place.

"Think we helped anyone today?" K asked, flicking off the lights.

Fuma looked around the café—the flowers blooming in their jars, the glow of the "Open Tomorrow" sign, the warmth still clinging to the bar stools.

"I think we helped ourselves," he said.

Outside, the rain kept falling.
But inside?

The regrets were lighter.

And the second chances... were just beginning.