The rain had already made its decision before any of them arrived.

It slicked the pavement until the streetlights broke apart in it, fractured and tired. The man sat with his back to the city, umbrella hunched like a bad habit he couldn’t quit. He wasn’t waiting for anyone. Waiting implies hope. This was something quieter—staying.

At his feet, the cats pressed together on a piece of cardboard that had once meant something else. They didn’t cry. They didn’t beg. They understood the economy of nights like this: warmth is borrowed, silence is safer. Their eyes tracked the world without asking it for favors.

The bench creaked once, then settled. The man didn’t turn around. He knew better than to look too closely at things he couldn’t fix. The rain stitched the distance between them, thread by thread, until they shared the same weather, if nothing else.

Cars passed. Windows glowed. Lives continued indoors.

No one crossed the space between umbrella and cardboard.
But for a while, no one left either.

And sometimes that’s the closest mercy the night allows.