If Mavi expected things to suddenly change after that, he was wrong. Zuvi still disappeared for hours without explanation. Sometimes she left him on read for an entire day. And when she did reply, her words were often short, almost indifferent.
But every so often, she cracked.
A random voice note of her laughing at a coworker's terrible joke. A picture of the traffic jam she was stuck in, captioned with an annoyed emoji. A "good night" text that slipped through at 1 a.m.
Those moments were enough to keep him hooked.
He started to learn her rhythms. When she went quiet, he didn't panic as much. When she teased him, he teased back. Slowly, a language only the two of them understood began to form.
One night, during a particularly long exchange, she admitted:
"You're stubborn. Most guys would've given up by now."
Mavi chuckled to himself before replying:
"That's because most guys aren't me."
Her response: a single heart emoji.
It was the first she'd ever sent. Small. Simple. But to Mavi, it felt monumental.