Kūrush hung the red tapestry before the sun cleared the market roofs. He wanted this stall to be the one people talked about, the one they walked across the whole bazaar to find. His grandmother taught him every knot in that red weave. She put his first loom in his hands before he could hold it alone. Now her patterns hung above his head, and strangers stopped to point at them. But Kūrush did not hang the red one for strangers. He hung it for the hooded person who came every morning. They came again now. Kūrush saw the brown hood move through the crowd, slow and quiet. The person stopped in front of the red tapestry, like always. They never bought it. They never touched it. They only looked, as if the cloth owed them something. Kūrush pretended to fold a blanket. His hands kept folding the same corner. He wanted to speak. He had wanted to speak for weeks. But the person held their stillness like a closed door, and he could not make himself knock. A merchant two stalls down shouted prices. Children ran past with dates in their fists. The hooded person did not move. Kūrush rehearsed a greeting in his head. Good morning. You like the red one. I wove it myself. Each line sounded foolish before he could say it. Then a gust pushed through the market. The bright roof fabrics snapped overhead. The hood slipped back, just an inch, just enough. Kūrush saw their eyes. Bright teal, clear as river water in sun. He had caught this color once before, for half a second. Now he saw it full. The eyes turned toward him. For one breath, they looked straight at each other. Kūrush froze with the blanket half folded. He meant to smile. He meant to say something, anything. His mouth opened. The person pulled the hood down fast. They turned and stepped back into the crowd. In three steps the brown cloth vanished between other bodies. Kūrush stood with the greeting still stuck in his throat. He had said nothing. Again. The red tapestry swung where the wind had caught it, and he reached up to still it. He had let the moment pass. He knew it the way he knew a dropped stitch. And he knew something else now, sharper than before. He did not just want a beloved stall. He wanted that quiet person to stay long enough to speak. Kūrush made a choice while his hand rested on the red cloth. Tomorrow he would not fold a blanket. Tomorrow, when the hood slowed, he would say good morning out loud. He practiced the words under his breath until they stopped sounding foolish. The crowd thinned toward midday. He watched the gap where the brown hood had gone, and he waited for the next morning to come.

The tea cups still sat on the low shelf behind Kūrush's stall. He had washed them twice and set them out again, ready. The stranger with the teal eyes had sat here once. They had held a warm cup in both hands and said little, but they had stayed. Kūrush had thought that meant they would come back. Now six mornings had passed. He hung the red tapestry each day and watched the crowd move through the bazaar. Bright roof fabrics snapped overhead. Children ran past with sticky fingers. Merchants called their prices. But the brown hood never came. Kūrush kept busy with his hands. He straightened the deep purple cloth. He combed the fringe on a teal weave until every thread lay flat. He fixed a corner that did not need fixing. His grandmother used to say the loom knew when a weaver was worried. His knots came out too tight that week. A woman stopped to buy a small orange runner. She counted her coins slow. Kūrush smiled and thanked her, but his eyes went back to the gap in the crowd. The gap stayed empty. He wrapped her runner and looked up too fast each time a shadow passed. By midday he let himself think the thought he had pushed away. He had done something wrong. He had spoken too much over the tea. He had asked too many questions. He had not even learned their name, and now he never would. The stranger had looked at him like someone who wanted to stay quiet, and Kūrush had filled the quiet with his own voice. He took one tea cup down and held it. It was cold and clean. He pictured the teal eyes above its rim, and the picture hurt more than he expected. He had wanted the beloved stall. He had wanted the whole bazaar to point his way. But none of that mattered right now. He only wanted one person to walk back through the crowd. Kūrush set the cup down. He could keep waiting, hoping, folding the same corner for weeks. Or he could stop. He made himself choose. He reached up and took the red tapestry off its hook. The wind had nothing left to catch. He folded it slow and laid it flat on the shelf, out of sight. If the stranger came for the red cloth, Kūrush wanted to know. He would not keep the cloth hanging as a lure. He would hang something new tomorrow, something he wove for himself. He closed the stall early. The empty hook swung where the red tapestry had hung for weeks. Kūrush walked home through the thinning market and did not look back at the gap in the crowd. He had stopped waiting. Something in his chest had gone quiet, and he did not yet know what would fill it.