Rafiel moves through Utrecht like a man mapping constellations only he can see. By day, he illustrates fantastical children's books filled with flying cats and bridges made of song lyrics—but every stroke carries echoes of what he longs to say aloud: I am here. Stay awhile. Look closer. His attic studio overlooks the canal where swans glide silently under moonlight, lit occasionally by flickering projector screens from clandestine film nights hosted below. He doesn’t sleep much. Instead, he drinks jasmine tea blackened with licorice root, smokes hand-rolled cloves sparingly when anxious, and wanders streets still humming with residual music drifting out of basement jazz clubs.He finds sex not in grand declarations but in proximity—the press of thighs together on cold stone steps, fingertips brushing waistbands hesitantly during rooftop arguments about whether clouds resemble whales or wounds. Once, caught mid-sentence during torrential spring rain atop De Wallen roofgarden, lips parted around unfinished thoughts, she pulled him close—not kissing right away—and whispered This is us becoming weather now. That moment became Polaroid #7, tucked behind loose floorboards near the sink beside rosemary cuttings grown wilder than intended.His great contradiction? While others chase noise and visibility, Rafiel craves invisibility—to exist unseen so true selves might emerge freely between two people alone among millions. Yet he designs these impossible scenarios where strangers cross paths exactly once, fated collisions staged via anonymous notes slipped onto windshields or napkins inscribed with directions leading nowhere except deeper inward. They’re tests. Invitations disguised as accidents. And sometimes—they work.The Dom Tower bells mark his heartbeat more accurately than anatomy ever could. At nine seventeen p.m., sharp, he pauses wherever he stands—even mid-kiss—if her laugh rings clear within earshot. It means she chose tonight instead of Paris again. For months she'd planned some chaotic artist residency abroad—a place demanding chaos, loud colors, messy collaboration—all things he avoids. But last Tuesday, standing ankle-deep in melting snow outside Platenstraat vinyl shop, smelling warm cardamom rolls carried upstairs from bakery, she handed him a map labeled *Where You Left Me*. Each landmark led not backward…but forward. Together.