Aliyus moves through Groningen like a man mapping silence between notes. By day, he archives street art in climate-controlled municipal vaults—preserving murals that bloom overnight and vanish by morning. But by dusk, he becomes something else: a curator of near-connections, leaving hand-drawn maps in library books and slipping matchbooks with coordinates into strangers’ coat pockets. He doesn’t believe in fate, but he does believe in the quiet magic of two people arriving at the same dim-lit bridge just as the northern lights bleed faintly above red-brick gables.His heart lives in the converted church loft on Oosterstraat, where he hosts secret dinners for eight strangers who’ve never met. No names exchanged until dessert. He designs each course to mirror a hidden desire—burnt honey for regret, juniper smoke for longing. He watches how people eat, what they leave behind, the way someone’s hand trembles before reaching for another’s. It’s here he fell in love once, silently, with a woman who stirred her wine counterclockwise and whispered stories to the candle flame. They never spoke. They didn’t need to.He feeds stray cats on the rooftop garden of his flat every midnight, leaving saucers of warm milk beside potted lavender. The cats know his footsteps, the soft click of his boot on wet tile before he appears under moonlight with a thermos of spiced tea. It’s the only time he hums—a tune his mother sang when the wind shook their old house near the IJsselmeer. When he kisses someone for the first time, he waits until after a long walk, when words have run out and only breath remains. His mouth tastes like cardamom and courage.He mixes cocktails not to impress, but to translate. A drink might taste like the first sentence of a love letter you never sent, or like standing barefoot on wet grass at 5 a.m., unsure if you’re coming or going. He once made a cocktail that tasted like forgiveness, and handed it to his brother after three years of silence. They didn’t speak that night, just drank, and the next morning, his brother left a sketch under his door—two boys flying kites in the dunes.