He closed his eyes. The music took him back to the snowy night they parted. They had stood under a single streetlamp, the flakes melting on their eyelashes. No words were exchanged—just the crushing weight of a "goodbye" that didn't need to be spoken.

The neon sign of the "Semaver Café" flickered, casting a bruised purple light over the cobblestones of old Istanbul. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of roasted coffee and tobacco, but for Selim, the world was entirely silent.

As the first melancholy notes of the bağlama plucked at the silence, the walls of the café seemed to dissolve. Ahmet’s voice, raw and heavy with the weight of Anatolian winters, filled Selim’s head. "The nights are silent," the song whispered.