Still Here

Story Synopsis

Elise never planned to make Johan smile.

It simply became interesting when she discovered how difficult it was.

They meet as external professionals assigned to the same client project in England. Elise is a sharp, confident British analyst who questions assumptions as easily as she disrupts routines. Johan is an Indonesian senior business consultant who prefers structure, punctuality, and a life that makes sense.

At first, they are simply colleagues.

There are meetings, rainy walks home, tea without sugar, unnecessary cinnamon rolls, and an increasingly ridiculous scoring system neither of them is willing to abandon.

Then the project begins approaching its end.

The office that gave them a reason to see each other every morning will no longer belong to either of them. They return to different companies, different routines, and separate lives.

But somehow the conversations continue.

A work call lasts longer than the work requires. A package arrives without needing to. Distance creates reasons to meet that circumstance once provided for free.

And somewhere between choosing to stay and learning when to let go, Elise and Johan discover that love is not always about finding someone who fits neatly into the life you already have.

Sometimes life changes first.

Sometimes you change with it.

And sometimes, after everything you thought was certain has disappeared, the most important question is the simplest one:

Are you still here?

Main Characters

Johan

Main Character — Senior Business Consultant

An Indonesian senior business consultant living and working in Britain, Johan is composed, thoughtful, disciplined, and relentlessly structured. He arrives early, notices details, rarely does anything without a reason, and has built a life around knowing where the next step leads. Behind that restraint, however, is a quieter warmth—one that appears in food, small acts of care, dry humour, and the people he chooses to remember. Then Elise enters his routine. And for perhaps the first time in years, Johan begins discovering that not everything meaningful needs to be planned.

Elise

Main Character — Business / Data Analyst

A British business and data analyst in her late twenties, Elise is intelligent, confident, articulate, and naturally curious. She has a playful streak and a habit of turning ordinary moments into something less predictable. Beneath her teasing and easy laughter is a sharp analytical mind—someone willing to question an assumption even when everyone else in the room has already accepted it. Elise enters Johan's carefully structured life almost by accident. What begins as curiosity about a man who seems impossible to disturb slowly becomes something neither of them planned.