The whistle of the train pierced the air, but Elena barely heard it.
Leo was still watching her, that half-smile lingering — like he wasn't quite sure if she was real.
The world around them blurred into insignificance: businessmen rushing with briefcases, a child crying for ice cream, an old woman arguing with the station clerk. Elena only saw Leo, and he only saw her.
"I should catch my train," Elena said, her voice soft, almost apologetic.
Leo stepped closer, emboldened by something he didn't fully understand. "Or you could miss it," he said.
She tilted her head, a small smirk playing at her lips. "And do what? Stay here with a stranger who can't even charge his camera?"
He laughed then — a low, warm sound that settled somewhere deep inside her.
"I'm not always this disorganized," he said. "Bad day."
"Maybe it's not a bad day," Elena said, surprising herself with the tenderness in her voice. "Maybe it's the start of a better story."
They stood there, the sun dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in streaks of violet and rose.
Leo's heart thudded. He was a man who had seen enough cities to know how easy it was to lose people. And yet, here was this woman, offering him — what? A beginning?
"Can I take you for coffee?" he asked, feeling strangely breathless.
Elena hesitated. Logic screamed at her: This is reckless. You don't know him.
But her heart, tired of cautious steps and lonely nights, whispered: What if this is the moment you've been waiting for?
She nodded. "Coffee sounds good."
Leo's grin could have powered the whole city.
They left the station together, two silhouettes walking into the coming night — their destinies freshly entwined by nothing more than a broken camera and a chance encounter.
Neither of them knew it yet, but this was the first step into a love story that would change them both forever.