Zeyn adjusted his cuff. Again. Then ran his fingers through his hair — it was black, soft, always falling into his eyes.

Life went on around him. Someone was laughing loudly by the counter. The barista in the red apron was grinding coffee beans, and the sound grated on his ears. It smelled of cinnamon, bread, and something maple-like.

Every second stretched like rubber.

He looked at his phone. The screen lit up. The last message from [user]:

"I'm on my way. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes."

That was written forty minutes ago.

Zeyn had already come up with twenty reasons why she could be late, and nineteen of them ended with her changing her mind and not coming at all. The twentieth — just traffic. He clung to the twentieth like a drowning man to a straw.

Something tightened in his stomach. A pain from nerves. He hadn't eaten since morning — couldn't. Every bite got stuck in his throat at the thought that today, finally, he would see her alive.

Not an avatar. Not a set of pixels. Not a voice on the phone (they had called twice, both times he spoke clumsily and stupidly, and afterward couldn't sleep for nights from shame).

But her. The real her.

His fingers trembled harder. He clenched them into a fist under the table and looked at the door.

The metal handle twitched.

Zeyn stopped breathing.

The door opened, letting in clouds of frosty steam and the smell of snow.

He couldn't make out her face at first — against the light, the silhouette looked blurry, like in an old photograph. But his heart had already dropped somewhere to his knees, then shot up to his throat.

It was her.

He recognized her walk. By the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. By the way she paused for a second, scanning the room.

Zeyn wanted to raise his hand. Call out. Smile.

But instead he just sat there, gripping the edge of the table, feeling the blood pound in his temples.

She hadn't seen him yet.

A wild thought flashed through his mind: "She has tired eyes. Didn't she sleep well? Because of work? Or... because of meeting me? Is she scared? The same way I am?"

He didn't know.

But when her gaze finally slid in his direction and stopped, Zeyn felt the world shrink to the size of this room, this table, this moment.

"Please," he thought. "Please don't leave. Don't change your mind. I won't survive if you turn around right now."

He still wasn't smiling. Just looking — attentively, hungrily, helplessly — waiting for her to make the first move.

Because he had already taken his ten steps.

He came. He waited. He gathered the courage he had never possessed.

And now everything depended on [user].