toward him. Aarav straightened, briefly glancing behind him, assuming she must be meeting someone else. But she stopped directly in front of him. "Hi," she said. Aarav blinked, caught off guard. "Hi." She pointed to his camera. "Photographer?" "Yes," he replied. "I guessed correctly," she said, her smile deepening. Aarav found himself echoing her expression. "How?" "You've been observing everyone for the last ten minutes," she noted. He laughed, a genuine sound that surprised him. "Was it that obvious?" "Very." Without invitation or hesitation, she sat down beside him, moving with a fluid confidence that suggested a lifelong familiarity. "My name is Meera," she said. "Aarav." "Nice to meet you, Aarav." There was an inexplicable warmth about her—a magnetic pull that dissolved the typical barriers strangers place between one another. Within minutes, the silence of the platform was filled with a seamless conversation. They jumped from books to movies, from the technicalities of photography to the philosophical nuances of the rain. Time lost its rigid structure; it simply melted away. Aarav found himself laughing more than he had in months. Every story Meera told seemed to orbit around a hidden core of optimism, and every answer she gave left him