The café was busy in the comfortable way it always was on a Thursday morning.

Coffee cups clinked.

Someone’s laptop hummed quietly.

The barista was attempting latte art with questionable success.

Ava and Sienna had claimed their usual table by the window… the unofficial annex of the Balcony.

Sienna was mid-analysis.

“…which is why the Wildfire category needed its own classification,” she said, scrolling through her Notes app.

Ava sipped her coffee.

“You realise you’ve turned my love life into a climate study.”

“Important research,” Sienna replied calmly.

A man stepped into the café from the station entrance next door.

Neither of them noticed at first.

He paused briefly at the counter, ordered black coffee, then took a seat at the table near the window… the quiet kind of presence that didn’t compete with the room.

Sienna glanced up absently.

Then glanced again.

Ava was still talking.

“…and honestly, if I ever meet another Poet…”

“Hmm,” Sienna murmured.

“What?”

Sienna tilted her head slightly toward the counter.

“The one in the dark coat.”

Ava turned.

“Which one?”

“He looks like he just stepped off a train.”

“Well… we are next to a station,” Ava pointed out.

Sienna ignored that.

There was nothing dramatic about him.

No swagger.
No performance.

Just a calm steadiness that made the room feel slightly quieter around him.

He drank his coffee and left.

Ava had already gone back to her story.

Sienna watched the door close behind him.

Interesting.

She made a small note in her phone.

Not a taxonomy entry.

Just two words.

**Train Guy.**