The Barcelona hostel smelled like sunscreen and possibility. Juno dragged her backpack across terracotta tiles still warm from yesterday's heat, her body aching from the overnight train and her mind fuzzy from too little sleep and too much wine-soaked introspection.
She'd left Paris feeling like she'd shed a skin—Carmen's departure still raw, Étienne's kiss already a fading watercolor. The train had carried her south toward something she couldn't name, past vineyards and mountain towns that blurred together in the dawn light.
Now Barcelona sprawled before her, all Gothic spires and Mediterranean swagger, and she felt the familiar flutter of possibility that came with new cities and blank journal pages.
The hostel's common room buzzed with backpacker energy—Australians planning beach days, Germans comparing guidebooks, a group of Americans loudly debating tapas recommendations. Juno approached the registration desk, fumbling for her confirmation email.
"Checking in?"
She spun toward the voice and nearly collided with a familiar leather satchel. Leo straightened from where he'd been crouched beside the luggage lockers, camera strap slung across his shoulder, that crooked smile already forming.
"You've got to be kidding me," Juno said.
"Well, if it isn't the romantic with commitment issues." Leo shut his locker with a metallic clang. "Didn't think Spain would come with a side of coincidence."
"Neither did I." She studied his face, looking for some sign this was planned. "Are you following me?"
"Barcelona's been drawing tourists since before either of us was born. Don't flatter yourself."
But something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe, or relief. Like he'd been bracing for solitude and found company instead.
Juno checked in with pointed efficiency, hyperaware of Leo lounging against the wall behind her, sketching something in his perpetual notebook. When she turned around, he was gone.
The Gothic Quarter swallowed them both an hour later.
Juno had joined the hostel's walking tour on impulse, desperate to escape the claustrophobic feeling of sharing space with someone who saw too much. But the tour guide had paired people off for some team-building exercise, and of course the universe had a sense of humor.
"Looks like we're stuck together," Leo said, consulting the scavenger hunt list. "Find three examples of Gothic architecture, taste one traditional Catalan food, and..." He squinted at the paper. "Take a photo that captures the 'soul of Barcelona.'"
"Sounds like a travel blogger's wet dream."
"Careful. Your cynicism is showing."
They moved through shadowed alleys where laundry hung like prayer flags between balconies, past stone churches that had weathered centuries of conquest and revolution. Leo pointed out architectural details with surprising knowledge, his sarcasm softening into something almost scholarly.
"See how the buttresses lean outward?" He gestured toward a cathedral facade. "They're carrying all that weight so the walls can reach toward heaven."
"Metaphor much?"
"Sometimes a buttress is just a buttress."
But when Juno stopped at a pastry stall and bit into something flaky and sweet that turned out to be filled with blood sausage, Leo's genuine laughter caught her off guard. It transformed his whole face, erasing the practiced aloofness she'd come to expect.
"Your expression," he said, still grinning. "Like you've been personally betrayed by Catalonia."
Juno swallowed the pastry with effort. "It's... an acquired taste."
"Everything good is."
Something in his tone made her look at him sideways, but his attention had already shifted to the crowd around them.
La Boqueria Market hit like a sensory assault. Colors blazed from every stall—pyramids of tropical fruit, towers of jamón, seafood still glistening with ocean salt. The air thick with competing scents of spice and smoke and sea.
Juno pulled out her phone to capture a display of peppers that looked like abstract art, when the world suddenly tilted.
A hand yanked her bag from her shoulder. She spun, disoriented, catching a glimpse of a teenage boy weaving through the crowd with her messenger bag clutched against his chest.
"Hey!" She lunged forward, but the crowd swallowed him.
Leo moved without thinking. One moment he was examining chorizo, the next he was sprinting between market stalls, his longer stride cutting through the maze of tourists and vendors. Juno followed, heart hammering, losing sight of both Leo and the thief in the press of bodies.
Five minutes that felt like hours. Then Leo reappeared, slightly winded, holding her bag like a trophy.
"Your tragic prose is safe," he said, breathing hard.
Juno stared at him. At her bag in his hands, at the flush in his cheeks, at the way he'd run after a stranger's problem without hesitation.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Seemed like the thing to do."
She bought him a mango smoothie from a nearby stall, and they found a bench in a pocket of relative quiet. Leo drank like he'd been running through desert instead of market aisles.
"Reluctant hero suits you," Juno said.
"Don't make it a thing." But he was trying not to smile.
"Too late. I'm making it a thing."
He looked at her then, really looked, and she felt that familiar flutter of exposure. Like he was cataloging something worth remembering.
They'd lost the tour group entirely, but neither mentioned it as they wandered deeper into the Gothic Quarter's maze. The afternoon heat pressed down like a blanket, turning the stone streets into rivers of light and shadow.
Leo taught her to say "cuore selvaggio" in Italian—wild heart—and laughed when she botched the pronunciation. A street musician played guitar nearby, something flamenco-influenced that made the air itself seem to dance.
Juno spun slowly in a patch of sunlight, arms outstretched, feeling ridiculous and free. When she opened her eyes, Leo was watching her with an expression she couldn't read.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just... you look different when you're not thinking so hard."
"I wasn't thinking at all."
"Exactly."
They found themselves in a narrow alley where the buildings leaned so close their balconies nearly touched. The shadows were deep and cool, a relief from the blazing streets.
"What do you do when it all stops feeling magical?" Juno asked suddenly.
Leo considered this, kicking at a loose cobblestone. "You find someone who reminds you why it ever did."
The words hung between them, heavier than they should have been. Juno felt her pulse quicken, but before she could respond, a group of tourists rounded the corner, cameras clicking, and the moment dissolved.
Barcelona Beach at sunset was a cliché that earned every postcard. The Mediterranean stretched endlessly blue, dotted with sailboats that looked like toys from their spot on the sand. The heat had softened into something golden and forgiving.
They'd ended up here without planning, drawn by the promise of cool air and the day's final light. Leo had bought beer from a beach vendor, and they sat barefoot in the sand, shoes discarded like shed armor.
"Tell me about Florence," Juno said.
Leo's expression shuttered slightly. "What about it?"
"You ran away from there. Why?"
"Maybe I ran toward something instead."
"Such as?"
"Still figuring that out."
But after another beer and the gentle insistence of waves against shore, he began to talk. About family expectations and artistic ambitions. About a father who built houses and couldn't understand why anyone would want to capture them instead. About feeling suffocated by the weight of history in every street corner.
"Everyone thinks living in Florence would be paradise," he said. "All that Renaissance beauty, all that culture. But try being ordinary in a city that's been extraordinary for five hundred years."
Juno understood the feeling. "Chicago did that to me too. Made me feel small."
"So you ran."
"So I ran."
When she reached for her beer, her fingers brushed his hand. The contact lasted a second too long before both pulled away, neither acknowledging the spark that passed between them.
Leo picked up a stick and began sketching in the sand—quick, sure strokes that gradually became recognizable as Juno's profile, her scarf caught by ocean wind.
She watched without speaking, mesmerized by the economy of his movements. This wasn't the practiced performance she'd witnessed with Étienne, all poetry and poses. This was something rawer, more immediate.
"Why do you draw people?" she asked.
"Because they tell better stories than landscapes."
"What story am I telling?"
Leo's hand stilled. He looked at her, then at the sketch already being erased by the incoming tide.
"That you're braver than you think you are."
The sun touched the horizon, turning the sky into something painted with fire. Around them, other travelers gathered in clusters, sharing wine and laughter and the particular intimacy that came with watching day become night in a foreign place.
But Juno felt separate from all of it, aware only of Leo beside her and the way the fading light caught in his dark hair. Aware of how he'd chased a thief for her journal, taught her words in his mother tongue, listened to her rambling thoughts about magic and meaning.
"I'm glad you're here," she said quietly.
"In Barcelona?"
"Here. With me."
Leo turned to look at her fully, and she saw something shift in his expression. A wall lowering, perhaps, or a door opening. But before either could speak, a beach ball bounced between them, followed by apologetic teenagers, and the moment scattered like sand in wind.
Back at the hostel, the common room hummed with evening energy. Juno claimed a corner table and opened her journal, trying to make sense of the day's unexpected turns.
Day four. Barcelona is chaos, sweat, and stolen breath. And somehow, I feel steadier here than anywhere.
L. chased a pickpocket for my journal today. Didn't hesitate, didn't think, just ran. There's something magnetic about someone who acts before doubt can interfere.
Question: When did I start noticing the way his hands move when he talks? When did his smile stop being just an expression and become an event?
Answer: I'm in trouble.
She looked up to find Leo across the room, arguing with someone in rapid Italian over a card game. His hands gestured expressively, his face animated in a way she'd never seen before. She wondered what stories those hands would tell if she were brave enough to ask.
Later, lying in adjacent bunks in the dimly lit dorm room, she listened to the sounds of the city filtering through thin windows. Somewhere in the distance, music played—guitar and voices raised in harmony.
"Don't tell anyone I chased a thief for you," Leo's voice came soft through the darkness.
Juno smiled into her pillow. "It'll be our secret."
Silence stretched between them, comfortable and charged. She could hear his breathing, steady and close, and felt the weight of all the words they weren't saying.
It wasn't a plan. It wasn't poetry. But maybe it was the beginning of something real.
Outside, Barcelona pulsed with late-night energy—lovers on balconies, friends sharing secrets over wine, travelers writing postcards to people who might never understand what it felt like to fall asleep in a foreign city with your heart beating just slightly too fast.
Juno closed her eyes and let the city's rhythm carry her toward dreams filled with Gothic shadows and sea-salt air, and the surprising comfort of finding someone who ran toward trouble instead of away from it.