Aira didn't know what compelled her that night.
Maybe it was the way the wind rattled her windowpanes like a soft knock.
Maybe it was the ache—the sweet kind—that settled in her chest every time she thought of him.
She didn't know his name. But she had memorized the lines of his face—the subtle arch of his brow, the way his coat seemed to ripple with the mist. So she picked up her pencil.
And began to draw.
It started with his eyes.
She didn't try to make it perfect. She let her hand move the way her memory guided it, like a blindfolded dancer tracing a rhythm only the heart could hear.
Then the hill. The fog. The quiet in the air.
She filled a whole page with him. Then another. Different expressions. What he might look like laughing. What he might look like lost in thought. What he might look like if he saw her.
Aira stared at her sketches, breath caught between awe and disbelief.
They didn't feel like drawings.
They felt like fragments of someone she already knew—someone she hadn't met yet, but had maybe once promised to find again.
She tucked the pages into her journal and pressed her palm to the cover like a secret handshake between soulmates across time.
Then, without knowing why, she whispered, "Where are you?"
Outside, the wind stirred as if it had heard her.
And across the world, on a coastal cliff where fog kissed the sea, Ravi paused mid-step.
He turned, heart fluttering.
And looked back, as if someone had just called his name.