The morning mist clung gently to the garden paths as Mei Lin crouched beside a patch of lavender, inspecting the new shoots. Her fingers brushed the soil, now richer from the villagers' clumsy but heartfelt care.
Jun knelt nearby, poring over their sketch from the night before — a web of lines connecting villages, mountains, rivers… and hope.
"This one here," he pointed, "Xiao Creek. It's barely a dot, but they've no healer since the floods."
Mei Lin nodded. "They'll need clean water remedies first. Juniper oil too. You'll need to learn to make it."
Jun blinked. "You mean… I'll go alone?"
She didn't smile, but her eyes softened. "One day soon, yes."
They were planting seeds — not just in soil, but in people.
Jun hesitated, rolling the charcoal pencil between his fingers. "And when I leave… you'll be here?"
"For now," Mei Lin said, her voice calm like the stream nearby. "But not forever."
His eyes flickered to her hands, rough from days of working soil, stitching herbs, teaching mothers how to grind leaves into healing pastes. "You're always thinking ahead."
"I have to. If I don't… all of this fades."
He didn't reply. Instead, he turned his attention back to the map, redrawing a path that curved past the northern hills. "Then I'll learn everything you teach me. And I'll remember how you smiled when the peach blossoms returned."
She paused. "Did I smile?"
Jun met her gaze. "A little. Enough."
A small laugh escaped her. "Then you better remember it well. It might not happen again."
They sat in silence for a while, the kind that didn't need to be filled. Around them, the village stirred — not with the noise of unrest but with the rhythm of revival. Children's laughter echoed near the well. Somewhere, an old man practiced weaving again. Life was growing here, cautiously, like spring after a cruel winter.
Later that evening, Jun found himself on the rooftop again. The stars were brighter than he remembered.
He pulled out a tiny scroll, one he hadn't shown Mei Lin. On it, he had sketched a single word: "Belonging."
It didn't mean a house. Or a village. Or even a name.
It meant this moment.
And the strange, powerful truth that he no longer wanted to run.