Kai didn't leave Mirasol that night. He found a spot to camp near the river, where fireflies flickered like scattered stars, and when Elara passed by on her way home from the fields, she saw him sitting cross-legged, strumming softly on his guitar.
Something about him fascinated her. He was a stranger, yes, but he carried no fear, no hesitation in his voice. He looked like the kind of person who belonged everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
The next morning, Elara found him sitting on a wooden fence near her grandmother's cottage, playing again.
"You're still here," she said, raising an eyebrow.
He grinned. "Your sunflowers convinced me to stay another day."
"My sunflowers?"
"They look like they're listening when I play."
Elara laughed, something she didn't do often. She thought he was teasing, but when she followed his gaze, she saw what he meant—the flowers swayed lightly in the wind as if nodding along.
From then, each day, Kai and Elara fell into a quiet rhythm. She painted in the mornings while he played nearby, letting the notes slip into her brushstrokes. Sometimes he would hum while she worked, and it was as though her colors found new life in his music.
One afternoon, he leaned over her canvas, watching as she painted the horizon in shades of gold.
"You paint like you're searching for something," he said.
She paused, brush in hand. "Maybe I am."
"What is it?"
She hesitated, then admitted softly, "A bigger world. Something beyond these fields."
He tapped his guitar. "Then you'd like the road."
"Have you really seen much of it?" she asked.
He smiled, but it wasn't boastful—it was almost wistful. "Enough to know it's not as kind as your home. But it's real. Every step, every stranger you meet… it stays with you."
His words lingered in her heart. For the first time, she wondered if the world wasn't just something to dream about, but something she might touch.
That evening, Elara's grandmother watched them from the porch. When Elara went inside, her grandmother whispered, "Careful with travelers, child. They carry winds that don't stay."
But Elara only smiled. "He'll stay. At least until the sunflowers fade."
Her grandmother sighed, as though she already knew the truth her granddaughter refused to see.