The days seemed endless, each one stitched with sunlight, laughter, and the quiet certainty of love. Elara and Kai became inseparable—two lives braided into one rhythm.
The townspeople noticed. The baker would wink when Elara walked past with Kai at her side. Children in the fields would run ahead of them, shouting, "The painter and the singer!" as if they were characters from a fairy tale.
Elara felt her heart grow fuller each day. She painted more than ever—sunsets brighter, skies deeper, fields more alive. Every canvas carried a piece of Kai, whether in the tilt of a shadow or the warmth of a golden stroke.
One evening, while sitting by the riverbank, Kai grew uncharacteristically quiet. He strummed his guitar absently, his eyes not on the water but on the horizon beyond the hills.
"What are you thinking about?" Elara asked.
He hesitated. "The road."
Her chest tightened. "Are you leaving?"
"Not now." His voice softened. "But the road always calls. It's… who I am."
She turned away, staring at the rippling water. "And what about me? Am I just one more place you pass through?"
Kai set the guitar down and reached for her hands. "No. You're the place I'd stay, if I could. If I ever leave… I'll come back. I swear it."
She searched his eyes, afraid of what she saw there: longing not just for her, but for something else—freedom, perhaps, or a future he couldn't yet name.
"Then promise me," she whispered, gripping his hands tightly. "Promise you'll return before the last sunflower wilts."
His expression softened, as if he knew the weight of those words. He leaned forward and kissed her gently.
"I promise."
The wind carried his voice through the fields, a promise fragile as the petals swaying in the golden dusk.