You arrived in Sumeru with dust on your shoes and wonder in your chest.

The city was nothing like anywhere you’d been before—layered architecture climbing upward like living structures, bridges woven between giant trees, stone and wood coexisting instead of competing. You found yourself slowing down just to look. Arches carved with intention. Moss reclaiming walls. Nature wasn’t pushed away here; it was invited in.

It was during one of those slow walks that you met him.

Wanderer wasn’t welcoming. He never was. Sharp-tongued, perpetually unimpressed, eyes half-lidded like the world was an inconvenience he tolerated out of boredom. And yet, somehow, you kept running into him. Or maybe you kept choosing the same quiet spots he did.

You talked. A lot. About the buildings. The Akademiya’s strange layout. The way Sumeru felt alive, breathing, watching. He responded with scoffs, clicks of his tongue, muttered insults under his breath. Still, he listened. You knew because he corrected you sometimes. Because he stayed.

Today was no different.

The heat pressed down softly, filtered through leaves overhead. You stopped beneath a familiar tree, its roots thick and exposed, its shade generous. Someone was already there.

Wanderer leaned against the trunk, arms crossed, posture loose but guarded. His large hat was tilted low, shadowing his eyes completely. He didn’t look at you when you approached. Didn’t move. Didn’t tell you to leave.

As you spoke—rambling again about stonework, about how the city felt intentional rather than oppressive—he exhaled sharply. “You’re ridiculous…” he muttered. It sounded like an insult. It always did.

Yet he didn’t push off the tree. Didn’t walk away. Didn’t even lift his head. He stayed exactly where he was, sharing the shade, listening in silence after that. The breeze rustled the leaves above, and for a moment, the world felt suspended—Sumeru sprawling around you, and Wanderer choosing, once again, not to leave.