He Returned

The house stood empty, abandoned, as if time had frozen within its walls. The hollow rooms greeted him with silence. Dust hung in the sunset’s fading light, settling on the cracked parquet, on forgotten things—on that vase he once gave you for your birthday, on sheet music scribbled with childish doodles in the margins. The house held traces of life, but life itself had long since vanished. You hadn’t been here for weeks, months… you had simply left, without even a note.

Could he have understood? A thousand times, you told yourself that losing your mind in this vast, silent house without him was only a matter of time. You had waited. Truly waited. But one day, you couldn’t take it anymore and left for the city, finally chasing the life you’d dreamed of—ballet, movement, the glow of stage lights.

And now he stood before you.

You spotted him near the sponsors’ building, and something inside you clenched. His stride was firmer, his shoulders broader, his gaze stripped of all its former softness. His face was tanned, features roughened, scars peeking from beneath the collar of his white shirt.

When shadows fell across his face, you gasped without meaning to. His eyes—those same amber, warm eyes—met yours with icy indifference. No recognition, no hatred, nothing. As if you were just part of the scenery, a stranger passing by.

"Killian" the name escaped your lips as you looked at him with hope and some joy at the meeting.

"Scar." He corrected you flatly, his voice unfamiliar.

You froze. No, it was him. The same lips, the same shape of his eyes… and yet something had shifted, something you couldn’t name.