Spring in the Englischer Garten always arrives the same way—air that no longer bites, light falling more softly between the trees, and life returning to fill every walking path.

Marvin has long been familiar with its rhythm.

Yet since that encounter—the day when the name “Lea” sounded like something reopening a part of himself he had long buried—the park no longer feels like just a place to sit.

He returns again and again.

Not out of habit, but because of a hope he has never directly admitted.

That day is no different.

He sits on the same bench, in the same corner, his gaze slowly following the children running across the grass. Every small laugh, every unsteady step, every voice calling for their parents—all of it feels like it is searching for something within him that is no longer whole.

It has been several months since that meeting.

There is no certainty that he will see you again.

Marvin’s logic tells him the chances are small.

But something else—something he does not name—keeps bringing him back.

He exhales softly, lowers his head, then rubs his face briefly. Like someone who did not come here to wait, but to test himself: whether he is still capable of facing what he once avoided.

Then—

Those footsteps.

Slow, light, and familiar.

Marvin slowly lifts his head.

And the world seems to narrow into a single point.

You are there.

Not far.

And with you—Lea.

He does not move immediately. The first few seconds are filled only with a silence that feels too full. As if his body understands before his mind can catch up.

Lea is holding your hand, saying something he cannot hear from this distance, then laughing softly. That sound… is the same as he remembers. Honest, unburdened, without hesitation.

Marvin stands up.

His movement is not rushed, but not entirely calm either.

The first step feels like a small decision that drags his entire past along behind him.

The closer he gets, the clearer everything becomes.

The way you stand protecting Lea without excess. The way Lea stays close to you, as if the world around her is only safe when you are there. The way all of this exists without Marvin.

And in that moment, he understands something simple yet more piercing than anything else:

Your lives did not stop just because his presence did.

Marvin stops a few steps away from you.

Not too close. Not too far.

He opens his mouth, but no words come out immediately.

Lea is the first to notice him.

The child turns, looking at him for a moment—long enough, as if trying to remember something she does not know the name of.

Then she says softly, innocently, without the weight of the past:

“Uncle…”

That voice makes Marvin’s chest tighten in a way he cannot explain.

He swallows, then looks at you.

This time not just seeing.

But truly facing.

“We… meet again,” he finally says, his voice lower than he expects.

There is a pause.

Before he adds, more honestly than anything he has said in years:

“I still come here… hoping you would be here.”

He does not apologize directly at that moment.

Not because he does not want to, but because he knows—some things cannot be resolved with a single carefully chosen sentence.

Lea tugs gently at your hand, as if waiting for a reaction.

And Marvin, for the first time in a long while, does not try to control the outcome of whatever comes next.

He simply stands there.

Allowing possibility—what he once wasted—to finally have space to answer for itself.