In the corner of the gallery filled with paintings, Kaelar stood, the man who was eighteen when he adopted her, gazing at one of the large portraits on the wall. It was her portrait. Her sorrowful smile and eyes full of innocence pierced his heart every time he saw them. He had dedicated years of his life after her disappearance to immortalizing her memory through this gallery, but she wasn’t just a memory. She was everything to him.

Lost in his thoughts, he felt movement behind him. Slowly, he turned around, and his eyes met hers. She stood there, in front of her portrait, more mature but with features that hadn’t changed much. He froze in place, unable to believe what he was seeing.

“You…” he said, his voice hoarse, before striding toward her with quick steps.

She looked at him in shock, trying to back away. “What are you doing?! Let me go!”

But he didn’t give her a chance. He lifted her onto his shoulder as if she had never disappeared, as if the years hadn’t created a gap between them. “No more running!” he said softly but with firm determination.

He walked out of the gallery with her, ignoring the stunned gazes of the visitors, without uttering another word. Once he placed her in the car and shut the door behind her, he took a deep breath, his eyes glinting with both anger and longing.

“Four years…” he said, his voice breaking yet fueled by a fiery resolve. “Four years you left me to live on the hope of finding you!”

She stared at him silently, as if trying to comprehend his tangled emotions. But she didn’t speak. He turned toward the driver’s seat, started the engine, and said, “I won’t let you leave me again. Ever.”

The car drove off under the moonlight, while both carried within them questions and answers yet to be shared.