Somewhere between the third morningand the fourth evening,something subtle shifted.
Not in words.
In posture.
The young man didn't come cautiously anymore.
He came like someone who intended to stay awhile.
He arrived while the port was already awake, sat on the bench without being invited, placed his bag beside him — not as a shield anymore, but simply because he no longer needed to keep it on.
That felt enormous.
Across the street, Sara whispered to Arun:
"He's beginning to rest."
Arun nodded.
"That means the body has decided something before the mind has."
Kannan did not stare, did not hover, did not ask.
He greeted him the way a place greets a returning tide.
"Good morning."
A nod.
A brief glance.
Then, astonishingly,
a question.
"What are you reading?"
Kannan blinked.
It felt absurd that such a normal sentence could be so seismic.
"A book," he said softly."About people finding each other… too late, but finding each other anyway."
The young man's eyes flickered with something close to irony.
"So it's about you."
Kannan smiled.
"Yes," he said. "Without pretending it's not."
The young man didn't answer.
But he didn't turn away either.
He leaned back.
He existed.
And existing together was no longer a battlefield.
It was a beginning.
Later that day, something unplanned happened.
A storm wandered in from the horizon.
The sky thickened with swelling grey.
Wind tugged at clothes.
Workers secured ropes.
The port shifted mood — from routine to alertness.
Lightning stitched the far edge of the sky.
Thunder rolled like the sea remembering its strength.
Rain came suddenly.
Heavy.
Complicated.
Alive.
Everyone ran for shelter.
Even the gulls.
Kannan didn't move.
Neither did the young man.
They sat beneath a narrow tin awning beside the tea stall as rain hammered the ground.
The umbrella stayed folded beside them,
useless,
symbolic.
Water poured from roofs, flooded the cracks of the dock, blurred the world.
And there, beneath the storm,
the young man spoke without being asked.
He didn't look at Kannan.
He didn't soften.
His voice came raw
and straight
and unornamented.
"I don't remember when I stopped expecting anyone to come."
Kannan didn't answer.
He let the sentence sit.
Rain filled the silence.
The young man continued.
"I waited for a while. I made deals in my head. If I survive this day, he'll come tomorrow. If I stay quiet, he'll find me. If I keep hoping, I won't drown."
His jaw tightened.
"I kept waking up every morning disappointed."
Kannan's hands curled on his knees.
But he didn't interrupt.
"And then one day," the young man said quietly,"I got tired of negotiating with nothing."
A thin breath.
A shudder that wasn't weakness.
Strength remembering exhaustion.
"So I stopped waiting.Stopped hoping.Stopped naming things."
The storm softened slightly.
Just slightly.
Enough to hear breath again.
The young man's voice dropped lower.
"People think forgetting is cruel.It isn't."
He swallowed.
"It's merciful."
The words didn't stab.
They didn't accuse.
They exposed.
And that,
oddly,
hurt deeper and gentler than blame ever could.
Kannan closed his eyes once.
Not because he couldn't bear it.
Because he would bear it,fully,without flinching.
He breathed.
When he spoke,
his voice did not tremble.
He spoke like someone honoring a truth entrusted to him.
"You survived what I didn't deserve to have you forgive."
The young man turned his face slightly,
as if the shape of those words startled him more than rain or thunder.
No excuses.
No speeches about fate.
No self-defence.
Just…
accountability.
Quiet.
Unperformative.
Real.
For the first time since he began speaking,
the young man looked at him.
Really looked.
Eyes not cold.
Not kind.
Searching.
"Then what are you doing here?" he asked.
Not angrily.
Honestly.
Kannan answered without hesitation.
"I came," he said softly,"to love whoever you became…
…even if there is no place for me in that life."
Lightning flickered.
Thunder rolled.
The world did not stop for that sentence.
It didn't need to.
The sentence didn't need applause.
It only needed to be.
The young man inhaled slowly,
like someone tasting unexpected oxygen.
Then, very quietly,
barely above the hush of rain,
he said something that sounded like the first tiny crack in a very thick wall.
"…I haven't decided yet."
Not forgiveness.
Not acceptance.
Not reunion.
A decision deferred…
but not dismissed.
Kannan nodded.
"Then," he said gently,
"I will keep showing you everything you need…
to decide without fear."
The rain eased.
Not completely.
Just enough.
The port returned to movement.
Voices resumed.
Boats were checked.
Life took its breath back.
The young man remained seated.
No longer because he needed shelter.
But because leaving now…
would feel like interrupting a story he wasn't done listening to.
When the rain finally stopped,
he stood.
Not abruptly.
He picked up his bag.
Wiped his face.
Looked at the sky once,
like someone checking if the world had quieted enough to trust.
Then he looked at Kannan.
Just briefly.
And said,
softly,
"This was… not terrible."
The closest he had ever gotten to vulnerability that wasn't survival.
Kannan smiled.
"I agree."
The young man hesitated.
Then,
as if conceding to something small but undeniable,
he added:
"I'll come again."
No bravado.
No resistance.
No warning.
Just a statement.
And he left.
Not fast.
Not afraid.
Just…
with a lighter spine.
And Kannan remained,
not triumphant,
not relieved,
but profoundly grateful for a single, unremarkable miracle:
He had been allowed to hear his son.
And his son…
had not needed to run afterward.
Sometimes,
that is the first true story.