In this moment, Sabir sits by the lake at sunset—caught between memory and presence, fear and wonder. The past unrolls. And something begins

The sky slips into its evening colors, and a memory comes with it. He lets it in.
The familiarity of the moment overwhelms him—a pastel in hand, colors smeared on young fingers. The urgency to capture the light before it disappeared.
The teenage boy with eyes like his own, seeing beauty as if it would be the last time. He thought he had let that boy go, let the sunset become just another part of the day.
But the memory waits, patient as the changing sky.

It arrives with the shifting hues.
He sees his younger self, back hunched in concentration. Dusty pinks and fiery oranges bloom under his fingertips. The sketchbook holds what he cannot yet say.

The boy sits on a bench, alone but not lonely, watching the light change and trying to make it last. The sun leans low, casting long strokes of amber across the lake. Lavender spills into coral, gold into crimson.

At school, he pulled his sketchbook from his bag, revisiting the painting.
A shadow loomed. The art teacher.
“This isn’t how light works. And the sky isn’t purple,” the teacher said.
“It’s too messy. Too emotional. If you want people to understand your work, paint what’s real.”

Sabir said nothing. He closed the book. The colors stained his palms.

He would try again—but simpler, safer. Still, he kept the sketchbook. The one with the purple sky. Tucked under his bed like a secret he never stopped loving.

The memory floods him, the past unrolling like paper.
Now it is here—patient as the sky. Patient as Nura, sitting beside him.

His attention shifts. From memory to moment. From what was to what is.

The sun reaches that perfect angle where everything it touches turns to gold. Light bends, lingers—and something catches in his chest.

He looks at her then. Truly looks—
The light traces her skin with reverence. It threads through her hair, catches on her cheekbones, rests gently on her lips.
The lake reflects her in shimmer, holding her image as if it, too, had waited to see her.

“She doesn’t know what’s buried in you,” Mermer says. “Let her keep the light.”

But Sabir doesn’t move. He stays.

***

She is like the sunset—more than he knows how to understand. Something unfurls inside him, a recognition that feels both ancient and new.

“Maybe this sunset doesn’t have to be a solitary thing. Maybe this moment—like the one he lived for when he was younger—doesn’t belong only to him. There’s space now, where there wasn’t before.”

For the first time, he isn’t looking at the sky. He’s looking at her.

A line of poetry surfaces:
The sunlight dances in her eyes,
A melody where love resides.
Every glance, a story unfolds,
A world within where warmth takes hold.

Nura turns slightly, her voice soft.
“Aren’t you going to watch the sunset?”

Sabir’s heart speaks first.
“I see something far more beautiful.”

The words land. And stay.

Nura doesn’t answer right away. But when dusk folds into deeper shades, she smiles.

It isn’t a bright smile. It doesn’t ask for anything.
It simply is—like something that was always meant to arrive.

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