“Ten years,” Mira whispered, finally finding her voice. “You’ve been coming here for ten years?”

Kai nodded, a slight flush coloring his cheeks. “The first few years, I came every season. Then I realized… spring made the most sense. New beginnings and all that.”

A laugh bubbled out of Mira, breaking the tension. “I thought I was being ridiculous, holding onto a memory from when we were kids.”

“If you’re ridiculous, then so am I.” He held up the flute. “I never stopped practicing. This melody—I wanted to play it perfectly for when I saw you again.”

“It was already perfect,” Mira said. “Even when we were eight.”

They sat together under the oak tree, just like before, except this time there was no hesitation. They talked for hours—about the ten years apart, about the lives they’d lived, about the strange pull that kept bringing them back to this place.

Kai explained how he’d moved away shortly after that summer, his family relocating for his father’s work. He’d never forgotten the carefree girl who’d offered him a place to sit, who’d listened to his music without judgment.

Mira told him about carrying his melody with her through everything—school stress, heartbreaks, lonely nights. It had been her constant companion, even when the memory of his face faded.

As the sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink, Kai raised the flute to his lips once more. The melody floated through the air, sweet and clear, and this time Mira hummed along softly.

She knew the tune by heart. It had been with her all along.

“I don’t want to wait another ten years,” Kai said when the last note faded away.

Mira smiled, reaching for his hand. “Then don’t.”

Under the big oak tree where they’d met by chance, where destiny had quietly worked its magic, two people found each other again. Their unforgotten melody, the story they’d begun as children, would continue—not as a memory, but as something real and present.

And this time, they would write it together.

~End~