The sky over Velunia looked like it had been painted with crushed rose petals and honeyed light. It was that strange hour between day and night—when the city's sounds softened, and everything felt a little more like a memory than a moment.
Aanya sat cross-legged on her tiny balcony, her sketchpad resting on her knees, untouched. Her black wavy hair framed her face as the breeze played with the loose strands. She wasn't drawing today. Not really. Just staring—at the pastel sky, the hum of distant cicadas, and the flicker of balcony lights that blinked on, one by one, across the Starshade Residency.
It was peaceful, predictable. Just the way she liked it.
Until she heard it.
CLANK. CRASH. LAUGHING.
Aanya frowned.
The apartment across from hers, which had been empty for months, was now… alive.
She leaned slightly forward and saw him. A boy—no, a guy—dragging a guitar case and a suitcase into the balcony, knocking over a potted plant in the process.
"Oops. Sorry, plant," he said, crouching down with a sheepish grin and brushing off the soil like it was a friend he'd hurt.
Aanya blinked. Who talks to a plant?
He stood up, looked around, and then—looked straight at her.
She panicked. Looked down. Pretended to scribble something important.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him raise a hand and wave.
She didn't wave back.
Later that night, as Velunia's sky turned indigo and the wind cooled, Aanya sat with a cup of warm lavender tea, staring at the blank page in front of her.
She had no idea what to draw.
But she kept seeing that messy boy with the loud laugh and kind eyes. The way he waved like he knew her. The way he talked to plants.
Her hand moved on its own.
A sketch began to form—a boy on a balcony, waving through the wind, smiling like he knew something you didn't.
She paused. Closed the book. And told herself it was nothing.
After all, he was just a neighbor. And he'd probably be gone soon.
But across the way, in the same moment, Ruhan looked up from his messy suitcase, spotted a light still glowing on Aanya's balcony, and smiled.
"Velunia feels good already," he whispered to himself.