Evening folded itself over the port like a tired blanket — slowly, without ceremony.
Lights came up on fishing boats.Diesel fumes thickened.Voices softened, slipping from the sharp urgency of day into the looser rhythms of night chatter.
But Kannan did none of those things.
He stayed.
He chose a cracked cement bench near the tea stall at the edge of the dock — close enough to see movement, far enough not to corner anyone.
He placed the umbrella beside him, not opened, just there — like a memory that had learned how to breathe.
He kept Akshay's sketchbook in his lap.
And he waited.
Not like a searcher.
Like someone learning how to arrive.
Arun sat nearby, silent companionship.Sara hovered with warm eyes and a watchful calm.Nish paced sometimes, sat sometimes, wrote sometimes.Ravi leaned against a wall, eyes scanning the walking tides of workers without pressing the water to part.Jeevan stood a little away, because some men know how to guard a moment without stepping into it.
They did not turn the port into a hunt.
They let it remain a place.
And slowly, the night accepted them.
Around the second hour, the tea stall owner noticed.
"You're not leaving?" he asked.
"No," Kannan said simply.
The man studied him.
"Running boys do not stop because someone chases them," he said. "They stop because someone stays."
Kannan bowed his head slightly.
"That's what I'm learning."
The man made tea.
Set a cup down beside him.
"Then learn slowly," he said. "Night is long."
The third hour tasted heavier.
Fatigue crept into muscles.Doubts began whispering.
What if he left town?What if that glimpse was the closest they'd ever come?What if running was the only language he remembered?
Kannan breathed.
In.
Out.
Arun watched his chest rise and fall.
"You're doing something harder than climbing mountains," he said quietly. "You're not acting."
Kannan nodded.
"Because every time I acted before," he said, voice low, "I was too late."
The fourth hour came with small mercies.
A breeze.
The sea softening its roar.
Sara beside him now, warm presence, steady anchor.
She spoke without looking at him.
"Every child who loses trust," she said softly, "needs to see consistency before they risk hope."
Kannan swallowed.
"I can do that," he whispered. "For as long as it takes."
Ravi murmured from the shadows,
"Hope is heavy when you've carried it alone for years. He needs to see you can hold some of its weight."
Somewhere between night and morning, it happened.
Not a dramatic entrance.
Just…
a presence.
A figure leaned against a stack of crates in the dim edge of light.
Barely visible.
Completely watching.
Arun noticed first.
"Don't turn," he murmured. "He's here."
Kannan's lungs tightened.
He didn't move.
Didn't rush.
Didn't look.
He simply opened the sketchbook.
Not to perform.
To remember.
He flipped to a page where a child's hand had once drawn a train.
Then another — a small house.
Then another — a hand in charcoal reaching toward something unfinished.
He smiled.
Not for the air.
For the boy who wasn't a boy anymore.
Then, slowly, he spoke.
Not loudly.
Not calling.
Just speaking aloud, like someone confessing to the night.
"I'm not here to take anything from you," he said. "Not your name. Not your life. Not your choices."
The figure didn't move.
The tide rolled.
"I'm not here to ask you to come back," Kannan continued. "You walked too far, too bravely, for me to ask that."
Silence. A long, alert silence.
"There are things I want to say," he whispered. "But if you never want to hear them, I will still sit. I will still be grateful you're breathing somewhere in this world."
The figure shifted slightly.
Just an inch.
Arun held absolutely still.
Sara's eyes filled.
Jeevan's jaw tightened.
"You don't owe me recognition," Kannan said. "I owe you recognition."
His voice trembled — but he didn't break.
"I owe you the truth that I wasn't there when being there mattered. And that you learned to survive without me. And that survival changed you."
The air between bench and shadow warmed — painfully, gently.
"If you don't want to talk to me," Kannan said softly, "sit if you want. Or leave if you must. I will still be here tomorrow. And the day after."
He closed the sketchbook slowly.
"Because for the first time in my life as your father," he whispered,"I'm not leaving."
A few seconds passed.
Then a sound.
Not footsteps approaching.
Not footsteps fleeing.
Just…
a shift.
Like someone easing into sitting.
Barely visible.
Almost invisible.
But there.
On the far end of the same bench, without touching, without claiming, without surrendering,
someone sat.
Not close enough to share warmth.
Just close enough to share air.
Arun closed his eyes.
Sara covered her mouth.
Ravi exhaled a prayer.
Jeevan looked away — because some reunions must be given privacy even when they do not look like reunions.
Kannan didn't turn.
Didn't reach.
Didn't test the fragile thread of presence.
He simply let his breathing steady.
Let silence hold what words would break.
The sea breathed with them.
Two currents.Finally near.Not yet meeting.
But not running anymore.