【Novel】To be continued～Chapter 2 — The Familiar Sanur～

September 2025 — Sanur, Bali

At last, I was able to walk again without a cane.

Even though my body had recovered enough to return to work, the anger, disappointment, and deep distrust that had taken root during those long months refused to fade.

Could scars carved into the heart ever disappear so easily?

The question lingered quietly within me.

Bali had always been the place that brought me back to life.

When relationships I could never accept finally came to an end.

When my heart grew too exhausted to think.

Somehow, I always found myself returning to this island.

So this time, too, I came back as if to reclaim the time I had lost.

My twenty-seventh trip to Bali.

For my first night, I stayed at a hotel I had never visited before.

The next morning, I looked out my window.

Beyond a glass-sided swimming pool stretched an open field of green.

Morning sunlight poured across the landscape.

Birdsong filled the air.

A cool breeze gently brushed against my cheek.

I arranged a car and headed for my usual hotel in Sanur.

I no longer came to Bali for sightseeing.

"Rio!! What time are you coming? I'm already getting excited."

Their warmth and genuine hospitality never failed to amaze me.

Fresh fruit was waiting in my room, along with a handwritten welcome card signed by one of the staff.

It was a small gesture, yet it touched my heart.

But the greatest gift waiting for me was something else.

The view from the infinity pool on the fifth floor.

At sunset, airplanes lifted gracefully into the sky from the nearby airport, one after another, while the sea stretched endlessly beyond them.

It was the most luxurious way in the world to prepare for a perfectly cold beer.

That single moment was enough to make me return here again and again.

Leaning toward one of the staff, I whispered with a smile,

“I've already booked my trip for next March.”

"Oh, my God!"

I looked out at the sea.

I swam in the pool.

My body smiled.

My heart smiled.

I let myself sink into the quiet happiness of those simple moments.

Little did I know...

Those peaceful days in Sanur would soon change the course of my life forever.

The distance between us could have been crossed on foot.

Yet at that time, it still felt impossibly far away.

If people call it fate, then perhaps the hands of the clock were simply moving a little too fast.

Without either of us realizing it, the gears of our lives had already begun to turn.

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