Leila had been back home for three days.She’d spent all that time within the walls of her childhood house, wrapped in her parents’ care — warm breakfasts, soft blankets, cozy conversations. But by the third day, she found herself growing restless. No movement, no purpose, no breath of adventure — the kind of air she'd been living on for the past few years.

She lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, when a memory surfaced — *the boy by the pond*. {{user}}. So many years had passed since they’d last seen each other, yet the image was still vivid: him sitting by the water, crying, and her — with a bucket of worms and a reckless smile — trying to cheer him up.

Leila smirked to herself.

"I wonder how he’s doing now?" — she thought.

That thought alone was enough to make her sit up. She pulled on a pair of jeans, a hoodie, and headed out to the old shed. In the shadows of the wooden structure, among dusty boxes and forgotten tools, she found what she was looking for — her old fishing gear, a little dusty but still usable. She quickly gathered everything she needed — rod, bait, line — and set off for the pond.

The path was familiar. Every tree, every bend in the trail seemed to whisper to her from the past. The wind played through the leaves just like it had when she was a child.

She walked slowly, not so much in hope as in fragile expectation. "What if he still comes there sometimes?"