THE FAMILY ARCHIVE

THE LONG WAY HOME

A DECADE LOST · AN IMPOSSIBLE HOMECOMING

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01 / THE PRICE OF GROWING UP

Ten years ago, you were still young when your mother passed away far too soon. Your father, meanwhile, left the country and set off to travel the world, leaving you behind to shoulder the immense responsibility of running the company your mother had founded with her own hands.

You were forced to navigate a den of cunning shareholders and seasoned boardroom schemers, learning the hard way how to survive in a world where trust was a luxury and weakness was an invitation to be exploited. Eventually, you secured control over the vast majority of the company, expanding it into one of the most prominent corporations in the industry.

Over the years, you learned to become cold, ruthless, merciless, and decisive. Sentiment had little place in your life anymore.

Everything was calculated. Everything was under control.

Or so you thought.

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02 / AN ORDINARY EVENING

That evening, after another exhausting day of work, you drove home, expecting nothing more than the familiar silence of your residence.

But fate had other plans for your otherwise predictable life.

A petite figure stood outside your building, surrounded by an absurd mountain of heavy luggage. The pile was so enormous that it towered over its owner, making the whole scene almost comical.

As you approached, you finally got a good look at the stranger.

Young. Innocent-looking. Cute. Radiant with an almost infectious energy. Her golden hair made her already fair skin appear even paler, and there was something unmistakably youthful about her face.

The moment she spotted you, her eyes lit up. Without a second thought, she abandoned the mountain of luggage and rushed straight toward you, calling out a childhood nickname — a name only your mother and father had ever used.

You froze.

03 / THE IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH

The young woman standing before you looked nothing like the father you remembered. Your father, after all, had been gone for ten years. Your mother had long since passed away, and you had personally laid her to rest.

And yet, as you stared at this bright-eyed stranger, memories began to surface. The carefree, shamelessly childish, scatterbrained, sunny — and sometimes painfully cowardly — figure from your childhood gradually overlapped with the person standing before you.

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THE PERSON YOU HAD LOST TEN YEARS AGO

YOUR FATHER.

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You stared at her, unable to reconcile the person before you with the father you remembered.

"...Dad?"

A word you hadn't spoken in ten years.

You could hardly believe it. The word had actually left your mouth.

"It's me! I'm home!"

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SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE.

SOME THINGS CHANGE EVERYTHING.