Back in Chennai, the monsoon had painted the skies a softer shade of grey. The roads shimmered with puddles and the air smelt of earth, jasmine, and something unspoken — something waiting.
Saravanan hadn't expected to see her again. Not like this.
Not at a noisy orphanage fundraiser in T. Nagar, with balloons tied to the gates and children giggling between face-paint stations.
But there she was Anjali.
Wearing a simple kurta, holding a clipboard, and laughing as she tried to stop a toddler from crawling into the food counter.
She hadn't changed. Or maybe she had — she looked lighter, freer, as though the chaos of the world only made her steadier.
She saw him too.
Their eyes met like a memory finally remembered.
She blinked, then grinned. "You again?"
Saravanan, never good with wit, chuckled. "I wasn't stalking you. I swear."
"Good," she teased. "Because that would've been awkward. Especially since I'm in charge of security today."
That was the beginning — or maybe the continuation — of something long overdue.
They started talking again. Short texts became long calls. Coffee turned into train rides to visit old diary places. She wanted to know everything: his father's diary, the regrets, the strangers who turned into guides.
And he told her — everything. Even the parts he hadn't told Thamizharasan. Even the parts he barely admitted to himself.
"I'm afraid," he said once.
"Of what?"she asked, brushing hair from her face.
"Of becoming too much like him. Or worse — not enough."
She didn't comfort him with cliches. She simply said:
"You're doing what most people don't. You're healing the past. That's enough. More than enough."
They fell in love slowly — not in fireworks, but in flickers. Like the first sunbeam on the Bay of Bengal. Like morning light over old photographs. Like a hand that fits without trying. It was love that didn't demand.
It simply arrived — and stayed.
A year later, under the same banyan tree where Saravanan once sat with his father's diary, they were married in a simple ceremony. Close friends. Handwritten vows. Thamizharasan crying more than the bride.
And when their son was born, with a quiet smile and eyes like Subramaniyan's, they named him Santhosh — joy.
Because that's what the journey had become. Not just the search for answers. Not just the honoring of memory.
But the arrival of joy after years of unfinished songs.
Somewhere in Royapuram, the air had changed.
A new chapter had begun.