The town announced itself before it appeared.
The sound of engines, metal shutters rising, vendors calling out prices, buses exhaling dust and heat — all of it reached them before the buildings did. The river widened here, slowed by stone embankments and human use. Where water met road, people gathered.
This was not a place of waiting.
It was a place of passing through.
Kannan felt it immediately. Something about the way the air moved — restless, transactional, alive — told him that if Akshay had reached this far, he would have changed here.
"This is where he stopped being followed by mountains," Arun said quietly. "And started being surrounded by people."
They entered the town on foot.
Small lodges with peeling signs.Tea stalls crowded with drivers.Repair shops spilling grease and noise onto the street.A bus stand that never truly slept.
Lives intersected briefly here — then vanished.
They started with the tea stalls.
It was Nish's instinct. Places where stories linger between sips.
At the third stall, a woman with henna-darkened hands listened to their question and frowned in concentration.
"A quiet boy?" she repeated. "Yes… maybe."
Kannan didn't interrupt. He had learned this now — let memory arrive on its own.
"He worked here," she continued, pointing across the road. "Helped unload sacks. Drew when he thought no one was looking."
Arun's chest tightened.
"Did he give a name?" Sara asked gently.
The woman shook her head.
"No. He said names slow you down."
Kannan closed his eyes.
You learned too much, too fast, he thought.
The woman smiled faintly.
"But people called him Nadi."
Ravi tilted his head. "River?"
She nodded. "He said the river taught him where to go."
Kannan felt the word settle inside him — not replacing Akshay, but resting beside it.
Nadi.
They followed the thread.
A mechanic who remembered a boy who swept floors and sketched engines.A lodge owner who recalled a teenager who paid in coins and left before dawn.A fruit seller who said he once traded a drawing for food.
Each memory added shape.
"He never stayed long," one man said."He watched people, learned fast.""He left when anyone got too curious."
By late afternoon, the pieces aligned.
"He worked near the bus stand," Ravi said. "Longer than anywhere else."
The bus stand was chaos distilled — arrivals and departures layered over each other, engines idling, conductors shouting destinations like spells.
They stood at the edge of it, suddenly unsure.
If Akshay had become Nadi here, then finding him would mean stepping into a life he had built by staying unseen.
Sara sensed Kannan's hesitation.
"You don't have to claim him," she said softly. "Just see him."
Kannan nodded. "I just want to know he lived."
They found the man near the repair shed.
Middle-aged. Sun-darkened skin. A limp in his right leg. He watched buses the way sailors watch tides.
Jeevan approached him first.
"Do you remember a boy called Nadi?" he asked.
The man's eyes sharpened instantly.
"Why?" he asked.
Kannan stepped forward before anyone could stop him.
"Because I am his father."
The word hung between them — heavy, dangerous.
The man studied Kannan for a long moment.
Then he exhaled.
"He never said that word," he said quietly. "Not once."
Kannan nodded. "I know."
The man leaned back against the shed.
"He came here thin as a reed," he continued. "Could barely lift sacks. But he learned. Watched everything."
Arun asked, "How old was he?"
"Old enough to lie about it," the man replied.
Sara felt her throat tighten.
"He stayed almost a year," the man said. "Longest he ever stayed anywhere."
Kannan's heart thudded.
"Why did he leave?"
The man's gaze drifted to the buses.
"He said the river ended here," he said. "And he didn't want to end."
Kannan swallowed.
"Did he say where he was going?"
The man nodded slowly.
"Yes."
Everyone leaned in.
"He said he was going south," the man said. "Toward the sea. Said maybe there, people don't ask so many questions."
Kannan felt something break and heal at the same time.
South.
Homeward, without knowing it.
Arun whispered, "Did he go alone?"
The man shook his head.
"No. He left with a group heading to work sites. Construction. Ports. Long journeys."
Nish exhaled. "That spreads the trail."
"But," the man added, "there is one more thing."
He reached into a rusted locker and pulled out a folded paper.
"I kept this," he said. "Didn't know why."
He handed it to Kannan.
Kannan opened it slowly.
A drawing.
Not of trains.Not of mountains.
Of the sea.
A vast, open line meeting the sky.
And in the corner, small and deliberate, a circle — incomplete.
Below it, in careful handwriting:
If I reach the water that doesn't return,maybe Appa will be on the other side.
Kannan's breath shuddered.
"He was coming back," Sara whispered.
"Not back," Arun said softly. "Forward. Toward where he began."
Kannan folded the drawing carefully.
"Thank you," he said to the man. "For seeing him."
The man nodded. "He deserved to be seen."
That night, they stayed near the bus stand.
The noise never fully stopped.
Kannan lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
Akshay had become Nadi.A boy without a name, then a young man with many.
He had walked away from the mountains, followed the river, learned the language of leaving.
And now — he had gone south.
Toward the sea.
Toward Kerala.
Toward a place where monsoon clouds gather and break, again and again.
Kannan closed his eyes.
"I'm not chasing you anymore," he whispered into the dark."I'm just walking the same direction."
Outside, a bus engine roared to life.
Another departure.
Another chance.