Chapter Text
Leon Kennedy only turned off the engine after sitting in complete silence for several long seconds. The only sounds were the rush of the wind moving through the tall sunflower stalks and the dull, steady pounding of waves crashing somewhere farther away against the rocky coastline. It was not the noise of the city he was used to. There were no horns, no sirens, no constant murmur of people. Just nature, breathing to its own rhythm.
Slowly, he got out of the car. The air hit him with a chill, carrying the scent of salt, wet stone, and warm earth all at once. It was fresh. So fresh that for a moment, he almost forgot to breathe in.
He raised his head. The guesthouse stood a few meters in front of him. It was neither large nor particularly impressive. The stone walls bore the marks of time, covered with ivy in places, while the dark roof contrasted with the light-colored shutters. The wooden beams supporting the small porch looked old but sturdy. Everything about the place gave the impression that it had weathered more than one storm.
Behind the building stretched fields of sunflowers. Not a few flower beds. An entire sea of golden blooms, gently swaying in the wind.
Farther still, the land sloped gently toward the cliff. From where Leon stood, he could not see the edge itself, but he could hear the ocean. Powerful. Relentless. As if reminding everyone that it existed independently of people.
Leon closed his eyes. He slowly drew in a breath. Then another. And a third. He could not remember the last time breathing had felt so… easy.
For the past few months, he had tried painting everywhere. In his apartment. In a rented studio. In parks. By the river. On rooftops. Nothing. Every canvas ended the same way. A few random brushstrokes. Frustration. A white surface. Discarded sketches. As if something inside him had simply gone out. And now…
He stood surrounded by a silence that was not empty. It was alive. He glanced at the trunk. He had not brought much. A small suitcase with clothes. A leather bag stuffed with sketchbooks. A wooden box filled with paints. Carefully wrapped canvases. A folding easel. It was enough. For months, his entire life had fit into those few things.
The guesthouse door opened with a quiet creak. A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped outside. His dark hair was cut short, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, as if he had just finished some kind of work. His expression was attentive but calm.
“Leon Kennedy?”
Leon nodded.
“That’s right.”
The man stepped closer.
“Chris Redfield.”
He shook his hand firmly, without overdoing it. A strong grip. Brief. Matter-of-fact. Exactly the kind Leon would have expected from a man who practically ran a family guesthouse with his own two hands.
“How was the drive?”
“A little long.”
Chris glanced at the car.
“But you made it here in one piece.”
Leon smiled faintly.
“That’s something.”
Chris answered with a brief smile. He was not overly talkative. Yet he seemed like the kind of person around whom there was no need to fill the silence with words. His gaze settled on the wooden box of paints.
“That everything?”
“Most of the space is taken up by the canvases.”
“So you really are planning to paint here.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good place for it.”
Chris looked somewhere behind the building.
“People come here to rest. Some write books. Someone once tried to record an album. We even had a bird photographer.”
He turned back to Leon.
“But we’ve never had a painter.”
Leon lifted one of the boxes.
“I hope I don’t ruin anything.”
“Hard to ruin silence.”
The words stirred a strangely warm feeling in Leon.
Chris helped him take out the easel.
“Come on. I’ll show you your room.”
They crossed the small porch. The boards creaked softly beneath their weight. Inside, the air was pleasantly cool. The stone walls retained the temperature, keeping the interior refreshingly cool despite the summer day.
The hallway smelled of wood. Not fresh varnish. Real wood. Old boards. A fireplace. Dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. Several simple paintings depicting the surrounding landscapes hung on the walls. They were not masterpieces, but there was an honesty to them.
Leon instinctively slowed down. He ran his hand over the stone wall. Cool. Rough. Real.
Chris noticed the gesture.
“Like it?”
“This place has character.”
“Good to hear.”
They made their way upstairs along the wooden staircase. Each step gave a quiet creak. Not an irritating one. Something more familiar. As if the building was reminding them of its age. There were only four rooms in the hallway.
Chris stopped at the last door.
“Here.”
He opened it.
Leon entered first. The room was simple. A wooden bed. A wardrobe. A desk positioned by the window. A small armchair. A few shelves. Nothing else. And that was exactly why he liked it immediately. There was nothing unnecessary.
Chris set the easel against the wall.
“Hope it’s enough.”
But Leon was barely listening anymore. He was staring at the window. He slowly approached it and pulled back the light curtain. Beyond the glass stretched an endless sea of sunflowers.
Dozens. Hundreds. Maybe thousands of golden flowers moving with the wind. The sun was slowly beginning to sink lower, bathing everything in warm light. Every petal seemed to glow. Every stalk cast a long shadow.
Leon rested his hand against the frame. For a moment, he said nothing. Chris stood beside him.
“Nice view.”
Leon nodded.
“You have no idea.”
“On a clear day, you can see the ocean from the field.”
“Really?”
“There’s a path leading to the cliff.”
Chris pointed in the direction.
“About a ten-minute walk. The guesthouse itself is a little farther from the edge. Safer during storms.”
Leon listened, but his gaze remained fixed outside the window. The wind swept through the sunflowers like an invisible wave. It was hypnotic.
Chris cleared his throat softly.
“If you need quiet, you came to the right place.”
“That’s exactly why I came here.”
“Has it been a long time since you painted anything?”
Leon was silent for a moment.
“It’s been a long time since I painted anything I was happy with.”
Chris accepted the answer without comment. He did not try to comfort him. He did not say that his inspiration would come back. He simply nodded.
“I understand.”
Leon looked at him, slightly surprised. Most people would have answered with, It’ll be okay.
Chris didn’t. He simply understood.
“Dinner is at seven.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need anything, let me know.”
He was about to leave when he stopped in the doorway.
“Oh.”
Leon turned his head.
“One piece of advice.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be surprised if you see someone walking through the fields in the evening.”
Leon frowned slightly.
“Someone?”
For a moment, Chris looked as though he was considering his answer.
“My sister.”
Leon simply nodded.
“She likes being alone.”
That was all. No explanation. No details.
Chris left. The door closed quietly.
Leon was alone. Silence immediately filled the room. Not awkward. Not heavy. Just peaceful. He set his suitcase beside the bed. Slowly, he took out his clothes and arranged them in the wardrobe. Then he unpacked the sketchbooks. The paints. The brushes.
He arranged every item with almost ritualistic precision. As if preparing for something important. He set the easel up by the window. He leaned a blank canvas against the wooden supports. For a moment, he stared at its whiteness. That very morning, it had seemed overwhelming.
Now… It did not frighten him. It felt more like a promise. He sat down in the chair. He looked out the window. The sunflowers were still swaying in the wind. Their movement was slow. Peaceful. Almost soothing.
Far in the distance came the low rumble of the ocean.
Leon closed his eyes. For the first time in a very, very long time, he did not feel as though he had to run somewhere. He felt no pressure. He did not feel that he had to create something immediately. He simply sat there. Breathed. Listened to the wind. And somewhere deep inside, a quiet, almost shy feeling began to take shape.
Maybe this was where he would find something that had remained beyond his reach for months.
Not a painting. Not an idea. Not inspiration. Himself.
The evening arrived slowly. It did not suddenly fall over the area, but rather spread across it in the soft light of the fading day. The gold of the sunflowers deepened, shadows stretched between the rows of flowers, and the sky began shifting from bright blue into warm shades of orange and pink. Far beyond the line of cliffs, the sun was drawing closer to the ocean, leaving a shimmering trail of light across its restless surface.
Leon had been sitting by the window for several minutes. He was not painting. The brush lay beside an empty palette, and the sketchbook remained closed. He was simply watching.
He had never imagined that an ordinary landscape could hold a person so completely still. The wind flowed through the sunflower fields like an invisible wave, moving thousands of golden heads at once. The whole thing resembled a calm sea whose waves never broke against the shore.
A delicate scent of earth, flowers, and salt drifted through the open window. Every now and then, he could hear the dull crash of waves against the rocks. The rest of the world seemed not to exist.
Leon rested his elbows on the windowsill. He could not remember the last time he had simply sat without rushing. Without a phone that was about to ring. Without a gallery waiting for new work. Without his own thoughts screaming that he should have created something by now. Here, silence was not a burden. It was something he had been missing for a long time.
His gaze moved across the field. And then he noticed her. At first, it was only movement. A flash of pale fabric slipped between the tall stalks. Then the entire figure appeared.
A girl. She walked slowly along a worn path, almost invisible among the sunflowers. She wore a light white dress that fell below her knees. The fabric moved softly with every step, and the sunflower patterns scattered across it made her seem as though she were blending into the landscape around her.
Her long red hair caught the last rays of sunlight.
Leon immediately thought that he had never seen a color like it before. It was not fiery. It was not copper. It was warm. Soft. Like sunset light caught in her hair.
The girl stopped in the middle of the field. For a moment, she looked around, as if making sure she was alone.
Only then did she sit down. Slowly. Carefully. Between the tall sunflower stalks. From that distance, Leon could not make out every detail, but there was something about her movements that held his attention.
There was no theatricality in them. No exaggerated caution. Rather, the familiar caution of someone who had grown accustomed to choosing places far away from others.
She placed her hands on the ground. Closed her eyes. Then lifted her face toward the sky. The wind stirred individual strands of her red hair.
A few fell across her cheek.
Only now did Leon notice the light patches spreading across the left side of her face.
They did not look like shadows. Nor like a trick of the light. They were part of her. Visible even from the window. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was what Chris had mentioned in passing.
My sister likes being alone.
He did not know why, but the sentence suddenly returned to him with surprising clarity.
The girl sat motionless. As though listening to the wind. As though she knew the rhythm of this place better than anyone else. She did not look like someone who had come here to do something.
She looked as though she had come… to breathe.
Leon did not even realize when he gripped the window frame more tightly. He should not be staring. He knew that perfectly well. She was a stranger. She had a right to her privacy. And yet he could not look away.
Not because he wanted to judge her. Not because he was curious about the light patches on her skin.
Quite the opposite.
There was something incredibly peaceful about her. Something he had been unconsciously searching for over the past few months. He could not put it into words. It was not beauty in the obvious sense. It was not a pose. It was not even the landscape itself.
It was an image.
A composition.
The light of the setting sun, the golden sunflowers, the white dress, and the red-haired girl sitting among them with her eyes closed. One very brief thought flashed through his mind. It looks like a finished painting.
He immediately felt guilty. He did not want to reduce a person to inspiration. He looked away. Just for a second. When he looked back…
The girl was opening her eyes. Her gaze first moved straight ahead. Then slightly to the side. And finally… Straight toward his window.
Leon froze. He was not sure whether she had actually noticed him. The distance was considerable. The sun was shining almost directly into her face. And yet their eyes met. It lasted barely a moment. A fraction of a second. But it was enough.
The expression on her face changed almost instantly. Her calm disappeared. Her shoulders visibly tensed. Like a startled animal that had just sensed someone’s presence.
She quickly got to her feet. Instinctively, she adjusted the sleeve of her dress, as if trying to cover more of her skin. She looked toward the guesthouse one more time. This time, her glance was shorter. Uncertain.
Then she turned away and almost immediately began walking through the tall sunflowers. A few seconds later, all that remained was the path moving beneath the wind. For another moment, Leon could still see her red hair. Then that disappeared too.
Only then did Leon regain the ability to move. He stepped back from the window. His heart was beating faster than it should have.
“Damn…” he muttered quietly to himself.
Without thinking, he reached for the curtain. With one movement, he pulled it almost completely shut. As if that could change anything. As if he could undo the last fifteen seconds.
He placed both hands on the windowsill. Closed his eyes. He had not wanted to frighten her. That had not been his intention. And yet that was exactly what he had done.
The room grew darker. Behind the thick fabric, he could still hear the wind moving through the sunflowers.
Leon slowly sat down in the chair. He could not get the image of the girl sitting among the golden flowers out of his mind. Nor could he forget that brief moment when their eyes had met.
There was something unsettling about it. Not because she had been caught. But because in her eyes, he had seen something more than ordinary surprise. It was not irritation. It was not even caution. It was the instinct of someone who had spent years learning to hide whenever she felt someone’s gaze upon her.
Leon rested his head against the wall. He felt a strange heaviness in his chest. He did not know her name. He had not exchanged a single word with her.
And yet he had the feeling that he had just crossed a boundary he had never wanted to cross.