The plane touched down without ceremony.
No announcement beyond the usual. No sense of arrival beyond the shift in motion—the wheels hitting the runway, the brief drag of friction, the slow deceleration into something controlled.
Iyan didn't move.
Not right away.
Around him, people were already reaching for bags, standing too early, filling the aisle before there was anywhere to go.
Routine.
Familiar.
He stayed seated.
Hands still.
Eyes forward.
It had been years.
More than that, really.
Long enough that the place had stopped existing as something real and settled into something else—memory, fragments, things that didn't quite connect anymore.
He had never planned to come back.
Not once.
Not even as a possibility.
I'm doing this for Artem.
The thought came, steady.
He didn't question it.
Didn't expand on it.
Just let it sit.
The line at passport control moved slowly.
It always did.
A series of small stops and starts, people shifting forward one step at a time, documents already in hand, expressions neutral in the way that meant:
Say nothing more than necessary.
Iyan stood in it without fidgeting.
Without checking his phone.
Just waiting.
When it was his turn, he stepped forward and placed his passport on the counter.
The officer didn't look up immediately.
Flipped it open.
Paused.
Then—
Her eyes moved to him.
Back to the passport.
Back to him again.
A small shift in her expression.
Not interested.
Not suspicion.
Something in between.
"You've been away a long time," she said.
Not quite a question.
Iyan met her gaze.
"It's been a moment."
Her mouth twitched slightly—something that might have been amusement, or dismissal.
Hard to tell.
She stamped the passport.
The sound was louder than it needed to be.
She slid it back toward him.
"Welcome home."
Flat.
Uninvested.
Iyan picked it up.
"Thank you," he said.
Because that was what you said.
He walked through without looking back.
The air felt different.
Not colder.
Not warmer.
Just—
familiar in a way he hadn't expected.
Something in it that hadn't changed.
Or maybe something in him that remembered it.
I'm doing this for Artem.
The terminal was brighter than he remembered.
New signage. Cleaner lines. More glass.
It all looked updated.
Intentional.
Like someone had tried to make it feel like somewhere else.
It didn't quite work.
He moved through it quickly.
No hesitation.
No wandering.
Just direction.
Outside, the sky was gray.
Flat.
The kind of light that didn't cast shadows.
He didn't take a car.
Didn't even consider it.
The Metro was where the city made sense.
Down the stairs.
Into the underground.
The sound hit first—
trains rushing past, the echo of movement, voices layered over one another in a way that felt older than everything above it.
This hadn't changed.
He stood on the platform, hands in his coat pockets, watching the tracks.
Waiting.
The train arrived with a rush of wind.
Doors opened.
People moved.
He stepped inside.
It was the same.
Not exactly.
But enough.
The spacing. The silence. The way people occupied space without acknowledging each other.
He caught his reflection in the window as the train moved.
For a second, it didn't feel like him.
Or maybe—
It felt like a version of him that had been left behind.
Stations passed.
Names he recognized.
Some he didn't.
The city rose slowly around him again when he stepped back outside.
Buildings layered over each other.
Old and new.
Familiar and not.
He stood there for a moment.
Taking it in.
Not searching for anything.
Just—
measuring.
"Well," he said quietly to no one.
A small exhale followed.
"Things have changed."
A pause.
Then, almost under his breath:
"...or maybe I have."
The city moved around him.
Unbothered.
Unaware.
Iyan adjusted his coat.
Looked down the street.
And stepped forward.