I painted as much as I wanted. I traveled the world, capturing different views of the ocean. The endless blue, the crashing waves, the peaceful horizons – all of it was a source of inspiration. The ocean had always been my muse, a vast expanse that seemed to reflect the endless possibilities within me. Each painting was an attempt to capture the depth of its beauty, to immortalize the feelings it stirred within me. But then came her. I met her one quiet afternoon by the shore.

I was setting up my easel, preparing to paint the sunset over the water, when I noticed her. She was sitting on a rock, her gaze lost in the vastness of the ocean, as if it was speaking to her in a language I couldn’t understand. There was something captivating about her, something that pulled me in. She didn’t speak. She just sat there, as still as the tide, her eyes reflecting the calm of the sea. I couldn’t help but stare.

In a way, she seemed as much a part of the ocean as the waves themselves. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt a strange pull toward her. I didn’t even know her name, but somehow, I began calling her Yumi – a name that felt right, though I knew it was just something I made up. It felt like a name the ocean would give her, a name that belonged to her as much as the silence she carried. At first, I tried to ignore it. I had come to capture the ocean, not her. But every time I picked up my brush, I found myself drawn to her. Her stillness, her quiet grace – they became my new muse. It wasn’t the ocean I wanted to paint anymore. It was her.

Each day, I returned to the same spot, hoping to capture something more of her, something deeper. Yumi never moved, never spoke. She just sat there, staring at the water, as if waiting for something – or perhaps nothing at all. And each time I painted, I could feel her presence more strongly, as if she was becoming a part of the ocean I had once loved so much. The ocean, which had once been my sole focus, now felt like a mere backdrop to the portrait of her.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Her gaze was the horizon; her calmness was the stillness of the deep blue sea. Even the sound of the waves crashing against the shore seemed to echo her silence. But the more I painted, the more I realized how little I truly knew about her. Who was she? Why was she always there, day after day, never speaking, never leaving? Was she a reflection of my own longing, a shadow of something I had been searching for without realizing? I had captured her in every stroke, but I hadn’t captured her essence.

Her name – Yumi – was just a name I gave her, a name that might not even be hers. The answer to who she really was seemed as elusive as the horizon I painted. She was as much a mystery as the ocean itself – vast, endless, unknowable. She had become a part of my art, my soul, but her real identity remained hidden, lost in the waves. And so, I painted her. Not with words, not with questions, but with brushstrokes. With every line, I sought the answer, but it remained just out of reach, like the sea itself – beautiful, infinite, and never fully understood. I painted Yumi, but in the end, I realized I had painted something else entirely. I had painted my own longing, my own search for meaning in a world that often seemed silent and still. And the truth of who she was – who Yumi really was – never came. I guess, in a way, it didn’t matter.

She would always be the girl who sat by the ocean, her name lost to the wind, her presence forever captured in my art.