Chapter 2

Six years had passed.

Time had turned from a quiet whisper to a thundering echo in the lives of Claire Mendoza and Kris Reyes.

They hadn’t spoken in years not since the night they promised to find their way back to each other “when the time was right.” But in the silence, they worked hard. Tirelessly. Until their names, even if never spoken in the same room again, began to carry weight of their own.

Claire Mendoza had become a name that echoed across the halls of art galleries and creative institutions in the Philippines and beyond. Her first solo exhibit, “Whispers of Silence,” held only three years after college, sold out on opening night. Collectors from Hong Kong, Japan, and France began to take notice of her work, pieces of chaotic color and soft pain, raw emotion on canvas, and poetic brushstrokes.

Every painting had a story.

Every story, a piece of her.

Somewhere hidden in the layers of every canvas was a part of her that no one could ever fully understand. a memory, a face, a goodbye left unspoken.

By the time she turned twenty-five, Claire owned her own gallery in Taguig City. “Clairé,” it was called simple, elegant, and always filled with light. It wasn’t just a business, it was a haven for young Filipino artists, especially those who couldn’t afford to showcase their work elsewhere.

Despite the fame, despite the growing fortune and media interviews, Claire never lost that quiet, introspective soul she carried in high school. She was still the same girl who used to sit near the garden with a sandwich and a sketchpad. Only now, her art touched lives far beyond the school fence.

But none of it came easy.

Her journey had been paved with sleepless nights, missed meals, failed exhibits, and self-doubt. There were days she couldn’t get out of bed from exhaustion. Weeks where deadlines loomed like dark clouds. She had cried herself to sleep more times than she cared to admit.

People called her “genius.” They didn’t see the hours spent in front of blank canvases, her hand trembling from fatigue, or the medications she sometimes forgot to take.

Still, she pushed forward.

She told herself that someday, when everything settled, maybe she’d walk into a coffee shop and find her again.

But life didn’t work that way.

Meanwhile, in a more shadowed corner of the world, Kris Reyes had carved out a legend of her own.

When she parted ways with Claire, Kris had one thing on her mind..... Redemption

Not for anyone else but for her father.

Before the bankruptcy, Kris’s father had been one of the most respected figures in the medical field Dr. Marcelo Reyes, founder and CEO of St. Aegis Medical Center, the most renowned hospital in the country. Patients flew in from other provinces just to be admitted there. Medical students dreamed of interning under him.

Then it all collapsed.

A trusted executive his best friend for over twenty years had orchestrated a scheme with foreign accomplices that drained millions from the hospital’s funds. By the time the court case started, it was too late. The hospital had fallen, and with it, her father’s spirit.

He fell into depression, and soon after, his health began to deteriorate.

Kris saw it all.

The man who once saved lives now lay helpless in his own room, barely speaking. She took odd jobs to support them both working in hardware stores, repairing laptops, managing event lights, even delivering food

But in the quiet hours of the night, she studied.

Marketing. Business. Technology. Coding. Leadership.

She consumed books, free online classes, old business podcasts, anything that could help her build a life powerful enough to protect her father, and maybe one day… rebuild what was lost.

Then, when she turned 24, it happened.

She gathered everything she learned and launched a startup.

No one knew it was her. She used a pseudonym, created a fake profile, hired remote workers under encrypted emails, and operated behind layers of legal privacy.

The company was called “ARKNET.”

It began with simple cybersecurity tools, then expanded to data protection software, AI solutions for small businesses, and eventually built a reputation for outpacing industry giants.

In just one year, ARKNET's name became synonymous with innovation. It was suddenly everywhere. offices, universities, even government agencies.

News outlets scrambled to figure out who the CEO was.

“Who is the genius behind ARKNET?”

Some speculated it was a retired Google engineer. Others said it was a group of anonymous investors. No one guessed it was a 25-year-old woman who once failed her college entrance exam.

Kris preferred it that way.

She wasn’t interested in being known just in being effective.

But the fame came with a price.

She barely slept.

She worked 18-hour days, often forgetting to eat. Her vision blurred at night. Her hands ached from typing. And when her body began to break down, she ignored it.

She was too close.

Too close to building something that could take care of her father forever. Too close to keeping her promise.

Too close to letting go of the girl she used to walk home with, the one who once smiled at her through paint-stained fingers and told her she believed in her.

One evening, in her private apartment office filled with humming monitors, Kris stared at the painting on the wall.

It was small one of the first artworks Claire had ever given her back in high school. A girl standing in the rain, holding an umbrella half-open. Her face wasn’t visible, but her posture spoke of waiting. Always waiting.

Kris hadn’t seen Claire in person since they parted.

But she knew.

She knew who Claire had become.

Even from a distance, their lives still echoed in each other’s worlds. Kris watched interviews of Claire with the volume turned off. She read articles about her sold-out exhibits. Sometimes, she passed by the gallery building but never entered.

And Claire? She sometimes found letters without names delivered to her office by unknown couriers. Letters that spoke of admiration, of art, of pain... and of memories only the two of them could have shared.

Neither one reached out.

But neither one ever truly let go.

Then came the night when everything started to change.

Claire had just finished the opening night of her “Rebirth” collection, a deeply personal exhibit themed around transformation and letting go.

The room was full of celebrities, artists, collectors, and old classmates.

As Claire stood in front of the final piece a painting of two silhouettes walking in opposite directions on a long, winding path. A woman approached her assistant at the gallery desk.

She was in a suit. Black, sleek, professional. A mask covered half her face, as was common in the age of lingering health scares. But her presence was commanding.

“I’d like to purchase this piece,” the woman said softly, handing over a black card with the ARKNET logo.

Claire’s assistant froze for a moment. “This... this is ARKNET’s founder’s card,” she whispered.

The woman didn’t respond.

When Claire turned to see who the buyer was, the woman had already left.

No name.

Just the sound of her heels disappearing down the hall.

Claire stared at the card for a long time.

Something in her chest stirred.

She knew.

At the same time, in a tall, glass building overlooking the city skyline, Kris stared out the window as the rain began to fall just like the painting.

She whispered to herself, “I’m almost ready.”

Almost.

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