He is the kind of person who made the world feel a little smaller, a little kinder, and a lot more alive. My senior at college, close friend, a brother —not by blood, but by bond—was my anchor in a world that often felt too vast, too uncertain. He was my go-to person, the one I turned to when life blurred at the edges. A constant, steady presence, warm like the first light of dawn, wise like an old book whose pages never aged. And now, he is somewhere (Probably in Korea), a place that feels impossibly far, yet somehow still within reach of my restless thoughts.
Time has a cruel way of peeling people away, separating them like pages torn from a story you weren’t ready to finish. We lost touch after college—one day, we were sms apart, laughing over stupid jokes, talking in all Hi-Fi english, swapping ideas, debating the most absurd of things, and the next, he was gone, like a ship that set sail while I was still standing on the shore. Life happened, as it always does, but I never stopped missing him.
I wonder where he is now. Is he walking through the neon-lit streets of Seoul, lost in the rhythm of the city? Or has he carved out a quiet corner somewhere, where the world doesn’t demand too much of him? Is he still the same person who taught me how to chase my dreams without fear, who made the hardest days feel lighter just by being there, who made the funniest and sarcastic comments for me to laugh hard?
There are days when I catch myself hunting for traces of him. Scrolling through some old mail, sifting through memories, searching his name online with a desperation that feels almost foolish. But nothing. No breadcrumbs, no clues. Only the echoes of a presence that once felt inseparable from my own. I think of sending a message, but what if time has changed too much? What if he no longer remembers the version of me that once fit so seamlessly into his life?
He is always my star—brilliant, unshaken, burning with a quiet intensity that drew people in. And like a star, maybe he was meant to shine from a distance, untouchable, unreachable. But I hope, wherever he is, he knows someone still looks up at the night sky and wonders how he’s doing. Someone still misses him in the way you miss something that once felt like home. Some one stores his rakhis years after years just to arrange them on his wrists. Some old fool......
Maybe, one day, our paths will cross again. Maybe fate will decide that some stories aren’t meant to be left unfinished. Until then, I’ll keep searching, keep hoping. Because some people, no matter how far they drift, are never really out of your mind and heart.
