The year they turned eighteen was the day they both could no longer feel their own hearts beat the same way anymore.
Many years had passed since his departure. The world didn't change, they didn't change, their feelings didn't change, but nothing was the same.
The roads ahead were always filled with twists and turns. Even though they were the reason for each other's loneliness, they also allowed these feelings of joy and happiness to exist.
Time continued chasing after them. Before they knew it, the cycles of days, weeks, and months passed.
The high school students across provinces had already graduated and wore their luxurious robes earned from years of schooling, where their parents took photos to capture this moment to bring joy.
Yet, some didn't feel happiness then at all. It was the act of wearing these robes, yet not understanding where their following path led them to. Knowing that all these familiar faces would all walk in different ways, knowing that the laughter you once exchanged between your classmates, the time you once shared with one another, would all be cast away in the past.
What they celebrated was the end of their youth and welcoming the new set of regret. There would be many who would end up alone after this turning point. And this realisation that the only reason these connections were created was that these classmates saw each other every day.
Now, their paths were detached from one another. All these students could do was proceed forwards and never turn back.
The summer cicadas returned and chirped loudly. The students who were once third years, dressed in that blue uniform, were now university students.
He waited. He continued waiting. In that eighteenth year of his life, it was the first time he felt what it was like to be stranded alone.
The moment winter ended was the moment he left, and the warmth of spring and summer never managed to enter his heart.
It was merely the sense of missing someone. There were no longer such feelings of excitement, and his heart could no longer race with this past certain thrill.
The two boys who once sat at the back now lost sight of each other. Who knew that the presence of seeing him in this blue school uniform would soon disappear from his life.
Both of them understood and appreciated each other's dreams and listened to their struggles. Those days were indeed the brightest days of their youth. Yet, the lives that they lived had separated them. Some would call it fate or destiny.
Sometimes, no matter how much people tried to change the roads they walked on, they could only control so much.
How they wished to turn back time, simply to relive those memories. No matter how noisy, ridiculous, and stubborn those days were, they were willing to sacrifice anything to relive those brilliant days.
Regret was the ticket through youth, and what followed at the end of that journey was a period of loneliness.
All they could do was leave these memories behind and hope they would meet again.
Looking back, they hoped that one day, some time, some month, some year, they would call out their names once again.