The Path We Have Yet To Take

Noah and Eli have known each other for as long as they can remember. They're childhood friends-inseparable, familiar in the way only time can create. They're always together, from walking home after chaotic days to sharing dreams they have yet to fully understand. Nobody knows them better than the other.

Back then, things were simple. There was no need to ask why they did the things they did. They knew-not through words, never through words. They just simply knew.

Soulmates is a vague concept. Everyone has their own understanding of it. But if you were to ask them, they'd say they were something like that-not in a grand or destined way, but in the quiet sense where everything feels easy. Where nothing has to be explained, and nothing ever feels uncertain.

But if you looked closer-deeper, you'd realize it wasn't that simple. Because what they had was more than that, something neither of them was willing to name or even acknowledge.

If there was a moment it started, neither of them remembered it clearly.

Small changes began to occur. The way they used to walk home together slowly shifted into walking home alone-separately. It almost felt normal, almost effortless, as if nothing had changed at all. But it wasn't.

Even if they didn't fully notice it-or maybe chose not to-there was still a quiet awareness between them that something was changing. That they were slowly drifting apart, in a way neither of them knew how to stop.

Or at least, that was what they thought.

Years passed without either of them really noticing how much time had slipped through their hands. Life moved forward in different directions, quietly and without permission, until what once felt constant became something distant and unspoken. It was only in third year college that their paths crossed again-not as they used to be, not as they once knew each other, but as two people shaped by time, carrying versions of themselves that no longer fit the memories they shared.

Artist🖼️:@kie_sct