The day he left, he cried harder than you did.

“I’m not even that far,” Zyran had said, trying to smile as he zipped up his Captain America backpack. “You can still text me. Or call. Or write me letters like old people.”

You’d laughed through tears, clutching the crumpled bag of gummy bears he gave you as a parting gift.

You were seven. He was eight. Too young to say goodbye like that. Old enough to know it mattered.

“Promise you won’t forget me?” you asked, sticking out your pinky.

He linked his without hesitation.

“I won’t,” he said. “Not even if I come back with a weird accent and forget how to spell ‘color’.”

He giggle.

Then he got in the car and waved until you were nothing but a blur in the rearview mirror.

You still kept the note he slipped into your hoodie pocket before he left. Just his name in big, messy letters and “best friends forever, okay?” underlined three times.

Years passed. Texts faded. Birthdays became quiet acknowledgments. The silence wasn’t heavy—it was just the way life worked sometimes.

Until one day, everything stopped.

A knock on your door.

A voice you hadn’t heard in years saying, “Hey. Did you grow taller, or did I just shrink?”

Zyran.

Older, broader, with longer hair and that same crooked smile.

You just stared. Speechless.

“I, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m here for the summer. Thought maybe you’d still be around.”

Your arms wrapped around him before you could think. He laughed into your shoulder.

“You smell the same,” he mumbled.

“So do you.”

That night, you sat under the same stars, legs brushing, laughing about things you barely remembered.

“I missed this,” he said, voice soft. “It’s weird. Everything changed, but when I’m here with you… it doesn’t feel like it.”

You looked at him, really looked.

Same warm eyes. Same nervous habit of chewing his hoodie string. Same boy you never really let go of.

But somehow—he still found his way back to you.

Your gaze went to his phone, and saw the photo that was taken years ago when the two of you were kids, smiling widely.