The wind was stronger at the top… at Table Top Sonamarg, the world looked distant—valleys below, rivers like thin silver lines, and mountains standing like silent witnesses to everything that passed beneath them.
🏔️ Akash and Depabali stood side by side—not too close… not too far. Behind them, the others scattered like small movements against the vastness, their voices fading into the wind.
For the first time—there was nothing left to hide behind. No questions… no assumptions… just truth.
“Kolkata feels far now,” Depabali said softly.
Akash smiled faintly—“It always was.”
She looked at him—“No… not like this.”
🌬️ The wind moved across them, sharper at this height.
“It used to feel… close,” she added.
“Because we were there,” he said.
A quiet pause followed.
The past returned—not in fragments this time… but whole.
The campus… the corridors… the noise… the simplicity.
“We didn’t have much,” Depabali said.
“But it felt like enough.”
“It was,” Akash replied—without thought.
They stood looking at the valley below.
“Do you remember the social camp?” she asked.
Akash smiled—“You made me work the whole day.”
“You stayed.”
“I stayed because you were there.”
Depabali didn’t respond… but she heard it.
“And you?” he asked.
She looked ahead.
“I didn’t know when it changed… when it stopped being just friendship.”
A pause.
“But I felt it.”
“I just never said it.”
Akash exhaled slowly—“I felt it too.”
✨ The silence that followed was no longer empty… it was full—full of everything they never spoke.
“Why didn’t we?” she asked.
“Maybe we were afraid,” he said.
“Or maybe we thought there was time.”
A faint pause.
“But there wasn’t.”
The truth settled quietly.
Below them, life moved—voices echoing, people walking, moments continuing. But up here… everything felt still.
“Kolkata feels like black and white now,” Depabali said.
“Why?”
“Because all the colors… were us.”
The words stayed—unmoved.
Akash smiled faintly—“And now?”
“Now it’s just memory.”
🌬️ The wind picked up again—cold… sharp.
Akash closed his eyes briefly.
“Not just memory,” he said.
Depabali turned toward him.
“It’s still here.”
He didn’t need to explain. She understood—because she felt it too. Not as something to hold… but as something that never left.
👩👧 From behind, Ananya called out—“It’s getting late!”
Reality returned.
Depabali stepped back slightly—the distance returning with her. Akash didn’t stop her.
✨ Because some moments are not meant to continue… they are meant to be understood… and then left where they belong.
Somewhere between past and present…
Like a city that once had color… and now lives quietly… in black and white.
❄️ To Be Continued…
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