It became a rhythm, a quiet kind of sanctuary.
After school, you'd slip away from the noise and teasing, past the edge of the gravel path where grass grew tall and untamed. There, beneath the crooked old tamarind tree that arched like a guardian over the field, he would already be waiting—feet dangling, notebook open on his knees, pencil smudged with dreams.
Your books came wrapped in cloth to hide them from the world. His notebook was worn, corners curled, filled with scribbles of spirits and sky-serpents, of winged horses and shadowy foxes.
> "You believe in this too?" you asked once, after showing him a passage about the Bakunawa, the moon-eater.
He didn't laugh. He never did.
> "Of course," he said, flipping to a sketch of a dragon coiled around a silver moon. "They're real. Just… quiet. You have to listen the right way."
You spent hours like that. Side by side, trading legends like secrets. You recited the tale of the nine-tailed fox that turned into fire; he whispered about a boy who turned into a star to escape being forgotten.
Some days you built a shrine from stones and sticks. Other days you just lay in the grass, talking about what you'd do if the gods gave you a choice.
> "If I could be anything," he murmured one afternoon, "I'd be a shadow that watches over someone forever. No matter where they go."
> "Even if they forget you?" you asked.
He hesitated.
> "Even then."
There was silence.
Then you sat up and drew a line in the dirt between you, careful and slow, as if it were magic.
> "We should make a pact."
He blinked at you.
> "What kind?"
> "A real one. If the spirits ever return… if the moon cracks open… if the sky forgets our names—"
"We still protect each other," he finished softly.
You nodded.
> "No matter what happens. Even if we grow up. Even if we forget the stories."
He offered his pinky.
> "Promise."
Your fingers curled. Pinky to pinky. Skin to skin. The wind shifted as if the shrine stones had exhaled.
Neither of you noticed the faint shimmer of light that danced in the tree's shadow. But both of you felt it. Something binding. Something sacred.
And even though you were only eight, your heart believed it could last forever.
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