The names that we never really forgot:)

Time changes people. Faces, voices, choices…

everything. But sometimes, no matter how much time passes, a few names just stay — like a faded memory in an old photo, like a song you don’t remember learning but still hum when you’re alone

Shaurya and Shreya. Two names that once lived on the same street, in houses that shared a wall and hearts that shared a rhythm.

They were just kids back then. Playing hide and seek in the evening light, stealing mangoes from the neighbour's tree, fighting over who got the bigger piece of chocolate. Childhood was simple. So was love — quiet, innocent, unspoken.

But life doesn’t wait.

Shaurya’s father got transferred. They promised to stay in touch. One call became one message. One message turned into silence. Years passed. School changed. Cities changed. Friends changed.

And so, they changed too.

Shreya is 23 now. An aspiring interior designer, living in Mumbai, her life full of Pinterest boards, coffee deadlines, and half-finished dreams. She’s independent, bold, and rarely looks back. But sometimes, when the rain taps on her window just right, she remembers the boy with messy hair who used to save her from street dogs and give her his last piece of toffee. She doesn’t say his name aloud. But it lives quietly in a corner of her heart.

Shaurya is 24. He’s in Delhi, working in a corporate firm. Suits, spreadsheets, and small talk fill his days. But sometimes, when he walks past a swing in a park or smells ripe mangoes in summer, something stirs inside him — a name, a giggle, a pair of eyes he hasn't seen in years. He shakes it off. Life is too fast for memories.

They both grew up. They both moved on. Or so they believed.

Because growing up doesn’t mean forgetting. It just means hiding things better.

They don’t follow each other on Instagram. They don’t talk. They don’t even know what the other is doing now. But if someone says the name “Shreya,” Shaurya still pauses. And if someone says “Shaurya,” her heart still skips that half-second beat.

They chose their careers. Took different paths. Met new people. Laughed, cried, built dreams without each other.

But sometimes... names never really leave you.

They just wait.

Shreya never imagined she would think about him again. After all, the years had been long and filled with so much school graduations, family vacations, friends she could laugh with until dawn. She had moved forward. Or at least, she thought she had. But there were times, late at night, when the silence felt louder than the noise outside her window. Those were the moments when the memories crept in, gently, like a breeze in the dark...

!!

She would think of Shaurya then his crooked smile, his easy laugh. The way he used to make her feel safe even on the stormiest days. She remembered his hands, always a little too warm, always ready to hold hers when they crossed the street together. She never admitted it to anyone, but there was a part of her that always held on to that comfort. A small, secret part that wished for something she could never have again.

Shaurya, on the other hand, always told himself that he had outgrown her. That the girl with the innocent eyes and the too-big dreams was a memory best left behind. He never expected her to come back into his life. He didn’t want her to. He had built a life around work, around meetings and deals. There was no space for old feelings, no room for the past.

But it was in the quiet moments the kind you don’t notice at first that her name would float to the surface of his mind, like an old song you can’t quite forget. He would catch himself wondering if she was still out there, in some corner of the world, still laughing at the same silly jokes, still looking at life the way she used to. He told himself he didn’t care. But deep down, he wondered if she ever thought about him the way he thought about her.

Somewhere in the midst of their busy lives, the universe had a funny way of playing with the threads of fate, making sure that their paths would cross again — even if they didn’t want it to happen. They hadn’t realized it yet, but they were both still carrying pieces of each other with them, pieces that couldn’t be erased by time or distance.

And then, one day, out of the blue, the name they thought they had forgotten would find its way back to them. Not in a dream, not in a distant memory, but in a real, undeniable way.

They didn’t know it yet, but something was about to change.

_______to be continued_________

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