Quiet Youth

We should allow some people to have a quiet youth. Maybe they skipped class, but they also gave up the manga they'd been following when the college entrance exams came around. Maybe they had a boy they liked, but chose to make their lives run parallel. Maybe they once sweated freely on the sports field, but also secretly wiped away tears during evening study... Youth isn't a script, and there's no rehearsal. There's only the accidental meeting of eyes, and encounters that never reach an ending. No matter what, we should still be grateful that youth came into our lives, and for the memories it gave us, memories worth cherishing forever.

As I write this, I'm twenty-one, in the prime of my life. But looking back, I'm already far from my youth. The winds of seventeen will never blow into the summer of twenty-one. The youth I loved has become a thing of the past. I can say with certainty that I've become the best version of myself, and achieved every future I planned for when I was young. But when I think back to that sun-drenched summer at seventeen, I always feel as if I've lost something. Maybe it was a friend who should have walked alongside me, or a boy who should have been part of a story. Maybe it was the evening study session when I should have worked hard but instead let myself go, or the fifty meters I didn't run on the sports field. In the end, I never figured it out. I tried so hard to live those days to the fullest, yet looking back now, I still have regrets. Maybe what I regret is how silent I was back then...

Theme: I offer this story in remembrance of our youth.