In my life, much of what shapes it is unrecorded. It happens oftentimes when the world looks away. During the day, memories must compete with schedules, conversations, and a constant pressure to proceed. At night, when my body slows down, some thoughts return with a clarity that feels almost deliberate. These are not the thoughts that usually survive in the morning time, and they do not ask to be resolved.

Under the moon, they briefly reappear, leaving only the reality that something important is almost understood by me. It is during these nights, under the moon in Hong Kong, that I remember several friendships. They once made my days and are non-existent unless I recollect them. They do not appear to be losses, nor are there dramatic endings. No single instance has caused anything to collapse. Instead, they persist like a scene in a painting: conversations that have changed how I would perceive a tumultuous time, a connection that has made urgency not urgent at all, and a presence that has steadied me while not demanding much. There is no proof of these moments. No photos, no videos, no nothing. They are never recorded; they barely leave a visible trace. Yet they shape me in ways that surpass most of what I have documented or can see.

These friendships entered my life during my final year of secondary school and my first year at university, a period when I mostly believed new friendships would be hard to come by. I did not seek them out with many intentions, nor did I find them significant at first. They arrived swiftly, wove themselves into my daily life, and for a time, made those days joyous and full. None of them lasted very long, yet each one positively altered the emotional weather of the days they occupied. Now, when I think of these friendships, it is not chronology that brings them back but the night—when the world is silent, and when my memories can speak without interruption.

The first one to reappear after months left my mind unrecognisable and my heart disoriented. At that time, actually, I had learned how to navigate life with caution, aware of how easily things could unravel and lose momentum. Then, suddenly, there was someone beside me again, bringing my joy back, someone I had met while practising for a school performance. Truth be told, the performance was not extraordinary or grandiose. What mattered were the rituals during that dark winter: arriving at the same location, repeating the same movements, improving ourselves after making the same mistakes. The rehearsals surrendered to time, creating a space where I finally felt a magical return: an internal ray of light that I thought would never come back. Between sessions of the rehearsals, there were glances of shared understanding, moments of quiet humour, and a silent agreement that what we were doing mattered simply because we were doing it together. It all culminated in the performance. Before and after, we sat together in joyful unison near the stage, content in the knowledge that our efforts had culminated in something beautiful. I still remember departing from those practices feeling much lighter than when I arrived. This friendship never promised longevity, but it reminded me that fate had plans for me after a period of trauma and rupture.

The second and third friendships arrived together, and in a manner entirely different from the first. They belonged to a time when my life was full of urgencies, pressure, and decisions from all directions, as my years in school neared their conclusion. Weeks after first meeting these friends, I remember running into them by chance at a park, a meeting with no scheduling behind it and, therefore, no real expectation. We talked while walking, without any aim. During breaks, we frequently crossed paths in the library, where we read, chatted, and hung out as if nothing was at stake. Urgency lost its sharpness, and silence was normalised, as if my body was allowed to rest. After I graduated from secondary school and began my university chapter, these friendships somehow continued, though they evolved into a more digital story. Our paths diverged, and we focused on our own goals as time went on. To say their presence made me feel less stressed would be an understatement; for a while, they were most of what I needed.

The absence they left behind was not dramatic. There was no single moment that could truly define their end; I would rather say they simply stopped existing. Despite this, I did not immediately seek a replacement. Instead, I carried the warmth of what had been, unsure if it would linger. Then, a fourth friend arrived, just as a sense of an era had passed. I still vividly remember our encounter, for it took place when I visited my secondary school, a place I no longer belonged to or needed in any way, yet one that still held many fragments of not only who I was, but who I am.

We met while I was pondering in the library. We talked for a long time there, among bookshelves and views that felt both familiar and diminished, like a statue reconstructed after an earthquake. That chat did not fully revive what I had lost. Still, it kept my sense of friendship alive: a flame that was not burning bright or urgent, but just stable enough to prove that something had not gone out entirely. We would chat occasionally on a few other occasions, and there was comfort in such restraints. Like the previous friendships, our different paths meant we would rarely meet again; thus I knew that a good connection did not need to arrive at the very start to truly matter.

None of these friendships survives into the present. They were not incomplete because they ended, but were rather complete precisely because they happened. I no longer wait for their return, nor do I search for reasons for their fading, as life moves forward without much pausing to negotiate with itself. Yet, under the moon, these friendships return at night as shadows of clarity. Without much context and any consequences, they exist solely as they are.