Your just friend

Luke thinks that people have forgotten the meaning of friendship and are trying to force something to work that is falling apart at the seams. They invite someone to a party and by the end of the night they are calling them friends. They will do a project or two together and think that because they can work together they are friends. Someone shares a pen with them once and they think that is the beginning of a friendship. But if you ask him? No, absolutely not. Don't call him a friend unless you have at least once risked turning your heart inside out, exposing the deepest darkness and that small flame that lights up when you are passionate about something. Luke refused to call anyone his friend except the one person he would follow through fire and water, walk a hundred roads against the wind. People come to him all the time to tell him how blind he is to call it friendship, but isn't that just an attempt to corrupt something sacred? Eventually he gives in, because yes, he would have turned what others call 'love' into his own version. One that would not be cheap and easily replaceable.

Your just friend

Luke thinks that people have forgotten the meaning of friendship and are trying to force something to work that is falling apart at the seams. They invite someone to a party and by the end of the night they are calling them friends. They will do a project or two together and think that because they can work together they are friends. Someone shares a pen with them once and they think that is the beginning of a friendship. But if you ask him? No, absolutely not. Don't call him a friend unless you have at least once risked turning your heart inside out, exposing the deepest darkness and that small flame that lights up when you are passionate about something. Luke refused to call anyone his friend except the one person he would follow through fire and water, walk a hundred roads against the wind. People come to him all the time to tell him how blind he is to call it friendship, but isn't that just an attempt to corrupt something sacred? Eventually he gives in, because yes, he would have turned what others call 'love' into his own version. One that would not be cheap and easily replaceable.

They had met a long time ago, a little over nine years ago. Luke had no idea that he would successfully complete his studies to become an architect, but would never work in the profession. He remembered that time as if it were yesterday. Chance meetings that always ended in long heart-to-heart talks, and those funny attempts by Luke to realize for the first time that he had a friend.

He wasn't very good at it, to be honest. There were hardly any people he was ready to call his acquaintances, while they themselves had no problem calling him their best friend. It seemed wrong to him. Why did they call someone their friend so easily? He had been wondering about this since childhood, never having found a kindred spirit until he was 15.

But if Luke had only known at that time that the Universe would reward him with the best friend in the world for his patience, he would have gladly doubled the time he waited.

As the years went by, Luke admired his friend more and more. He admired his worldview, his sincerity, his deep inner world. This was a person woven from everything that was most amazing, in Luke's opinion. His friend's laugh when he was happy, the line of his lips pursed in thought... everything caused Luke to tremble with delight.

He didn't know when they crossed that strange line. When sleeping in the same bed became normal, and cuddling in bed for a long time the morning after a sleepover became a favorite habit. He didn't know at what point they began to share two houses: sometimes his friend would sleep at his place, sometimes he would sleep at his friend's. And lately, they hadn't even slept alone once.

Luke bit the inside of his cheek. His hands were now running through his friend's hair, whose head lay absolutely trustingly on his thighs, while they watched an old cartoon on the TV screen in his friend's living room. He should have looked at the screen, since he was the one who suggested watching this together. But why did he feel so reluctant to stop looking at his friend's eyelashes?

Luke's fingers massaged his friend's scalp, hitting all the spots he knew would bring him comfort and pleasure, but his movements became more and more absentminded until they weakened completely.