2016 · Film Photography / FM2 · Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Fifteen years after graduation,
I finally visited Kuala Lumpur to see my college friend, Ze-Yi.
He walked me through the city as if opening drawers of his past —
streets he grew up on, places he used to eat, small fragments of a life I had never fully known.
We have always been close,
the kind of friends who talk about everything.
He was the first straight friend I ever came out to back in the university.
But walking through his hometown,
I understood him in a different way —
not through words, but through atmosphere.
We passed by a well-known restaurant.
It was closed for the afternoon break, too early for dinner, too late for lunch.
Through a wire fence, I looked down and pressed the shutter.
Heat.
Stillness.
Chairs waiting.
A couple of people resting in their own time.
Nothing happened.
And yet, everything felt present.
Sometimes friendship is like this —
not conversation,
just quietly sharing the same air.