Ken was the counsellor to his group. His words came like dawn to our midnight thoughts. We all found our problems already unravelled and solved once we rang him up.

"Ken advises exactly what we need to hear", we'd all say after ending the call. Now this was like a shared truth of the friendgroup. Ken was wild until he had to deal with chaos. He was a specialist at making excuses and a lies maven, but knew how to accept the truth. His words were harsh and direct, but his heart's as soft as a sparrow. He loved solitude but hated to feel alone.

When I was in despair, questioning love and its fairness; trading sleep to find answers, he crawled his way through my barbed wires, and placed a pink moon in my insomniac skies.
"But no matter how hard I feign, I've proved I don't deserve love,” I said with my palms holding my forehead.

"Oh, Alex, you are love yourself. You're what you want to receive. Do you think a person with no empathy and love in his heart would be willing to find it? All you need to understand is love isn't in any stranger's eyes, it's within you. You're the light that you need to reflect on yourself, and I'll be the mirror for that."

His words shot, came through like a train out of a long tunnel. Ken had this habit of making your problems feel seen, while finding a way to help you solve and unsee them. He was the youngest of us five, but he spoke like he lived and saw beyond our ages. He was an old soul with a naive perspective; an anxious son but carefree friend.

Kayle jokes, "Ken's wisdom only comes out when this is the circle he's in. In an unfamiliar crowd, his words come out in circles."
And to this Ken rolls his eyes, while all of us agree instead of laughing at this point.

Kayle looked bold, but she was soft to her core. She tried to look unbothered until tears welled up. Kayle and Ken not only shared initial but also father issues.
When Kayle's relationship seems to consume the life out of her, Ken is the one that comes to get her back home.

"But, honey, love can't solve all your issues. It can only accompany you in your healing journey,” Ken's words come out in whispers in the dead of night to Kayle.
He jokes that the three girls are his daughters, but we all know he carries love for them like sisters.

"I'm y'all's father figure,” Ken'd say to us.
"Father figure, my ass,” Norah'd say, mocking his statement.
Her and Ken were either cats and dogs, or
two pigeons feeding off of one bread. You'd either find them roaming around streets together, or fighting over a bedsheet. Though Norah is younger than Kayle, Nastya, and me, she was the only one who acted like an elder sister to Ken.

Nastya was the organised chaos of the group. She and Ken had been friends for the longest; it started as enemies, then friends.
"Being gay brought us together,” they'd joke, and we kind of agreed with it.

Ken was up when we were. Ken was on the floor with me when I was crying in the bathroom. He was the friend I never wished for specifically, and never knew I needed - none of us did; and maybe that's why we took him for granted sometimes.

Tale as old as time: "You don't know what you have until it's gone."
When we entered Ken's apartment that morning, the air had already shifted. The posters felt lifelessly hanged, rather put up; and everything in his kitchen was moldy. We rambled our way into his room to find the two empty cans of sleeping pills, and the dried froth trailing from his open mouth, and its stain on his cheeks. All four of us stood there. Frozen. Nobody had suspected this. We had just come to pick him up for college as usual, but now we'd have to book a hearse.
But, the writer in him, that will be forever aspiring now, left a note on the desk that said:

"I tried to fight until I couldn't. I tried to resist until I didn't. Just know I'm forever grateful that I spent my last days with you. I thought I was healing. I really did – but that's until I realised I advised what I need to hear."