He clicked it. The video was shot in 720p—sharp enough to see the expressions, but soft enough to feel like a dream. It started with a shaky frame of a dimly lit hostel room. The blue light of a laptop screen illuminated three faces: Arjun, Kabir, and Saif. They were huddled together, eyes glued to a pirated movie they’d just "Niflexed" (their slang for using the campus’s notoriously slow LAN to download movies).

In the recording, the movie they were watching ended. Instead of turning off the camera, Kabir had flipped it around. He caught the three of them in a messy embrace, cheering because they had successfully wasted another Tuesday night before a major exam.

Arjun smiled, the blue light of his modern monitor reflecting in his eyes, finally matching the glow of the hostel room from seven years ago. Some things were worth the storage space.

"If we forget," Saif’s voice came from off-camera, "someone just has to send the signal." "What signal?" "The movie. The one we just watched. It’s our code."

The video resumed. The boys had moved to the balcony. The sound of distant traffic and a stray dog barking filled the speakers. They weren't talking about movies anymore. They were talking about staying in touch, about the pact that no matter where they went, they’d meet every December.

720p? Quality is terrible, bro. Kabir: Shut up, Saif. I still have that t-shirt. It’s in my attic. Saif: December? Kabir: December.