Lost in Firefly Forest Book 1

Chapter 21 - Tale Came True

Lloyd's POV

When I woke up, everything seemed the same. It was still cold, dark, snowy, and lonely. But when I sat up, something felt different, although as soon as I saw Kai, everything felt the way it did before the light, depressing. I crawled to Kai, still sad. I let him die... I couldn't stop myself from starting to cry again. Kai was gone and it was all my fault.

"Lloyd...?" My soul jumped out of my body as soon as I heard that. I look up and see a miracle. Kai gasped. "LLOYD!!!" He jumped onto me, hugging me. That was a first. Kai hadn't ever 'hugged' me.

"K-kai...?" It didn't make sense in my brain. How is he alive!? Am I hallucinating???

"Yes! It's me! Oh my gosh... I thought I was dead!" I was still staring at Kai. Shocked, surprised, happy, confused. I guess Kai noticed that 'cause he looked confused for a moment, then he just smiled at me. Then he looked surprised. "Oh, Lloyd... Why have you been crying? Were you worried about me...?" But this time I answered.

"What do you mean, 'Was I worried about you'!? Of course, I was!" I hugged him. I, too, have never hugged Kai, so it felt a bit odd.

"Thanks, Lloyd... No-ones ever really been that worried for me..." I let him go and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Wait until Nya sees you," I say with a bit of sarcasm. Kai laughs.

"Hah! Yeah, I guess... although she did reveal my secret, didn't she...?"

"Huh? What secret? I don't think she did, Kai..." Kai looked surprised but happy.

"Oh... That's good," We didn't really have anything else to say. And anyway, I liked just looking at Kai. He seemed... "Hello~? You admiring me or something? Just saying I look better when we aren't sitting in a dark forest!" My face gets hot. The heck!?

"Uhh... Ummm... I-I..." Kai starts laughing again. Despite our position in the dark, cold forest, the mood was happy.

"Kidding, Lloyd..." Kai said that with all honesty but I felt like he was sort of disappointed to say that. "Um, also, how are we getting out of here? It's getting colder..." When I came back to real life, away from my thoughts, I realised how cold it was really getting. I only imagined how cold Kai must've been. Wait... Then I remembered why I was carrying a bag on my shoulders. I took it off and opened it up. We all had a bag with a spear jacket, gloves, scarf, and beanie, of course, it was if we found Kai and needed to give him something warm to put on. "Oh, these are for me?" I looked at him as I put my bag back on.

"Yup! You put them on and I'll start picking up the rope," And that's what we did. Kai put on the woolly outfit while I picked up the knotted rope.

"Well, I'm ready..." Kai came up beside me. Then I remembered what we had to do. I put out my hand. Kai looked extremely confused. "Uhh, what...?"

"Take my hand. It's the only way you can not lag too far behind me..." Kai's face blushed up, and I just turned away and put my hand down. Then something grabbed my hand. Kai.

"I don't mind as long as you don't mind..." He looked at me with his eyes, which were full of hope, love, and care. He was smiling, and I smiled back and held his hand tighter.

"Of course, I don't mind,"

We had been walking for ages now, and Kai had ended up letting my hand go and secretly help me by taking the bundle of rope I had on me. I didn't even notice that he helped me until I realised I had reached the same amount of rope twice. And we walked in silence. It was quite eerie as the wind was still howling as we walked. But since Kai was now also holding the rope I could tell whether he slowed down or not, or if he stopped, and every now and then, I could feel him slowing down and then speeding up again. And that just happened. So I stopped. Of course, Kai wasn't expecting it and fell, but I caught him.

"You seem to slow down every now and then, Kai, you ok...?" Kai looks at me surprised, I guess he didn't realise I knew that. I was still holding him up. I didn't want to let go.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little tired..." I knew what he meant. I was just as tired, I had been walking around for ages, shouting his name, and in the end, crying. I sigh.

"Yea, same... But we don't have much longer, don't fall asleep yet..."

"Don't worry, I won't..." I let Kai stand on his own and kept on walking. "Hey, uhh, Lloyd?"

"Hmm?"

"How am I alive...?" I paused before answering, waiting for my brain to come up with the right words to explain the bright light situation.

"Umm, well, I'm not exactly sure. When I found you, you had died quite literally in my arms, but then some sort of light shone really brightly in between us, and it sort of exploded. Then when I woke up and started to cry, you just came alive..." Kai didn't answer. I got worried and looked behind me. Oh, he's just thinking...

"Have you ever heard of 'The Soulmate Tale'...?" I again stopped, but this time Kai didn't trip, instead, he stopped too. Something about 'The Soulmate Tale' sounded familiar... But then I remembered it. I was in shock. When I turned to face Kai he was looking at the ground. "I know you know it, Wu told you before you were the Green ninja... I also know it, 'cause it happened to my parents, and it has happened to you and me before..." The so-called 'Tale' turns out to be completely true...

"But... that's gay, isn't it...?" I didn't like the tone of my own voice it sounded disgusted when in reality I was so happy to know that Kai was my Soulmate. Then I hear Kai sniffle.

"I know! I'm sorry! I can't control if we're Soulmates or not! It's perfectly fine if you don't want to follow what 'The Soulmate Tale' says-" I hug Kai. I didn't want to hear the rest of what he was saying, I wanted to enjoy the fact that I didn't have to look for my special someone anymore, as that special someone, was Kai.

"I didn't mean to sound disgusted, Kai... I'm perfectly fine with the idea of it. I'm actually happy about the idea of it..." As I let Kai go I could see how surprised he was, and that surprised me. But what surprised me even more, is that Kai started crying.

"Really...?" I looked at him in disbelief.

"Yes, yes really! Right now might not be a good place for this though-" Now Kai surprised hugged me.

"Thank you, thank you! I was so scared you wouldn't want to be my friend if you found out! I thought you'd tell everyone I was gay and then they would make fun of me too and... basically, I had so many nightmares about what could possibly go wrong, that I'm so happy about none of them happened!" I smiled. What a doofus... How could he think that I would make fun of him? As well as everyone else...?