Catch Me When I Fall [BxB]

Hold My Hand

"He's probably off exploring." Hazel says calmly.

How does she not care? I glance at my own mom, but she just shrugs.

"What if he-"

"Yo Ty! Check out this cool stick I found!"

I sigh with relief when I hear his voice again.

"Not cool, Khai." I say when he approaches me. He doesn't seem to understand that I'm talking about his disappearance and scaring me like that rather than the stick in his hands.

"You don't like it? But it's so big and-"

"Not referring to the stick. And stop making it sound so wrong."

Khai chuckles.

"Sorry. But it-"

"Do you know what the trails are for?" I pause, but not long enough to give Khai a chance to reply. "They're for sticking to, not for wandering off of."

"Sticking to?" Khai laughs again. "I collected a stick, is that not sticking?"

I just stare at Khai, baffled.

"You are hopeless." I say when I find my words. "You know you can't keep that stick, right?"

Khai sighs.

"I suppose. At least I have another stick..."

"Khai-"

He giggles and drops the stick, then runs off again. 

I put a hand to my forehead and close my eyes. I don't even know what to do with him anymore.

I guess I could start by not letting him out of my sight.

"Khai, where are you going?" I call out to him as his figure gets smaller with the more distance he achieves.

I don't hear a reply, so I glance to Ricca and Hazel again, who are quite a bit farther ahead by now. But when I look back into the woods, I don't see Khai anymore.

"For fuck's sake." I mutter to myself, starting to venture off the trail to find him.

"Khai..."

"I'm on a mountain!" I hear him exclaim from somewhere way above me. After a bit of searching, I spot him.

"That's... not a mountain, you're just standing on a large rock that's wedged into the side of an even larger hill." I explain as I begin climbing it to close the distance again.

"Isn't that the same thing?"

Why do I even bother?

"No... just-"

"Hey, there's another rock right beside me... do you think I could jump from this one to that one?" Khai asks.

"Please don't..."

Khai frowns.

"Khai can you please come down? How'd you even get up there?"

"I don't know." There's a brief pause. "Uhm... Ty I also don't know how to get down..."

"Are you fucking serious right now?" I ask.

"I don't know... I'm scared..."

"Remember when you were gonna jump to the other rock like two seconds ago?"

"Yeah but... that's kinda different. That's the same level. I want to go down now."

"Okay, first of all, you need to stop making everything sound so... questionable, and second-"