Almost in Paradise

5. The truth

"Tell me your secret."

Tell him my secret!?
It's not such a big deal actually. But what I'm worried about is that he will not look at me as a normal fairy, but as a foreign being, maybe dangerous. And what if he doesn't believe me? Then he'll just think I'm weirdo. Arghh what should I do!!

Wait, if I tell him and he believes me and accepts me, then we will have a secret and he might let me into the group!
But that's just fantasies...

"You gonna answer me or not?"

I imagine watching him jump away, leaving me behind with nothing and no one in my company. No, I could never bear with that!
I guess I have no choice then.

"Do you really want to know?" I ask, in hope of that I won't need to tell him.

"Yeah, spill it out."

I take a deep breath and then starts from the beginning; what my world is like, what school is and our PE lesson. How we won and the portal appeared, I also add a short sentence about the skeksis. Then I tell him about my encounter with Meliodas, Elizabeth, Jericho and others and at last my sadness when I found out that they've left. Even though it's hard to talk about it, I have to tell him about the anime, but doesn't say too much about my crush on him.  Never does he interrupt me. When I'm done he just looks at me calmly.

"So you're like an alien or something?" He asks.

"I guess, haha"

"Cool." He starts to wipe the dirt off from the letterish thing in his hands. No reaction?

"Th-that's it?" I say. "You're totally okay with this?"

"Sure" he says like it's nothing.
What is going on!?

I fly up the hole and stares confused at him while he's inspecting the letter.

"Ban, stop" I say and he looks me in the eyes.

"This can't be it. No... why are you accepting me just like that?!"

"Why wouldn't I?" He asks. I don't know what to answer. "Hey, look... what you've just told me is your past. The only thing I wanted to hear was the truth, and I got it, right? Then that's it. I can trust you."

"But-"

"No, you stop it. If this anime thing you talked about is true and you know about my past and still accepts it, then by me accepting you makes us even. Nothing more to talk 'bout, just go on like normal. The bigger deal you make outta this, the worse it'll get. Now let's get down to business." He checks the letter again and then hands it over to me and starts to walk away.

Still confused, I look at it. There's not much to see, just the camouflaged paper, but when I look closely enough I see small letters creating the word "Merlin". No, not word, name.
Merlin is one of the seven deadly sins.

"Are you coming or not?" Ban asks as he walks towards the edge of the hill.

I'm still not sure of the situation, but I smile and walks to him.

"I'm in" I say.

"Then let's go." He stands right by the edge now and it almost looks like he's gonna jump.

"But how are we gonna-"

"Oh enough with your chitchat" he says and throws me over his shoulder, and a second later I'm flying.