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There's something almost freeing about a fight ring. Everything here is stripped back and bare—no weapons, no armor, and no giant monsters trying to end the world. There’s only Kai and his opponent.
His mind empties, and his body feels lighter—unburdened. Bright lights flood the space, drawing the world in around him. The dull drone of the crowd fades into the background as blood rushes through his ears. Even the stale scent of sweat and cigarette smoke begins to feel less oppressive, and Kai takes a deep breath in through his nose.
A bell rings, and it’s on.
Kai dodges the first punch thrown, staying light on his feet and avoiding any fancy moves. He brings his guard carefully close and circles the ring, letting his thoughts drift.
After Zane died, Kai had come here seeking something—something he hasn’t been able to name even all these years later. And it means he isn’t sure why he came here tonight.
He’s regained his powers and gotten his revenge on Boreal the ice dragon, but it’s—It still hasn't been enough. He almost wasn’t enough.
A punch connects with Kai’s jaw, forcing him to stumble back a few paces.
Right, he thinks, pain spreading through his skull, this is why I came. He spits onto the ground, rolling his shoulder.
A referee briefly shouts at the other fighter—they aren’t supposed to deliberately go for the face. At least, not so early.
“Did you come here to stand around or to fight?” the other man taunts.
Kai has already forgotten his name. He’s had a few drinks, and they're starting to take effect. His skin feels warm, and his head buzzes lightly as it empties of complicated thoughts.
Good.
They size each other up again. Kai smirks, his jaw still burning.
He lunges forward, swinging down hard and driving the other man to the ground. Kai crouches, vulnerable for just long enough that his feet are swept from under him. The fighter rolls Kai onto his back, pinning him to the ground. He gets punched once, twice.
Kai kicks up, pushing the other fighter off and jumping to his feet. They circle the ring for a few more paces.
The other fighter gets Kai to duck, catching his head and positioning him perfectly for a crushing punch to his ear. Kai falls onto his hands and knees, breathing harshly.
Everything's been replaced by harsh ringing, and he can't hear as the fighter approaches and kicks into his ribs. He does it again, knocking Kai’s breath from him.
He manages to get to his feet, arms still raised in defense. “Is that all you’ve got?”
His knees feel shaky now, and he can still barely hear. He watches the other fighter’s lips move, but the words reach him distorted, like they’re coming from underwater.
A concussion, Kai thinks distantly.
He darts forward, sloppily aiming a punch at the guy’s chest. His opponent dodges easily, quickly grabbing Kai by the arm and using his momentum to throw him into the side of the ring.
Kai’s head meets with something metal, and he blinks away the black spots suddenly scattered across his vision. He reaches up to feel his scalp, unsurprised when his fingertips come back bloody.
It’s weird, but it’s somehow satisfying. It’s somehow what he deserves. The blood is bright red, and even though he’s never been squeamish about that sort of thing, it makes his stomach turn.
He breathes out an involuntary laugh.
Limbs still shaky, he tries to push himself up, only to fall back onto the floor. His opponent casts a long shadow as he stands over Kai.
“Done yet, punk?”
“One more try for good measure,” Kai says, thrusting himself from the ground.
He charges the other fighter, only to get lifted right off his feet and thrown onto the ground. His lungs contract, exhaling everything in one violent wheeze. He can’t draw in air for a moment, heart pounding and head ringing.
He stays down, and the referee calls the match. It means Kai loses the ante money, but he’s gotten exactly what he came here for.
The trip home dissolves into a black void. One moment, he’s lying on the ground, staring up into the bright lights as someone hauls him to his feet. Next, he’s in the monastery’s bathroom, washing blood from his face as moonlight filters through the window.
He can still barely hear out of the ear that got punched in, all sound replaced by sharp ringing that makes it dizzying to even stand. He hisses lightly as he applies a little salve to the cut on his scalp. It might leave a bump in the morning, but no one will notice under his hair. The other injuries he can hide just as well. His ribs ache—and he’s sure they’ll be black and bruised and tender when he wakes up—but that can be hidden under clothing. The jaw… might be a problem. And it might be a problem when the others realize he’s unbalanced, confused, and sloppy.
That’s for later, though. Kai throws himself into bed.
The morning is about as rough as can be expected. He’s exhausted, and he can barely keep his eyes open as he trudges through the motions of eating breakfast. Then… eating is making him feel sick. The bright morning light they let into the kitchen is making him feel sick. He downs some water, but it does little to alleviate the ringing in his head and the sweaty, clammy feeling stuck to his skin.
“Kai?” Nya asks, and his head snaps up. He forces himself not to flinch as the world tilts to the side. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”
“Yeah, Nya, fine,” Kai mutters, voice gravelly and gross. He clears his throat, forcing another bite of cereal down. It starts to feel like thick sludge, though, and he has to breathe deep through his nose to avoid gagging.
The image of his bloody fingertips suddenly comes back to him, making him more nauseous—if that were even possible.
“Seriously, you don’t look good.”
“I said I’m fine. Leave me alone.” His voice comes out harsher than he meant it to, and he lets out a sharp breath.
Nya crosses her arms with a hmph, but doesn't push the issue.
Kai stands from the table, deciding he's done trying to eat. He has to put every ounce of effort he can into not stumbling on his shaking knees, almost missing Nya’s worried glance. As soon as he meets her eyes, though, she scowls.
Whatever.
Kai stomps away, dropping his bowl into the sink and bracing himself against the counter. You can do this, he tells himself. But the floor won’t stop moving, and he swallows heavily. No one has to know what you did last night.
He almost gets away with it. Almost.
Kai locks himself away in his room, hoping to sleep it off.
He tries not to think about why he did it. It’s complicated and hard to explain, even to himself. He’s been injured plenty of times, in plenty of ways, but choosing it? That's different—that’s weird. That signals something's wrong. And if the others knew, they’d see it too, and they’d hate it just as much as he does.
He’d needed consequence, though. Something to make it feel real. If things had gone even a little bit differently in the Never Realm, an entire village would have died. And it would’ve been his fault. No matter what anyone else said. No matter what even he said. Because even if he’d done his best, his best clearly wasn’t enough.
There had to be some punishment for that.
But no one else was really talking about it. At least, not to Kai. And he's trying, but he can’t just pretend it never happened.
He presses his fingers into the bruise on his ribs, intensifying the pain so it’s the only thing he can think about.
He knows he’s more than his powers. He knows plenty of other things he never quite convinces himself of.
There’s a loud banging on his door. He startles, groaning when he remembers the pain in his side and the pounding in his head. He pulls the door open, eyes still half closed.
“Are you hungover?” Lloyd asks instead of a greeting, looking him up and down.
“What?” Kai rubs at the side of his temple, wishing the sharp pounding there would go away.
“You smell like it,” Lloyd complains, looking pretty annoyed. “And I was banging on your door for ages! You need to get ready—there’s a breakout at Kryptarium!”
Kai has to take a moment to let Lloyd’s words process. “Yeah, give me a second.”
“No time for that!”
Lloyd grabs Kai’s arm, dragging him into the hallway. His stomach lurches, and he has to pull away quickly, stumbling into the bathroom just in time to puke.
He stands over the toilet afterwards, stringy vomit hanging out of his mouth and breathing harshly. He spits away the taste of acid, willing his body to just calm down. He flushes the toilet and moves to the sink to splash water on his face. He also leans down to pull pain medication from the cabinet, almost falling to the ground as he tries to stand back up.
But, he can’t. He won’t. He swallows the pill with water cupped into his hand. A few more mouthfuls for the road as well.
Lloyd is outside the bathroom, and when Kai emerges, he realizes Lloyd had been covering his ears. He awkwardly lowers his arms to cross them tightly across his chest. Right—the kid always had been a bit nervous around vomit.
“Are you okay?” Lloyd asks.
“Just—hungover,” Kai says, deciding it’s as good an excuse as any. “Let’s go.”
Lloyd, for as much as he’d been rushing, looks conflicted now. Guilt immediately writhes in Kai’s chest. On one hand, it was his choice to drink—and, well, get punched in the head a bunch—and he should have to live with the consequences. On the other, he might just get himself more hurt trying to fight bad guys. Worse, others.
“Lloyd, let’s go.”
“Okay, but you’re riding with me.”
Kai sighs but doesn’t argue.
He stays silent the entire way down to the bunker, his jaw locked. He’s not going to puke again, and he’s not going to fall over either. But he feels strange, and the world seems far away. The ground keeps tilting beneath his feet, pulling at him from every direction. Just putting one foot in front of the other takes all of his concentration.
He makes it into Lloyd’s car, already exhausted. But then, one moment, he’s getting into the car, and the next—
The trip is already over. Kai’s pretty sure he didn't fall asleep, but the journey is as gone from his memory as his trip home the night before. It's like he blinked and woke up in a new place.
He slides out of the car, head spinning.
Lloyd says something, but Kai must stare blankly at him for too long, because the other boy’s brow furrows in frustration.
“Seriously, man, how much did you have to drink?”
“Uh—I… don’t know.”
Lloyd’s mouth tightens into a thin frown. He pulls his hood over his head, deciding not to push it further. Kai follows his lead.
His sword weighs strangely heavy across his back. Sweat drips down his forehead, stinging his eyes. The ringing in his head has worsened too, so loud now that whatever the others say when they regroup barely registers.
They break into a run toward the prison, but Kai feels… wrong. Every few steps, everything jumps forward, nearly knocking him to the ground several times. He sticks it out, but his vision warps at the edges, distorting everything to feel unreal.
They make it to a main holding area, where a riot has broken out. Kai looks around, trying to assess the situation, but the pressure in his head blocks full thoughts from forming and every person in the crowd looks like a blur of color. Lloyd shouts something—an order, probably—but his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater again, and Kai can’t make it out. The team breaks into formation, and his body follows on instinct, clearly knowing more than he does.
He sees someone’s spinjitzu crossing the prison floor, but Kai doesn't think he’d make it far with that. He doesn’t make it far at all. Because all it takes is one poorly executed dodge, and he’s so off-balance that he runs right into the fist of another inmate.
He probably didn't even make it five minutes.
He falls right on his ass, vision spotted and tunneled. Everything keeps spinning so hard that he can't even really figure out where he is. His breath in the mask feels too hot, so he rips it away to suck in air that isn't any less overwhelming.
Kai turns over, catching himself on outstretched hands, and pukes again.
The prisoner he was attempting to fight makes a noise of disgust and turns his attention elsewhere. Kai can't even blame him.
He's shaking uncontrollably now, like his body has forgotten how to hold itself together. He locks his elbows into place, figuring it’s the only thing that's going to stop him from falling face-first into his own vomit.
He’s not sure how long he stays slumped over like that, but it’s Nya who eventually comes to his side—at least he thinks he saw her. His memories are all jumbled, and he can’t think straight enough to remember. She’s on the bad side of his head, though, where the ringing is so intense that no sound makes it in.
Kai takes more heaving breaths, trying to get things back under control.
“Kai? Are you okay?” Her voice is muffled like it’s behind a thick curtain. But it’s definitely Nya.
Kai groans, figuring he should at least acknowledge her.
“I’ll take that as a no. What happened?”
“Head,” he grits out. “Got hit.”
“Okay, I’m getting you out of here.”
“No, Nya, wait,” Kai pleads. “The floor—it won’t stop moving.” He swallows heavily. “It’s… We’ll fall over.”
Nya gives him an incredulous look. “Maybe you would.”
She wraps her arm under her chest and heaves him up and away from the floor. The sudden change almost makes him black out, but he holds on long enough to see that Jay is fighting people away from them. He must be slowing them down because Nya lets out a harsh sigh and picks him up, fully carrying him from the room.
They make it to an empty hallway, where Nya lets him down. Kai breaks away to brace himself against the wall, turning and dry heaving.
Nya pats his back. “Did he get your stomach, too, or something?”
“Hn.”
Leaning against the wall still, he makes it a few paces before he almost falls on his face. Nya grabs his arm, but he just uses her to push himself back into the wall.
“Need’ta lay down,” he slurs, sliding down it.
He lies all the way flat on the floor, one hand on the floor and the other on the wall like it might anchor him. The fluorescent lighting pierces his skull, but every time he closes his eyes, he's hit with such intense vertigo that he feels like he might be unraveling.
Eyes open it is.
“Are you sick?” Nya asks. “You didn't look so hot this morning.”
“No, I—”
“You eat something bad? If you just admitted you weren't feeling well—”
“Nya—”
“Oh, my God. You're hungover, aren't you?”
Kai breathes out shakily. He imagines she must be scowling and tightening her fist like she's thinking about hitting him. Like during the fight the night before, he lets out an involuntary laugh.
It would be what he deserves.
“Is there something funny about this?”
“No.”
“This is just like you!” Nya shouts, and Kai flinches away from the sound. “You never stop to think about how your actions might affect others! We could both be in there helping if you didn’t decide to be stupid.”
“I know,” Kai mumbles.
Nya sighs harshly, still clearly upset. She mumbles something bitter, but Kai can’t turn to see her expression to gauge how mad she really is.
“We’re just going to wait, then,” Nya says sharply. “You still got hit in the head pretty hard. Count backwards from one hundred.”
Kai starts, then quickly realizes he’s lost his place. His breath feels tight as he has to start over.
He’s still counting when the others arrive. He pushes himself up to sit.
“Are you okay?” someone asks, but Kai’s head is spinning so fast he can’t really figure out who.
“I’m—it’s, uh—” His neck feels like it might snap under the weight of his head. Sweat is dripping down his forehead again. The others look like they’re stuck in a wave, light shimmering strangely against them as they move across his field of vision. “Can you all stop moving?”
“Huh?” Jay squeaks.
“He’s hungover,” Nya says flatly.
Kai squeezes his eyes tight to avoid the terrible, angry looks of his teammates.
“Really?” Zane asks, though it sounds like an actual question. “His level of confusion appears inconsistent with a typical hangover.”
“I’m sorry,” Kai slurs, even though he’s not sure why.
Zane kneels down in front of him, visually scanning. Time snaps between too fast and too slow, like every painful breath takes full minutes. Zane reaches up to touch his head, and as soon as his fingers brush against Kai’s ear, the ringing intensifies. He groans in pain.
“Kai, what happened to your ear?” Zane says it levelly and clearly, which Kai realizes must be because he already knows.
“I got punched. You saw, right? Back there?”
Kai blinks his eyes open to see the whole team circling over him behind Zane and blocking out the light, almost like the ring fighter had cornered him the night before. He grimaces.
Zane guides his head to the side, and someone—maybe Cole—hisses in sympathy at the bruise that’s revealed. Zane is careful as he pushes hair away so he can examine Kai’s ear. The touch is still a lot, so Kai grips his pant leg tightly, pulling the fabric tight against his thigh.
His head is guided back into place. Nya’s expression has twisted into a frown, maybe not as angry as she was just a few minutes ago, but disappointed and maybe a little disgusted. Cole’s frown is tilted like it does when he’s nervous, and Jay’s eyes are wide.
“That injury is at least several hours old, Kai,” Zane says levelly.
He can’t think of anything to say. He should have come up with something—some excuse to make him seem less crazy. He opens and closes his mouth, blanking.
“Do you have any other injuries?”
“I—No, I’m okay.”
Zane nods solemnly. “We’ll be able to treat your head injury more thoroughly at the monastery.”
Once there, Kai is given pills and water, forced to lie still as various people poke at his head. Eventually, he’s sent to his room to rest until he's no longer at risk of falling over.
Lloyd stays, hovering at Kai’s bedside. “Why did you tell me you were hungover?”
“I am.”
“What?”
“I got drunk last night.”
Lloyd sighs harshly. “There's obviously more going on.”
Kai doesn't say anything, so Lloyd pulls a seat close and sits down.
“You should leave. I’m still so—” He’s interrupted by a hiccup. “Urgh.”
Lloyd turns a shade paler but shakes his head. “No, we need to talk about it. Why were you drinking?”
Kai grumbles. It shouldn't be a hard question, but he struggles to find an answer, even for himself. The medicine is making him sleepy, and he blinks slowly at Lloyd with a sigh.
The other boy shakes his shoulder gently. “At least tell me who you were fighting.”
“Don't remember.”
“Please, try.”
“Lloyd, I really mean it,” Kai says as clearly as he can. The other boy’s sad puppy eyes are kind of killing him, but there’s not much he can say. “I don’t know.”
“You understand, though, right? Why I need to know?”
“Huh?”
“Imagine if me or Nya or any one of us got hurt and hid it. You’d be worried.”
Kai smirks. “Not if it was Jay.”
“Be serious,” Lloyd says immediately, frustration lacing his tone. “You’d want to find who did it, wouldn’t you?”
“Lloyd,” Kai sighs. “I’m tired.”
“You’re not getting out of this.”
Kai makes a doubtful noise. He still hasn't figured out how he's gonna spin the injury, so he's relieved Lloyd is the only one here to corner him. Nya had been angry—rightfully so—but when his injury was revealed, everyone had gone silent and strange. He's still replaying the look she'd given him over Zane's shoulder back at the prison in his head. Even Cole and Jay and Lloyd had something strange behind their eyes that Kai's damaged head couldn't really make out.
He wishes he had something to tell them.
He still doesn’t know what he even can say. What kind of guy lets himself get beaten up? What kind of person pushes pain into their ribs and enjoys the nausea that came from seeing their own blood? If he admitted he did any of that to Lloyd, those strange, distant looks might become permanent.
Kai swallows back his nerves. He's not someone who hesitates. Obviously. But there's just no good way to put it. No good way to explain that he was still holding onto the Never Realm.
Maybe it was just that... There had always been this itch inside of him that demanded he shoulder responsibility. When he failed—like when Nya was kidnapped, or Lloyd was possessed, or any of the other awful things that happened under his watch—he felt it deep inside of him. Anyone who knew him could call that selfish, but he couldn't help it. It was just the way he was raised. The person he was.
He realizes he's closed his eyes, already drifting off. He opens them again to see Lloyd still leaning slightly forward in his chair, attentive and nervous.
“Let me sleep. I’ll tell you later.” Kai doesn’t look at him as he says it.
“Fine.”
Lloyd doesn’t move. Kai falls asleep quickly.
He dreams of the tundra.
He dreams of cold wind hitting his skin over and over until his body goes numb. He looks around and realizes he’s in the village. Breath short, he turns, heart clenching as he’s faced with a villager frozen in ice. Their mouth is parted, eyes wide in terror, and Kai drops to his knees.
But the snow keeps blowing in, heavier and heavier until he’s almost buried. He forces himself upright, trying to dig free, but even when he’s standing, the wind pushes him in circles until there are no landmarks left, only blinding white in every direction. It just keeps hitting him again and again and again, cold crushing the air from his lungs.
He wakes with a ragged gasp, and Lloyd startles beside him.
His heart races, thoughts thin and scattered as he tries to remember where he is. He’s still breathing too fast, each gasping inhale pulling at his ribs, but Lloyd steadies him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Hey—relax, it’s okay,” Lloyd says.
Kai drags in air, sharp and uneven.
“You’re okay,” Lloyd reassures gently.
The image fades from Kai’s mind as his breathing gradually steadies. He turns toward Lloyd. The other boy’s green eyes are wide, tense. Usually, it’s Kai calming him down, and there’s something distinctly wrong about the role reversal.
“Bad dream?”
“The worst,” Kai croaks.
Lloyd lets out a quiet breath and leans back. “What about?”
“Nothing,” Kai says quickly—probably too quickly. “Yeah. Nothing.”
Lloyd raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “You know you’re pretty much the worst liar ever, right?”
Kai scowls, sighing sullenly as he looks away. “Well, I tried.”
A pause stretches between them. Kai’s breath feels tight, his body still reeling from the dream.
“Are you ready to talk about how you got hurt?” Lloyd asks.
Kai shifts awkwardly, wincing when the movement pulls at his tender ribs. “C’mon, man, I just had a weird nightmare. Give me a minute.”
Lloyd only leans forward, gaze intensifying. Kai fiddles with the bed sheet.
“Lloyd, I don’t know. It’s not a big deal.”
When Lloyd doesn’t respond, Kai swallows hard against the anxious lump that’s been forming in his throat. The pressure in his head has dulled, but it’s as much a burden as it is a relief. Now that he can think, he thinks about the fight, and shame settles heavily over his chest.
If I’d just tried a little harder, he thinks bitterly. Then he could have just kept those feelings to himself. But now he has to face whatever weird interrogation Lloyd has prepared for him.
Another part of him decides to get it over with—to do what he’s good at and jump straight in.
“I—Do you remember what happened after Zane beat the Overlord?” Kai asks, staring at the ceiling.
Lloyd frowns, head tilting to the side. “You were a ring fighter in that seedy bar.” His expression shifts. “You went back?”
“Mhm.”
“But, Kai—”
“I know, I know,” Kai cuts in dismissively. “There are better ways to work out my feelings.”
“Well, that too.” Lloyd’s brow furrows. “You… lost last night, though.”
“Yeah?” There’s something in Lloyd’s tone that makes Kai’s jaw tighten.
“You didn’t… You didn’t let yourself lose, did you?” Lloyd says it like he doesn’t want to believe it, which only causes Kai’s jaw to tighten further.
Play it dumb, he thinks, trying to keep his tone nonchalant. “What do you mean?”
Lloyd shakes his head slightly, drawing back. He knew, he knew, he knew.
“You’re a ninja. I know you know how to fight. You can handle one random guy,” Lloyd replies slowly, disbelief marking his words.
“This guy was, uh, really big. And mean.”
“You’re still a terrible liar,” Lloyd says, any trace of humor gone. “Why’d you let yourself lose?”
“I fought back!” Kai says defensively.
“Clearly not very well,” Lloyd points out. “You need to tell me what happened.”
Fear surges through Kai, his mind frantically trying to come up with something to respond with. Before he can really decide, words spill out.
“I didn’t want to think for a bit,” Kai admits sharply. “There’s less to think about when you’re fighting.”
“But why’d you let yourself get hurt?” Lloyd presses.
“Drop it,” Kai says, voice hardening.
“No, Kai, I can’t,” Lloyd responds, his voice raised. He seems to realize, though, eyes quickly darting away. More quietly, he continues, “You don’t get to just brush this off.”
Kai turns away to face the wall, head spinning from the motion. But he can’t look Lloyd in the eyes, he just can’t.
“You should at least talk to someone.”
Silence hangs heavy in the room, so thick it feels like time itself has slowed down. Kai freezes, weighing his options. He could confess to Lloyd and admit to his terrible secret, or he could keep pushing back and risk Lloyd dragging the others into a situation that really didn’t require their involvement.
“Lloyd, it’s hard to explain,” he finally says, voice tight and embarrassingly hesitant. But he’s sensing that Lloyd has already started to piece things together, and he’s running out of excuses.
“Try me,” Lloyd replies, steady.
An ache pangs through Kai’s damaged ribs. A tight knot forms in the pit of his stomach. He bites down sharply on the inside of his cheek and turns back over in bed to face Lloyd.
“You remember the Never Realm,” he starts, already regretting it.
“Of course I do.” Lloyd's brow furrows again, his voice laced with concern. “What about it?”
Kai takes a long, deep breath. It’s now or never. “I almost… an entire village almost died because of me.”
“They didn’t, though,” Lloyd says instantly, offering kindness and reassurance that Kai doesn’t really deserve.
“That’s not the point,” Kai snaps, desperation somehow bleeding into his voice. “I was too weak—too slow. If it hadn’t been for Zane getting his memories back, the villagers would have stayed frozen.”
Kai presses his palm firmly against his sternum, right where he feels that failure the strongest.
“Letting yourself get beaten up doesn’t accomplish anything,” Lloyd says.
Kai frowns. Deep down, he knows that Lloyd is right. “I know. I just wanted—needed it to feel real,” he confesses, looking away. “I know that probably sounds crazy.”
Lloyd breathes out a laugh, and Kai looks back to see him staring at his lap. “Not too bad. Back in the Never Realm, I basically told Akita my whole life story, thinking she was just a dog. That was pretty crazy,” he admits, a slight smile playing at the edge of his lips as he meets Kai’s eyes.
Kai snorts, the tension in his chest easing slightly. He lays his hand back down beside him on the bed.
“Uh, and I'm not a dog or a formling or anything, but you should tell me these sorts of things,” Lloyd says earnestly.
Kai groans. “Leave the jokes to me, buddy.”
“I’m serious,” Lloyd insists. “We’re a team, and I won’t just stand by when a member of my team gets hurt. You know you’d do the same for me.”
“I would,” Kai mutters.
“What was that?”
Kai would roll his eyes if he wasn’t sure it would make his head spin. He clears his throat. “I said I would.”
“Sooo?” Lloyd leans in, voice lilting hopefully.
“I’ll tell you things,” he promises with a reluctant sigh.
“Good,” Lloyd says, satisfied. “Now, listen, Kai. No one was ever going to defeat that dragon all alone. You got your true potential back, but that isn’t something you could’ve forced. Don’t beat yourself up over it, alright? Or, I guess, don’t let anyone else beat you up over it.”
“I won’t,” Kai concedes, drawing an X over his heart with his finger. He lets his hand fall back into the mattress, staring at the ceiling as they lapse into silence for a moment. “I mean it,” he adds quietly.
“Thank you,” Lloyd says earnestly. He offers a timid smile, shoulders loosening as he relaxes back into his chair. “Now, how’s your head holding up?”
Kai huffs a quiet laugh. “Still hurts pretty bad,” he admits. “But I’ll live.”
Lloyd hums in acknowledgement.
Kai lets his eyes slip closed. His mind feels… quiet, his body settled. The weight over his chest has eased, and he takes a deep, even breath.
Silence settles between them, unburdened and still. It’s not so bad, Kai decides.