Kevin hauled Gerald along the dirt trail leading back to Grace's shed, still fazed from the earlier events. "Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, observing Kevin's sweat dripping down and moisturizing the dirt below. "This… this is no sweat for me!" he sputtered, encouraged by his deep determination. "If I can't carry an injured boy through the forest, then I won't be able to be an entity hunter at all!"
Gerald's eyes bulged, reciting Kevin's words within his mind and whispering them out loud. "Do you know how dangerous something like that is!?" he screamed, whacking Kevin against the head with his fist. "Hunting entities is the equivalent of throwing your life away! You're just striving to protect people who won't give a damn about you in the end!"
Kevin ignored the criticism, brushing it off with another bright smile. "I may not know what the future holds, but I'll keep pushing no matter the cost! After all, that is what makes a true dream!" Gerald followed up with a rude scoff, turning his head towards Mystic Mountain's beautiful forests. "Tell me," he began. "What makes you so hopeful about the future?"
Kevin hesitated for a moment, still enveloped in warmth and courage from his father's tales and stories from other hunters. "As a child, my father told me about his adventures all across the world! One day I'll have a team as strong as his, and we'll continue towards the goal the Realm God strived to achieve thousands of years ago by eliminating every entity and ghost!"
Gerald broke a cold sweat. "An entity hunter is crazy enough, but a ghost hunter aswell?"
---
Kevin's gasps gradually intensified, draining his energy upon arrival back at Grace's shed. He stumbled onto the dirt, the force lifting a dust cloud into the air. Gerald emerged from Kevin's back, disappointedly glancing at the rotting wood supporting the shed's foundation. "This is where your mentor lives?"
He grinned yet again, nervously scratching his head. "Grace is pretty… unusual, to say the least."
The wooden door burst open, revealing a wonky, faded version of Grace that Kevin had never seen before. He glanced towards her blue shorts, revealing countless opened small bottles of alcohol. "What the hell… why are you up so late at night, Kevin!?" Grace shouted, her expression unknowingly shifting in the opposite direction towards a confused Gerald. A few seconds later, the blurs scattering her eyesight finally merged, revealing a clear picture of Kevin and Gerald.
"Kevin!" Grace shouted, rushing over to his side and lifting him off the ground. "You brought me a whole child to eat!?"
Kevin grumbled, still under exhaustion's everlasting spell. "Mmm," he replied.
Drool descended from Grace's mouth onto her chin, her groaning sounds of satisfaction giving Gerald uneasy trembles. "HE DIDN'T BRING ME HERE FOR FOOD, YOU OLD HAG!" Gerald cried, pushing her onto the ground.
Grace's head bounced against the dirt, terminating the drunken thoughts flowing within her. Curious, she glanced at Gerald, then turned her head towards the hyperventilating Kevin. "Am I missing something?"
Kevin's eyelids extended along with the durations of his mumbles, which later formed into fully coherent words. "I brought a friend back to the shed!" he claimed delightfully. "He's a little gloomy and bad at communicating, but I think he's a good person!"
"Gloomy? Bad at communicating?" Gerald shouted, surprised by Kevin's brutal honesty.
---
"I see," Grace murmured, her crystal eyes dilating into the burns across Gerald's legs. She observed the patterns scattered across like an artistic masterpiece, tracing her eyes along the withered skin's edges. She came to a halt, awkwardly lifting her head towards Gerald and taking another large whiff of alcohol. "I've never seen burns like this," she informed. "If you survived with these for more than a week, I'd say your leg strength is unmatched to that of an average human…"
A sigh of relief escaped Gerald's mouth as if a giant weight had just been lifted over him. Grace pulled the bandages from a nearby cabinet and began wrapping them tightly around his legs. "Gerald," Grace began, "there's something both me and Kevin have been meaning to ask you, but we've never built the courage."
"Hm?" Gerald replied.
"Instead of going back out into the woods on your own… how would you like to train alongside Kevin here?"
Gerald's heart skipped in a mix of excitement and embarrassment, pushing him to the verge of tears. "My entire life, I've never felt a sense of happiness or excitement… I pushed away everyone, even Kevin before he saved me from those kidnappers, yet you two still persist in getting through to me?"
The final knot tightened, fully securing the bandages across both his legs. Grace picked up his overflowing emotions, sliding her hands into Gerald's and lifting his head. "You've been through enough in your life, Gerald. Even if you aren't good at communicating, we'll be here to support you from this point on.
Gerald flew into Grace's hands, rapid tears pouring down his face like a spring rainshower. "Thank you for everything you've done for me - this goes not only for now, but in the coming future aswell."
In his opinion, this emotional interaction was the official beginning of Gerald's life - amid all the despair and pain he experienced while alone and overtaken by distrust, weak sparks of light stood among Gerald's world of darkness - and this is where it officially began to bloom.