“The zoo?” You look over to Kai as he smiles up at the huge gate before you two. Apparently, Kai brought you to the National Zoo and there you two are, standing just at the entrance.

You watch as people hurries by the both of you as you both continue to stand in the middle of the entrance. Families, kids, couples, you see them everywhere. But weirdly enough, the both of you are the only young adults here, which aren’t exactly couples. And you’re very sure you seem like the only teenager here.

“Yeap!” Kai slowly turns his head to you, his smile still pinned across his face. “I figured you have never been here before, am I right?”

“Ah,” you mouth as you glance to the entrance briefly, nodding before looking back to him. “Well,” you begin, “not just this zoo. I’ve never really been to any zoo to be honest.”

“What?” Kai couldn’t believe your words. Then, he chuckles slightly. “Today is your lucky day.”

He immediately pulls you to the ticket booth and luckily for the both of you, buying the ticket didn’t really take much of your time. After getting the tickets, he pulls you again, by your hand this time, and leads you pass the main gate and into the zoo.

You hold onto his hand tightly. You’re not sure why, but mostly because you don’t want to get lost. You always have this fear of getting lost in the crowd. It’s just something that you don’t want happening. Your dad never let that happened to you, nor did Baekhyun. You dreamt of it; getting lost. It was just a dream yet you recall how helpless you were. How suffocating it was to just stay stagnant in the middle of the busy crowd. And how heavy your head felt like.

“Hey, don’t worry okay?” Kai says suddenly after leaning towards your ear. You don’t even notice that you have both of your hands wrap around his. “I’m here, you won’t get lost,” he assures as though he has read your mind. “I’m never letting you go.”

I’m never letting you go. You gulp, slowly looking up at Kai, meeting his eyes. He smiles. Slowly looking away, you only nod and don’t say anything because you’re not sure what you’re supposed to say. Baekhyun, you tell yourself, Baekhyun said that before.

And just like the hugs, you wonder if this is what all guys would say. Your heart beats faster and your stomach feels weird all of the sudden. Is this how you’re supposed to response? Is this how anyone will feel if they are told so?

“Well, let’s play a game, shall we?”

You blink, snapping out from your train of thoughts, and confusion. “What?” you ask, glancing back to him, your hands still holding onto his.

“The one who guesses the animal correctly at every stop will be the winner and the loser will be the one treating lunch. And since you’ve never been to a zoo before, you get a 10 seconds head start during every guess.” You eye him weirdly, and feel a little offended. “Okay, fine, 15 seconds.”

You remove one hand and slap him across his arm playfully. He laughs. “Just so you know, the zoo isn’t the only place where one can learn about animals.” Unconsciously, your hand returns to wrap around his hand, joining the other hand of yours. “And I’m adding dinner to the reward.”

“You , seriously.”

Sitting down at an empty picnic table just beside the man-made pond, you watch as Kai places the tray of food down and sits across you. He lost the game. How can he possibly lose the game of guessing animals’ names? Is that even possible? Was he not a Science student? Yeah, sure, you’re a science student yourself but he has more experience than you in the Science field, right? Plus, the medical field altogether. How can he not guess the names even when you decided not to accept the 10 seconds advantage he offered you?

Who the hell isn’t able to shout ‘elephant’ when they see one right before their eyes? Yet all he did 10 minutes back was laugh at himself for being slow.

“Why?” he asks innocently, slowly removing the paper plates from the tray and arranges them on the table, in front of you. “Oh,” his action comes to a halt and he looks up to you, “do you not like the food I’ve bought?”

You shoot him a glare. “You know very well why I said you .” He shakes his head with a smile and you sigh, grabbing an empty paper plate for yourself. “Why? It isn’t fair.”

“What’s not fair?” he giggles, placing a bottle of cold coke next to your plate. “Honestly, Eli, you’re the weirdest girl I’ve known thus far.”

“Same goes to you,” you respond and start to get some portion of food onto your plate. “I’ve never met someone as dumb as you.”

Because really, who will not recognize an elephant? An elephant!

“I don’t believe you.” He pauses and you look up from your plate. “Are you sure Chanyeol and Baekhyun never did things that are probably more stupid than what I did?”

You freeze, staring at Kai until he returns your stare. Is he trying to imply something? Is he trying to make some connection between him and the both of them? Wait, no, you know he said that he likes you before but you never really take it seriously. Baekhyun was being childish after all on your first date with Kai. You were expecting him to confess just to annoy Baekhyun.

You decide to play dumb. “You know what? You’re right. They’re more stupid than you,” you pause, “in studies,” you add after that, not wanting him to think otherwise. “But really, you shouldn’t have—“

“Do you hear that?” he cuts in suddenly. You give him a confused look and shake your head. Scanning around, he then says, “Someone’s crying.”

You try to pay more attention to the surrounding and you manage to hear the faint cry yourself. Someone is crying. A kid. A girl, to be specific.

You look around as well but Kai stands up suddenly and you snap your head back to him. You stand up and step away from your seat, watching Kai as he walks further away while you stay back. You don’t know why you’re not following him and you don’t know why you’re just standing by the table. Maybe because you feel safer staying here. But shouldn’t you feel safer by his side? You sure will but you guess it’s too late for you to run to him since he’s not in sight anymore. The safer option now is to just stay where you are because you know Kai will come back for you. That’s what he promised you, right? That he’ll never let go of you. He’ll be back.

And so you keep repeating that to yourself, that he’ll be back, then sitting back onto your seat.

It is the longest wait. You feel nervous, you feel scared. You’re almost too afraid that Kai will break his promise and never returns to find you. You hate this feeling; the feeling of being alone in the crowd where you feel as though those people will just watch you drown in pain and not care one tiny bit. Maybe you’re just thinking too much but life has disappointed you in so many ways that you started hating it at a very young age. You learn to see and treat others like how you think they’re treating you; cold and oblivious.

“Don’t worry, okay?” You hear the familiar voice and jump a little at your seat. You’re happy to see him, you’re glad that he’s here and you’re… is that a little girl on his lap? “We’ll find your mummy.”

“Excuse me?” Your widen eyes won’t leave the little girl who is sobbing, her forehead pressed against Kai’s chest and you swear you feel the core of your body burning. “Did you,” you pause, leaning closer to whisper, “Did you just kidnap a kid?”

Kai turns his head to you immediately and his eyebrows narrow. “No, don’t be silly!” You don’t say anything and he takes it that you want him to continue. “She’s lost. No one went up to her, to offer her to find her mother so I did. We need to help her find her mother.”

No s