“I’m sorry.” Noah apologised.

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No…” Cap’n Buck said.

“I shouldn’t hide the truth from you or even myself…”

Cap’n Buck sighed before continuing.

“Pyriko and I had many good memories together. He would always be a little bit more adventurous and daring than me. At the time, I thought that was rather cool and that is why I stayed his friend…He was like a role model to me, even though he was 1 month younger than me and, frankly, taller.” Cap’n Buck chuckled.

“But…but before long we were both getting ourselves into trouble. People didn’t really get mad at us because we were mindless kids wandering around like zombies. However, there was a time when we took things a bit too far…”

Noah swore he could have seen Cap’n Buck’s past whizzing through his eyes.

“We burned the…the town…by accident.” Cap’n Buck trembled.

“We were playing with my father’s matchsticks and we set a bit of fabric on fire…what we didn’t see is that it was touching a building and the fire started to spread…”

“Don’t bricks not set on fire?” Noah inquired carefully.

“Oh, well, at my time, the houses were made from water, cardboard and cemented sand as cutting trees down was expensive and we weren’t able to get bricks from anywhere.” Cap’n Buck explained.

“Oh.”

“We were scolded badly and taken as criminals that my father disowned me and threw me out of the house. Pyriko got sent away and I lived on the streets for a couple of years…that’s until your father took me in.”

“M-My father?” Noah said. He had never seen his father nor known anything about him so he wanted to know more about what was hidden from him…

Happy New Year! I know it’s kinda late now but I hope to write loads this year (even if I have 20+ exams in 5 months’ time).