Love Festival

“Miles, hear me, I swear this time we will do it! I’m going to ask Lapis to the Love Festival and you will askl Barb.”

Fulgor was in the hallway with Miles, more determined than ever, but Miles was uncomfortable.

“Fulgor, listen…”

“I know! I know in the past I wasn’t courageous enough. By I will ask Lapis out this time, I promise!”

“Good Fulgor, but listen to me, I need…”

“Miles, please! Trust me this time, if I fail you again I will never do this again.”

Miles screamed his next words, since Fulgor didn’t give him space to talk.

“I already asked Barb out and she said yes!”

All the other students looked at poor, short, nerd Miles, but no one was more impressed than Fulgor.

“What? How?”

“I just did. It was hard, but I got strength enough to do it.”

Fulgor was very proud of his friend, but that also made him feel ashamed of himself for not having the same strength. Then he felt violent winds as Auron appeared behind him.

“Listen Fulgor, we may be friends now, but I still love Lapis.”

The two elementals stared at each other and Miles feared another event like the soccer battle.

“Well, she has already turned you off once.”

“At least I have the courage to ask her out, and I will try again during the Love Festival, if I get a definite no I will accept my defeat. And you, what will you do?”

He wanted to declare his feelings, but he knew how hard this was to him. Fulgor lost balance when someone hit him from behind. He turned angry seeing Kazen with a silly face.

“Look where you’re going!”

“Sorry, Fulgor, I’m distracted, hehe. Alis accepted to go to the Love Festival with me. This can only mean she loves me, hehe.”

“Even Kazen is having luck in this Love Festival, I have to try!”

It was noticeable that Lapis was not her normal self the days before the festival. She was not playing soccer and she went home early everyday to help her family with the preparations, so Fulgor decided to ask her out on the day of the festival itself, where all her worries should be off.

And then the big day started. The festival was happening in a large park, full of food stands, heart-shaped red paper everywhere and people trying to share love. The place was crowded, and Fulgor only found Miles because they called each other.

“Miles, good to see you, can you help me find Lapis?”

By his side was Barb, taller than Miles and with a serious expression.

“You already ruin things in school and now want to ruin my date too? You are going to clean the chalkboards for two months for that!”

“What? You can’t do this!”

“Of course I can, now let me enjoy it or you will suffer even more.”

“Sorry Fulgor, good luck.” Said Miles too happy about his date to care about Fulgor’s problems.

He watched as the couple walked away, he picked up his cell phone, looking worried.

“Lapis has not answered me yet, but she has to be here, I just need to find her.”

At this moment he saw Auron in the air, jumping from tree to tree on his first release.

“Oh, he is cheating! But that gave me an idea, Iky!”

The yellow monkey appears by his side making a reverence.

“My good sir Fulgor, what can I do for you today?”

“I need you to find Lapis here and tell me as soon as possible.”

The familiar looked at the area, noticing the enormous quantity of people.

“Oh… of course.”

Not feeling confident, the monkey jumped and started looking for Lapis.

While all this happened on the other side of the Park, Kazen saw Alis and the two hugged when they met.

“So happy you called me! I was feeling so down for this Love Festival.” Said Alis smiling to his friend.

“What? It is my pleasure. Now, shall we go?”

Kazen tried to grab Alis’ hand but she moved away looking confused to him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m… holding your hands… because we are on a date?”

Alis started to laugh uncontrollably when she realized he was serius. First he got uncomfortable, but the laughs continued for so long that he did not knew what to do.

“Kazen! You are my friend. I love you, that is why we are on the love festival, but there is and never will be something romantic, ok?”

She still smiled like Kazen told an incredible joke to her.

“Yeah, sure, I knew it. I wanted to do a… friendly holding of hands”

“My ex-boyfriend just dumped me, I came to this festival just to have a good time with my best friend. Can we do that, without thinking about romance?”

“Of course, this is what I wanted from the start. Just that and nothing more. So, shall we go?”

Despite his words he was upset and felt this day was going to be terrible to him. Spending all the time with the love of his life who did not want anything romantic.

In a square in the middle of the park was Lapis with all her family. She and Mina were the only ones not wearing dresses and with less colors.

“Lapis, darling, please put this dress on, I bought it just for you.”

Lapis does not want to have this conversation with her mother.

“Why do I need to? Mina is also not wearing it.”

“Well, Mina is not the best example of femininity, and she at least has passed some make up, how are you going to find a boyfriend dressed like a boy?”

“Well, I hope I get a boyfriend who likes me for who I’m, and I thought my mother would want the same thing.”

Her mother sighed, feeling she lost any influence to his daughter life.

“Why don't you want to put on a dress, they are so cute.” Asked her mother as a final try.

“Because they made me feel like a girl!”

“And what is the problem? You are a girl!”

Lapis answered in the heat of the moment and regretted immediately. She did not give a chance for her mother to continue the conversation and ran away to the middle of the festival.