3,419++ words
Someone Like You- Oldrivalshipping songfic based on the song by Adele.
Disclaimer: I do not and do not claim to own Pokemon, Pokespe and the song Someone Like You. They belong to their owners respectively (because I failed in my top-secret plan to take over Pokemon-NAH.)
Someone Like You
{Right hand over left. Scarlet lips delicately pursed, showing just a teasing hint of pink tongue. Head tilted gently to one side, brown locks tumbling down her back, sapphire eyes taking in the beautiful frozen landscape in front of her. Porcelain white hand cupping her hat to stop it from being blown away by the winds.}
She's not doing anything much, just strolling along in the wintry park, finally back home after her travels, when she sees him.
Him, taking a relaxed walk in the same park, with his family. She dimly espies an orange haired woman and two little boys along with him, but her gaze is well and truly transfixed upon him. And because she knows he won't come to her even if he glimpses her, she goes over instead, introduces herself as an old friend, and somehow drags him off for a coffee and chat about the past.
"Waiter, a table for two please," Blue chirps, flashing her winning smile towards the bedazzled waiter and immediately, miraculously, a spare table for two is found in the busy, crowded cafe. Sidestepping other patrons, she walks towards their seat and orders her caramel latte breezily, the picture of carefree abandon, looking as if she has not a worry in the world. But she does; and that being the man who is silently trailing behind her with an expressionless face, the man she has herself invited here. Their table is the quietest in the bustling establishment, and until their coffees sit cooling in front of them, the pair do not even trade looks. She feels the tension building up, and she steels herself for what she has to do.
She looks up and smiles, a fake, conman's smile. She wonders if he can still see through it- but then she doubts so. He has someone else to read easily like a book now. And she would smile her real, Chesire-cat smirk, but that smile was for the him of the past, when she was- when they were- Ugh, she can't stand it, not now. Her mind's all jumbled as are her emotions; she speaks just to distract herself.
"So... I heard you just got married to a nice girl, settled down, raised a family?" She says, the smile still plastered on her face even though her words nearly quiver as she speaks the lines. She doesn't add the other bitter words she wants to, about how he must be so happy now that all his dreams have come true, now that he had a sensible, kind wife and smart children running around the house. She knows why she doesn't, and it's a pathetic reason. It's because all those were things she couldn't give him, her with her capricious nature and fickle-mindedness. She can't blame him for anything.
He scrutinises her face with an odd expression on his face. She can see tinges of suspicion, nostalgia, and... Regret? Guilt? Never. She must be imagining things, but oh, how she likes that bubble of unreality. "Well... Yes..." He looks slightly uncomfortable and shifts in his seat, and she knows that the old her would have laughed and teased him mercilessly. But the smile wavers on her face as she struggles to keep up her perfect facade of happiness and obliviousness. Why is he so nervous around her now? She doesn't think she wants to know. Half-fondly, half-sadly, she remembers that it wasn't him to hold back around her in the past. But the past is, well, long past.
"Well... I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited, and pull you right away from your family just for a chat which could probably have waited, but, heck, I haven't seen you in years and I hate playing catch-up," She laughs, light, lilting, defying her own uncertainty and hesitation with the move. But still, her subconscious ridicules her, reminding her that she's lying blatantly, reminding her of the real reasons why she was so hasty. She couldn't stay away, couldn't fight it. And some forlorn, little-girl part of her had hoped desperately that somehow, when he saw her face, he would recollect how they had even fallen in love in the first place, and maybe, just maybe... But it was hopeless. He was the Green Oak- He never looked back, regretted, wondered what could have been. That part had been all her.
Because- and, oh, it was so obvious to her that she was afraid he could tell- because, there was a part of Blue Okido that had never stopped loving Green Oak.
"Blue..." He pauses, looks pained. Play along, Green, play along, she urges him mentally. She doesn't care much that she's lying so much to herself, but she can't bear for him to find out her secret. Her pride won't allow for it. And maybe they still share that close connection, because he acquiesces to her silent plea. "How have you been?" Casually, casually, all traces of the earlier hesitation gone as if it had never been there.
She swishes her hands around aimlessly, slinging one long leg over the other beneath the stone table, glad for the respite. "Fine, fine... I was globe-trotting for a long while, you know, doing that whole road-trip business before I got too old for it." This elicits a small chuckle from him, and that encourages her infinitely. "So I started a world tour, hitched a ride to Johto, ran around with Crys and Gold in tow sometimes. And Silver, too... He accompanied me as far as Hoenn, had some business there with Emerald who went back there for once. Ruby and Sapphire were entertaining, as you can probably tell..." Another short laugh. "The Contests were fun, but I actually didn't do much battling, except one or two gyms for fun. Then I visited Sinnoh, that was fun because Platina likes shopping almost as much as I do-" a snort "-and Hearthome was wonderful, but the whole region was kinda cold. Unova was alright, I really hit it off with Skyla and Elesa, and did you know we had juniors there and in Kalos? Oh yeah, Kalos. Kalos was brilliant, I stayed two years in Lumiose. The clothes! But how about you? How've you been doing?"
A slow pause, and she waits anxiously. "I've been training, and battling people I suppose. And-" she sucks in a breath almost painfully "-spending time with-" swallow "-my family." She suddenly finds interest in her now-cold cup of coffee, and cups it with both hands as if it was still warm enough to heat up her frozen hands. Gently, she sips the sweet liquid delicately, lips paused on the rim, a pretext to give her time to collect herself.
"Oh, you've never introduced your family to me! We should all meet up one day, I would really like to meet them!" Feigned excitement, to be sure, but if he can't tell it won't matter. But she isn't lying here- she would really like to meet the person who could capture Green's heart when she couldn't, all those years ago. "Tell me all about them!" She sees the hesitation in his demeanor, and hastens to assure him of her good intentions. "We are old friends, I feel terrible about missing the wedding. The least I could do is try to catch up."
"My wife... It's hard to describe her. It's best that you meet her, one day." She catches the way his eyes light up at the thought of his wife, eyes that had lighted up at the thought of her just a few short years ago. The knife twists in her chest, the ache of loss dealing her so sharp a blow she loses her breath, and she has to quickly cast her gaze downwards to avoid him seeing the agony he had inflicted upon her. He had not even remotely praised his wife, but his obvious devotion to her was injury enough. She's ashamed; the inner composure she had been so proud of was nothing much in his face. "My kids... I have two, they're both boys. Alex is a year older than James, and they're two and three this year respectively." And his eyes shine again. She mourns the forfeiture of a future that was never hers.
"Wow... That's quite a family. You've grown up, Greenie." The appearance of the old nickname was a slip of the tongue, but she can't worry about that now, not when she's fighting to keep the cadence of her voice light and airy, natural, as if he had not just shaken up her world yet again. "You know how the time flies; seems like just yesterday that we were eighteen and full of youthful exuberance." Yes, she thinks, only yesterday was the time of our lives. A time she longs for with every fibre of her being. Mew, do I sound old.
"Yes..." His turn to bury his nose in the lukewarm straight-black coffee he ordered. Her false smile flickers and fades; in its place, a genuine one dances slowly, wistfully across her lips. Born and raised in the sleepy, summer haze that was Pallet, they were; and she, still bound by the aspirations of her glory days, days not yet over. Again, she feels wiser than her age, undoubtedly due to all the life-threatening experiences she had unwittingly chalked up time after time. Nostalgia and wispy deja vu washes over her, courses through her; and it's not pleasant because it only serves to remind her of the large, gaping, metaphysical, intangible hole he filled up in her heart, which, left unplugged, killed her little by little each day.
"Heh... You know, I really am terribly sorry for my sudden reappearance. I'm pretty sure it must have disturbed the neat rhythm of your life." She says, rather agitated, fiddling with the perforations on the cup. It was almost brutal, she thought, the way that he had moved on so perfectly. But then again, Green had never cared much about his own emotions, least of all those of others. Of course, she could have moved on too, a thousand different options from a thousand different boys. And, in truth, she had tried, short flings with Arceus-knows how many different guys from all six regions, but... It had not ever been the same. Every single one of them, although green-eyed, tall and strong, was never half as tall, half as strong, half as sturdy as he was, in figurative comparison. Not one had all his quirks, be it his workaholic tendencies, penchant for training... The list went on and on. And of course, no one had eyes quite as beautifully forest green as his.
No one had ever made her feel the way he did, and she didn't know if that was okay.
The way he made her feel... He made butterflies explode in her stomach and brought her up to cloud nine. He made her feel unreal, like she was no longer part of the earth, ethereal, floating... Like she was the luckiest girl alive, which she supposed she had been. There was no English phrase to fully describe the feeling of surrealism that surrounded her and lifted her up when she was around him, and, Mew, did she miss that feeling.
"It's okay, I did miss having a close friend in Viridian and Pallet. Red is either cooped up in Mount Silver or deep in the Viridian forest with Yellow, either way, he's almost impossible to contact. I'm not particularly close with Yellow, and apart from that there isn't really anyone else I know in Kanto." Green pauses for a second, closes his eyes. "You know, I was expecting you to be kind of... jealous."
She almost pouts, but catches herself. "Not really. I mean, we've changed a lot since the last time we saw each other, huh? I guess I'm not wholly the same person you're used to." It takes an awful amount of effort to shape the words, squeeze them past her unwilling mouth till they hang out in the open for all to see. She wonders, and then doesn't, how much she's lied today, and feels ashamed again, but then again, what else can she do? The whole conversation had just been a stark reminder that he wasn't her Green any more, he was somebody else's husband and father and that he had responsibilities, obligations to fulfil to others. He was married, with children, and he loved his family, and that was the devastating strike.
She observes that he is struggling for words, and wonders keenly if he still expects her to be that young naive girl, forever pining after him. And she knows that much as she's changed, there will always be some fraction of that innocent child hiding deep in her. But he doen't have to know, doesn't have to know that nothing compares to him, that he made her feel like she had no worries or cares. Regrets and mistakes, they were and still are just memories made, in the end. Who would have known how bittersweet the taste of lost love would have been?
At long last, he sits back in the comfy wicker chair and just looks at her. "You know, I think you're right. It would be a good idea for you to meet my family, especially since you're such a close friend of mine." Blue beams widely, ignoring the throb and twang of her heartstrings at the word 'friend'.
"That would be great! Next time we can celebrate all the special occasions together, along with the other DexHolders. Hey, do they know you're married?" Plans spin through her head. She has to make sure that, even if she can't be with him, she'll never be far from him.
"Yeah, most know from the wedding invites. I assume you received the invitation too, since you knew about it and didn't seem offended that I'd missed you out."
"Mmhm, I received it when I was travelling from Unova to Kalos. But as you know, it's a long way from Kalos to Kanto, one expensive plane ride away I might add, so I couldn't go back straightaway." She doesn't feel the need to apologise for missing the wedding. She had a perfectly logical reason and, furthermore, she didn't feel sorry one bit. She would rather inhale poison than watch him get married off to some... female... Truth was, she had ripped the invitation card to pieces and gone on a drinking and crying spree for a long while afterwards. But Green doesn't have to know.
"So then are you planning on staying in Kanto for the time being?"
"Maybe... I'm never actually sure of my itinerary. I'm more of a do-first, talk-later kind of person. I mean, it's been a while since I've seen Silv, Crys, Gold and the others in the flesh, although I haven't lost contact with them. And I'm kind of beginning to long for Hearthome and Lumiose. It's kinda funny, when I'm in Kanto I miss them both and when I'm in one of those cities I long for Kanto. I've always been a city person but, well, Kanto is my homeland after all."
"Seems like you haven't lost some of your tendencies, then."
"It's only been like three years, geez."
"Pesky-" An awkward silence. She wonders if he calls her 'pesky' and 'obnoxious' too, but decides against it, taking comfort in the fact that few can top her at the annoying factor. The very thought ignites jealousy in her again.
"Hohoho, looks like you haven't lost your old habits too, either." They lock eyes and smile simultaneously, then look away as they remember their stations. But they had torn their gazes away a little too late; The same old spark that had always been there had reconnected with a vengeance. Blue blushes, chides herself for her eagerness. She must not forget again that he was indeed no longer hers, difficult though it may be. But his eyes- how they made her want to look back up and lose herself in their depths again. It had been so long, too long, since she had last looked into them.
She notices that he seemed to have recognised the misstep too. He averts his stare, something which saddens her, but at this rate she is almost impervious to tragedy. And then, so abruptly, he glances down at his watch. "I'll have to leave soon."
"Oh..." She looks down at her own PokeDex for the time. "Oh, Mew, I didn't realise it was that late. I should get going too." She echoes the statement as her PokeDex blinks up the numbers '8.30' at her. The darkening sky, previously unnoticed through her immersion in the conversation, suddenly became apparent to her as the stars twinkle in it. She reaches into her pocket and places a few bills on the table, swallowing her disappointment about the abrupt departure, when Green waves up the cashier and pays for the coffee. "It's okay, it's my treat since I dragged you out in the first place."
"No, I'll pay. It's the least I could do for a friend I haven't seen in years."
"Or, at least, I could pay you back my share." She does not want his charity nor whatever semblance of pity that may have come with it, and so persists. But no matter how stubborn and hard-headed she is, he is twice as determined.
"No, I shall foot the bill and that is final." She feels a twinge of remorse at how formal and distant they have become towards each other, as compared to the past days, but alas, it cannot be helped.
She walks out of the cafe first, and spins on her heel to face him, hair flying in the cold wind and whipping against her already-red cheeks. She regards him as he regards her, with a touch of longing, pensiveness, wretchedness, and notes that he is still as heartbreakingly handsome as ever, and thinks of her newly-pale skin in contrast to his natural tan-ness. Then she looks down, suddenly shy. For once, it is him who speaks the first word.
"Hey." She looks back up to face his strong, steady gaze. "I... had a good time today. Hopefully, we can meet again soon." He seems to be studying her one last time, and then he turns and walks away. How rude, she thinks, to let a lady walk home on her own, but the thought is halfhearted at best. Instead, her eyes are busy trailing the footprints he makes through the icy snow, as his silhouette grows ever smaller. And she knows that there are still things she has to say to him, things that she can say, unrestrictedly because it was she who set the borders in the first place. She dashes up the snow-trodden path, tapping him on the shoulder. He looks back at her, questioning.
"You know... I wish nothing but the best for you, you two. I may be going off soon, and I'm not sure if I'll ever return to Kanto except for visits, so... Don't forget me?" She's begging, hoping, needing for this last shred of reassurance that only he can give.
Finally, for the first time the entire meeting, Green smiles. A true smile, and a smile, not a laugh or a chuckle or a tiny quirk of the lip. He smile, and she believes that smile. "I wish you the best too, Blue Okido, wherever you may venture. And, well... There's no one on this earth quite like you, so... I don't think I'll ever forget you."
She smiles back. "That's a promise," and kisses him on the cheek like a sister, because she can be no one closer. "See you around, Green Oak." And it's her turn to skip off and away without a second glance backwards, no matter how much she wants to, just once more. And as she beats the well-worn path back home through the snowy scene, the place she still recognises after all her travels, she mutters to herself wistfully.
"Never mind, I'll find, Someone Like You. I wish nothing but the best for you, too. Don't forget me, I beg, I remember you said, sometimes it lasts, love, but sometimes instead. Sometimes it lasts, love, but sometimes, it hurts instead..."
{Right hand over left, scarlet lips with lipstick smudged off and hints of coffee stains delicately pursed, head tilted to one side with a waterfall of brown locks tumbling down and sapphire blue eyes taking in the surroundings. Porcelain white hand cupping her hat as she rushed off, homeward bound.}