It's hot, the air is dirty with soot, we could've just flown, I think, trudging up the narrow mountain path behind May. We literally could have flown. She has Latias. She possesses a legendary Pokémon and we're hiking five miles up a sodding mountain.
"Steven? Is it close? I wanna see it already," May whines again. It's not the first time I've heard that particular complaint today, but it will be the last, thank Arceus.
"I told you we should've flown," I say, louder than I should have. May scowls at me over her shoulder, and I shrug back. "We could've been there two hours ago if you had just called Latias."
May shrugs at me, turning her head away from me. "I wanted to see the scenery. You said it was pretty."
"It's just as pretty from the sky," I protest, even though it's a losing battle. It always is, with the ever-earthbound May.
"Not the same," she says. One more bouncy shrug and she's off again, jogging up the single-file cliffside trail. I sigh, shake my head, and continue my pace, lowering my eyes to the ground to keep from staring.
I should have gone in front, I think, closing my eyes tight for a moment.
We continue in this manner, May and I, for another half an hour. Soon enough, I see it: the small, smooth divot in the side of the cliff that marks my Secret Base. My PokèNav beeps in warning, as though I wouldn't recognize the place I have spent countless afternoons lounging about with my Pokémon and avoiding the Devon Corporation.
I stop in front of the divot, cross my arms, and wait for May to realize I'm not following her. It takes her about thirty seconds, and she's spun around, pebbles flying over the edge of the narrow road, hands on her hips.
"Well?" she yells back to me, "What are you doing all the way back there? Come on, we gotta get there before dinner or I'm gonna starve."
"We're here," I say, keeping my voice low so I know she doesn't hear.
Confusion crosses her face and she stomps back my way, as impatient as ever. "What?"
"We're here," I say again, accentuating my point with a toss of my head towards the divot.
"Really?" she says, and grins. "Can't wait. Open it, Steven, come on!"
"What's the magic word?" I say, arching a white eyebrow at her.
She rolls her eyes. "Please," she drawls.
"There's my Champion," I say with a grin. I reach over and ruffle her hair before she can protest, which was maybe not the best idea because A: I need to be better behaved than this, B: If looks could kill, May would now be a murderer, and C: her hair was much softer than I thought, and it's trying to lead my mind into places I would rather it not go, especially with May present. I jerk back, my grin falters, and an awkward silence wraps the both of us in nice cuddly cushions of Beedrill stingers.
"Uhm…"May tries. She sways her hands helplessly, she won't look at me. Arceus, but I've done it again.
"So," I say, focusing back on the small mountainside divot. "Let's get down to business, shall we?"
"Finally," May says, her breath warm on my shoulder, and leans in.
My heart's going a mile a minute. Can she hear it? She must. Arceus preserve me.
I send out an Aaron I caught just for the occasion and point at the divot. "Aaron, use Hidden Power," I order, and the small iron Pokémon obeys. Light surrounds the divot, and in a moment a Steven-sized hole gapes through the rock.
"Ladies first," I say to May's backside as she ducks through the doorway. I follow and almost stumble into her, because she's standing five steps inside, staring at the ceiling. It's fifteen feet above us, showing a marble-inlayed mural of every legendary Pokémon of the Hoenn region. In the center, Latios and Latias fly around each other, their triangular Eon markings made of lapis and ruby, respectively.
"Wow," she breathes.
"You like it?" I ask, watching the face instead of the scenery. I made it; I know what it looks like. What I don't know is how she's going to express herself now—I've never seen her in this kind of situation. It's always been save the world, May! You can do it! Go defeat this super-ancient Pokémon, a corrupt criminal gang, and then off to the Elite Four! While I've stood by the sidelines, she's saved a region, and the entire world. Some Champion I am.
"It's…wonderful," she whispers. She's still not looking at me, her eyes focused on the mural above her, mouth agape.
"I thought you would," I say, and before I can stop myself, wrap my arms around her waist. May tenses for a moment, eyes flickering to me, but relaxes into the touch and returns her gaze to the ceiling.
Arceus alive, Steven, what are you doing?! the same rational, reasonable part of my mind that mentally slapped me before protests. You need to act your age. She's six years younger than you, Steven. This isn't going to end well, my mind whispers, and I almost pull away. I squash that part of my mind down.
May stays silent but tears her eyes away from the mural, turning in my arms to face me.
She can feel my heartbeat she can feel my heartbeat she can feel my—
"Did you make this?" She whispers. Stones alive, but her eyes are blue. And rather pleading, a little shy, dark with something else around the edges. I've never seen her so vulnerable.
I can't speak, so I nod. My face must be bright red now, I can feel it.
She laughs, a soft breathy wisp of air, hot on my neck. "I knew it," she says. One more glimpse of those blue eyes, and then a soft, warm pressure on my lips.
She's—
Arceus, she's—
Her lips are chapped, but I don't care. I kiss her back, hard and fast at first, surprised, a little desperate perhaps, but slow down once the previously-quashed rational part of my mind kicks back in.
My first kiss was with a girl whose name I don't even remember. It started with a movie, and ended with her father walking in on the two of us half-naked on her bed.
This kiss is everything my first kiss was: slow and sweet, halting and hesitant, breaking only to breathe because we forgot what noses were for in the midst of our fumbling mouths.
It's everything my first kiss wasn't, too: grasping for something that wasn't immediately our pants, edged with a hunger that spoke of later instead of now, tasting of persim berry chapstick, looked on by gods instead of boy-band posters lining the walls.
Arceus, I think—or maybe mutter into the kiss, I'm not sure which—I've done it again.