( faded thesis )
—
look for the girl with the broken smile, and ask her if she wants to stay awhile. —candice. jasmine. volkner.
—
It's just a bit strange the first time she steps in the dimly light, gray plastered apartment she's about to call home. The light doesn't switch on, but that's okay. The windows are big and the view isn't too bad, not with the lovely blue, not green, sea and painted horsetail clouds, but she likes it anyway— with the creaky bed in the corner, pink dollhouse kitchen with chipped tiles, and something like a witch's broom left sprawled across the middle.
This is nowhere like her home, proper and tidy and vacant, and perhaps that's a good thing, she thinks, knuckles rapping noiselessly.
Jasmine makes dusty pancakes with some flour from downstairs, then gives half to the chittering birds out her metal door. She isn't hungry anyway; the pale blonde girl is all skin and bones (but healthy) and strange wings on the top of her head.
No one here looks at her strangely, and it makes her sortakinda happy.
So the girl leaves the apartment, doesn't lock the door, there's nothing to steal, and wanders. Her pockets feel light without Steelix and Amphy and the little brown bottles of medicine she's been taking lately.
Truthfully, she doesn't even know why she's been taking them, but it feels alright and she does.
Sunyshore is overwhelming, and it hits a little too close to home. She takes it in though, and talks to the first person she sees. The lucky person seems familiar, petite and bright and not like her. Brown eyes and brown hair and a smile that could brighten anyone's world, maybe, just maybe, Jasmine's a bit green-eyed. "Um, do you think you… could tell me where the market is? I-I'm looking for some…contest seals."
"Oh! I'm from Snowpoint, you know, and I'm looking for the same thing!"
She pauses slightly, muttering about a bastard (and some other words not too appropriate) incapable of giving accurate directions in his hometown for mew's sake, and starts to grin again cheerfully, "My friend, she's a coordinator, you must be one too, and I was looking to get her a birthday present. You should stick with me; it has to turn up somewhere, right? And I swear I've seen your face before… You're really pretty, are you a model? Or an actress? I just love romantic movies! Especially with the explosions and lots of that fun stuff! My other friend, this silly goose with pink hair and ah—mazing karate moves, got me hooked."
How does this girl breathe?
Blushing and stammering (and giggling, imagine that!), Jasmine doesn't know what to say. Apparently, the pixie with pigtails doesn't expect her too. She merely takes her by the arm, and promptly drags her everywhere.
It's a strange start—but an excellent one nevertheless.
(that's kind of self-explanatory when they get by five days of not knowing each other's name)
—
Somewhere along the way, she meets him. Blue eyes, blond hair, and a scowl etched on his face. This is no prince, but Jasmine doesn't mind, she's no princess, either, so it works. He is beautiful, and there's tiny tug at her heart, one that takes her breath away, that maybe he thinks she's beautiful too.
But Candice smiles brilliantly, her small hands weaved between his, and it's like comparing venus to the sun. It's peculiar, but Jasmine feels no pang. "This emotionally-crippled guy's Volkner! He's a grumpy old teddy bear; don't worry too much about it. You're staying here longer so I thought since I'm leaving tonight to get back to Snowpoint, maybe you could make nice with him!" She pokes him in the side with a teasing giggle, "Oh, he's the gymleader too, I guess, if that's any important. Ice pokemon are way cooler, but he holds his own pretty well with those screwy electric types that end up giving Sunyshore power outages every week or so."
Posters. Travel magazines. Trainer's Daily. The color blurs her sepia tones, bleeding into the black and the white.
Jasmine turns a neat shade of crimson—she knows who these people are! How is it she's so horribly stupid? "Candice… wait…y-you're a gymleader, aren't you?" The girl tilts her head, and opens her mouth before laughing again. The sound swells and swells, it makes Jasmine just a little suffocated. But before she speaks, he cuts in with a faded smile of his own. "She's Jasmine, of Olivine." It a challenging statement, and there's a cross between mirth and disapproval in his eyes. Her friend doesn't notice it. (Or at least it just doesn't show. Candice is good at pretending, after all.) "Oh, really?" Squealing, she smiles so bright it crushes Jasmine. "Ah, you two will get along so well then! You won't mind putting up with him, will you? I'll be back in a couple of week, just after I take care of the gym."
Hugging the blonde girl close and kissing both their cheeks, she is gone in a whirl of christmas peppermint. Jasmine is too stunned to do anything but stand there in front of his apartment, gaping like a sad little magikarp. He glances at her with those steely eyes and smiles slightly.
"See you tomorrow."
The door shuts again, and she is alone.
—
Volkner is strange. She understands this from the first fifteen minutes they spend together inside the cold metal gym of his. But she doesn't ask questions either, and simply watches him at first.
It doesn't seem to work like it did with Candice.
(That's okay, too. She is not Candice. He is Jasmine. And Candice is not Volkner.)
They spend most of their days on the sandy cape of Sunyshore anyway. He tells her stories; quiet and absurd and all so familiar to her. He never touches her, not like Candice and her warm hugs, and keeps his distance. It's enough though. Enough that he spends time with her and lets her follow him around like a lost puppy.
And slowly, Sunyshore looks a lot more like home. She doesn't miss Olivine, maybe her pokemon, but she feels clean here. Like it doesn't matter what she does or what she says.
She falls in love with him, too, but that is only expected. Sturdy and kind in that awkward kind of way, Volkner makes her safe inside. It's not love-love, but she thinks it counts anyway. It should anyway, she tells herself firmly, feeling nothing when he brushes light hair from her eyes as they watch the stars hand from above.
"Infinite." He says, pulling his arms apart to the sky in quiet musing. Something breaks inside with his words. "Infinite." She repeats like a young child, her body feeling very much numb. Jasmine stands up on shaky legs and screams until her voice grows hoarse. Her eyes sting, yet she doesn't cry. Jasmine is strong, too, even if it doesn't show these days.
She needs this, and her companion says nothing about the matter.
The feeling of warm sand beneath her feet, the way he smiles and shakes his head at her when the rippling waves catch her in their spray…it's so beautiful her heart breaks.
In a good way—because this—this is home now.
Not forever, because forever means nothing at all, but for now. She will return, eventually, to the ports that need her more.
Sunlight across her skin, sand streaked across her cheeks, the girl with a broken smile stays awhile.
—
( for you. calling superman. xoxo. )
—
breathe, jasmine, breathe.