When they were kids, they'd share sweets.
"D'you want cherry or strawberry, Bluey?" Leaf would chirp, holding out her small bag filled with fruit flavoured candy blocks. Blue would grin back.
"Duh, cherry! Cherry tastes the best, by far!" He would insist confidently. Leaf would smile amusedly over at her friend.
"I like both, though," she pointed out, pouring a few cherry favoured candies into Blue's waiting open palm. He would grin.
"Yeah, but, that's you. You're weird like that Leafy," he teased with a laugh, nudging his fellow six year old.
"Hey!" She always giggled, lightly shoving her friend. And then the sweets would lay, forgotten on the ground, as the two chased each other, giggling eagerly. Often, they would remember them too late, and come back to either nothing, or a rattata feeding on the last few. They'd catch each other's eye, and burst into even more laughter, not particularly caring about the fact their candy was gone. They could get more. And as always, Blue would get the cherry.
When they were teenagers, Leaf wore perfume.
Blue hadn't ever really been up close enough to her in a long time. He had no idea when she'd started wearing it, didn't even really care. In fact, didn't care at all. But when they were both fifteen, and his grandfather had requested their assistance in studying the rattata and pidgey populations (so interesting), it unfortunately required actually being near Leaf. Great.
He'd been standing, pretending to listen as his gramps droned on and on, while Leaf, ever the Teachers Pet, listened intently. And then, as he'd heaved an irritable sigh, he'd smelt a surprisingly pleasant smell.
Now, usually, his gramps lab smelt of oil, paper, nothing all that pleasant. But now something actually smelt decent, good even. Had Grandpa Oak finally bought a freaking air freshener? Or just opened the window?
Apparently, the answer was neither.
Leaf had been talking to Oak, whilst Blue had been daydreaming, and now seemed to have noticed either something wrong, or something interesting. She'd leaned across, past Blue, pointedly ignoring him, and said something (he didn't listen), slight pouted frown on her face as she chattered.
Blue scoffed at the total invasion of privacy, but then paused as he realised. The smell was no air freshener or nature. It was Leaf. The pleasing, cherry scent was coming from her.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, this triggered a memory, but he dismissed it. Memories sucked, especially the ones from before he was around eight. Memories with his parents...No. They were too happy. They were too painful. They were dumb, so he pointedly ignored them. Why would a cherry flavour matter to him, anyway? He hadn't minded cherry in his younger days, but now?
He hated anything cherry flavour.
He decided the smell wasn't that great, considering it came from Leaf.
When their journeys had finished, she had kissed him.
They had been back in Pallet Town, finally on decent terms after a long ten years. Were they the same as they were at six years old? No. They'd grown up. Some scars cut too deep to ever recover from. But they were far from enemies now.
Their old space, near the entrance to route 1, was once again taken up by them. Once, they'd gazed out in wonder, as the route was a fascinating mystery, one which they were not allowed to discover until their older days. Now, they'd seen it all and far more. Venturing onto route 1 was child's play for them by this point.
And there, underneath the stars, finally getting along with her old friend once more, Leaf had kissed him. And he'd kissed her.
Her cherry lipgloss lingered on his own lips, and the taste stayed with him for days.
He decided he loved Cherry again, after all.
He'd quite like to taste it again, actually.