Alan realized there was one need he had failed to fulfil for a long time when Manon's hand brushed against his.
Despite being no older than sixteen, he had learnt how to sustain himself and his team by himself. He knew where to find drinkable water, how to gather and cook food properly, how to make himself a good spot to sleep, had memorized the most convenient spots to rest in a city, had taught himself how to handle money and a tight budget. There was no need of his he couldn't fail at handling.
Except one, a tiny little one he had tried to ignore for a while, but which he couldn't fulfil alone, much to his chagrin. It seemed like the most benign thing at first, something he should have gotten over when he had stopped being a child; but everyone remains a child all their life, in a way, and he wasn't grown up yet. That was bothersome, to say the least.
It wasn't even like Alan had spent all his time on his own. He had Charizard with him, she had always been there for him and would have never let him down for anything in the world. He had his other Pokémon always with him, a handful away from him at best, buckled around his waist. He had been joined by Manon and Chespie anyway, so loneliness was out of the question. He was fine, he had to be fine, nothing could have been wrong and there wasn't anything that he could have thought of that could have gone wrong with him.
It wasn't too surprising, though, that there was something that had gone rotten.
It was an odd, unfamiliar feeling. His skin felt feverish despite his body temperature being plainly normal, his blood keeping its natural coldness, overly sensitive to the touch. Every time something brushed even the slightest against it, even a calm and otherwise soothing breeze, it acted up. For someone so composed, collected and cold-blooded, he was suddenly very sensitive, as if starving for something he didn't know about.
And, truly, what was he starving for? Food? Health? Company? No, all of these were fulfilled. Even in his nightmares he wasn't alone: Charizard, if she was out of her ball, would shelter him with her wing if he started thrashing in his sleep, Manon would tell him it was going to be fine and show him she cared for his well-being, that insisting about his shoulder all these months ago was a sign of affection and not just a selfish want to see him stick around with her. Everything was fine, as good as it could be at least, so…
Why was something missing? What was the piece of the puzzle he couldn't find, and where was he supposed to search for it?
Sitting in front of the campfire on one night, everyone asleep around him, Alan is kept awaken by that question: what is it that I am missing? No answer to that, obviously, or he'd otherwise have found a solution and have fixed the problem already. Knees against his chest, arms wrapped around his forelegs, skin heated and shivering to the dwindling heat of the flames gently lightning his face, he was left pondering upon the question. Alone.
He did feel somewhat lonely, during these moments of temporary solitude. There was nobody to talk to, nobody to distract himself from the dark thoughts still festering in the back of his mind and constantly trying to make it to the front of his brain, nobody to enjoy life with, in a sense. He knew this only lasted for a night – it always only lasted for a night –, yet the idea still stuck around, the impression never left: he felt alone, infected with an uncurable loneliness that would, seemingly never leave him alone.
Closing his eyes, focusing on the soft crackling of the campfire, he had a distant memory of his childhood. It was on a day where he didn't leave his bed, let alone his house, kept in the vicinity of his parents' attention. It was vague, the sound as if he was underwater as he tried to remember the words he had exchanged with his mother on that day. He, however, remembered the touch of his mother's arms wrapped against him, the warmth of being lodged against her chest, the soothing aura she was draping him in with.
Still in a remembering trance, he almost hadn't noticed the soft brushing of Manon's hand against his, as she slept right next to where he was. He had insisted on saying he was fine, aware of how fake it had to have sounded to her but nonetheless hoping Manon would blindly trust him on that one (despite how much he must have had disappointed and hurt her before), even if there was no convincing himself that he was fine anymore. He simply wasn't, as he contemplated the starry night sky with a spirit filled with insomnia and unanswerable questions.
"…hey, Alan…"
Manon's drowsy voice made him jump as she stirred in her sleep… only to open her eyes. There must have been some kind of a twisted, embarrassed, awkward "smile" creeping up on his face while he watched her do so, he was sure of it.
"M-Manon?! I thought you were asleep!"
"Could ask you that back, y'know…"
She rubbed her eyes as she sat up, their faces aligning as he had turned his in her direction.
"Well, huh… I couldn't sleep, that's it."
Despite her undeniable clumsiness and her forgetful appearances, Manon was always quick to wake up, a natural early bird. Seconds after he had seemed to wake her up, she was fully awake, staring at him with doubtful eyes when someone other than her would have still been left half-awake and unable to give him that stinky stare she was clearly giving him. Awkward.
"And why couldn't you sleep? You've had nightmares again, Alan? I told you to tell me if you did!"
She lightly punched his shoulder as a way to enforce her message. As he had feared, it made his skin act up again, leaving him with a strange impulse coursing through his arms. He refrained himself from letting them go wild with what self-persuasion strength he had left.
"I'm not sure. It's nothing big, though. You should go back to sleep, Manon."
He thought he had made the emphasis on her name sharp and strong, just how he liked them, but it failed its purpose rather epically.
"I'm sure that's a big lie! Tell me what's wrong, I'm not a little kid who can't handle a friend's problems!"
It was a tempting offer, it really was. He was tempted to tell her about the weird fever in his skin, the constant need for something akin to attention but still not fulfilled by the friends he was surrounded with, the weird obsession his mind had to always fixate itself on memories of his distant childhood, all the little things he felt that he couldn't understand, even after thinking about them for hours. It was tiring, to be left with so many unanswered questions without a single answer, to have a need he didn't know how to get rid of.
Something did tell him the surge that pulsed through his body when she brushed her fingers against his hand had a link to it all, but he wasn't sure how, or why. The enigma was exhausting to try and solving, he had never been that big on puzzles and unsolved mysteries.
"I… really don't know, Manon. That's the problem there."
"Mind telling me, then? Friends are here to listen to each other's rambling and problems."
She sat right next to him, causing his right side to send that now-familiar pulse through his limbs again. Compelled by his growing impatience and her insistence, knowing her stubbornness barely knew any limit, he told her about most of what he could, excluding the daze of his blurry memories from times long gone. He wasn't ready to see her smile so widely, so gleefully. Had she already found an answer to his questions? It seemed like so.
"Ah, I see! You just need a big hug, you dummy!"
"You… You're not making fun of me, right?"
To that doubtful question, she seemed offended.
"What, you don't believe me?! I'll show you then!"
Without missing a single moment, Manon threw herself on him, pulling her against her in an embrace far stronger than he would have sworn she was capable of. Yet, despite the unexpected nature of the event and her reaction to what he thought was a normal question, it did what it was striving to do: fulfil a need, answer his questions.
This what he had wanted all along. And, as it was the one thing to quench the intelligible thirst, he simply let himself indulge in the physical affection his closest friend, if not more, was giving him.
When they pulled out of the embrace, she was still holding his hand and looking into his eyes, sheepish smile never leaving her face. In the light of the fire, she seemed even more luminous than ever.
"See? I told you I wasn't lying! You're just in need of affection!"
He let silently himself nod in response before they'd inevitably have to go back to sleep.