Serendipity

An inspirational Champion becomes a cynical shopkeeper at Accumula Town, stuck in the past. Touya blames it on the Ferris Wheel.
[ TOUYA / N ]

[ 01 ]

Beads of sweat tumbled down the curves of his cheeks, falling from his chin and plummeting to the bare countertop below. He smeared the small droplets across the surface, letting what was left evaporate into the summer sun. Touya glanced up at the broken air condition unit behind him, scowling. Leave it to a stingy manager to refuse to get the darned thing fixed. Nobody would even think twice of coming into a store whose room temperature was hotter than it was outside. Nevertheless, he was seen as another form of teenage cheap labor, forced to work in unbearable environments for a couple yen an hour.

Wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, his eyes turned to look at the only customer in the cramped kiosk. He could tell just from the woman's strained face that she didn't want to be there. But judging from which shelf she was standing at, Accumula was the only town that sold limited edition merchandise of Unova's Champion. Well, the new Champion, at least. Nobody cared about the former one, seeing as how short-lived his term had been…

Another drop of sweat fell from his face, which he immediately wiped off the counter.

"I think this will be all," the woman said, placing a plastic-covered photograph onto the surface. It was the usual one, with Touko putting her fists confidently onto her hips. He remembered how the photographer had specifically asked her to jut out her chest a little, telling her how more appealing she would be to a male audience. Touya felt like scoffing.

"…Oh, my! Aren't you…?" The lady's eyes glanced from the photo to the boy before her. "Do you happen to be related to—?"

"I am."

"Well isn't that lovely! Though I wouldn't expect her brother to be working at…" Knowing full well she had dug herself into an awkward situation, the woman pretended to look at the glass case behind him. "…Ah, well…"

"No, I get that a lot." He nodded off at the photo as he clicked in its code on the cashier's keyboard. "But why're you buying a photo? Gonna travel to go see her at one of her meet and greets?"

"Ah, well, my daughter is," she said, sliding exact change across a counter of sticky sweat. "She really admires her."

"I see."

"They're having one in Nimbasa City tomorrow night. Isn't that a bit strange?"

"Nah. Touko always loved Nimbasa's amusement park." He hesitated. "…'Specially that Ferris Wheel."

"Is that so? Well, that's very interesting you mention that, seeing as how she's going to have her signing event right in front of it! I guess she really does love that ride."

"Uh-huh." He pushed the photograph towards her, which was already covered in a small paper bag. "Well, tell your daughter to have fun."

"Oh, she will! Thank you, um…"

"Touya."

"Ah, yes! Touya! I'm so sorry I forgot your name."

His lips forced themselves to twist into a polite smile. "It's fine. I…get that a lot, too." And as soon as the lady had pushed open the doors to go out, Touya felt himself fall back onto a squeaky plastic chair. Silence swept throughout the room, except for the incessant clicking of a clock on the other side of the shop.

With a taut sigh, he raised his left arm to glance down at his Xtransceiver. The thing looked pretty beat up, with scuffs on the screen, torn strings around its band, and a crack on its screen; even he was surprised at how it still worked. And, better yet, why he still kept it around his wrist. He blinked up at his wrist, watching the seconds increase. He eyed the date too, and the year only made him slump further in his seat.

It was during moments like these — these brief points during his shift when no one was there — that he wondered where he was. Where he had gone, what he was doing. Whether he was happy all this time, being surrounded by a plethora of new Pokemon friends somewhere deep in the woods or high up in the mountains. Whether he was okay with discarding the memories of everything that had happened before. Whether he thought of him. Whether he missed him, just as much as Touya did.

He suddenly smacked the back of his hand onto his sweaty forehead. "Shit," he groaned. "I'm turning my life into some cheesy soap opera."

The kiosk's automatic doors swung open, followed by a series of exasperated pants. "Honestly, are you trying to kill me with a heat stroke?"

Upon hearing the familiar voice, Touya launched himself up and over the countertop and swung his arms over the other, only to retract his hands and wipe them on his pants. "Sheesh Cheren, you're like a walking water park!"

"Very funny," he replied as he readjusted his red necktie. "But if you didn't notice, I have an actual job as a Gym Leader now, so I have to look the part. Not waste my time working in a shop that apparently has no air conditioning." His head bobbed back and forth, searching the ceiling. "But really, hasn't your manager even bothered to by a fan?"

"Doesn't wanna," Touya replied, leaning his shoulder against the end of a shelf. "He's too cheap to do something like that."

"I…see. Well, you know how many times I've offered you a chance to be a substitute at Aspertia's academy."

"Like I'd want to be around a bunch of little kids."

"The old you would have hopped at the chance."

"That was the old me," Touya said, shrugging. He pushed himself off from the shelf and started walking down one of the aisles. "…And this is the new me."

"Your new self isn't exactly what I was envisioning." Cheren paused. "Or anyone else, for that matter. Specifically Touko."

The brunette took out a fly swatter from one of the shelves and went over to his friend to wave it at his friend's face. "Don't bring my sister into this!" he mocked, laughing. Cheren could only try to push his athletic friend away, and popped a button from his tight dress shirt in the process. Grumbling, the studious Gym Leader fumbled to put it back in place.

"And after traveling all the way from Aspertia to come here to meet you, this is all the thanks I get?"

"I would have hugged you, but you're all sweaty and gross," Touya protested after slipping the fly swatter back in its place. "That's what happens when you work in-doors all the time at a Gym. You forget how to tough it out in the heat. But anyway. What brings you all the way here? I didn't think Gym Leaders could just randomly disappear from their Gym."

"They don't. I made arrangements to request leave for this day. In advance, of course." Cheren couldn't help but clear his throat, as if to emphasize the fact that he was much more organized than his friend. "I was hoping I could have gone to eat out with you, but…it seems you're caught up in your own kind of…'work,' as you might call it."

"This is work." Touya snatched up a golden frame with a picture of Touko's face, flapping it out towards the other's face. "I have to restock exclusive pictures and merchandise of my sister's face day in and day out. You don't call that work?"

"I'd call that awkward."

"…That, too."

"Well, seeing as how we can't go anywhere but stay in this poorly ventilated shop, I suppose I'm just going to have to be blunt with you."

"Blunt about…?"

"Touko wants to see you."

The brunet then placed the frame back on its shelf, turning his back to his friend. "No thanks."

"You haven't seen her in two years." Cheren crossed his arms, skeptical. "And I don't think that's a proper way to treat a sibling."

"You don't have any, so you wouldn't know."

"At least I know that's not a way to treat a sister."

Touya let out a small, sardonic laugh and shook his head. If there was one that hadn't changed besides his appearance, it was his Cheren's wit.

"Why won't you go and see her?"

"Shouldn't she be the one coming to see me? She knows where I work," Touya replied, pretending to sort things back and forth at the end of the aisle.

"You know she would, but the hectic schedule of a Champion doesn't permit her to—"

"Then why doesn't she just quit?"

"Because you were the one that put her in that situation." Cheren's answer was cold, yet candid. "Weren't you the one that purposely lost to her?"

Touya's hand clung onto the edge of a metal shelf.

"Stop it."

"So that you could relinquish your title as Champion?"

His shoulders hunched, his muscles tensed.

"Stop it."

"And make time in your life to go and chase after that fanatical madma—?"

Cheren wasn't able to finish his sentence, however, as a fist had snagged his shirt's collar into its grasp. His friend's face loomed over his, with furrowed brows and gritted teeth.

"Don't talk about him like that. Don't you dare talk about N like that." Seeing his friend stare up at him horrorstruck, Touya released his grip on the other's clothing and paced to the farthest corner away from him. "You're just like everyone else," he mumbled, barely audible under his breath. "You think he's crazy, but he was justified. Justified in every way to believe what he wanted to believe."

And intelligent, as he mapped out the constellations in the sky and told him about their origins as they wrapped in the long grass. And eloquent, as he had been when he had explained to him what he had to say to subdue a mother Beartic's immeasurable pain after losing her baby Chubchoo to a group of poachers. And beautiful, as he had been that one summer night on the Ferris Wheel, gazing out at foreign fluorescent lights, entranced.

And after a long pause and silence between best friends, Touya let out a sigh. "I won't go because of where she's hosting her appearance."

Cheren glanced over at his friend, whose back was still turned to him. "Her appearance?"

"She's going to be in Nimbasa City tomorrow, signing autographs. Right in front of the Ferris Wheel."

"And that would matter because…?"

Touya laughed softly. "You wouldn't know why. But…she would know. I told her why, a long time ago." He blinked, his eyes to the tiled floor below. "…But it looks like she forgot."

"Two years is a long time," Cheren replied. "Two years too long, in fact. But, anyway." He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and placed it on the cashier's countertop. "Clearly my convincing has backfired. But at least consider it." He took one last glance over at the brunet, hesitant to continue. Sighing, he turned around and put a hand to the shop's wall. "…Touya. Even after all the time you've spent looking for that man, he still hasn't shown up." Cheren paused, looking out at Accumula's sunny plaza before him. "Perhaps it is not my place to say, but I think, as your friend, that…it might be time to patch up what has been lost during this expanse of time."

And with a curt apology, the Gym Leader left.

Minutes passed until Touya returned to the cashier desk to pick the thin slip of paper. It was a ticket dyed in a tacky shade of printer pink, along with his sister's name printed in big bold letters across the front. The shop's clock clicked in the background as Touya hopped behind the counter, and resumed his lazy posture in the plastic seat, just as he had been a few minutes ago. But instead of staring up at his beat up Xtransceiver, Touya found himself blinking up at a poor printed outline of a Ferris Wheel on the ticket's background.

Notes

This is what happens when you're really bored over break and listen to Frozen's soundtrack nonstop. Oh, and also deciding to replay Pokemon Black, that too. Big mistake! Seeing Touya and N interact just…well. Sparks a lot of feels, you know? I haven't written fics in a year and a half, so I'm pretty rusty. Yet, what I hoped to establish Touya's personality in this chapter. I know he's supposed to be 'you,' but it's always fun to add a dash of persona to them, you know? Hopefully my Touya is believable, haha. Ummm…I don't really know where this story is headed after chapter three (I'm planning in my head, derP). N will definitely appear in the next chapter, though! Also, if there was anything you liked or think could have been improved, please feel free to comment below or message me. Thanks for reading! ~Kanjiji