Tori Lund flattens the note discreetly against his thigh, keeping one hand on the keys of his laptop and the other tracing the words as he reads them.

'The Ice-Witch won against Katie'

"-It is customary in scientific measurements to record all the significant digits from the measurements, for example, 1,230,400, but the measurement may have introduced an error which when calculated indicates the last significant digit has a range of values where the most likely one is the "4". The range may be 3-5 so that the last significant digit plus this error may be written as (4,1) meaning 4-1=3 and 4+1=5.-"

Tori opens his PokeNav's communication app, while keeping his notes sectioned to the left of his laptop screen. The physical note is abandoned on the bench beside him and Alice goes back to her own work-hand written, just like her note passing. He shifts his laptop an inch to the right so that she can read the group chat he started.

Hey Kate, are you alright?

Sunlight pours in from the square glass windows, pale and white. March in LaRousse City is cool and bright, with a cloudless effect of a place stuck in time. The lecture hall feels stale, and smells like chemicals from the lab next door. It will be several more weeks before end of the fall semester, and several more weeks after that until Tori will be able to get his hands on the telescope equipment held in that lab-he has to make it through Astronomy 2 with Dr. Felix before he could even dream of those kinds of things.

I'm OK, but my Pokemon are still in the Pokemon Center That witch is a FREAK!

Alice sighs heavily. She glances behind Tori, at the Ice-Witch.

Tori's eyes flicker over to her too, as if she could hear Katie through the electronic space of his laptop. She couldn't, Tory wouldn't be able to handle that-he would feel guilty. Because at the end of the day, the Ice-Witch won that match fair and square. They all know it.

She must feel the weight of everyone's eyes, today. Adele Capo, Tori reminds himself. Her real name is Adele.

Henry logs onto the conversation, Calm down Kate are they not going to make it or something?

They were badly hurt!

Welcome to Pokemon battling, Henry responds, almost instantaneously, Every time you step in the battle tower you risk that it's 101.

Dr. Felix has diagramed a formula onto the board, taking a silent moment-a rarity, in his class- to collect an example from off the lecture halls computer. Tori shifts his attention down three rows where Henry is sitting, and he turns around sharply just as Tori sets his eyes on him. He's pissed now. Which is the exact opposite of what they need.

It's better to try and defuse the situation, But you'll still be able to battle the Tower Tycoon if you win in your next match?

Alice shakes her head, muttering out of the corner of her mouth, "It's almost the end of the semester!"

Crap, Tori thinks.

I can't battle anyone else Stupid I'm out for the season

Woah woah, Seth joins the chat, no reason to take that out on Tori he didn't know

Fuck off Seth

"Ouch," Alice grumbles.

None of you get it none of you understand that girl is a FREAK she uses SHITTY Pokémon I bet she doesn't even raise them she just summons them from the underworld to do her bidding

Tori nearly shuts his laptop. Something really awful settles in his stomach, pressing against his lungs to make it hard to breathe. Katie isn't normally like this but, well, she was almost there. She had made it farther than she ever has in the Battle Tower's end of season tournament, nearly to the Tower Tycoon himself. But the truth is that the Ice-Witch is stronger. And, well, Tori guesses he can make excuses for Katie all he wants but at the end of the day he wouldn't put Adele down for being the better trainer.

Tori glances over at her again, sitting by the window at an empty table, on an empty bench. When the weather is like this it illuminates her, and Tori looks, really looks, at the Ice-Witch. At her serious, sharp features. At the way her fingers fly over the keys to her own laptop. One foot propped onto the knee of the other leg. He feels dirty and raw, looking at her. As if he was the one who insulted her and her Pokémon. Nearly six years attending the same schools and he doesn't know a thing about her. Nearly six years of watching her vaguely from affair, like he does with everything else he finds alien. Because despite what he went through in his childhood, he's not strong or brave.

No one responds to Katie's message.

Tori hates it, suddenly. The competition and the battles and how easy it is for students to enroll in Tower tournaments. He hates how famous they all get, the online nicknames, the popularity and social media and all the things that target people in their daily lives when they weren't meant to. He wants to protect them, somehow, protect Katie and Adele and all the other students who decide to compete. But he can't and he wouldn't because those are not his lives to live, they are theirs.

When Tori dreams, he dreams of stars and meteors and Deoxys. He dreams of eons of empty space, trillions of miles expanding outward into the occupation of forever, an ever-changing universe with ever changing possibilities, and somewhere in it, a Pokémon who had captured the better part of his life. Dr. Felix's class is only one step in a million, during a lifetime so small and insignificant that his time spent on earth will equate to one nanosecond in the time the universe has existed. Tori can only do what little he can with the nearly nonexistent life he has been given, and he will live it while watching, dreaming of space.

What does Adele Capo dream of? Does she dream of open, empty space? Does she dream of the texture of the ice on Saturn's rings? Or does she dream of humanity, of human things, of relationships and coffee and careers and warm socks and growing old under stadium lights?

Tori doesn't know because he doesn't know her. Because, like space, he has watched her from affair.

"Oh, Katie," Alice breathes.

One last message has appeared on the group chat, highlighted in red, screw her seriously

Tori exits out of the group chat just as the bell rings.

But when Tori turns around, Adele is gone-her table empty, her bench pushed under it. As if she had never been there at all.