hi jump kick
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one
She's something like a princess, Joey decides, with her neatly combed brown locks and gentle demeanor. And he tries to hide the fact that her face, her shining eyes, the quirk of her lips when she smiles make him blush madly and look away, because everyone knows you can't look at the sun, lest you go blind.
two
"I'm moving to Hoenn," she breathes, for once her porcelain smooth façade shattered and lying at their feet. Her eyes are frantic as Joey looks into them, and he doesn't know what to do. He settles on saying nothing, merely wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close. Her heart beats a rapid-fire into his chest, and he can feel his neck growing wet.
"It'll be okay," he murmurs in her ear, but he's not so sure.
three
He is feeding his rattata when he sees her on national television.
Ignoring his pokemon's indignant squeak as he drops the tin of food, he rushes over to the television, frantically twiddling the volume dial.
She looks less of a princess now, her hair tangled and framing her face wildly and her clothes ripped and grimy. But her eyes glow as her blaziken leaps into battle, and she commands it with all the grace and skill of Steven Stone himself.
Which probably explains why she defeats him.
Joey watches as she raises her fists in triumph, her blaziken returning to her side. For a moment, her sapphire eyes look at the camera and Joey has to grip the edge of the table to keep from collapsing because she looked at him and she hasn't forgotten him after all.
He swallows hard and, as he watches the crowd applaud her, he thinks desperately, Just let me keep on loving you, and maybe it'll be enough.
But in the end, it isn't.
four
The next time Joey sees her, he has aged eleven years and there's a five 'o clock shadow crawling uncomfortably along his jawline. He is walking along the sidewalk when he sees her.
She is walking hand-in-hand with a tall, white-haired man her age, laughing at something he says in his low voice. They are heading straight in his direction, and Joey holds his breath in anticipation of the tearful reunion that is sure to come.
She meets his gaze.
Joey exhales sharply and looks at her expectantly, but she merely glances away again as she turns back to her companion. He continues past and looks back at her, hoping, praying she'll recognize the boy she spent countless hours searching for pokemon with, the boy who carried her back to New Bark when she skinned her knee.
The boy who loved her.
She turns her head and gives him a fleeting look and Joey thinks, This is it. She's recognized me. She's recognized me and now she's going to come back and talk to me and I'll make her fall in love with me and we'll get married and move to someplace quiet like the bottom of the ocean or something.
Those sapphire eyes blink once before she turns away again. Her grip tightens around the arm of her companion as she walks out of his life again.
Joey stops walking. She didn't remember. She didn't remember me.
He sighs, and looks sadly down at the sidewalk, running a hand through his dark (receding) hair. He knew he would never hug her again, or kiss those rosy lips, look into those striking sapphire eyes.
I guess it's true, what they say, he thinks. All good things must
end