The prequel to "Of Coffee Shops and Shooting Stars". I have been meaning to write this way before I wrote said fic, but yeah, writer's block happened so... Ah, well! Hope you guys enjoy this!
To all of us fans who are praying to the Lord Almighty for Volume 52 dTwTb
-m16-
Phone Call—
Rakutsu felt a slight discomfort in his wrist that soon pulled him off rather harshly from his slumber. He raised his head from the piles of paper, going through that cumbersome task of peeling off the papers that attached themselves to his face and his arm, all while yawning and rubbing whatever sleep he had left in his eyes.
"God, I fell asleep again...?" he sighed, resting his face drowsily on one hand while trying to pry the papers away from his rested elbow with the other. He looked around the scribbled and ink blots around him, groaning softly to himself at the amount of paper work he had to finish by morning.
The small, digital clock that lay in front of him read 9:30 pm, meaning he had only been gone for a few minutes, but, to him, those minutes were still too precious. Another yawn, and then he straightened himself for a stretch.
"I'm overworking myself..." he muttered, returning to his initial position, fighting once more to keep his eyes open. "I goddamn need a break... My system's screaming for coffee..." He began searching his messy table for his wallet when he came across a small picture buried underneath his piles of scribbles and ink blotches. He took it in his hand, and turned it over.
A picture of him and Faitsu, right after the battle has ended.
Rakutsu paused, and a thought flashed through his mind. So fast, that he wasn't able to catch what it was—he must've been truly tired—but it left a slight tingling somewhere deep in his stomach, and a lingering taste in his mouth.
I wonder how Faitsu is?
Months have already buried the last day he saw Faitsu in the flesh. For the most part that he was trying to fix the remnants of the mess that Team Plasma has left, Rakutsu's days and nights have been dedicated to paperworks here, interrogations there, and battles in between. He couldn't find the time to speak with her to see how she was doing. Of course, there were moments when he had the chance to have a video chat, but it was strictly for business purposes and business purposes alone.
Rakutsu put the picture down and watched as his hand hovered through the mess in his table mindlessly, and stopped when it found his phone. With a small shrug, he took the phone in his hand and stared.
9:35 p.m.—he wondered if it would be too much of a bother.
"H-Hello...?" the soft voice from the other line slurred. The voice sounded tired, but, surprisingly, it wasn't groggy enough to be of someone who was pulled from a deep sleep.
It almost sounded like his.
"Too lovely of an evening to be drowning yourself in desolation and self-pity, don't you think, Faitsu?" he stated matter-of-factly.
"W-What...?" Then came the sound of paper rustling. "R-Rakutsu?!"
"Good evening, Faitsu," he smiled, folding his other arm on the table. "Fancy that you're still awake at this unholy hour of the night..."
"Unholy hour..." More rustling. "But it's just a quarter 'til ten... What're you..."
"Weren't you the one who told me that staying up late was a crime against those people who desire sleep more than anything else? What happened to the girl who gets mad whenever she misses her bedtime? If I recall correctly, you should have already passed out before the clock even strikes nine."
"OH MY GOD, YOU STILL REMEMBER THAT?!" Faitsu's voice was as shrill as a pokemon's cry. Rakutsu had to inch away from his phone.
"It's hard not to," he said, nearing the phone to his ear again. "You've drilled that into my head the whole time we were together. Thanks to you, I can't stay firmly awake beyond eight..."
He could hear her puff up some air. "So you just called to complain?"
"More or less," he hummed, resting his chin on his free hand. "You know how important my job is for me, and now I can't even do it properly, and it's all thanks to you..."
"...I'm hanging up."
"...My other motive was to ask you how you were doing, but I'd think rant a little bit more, just to rub it in your face..."
"Hold up," she said, her voice becoming clear again. "You... wanted to check up on me?"
The boy's eyebrow shot up, a look of amusement smeared all over his chiseled face. "I thought you were hanging up?"
Faitsu paused. "So is this your new alter ego? If this is what I'm going to get from you after those months that we weren't able to converse then I'd rather I have your flirty self on the other end of the line, please and thank you."
Rakutsu's lips curved up. "So, you want me to flirt with you, is that it?"
"Honestly..."
"Come now," he chuckled. "Why are you so uptight tonight? Working way past your bedtime?"
"Arceus, I haven't had the luxury to sleep that early for goodness-knows-when," she replied, the annoyed tone beginning to alleviate. "Sadly, I don't have a bedtime anymore."
"Oh, why so? Pokestar Studios working you like a dog?" He hummed. "And here I thought Miss White was going to take good care of you, seeing that you were the one who helped in freeing her beloved employee..."
"Well, you can't really blame her at all. Everyone's got her whole body in overdrive, what with all these new upcoming movies for the Cinema Festival they've been planning. Besides, it's not entirely her fault; being in the field of publications is tedious work."
Rakutsu exhaled as agreement. His eyes rested on the opened magazine at the side of his table, where an article he was reading and re-reading still flashed in black text:
"'Cinema Festival: Where the Red Carpet meets the Outdoors' by Shooting Star"
"...So," he said, after this pregnant silence loomed over them. "How have you been?"
"What do you mean?" she asked. "I thought it was evident for you? I'm slightly overworked. As a matter of fact, I'm currently in this ungodly pattern of opening and re-opening my laptop to this blank document, hoping letters and words would magically appear before me and converge to make a decent article..."
"And outside of work?"
"Outside...?"
"You've heard, haven't you?"
"Heard what, Rakutsu? I haven't gotten any recent news about anything outside of this job..." She giggled sheepishly. "Been pretty unaware since I've been trying to chase deadlines after deadlines."
The boy gave a sigh, slightly pondering. But, then he spoke shortly after.
"...We found out where N resides... or at least, where he resided."
There was an evident drop of energy from the other line. He was worried she dropped the line by accident, and even the phone.
"Faitsu?"
"...And?" Her voice was strikingly calm. "What happened? What did you find?"
"We found what we've expected to find. Scattered papers and other peculiar objects. Offcuts of what looked like a battle, too..."
He trailed off, waiting for Faitsu to say something, but she stayed mum for a good five minutes before speaking again.
"...And Lord N?"
"He..." Again, he hesitated, but he knew better than to keep information from where information was needed.
"He's dead. Presumably."
The light mood he worked so hard to establish came tumbling down before him as the other line delivered to him only static noises. She was there, he was certain, but whether or not she was still listening... that's where he was unconfident.
He tried again.
"I wanted to think he might have just escaped," he began. "Team Plasma was always so good with that: making themselves seem gone forever." He gave a knowing smile before resorting back to his scowl.
"...But, the investigations show otherwise. The battle that ensued in that cave appears to have been so deadly that it is doubtful that whoever was part of it could have survived..."
"So, Lord N is dead?"
"Presumably." He wondered why he kept on pointing that out. This should've been good for Faitsu, and yet, here he was, trying to give her hope that he would return.
"I see," she whispered.
There was silence. Rakutsu focused his eyes on the large window behind him. The moon was out and shining, together with a generous amount of stars. He fixed his eyes on each one, as if to mentally count them.
He didn't know how to respond to that reply.
Slowly, he lowered his gaze, down to the skyscrapers that blocked his view of the sea. Aspertia—or rather, the whole of Unova—has always been so urban since time immemorial that he wondered why it is that he was still overwhelmed by the fact that the city lights outnumbered the stars by a longshot.
He began to doubt if he did the right thing by telling her.
"...Thank you."
He almost fell from his chair at the suddenness of her voice.
"For what?" he asked. "For bringing you the news of the death of your beloved master?"
"Well, that," she giggled. "But mostly, for looking out for my well-being."
Rakutsu blinked.
"I could feel it, the whole time you were speaking. I can tell that you're trying to be careful. Because you know how I feel. If this was still months ago, I bet you would've threw it straight to my face with no holds barred, or not tell me at all, seeing that it isn't technically my business..."
It was then that the Interpol agent smiled. "Well, months ago, I still didn't understand why it was that you followed N to the ends of the earth. Months ago, I still thought you were a lunatic." Then his face dropped.
"Still, I feel bad to have to deliver this news to you, Faitsu. I..."
"It's fine," she reassured him. "Surprisingly, I don't feel as bad as I thought I would have. True, it came as a shock to me, but then, nothing. Maybe, I already saw this coming way before, I was just in denial."
He could hear her smiling.
"And getting a new job to take my mind off of things is a good help, too. For once, I have something else to focus my mind to." She exhaled deeply, making the static noise from Rakutsu's line seem more stressed.
"...Thank you, Rakutsu," she whispered.
He laughed quietly.
"But of course," he told her. "My job , after all, was to fully eradicate Team Plasma, once and for all..." He paused. "And that includes a certain donut-haired plasma girl's deluded fantasies about its return."
Faitsu laughed. Then her voice dropped again.
"Now, if only I can do the same for you..."
"Hm?" Rakutsu straightened himself.
"I know..." Faitsu clicked her tongue. "...That I've caused you too much trouble in the past: Because of me, you had to stray away from your plans far more often than you would've permitted yourself to, and even risked your life a good number of times, too. And, it's all because of my stubbornness."
Rakutsu paused for a moment and let the memory of Faitsu's eyes, fired up with rage and determination with a small amount of fear, envelope his whole being. He remembered how he was awe-inspired by those eyes, how even though they almost caused the death of him, he still stared at them with so much intent.
For those were the eyes of someone who will fight for what she believes in—The kind of someone he once thought he would be.
"Hey now," he cooed. "It wasn't that bad..."
"But..."
"Besides, I think you showing up when I needed someone the most was enough..."
Faitsu paused.
I'm not helping you because I want to... I just know how it feels like to have the only people you trust turn their back on you...
"So, you..."
"It affected me a lot, what you told me back then," he continued. "And seeing how you tried to ignore how you felt about me after we blew each other's cover off just to help me recuperate, I realized that you meant what you said." His face dropped for the second time.
"Were you really that lonely, Faitsu?"
Her reply was just a chuckle.
"I'm glad I got to see you again after we both dropped out of Trainer's School," she said. "And I'm glad that we're still talking even after all things have been said and done."
Her voice tendered.
"Thanks for staying, Rakutsu..."
Rakutsu coughed. "Pleasure to do my job."
Then he straightened himself.
"So, writer's block, huh?"
"Yeah, for three days and counting..." Faitsu groaned. "For some strange reason, I can't put my thoughts on this new film into words... And I've been reading and re-reading that script for how many times, and I still got nothing."
"Hm..." he hummed, rummaging through the files on his table. "What's it about?"
"Well, I'm supposed to hype my readers about this film about some couple who were thrown together because of an unpaid debt, and how their relationship progresses as their journey together goes on."
"Hm, sounds cliché."
"Yeah, I know right?" Faitsu agreed. "But this one's kinda special since the President wrote this herself, and there's even a chance that she and her beloved tepig will be starring in it, although that's still a little unsure since, like I said, she's been very busy..."
Rakutsu opened a folder and fished out a flyer. He read it, and gave a small smile.
"Want me to give my input on it?" he asked.
"Oh, I don't think that's—"
"There's this famous coffee shop branch that opened somewhere downtown, and I've wanted to check it out since. Hope you're into overpriced coffee sprinkled with suspicious ingredients."
"B-But, I thought—"
"Great, then get ready. I'll pick up you up in a few minutes, okay?"
"W-Wait... What? Rakutsu, aren't you—"
"See you."
"Wait, Rakutsu—"
Click.
-FIN-
And that concludes this little fanfic :) Thanks so much for your time, and I really do hope you'd tell me how you thought of it. It will really help me improve for my next few fanfics about these two dorks .