Helloooo, I haven't updated in ages so here's this! I haven't written a lot recently - it was between this and a strange drunken Wallace/Cheren/Bianca oneshot I wrote on a whim for a friend, and somehow I thought you guys might appreciate this a little more. (It's not very good.) I wrote it as the first of a fifty-prompt challenge, but this was before Christmas, and I still haven't written any of the other prompts... eheh...
First Kiss
Despite what the romantic comedies and the novels may tell them, a perfect first kiss is not an easy feat.
The months stretch gradually into years, and Black and White watch with a sense of mild amusement while their friends grapple with the quagmire that is romance. "I don't know what's the matter with me," Cheren mutters to White post-battle with head hanging and eyebrows furrowed; "I guess I should have known all along," Bianca whispers conspiratorially to Black between bouts of weeping induced by The Luxray King. It is, of course, Absolutely Fated To Be. Both seem aware of the absurdity of their situation, but neither will take the initiative. He is awkward and unsentimental, she coy and timid; both insecure and afraid.
Fifteen is easily old enough to be stealing kisses, at the very least - especially with one's Absolute Fated True Love And Soulmate - as White tells Cheren frustratedly, all but shaking him by the shoulders. What's there to be afraid of? Is he worried Bianca doesn't love him, or something? He shrugs the question off, frowning. He'll wait a little longer, he says, hoping she'll wait for him as well. It has to be perfect.
So far, not much in Bianca's life has been perfect. School in Castelia City isn't a joy for her - academia's never been her strong point and she scrapes through only with Cheren's patient tutelage, while her flighty, sheltered small town mentality makes her an easy target for the streetwise city kids between lessons. Her over-protective, old-fashioned father offers small comfort at home. Cheren has spent many an evening on the phone to Bianca - on Bianca's doorstep - in Bianca's room as she trembles and sniffs and insists nothing is wrong. Not even her rebellion works out the way she's planned: after failing for a third time to earn her seventh badge, Bianca resigns herself to weakness and tells her friends, smiling lopsidedly, that she always knew she wouldn't have it in her anyway. The trainer is, Cheren's sure, more than a little deflated. Bianca is a romantic whose life has thus far been conspicuously lacking in romance, and Cheren (who, after all, never has been able to accept anything less than perfection) is determined to rectify it. If it takes time then so be it: he will give her at least one perfect memory.
(White doesn't understand this, but White, he tells himself consolingly, is terribly uneducated in the field of romance, and should not be expected to understand the importance of such things. Her first kiss took place upon a cruise ship with a boy she never saw again.)
Cheren gives himself until Bianca's sixteenth birthday in February.
His first attempt is doomed to failure from the beginning. Every year, after Christmas, Accumula Town is visited by a travelling fair - or a rusty, rickety excuse for a fair, anyway, with dodgem cars, showbags and even a wobbly, slightly terrifying Cha Cha. Bianca agrees without a moment's hesitation to go with him, but so, to Cheren's chagrin, do Black and White, all winning smiles and wheedling for money. Bianca pairs up with White on the dodgem cars and Black on the Cha Cha (and, Cheren notices, goes crashing into both of their arms more than once each). Cheren attempts to win her a giant Mincinno plush but ends up instead with a cheap stationery set (Favoured Mail. The irony is not lost on Cheren). When a rude Hiker knocks into her as he bustles past, she drops her ice cream in the dirt. And, at the end of the night when Bianca goes tumbling face-first through the snow, it's Black who catches her wrist and rescues her from frosty-nosed distress.
Cheren doesn't smile when he sees her home, let alone lean in or reach for her hand. One opportunity missed.
The second time, he almost gets his chance. Black and White are holidaying in Sinnoh when New Year's Eve rolls around, so there's nobody to interrupt when Cheren invites Bianca to watch the fireworks with him in Nimbasa City. The atmosphere is as close to perfect as he could have hoped: the city is blanketed in snow and a hush of excitement as the countdown begins; families, friends and Pokémon mill about sipping hot chocolate and chattering pleasantly; and, clambering to sit atop a brick wall for a better view, Bianca slips one mittened hand into his. Before long, fireworks are painting the sky in brilliant green, electric blue, starfish pink and the crowd cheers twenty twelve! twenty twelve! and the explosions fill the trainers' ears, and when Cheren turns to look up at Bianca perched on her wall he finds her eyes shining with the sheer loveliness of it all and he decides that now's as good a time as any. "I love you," he tells her, cupping a hand to his mouth.
"What?"
"I'm absolutely, utterly, hopelessly in love with you. I've been waiting to kiss you for years."
"I can't hear you," Bianca shouts. Overhead, four vibrant chrysanthemums pass through their entire obnoxious crackling lifespan, illuminating her rosy-cheeked face in pink and green. Cheren leans up on his tiptoes, tilting his head and trying to decide whether or not he ought to close his eyes, and in that moment Bianca loses her balance and topples backwards off the wall.
She is uninjured but for a very sore bottom. Bianca enters 2012 unkissed, shivering and a little damp.
January rolls past and the deadline approaches, and Cheren begins to despair. Bianca discusses her impending Sweet Sixteen with great enthusiasm. Black pats Cheren on the back and tells him that the whole thing is kind of ridiculous anyway and he ought just to go for it. Cheren screws up his face and says not likely.
Several more failed attempts at romance fill Cheren's weeks. None are worth describing. (His team begins to worry that since beating Alder their trainer has had far too much time on his hands.)
The morning of Bianca's sixteenth birthday dawns, and still Cheren has been unable to give her a perfect first kiss. It ought to be the easiest thing in the world - particularly with regards to one's Absolute Fated True Love And Soulmate - and yet somehow he can never seem to find exactly the right place, cultivate exactly the right mood, choose exactly the right moment. And Bianca's first kiss - her one perfect experience - must be exactly right. Cheren swore it.
Twenty-four hours dwindle to twelve and then six. The 'party' is, in fact, a fairly unremarkable affair marked by a clumsily frosted cake (homemade by Black, White and Cheren, none of whom are what one could call excellent bakers), bad music, embarrassing speeches from the birthday girl's father and mother and finally four sleeping bags stretched out on Bianca's loungeroom floor. The hours continue to tick away - five, four, three, two. One.
Cheren can't help his eyes from wandering to Bianca's sleeping bag, wedged in between his and Black's. The girl sleeps flat on her back with head lolling and limbs splayed, Musharna curled up by her side, looking - it must be said - exceptionally charming. Cheren could occupy himself by counting her eyelashes or listing the kinds of flowers her lips resemble, but now - to hell with romanticism. Cheren's an awful excuse for a romantic anyway.
"Are you disappointed?" he whispers to her sleeping profile. "I got close on New Year's, you know… if only. I bet Black would be better at this than me."
No response. Naturally.
"I'm a little pathetic, really. I wanted something to be perfect for you, even if it took months to find the right moment. Even if it took years. But there's never a right moment. Maybe that only happens in books and movies."
Bianca shifts her head on the pillow and sighs.
"Is it really that stupid, Bianca?" Cheren asks softly. "I might end up putting you through all manner of discomfort and annoyance, but if I could give you one perfect thing - just one - that would be enough. Heaven knows you deserve it."
A long silence passes between them. Bianca's father's priceless grandfather clock chimes midnight from across the house.
Cheren thinks 'whatever', sets aside his glasses and closes his eyes.
A few moments later, he feels a warm little hand close over his. He opens his eyes to see the vague, blurred shape of Bianca's sleeping bag shuffling closer to his. Cheren suffers a small but severe heart attack.
"Silly," Bianca yawns, "there are plenty of perfect things about my life. The only problem you could possibly have with kissing me is that you're, like, too nervous to actually do it. It's already perfect if it's with you…" (She is mumbling, half asleep. Cheren, meanwhile, has never been more awake in his life.)
"Bianca," he says, and then hesitates.
"…mm."
"I just -" (he pauses, has to catch his breath almost) "- I'm… sorry."
"For what?"
"Well - sixteen years is an awfully long time to wait, and I…"
"Oh, Cheren," Bianca sighs and props herself up on one elbow, keeping her face close to his. "Just relax for once! I love you, all right?"
It's three minutes past Cheren's deadline when he finally presses his lips to Bianca's for the first time. For a confused moment neither can quite figure out where to put their nose, and he can't even see her, and when he reaches up to hold her his sleeve gets caught in the zipper of his sleeping bag and all of the scuffling and whispering wakes White who throws a pillow at their faces and grumbles for them to shut up and that just because Bianca's the birthday girl doesn't mean she gets to keep everyone awake. For the first time in his life, Cheren both misses a deadline and botches the final result - but he'd be a fool to say that waking in the morning with Bianca's hair tickling his nose isn't worth the months upon months upon years of agony. She'll tell the awkward, unremarkable and anticlimactic story of their Wonderful First Kiss for years to come, much to his gratification.
A perfect first kiss is no easy feat, it's true. But Cheren's accomplished it. He won't lie, though; the second and the third and the sixty-seven-thousandth are much better.