A Step Ahead

"NO! It can't be! After all the hard work I put in to become League Champ?" Blue Oak raked a hand through his tawny brown hair, seething. His cheeks burned a deep crimson. "How could I lose, huh? How could I lose?"

Leaf grimaced as he raised his arm to withdraw his fainted Blastoise, turning his chin over his shoulder as he did so, as if he couldn't bear to even look at the fallen Pokemon, the final sign of his defeat. The massive steel cannons on Blastoise's back dripped a few beads of water onto the floor, droplets that shimmered like diamonds as they fell, and merged, trembling, to form a silver bridge. The watery bridge trickled tentatively between the two trainers, a hesitantly offered handshake of truce.

The blue barrier of the hulking turtle Pokemon's body lay in its way, blocking from each other the sight of their breathless eyes. But with a flick of Blue's wrist and a flash of red light, shell and all, it disappeared a moment later, leaving nothing behind but a wall of emptiness between the two of them.

Leaf blinked, her eyes adjusting to the sight of her rival's flushed face. He was scowling with all his might, but the quiver in his shoulders and in the corners of his mouth wasn't lost on her.

Blue struggled to stand firmly planted on his feet, his shoes spread wide apart and his arms crossed haughtily across his chest. His lip curled downward, and the black polo shirt he wore hung loosely on his frame. For some reason, she longed to touch it, to brush his shoulders with her fingertips, and lean forward and smile and tell him it was okay.

Losing was okay. It happened to everyone. But she knew that here and now, in the Champion's room of the Pokemon League, after he had achieved his lifelong dream only to have it taken from him in a matter of minutes afterward, it wasn't okay.

Left in its wake was an emptiness that hung in the air, a curtain of nothingness still separating the two of them. The air vibrated, swirling with a blend of animosity and triumph and disgust and bewilderment, a flurry of words that both of them had left unspoken. There was something else in there too, barely perceptible, mixed in with the others, something she couldn't quite name.

Leaf shuffled her feet, shifting her weight back and forth between her red-striped sneakers. She didn't know how to fill it, that emptiness. And she didn't know if she should.

She was supposed to feel happy now, she knew that much. And she did. The satisfaction undulated inside her and settled in the pit of her stomach like a carpet in a neatly arranged room, kicking up dust as it unfurled and alighted to weigh pleasantly down on her insides. It left her numb with its sheer magnitude, this feeling, and she knew that it had a name: victory.

Victory, a label on a bottle of hard-to-swallow magic pills that would take effect not now, but a few hours later. Hours later, when her name was on every newspaper headline in Kanto, emblazoned across the screen of every television set. When reporters crowed it in sheer delight, when Professor Oak arrived at the Indigo Plateau to celebrate her triumph and not his grandson's, when her mother came running in to clasp her in her arms and tell her daughter how proud she was.

It would come in all due time. But first—to open the bottle, take out the pills, and swallow them, one by one.

"You battled well," Leaf offered.

Blue waved his hand in dismissal and cleared his throat. "Tch. You're the new League Champion, not me." He smirked. "As much as I hate to admit it."

Leaf swallowed and licked her lips, running her tongue over the dry cracks that had formed over the past few months of her life outside, under the baking hot sun of Kanto. Instinctively, she ducked her head and cast a glance at Blue's mouth, checking for the same signs of wear and tear that came with the traveling life of a trainer.

There were none. He was perfect, smooth, flawless, as always.

"Still," she tried again. "I mean it. You…you deserved that title. You deserved to get this far." She tugged at the hem of her skirt. "What I mean to say is, you're a…a great trainer, Blue."

Blue nodded briskly. She caught the dip of his Adam's apple as he swallowed and jammed his hands into his pockets. The black heel of his shoe scuffed against the ground as he absentmindedly kicked his leg forward, making no sign that he was going to reply with even the smallest "thank you", the smallest, courteous acknowledgement of her battling skills in return.

Of course he wasn't going to thank her. She hadn't been expecting or looking for a "thank you". She meant what she said, even though she knew he already knew it far too well.

Blue Oak was the same cocky boy as he had been since they were three—too confident to speak in any language other than that of his mocking jokes and insults, too smug to do anything but smirk at her in that annoying, arrogant way.

For some reason, the thought made her heart sink. She raised her hands to her stomach to smooth down the wrinkles on her light green tank top, perplexed at the sensation in her stomach.

So Blue hadn't grown or changed. But why did she care? She was Champion of Kanto now. She wouldn't be seeing much of her childhood friend—no, her rival—anymore. They had left behind their days of playing together in Pallet Town a while ago, ever since she picked up her Charmander, and him his Squirtle. Since before that. She probably wouldn't even battle him again. Ever.

Leaf chewed her lip, wondering why that made her feel even worse.

"I never made any mistakes, you know."

Blue's voice was tight, his chin lowered, when he finally spoke. Leaf lifted her head in surprise. Had he really spoken?

"I never made any mistakes in training my Pokemon." He kicked at the ground again, and Leaf leaned forward an inch to listen to the quiet sound of his voice.

Quiet? Since when had Blue been quiet?

"I caught nearly every single Pokemon in Kanto to complete the Pokedex, just like Gramps wanted." He waved his hand. "Yeah, I wanted to beat you, and I probably did on the 'dex, but in the process, I learned about almost every kind of Pokemon." He tightened his jaw. "So I picked the best ones. I put together a team that I thought could counter every elemental type. I raised them to respond perfectly to my every command. I raised them to the strongest they could be."

He looked up, and Leaf's breath caught in her throat as their eyes met with no disguises, no dodging, simply brown against piercing brown. His eyes were more intense than she even remembered, a brown ring of pure determination surrounding his pupils. Determination that usually lurked behind the smug layer of mirth that lay at their surface. The determination, she could see now, that he used to train his Pokemon.

She had stripped away that surface layer of laughter herself. She had stripped it away when she defeated him, when her Raichu landed the last decisive blow on his Blastoise, with a resounding shock of electricity that zapped through the entire room, slamming the walls with a bright yellow wave of thunder that made their hair stand on end and knocked the water Pokemon flat on the ground. The crash of Blastoise's shell against the floor had reverberated through the room, his body still crackling with electricity as the room shook with the force of the impact.

Was I the only one he lost to? Leaf wondered. The only one who could ever beat him, in all our battles? Is that what made us rivals?

Perhaps that had been the worst of all for him—that she had knocked down his last hope at the end of the battle, his starter Pokemon, the Pokemon he trusted more than any other.

Leaf could remember their first battle in Oak's lab, when her Charmander had knocked Blue's Squirtle down with a series of Scratches. She remembered the condescending gleam of disgust in his eye when he withdrew Squirtle back then, how she had felt a pang of anger on behalf of the turtle when he scoffed that he had picked the wrong Pokemon.

It was so different than the way he looked when he saw Blastoise fall to Raichu's Thunderbolt now, that serious gleam in his eye. Had Blue really learned to care for his Pokemon? Or was he merely crushed from his defeat?

"But even so, you beat me at my best, Leaf."

She didn't know how much longer she could hold his burning gaze. Somehow, inside those brown irises, Leaf could feel the same energy that had jolted through Raichu's Thunderbolt, crackling through the air.

What was it, that bizarre energy? She could feel it coursing through her limbs, shaking her insides, making her heart hammer against her ribs. It was unnerving, unsettling, utterly disarming. Was this the physical sensation of triumph, or was it something else entirely?

Blue took a step forward, and Leaf longed to lift her foot and take a step back. But the energy crackling between their eyes fastened her feet firmly in place, pulling her toward him like a magnet. It countered her urge to run just strongly enough to keep her standing still, her arms locked at her sides, her heart pounding. Already, she could see the beginnings of his trademark smirk forming on his lips.

"Well, it looks like I was wrong about you after all, my old rival." Blue took a few steps forward clapped a hand on her shoulder. The same electricity surged through her arm, a thousand sparks of light; it took all her strength not to shiver at his touch.

But his voice, that dead serious voice that had been there a moment ago, had swung back into its smooth, easy, confident rhythm. Back to that airy tone that punctuated those exclamations of "Smell ya later!" he flung out as he sauntered away after every battle. Leaf held her breath, not daring to break the fading spell. Where had that energy gone, the seriousness she hardly ever saw in him, that earnestness that had been so palpable, that she was positive she could have reached out and touched, only seconds ago?

"So, good job, Leaf. You did well, and as much as I hate to say it"—he grinned—"I'm glad to confer the title of Champion on you."

So he had congratulated her. He had put his enormous ego aside for a moment and mustered the strength and compassion to say those words to her. Leaf knew that she should have felt happy that her rival had truly begun to appreciate her. But this ending—it was wrong. All wrong. Her stomach churned with a horrible sense of incompleteness. There was something unfinished, unspoken, still lingering in the air.

But what was it? Leaf racked her brains, searching for an answer. What was it that needed to be said?

"Maybe Gramps was right." Blue shrugged, ruffling his hair. "He always said I didn't learn how to care for my Pokemon enough. He said it was more important to 'build bonds' with them then to just find and train the strongest ones like I did." He sighed. "He said that's why you beat me every time when we ran into each other. Because you love your Pokemon. So hey, that's why you were a worthy rival, I guess."

Blue's mouth widened in a rare, genuine smile, one that sank through Leaf's skin and melted into a tingling sensation that spread slowly throughout her body, from her heart to her fingertips to her toes. It wasn't a self-assured smirk like the one he usually wore. It was real, as warm and beautiful and powerful as a blast of Charizard's Flamethrower.

"Well, I guess I'll smell ya later, then, Leaf." He raised a hand in farewell, a half-smile still lingering on his face, and started to turn away.

Leaf froze, barely managing to stop herself in time from leaping after him and grabbing the back of his shirt.

It felt all too much like it was fated to be the last time she was ever going to see him. There were so many questions she hadn't asked, so much that hadn't happened to tie this…end to their rivalry. It was such a let-down to end the years of tension, and the years of friendship, this way.

Even so, she couldn't for the life of her see why she cared.

Was this the end? Where was he going to go, now that his journey was complete? Would he go back to Pallet Town and live with his sister and his grandfather? Or would he train more and then challenge her to another battle, and try to win back his title? Or, worst of all…would he leave Kanto completely and journey to a whole other region, never looking back?

And even worse…where would she go, now that she was Champion? Leaf had no idea what to expect from her new title. Were the people of Kanto expecting more from her? Her mind reeled, and she inhaled sharply, trying to steady herself.

How would she ever find him once he walked out of that door? Would their paths ever cross again? The idea of never seeing him again—somehow, for some reason, it terrified her.

She opened her mouth. "Blue, wait."

The smirk was back on his face as he stopped in his tracks and turned over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised, his arm frozen mid-swing. "Is something wrong?"

She swallowed. What was it that he had said?

Love…he said I loved my Pokemon…

Leaf remembered the way she had felt when she had seen Charmander released from his Poke Ball for the first time in Professor Oak's lab, the warmth that had sprung from more than his fire. His tail-flame had danced with life, his blue eyes shining with excitement, as he happily carried out her battle commands with the loyalty he had already begun to feel. She remembered how easily she had returned the feeling when he smiled at her and nodded decisively after the battle, how she had felt it so clearly—the tie that bound together trainer and Pokemon, an unbreakable bond of trust.

Was this the same thing, just in a different form?

"Blue…" She took a deep breath. "Why did we become rivals?"

Blue gave her a strange look, furrowing his eyebrows. "What do you mean?" He faced her and crossed his arms matter-of-factly. "We got our starting Pokemon on the same day. You picked Charmander, and I picked Squirtle, and we had a ba—"

"No." Leaf shook her head. "I mean, really. We were best friends when we were younger. Friends, not rivals. How did that change?"

What does it even mean, this…rivalry?

Blue still looked confused, but he managed a smirk, running his fingers through his hair again. "It didn't change. I don't know what you mean. We started training at the same time, and both of us wanted to be the Champion. We were competing for the same thing, so…"

"No. That's not it." Leaf set her jaw, not sure what she was getting at. "There was a time when our friendship changed. When it became a rivalry." She chewed her lip thoughtfully. "There was a time when we stopped just having fun together, and started fighting each other for who was the best. It was before we got our Pokemon. We stopped working together, and started working against each other instead."

"I…I don't know." Blue squinted at her. "What's the point in talking about this? What does it matter?" He suddenly looked weary. "You're Champion now. You've beaten me. Do you want something else?"

Leaf bit her lip. Did she want something else?

As she met his eyes again, the curious and arrogant and perfect and flawed eyes she had known since childhood, she knew the answer. She knew what she wanted, as much as it scared her. She understood what it was that made her want to grab hold of his arm and stop him from walking out of her life forever.

The feeling rose up inside her like a wave, tall and menacing, ready to engulf her in its smothering waters. It had a name, too. One Blue had just explained.

Love…

She felt it, a massive shadow over her head. Would she simply stand there, and let it crash over her?

She cleared her throat.

"I just want to know…was that the only reason we were friends, Blue? Because we were rivals?"

Blue rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand, irritation flickering over his face.

"Well, of course not," he answered impatiently, a brisk note in his voice. "Like you said, we were friends before that. Not the other way around."

Blue stared at her, and Leaf fell silent. She could feel him studying her, peeling away the layers of her words with his eyes, trying to figure out what it was that she meant.

This time, she didn't hold his gaze. She lowered her eyes to examine her shoes, the well-worn white soles that had trekked all across Kanto and were peeling slightly at the edges, browned with dust. A few feet from hers, Blue's shoes were equally tattered, black underneath his blue pants.

The two of them had walked the same road, all over Kanto, battling and training their Pokemon to reach toward the same goal. The goal they had shared since their childhood of games and make-believe Pokemon Masters by the crystal-clear pond in Pallet Town. She had always been a step behind him, then, but now, she was a step ahead.

But this time, she didn't want to keep running. Instead, she was standing still, waiting patiently at the beginning of the next route. This time, she was waiting for him to catch up, so they could turn a new leaf, a fresh page in both of their adventures, and start all over, together.

Victory, magical victory, and all the fame and glory it brought—Leaf didn't want it anymore. Victory was an ending. It meant that the battle was over, that there was no more reason to fight. It meant a goodbye, between winner and loser, each going their separate ways, never to meet again.

Her voice was gentle as she spoke.

"If we're rivals…then this rivalry is over, isn't it?"

Blue stood still as a statue, his eyes still fixed on hers. She knew he understood what she meant. He knew what she was asking him.

He uncrossed his arms and lowered them to his sides, never once taking his eyes off her. The air hung heavily between them, that thick, trembling curtain of unspoken words and intentions.

Blue raised his hand and brushed the curtain aside with one sweep of his wrist. His footfalls echoed through the room, his eyes still never leaving her as he closed the distance between them, step by step.

Slowly, as Leaf watched, his face sharpened into clarity, outlined against the brightly lit walls of the room. The mist of tension between them disappeared. The imaginary mist that had never been there in the first place.

When he stopped, he was a foot away—only a foot. The tiniest smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

"It doesn't have to be over, does it?"

Leaf shook her head, and the knot in her stomach unraveled in a cascade of relief.

"No," she agreed, returning his smile. "It doesn't."

Before her courage faltered, before she could stop herself, she took a step closer, close enough so that their shoes touched, their toes kissing lightly, white against black. Close enough so she could feel the warmth emanating from his body. Close enough so that when she breathed in, she could smell his scent, boyish and musty and inviting, and within it, a hint of the faintly sweet Pallet Town air of their childhood.

Like it was a natural motion, like they had been born knowing how, Blue reached out with his hand. Leaf took it, entwining her fingers with his, where they fit perfectly in the spaces in between.

"More than rivals," he declared firmly, giving her hand a squeeze. "Friends."

Leaf smiled. She tilted her head upward and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, a caress of wind barely grazing his skin.

"No," she whispered. "A lot more than that."

Author's Note:

Awww, yay. I love OldrivalShipping! My first fluffy oneshot. :) Please review if you liked it!