An even shorter short than before. Thanks goes out to someone who gave me exactly what I asked for/need: honest, sharp criticism.

* This short contains no story spoilers. Rating is K. Kinda general, shifted into slight angst. Edited once.

~IG

(PS:I'd love it if you'd review, so I know what I could improve upon.)


Tsuki

The first thing I noticed about Hau was that he is always smiling.

When I arrived in Alola and first met him at school, his grin had helped put me at ease, and as I adapted to my new home, I found it was something consistent. And I noticed that whenever or wherever we were, he would always have a smile on his face.

Whether it was when I arrived at his house in the morning so we could walk to school together, when we were training for the Island Challenge, or even during one of Kahue-sensei's boring lectures, he was always smiling. His smile would change when we would find something new, dangerous, or shocking. Sometimes it would drop for a split second, before returning.

I wondered sometimes why someone would smile so much. Initially, I thought he had been trying to hide something. But after getting to know him, there wasn't anything like what I had been worried about. It's not like me; his smile was real. It was just who he was.

Oka-san had noticed it as well, and had laughed when I brought it up. Hau had laughed too when I mentioned it offhandedly, and he tucked his hands behind his head in the carefree manner that seemed to belong to him. He had said I was the one who was always smiling, and that caused me to laugh. I certainly hadn't noticed anything like that; between us, he was the one who always had a smile on his face.

...I've heard what people say behind my back: that I'm a child who only knows one expression, that I can't feel emotions, that I pretend to understand what people are saying around me. Fine. Say those thing; it's nothing I haven't heard before. Life isn't always kind, and whatever happens, you find a way of dealing with it.

But I will say this: Don't dare group Hau with me.

Hau...he isn't like me. He's true, real, but he's not naïve. He knows what it's like to grow up under a shadow, he's seen the hidden darkness in Alola, he knows about this world. But despite all that, he still manages to find the best in others, to see the good in a situation; he wants to trust people and pokémon, and he dreams of a world where fighting and evils don't exist.

After everything we'd been through and seen, somehow, Hau managed to keep smiling. He is the rock, the one who could always make the rest of us smile when events weren't going the way we wanted.

He was the first one who accepted me onto this island, my first new friend, a best friend, someone I care deeply about. His smile is something I will protect.