Wheeee short chapter sorry. But there is shipping in it so we're cool yeh? ouo;;
For a few minutes now, Touko had been wondering whether she should go out and look for Ryan. After all, he was supposed to be grounded. Yet after what she'd just heard, maybe it'd be best to leave him alone to calm down for a while.
In the meantime, perhaps she should try and deal with N. A few minutes after the shouting had stopped he'd stumbled back into the house and collapsed on the sofa, looking rather distressed. Now he was sat there, his head resting on his hands and staring blankly at the ground.
Touko had heard the whole argument from inside. She'd decided it'd be best if she didn't interfere, given the chances were that would probably have only made things worse. Hovering beside the sofa for a few moments, she finally let out a quiet sigh.
"N, you okay?"
At first, he didn't reply. She wondered if he was even listening to her.
"I… he said…" N replied shakily. "I-if I wasn't…"
After waiting a few seconds for him to continue, Touko moved over to sit next to him. "I heard… he doesn't really mean it, N. All kids say things like that at his age."
He looked up at her at last, a look of worry and hurt in his eyes. "Sounded like he meant it to me…" He let out a long sigh. "Sorry, Touko… I'm still not very good at this whole 'parent' thing." N glanced away once more. "Didn't exactly have the best role model…"
"Oh, N…" Touko sighed, shuffling over to pull him into a hug. "It's okay. You're a great father for Ryan. He's just upset because he's being punished. All kids are like that. I know I certainly was when I was his age."
N didn't give a worded reply, eventually returning the hug. He rested his head on her shoulder, letting out a quiet defeated sigh.
After a long moment, the silence was finally broken as he spoke once more. "So what did that guy say?"
"Huh?"
"The teacher… you said we needed to talk about it later…"
"Oh…" Touko mumbled. She hadn't expected him to bring it up. And considering what the advice Mr Stanford had given her was, she didn't think N would be too happy to hear it… but she knew that he'd pester her about it if she didn't tell him. Perhaps she could try and avoid the whole story for now and save the rest for when he wasn't upset. "He… said to keep Ryan off school until Monday as punishment…"
"That's all…?" N blinked, sitting up and tilting his head slightly.
So much for avoiding the whole story. She would have just not brought up the advice, but she wasn't going to lie to N by telling him there was nothing else. "Well… he also said… that Ryan might benefit from going on a journey… because it might teach him how to be more 'responsible'," she muttered.
"So what you're saying is," N replied bluntly, a smidge of hurt in his eyes, "it's my fault… because I wouldn't let him go…"
"No, no, it's not your fault," Touko hurriedly shook her head. "But… why don't we at least think about letting him go on his own journey? You know he won't purposely hurt Pokémon, N. He's got enough of your genes to stop him doing that." She smiled slightly.
"I know, it's just…" he trailed off, as if trying to find a way to describe what he was thinking. "I… still don't really like the idea of him becoming a trainer… I mean, most of what they do is battling, so whether it's on purpose or not, Pokémon will get hurt."
"But they'll get stronger too," Touko added. "That's how they form strong bonds with their trainers. Besides, I was a trainer. You liked me…"
At long last she managed to get a smile out of him. Only a slight one, but a smile nonetheless. "I know. And your Pokémon were happy to fight alongside you, but… doesn't mean I like all trainers."
Touko let out a quiet sigh. "Well, I'm sure Ryan will be considerate. He does care about Pokémon. And I'm sure whatever happened today was an accident, even if the school don't seem to think so. Maybe at least think about letting him go?"
N was silent for a long moment. "…Okay. I'll… I'll think about it… if I can get him to not hate me, at least…"
"He doesn't hate you. He'll calm down soon, N," Touko smiled, leaning over to kiss his cheek. "Just… give him ten minutes. If you go look for him then he might have gotten over it."
Ryan slowed his pace at last as he stormed into the forest, the sound of the crunching leaves beneath him startling a couple of Pidove in the trees. Their surprised squawks snapped him out of his angered trance, and he hurriedly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Sorry!" he called, although the Pidove had already flown away.
He felt terrible. True, he'd been mad about the fact that he was in trouble mainly because of other people, but the argument had only made it even worse. He hadn't meant to say that stuff to N. He didn't mean it… but that didn't mean he felt like going back to apologise. Not yet. He was still angry at his father for pinning the blame solely on him.
For now, he had to deal with the reason he'd come out here in the first place. Hoping that he wouldn't scare any more of the forest Pokémon, he raised his voice. "Jay?"
No response. The Eevee had wanted to play hide-and-seek anyway. He was probably hiding still and wouldn't reply to his call.
Unfortunately for him, they'd played hide and seek before. And there was one place where Jay always hid to try and cheat.
Speeding up so that he was soon racing through the forest once more, Ryan dodged around the trees and bushes. He knew this place like the back of his hand, as well as most of the Pokémon in it. They'd lived at the edge of the forest for as long as he could remember, and he spent so much time here that Touko had described it as being 'his second home'.
He could still remember the day a Leafeon had come to the forest. She'd been a sickly thing, badly poisoned for a long time, trying to carry an egg around with her. Ryan had found the Pokémon out in the forest on his way home from school one day, and the Leafeon had seemed scared of him at first; upon realising he could understand her, she'd begged for his help before collapsing on the grass. He'd managed to fit the egg safely into his bag and carry the weak Pokémon back to the house. Even though N had done everything he could to save the Leafeon, she hadn't made it through the night.
Ryan had continued to look after the egg, however. Getting help from some of the wild Pokémon of the forest to keep it warm until it eventually hatched. The Eevee that came out of the egg had been Jay, and he'd been Ryan's friend ever since.
Aha. He could see the place now. One of the tallest trees in the forest. There were plenty of clumps of leaves among the branches, and Jay liked to pick there as a hiding place because he didn't think Ryan would be able to get up there. He'd proven him wrong last time, but the chances were that was where Jay had chosen to hide.
Skidding to a halt at the base of the tree, Ryan glanced up through the branches. "Jay? I know you're up there. No cheating this time."
There was no reply. Everything was silent, and for a moment Ryan thought that maybe the Eevee wasn't there after all. Then there was a rustling in the branches above, a couple of leaves fluttering to the ground, and Ryan smiled slightly.
He jumped up to catch one of the lowest branches, managing to heave himself up onto it. If Jay thought he could win just by staying where he was instead of revealing his hiding location, well, he'd prove him wrong.
It didn't take him long to scale the tree. He'd had plenty of practice climbing by now. He just had to make sure the branches were strong enough to take his weight, and then pull himself up to the next one. After a few minutes he reached the clump of leaves where the Eevee would be hiding.
"Found you!" he cheered, quickly pushing the leaves apart.
He was met by a flurry of wings as an angry Tranquill flew from the leaves, inches from his face.
"Ah!" Ryan gasped as the shock caused him to lose his balance He fell a metre before managing to grab onto one of the lower branches, left hanging from it as he glanced around to try and find where the flying Pokémon had gone. "Sorry!"
The Tranquill looked back at him with a glare, screeching a curse.
And the same to you too, Ryan huffed. It looked like Jay wasn't here after all, so he might as well get down from this tree. He just needed to either climb up onto this branch or drop down to one of the ones below. This wasn't one of the branches he'd used to climb up here, though…
He knew even before he heard the snap that this one wasn't strong enough to hold his weight.
Ack! The wood creaked alarmingly, cracking closer to the trunk and sending him falling to the ground below. Ryan tried to grab onto one of the other branches but he couldn't reach any of them in time.
He hit the ground with an explosion of leaves – which, strangely enough, was accompanied by a yelp. That was weird. Leaves didn't yelp. They weren't usually this soft either…
"Huh…? Whoa!" Ryan cried as suddenly he was thrown off whatever he'd landed on, this time actually falling among the autumn leaves. He took a moment to realise that nothing was broken - thank Arceus – and then looked up at last. He was greeted by an irritated snarl, black and red fur bristling slightly.
"Oh…" he mumbled, laughing nervously as he sat up. "Hi, Zoroark…"