I read online that some male frogs sing for their mates and I just could not resist sticking that in somewhere. :)
This is the end of the story. Thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me.
Chapter 10
Greninja wakes up. He wakes without opening his eyes. He's conscious of the fact that he's been called out of his Poke Ball, but his head is foggy and he doesn't want to move yet.
"Good morning!" Calem's voice says. "Hey, you told me you'd be willing to get up early today."
"I am," Greninja insists, but his statement is ruined by a yawn at the end.
Yesterday Calem said he wanted them to watch the sunrise together. The request had puzzled Greninja, who didn't understand the point of getting up early to witness a glowing yellow circle do the same thing it did every morning. Still, he agreed to come along, because it seemed to mean something to Calem.
They're currently on the balcony that juts out from the top of the Tower of Mastery, a location that allows for an awesome view. Or rather, it would be an awesome view, but when Greninja opens his eyes and sits up, he sees there's a curtain of rain blurring the landscape. It's not quite storming, but there are enough dark clouds in the sky to block all view of the sun.
"Yeah, it turns out we picked a bad day for this," Calem remarks, eyes on the sky. "You can't even hear the bird Pokemon singing this morning. That's a real shame."
There's a long moment of delay before Greninja, without quite knowing what's compelling him to do it, finds his voice bursting out in song. He sings strongly for a few seconds before self-consciousness kicks in and makes him quiet, though it doesn't stop him completely. He's never sung in front of anyone before. He's not sure if Calem can even tell that it's him making these noises, because his singing voice is shrill and sounds very different from the croak he has when speaking normally.
His question is answered almost at once when Calem turns his head to stare at Greninja incredulously. Luckily, it seems like the good kind of incredulity. Looking at him encourages Greninja to keep going with his wordless melody.
By the time he's done, Calem is smiling in a way that makes Greninja feel relieved; it seems his unplanned act was indeed worthwhile. "Impressive. Where did you learn to do that?"
The Pokemon shrugs. He never actually learned to sing. He's simply always had that ability, in the same way he was born knowing how to swim and how to attack. It's a quirk of his species, probably.
"Well, it's a nice song, so thank you very much. I feel wide awake now," Calem says, and Greninja realizes the same is true for himself. "I think I'll take a walk down in the city. Do you want to come with me?"
(Segment Break)
Calem holds an umbrella, but Greninja is happily soaked under the rain. He's making loops on the sidewalk, running ahead of Calem, then running back to him before he can get too far away, and then surging ahead again. Normally Greninja would pace himself to match Calem's incredibly slow human feet, but right now he's in too good a mood to be still. The day has just begun, the rain is pouring and the streets are empty. It feels like they have this blue-tinted world all to themselves.
At one point, when Greninja is far ahead of his trainer, he looks back and sees that Calem has stopped. It's not that he seems to have stopped because he's so slow. It's that he actually stopped. He's facing away from his Pokemon, staring into one of the small buildings that line the sidewalk.
Curious, Greninja goes over to Calem's side. The distracting building turns out to be shop. Greninja examines the large front window, where clothes are displayed. Fancy clothes – not regular everyday wear. The two outfits in the window are an inky black suit and a long white dress. Everything else in the store looks more or less the same as the two up front.
He's vaguely aware that these clothes are related to some kind of ritual that's practiced by a lot of humans, but he doesn't know anything exact about them. Since Calem is looking at them, Greninja thinks they might be important, so he wracks his brain trying to figure out what their specific purpose is. There's a sign above the door, but it doesn't help him because he can't read.
Calem suddenly notices Greninja's presence. He flinches with surprise and then his face colors with embarrassment. "I'm sorry," he says, flustered. "Don't get the wrong idea, okay? I wasn't thinking about that. It honestly never even crossed my mind until a moment ago, but it was really silly for me to even notice this store because . . ."
His voice trails off. He pauses for a moment, thinking of what to say. Then he leans down so that his lips hover as close to Greninja's ear as they possibly can without actually touching him. In an almost inaudible whisper, Calem finishes his sentence: ". . . because obviously it can never happen. I don't have to study a law book to know that." There's another short pause. "I mean, I did say I would love you for life, so perhaps we'll hold a ceremony someday, if you agree to it. Of course, we'll be the only ones there and it'll never be official."
He straightens up. The hand that's not holding his umbrella is shoved into his pocket. "Let's go," he says abruptly. "I don't want us to linger here."
His walk is brisk, as if he's actually going somewhere. Greninja follows a few steps behind, his head abuzz with confusion. He has no idea what Calem was just talking about.
Briefly he considers going up to Calem, asking for an explanation, and then watching the boy's face as he struggled to make sense out of the grunts and croaks that his Pokemon produced. This idea is quickly discarded as too depressing. Besides, Greninja realizes that he's already more or less figured it out. Calem was talking about whatever ceremony those fancy clothes are connected to. Without meaning to, he gave Greninja another indication that, despite hatching and then growing up in the care of humans, he still knows too little about them.
Lately he's started worrying about whether that ignorance hampers his ability to make Calem happy. Greninja had never spent a minute of his life in the wild, so if he's missing anything by living with humans, he's blissfully in the dark about it. Calem, however, is definitely and knowingly sacrificing a great deal of normalcy in order to love a Pokemon.
Of course, the unbridgeable gap of difference between the two of them has always been obvious. Greninja used to think he understood it perfectly, or at least sufficiently, until a recent night proved him wrong. He was never hit by the true consequences of what they were getting into, until the night when Calem came back to their room with tired red eyes and a raspy confession of having leaked their secret to a fellow student at the Tower of Mastery.
Greninja remembers holding Calem in his arms for a very long time until the boy's crying did not stop so much as it withered into silence. When he was composed enough, he stumbled to the lamp to shut it off and the room was drenched in darkness. Then he and Greninja found their way to the bed. Not to do anything special. Just to lie there and rest. Under the covers, Calem wouldn't stop shivering. Greninja repeatedly shifted away from him, thinking that his slimy skin was the cause, but Calem kept moving back to be close to him.
After a while, when they'd fallen into the shadowy realm between sleep and wakefulness, Calem spoke. His voice was so rough, it didn't sound like a voice. "Greninja, in a few years my parents are going to wonder why I'm not dating anyone. Ten or fifteen years more and they'll wonder why I'm not marrying anyone. What will we do then?"
Greninja couldn't answer. He could barely conceive tomorrow, let alone that far into the future.
"Maybe . . ." Calem hesitated. "Maybe I'll find somebody who's both presentable and gullible. We'll get married and I'll pretend to love him or her while the whole world thinks we're normal. Meanwhile, I can keep up my relationship with you in secret."
Greninja's fists clenched. His body trembled. He could not physically handle the inferno of rage that had erupted inside him.
He jumped out of bed, ignoring Calem's protests, and parked himself into the farthest corner of the room, his back to Calem. His fury was a blazing fire, engulfing his heart and spreading out from his chest in a rush to burn the rest of his insides.
"I'm sorry," Calem said. He sounded shattered. "That was by far the dumbest and cruelest idea I've ever had. I'm so extremely sorry. I know I can't do that to you or the other person."
Greninja only huffed in response. Every instinct was screaming at him to go back and soothe his companion, his trainer, his lover, but he stayed rooted to the corner. He needed Calem to know he was mad, so that the boy would never again make such an odious suggestion.
Calem sighed. "I guess we'll deal with the problems as they arise."
He refused to sleep until Greninja finally returned to the bed, at which point Calem promptly fell under. Greninja remained awake for a long time afterward, staring into the darkness and thinking. He was unable to stop thinking, despite how desperately he tried to quiet his mind. He listened to the boy's breathing, which wasn't totally steady even in sleep, and felt himself awaken to a host of new worries that he'd hardly noticed before. Even when morning arrived and Calem woke in decent spirits, the worries did not shut off, and they haven't since.
Now, through the pale blue veil of rain, Greninja gazes at the boy walking ahead of him on the sidewalk. Without warning, a tidal wave of fierce love rises inside him. It's as shocking as that blaze of anger on that moody night had been, and just as powerful too. On impulse, Greninja hurries forward and moves in front of Calem, blocking his path and making him stop.
Calem asks, "What is it?" The Pokemon stands up straight and locks eyes with him. Greninja is still thinking of that night, but he's recalling a much earlier part of it now. In his mind's eye he sees the moment after he was asked to stand, the moment when Calem gazed up at him with that expression so desperately inquisitive and deeply intimate. Greninja fills his mind with that memory, wanting so much to make his emotions clear on his face in the same way Calem did back then.
After several seconds of uncomprehending silence, Calem suddenly turns away from Greninja. He walks past him and hurries down the sidewalk.
As Greninja moves to follow, Calem mutters, "Don't stare at me like that while we're in public. I know it looks like we're the only ones outside now, but you can't take chances like that. I'll never let you out again if you're going to get all emotional for no reason."
His tone is reproachful but Greninja can see the blush on his face. The Pokemon feels happier. It was minimal, but he successfully communicated something to Calem.
Perhaps someday they really will be able to understand each other perfectly. They will definitely face countless obstacles until then, and will continue to do so even after that point, but he believes love has the potential to bring them through everything.
END