Skies As Grey As Battleships

- Chapter 13: Postponing the Inevitable -

The minute Touko had stepped through the door last night, Touya knew that she was suspicious. The fact that he, Cheren, and Bianca hadn't even bothered to sit down and had instead been standing in a rough circle hadn't helped - there was something about standing close together in a circle that was almost conspiratorial.

Bianca had left the apartment as soon as dinner had ended, and Cheren had retreated to Touya's room under the pretense of being tired. Since Cheren was a major night owl, this flimsy excuse had only furthered Touko's suspicions, which Touya had had to deflect until Touko had decided to give up and go to bed. With Cheren staying at the apartment, he didn't have a room to escape to, and the couch was quite underprepared to protect him from his sister.

Which was why he was currently speeding through getting himself prepared to go to work.

Having just fed Oshawott his breakfast, Touya was busy putting Oshawott's food away when he heard a noise coming from one of the bedrooms - a noise that sounded like the sound of someone placing their feet onto the floor. Touya began to panic, just a tiny bit, because he knew that it had to be Touko.

Cheren was even worse than Touya at waking up in the morning. Part of it was because he stayed up to absurdly late hours - he claimed that he was more productive at nighttime - and another part was because he just wasn't a morning person to begin with.

Touya wasn't sure whether he'd prefer it to be Cheren or Touko who'd just woken up. Since Cheren wasn't exactly a ray of sunshine when he was fully awake, Touya wasn't really thrilled at the prospect of dealing with him when he was half-asleep.

But Touko was sure to ask Touya questions, and that situation was probably more dangerous that simply dealing with a grouchy Cheren. Touya heard footsteps in the hallway, and he knew that he had a little under four seconds before his morning became far less peaceful.

"Good morning," greeted Touko, appearing at the edge of the kitchen. There was a faint tone of annoyance present in her voice.

She pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. Tepig soon followed and immediately began his attempts to mooch off of Oshawott's food.

"... Good morning," Touya hesitantly responded. He didn't want to antagonize her, but not greeting her in return would probably just annoy her further.

Touko stared at him, and Touya stared back.

This staring contest continued until Touko sighed and motioned for Touya to take the seat across from her at the table. Touya did so, and she continued looking at him like she wanted to say something but wasn't sure where to begin.

Touya was more than a little afraid to ask, so he chose to wait until she initiated the conversation.

"Something's up, and it isn't just with you. There's also something wrong with Cheren and Bianca."

Touya fidgeted nervously with the hem of his sleeve. If he started talking, he didn't think that he'd be able to lie to Touko's face. It was only last night that he'd promised Cheren that he wouldn't tell Touko what they were up to, and while he did intend to try and keep that promise, Touko was awfully persistent, and lying didn't sit right with him to begin with.

Touko crossed her arms impatiently and frowned. "Tell me what's going on."

"Um, I -" Touya stammered. With such direct questioning, lying was the only way to avoid answering. "T-there's nothing. Nothing's wrong."

It was quite possibly the weakest answer he could have given.

"Come on, Touya. You're awful at lying, and it's disappointing that you'd even try. Can you just tell me truth? Please?" Touko gave Touya her best and most effective pleading expression.

It took approximately three seconds for Touya to crack.

"Cheren and Bianca are involved in anti-government activities and I found out," Touya admitted in a rush of words. Some juvenile and vainly optimistic part of him hoped that if he spoke quickly enough, then the words just wouldn't register in Touko's mind.

Not that that actually happened, of course.

"... What?"

Touya couldn't really blame her for not anticipating that particular response.

"Okay, hold on. When and why did this happen? And why do you know about it and I don't?"

"Can we talk about this later?" Touya asked in a poor attempt to evade her questioning. He checked his watch to see if he had evidence to strengthen his case - blessedly enough, it was actually a little past time to leave. Touya dipped his wrist towards Touko to make his point.

"Fine. But you're not getting out of this."

Touya nodded, because there was no point in attempting to hide the fact that he believed that he was utterly doomed.

Since Touko had still needed to get herself ready, Touya had taken the opportunity to rush out the door. He had justified his speedy departure with the fact that he wouldn't have been on time otherwise - and since Touko was late, she had chosen not to protest.

Touko had asked Bianca to come along - though Bianca had seemed confused at first, the serious and slightly annoyed look on Touko's face had caused her to agree without question.

Touko had been acting reserved all day, and any attempts Bianca made to initiate a conversation were being shot down. Where there was usually amiable chatter, there was instead silence. Awkward silence.

The clicking of footsteps merged with the natural sounds of the city to create background noise that somewhat alleviated the void caused by the lack of conversation, but the effect was so noticeable that Touya was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

Right now, he had three options. He could either continue walking home, go off somewhere random in the city, or go see N.

He wasn't really surprised that he was able to decide so quickly.

"I'm going to visit N," Touya said, ducking down the nearest alleyway before anyone could object.

While Touya had been told to head to the twenty-seventh floor like last time, this time he'd also been told to wait once he got there, which implied that N was off doing something else in the building. The elevator deposited Touya at the proper floor, and he entered the main room.

Books were still scattered about, but Touya thought that they maybe looked a little bit neater. There also seemed to be fewer piles, but since N didn't seem the type to get rid of books, Touya wondered if he'd just moved them around.

Since picking up one of the books to peruse was an almost guaranteed embarrassment, he considered poking around one of the back rooms before immediately discarding the idea as an invasion of privacy - one of the last things he wanted to do was to make it seem like he was taking advantage of the freedom he'd been given to wander around.

Touya noticed that a small couch had been dragged out - presumably from one of the adjoining rooms - and placed near the elevator against the right wall. The couch looked a little out of place amongst the stacks of books, but as he sat down Touya was nevertheless grateful that he wouldn't have to stand.

As time ticked by, Touya began to worry if N was actually really busy - it could be that Touya was pulling him away from some sort of important task. Touya felt a little guilty at the possibility.

He supposed that that was another reason in favour of joining Team Plasma. If he were an actual member, then he'd have a legitimate excuse for hanging around the headquarters so often, and he'd actually be doing something useful instead of loitering within the building.

Mind circling back to N's potential busyness, Touya wondered how often N went outside. He'd only ever seen him outside on two occasions - once when N had been searching for Touya, and once when N had been standing right outside the Plasma headquarters - and whenever Touya stopped by, N was always in the building. Admittedly, he hadn't known N for long, but it still seemed like he didn't get out very much. Probably because he actually had things to do, unlike Touya, who, despite work, seemed to have a fair amount of free time.

Touya had the thought that it would be nice to take N somewhere before immediately shoving the idea away. Not just because it wasn't guaranteed that N would have the time for it, but also because that sounded dangerously close to a date. He wasn't even sure why, because it was perfectly acceptable for one person to take another person to a place without it being remotely romantic.

Either way, Touya was not going to take N on a date. Or vice versa. Because he wasn't interested in N that way, despite what certain people would have liked to imply. Sure, N was interesting and smart, and he also happened to be a really kind and considerate person, and -

Touya put a halt to that train of thought. He could feel himself blushing, so he took a few deep breaths and tried to think of things that weren't related to N, a plan which worked surprisingly well until N walked out of the elevator. Zorua trotted behind him; after sparing Touya a moment's glance, he ran off to one of the back rooms.

"I'm sorry you had to wait," N said, joining Touya on the couch.

Touya shook his head. "I'm sure you're busy." He couldn't help but sound slightly apologetic.

Briefly, Touya wondered why on earth the couch was so small - though he'd already come to the conclusion that, strangely enough, physical contact with N was not awful, that fact in and of itself was a little terrifying. They weren't touching, but the amount of space between them was so pitifully tiny that, for Touya, it was close enough.

"I..." Touya trailed off, trying to figure out how to start off what he wanted to say. "I was thinking about joining Team Plasma."

N just looked at him for a moment, and if Touya didn't know N he'd think that he'd forgotten about the offer he'd made to Touya. So Touya was a little confused - N had said that his offer would remain open, right? And Touya didn't think that N was the type to make empty promises.

"If you don't want me to join..." Touya began awkwardly, unsure of how to respond to N's reaction.

"That isn't it," N replied, and Touya thought that he seemed a little unsure - as if he wasn't entirely sure what actually was the problem. Less than a second later, a realization seemed to dawn on N. "If you join Team Plasma, then there is a chance that you may be hurt."

The notion that N cared enough about him enough to worry about admitting him to his group was both pleasantly surprising and somewhat heady.

But Touya didn't want to have to be the one that was always protected. N, Cheren, and Bianca - almost everyone he knew except for Touko - were all putting themselves in harm's way for a higher purpose. There wasn't any reason that he couldn't do the same.

Touya also had the thought that if he joined Team Plasma, then he just might be able to make N's job a little safer.

"Is there a reason why you've changed your mind?" N asked, dropping some of the seriousness he'd adopted earlier.

"I want to help you," Touya replied simply but firmly. It wasn't until a split second later that he realized what he'd said - not that he wanted to help Unova or the anti-government movement in general, but N himself.

This was part of the reason he usually avoided one-on-one conversations. The more freedom he had to talk, the more he ended up phrasing his thoughts incorrectly.

Though in this case, it was less that it was incorrect and more that it was too revealing.

"You want to help Team Plasma," N restated slowly, and Touya got the feeling that the phrasing was deliberate - N was unsure how to interpret what Touya had said and was, in a sense, testing to see if he'd gotten it right.

Touya briefly but carefully considered how to respond. "That's true, but I also... I don't want you to get hurt, either."

Why did that sound so much more incriminating when he said it?

N had an expression that Touya had come to associate with him receiving some sort of praise or compliment - a combination of surprised and flattered, with a dash of confusion thrown in.

"Would you like to come by sometime for combat training?" Touya blinked at the slight change of subject, but at least it was somewhat related to what they were talking about. "It would not be binding; if you decided not to join, then there wouldn't be an issue. I would conduct the battle myself."

The implication being that N would personally make sure that the battle was as safe as possible. Though Touya definitely appreciated the gesture, he was a little apprehensive about battling. Not only was he unsure of how good he'd actually be at it, but he was worried about Oshawott accidentally getting hurt. But Oshawott had seemed fairly enthusiastic about it while he was watching the practice battle a few days ago.

Slowly, Touya nodded. "If Oshawott's okay with it."

Chances were that Oshawott would be more than willing to take part in a practice battle; if that turned out to be the case, then Touya would be learning how to fight. And though he was hesitant to admit it, he was just the tiniest bit excited about the prospect.

A/N: You can probably guess what's coming next chapter just based on how Touko's acting. After that, things should be picking up plot-wise unless there are significant last minute changes (which, uh, hopefully won't happen).

Fun fact: I got the number for N's personal floor by multiplying Euler's number (~2.718) by ten and rounding.