~N~

This wasn't normal… this… it was..

Two years ago my life had been… both the most perfect and the most horrific it had ever been before. I had thrived, I had fallen, I had loved, and ultimately I had lost. Though no destiny is stronger than fate, I didn't dwell on what went missing, but rather what stayed. I had my pokemon, both wounded after the fight, but not nearly as damaged as the poor pokemon that fought alongside my partner in a battle against none-other than my father. We had made it out, alive… but not whole. I carried with me the awkward weight of knowing that I had lead a region in peril, that I had speared the world in the heart while it was beating, and then twisted a knife so harshly that a bloody wound was created amongst the all the people I had hurt.

Plasma hurt me, so I hurt them. THAT as the abnormal of then… and this was the abnormal of now.

I had left the Team Plasma Castle the night my partner fell—and no I did not mean my Zoroark, who was my beloved pokemon partner—I meant Touya. My beloved. My heart. My soul. My savior.

And he was dead.

At first I thought maybe he lived… but no…he was dead. Surely. I sent letters for a while, thinking maybe he would get them, but at the time it had only just been me trying to cope with the fact that I had left him dying that night. I knew he would die then and I knew he was dead now. I had always known it, for it was the truth staring me in the face.

So why now… why was my heart…

This unnatural and normal feeling in the pit of my stomach. This thundering, vicious, love that was growing like a flame. Like a lightning bolt from the sky, stretching down to touch the floor beneath the souls of my shoes.

I was disgusting. I was vile and inconsiderate and I hated myself. I hated myself so much.

Why did my eyes keep following him?

He was short, lean and toned, and he walked with his head held high. His ankle was accompanied by a small black string with a single bead around the back. His neck bore the tooth of some deep sea pokemon, as well as what looked to be a precious pearl from a Shellder. And he had a pokemon of foreign stature at his side—a Squirtle if I wasn't mistaking.

Maybe it was his hair? Maybe… it was the fact that he looked so clever and proud… and… and I…

There were many things I wanted to say about this particular boy, but I knew none as prudent as the fact that, sitting like kisses on his cheeks were the most lovely and endearing freckles I had seen in YEARS. Literally… years ago when I saw Touya for the first time, the same speckles had curled around the bridge of his nose, and I had stopped literally, walked up to him in a crowd and stared upon the his angel face without a care in the world. Not liberation, not hate, not fear could have stopped me from reaching out to touch the odd, foreign marks on him.

Which is why now— two years after never seeing such freckles—I stopped, blocked the path of this young boy that was headed towards the Virbank City gym and stuck my hand out to touch his face.

"He—hey!" The other one—a taller one that obvious came from Unova—shot forward, hackles raised in the same fashion that a Leipard's did. Eyes blazing I could see his hate was immense, breathtaking but not beautiful.

My fingers curled around the lovely shape of the jaw of the boy with such a strange face—such a foreign appearance. It was… aggravating. Pain fueled in my chest as my piercing emerald eyes met his opposite, soft milk brown ones.

I touched his face harshly, hand shaking because I wanted to grab a fistful of his hair and slam his precious skull into the concrete.

"The hell!" He jerked back, voice chipped with ice and slapping my hand away as his pokemon—the Squirtle—jolted forward with all her might, ramming into my shin and sparking a torrent of pain to crawl up my thigh and into my chest.

I gasped—that accent. I had heard it before, even while bending down to suffocate the welt growing above my ankle, I could remember as clear as day.

iMy name is Touya~/i He had said, a smile on his perfect face.

"Alec!" The other boy whirled, looking to see that it had gotten into a fight with a very familiar, and yellow eyed pidove.

Zoroark was a master of illusion, and she took the shape of birds most often because not many of them felt threatening.

"Squrr!" the foreign pokemon bared its short teeth at me as her trainer back away, reached down and plucked the pokemon from where it threatened another attack. I wasn't really afraid of such a small pokemon, but I was afraid of that sort of bond. The way a pokemon was willing to risk its life for its trainer—all of my lover's pokemon had been that way.

"Let's get out of here, Hyuu…" his accent hung like misery in my ears. The sound Touya—Blackie—had made the first few times I met him.

What was the connection?

The freckles… the same color hair… the accent…

It infuriated me; somehow, more than it should to know I was drawn in by such abnormal traits. I watched him and his friend go, grabbing their pokemon and turning tails to flee. Only… I wished I could chase him down.

Pain made me seethe.

My chest… my heart… my love…

I wrote you letters… even though I knew you were dead!

And now this?

Staring after the foreign boy I sat on the pavement, pulling my hat down in agony and covering my face as I imagined my hands along that perfect freckled face once again—Touya's, not this boy's.

I wanted to touch Touya again… I wanted to… I—I just—

Zoroark came flapping over, her tiny appearance soothing as she chirped, pushing the feathers of her tiny Pidove head to my side.

"Who is he?" I whispered.

This time when I looked up I could just barely make out the fearless face of the other trainer looking over his shoulder at me with venom in his eyes.

I wasn't the best at reading human beings emotions—but his was quite simple. I knew it because I had felt it before. The boy—Hyuu apparently- read:

iDon't EVER touch him again…/i

…

~Kyouhei~

I didn't know what that was all about before... but I wasn't all that fazed. I mean, it could have been worse right? It could have been another day walking through rough terrain and having our feet ache. I think I would have rather felt such a dirty touch on the side of my face, gripping my chin and those terrifying green eyes boring down at me as if I were his prey. I didn't know who that guy was but it didn't seem that important to me. Especially since Kukui hit him pretty hard in the shin…

He was taller than Hyuu, so I felt more like a midget than anything, and he had this ridiculously long waist length hair that was a honeydew sort of color. It was weird, and his breath had smelt strongly of mint, not that it was a bad thing, but that… smelling like the color of your hair was strange.

Hyuu was fuming about this though, claiming that we should just turn around and march back up to him and demand what the hell his problem was because it was uncalled for. Personally my guess was that he thought I was someone else and accidentally had a mind fart in which caused him to grasp my chin and not let me go. So… that happens every now and again right?

Hyuu didn't think so.

"I mean, who do you think that guy is?" My usually calm and collected but sometimes whiney friend tossed his head back into the back of the chair he sat in, ignoring the bread sitting before him—which I was stuffing into my mouth too quickly because lately it felt like I just couldn't eat enough.

"Take your anger out on the gym leader." I suggested through bites. "That's what I'm going to do."

"But you don't seem very angry."

I shrugged. "I'm more angry about the polluted water here than that guy touching me."

"Did you even see his expression? He looked like he wanted to hurt you…" Hyuu flicked the straw in his soda uncomfortable while Alec was reaching forward to grab the salt shaker for no apparent reason.

"Bread doesn't need salt." I said directly to the pokemon, making Kukui look up in encouragement. I knew that she was incapable of controlling her emotions over this particular Oshawott, and I didn't exactly approve of it, but that didn't mean I would take it out on him. Alec was a smart pokemon with a positive attitude, and I figured it could be a lot worse than that. Kukui COULD be interested in bad influence.

"Kyouhei!" Hyuu snagged the salt shaker from his pokemon and set it back on the table harshly.

I jolted forward, bumping hands with Hyuu but stopping the little glass vile from falling over.

"You're going to give us bad luck for a month!" I hissed, setting the thing down carefully.

"Kyouhei this guy could be something serious. What if he is like… hunting you or something?"

I rolled my eyes, nibbling on the piece of bread with a twisted smile. "You really have quite an imagination don't you?"

"You don't know this world." He shook his head. "You've lived on a safe little island your whole life, you don't know what people are capable of."

The mock smile on my face faded instantly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I don't want you to ignore this." He ran a hand through his hair nervously, not wanting to fight with me but… if he was going to take a shot at my island then he would have to prepare for a fight.

"I think you need to ignore this actually." I stopped eating all together. "What does it matter? We are going to be leaving this town as soon as we challenge the gym right?"

"And if he follows us?"

"Why would he do that? Hyuu, you are too hyped. You need to chill."

"You're acting like its nothing, and it wasn't. He wa—

"Dude just calm down." I could feel a hint of island slang creeping into my voice—and I wasn't afraid to admit it was out of sheer annoyance. Hyuu didn't like when I said things like "duuuude" or "Chill out mannn".

Hyuu shook his head in slight anger. "You're brother would be cauti—

"Yeah well I'm not him!" I snapped.

Hyuu turned his chin down, glaring heavily with his dark purple red eyes, his thick black lashes lining his eyes inwardly. "Alright. You know what, you're right. You don't have to be. But I will be."

He shoved the chair out callously, making it groan against this diner's linoleum floor. He tucked Alec under his arm.

"Ossh!"

"Squirr!"

"Where are you going!?"

"I'm going to find that DUDE and challenge him. I'll make sure that it's JUST me overreacting, and nothing more."

"Hyuu ar—are you cra—

"You're bill sir…" A quiet lady tapped my shoulder gently, setting a glossy black book down before me.

"Hy—Oh—

I groaned, turning to the waitress and reaching into my pocket for my wallet. Hurriedly I handed her my credit card. "Please hurry."

"Sure…" she said, but didn't seem to hurry at all.

It took them at least a whole minute to bring me back the check and my card—which I signed swiftly and tucked away for later. Slamming my chair back I stood, grabbed the last piece of bread, and ordered Kukui (who looked as if someone had just slapped her) to come on.