[YESTERDAY]
Ash,
began the letter, her handwriting cursive and neat in blue ink.
Thank you so much for my birthday card and present – even if they got here nine days late! No, seriously, thanks so much, I love the paper. I wish I had loads of penpals now – this stationary set is almost too nice to waste on letters to just you, ha ha!
The birthday itself was quite quiet really, we all just went for a meal. Your mother couldn't make it but she sent cards and presents up with Tracey – two romance novels and a massive bar of chocolate! Heaven! - curled, exaggerated handwriting, underlined twice for emphasis.
The Professor gave me a mousepad... I don't have a computer, but I guess it's the thought that counts! Toiletries and hoards of pink things from the sisters which I won't bore you with… and your stationary set, of course.
So, you will be pleased to hear that seventeen feels absolutely no different to sixteen! The only difference is I can once again act superior for being officially older than you! Speaking of which, where do you think you'll be in the spring? Will you be back over here for your birthday this time? I haven't seen you on your birthday for years now! And the postage on sending presents between continents is extortionate!
Guess I'd better sign off now – save some paper for the next letter!
My love to Brock, Pikachu and everyone.
Missing you,
Misty xxx
she signs with a flourish, the tail of the y curling into three kisses.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
The letters arrived with Misty far more reliably than they did with Ash. It was a pain, really, him not having a fixed point of address. Misty spent far too much time pouring over maps of Sinnoh and calculating which city Ash was likely to be in at which point, and getting her letters out early, just to be sure, so they were always there waiting for him when he arrived.
Ash's latest letter was waiting for her on the kitchen table, conspicuous in a pile of bills and junk mail.
Dear Misty,
it started, Ash's handwriting round and expressive in black biro.
Glad you liked your present. They had loads of other prints too – almost bought myself a Pikachu set but it was kind of girly!
Got my fourth badge this week – halfway there! I feel like I've been here forever. And probably will still be at it come my birthday… and he added a little sad face at the end of the line.
It's been raining a lot lately. Sick of being damp!
I don't understand how it is that I can never think of anything to say in these letters, when I'm the one adventuring round the world – and you can write pages and pages about what DVD you watched with your sisters last night!
Not that I am not interested in hearing about what DVDs you watch. It's thrilling, gripping, excit- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! Hahaha only joking.
Wish me luck for the fifth badge – although hopefully I will already have it by the time your letter gets all the way over here!
Brock and everyone say hey.
Love,
Ash
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Ash wasn't sure when the vidphone conversations had phased into letters. You would think that the letters would be less intimate, less personal. Instead he had found it to be the opposite. The vidphone conversations seized up his throat with the immediacy of her, the pressure of the situation forcing each and every relevant piece of information from his head. Constant interruptions of people at both ends meant that they often lapsed into impotent silences. He much preferred the letters. Any time, day or night, he could take out his notepad and scribble a few lines. It was the closest thing he could get to how it used to be, when conversation with her was only a head turn away.
Dear Misty,
he started as usual, his back against a rock and his paper angled to catch the most amount of light from the campfire.
It's cold tonight. I can really feel the winter coming in! Hope you're nice and warm down there in the south!
I miss being warm. I have been fantasising all day about being back home, and that barbeque you had where we all had a water fight! IT'S SO COLD AND MISERABLE HERE!
And here Ash doodled a little miserable Ash-face, complete with hat, under a storm cloud hastily shaded with the side of the nib, a stylised thunder bolt pointing childishly out from the middle.
I am such an old man, all I do is moan about the weather! OKAY, no more weather talk!
The other day I caught Dawn talking to this girl in the Pokémon Centre about how she was real best mates with this glamorous Water Pokémon Master in Kanto. Took me a few seconds to realise she meant you! Hahahaha, clearly she's never actually met you or she would not have been so flattering, hahahaha!
No, really, she's a good kid. She will totally idol-worship you when you two meet… although I think it's true that she has a totally skewed opinion of you!
Hopefully you two will meet sooner rather than later and all the myths can be dispelled!
Love,
Ash
Shivering somewhere in Eastern Sinnoh!
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
When the reply came, the top-left hand corner of the Poliwag printed paper was curled up, as if she had been flicking and rolling at the paper in her agitation as she wrote.
How rude! the short letter began; she clearly hadn't bothered to pause for grammatical pleasantries. I think that it's YOU who has the skewed opinion of me! I'm pretty hot stuff you know. Just because you're out of the loop over there… Gym is progressing leaps and bounds and I am always profiled as the next up and coming Water Master!
Next time I write to you and tell you that I am going to be featured in Trainer magazines, maybe you should actually bother to read them?
From,
Misty
Who is nice and warm and going out to sunbathe.
Ha.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Ha! Get over yourself! Ash fired back. He had pressed the biro so hard that tiny flecks of ink haloed the words. And then:
Got another Badge. Easy battle. Pikachu. Not much of a challenge. Felt almost bad for the guy.
was soft and round again, and she knew that he must have continued to write on after a period of calming down.
So, how many Badges have you given away recently?
Still raining. Might start to grow mould. Or drown.
Love,
Ash
and squeezed in before the bottom of the page was a little cartoon of a girl on a sun lounger, reclining under a big sun that was smiling cheerfully down on her and wearing comical sunglasses. Misty assumed it was her, even though she hadn't worn a side-ponytail for years now. She wondered if he even knew that.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Misty, the next letter started, the slight urgency showcased by the dropping of his usual 'dear'.
I think you missed me in the last town. We made quite good time. So I haven't gotten any letter?
Hope you're okay…
Going north west…
Love,
Ash
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Misty, once again.
Still no letter? You okay? Are you out of sync with me or something?
Going to ring you from the next Centre to check you're okay…
Love,
Ash
and to finish was a small squiggle, that might have been an X for a kiss, but thought the better of.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Ash, came a letter, finally, and the handwriting that he knew so well was smaller, hesitant.
Sorry I've not been in contact recently. I've been so busy. Writing to you and then working out where best to post to is quite time consuming. No offense.
I hope you're not still so cold and wet… It's finally turning chilly here, which I guess is to be expected.
I have turned into you, nothing more exciting to say in my letters either than to comment on the weather! and it was impossible for Ash to be able to gauge her tone.
In case I don't get a chance to write to you beforehand… Merry Christmas to you and everyone! Hopefully I may actually get to see you next year? and in that her tone was unmistakable, her set face visible in the tight smallness of the letters.
Misty xxx
and as usual the y swirled off into kisses, but for a reason he couldn't explain, Ash could tell that there was a difference.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Dear Misty,
His black biro must have run out or been misplaced. He wrote in blunt pencil and the smudging caused by his moving hand made little silver puffs appear down the right margin of the page.
If I have done my calculations right, this letter should reach you before New Year's Eve, and Misty smiled and rolled her eyes, as it was January the 3rd. At 10pm have a smile and a toast for me, as I will be entering the new year a whole two hours earlier than you remember! Wow, that's weird. We will be in separate years. Weird!
Anyway Misty, here's hoping that the new year brings happiness to you.
Don't worry about writing me so much. I guess I didn't realise it was so time-consuming for you. I guess you don't have as much free time as me! You're so grown up, with your nine to five and your home with walls…! I'm just a guy with a tent and a pencil (I have NO idea where my pen is and Brock refuses to lend me one, apparently I don't have a good track record with his stuff!) and I'm writing you nonsense at 2.30 in the morning.
Happy New Year.
Love,
Ash
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Receiving Ash's letters was always bittersweet. They were a little break in reality, a little spark of nostalgia, but they fed the small part of her that wanted them to be more. After reading one she would always feel let down by herself for feeling that way; she thought that she had outgrown all that.
Ever the advocate of tough love, especially with herself, Misty made herself wait a week to write her response. When she did, she used plain white paper from a pad in the Gym Reception.
Ash,
You are terrible at maths. That letter did not make New Year. Not remotely. Learn to add up.
I am really busy and grown up, yes, thanks for the compliment (?) – but you forget, you've got a full time job too. You're adventuring, training, seeing, experiencing. Won't get very far with your nose in a pad trying desperately to think of things to write to an old friend back home.
Plus I have the Weather Channel if I want to know about the weather in Sinnoh.
Happy New Year to you too,
Misty xxx
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Now Ash knew Misty very, very well. Better than she thought he did, he would guess. And even in written text he knew the difference between Banteringly Sarcastic Misty and Genuinely Annoyed Misty. And so he read her letter a couple of times through, growing increasingly concerned.
Ash unzipped the back compartment of his backpack, a shallow pocket that ran along the flat underside, and pulled out a sheaf of papers, slightly concave, moulded to the curve of his back. And he read them through like a book, or a journal. Four years of letters. When he was done there was a lump, hard and ugly in his throat.
I miss you Ash, I miss you. I wish I could see you. I wish you could come home, and in his head he recounted his replies, Badges and weather patterns and inconsequential anecdotes about his travels.
She didn't say 'Missing you' at the end of her letters any more.
But he'd never said it in any of his.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
The first draft was simple.
Misty, I miss you.
The second, a little more heartfelt.
I just want you to know that I miss you so much.
The third piece of paper added:
I think about you every single day.
I just thought you should know.
But that sheet too was pulled from the pad and balled up like the others.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Misty checked the post every morning and every afternoon, more disappointed with herself than with Ash. This was to be expected. She told him not to write her so much. He wouldn't read any further between the lines than that.
The weeks sped on. It was one month exactly until his seventeenth birthday when Misty sighed defeat, and took her Poliwag printed stationary set from her drawer.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
By the time Ash entered the next town, the paper was greyed and dog-eared but the letter was done. He read it through one more time, contemplating rewriting the scored and scrawled mess onto a fresh sheet but decided against it. He hoped she'd prefer it that way.
He handed the letter to the Joy, who in turn handed over a small package, an early birthday present from his mother, but no letters. Ash's eyes followed his own letter into the postal sack and hoped that he wasn't too late.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Misty had finished her letter the night before. It had only been three sentences long, but for some reason she'd held off from posting it that morning, even though she knew that she'd left it so late that the timing was already tight. Returning from the pool she saw it waiting on the kitchen counter, now joined by a twin, a battered envelope from that day's post thoughtfully placed there by a sister. She picked it up in her damp hands and pressed the compressed corners of the rectangle thoughtfully. It was heavy, a little bulky. It was more than one page.
Although she knew that she should post her letter first, that she shouldn't risk the unknown contents of this letter allowing her to waiver, she hooked the envelope with a practiced finger and tore it open.
Misty, it started, and his handwriting was smaller, compressed, as if he were already conscious that he would be needing as much space as possible.
I have been thinking a lot lately. Now I know you are already drafting jokes about the unlikelihood of me thinking much at all, but just bear with me and just read. You're going to like this letter, I hope.
I have been thinking about you. And that's not a new occurrence, but what is new is that I have been thinking about how I take you for granted. And about how you are my best friend and probably my favourite person that I have ever met.
And here another doodled cartoon, left-set as the writing continued all around it – this one wasn't just an afterthought to take up blank space on the paper. A little side-ponytailed Misty with an Ashblob on the end of a fishing rod, pulling him up and through the air. Her bicycle waited serenely for its fate in the background.
And I know I never say these things, and I know it's no excuse but I never thought I had to. I thought you just knew by default that I was missing you and that I wish every day that you didn't have to be a grown up and that you could come back and play with me!
Another cartoon, right-set to balance the first one. Ash, - complete with backwards hat - and Pikachu, squared off against a grinning Misty and a simplistic representation of her Staryu.
I associate coming home with you. I daydream about it – returning to Kanto triumphant and worthy and getting to see you every day again. I can't wait to come to stay and really, properly catch up – I'll be over there straight away, invited or not!
A crude doodle this time, but clearly the Cerulean Gym with its imposing Dewgong sign. An impatient looking Misty, hair down to her shoulders now, hands on her hips. Ash's head poking out of a tent on the forecourt. Pikachu in the middle ground lugging a massive League trophy.
It won't be much longer. I promise. I'm trying my hardest!
I am really sorry that I'm such a rubbish friend and that I'm not good at expressing myself. It makes me sad that you were ever in any doubt, but just in case:
I MISS YOU, MISTY!
And I cannot wait to see you!
Lots and lots and lots and LOTS of love,
Ash
and squeezed on to the bottom of the page was the most careful of the drawings. A little Ash and a little Misty, sitting side by side on the end of the paper smiling out at her.
She read it through five times, her smile broadening with each repetition until it was as large as her cartoon counterpart's grin. She slid her letter off the counter into the bin and hurried up the stairs towards her bedroom. She had another letter to write, and the postal dates were tighter than she would like.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o
Ash's stomach was doing peculiar things as the group approached Sunyshore City. What would be worse? A cool response or no response at all? It had been his seventeenth birthday two days ago – surely she would at least acknowledge that? Dawn looked over at him curiously as his feet scuffed loudly and sullenly in the dirt.
As was to be expected, the Joy relinquished over a small bag of packages and letters – birthday wishes and trinkets. But right on the top, presumably most recently arrived was Misty's response, unmistakeably, undeniably there. His stomach squirmed again as he snatched it from atop the pile only to realise that it was light and thin. A short, formal note at best.
Dear Ash, and it was slanted with the speed with which she was writing.
I'm coming for your birthday, I'm getting on the boat in the morning. I can't work out the times, I've gotten too lost lately. I will be at Sunyshore from the eighth until the thirteenth – STAY THERE AND WAIT FOR ME!
Love,
Misty xxx
PS: I loved your letter.
Ash's insides gave one last gut-wrenching kick before settling down into a trodden coldness. It was too late; she'd have gone home yesterday. And now what? How could things shake themselves out of this stagnant limbo? She would be a stranger by the time he got home, a cipher for his past with no place in his future. It didn't seem to matter how much neither of them wanted it. He'd have to go home, see her, but how? When?
The Centre's automated doors opened to allow a Trainer passage, letting Dawn's delighted laugh travel through to pierce his depressed reverie. Brock's baritone, even warmer than usual, rose to match it before the doors pressed together and blocked out the sound. Ash turned from his haphazard pile of packages to the windows, turned brilliant and muddled by the costal sun shining on them.
And she was there, a streak of orange and peach and blue, yellow where she held Pikachu in her arms; half obstructed by Brock, half bleached out by the reflection of the light, but there, unmistakeably, undeniably there. And even Ash wasn't oblivious to the implications of the faith and hope that had kept her waiting here for him on this foreign shore.
She turned her gaze and caught sight of him, although he knew he must be as indistinct through the glaring glass as she was to him; but he could see the wide smile breaking across her face, and one arm lifting free to wave.
Hurriedly he bundled the canvas bag of parcels closed again, stuffing Misty's letter in at the top. His best friend had travelled hundreds of miles to see him, and they had a lot of catching up to do.
o 0 o 0 o 0 o