Skies As Grey As Battleships

- Chapter 32: Too Much Time -

After his somewhat disheartening conversation with Touko, Touya had wandered back over to the couch, cleaned off all of the materials he'd used to sleep, and gently woken up Oshawott. Touko had left the apartment with Tepig soon after finishing her cereal, saying that she wanted to walk around the city a bit.

Touya was sitting on the couch, wondering what to do with his time. He definitely planned on stopping by the Team Plasma headquarters later - not to visit N, because he'd just seen him and even though it would be really nice to see him again, Touya didn't want to be a nuisance - but to take another class. He kind of wanted to go now, but he was still a little sleepy, and he wanted to be at his best when in the classroom.

He was also curious about what Cheren had gotten up so early to talk to Bianca about, and since Cheren had already been out for a couple of hours, he was sure that he'd be coming back soon. He didn't think that Cheren would be willing to explain entirely, but he might be willing to say just a bit. Though his usual reticence might have been why he hadn't told Touko, Touya knew that Cheren was also still upset at the stunt she'd pulled the other day with his laptop, which might've had a hand in things. So it wasn't unreasonable to think that Cheren might be a little bit more open with him until he decided to forgive Touko.

Touya felt like being productive, and whenever he felt a combination of productive and bored, he usually defaulted to cleaning or organizing things, which was exactly why he was now heading to the kitchen. Touko had neglected to put the cereal box back, so he figured that he'd start with making sure that everything was in its proper place. Oshawott entered the kitchen; seeing Touya with the box of cereal, he whimpered and gave Touya a pathetic look. Caving almost immediately, Touya tossed Oshawott a piece of cereal. Oshawott padded over to the table and sat down next to it, watching Touya.

He'd wanted to properly close the box before putting it away, but noticed with a note of resignation that the lid of the box had been mauled open, to the point where nothing even resembling a way of closing it was left. It wasn't even necessarily impatience that led to Touko partially destroying things that she wanted open, it was just that she was actually terrible at opening things in general, so that it was a long established rule that anything that required a sharp object to open was handled exclusively by Touya.

Having since put the box away, he opened the fridge to look around. It was in much the same condition as he'd left it when he'd stocked the groceries a few days ago - a task he'd done all by himself, because Touko had been busy with something and Cheren couldn't be bothered - but looking a little emptier, and a slightly less organized now that people had had a couple days to rummage through it. He wouldn't need to get groceries for a few weeks; he'd made sure to get enough to last them a while, even with Cheren staying.

This thought brought up something that hadn't occurred to him before. Now that Touya really thought about it, he realized that Cheren had been staying with them for over two weeks. His time on leave had to be almost up. He hadn't said anything about having to go back to Snowpoint - or to wherever he was going to end up this time - but if he gave notice at all, it would probably be at the last minute.

Touya had mixed feelings about Cheren leaving. He was glad that Cheren finally had the time to take a break and visit, because even though Cheren wasn't exactly the easiest person to get along with, he and Touya were friends and Touya had missed him. At the same, though, sleeping on the couch wasn't exactly fun, and he really, really wanted his room back, especially by this point.

Still, if he had to pick someone who wasn't a family member to temporarily live with, he could do much worse. In a weird sort of way, he'd almost gotten used to having Cheren around; after all, Cheren had joined them only a week or so after he and Touko had started living in the apartment, meaning that he'd been living with them longer than they'd been living alone together.

Touya hastily shut the refrigerator door, just now realizing that it had been open while he'd been zoning out. He was debating making sure that the cabinets weren't a mess, but he heard a knock on the door before he could even stand up. There was really only one possibility for who it could be - Touko had a card key and Bianca was at work.

He couldn't help but wonder why Cheren was only returning just now, as he'd left in time to catch Bianca before she went to work. Since Bianca hated being late, she probably wouldn't have let Cheren keep her past the start of work, meaning that Cheren had been out for a good three hours or so longer than was really necessary. Cheren had probably gotten sidetracked by something in the city, and Touya was curious about the kind of thing that was capable of keeping Cheren outside.

Touya got up and followed behind Oshawott, who'd already started heading towards the front of the apartment. He opened the door and stepped aside as Cheren entered, shutting the door somewhat harshly behind him.

Touya wasn't able to even get out a quick 'hello' before Cheren turned to face him and said, "We're going to Bianca's right after her work is over." His eyes were hard, which was pretty typical for him, but there was something else that made Touya think that he might be upset. Servine, perched on Cheren's shoulder, looked, as far as Touya could tell, rather impassive, though her tail was flicking back and forth.

"W-why?" Touya stammered, a little taken aback. He couldn't think of anything that warranted visiting Bianca as soon as possible. The biggest thing he'd done recently was to tell Cheren about his relationship with N, but Cheren had taken the information just fine at the time, so that couldn't be it. And as far as he knew, Bianca hadn't done anything. Even if she had, though, there'd be no reason for Cheren to drag him into it.

"You'll find out when we get there," Cheren answered, sounding like he really didn't want to answer any of Touya's questions at the moment. He started heading towards the bedrooms.

"Wait," Touya said, and to his credit Cheren stopped and turned around despite clearly wanting to retreat to his room. "Is it alright if I leave? I'll come back before six," Touya added hastily, seeing Cheren's expression. He normally wouldn't have bothered asking Cheren's opinion on him leaving because it really wasn't any of his business, but he seemed on edge and Touya didn't want to push him further.

"... I'd prefer that you didn't," Cheren added carefully, sounding maybe slightly less annoyed than he had moments before. He then turned back around and continued towards his room, leaving Touya standing in the main room alone with Oshawott, wondering just what he was going to do until Bianca got off work.

All that he could think of doing was to go back to the kitchen, but he had to admit that there really wasn't anything for him to do there - he'd just been bored. Which he was now, but his earlier feeling of productivity had since ebbed, giving way to a rather useless sense of boredom instead of anything helpful.

He didn't used to have this problem. Back when he was in school, he'd get home, get his homework and chores out of the way, and enjoy the free time that he had. But he'd grown familiar with having less time spent at home - between work and going to the Team Plasma building, and the fact that he'd started to go to bed earlier to compensate for his earlier wake up time, he'd had less time to fill. And now he was having trouble deciding what to do with it.

He'd read all of the books he'd brought with him before, and he didn't feel comfortable rooting around in Touko's room for new reading material, so he settled down on the couch with Oshawott. He turned on the television and found that it was on one of the news channels. The newscaster was in the middle of segueing into discussing the weather, and there was a bar on the bottom scrolling a message regarding an upcoming announcement. Touya didn't wait around to read all of it and started flipping through the channels.

He really did want to go by the Team Plasma headquarters, but Cheren had said that he didn't want him to leave. Maybe he was worried that Touya would run off and stay out late enough so that meeting with Bianca would be impossible. Touya couldn't bring himself to feel offended, though. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd avoided something by running away, and at least Cheren trusted him enough to not watch him. It'd be extremely simple for Touya to just waltz out the door without even alerting Cheren to his leaving.

There didn't seem to be anything remotely interesting on. Though, this being the afternoon, it wasn't terribly surprising. He didn't even need to find something fascinating, just a show that would hold the barest minimum of his interest. Because he really didn't have any better ideas, he placed the remote in front of Oshawott, as it was too large for the Pokemon to hold easily.

"Can you pick a channel?" he asked, ignoring the feeling that he might very well have just hit a new low, and Oshawott blinked, probably wondering why Touya was leaving it up to him. But he quickly grinned and, looking at the television with a rather determined expression, started channel surfing. Oshawott settled on what looked to be a made-for-TV movie.

Touya was about to ask why he'd chosen it - it was obvious propaganda, with rows of glorified Unova soldiers dressed in impeccable uniforms facing down the 'evil' but nameless enemy - but then he noticed that the movie was currently showing a battle. Oshawott was watching each Pokemon's movements intently, eyes flicking back and forth as he tracked the battle's progress.

Touya hadn't realized that he'd fallen asleep until he jerked awake. His first thought was that the couch was moving, but it quickly became apparent that it was only one of the cushions being pressed on. The movement stopped after Touya opened his eyes, and Touya saw Cheren standing about half a foot away.

"It's time to go."

A/N: Besides myself, I've never seen someone wake people up the way Cheren does, but I assume that it's not completely uncommon. It's just as effective as touching someone but without the actual touching, which makes it pretty fabulous in my book.