Solana tapped her pen against the desk impatiently, her face slumped against the heel of her hand so hard that it pushed her cheek up to nearly squint her eye shut. History class had always bored her like no other: she had no interest in learning about the Kalosian Revolution or diplomacy practices of Johto. She'd much rather be in Pokémon Biology or Gym. Those were much more pertinent to her dreams and interests, anyways.
The only thing History class had going for it anyways was that it was one of the periods she at least had in common with Lunick- but even then, seating was assigned, so he was multiple rows away and a few seats up. It was far from time that they actually got to spend together.
"Alright. Before we leave, I want to get a jumpstart on our next unit we'll be working on for the rest of this week… We're going to be doing presentations starting next Monday as our form of learning about different Hoenn laws to switch the teaching style up a little. You and a partner will…" And of course, the second those words were uttered, all the teenagers in the room stopped listening, immediately eyeing up their friends in the class in silent understanding they would team up together. Solana dropped her pen to the desk and sat more upright, smiling warmly at Lunick as he turned around just a little, enough to meet her eyes. He nodded with his own grin in return, and Solana's cheeks heated at being the recipient of such an adorable expression- finally, this class would be all the more worthwhile, since surely the following days of working on the project would mean they would be able to move around their seats to sit with their partners and spend all of the next few class periods talking amongst themselves.
Her excitement lasted all of two and a half seconds, when their teacher cleared her throat, and the clarification hit. "You'll all be assigned partners to work with on this. I want you getting fresh perspectives on these laws besides people you're already friends with- start a conversation about your thoughts! It's good for all of us to be introduced to new points of view, especially in government."
The teal haired girl's shoulders dropped once more in stark disappointment once Lunick had faced forward again, and it took everything within her to keep an audible groan from coming out. The two of them had always been best friends for nearly as long as she could remember, back when he moved here in elementary school, but recently… She'd found herself thinking about him more than she should. Found herself wanting to brush up against him 'accidentally', found herself purposefully not bringing jackets on chilly days they spent together so he'd have to give her his, found herself smiling and blushing at the way they smelled like him. Confusing, little things that she never used to really think twice about were suddenly all she could obsess over. She supposed she always did value him much more so than any of their other peers, but it was only in the past year or so that she really started to feel this burning feeling within herself whenever they spent time together. And even newer since she'd begun to place and accept what that burning feeling was.
It's not like she planned to act on it, anyways. Him being her best friend forever and ever was something she could be completely satisfied with settling for, and the very last thing she would ever want to do was make him uncomfortable or not want to be around her quite as much in fear of giving her the wrong idea. Surely everybody carried their 'what ifs'; this was just one she would live with, merely a curiosity of how things might be different if life had played out that way. Maybe all the comments and teasing over the years were just getting to her head, was all. But the way her chest tightened whenever he looked her way was something she could no longer deny- and man, was it exhilarating. She'd never understood much of the appeal of having crushes or dating until now. But she also... somehow, knew she didn't want it with anyone else.
"Here are your partners!" The teacher projected a randomized pairing site onto the front board, with everyone in the class's names next to another grouped in duos. Unsurprisingly, she and Lunick were in different pairs, with her paired with what might've been the most popular girl in the class and he with another girl that neither of them had really talked to. "We only have a few minutes until the bell- get together with your partner now just to introduce yourselves and start talking about what laws you may want to cover from the list that's on your homework sheet. We'll pick them tomorrow at the start of class."
The blonde girl let out a little scoff as Solana stood and approached her: even though it was only their first year of high school, Solana had already been branded as much more of a jock than any of the other social archetypes. "Hey, Allison. I'm your partner for this, do you mind if I pull up a de-"
"It's Alli." She corrected, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. Solana just raised her eyebrows at the interruption, not even subtle about heaving a puff of an exhale at what a headache she anticipated this being.
"...Okay, Alli, point of the fact I was making is we should figure out what law we're taking." She went ahead and pulled up a seat for herself, since it was clear Alli couldn't be bothered to put in the effort. "Did you have one in mind?"
The blonde girl said something back, but Solana was admittedly distracted, looking over her project partner's shoulder at the way Lunick was greeting his partner with a friendly smile. It made her stomach turn a little in a small wave of insecurity, but if she thought that was bad, her day was about to get a whole lot worse.
Snapping back to the girl in front of her, startled by the dismissal bell, Solana nodded in a way that was bluffing that she'd even heard any of that. "Oh! Uh, yeah, that's good with me, we'll pick it tomorrow first thing for sure!"
Before Alli could even say anything snooty back, the future Ranger had leapt to her feet, slinging her backpack haphazardly over her shoulder and hurrying to the door so she could meet Lunick there and walk with him to his next class. He rolled his eyes at her in amusement at how she'd forgotten to zip her bag again (perhaps on purpose these days just to get that reaction out of him, if she were being honest) and took it upon himself to zip it for her, tucking her books away and patting her twice on the back to let her know she was good to go as they headed out into the crowded hall. "You're gonna lose a binder one of these days, you know," Lunick chastised affectionately, the huff that followed making it clear he found entertainment at the notion rather than it being an actual reprimand.
"Eh, that's what I have you for," Solana simply replied back, a wide grin on her face as they wove through all the other kids at lockers and hurrying to classes.
She walked him to his class even though it was out of the way to get to her own, just to spend a little longer with him. They chatted about nothing important on the walk, and yet, it was one of the most exciting 3 minutes of the school day to her.
He lingered by leaning on the doorway for a little bit, seemingly not ready to part ways with her quite yet either, and the small action made her heart leap into her throat. "Alright, Sol. Don't be late, you're still a hall over…! I'll catch up with you after school, yeah?"
Lunick smiled at her, and even though it was something that happened hundreds of times a day, it still made her hitch a breath in and she nodded, swiftly turning so he didn't see the heat rise to her cheeks as she hurried off to math.
Ironically enough, it was a class she not only shared with Lunick's assigned project partner Cass, but one she barely sat a few seats behind her in. This fun little fact would come to haunt her very quickly, because as she sat down, she overheard the conversation Cass and her friends were having before the class began, and it was straight from her nightmares.
"You know, I don't wanna speak too soon on things, but last period we got assigned partners for a history project… and that kinda nerdy guy Lunick is actually a lot cuter up close than I realized!"
"Oooh, Cassie!" One of the other friends cooed, but Solana could barely hear it over the way her own heartbeat thumped in her ears. She was frozen, staring at the corner of her desk in shock, and the color that once flushed her cheeks had now completely drained to a pale white.
What if something came of them? What if this was the start of Lunick's first ever girlfriend, about to unfold right in front of her own eyes? What if he ended up liking her back? What would she even do? Of course she would have to be supportive, and want whatever would make him happy, but… Something about the idea made her stomach drop in a visceral reaction to even thinking it.
"Mmhm," Cass was laughing, carrying the same sing-songy half-joking tone of voice with her friend group, who was all eating it up. "Maybe I'll even pick marital laws to present on, I mean, how straight-out-of-a-movie would a study date like that be~?"
Purely in shock, Solana dropped her backpack on the floor, and if Lunick hadn't zipped it, she was sure the contents would have spilled out dramatically. It was still only their first year at the new school; kids from other middle schools hadn't quite all hopped on the bus of assuming she and Lunick were romantically involved just yet. And this was a rude awakening to her that that notion had become one she'd not only gotten used to, but enjoyed, deep down. If this were last year, she would most likely have never heard anyone say they like Lunick without clarifying with her for the millionth time that they weren't already together. Now, it was like they all didn't even know she was there.
And who wouldn't fall for him, anyways? He was a complete sweetheart, passionate about wildlife, and a total dork still when it came to talking about fossil Pokémon- just like when they were little. She should have seen this coming, but she didn't. At all.
The last few periods of the day had flown by like a blur, mostly consumed by Solana's fretting about whether being project partners meant something, and whether these were her last few days with her best friend all to herself.
When the final dismissal bell rang, she downright scrambled to her locker in order to take home the books she needed to, wanting to meet Lunick at his own as soon as possible so no one else got any ideas about asking him out right after school. "Hey hey hey!" She exclaimed as she all-but pounced on him, mentally yelling at herself for having such an awkward greeting after having spent the last two hours overthinking. But Lunick at least seemed to like it, chuckling at her enthusiasm.
"Hiya, Sunshine. Make coffee in Home Ec., or something?" He teased and drove an elbow into her side, opening his locker as he talked.
Solana was quick to recover (well, wittiness wise- recovering from being called the pet name would take her much longer). "Nope, just getting amped up for our post-school 5k!" She taunted, which earned her a desperate deadpan from him. It was enough of a reaction to make her giggle, reaching up to sweep some of the dark navy hair out of his eyes absentmindedly, taking mercy and backpedaling for a second option in hopes it might make him enjoy the time spent with her a little more. "...Or, maybe just a walk to the river delta off of Route 103 that you like to dig in the bank of?"
"I saw a piece of an Anorith leg casting there once," he reminded her excitedly, his face alight at the suggestion. It was true; there were shattered fragments of claw fossils from ancient times buried in the mudbanks, so the spot was naturally one of Lunick's long-time favorites. "Definitely the latter. Otherwise one of these days I'll sign you up for the cross country team just to burn off some of that energy."
She laughed and gave him a shove back for the tease, closing his locker door for him when he was finished packing up for the night. "If I were busy with a school sport, who would keep on you to make sure you stayed up to date on your Ranger studying?"
"Nobody, Sol. You win, I need you to keep me in line." His words were painfully rehearsed and exasperated just to joke with her, and the both of them left school property, walking to Lunick's house first to drop off his books and get Minun, then did the same at her place for her things and Plusle. Once their partner Pokémon were now on board, they broke out of Oldale proper and hiked off-trail on Route 103 just to the north, going exactly to where Solana had promised. They spent all afternoon there together, wading in the river looking for fossil shards and splashing one another with the cool stream water.
Once it grew dark, both headed back into the town itself, and parted ways for the night to go home for dinner and homework, to see each other the day after. Solana waited out front of the school for him to show up nearly late the next morning, as usual, before they split off for their first few classes.
One of Solana's was Study Hall- something she never even noticed she shared with Alli until today, but was grateful for as she made a beeline for the blonde, interrupting the clique surrounding her. "Hi, Alli." She didn't wait for any of the remarks, and simply sat herself without invitation at the table with her. "I wanted to get a jumpstart on our history project, since I wanna cut later this week." It was a lie: Solana was always by-the-book, but she figured this was probably the only way to appeal to her. "Then you can too. Deal?"
Alli narrowed her eyes at the teal haired girl, then raised an eyebrow, leaning forward a little. "Fine. But don't get any ideas like we're friends or anything and you want to start being seen with me in my free time."
Sitting up straighter, Solana shooed off some of the other popular girls, rolling her eyes a little at the notion. "As respectfully as I can say this: as if."
And that standing up to her ego seemed to be something that gave Alli a mixed response, part of which being mutual begrudging respect just to get the job done painlessly as possible. "We haven't picked a topic yet. We can't really start working on it until then, you know."
"But what if we prep for it now, and pick something maybe no one else will go for, then we have a good shot of having half the project already done, don't you think?" Solana had become a master of driving a hard bargain over the years, and craned her head in as if in thought, feigning that she was completely coming up with this idea on the fly: "What about something like… Marital laws?"
Alli didn't look all too convinced, eyeing her up. "Like, marriage? Why do you want to cover that?"
Solana shrugged, but internally she felt like she was under fire. "Don't you want to know about the process if you wanna get married one day? I know there's some legal stuff behind it. I don't know- we don't have to do it. It was just my first thought." But she knew Alli didn't have anything better.
The blonde girl scoffed a little, but backed off, shrugging. "Fine. I guess I owe it to my future wife one day to have us talk about it rather than someone who would be weird about that kind of thing and hide behind legal clauses to try and propagate that."
"Perfect," Solana nodded, warm relief spreading all over her at getting away with it by a stroke of luck. She jabbed a thumb in the direction of the laptop cart students could sign out, standing up. "I'll get us computers and we can start looking up laws about it this period, just to get an idea and head start, hmm?"
She signed out two of the computers for herself and Alli, and the both of them fell into a silent spell as they worked independently. Neither particularly wanted to socialize with the other more than absolutely needed, and honestly, Solana even went so far as to forgetting she was even there.
The whole working excuse had been a ruse, anyways: Solana would have plenty of extra time to pick up any slack she made now during the class she didn't actually plan on cutting. She left the shared web document draft of their presentation open so her name showed up as an active worker on it, but allowed herself to drift off to daydreaming instead.
Guiltily, she could only find her thoughts drifting to one place, and it was so juvenile and embarrassing that she wanted to pull her shirt over her face and hide the rest of the period. Covering her face with her hand with the stupidest sheepish smile on her lips, she doodled a few absent spirals in her notebook before daring to write what she was thinking, just to see it herself: Solana Kazuki. What her name would look like if she were to take Lunick's last name… Something so silly and childish to think about over just a crush, but she couldn't help but put her head in her hands at the thought of it, making herself blush wildly on the spot.
"Hello! Earth to Solana! Are you even doing any work on this?!" Alli reached over and ripped the page she'd been doodling on out of her notebook, scoffing.
They spoke over one another, the panic of realization hitting immediately as Solana swiped her hand to try and snatch it back, but Alli was too quick.
"NO, stop-!"
"-Or is this your way of shouldering off all the work to m-"
The blonde blinked repetitively as she clearly read what was on the page, a knowing and deviant grin unfurling onto her face. "Oh," She spoke so plainly, yet so full of malice. "So that's why you're so interested in marital laws, huh?"
"S-Shut up!" Solana surged forward and snatched the paper back, crumpling it into a ball, but the damage had already been done. And much to her demise, Alli was saved by the bell, the coy smile still on her lips.
"Oops! Suppose I'll see you and Lunick in History then, hmm?" She cackled, reconnecting with her clique and undoubtedly telling them all about the juicy secret she'd just discovered.
If Solana could, she would have just let her blush burn her up into a crisp right then and there. Her chest was thrumming in fear as she ducked her head down in the halls, suddenly feeling like everyone's eyes were on her at once.
In reality, only one pair of eyes was watching her, and it was the pair that mattered. She nearly brushed right past him, and he had to grab her arm to even get her attention. "Woah, woah, Solana! You nearly missed me!" Lunick tugged on one of her backpack straps with a big goofy smile on his face, but it soon fell. "…You feeling alright…? Everything okay?"
Of course he could tell something was up. But it wasn't quite like she could explain what had happened, and boy, did he not know how the way he touched her cheek to feel the heat of them only made things so much worse.
"It's fine," she lied, and gently wrapped her fingers around his wrist, guiding his hands away from her face. "It was really warm in that classroom. The A/C was out."
He could tell it wasn't the truth, but he could also tell she was silently pleading for him not to pry, and unlike her, he actually knew how to take a hint. "Personally, I was saving all my sweating for Gym. You're always one step ahead, though, aren't you?"
Solana smiled at him appreciatively, and it took everything within her not to just hold him lovingly with every piece of her being for the way he gave her a scapegoat from the conversation. They walked together to Gym, one of the other classes they were lucky enough to have together, and separated into their respective locker rooms to change before meeting back up in the gymnasium once they were in their gym clothes. The class was in their volleyball unit, and the both of them took up front row spots on opposite sides of the net- this way, they still got to spend all period close to one another while also still finding a way to make it a competition of who could spike on the other the best. And honestly, Solana felt great, during that period. It just felt right, being around him and taunting one another and laughing. It felt like second nature, like a jigsaw puzzle clicking into place. Gym was followed immediately by their lunch period, too: and the two of them ate alone outside together, just chatting about classes and news updates from Fiore and inside jokes. It was perfect, to her. She wouldn't change it for the world.
They had a period apart before her worst fears came to light. After leaving Pokémon Biology and walking into their History class, Solana found one of the worst possible scenes playing out before her very own eyes: Alli was sitting on Lunick's desk, already talking to him as he stood right next to her, his eyebrows knit down in confusion. The popular girl said something and giggled, pointing directly at Solana, and the would-be Ranger immediately felt herself shrink under their stares. She gripped her backpack tightly as Lunick crossed the room over to her, concern etched on his face. This was it. This was the talk, the time he had to set boundaries.
"Hey," his voice was soft, almost under his breath. Oh no. It began.
But then it didn't.
"Allison just told me about how you forgot to do the homework last night. Why didn't you just tell me, Sol? You know I would've happily helped you at lunch." He smiled warmly, putting a hand on her shoulder and rubbing it gently to comfort, as she blinked in bewilderment just trying to process. "That's really why you were so stressed earlier? One zero won't keep you from your good grades, Sunshine. You don't need to worry so much about the little stuff like that, I promise."
Solana tucked her hair behind her ear, looking up at him and biting her lip for a moment. She reached across her chest to give his hand on her shoulder an adoring squeeze, her head bobbing in the tiniest of nods. "Thank you," the girl hoarsely whispered, more winded in relief and shock that her secret really had stayed safe after all. "Meet you back after class?" She asked hopefully, but already knew his answer.
"As if I'd ever miss it," he parried back with a lighting-quick pinch of her cheek, heading over to his seat as the class began to settle in to start.
The blue haired girl instinctively touched her fingertips to where his had grazed across her face, a warm smile bubbling its way over her features just to herself as their teacher bypassed the introductory things and went through the whole class to make official assignments of the laws each group had chosen. Alli and Solana did end up snagging Marital Law for themselves after all, and when they split off into their groups, Solana couldn't stop staring at her in disbelief.
"… Thank you, Alli. For keeping my secret." She broke the silence, sincerity awash in her voice.
The blonde girl scoffed with an eyeroll, waving her hand dismissively. "Ugh. Don't get all sappy with me, 'Sunshine'." She picked at her nails in disinterest, acting a little disgusted by the pet name. "It wouldn't have been any fun if it just got you two together, anyways. I'm not here to play little jock matchmaker, you know."
Solana didn't quite follow what she meant, but still flushed at the implications of the bits and pieces she was able to put together, and shook her head, settling back in to work on their shared assignment and put the personal conversation behind the both of them. When the period was over, they had made some good headway on the project, and Solana shoved her books back into her bag, throwing it over only one shoulder as she met her best friend at the door. Her arrival also seemed to scare Cass off from the conversation, and Lunick made sure Solana's backpack was zippered before they walked together to his class as usual. Of all the disasters that could've happened, at least this one had been avoided.
They met up again after school, and Solana decided to speak her mind on the one thing that was still bothering her, unable to deal with the guessing games any longer and simply choosing to ask it to him straight. "So… how's your History project going? How's Cass…?"
She'd been almost afraid of the answer, but the way his body posture changed denoted she truly had no reason to be. "Ugh. Honestly, not great. Trying to get her to pay attention and actually do some of the work is like trying to get a Slaking to budge, sometimes."
Solana accidentally smiled at the answer, quite pleased to hear it. Not happy he was having strife, but… Enthralled, for her own reasons. "What? No project-partners-for-life kind of synergy?" She (half) teased, prodding to be sure. And boy, did he make her sure.
Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. "No way, Solana. The only partners I have in my life that matter are you and Minun."
The way Lunick was so matter-of-fact about the statement was enough to make her blush on its own, but he really drove it home by punctuating it by reaching over, taking her hand, and giving it a small squeeze before letting go again. It wasn't a large gesture, but it was one that nearly sent her into cardiac arrest nonetheless.
Huffing just to catch her breath, Solana swallowed her fears and linked her arm around his, leaning in against him a little as they walked. "I'd take you over Alli any day, just for the record," she reassured him in return, looking up at him for just a flicker of a moment. "My 'Partners for life' title is very much already taken by you and Plusle, too. We are gonna go so, so much further beyond high school one day, anyways."
It was true; they'd already made plans to run off to a Ranger Region together to pursue their dreams, after all. And maybe one day, years down the line, if she ever found herself so lucky… The words scribbled onto the crumpled piece of paper- still in her pocket- just might come true, too.