Thomas set his fork down on his now-empty plate. Just five minutes ago, it was still full of chicken curry and rice.

"Man, that was delicious! And I've tried a lot of curry recipes before."

"Happy to hear that! This is one of my personal favourites, so you hopefully will it again sometime soon."

"That'll be with pleasure, then!" He puts the plate away in the dishwasher, and instinctively grabs his phone. "Oh, darn, 5% left. You don't have anything like an USB-C cable here, right?"

"Sorry, don't think I ever heard of that."

"Ah, well, too bad. Well, I'll care about that tomorrow." He switches his phone off. It won't be of much use here, anyway.

"Is it important to you?"

"Hmm... I don't have access to my network back home and I didn't even install games on there back there so I guess it just serves as a fancy watch right now."

"Well, for now, I have a regular one, if you want." He gets up, opens a drawer in a cabinet and fetches an electric blue watch with a rubber band. While it was marketed as a human sports watch, the design fit well to a Lucario.

"Oh, thank you! I'll take good care of it."

"You better!" Luke then scours through the drawer for a few seconds, and loudly exclaims: "Ha-ha! Here, put this battery in, the old one's probably dead."

"Cheers."

The Lucario laughed. "Wait, you really sound like you're straight from Galar. You gotta speak like a real Unovan, or everyone's going to ask you about where you come from!"

The human asserted that he'd do his best to fit in, and will reply that his parents were "Brit- Sorry, I meant Galarian. (Wait, is that even how you call Galar residents?)"

As he was setting the correct time, he finally seems to notice the late hour. "Oh, darn, it's 10 already. At what time do you usually go to bed?"

"I guess about an hour later, if I have a show to watch. But we have lots to do tomorrow, if just with the administrative mess that will be registering you as a resident. We should head to bed now." The human nodded, and Luke took his arm, guiding him to the front of a bedroom.

What this day taught Thomas was that Lucarios could be responsible, and dependable. In Luke's case, much more than Thomas himself was, sometimes. He took care of his home well, knew exactly how to deal with a situation literally nobody else in the Pokémon universe ever encountered, and even found time to talk and befriend his new roommate. "Yeah, he's one kind Lucario," he thought as he looked inside the room. This one was extra well-furnished, with a stylish, tidy desk straight out of an IKEA showroom.

"Sorry, as you might have seen earlier, the guest room's, well, empty. You've got two options. I can grab a futon and you can sleep there if you're comfortable, or..." He looks at his own bed, adorned with light blue bedsheets. "...I don't mind.

The two got into more comfortable clothing and settled down in the bed.

Luke just invited him to sleep in the same bed. A Pokémon that isn't even his, no – a stranger he met in the hospital two days ago!

This was exceptionally weird since Lucarios were known not to be trusting of new people they met. But Luke... He didn't hesitate to help. Was it due to aura, or the human's personality? Does Luke know just how fondly his thinks of his species? Or is he just naturally this kind and would do the same to anyone?

And this only struck Thomas just now, but what happened to Luke's chest and paw spikes?!

These questions, and a thousand more, made their way to the back of the human's head. They'll be asked in due time. Time that apparently, he now had, and that he was determined to enjoy.

That started by finally, finally relaxing.

He found a new friend, one he found smart, kind and admittedly very handsome, and he was just... with him now. In the same bed. He felt the Lucario's warm cream-coloured fur brush against his PJs, which made him melt – he wanted to hug the canine on his left like a big plush, but didn't go through with it - at least for that night.

The two slept incredibly well.