Nozomi stood silently amongst the fragrant ocean of wildflowers, the colorful blossoms swaying with the breeze. Her flowing, white sundress flared slightly with the wind, her wide-rimmed hat escaping from her and rolling through the blooms. The hat was suddenly snatched up by a young man wandering along in the field of flowers. He was dressed in a simple yellow wrap shirt, loose-fitting black pants bound with a white belt and yellow ankle straps, and a pair of black dojo shoes. He brushed a bit of his black hair away from his eyes, tucking it back under his yellow and black checked bandana as he started towards Nozomi.
Nozomi could only stand and stare at the handsome young man as he returned her hat to her, placing it back on her head and running his hand over her braided hair. He smiled warmly, a kawaii pair of fangs adorning his smile. Nozomi felt herself melt as he held her in his strong arms, easily supporting her as she laid her head on his shoulder. A blush played over her face as she looked into his eyes, then leaned in slowly. Both closed their eyes, heads tilted as their lips came closer....closer.....
"Rai? Cha?"
"EEYAAAGH!!!"
Nozomi shot ramrod in her sleeping bag, flinging Kyuuden from his perch atop her chest. The Raichu simply flipped in mid-air and landed lightly on his feet. He waved happily to the gasping girl, bounding up to her once more and nuzzling against her side. Nozomi struggled against the urge to pound the pokemon into the ground for messing up her wonderful dream....again....
"Dammit Karuta, keep your perverted Raichu away from me when I'm asleep!!" Nozomi shouted as she got up and shooed Kyuuden away from her.
Nozomi stood from her sleeping bag, wearing a gray t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. She yawned and stretched, inadvertently offering Kyuuden quite a view while doing so. She did a few stretching exercises to loosen up from a long night in the confines of a plush sack, issuing pops and cracks from her joints as spine.
And so was the morning ritual, as it had been for the past two weeks.
Indeed, it had already been fourteen long days since Nozomi forced her company upon Karuta and joined up with him on his way out of Aquamarine City. Their relationship had greatly improved since they had began to get used to each other, having changed from a blatant disgust with each other to a mild disgust with a dash of impatient tolerance. They still had their now daily arguments about things and never seemed to stop fighting, though it often looked as though Nozomi was the only one arguing, given Karuta's almost constantly meek yet sarcastic attitude. She still hadn't gotten used to his quiet arguments and warped sense of logic, even though they debated almost constantly, allowing him to twist around her point of standing and make her question it herself without realizing it.
Nozomi forced the thoughts of their arguments from her mind, determined not to get into a bad mood this early in the morning. Kyuuden always woke her up from her dreams at exactly six o'clock in the morning, two and a half hours earlier than she had usually woken up before joining Karuta. Karuta, however, had already been up and active for an hour beforehand, though he never let her know what he had been doing. It bugged her to no end, waiting two hours for him to arrive from somewhere in the surrounding forest, then having him out and out refuse to tell her what he had been doing for the time.
Nozomi looked up to the trees, her eyes resting upon a Fearow bearing a more sour expression than those more commonly seen worn by those birds. She had only seen two of Karuta's pokemon, both of them everything but average. She had to wonder how he was able to get Kyuuden so sleek and graceful, and how he was able to change his Fearow so drastically from the wild ones.
This Fearow, whom Karuta had named Tsuruhashi (Tsu-chan, for short), looked nothing like the Fearow of the forests surrounding the southern areas of Johto. Those birds were savage, coarse-feathered vultures that made terrible rackets with their keening voices and always looked as though they had just come out of a dust fight. Tsu-chan, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. She behaved in a rather regal manner, hardly ever making a sound except for a few chitters and clucks every now and again when addressed personally. Her feathers were smooth and glossy, giving her the appearance of just having been groomed all the time. Not a single plume of her head was out of place and she seemed to take great pride in her headdress, the blood-red feathers arching down the length of her graceful neck; the entire plumage exclaimed even greater from the contrast of her rich, mocha colored feathers. Like all of Karuta's pokemon, she was much larger than average and in general, looking
even healthier than other Fearow Nozomi had seen under other trainers.
While Tsu-chan was quite a beautiful bird of prey, her attractiveness was spoiled by a mean expression on her feathered face. Every time Karuta went off in the morning, he had stationed Tsu-chan at their campsite to make sure that Nozomi didn't try to follow him on his constitutionals. He had considered leaving only Kyuuden to tend to her, but the rodent had shown far too much emotional attachment to the girl to be allowed to watch her as a disciplinary figure. So instead, Karuta assigned the fierce Tsuruhashi to guard his privacy from Nozomi's prying.
And so was the morning ritual, as it had been for the past two weeks.
It drove Nozomi up the wall to have Tsu-chan constantly watching over her to make sure she didn't try to find out what Karuta was up to. While she told herself that she could care less about what Karuta did in the mornings, her curiosity had been growing since the day she found out that he had been going off in the morning. According to what little of the morning trips she could get from Karuta, he had done it every day for the past ten years, his entire run as a trainer. It boggled her mind at how long he had been training, though it explained how Kyuuden fought so well. It seemed as though Kyuuden was Karuta's favorite, as he spent more time out of his pokeball than in (much to her disgust sometimes.).
Today, however, was going to be different. Today she was going to find out what Karuta was up to....
Nozomi strolled over to Karuta's pack, a leather-bound gunny sack. A black gunny sack, no less. Nozomi honestly couldn't figure out if Karuta just really liked the color black or if he was color blind and found it easier to dress with. While very large and almost as long as Karuta was tall, he somehow managed to hide it beneath his coat with nary a bulge. It completely baffled Nozomi to see him tuck the pack under his coat, only to have the trench coat flare and flap about by stray winds, the pack having vanished without a trace. When he needed it, Karuta simply reached beneath his coat and produced the pack, then spirited it away in the same fashion when he was done. Despite constant interrogation as to his method, Karuta always answered with `That's a secret.'
Digging around in the apparently trans-dimensional gunny sack, Nozomi came upon a tupperware container full of chunks of some sort of raw meat. Whatever the chunks used to be was a treat for Tsu-chan, given to her after Karuta returned from his morning trips. Nozomi planned to trick the bird pokemon by giving her a treat early, allowing her to drop her guard so Nozomi would have a chance to sneak off and find Karuta. After prying the plastic top from the container, she pulled away at the smell. The chunks of flesh smelled absolutely vile to her, though Karuta never seemed to care about the scent. Tsu-chan was wild about them, for some reason, and always gobbled down the treat given to her with a look of utmost satisfaction.
"I was curious once, but now I don't even want to know what these are...." Nozomi grimaced as she picked up a chunk with two fingers, keeping it far away from her.
Tsu-chan, who had been watching Nozomi the entire time, didn't react as she usually did to the sight of the treat. Normally she would puff up her feathers and get all hyper, ready for her reward for a job well done. This time, she simply sat and continued to look cross with the world in general. Nozomi inched closer to the bird, holding the treat out to her.
"C'mon, it's your favorite...yummy...um....something or others...." Nozomi cooed as she continued to move closer to the bird.
Soon enough, she was standing just below the large bird, holding the strip of meat up while standing on her tip-toes. Tsu-chan could've easily snapped up the food long before, but she seemed to ignore it in favor of glaring at Nozomi. The bird blinked a few times and looked past Nozomi, her gaze leaving the human girl for the first time since she was stationed in the tree.
"Dang...."
Nozomi looked over her shoulder, seeing a less-than-amused Karuta leaning against a tree behind her. His expression was even blanker than usually, making Nozomi wonder if he was able to slip in and out of conciousness at will. The drably-dressed man strolled over to Nozomi and took both the container and shred of meat from her with a sigh. He tossed the piece up to Tsu-chan, who snapped it out of the air with a sharp click of her beak and gulped it down with a contented squawk.
"She won't take those from anyone but me. No point in trying to get her to eat them." Karuta said in a scolding tone.
"I was just....trying to be friendly, is all. She looks even more ill-tempered than you do." Nozomi said as she wiped her fingers off on the hem of her shorts.
"You're lying."
How does he always know!? Nozomi screeched mentally. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Meowths and Pidgeots, Nozomi."
Nozomi was ready to throttle Karuta when he mentioned that term again....'Meowths and Pidgeots' was a little parable he had told her over the fire one night when she asked where he learned how to fight. He had thoroughly trounced her after agreeing to spar and seemed incredibly unwilling to explain his style. Instead, he told her a short story in a complete monotone, making her almost fall asleep before it was over.
*****
"Once there was a curious little Meowth who loved the taste of Spearow. Every day it would go out into the fields and hunt down the birds, gobbling them up left and right. It lived a happy, carefree life of steady meals and constant entertainment. One day, the curious little Meowth saw a nice, plump Spearow just waiting to be gobbled up and went after it. The Spearow fled into the woods, the curious little Meowth giving swift chase after it. Unfortunately, the nice, plump Spearow flew into Pidgeot territory in it's attempts to save itself and was picked out of the air by the angry bird. The curious little Meowth, who had blindly followed the Spearow, was snatched up by the Pidgeot and torn to shreds in an instant."
"That's a terrible story!" Nozomi had objected, having suddenly found her dinner non-tempting.
"Yes, but it's got a good moral to it."
"'Curiousity killed the cat'?"
"Not quite. The curious little Meowth had no reason to be in the Pidgeot's territory. The Pidgeot only killed the Meowth since it had entered it's territory. Had the curious little Meowth forgotten about the Spearow, it never would've been killed."
"So the moral is to stay away from Pidgeot territory?"
"While that's a good idea, it's not what I meant."
"So what did you mean?"
"The moral: `Keep your nose out of other people's business. You may risk losing it.'"
*****
The term `Meowths and Pidgeots' came up whenever Nozomi asked Karuta about something he didn't feel like answering. Either that, or `It's a secret'. Both terms drove her crazy as they were said with the utmost disdain for her interest.
"Well, I wouldn't have to resort to this sort of thing if you'd just tell me what you're doing out there." Nozomi huffed as she turned her back to him.
"You've asked me before and I've refused every time. Do you really think this time will be any different?"
"Whatever....I'm going to get dressed. Keep your perverted little pokemon away from me, y'got that?" Nozomi accented her demand with a glare at the pokemon in question. Kyuuden simply snapped his fingers, then plastered an innocent look on his face.
~~~~
They made good time that day, at least by Nozomi's count. Karuta kept complaining that she had slowed him down too much with her `frequent stops'. She couldn't help it if she wasn't able to keep up with Karuta's pace; it was his fault for acting like wherever he was going wasn't going to be there in an hour. Like so many other things about him, his speed was something that confused and frustrated her. He always moved so quickly and lightly that it seemed impossible...how he moved in crowds was even more frustrating. When they passed through towns and smaller places not worth staying in for long, it was like he purposely chose to dart through the tiny gaps between people as they crossed paths with others or walked in groups. Whether it was to annoy them or simply because he could, Karuta always hopped around people and blazed inches past them like they weren't even there, not even the hem of his coat ever brushing against them.
"So where are we going exactly?" Nozomi asked as she jabbed at the burning logs with a stick.
They had already settled for the evening, having set up camp and built a small fire like always. Nozomi had her sleeping bag all spread out behind her, Kyuuden already fast asleep inside of it. She always let him sleep with her, ignoring his slippery paws simply out of pity. Kyuuden was obviously social, not just with her, but with Karuta as well. Perverted, but social nonetheless. Karuta, however, never let Kyuuden anywhere near him at nighttime, especially since he slept in a tree of all places. Every night, Karuta would tie his sleeping bag from a branch and zip it all the way around him, sealing himself inside and hanging from the tree branch like a Kakuna waiting to hatch. How in the world he could sleep like that was beyond Nozomi....
"I've already told you, I am going to Olivine City. There's no `we' in this deal. You're just an annoyance who won't leave me alone." Karuta grumbled.
"Yeah, I love you too Karuta."
"Unrefined witch."
"Pompous asshole."
The two glared for a moment, then simultaneously sighed and stood up. Nozomi went over to her sleeping bag, shoving Kyuuden more towards the side as she got in. Kyuuden snuggled up against her stomach in his sleep, causing Nozomi to take on an expression somewhere between going `Awww....' and going `Awww man....'. She didn't like how Kyuuden felt right to grope her whenever he felt like it , but at least he was safe when he was asleep. It was just that he always woke up before she did....
Karuta shimmied up his tree, as usual, and stalked over a branch like he had been born in the treetops. He slid down the rope that kept his bag suspended above the ground and into the plush folds, trench coat and all. Did he ever take that thing off? Karuta zipped the bag up to his neck from the inside, settling down into the bag quickly. Before he was able to completely zip himself into the bag, Nozomi called out to him.
"Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"Tie yourself up in a tree like that."
"It's safer."
"How? Your bag could come undone and you'd break your neck while you sleep."
"Could be worse."
"How?"
"I could sleep on the ground with a half-open sleeping bag in the middle of Weedle Territory."
With that, Karuta tucked his head into the bag and zipped up the flap. Nozomi stared at the hanging bundle for a moment, then zipped her bag up a little higher. Eventually, she zipped it up all the way and wondered if Karuta even had to breath, what with how stuffy it was inside a sleeping bag. She'd be lucky to get any sleep at all....
She was sound asleep and snoring in twenty seconds, lulled off by the warmth and low amount of fresh oxygen inside the bag.
Karuta fidgeted around a little inside of his bag, trying to get comfortable. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, as he felt a sort of hollowness. He desperately missed having Kyuuden at his side during the night, but it wasn't like he could do that with Nozomi around. Both for the sake of his mystique and the fact that Kyuuden seemed to prefer the girl's company to his own during the night, he had remained alone in his rest for the entire time Nozomi was with them...a fact that made Karuta feel angry and hopeless at the same time.
Stupid, ungrateful, perverted rodent. Karuta cursed in his mind, sighing unhappily as he drifted off to a fitful sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone who can guess who the guy Nozomi was dreaming about gets a cookie. ^_^
Nozomi could only stand and stare at the handsome young man as he returned her hat to her, placing it back on her head and running his hand over her braided hair. He smiled warmly, a kawaii pair of fangs adorning his smile. Nozomi felt herself melt as he held her in his strong arms, easily supporting her as she laid her head on his shoulder. A blush played over her face as she looked into his eyes, then leaned in slowly. Both closed their eyes, heads tilted as their lips came closer....closer.....
"Rai? Cha?"
"EEYAAAGH!!!"
Nozomi shot ramrod in her sleeping bag, flinging Kyuuden from his perch atop her chest. The Raichu simply flipped in mid-air and landed lightly on his feet. He waved happily to the gasping girl, bounding up to her once more and nuzzling against her side. Nozomi struggled against the urge to pound the pokemon into the ground for messing up her wonderful dream....again....
"Dammit Karuta, keep your perverted Raichu away from me when I'm asleep!!" Nozomi shouted as she got up and shooed Kyuuden away from her.
Nozomi stood from her sleeping bag, wearing a gray t-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. She yawned and stretched, inadvertently offering Kyuuden quite a view while doing so. She did a few stretching exercises to loosen up from a long night in the confines of a plush sack, issuing pops and cracks from her joints as spine.
And so was the morning ritual, as it had been for the past two weeks.
Indeed, it had already been fourteen long days since Nozomi forced her company upon Karuta and joined up with him on his way out of Aquamarine City. Their relationship had greatly improved since they had began to get used to each other, having changed from a blatant disgust with each other to a mild disgust with a dash of impatient tolerance. They still had their now daily arguments about things and never seemed to stop fighting, though it often looked as though Nozomi was the only one arguing, given Karuta's almost constantly meek yet sarcastic attitude. She still hadn't gotten used to his quiet arguments and warped sense of logic, even though they debated almost constantly, allowing him to twist around her point of standing and make her question it herself without realizing it.
Nozomi forced the thoughts of their arguments from her mind, determined not to get into a bad mood this early in the morning. Kyuuden always woke her up from her dreams at exactly six o'clock in the morning, two and a half hours earlier than she had usually woken up before joining Karuta. Karuta, however, had already been up and active for an hour beforehand, though he never let her know what he had been doing. It bugged her to no end, waiting two hours for him to arrive from somewhere in the surrounding forest, then having him out and out refuse to tell her what he had been doing for the time.
Nozomi looked up to the trees, her eyes resting upon a Fearow bearing a more sour expression than those more commonly seen worn by those birds. She had only seen two of Karuta's pokemon, both of them everything but average. She had to wonder how he was able to get Kyuuden so sleek and graceful, and how he was able to change his Fearow so drastically from the wild ones.
This Fearow, whom Karuta had named Tsuruhashi (Tsu-chan, for short), looked nothing like the Fearow of the forests surrounding the southern areas of Johto. Those birds were savage, coarse-feathered vultures that made terrible rackets with their keening voices and always looked as though they had just come out of a dust fight. Tsu-chan, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. She behaved in a rather regal manner, hardly ever making a sound except for a few chitters and clucks every now and again when addressed personally. Her feathers were smooth and glossy, giving her the appearance of just having been groomed all the time. Not a single plume of her head was out of place and she seemed to take great pride in her headdress, the blood-red feathers arching down the length of her graceful neck; the entire plumage exclaimed even greater from the contrast of her rich, mocha colored feathers. Like all of Karuta's pokemon, she was much larger than average and in general, looking
even healthier than other Fearow Nozomi had seen under other trainers.
While Tsu-chan was quite a beautiful bird of prey, her attractiveness was spoiled by a mean expression on her feathered face. Every time Karuta went off in the morning, he had stationed Tsu-chan at their campsite to make sure that Nozomi didn't try to follow him on his constitutionals. He had considered leaving only Kyuuden to tend to her, but the rodent had shown far too much emotional attachment to the girl to be allowed to watch her as a disciplinary figure. So instead, Karuta assigned the fierce Tsuruhashi to guard his privacy from Nozomi's prying.
And so was the morning ritual, as it had been for the past two weeks.
It drove Nozomi up the wall to have Tsu-chan constantly watching over her to make sure she didn't try to find out what Karuta was up to. While she told herself that she could care less about what Karuta did in the mornings, her curiosity had been growing since the day she found out that he had been going off in the morning. According to what little of the morning trips she could get from Karuta, he had done it every day for the past ten years, his entire run as a trainer. It boggled her mind at how long he had been training, though it explained how Kyuuden fought so well. It seemed as though Kyuuden was Karuta's favorite, as he spent more time out of his pokeball than in (much to her disgust sometimes.).
Today, however, was going to be different. Today she was going to find out what Karuta was up to....
Nozomi strolled over to Karuta's pack, a leather-bound gunny sack. A black gunny sack, no less. Nozomi honestly couldn't figure out if Karuta just really liked the color black or if he was color blind and found it easier to dress with. While very large and almost as long as Karuta was tall, he somehow managed to hide it beneath his coat with nary a bulge. It completely baffled Nozomi to see him tuck the pack under his coat, only to have the trench coat flare and flap about by stray winds, the pack having vanished without a trace. When he needed it, Karuta simply reached beneath his coat and produced the pack, then spirited it away in the same fashion when he was done. Despite constant interrogation as to his method, Karuta always answered with `That's a secret.'
Digging around in the apparently trans-dimensional gunny sack, Nozomi came upon a tupperware container full of chunks of some sort of raw meat. Whatever the chunks used to be was a treat for Tsu-chan, given to her after Karuta returned from his morning trips. Nozomi planned to trick the bird pokemon by giving her a treat early, allowing her to drop her guard so Nozomi would have a chance to sneak off and find Karuta. After prying the plastic top from the container, she pulled away at the smell. The chunks of flesh smelled absolutely vile to her, though Karuta never seemed to care about the scent. Tsu-chan was wild about them, for some reason, and always gobbled down the treat given to her with a look of utmost satisfaction.
"I was curious once, but now I don't even want to know what these are...." Nozomi grimaced as she picked up a chunk with two fingers, keeping it far away from her.
Tsu-chan, who had been watching Nozomi the entire time, didn't react as she usually did to the sight of the treat. Normally she would puff up her feathers and get all hyper, ready for her reward for a job well done. This time, she simply sat and continued to look cross with the world in general. Nozomi inched closer to the bird, holding the treat out to her.
"C'mon, it's your favorite...yummy...um....something or others...." Nozomi cooed as she continued to move closer to the bird.
Soon enough, she was standing just below the large bird, holding the strip of meat up while standing on her tip-toes. Tsu-chan could've easily snapped up the food long before, but she seemed to ignore it in favor of glaring at Nozomi. The bird blinked a few times and looked past Nozomi, her gaze leaving the human girl for the first time since she was stationed in the tree.
"Dang...."
Nozomi looked over her shoulder, seeing a less-than-amused Karuta leaning against a tree behind her. His expression was even blanker than usually, making Nozomi wonder if he was able to slip in and out of conciousness at will. The drably-dressed man strolled over to Nozomi and took both the container and shred of meat from her with a sigh. He tossed the piece up to Tsu-chan, who snapped it out of the air with a sharp click of her beak and gulped it down with a contented squawk.
"She won't take those from anyone but me. No point in trying to get her to eat them." Karuta said in a scolding tone.
"I was just....trying to be friendly, is all. She looks even more ill-tempered than you do." Nozomi said as she wiped her fingers off on the hem of her shorts.
"You're lying."
How does he always know!? Nozomi screeched mentally. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Meowths and Pidgeots, Nozomi."
Nozomi was ready to throttle Karuta when he mentioned that term again....'Meowths and Pidgeots' was a little parable he had told her over the fire one night when she asked where he learned how to fight. He had thoroughly trounced her after agreeing to spar and seemed incredibly unwilling to explain his style. Instead, he told her a short story in a complete monotone, making her almost fall asleep before it was over.
*****
"Once there was a curious little Meowth who loved the taste of Spearow. Every day it would go out into the fields and hunt down the birds, gobbling them up left and right. It lived a happy, carefree life of steady meals and constant entertainment. One day, the curious little Meowth saw a nice, plump Spearow just waiting to be gobbled up and went after it. The Spearow fled into the woods, the curious little Meowth giving swift chase after it. Unfortunately, the nice, plump Spearow flew into Pidgeot territory in it's attempts to save itself and was picked out of the air by the angry bird. The curious little Meowth, who had blindly followed the Spearow, was snatched up by the Pidgeot and torn to shreds in an instant."
"That's a terrible story!" Nozomi had objected, having suddenly found her dinner non-tempting.
"Yes, but it's got a good moral to it."
"'Curiousity killed the cat'?"
"Not quite. The curious little Meowth had no reason to be in the Pidgeot's territory. The Pidgeot only killed the Meowth since it had entered it's territory. Had the curious little Meowth forgotten about the Spearow, it never would've been killed."
"So the moral is to stay away from Pidgeot territory?"
"While that's a good idea, it's not what I meant."
"So what did you mean?"
"The moral: `Keep your nose out of other people's business. You may risk losing it.'"
*****
The term `Meowths and Pidgeots' came up whenever Nozomi asked Karuta about something he didn't feel like answering. Either that, or `It's a secret'. Both terms drove her crazy as they were said with the utmost disdain for her interest.
"Well, I wouldn't have to resort to this sort of thing if you'd just tell me what you're doing out there." Nozomi huffed as she turned her back to him.
"You've asked me before and I've refused every time. Do you really think this time will be any different?"
"Whatever....I'm going to get dressed. Keep your perverted little pokemon away from me, y'got that?" Nozomi accented her demand with a glare at the pokemon in question. Kyuuden simply snapped his fingers, then plastered an innocent look on his face.
~~~~
They made good time that day, at least by Nozomi's count. Karuta kept complaining that she had slowed him down too much with her `frequent stops'. She couldn't help it if she wasn't able to keep up with Karuta's pace; it was his fault for acting like wherever he was going wasn't going to be there in an hour. Like so many other things about him, his speed was something that confused and frustrated her. He always moved so quickly and lightly that it seemed impossible...how he moved in crowds was even more frustrating. When they passed through towns and smaller places not worth staying in for long, it was like he purposely chose to dart through the tiny gaps between people as they crossed paths with others or walked in groups. Whether it was to annoy them or simply because he could, Karuta always hopped around people and blazed inches past them like they weren't even there, not even the hem of his coat ever brushing against them.
"So where are we going exactly?" Nozomi asked as she jabbed at the burning logs with a stick.
They had already settled for the evening, having set up camp and built a small fire like always. Nozomi had her sleeping bag all spread out behind her, Kyuuden already fast asleep inside of it. She always let him sleep with her, ignoring his slippery paws simply out of pity. Kyuuden was obviously social, not just with her, but with Karuta as well. Perverted, but social nonetheless. Karuta, however, never let Kyuuden anywhere near him at nighttime, especially since he slept in a tree of all places. Every night, Karuta would tie his sleeping bag from a branch and zip it all the way around him, sealing himself inside and hanging from the tree branch like a Kakuna waiting to hatch. How in the world he could sleep like that was beyond Nozomi....
"I've already told you, I am going to Olivine City. There's no `we' in this deal. You're just an annoyance who won't leave me alone." Karuta grumbled.
"Yeah, I love you too Karuta."
"Unrefined witch."
"Pompous asshole."
The two glared for a moment, then simultaneously sighed and stood up. Nozomi went over to her sleeping bag, shoving Kyuuden more towards the side as she got in. Kyuuden snuggled up against her stomach in his sleep, causing Nozomi to take on an expression somewhere between going `Awww....' and going `Awww man....'. She didn't like how Kyuuden felt right to grope her whenever he felt like it , but at least he was safe when he was asleep. It was just that he always woke up before she did....
Karuta shimmied up his tree, as usual, and stalked over a branch like he had been born in the treetops. He slid down the rope that kept his bag suspended above the ground and into the plush folds, trench coat and all. Did he ever take that thing off? Karuta zipped the bag up to his neck from the inside, settling down into the bag quickly. Before he was able to completely zip himself into the bag, Nozomi called out to him.
"Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"Tie yourself up in a tree like that."
"It's safer."
"How? Your bag could come undone and you'd break your neck while you sleep."
"Could be worse."
"How?"
"I could sleep on the ground with a half-open sleeping bag in the middle of Weedle Territory."
With that, Karuta tucked his head into the bag and zipped up the flap. Nozomi stared at the hanging bundle for a moment, then zipped her bag up a little higher. Eventually, she zipped it up all the way and wondered if Karuta even had to breath, what with how stuffy it was inside a sleeping bag. She'd be lucky to get any sleep at all....
She was sound asleep and snoring in twenty seconds, lulled off by the warmth and low amount of fresh oxygen inside the bag.
Karuta fidgeted around a little inside of his bag, trying to get comfortable. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, as he felt a sort of hollowness. He desperately missed having Kyuuden at his side during the night, but it wasn't like he could do that with Nozomi around. Both for the sake of his mystique and the fact that Kyuuden seemed to prefer the girl's company to his own during the night, he had remained alone in his rest for the entire time Nozomi was with them...a fact that made Karuta feel angry and hopeless at the same time.
Stupid, ungrateful, perverted rodent. Karuta cursed in his mind, sighing unhappily as he drifted off to a fitful sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyone who can guess who the guy Nozomi was dreaming about gets a cookie. ^_^