Golden Rivals, Silver Friends

Chapter Twelve:

We Meet Again, Satoshi

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I slept deeply that night, feeling almost completely relieved, like a huge stress had been lifted off of me...

... almost.

One last thing remained for me to do...

I set off that morning at six a.m., before most of the other Trainers were even awake. Tokiwa was just beginning to wake up at that hour (after traveling so much, I'd realized that it wasn't that big of a town...), and my trip out was peaceful and uneventful...

It was time to head home.

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It was only a few hours later when I reached Masara. I wondered for a few seconds why it had taken Satoshi an entire day, even with the rain, but the thought was quickly pushed from my mind.

When I saw the woods start to open up, I felt myself running. I briefly remembered Satoshi's Pidgeot that lived in this area, and the day he had set it free... Wasn't that just like him? He finally got a giant, strong Pokémon, and he knew where it truly belonged. A Trainer with a heart of gold, who knew what was best for his friend...

There it was. Satoshi and Hanako's house, nearly on the outskirts of town. Although, considering Masara's size, everyone lived on the outskirts, but that really didn't matter. I slowed down my pace, and deliberately walked up the steps that I had used to jump, two at a time, to save time and perhaps get to play longer with Satoshi. A bit nervously, I knocked on the door...

... and Hanako answered.

"Shigeru!" she smiled. "How nice to see you! Won't you come in?"

I smiled. She was still the same person, warm and friendly. It wasn't surprising to see where Satoshi had gotten his personality. "Sure. Is Satoshi home?" I asked, stepping into the house.

"Oh, he just got back a few days ago. He went out to that field up by your grandfather's lab, if you're looking for him."

Satoshi had gone back to the field...? I was slightly surprised. To Hanako, I nodded. "Thanks. It's nice to see you, Hanako-san!"

"Anytime," she responded, smiling. I said goodbye, then went out through the back door and headed up the hill, making my way to Grandpa's laboratory. Although I knew the trail like the back of my hand and the jaunt was really only a few minutes long, time felt like it was dragging by...

I swallowed hard as I stepped up to the wooden fence. I was almost shocked when I realized how tall I'd gotten. I wouldn't even have to try that hard to make it over anymore... Shaking my head, I unlatched the gate and strolled into the field, the sea of grass looming ahead of me...

There he was.

And of all things, he was sitting in the shade of the big tree, our tree, with his Pikachu, of course. He heard me coming a ways before I got to him, just like before... "Shigeru?" he called out.

"Hey," I smiled. "Nice to see you."

"Nice to see you, too." However, he and Pikachu didn't move an inch. I wondered if he remembered what had happened the last time he jumped up to meet me here...

"Can I... sit down?" I asked, and he shrugged. Sitting down next to him, in the shade... just like old times. However, that made it all the harder to bring up what I wanted to say. "Um... nice day, huh?"

"Yeah..." We sat there in silence for a few minutes. Then, Satoshi said, "So, what are you going to do now that the tournament's over?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe travel around and do some research in this area. Don't really know yet."

"Maybe Ookido Hakase can think of something to do." I blinked, a little thrown off by something he had said... then I figured it out. Satoshi had said "Ookido Hakase," not "Grampa" as he used to. Just another way we had grown apart...

"So, what are you going to do?" I asked. Satoshi sighed, and I caught the sadness in his voice.

"I don't know... Kasumi and Takeshi went back home, so I don't know where else to go..." he trailed off, scratching Pikachu behind the ears. The silence persisted. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer.

"Satoshi... do you remember what happened here, before we left on our Pokémon journeys?" I blurted out. Surprised, Satoshi looked at me, startling Pikachu, who jumped off his lap to stare at me also.

"Wh... what do you mean?"

"Do you remember... when you were almost eight, and... I got... angry at you, and..." I swallowed. "Well... do you remember?"

But all I got was more silence. Satoshi was staring at me, his face blank and unreadable. I sighed.

'Maybe he doesn't remember... maybe he forgot, like I did...' I thought.

But just then, to my astonishment, I heard him speak... "... I... remember..." Satoshi finally whispered. He quickly looked away. Instantly, I felt the wall go up again...

"Pika?" Pikachu looked up at Satoshi, probably wondering what was wrong and what we were talking about.

"Pikachu... let's go..." he said, starting to stand up...

"Satoshi, listen..." I said, touching his arm and stopping him from getting up. "I... never told you why that happened... and... I think you ought to know..."

"It's okay, all right?" Satoshi said, with a hint of fire in his voice. "Just forget about it! That was a long time ago, and I was little, and..." he paused to swallow...

"And I'm really sorry..."

Hearing him apologize... apologize for a crime he hadn't even committed... I suddenly felt a blow to my heart. "Satoshi, no, you don't understand..."

"What's there to understand?" he asked me, that fire still burning. "I messed up... and you got mad at me." He trembled a bit, then looked down. "I'm sorry, Shigeru... I guess, I was kind of stubborn then... I didn't think that it would turn into... what it did..."

I stared at him, though his eyes didn't look into mine the way they used to. To see him like that... to hear him, so regretful over something that wasn't his fault... Even though his voice now carried so much confidence and courage, I could still hear, somewhere, the little boy who was still pleading so much for my acceptance...

... he wasn't ready. Not quite.

I don't know exactly what I was waiting for, but I knew that I was waiting for something. I knew that I didn't want him to follow me. I didn't want him to feel that he was always below me. I wanted him to see me as his equal... maybe, even, for him to realize that he had excelled at something beyond me...

In a way, I wanted him to forget me. I wanted him to go through life without having to think of me at all. Perhaps it was still too soon after the Jouto competition. Maybe, after I had been through some of my research and he had continued on as a Trainer, we'd be far apart enough to be closer together... as close as I knew both of us wanted to be...

'Satoshi...'

But for now, perhaps maintaining the peace was what we both needed the most...

I looked at him again... and smiled. "Hey. What's done is done," I said. "And I don't think you were the only stubborn one back then..." I reassured him. Satoshi glanced at me, a look of surprise on his face.

In that second, I felt a spark of understanding pass between us. It was... an incredible feeling... as if, for the first time in years, the rift between us was starting to close...

We sat in silence for the next few moments. But just then, I heard a loud growling noise, one that I remembered quite well. I grinned at Satoshi, who smiled sheepishly.

"I guess it's lunchtime..." We both were quiet for a few seconds, then laughed. The wall broke down.

"Do you... want to come to my house for lunch?" Satoshi asked, standing up.

I was briefly in shock. It had been such a long time since I'd heard those words... "... sure," I said. Satoshi smiled, then laughed and helped me up. It was then that I noticed how much taller he was getting... how much stronger he looked, and he definitely didn't look like he needed protecting anymore...

And I was taller, too, and I was sure that I also had gotten stronger over the course of exploring so much...

We had both changed... but when Satoshi laughed, I could see how things were still the same. It was a feeling that was extremely hard to describe, but I didn't care. I loved it.

The wall between us was breaking for good. And I knew that our friendship had never really ended. We had just gained a rivalry, all those years before.

And that had been good, seeing as how things had ended up turning out.

I ended up eating lunch at Satoshi's house, much to Grandpa and Hanako's delight. Even though it had taken somewhere around six years, almost as long as we had once been friends, our bitterness toward each other was ending. I could see how happy it made the adults...

... and how much happier I felt, too.

Satoshi and I spent the rest of the day walking around Masara, mostly in silence, sometimes commenting on things that we noticed had changed. Later that afternoon, we split up to go home, but we both left with good feelings toward each other...

When I returned home, Grandpa asked to talk to me...

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That evening, I found myself in my room, trying to sleep... but I couldn't. Then I remembered that I hadn't fulfilled my vow to tell Satoshi the truth about what had happened...

Maybe... that was for the better, I decided. Just as I had thought, earlier that day, that even though it was so blatantly obvious that he had grown up on the outside, I could tell that inside, he was still the same naïve little boy...

... who I loved so much.

All that mattered was that he was succeeding at what he wanted to do.

I didn't care anymore. Satoshi was happy. And if Satoshi was happy, I was happy.

Not feeling tired, I glanced around my room, remembering the Mt. Silver Pokémon Center and how it had reminded me of here. As my eyes wandered, they settled on a tape player that I'd owned when I was little. Being the grandson of Ookido Hakase, I'd had plenty of luxuries that the other Masara kids could only dream of having. And of course, I'd always shared them with Satoshi... only Satoshi...

I noticed a cassette tape inside the player. Turning the lamp on, I hopped out of bed to see what it was...

When I read the title, I smiled. It had been a favorite of mine, a long time ago...

I looked around. There was some paper sitting on the table.

'Satoshi deserves to know... someday.'

I smiled. Plugging the tape player into the wall, I turned the volume down. I picked up a pencil and a sheet of paper and started writing the night away...

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Although I'm not sure exactly what happened, I think Nanami found the note the next morning when she came in to check on me. By then, I was long gone to go finish my plans with Grandpa, so I'm not sure what she did...

... but I know what happened because of it.