Location: Home, Nexus Room
Date: July 4th (morning)

By the time I returned from my talk with Ampharos, Lyra had fallen asleep in our room. Lyra's pretty cute when asleep, but the scene before me when I returned was...a lot cuter than my emotionally vulnerable heart could handle.

I guess Lyra got scared that I was gonna leave because she fell asleep in my hay bed hugging my scarf. Judging from the dried tears on her face, I guess I wasn't the only one gross crying.

Jeez...what a mess.

I know that I shouldn't be ashamed of having emotions, but when they cause conflicts that hurt Lyra...that really sucks. I put her through such unnecessary pain just because I...didn't like being laughed at or mocked.

Admittedly, that's not...that's not the kind of thing that my brain can scale down and irrationalize my behavior over. Your best friend laughing and mocking you with the new friends she made is fucking horrible. So, my behavior was understandable...but my running off caused Lyra some pain. That's also fucking horrible.

We both made a mess of things and need to talk things out. That's what I was thinking as I groggily dragged Lyra's hay bed closer to mine and stepped on the edges of the beds so there was a dip in the middle to sloppily connect them. I then crawled into Lyra's bed and fell asleep with my head plopped on her side and my leaf lazily covering half of her face.

Come sunrise her movement kinda jostled me awake, though I was still incredibly groggy. I barely heard her ask when I got back, and I could only shrug and rub the sleep from my eyes.

Lyra wanted to start things off, but...she stuttered and mumbled. A stark contrast to her usual boisterous and energetic behavior. She kept trying to restart her sentences.

"Irau, I didn't mean...I never wanna make it seem...I mean, the Society and the Nexus...the whole..."

Heh. I may not be good at using my vines, but at least I could master clumsily resting one of them atop her head and making her stutters slowly melt into giggles by slowly adding more until her head was just covered with vines. When she turned to look at me, all I could see poking through them was her beak and it made me laugh because it looked like she had green dreadlocks covering her face.

As I retracted my vines, I used one of them to pull her against me in an affectionate hug.

"I wouldn't have gotten this far if not for you. Joining the Society and getting to make the World Map like this...you made it possible."

I told her that she's headstrong enough to have gotten here on her own, and that I'm just tagging along for the ride. I just don't wanna ruin this for her. She insisted that I'm not, that having me with her has made this so much more fun and less frightening than if she'd been going it alone.

As we unhugged, Lyra looked down at my scarf at her feet. She said that she thought I ran away – left Lively Town altogether and just straight-up abandoned her. I told her that's silly talk. I'd never do that, no matter how upset I get. Although...I told her Nuzleaf said something similar back when we lived in Serene Village. I explained that he and I disagreed on something, and he got so mad at me that I got upset and ran to the big tree hill. He got really scared when he thought I ran away.

I told her the similarities between what she and the Society members expected me to understand and what Nuzleaf expected me to understand. I told her some of the things Ampharos and I talked about last night, and how I think he was onto something when he said Pokémon have natural instincts that make things obvious to them whereas I don't. It truly is a shame I was born human – I'm so limited in my understanding of their world because I lack those instincts. And because I lack them, there's going to be a lot of misunderstandings that cause social dramas like what happened yesterday.

Lyra was quiet the entire time I was talking and for a while afterwards. When she finally spoke, it was in a quiet voice.

"I didn't know you don't have Pokémon instincts. I thought you turning into a Chikorita meant..."

Unfortunately, no. It didn't happen.

She admitted she never met someone who didn't have natural Pokémon instincts, and she's not entirely sure she understands what it means. I decided to use yesterday's journal entry as an example. I showed her how I wrote July 4th (early, early morning) at the top and explained that I don't know how close we actually are to autumn, but in the human world we use a thing called a calendar system to track the passage of time. When she asked why I don't know how close we are to autumn, I only smiled at her silently until it dawned on her.

So, not having Pokémon instincts means there are things about their world that I'm missing out on or simply don't know about? I told her yes, that's what it means.

She went quiet again. This must be either a lot for her to think about or very confusing. Or both.

I asked if she remembered my question from yesterday. Why didn't Archen just put his Connection Orb into the Nexus to restore the data? The answer's obvious to me now, and at the time it was obvious to everyone else. I told her to imagine hearing that question when she couldn't already feel the answer. Imagine if she felt nothing. The Connection Orbs were just orbs, and the Nexus was just an object. No Pokémon instinct involved.

Her face twisted in confusion for a while and she looked down as she thought about yesterday. When she turned back to face me, she looked astonished.

"So then...when the others laughed, and I said that thing-!"

I nodded. The gears were turning slowly, but at least we were getting somewhere. She said she thought I was just being silly, but...I was being serious? I really didn't know? I nodded again.

And she...she made fun of me for it. Ampharos had to explain while she was on the sidelines laughing. Nobody was on my side!

Just to clarify, Lyra is the one saying these things. I've been sitting here silently watching her come to these conclusions. I'm not comforting her or denying her claims because that's exactly what happened. That's why I got upset last night and why I ran out after removing my scarf.

Well...kinda. I had to make a slight correction to the conclusion she drew. It wasn't just her, all the other Society members besides Ampharos were laughing at me, so I felt foolish and ashamed. I felt like I shouldn't have said anything at all. I already talk so little around unfamiliar folks, so when I did speak and ended up saying something foolish...it felt so, so much worse. And in my eyes, what I said wasn't foolish. However, everyone else made me feel ashamed for asking it because they already knew the answer. It felt like they were insinuating that I'm stupid.

Lyra suddenly threw herself at me, knocking me back. She was bawling her eyes out while pressing her face against my buds. It was a little awkward since I was on my side, but some vines from the opposite side of her head gently wrapped around her in place of proper arms.

"I don't think you're stupid!"

Ahaha...won't lie, hearing her apologize over and over while insisting that I'm not stupid got me teary-eyed. I reminded her that I don't like crying in front of others, and she said that's just too bad because whatever horrible person made me feel that way was gonna get shoved aside. Talking about these emotional things might get me worked up, but if there's one Pokémon who's gonna make me feel comfortable crying around her, it's Lyra. She promised me that.

It felt...I felt a familiar dark cloud weighing on me and I could hear a familiar threat echoing in my ear.

"Stop that crying, or I'll give you something to cry about."

In a black void, a cone of light shined on a giant figure. A Caucasian human woman wearing a pink apron. She's taller than anything I've ever seen. So tall that I can't see anything but the little white heart-shaped stitches on her apron.

However, as I clung to Lyra and started hyperventilating and weeping into her feathers, the voice faded and the woman and the dark cloud enshrouding me...went away.

"You STOP that crying, Irau. You'd better..."

"You're not stupid for missing out on what the rest of us knew...and I'm sorry for making you feel like you were. I won't make that mistake again. You're so smart and brave... You're my bestest friend, Irau. Even though I...didn't really act like it. That was a jerk thing to do, wasn't it? I won't do what I did before. I won't. Even if I understand something everyone else does and you don't, I won't laugh at you again. I'll...I'll do what Ampharos did! I'll help you understand instead."

I uh...didn't know how to respond to that, so I just looked off to the side. How often does she think this scenario will arise? So far, it's only happened once per Pokémon. I just...I don't know. I told her that I feel like I've heard friends promise to be better, but then they don't. And this situation really sucked, so I hope it doesn't happen again.

Thinking back on it, I felt the same uncertainty and concern with Nuzleaf. I wasn't sure I could truly trust him, but that feeling went away eventually. Perhaps it'll fade this time as well.

Lyra simply hugged me and said I'd just have to wait and see. Those other friends weren't my bestest friends, so I was in for a real surprise.

Heh. She had me by the short ones there. As far as I can remember, none of those ninnies were Lyra.

Location: Home, Bedroom (evening)

Ugh, today's exploration was a little tough. It involved a fight with Mankey. We brought Sylveon with us, but even so it was a hard-earned victory. Lyra had to stay behind so we could make room for one of the other Pokémon who got experience boosts for today. Good thing exp is shared with everyone.

Well, Lyra staying behind gave her time to prepare a special surprise for me – Nuzleaf's apple smoothie! My favorite! The one she made was mixed with Pecha berries. It was certainly a welcome surprise after fighting grogginess all day. I told her I'll do something special for her in return someday. She tried insisting that I needn't do that since this was supposed to be a treat for me, but my mind was already made up. She wouldn't know when or why but I'll do something really nice for her and if she thought she could stop me, she'd be a Miltank.

She made a face at my callback to her joke upon our first meeting and it made me laugh because the other Society members looked at us strangely.

Inside jokes for the win!

Oh! Lyra staying behind also gave me the chance to ask around town for suggestions on what junk food to bring to our sleepover. Of course, I got some elemental move-related suggestions like Electroweb Pecha Berry stone fluff (cotton candy), or Darkest Lariat slick Pecha Berry stone sticks (black licorice). However, I ultimately decided on homemade pretzels, or "twisty rock seasoned yeast cake". I'm...just gonna insist that they refer to them as pretzels, or it'll be their tongues that get all twisty. I figure it's a unique type of junk food that the others probably haven't had before, and it's something I can make discreetly while Lyra's busy doing other stuff.

At least we were able to make today our own instead of letting what happened yesterday take up the entire day. Reading back on my older entry, it looks as if when this happened with Nuzleaf it stuck with me for pretty much the whole day after that night. Well, that's a hopeful sign, I guess.

Here's hoping I don't experience situations like that on a regular basis. I know I said that misunderstandings were inevitable given my lack of Pokemon instincts, but that shouldn't mean frequent.