WOUND UP

Author's Note

I'd stop some people from reviewing but then that means I won't get to enjoy the petty chaos anymore. As amused as I am, y'all need to chill. I did like one advice from one of you so I'll just be slipping in the line after the author's note. Everything else just defeats the purpose of my autonomous creativity. Cool? Cool.

A FEW DAYS PRIOR — NIGHT

Crystal gingerly turns over her empty mug, eyes darting away from the group of punks snickering in their direction. "God, couldn't he have chosen a less skeezier place to hang out in?"

Daisy appears pleasantly unperturbed. "Don't worry, Chris. If they're here to pick up women the last thing they'll do is come anywhere near schoolgirls in lab coats."

"I'm not sure about that," Crystal says, instead of explaining that some men, especially this type of men, are not at all exclusive to picking up women beyond schoolgirls in lab coats, and may specifically even prefer schoolgirls in lab coats. Crystal thinks her friend must be tipsier than she lets on. Vaguely she wonders what Daisy and her brother Green have in common, and lets the question hang unasked in the air. After all, it won't be long before she finds out herself.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Gold springs up from behind. He helps Crystal to more booze by pouring into her mug from his own bottle.

"Heyyy yourself." She raises her drink to his face. "Don't you think I've had enough of this?"

"Aww, loosen up! At least Daisy Oak's having fun!"

Ever the jovial character, Daisy positively beams at them both through frothy lips. "I'm sure Chris is enjoying her time here, too."

"Well, I have an idea how we can all have some fun," Gold grins. Crystal never gives him the invitation to, but now Gold's arm is hooked around her neck, and she is overwhelmed by his scent—cookies and coke and nurture and nicotine, like a Neverland lost boy stuck in his teenage years. "Get this—I'm only allowed to say this once, so listen extra careful, okay?"

Crystal is close enough to be able to tell that Gold has been around one of those creeps who've smoked a couple cigarettes too many. "Know that building they have under construction by the beach front?"

Cogs begin moving in Crystal's head. "You mean the Battle Tower at Olivine?"

"Theee exact one! See, they're gonna open the Battle Tower at Olivine. It's next Sunday."

Excitement is a tone too hard to miss, and Crystal has already picked up on this the moment Gold jumped them. At the corner of her eye, she watches Daisy cast her a sideway glance.

"'Course, there's gonna be a seven-day festival first, before the grand opening," he continues, voice dripping with trepidation. Gold doesn't always look forward to, well, anything, really, but when he gets excitable, he's extremely excitable. "There's gonna be bands and battles and—get this, the best part is, they're gonna hold it at the beach!"

...The beach. Crystal looks deep into Gold's eyes and hopes he isn't serious. A month's worth of dialling seniors and juniors and checking schedules and compartmentalizing reports according to length of completion—preparations she rode on painkillers to make stream in her mind's eye like a video reel. Right here, in front of her, overlapping the images is a boy who's asking her to ruin them just to spend a week at Olivine beach.

"Gold," she begins steadily. Her head swims when Gold clasps his hands with hers, "I'd like to remind you that our seniors are coming over this weekend—"

"Yeah, yeah, they are! But don't you wanna spend quality time together before you leave?"

"Q-quality time—" Jesus, she cannot believe that Gold is guilt-tripping her. Crystal attempts to regain her composure—or masking her lack of it—by downing the contents of her mug. Daisy has wisely tuned herself out from their argument and has begun swaying slightly to the music. "We barely have enough time left to prepare for their visit and now you're—"

"C'mon, what more do we need to be readier?"

Too frustrated to regard his crooked manner of speaking, Crystal holds Gold's hands tighter.

"Let me finish—we can't just set up and move away one week before they come over, okay? Gold, do you expect to come back, what, an hour before the reunion?"

"A dayyy," singsongs Gold, twisting the word at the end and watching it form a whirlwind. "It won't be a waste of time, I promise."

Amber eyes distract Crystal from her train of thought so she turns to Daisy, who has been finding the pool table to be more interesting than their conversation. There goes her back up.

"We'll get you back before they know you're gone. Chris, look at me." Crystal does, haphazardly aware that her willpower is diminishing. "Internship at the old man's is gonna imprison you, aight? Effectively. You'll be away who knows how long. Working your ass off. Without li'l ol' me to distract you."

As Gold goes on, Crystal finds that it becomes increasingly hard to concentrate avoiding making the wrong decision. Gold's eyes are hard on her own, and her legs weaken, immobilized by their depth. "You've only got one week left to spend here in Johto. Won't you wanna spend it with me?"

God. She promised to spend a day with the kids at Earl's—

"We'll stop by on the way home," insists Gold. "They'll looooove some souvenirs. Come on, Chrisss, please, please, please..."

'Please's are all Gold says as he swings her back and forth, and she quietly thanks God he cannot hear her heart pounding. Crystal thinks about when she can ever find the nerve again to say no to that face—concludes that she may spoil him too much too often now.

For the first time in a long time she gives Gold a one-over. Watches his breath catch, feels the pressure of his hold, lets herself melt in his attention; she hates how he knows she's going to miss everything about him.

Despite herself, Crystal bites down a smile. When she says yes, she supposes it won't hurt to come along, Gold sucks in a breath in celebration. In a poor attempt at deflating his ego, she hastily adds, "But we'll be back for—"

"Reunion! Got that!" He fires her finger guns, and she makes sure he sees her roll her eyes. "You are—literally—the best!"

For each stress of the word Gold gulps down his drink, winking at her while shuffling back to the crowd. "'Soon as I'm done with this set, we'll hit the road!"

Before taking off, Gold acknowledges Daisy. "Be seeing you, Daisy Oak!"

Her friend waves airily back at him as he disappears. "What time will he be done, you think?"

"Let's give him twenty minutes." Crystal follows Gold's explosive jet-black hairstyle in the bar as her mind wanders elsewhere. Four days ago she never would have imagined a giddy Gold. Just this afternoon when she stopped by Gold's house his mother mentioned his dilemma of 'changing a career path'. "Did he seem weird to you?"

"Gold?"

"Yeah."

"...Not more than usual."

When it comes to Gold, Crystal can't even trust her own eyes. Most of the time she feels like she's running a red light with him, and now that she has agreed to come to the festival she's afraid that she has just run five.

Daisy lightly touches her on the shoulder, gaze set on the direction Gold headed off to. "He never brought this up until now?"

"Never." While it's true Gold can be...spontaneous, she would have caught on to some precursor to this trip that at least made sense to her. Yet she didn't.

How could she have missed something? Yes, she's been nose-deep into research and all these chores that she can't always keep tabs on every suspect thing...but she should have noticed.

Almost as if she's sharing thoughts with her, Daisy speaks up, "Gold might just not be ready to tell us anything."

Crystal considers the possibility for a moment, lets it sink and settle. For the first time that night, she agrees with her.

In a way, it does offend her—frighteningly so. Crystal wants to refuse to believe in that alternative, which is that there is something Gold is hiding from her—and that the most economic solution is to put her faith, however blind, in him.