The tea had gotten cold, the couch had been left empty, and Moon found herself alone to be lost in her thoughts.
It wasn't surprising that an empty bottle of liquor stood empty on her kitchen counter. Moon's body tingling with a numbing sensation. Her feet dragging across the wood floor as she tries to gracefully move around the furniture that stood in her way. Her brain functions were slow, foggy, still hung up on the question Lillie had asked her right before she left.
Moon still loved Gladion as if he didn't tear her apart all those years ago.
And it's this exact realization that suddenly had her being an incoherent sobbing mess on Melemele's oceanside. How she got there? She honestly couldn't recollect, the haziness in her mind only focusing on one thing-one person, only. Her frame shook, gasping to breathe between sobs. The sand beneath her absorbing the tears that trickle down her face. Her hands grasping at the grains in an attempt to hold onto something steady-a futile attempt, as futile as it was to forget the heartbreak Gladion had inflicted on her.
The tightening in her chest almost as painful as day he left her.
Moon pulls her knees in, feeling for the first time the wind hitting her wet cheeks; her fingers leave the sand and reach for her Pokedex.
Alcohol did wonders on one's rationale, and blind plunges were anything but a surprise.
Moon types a text to her brother, Lillie, and Hau. Surely, an incoherent mess of words that they would understand, but she finds her fingers hovering over her Pokedex's screen uncertain of whether to press send. She quickly closes the message, instead choosing to switch over to the keypad and punches in a number she hadn't called in years.
"Surely it's disconnected," she murmurs, but it rings. The tone heavy against her ear as she waits with a bated breath.
"I do have one more reason as to why I'm here."
As soon as the words leave his lips Gladion regrets speaking them. Hau, clearly battling between forgiving his friend or holding onto the past, simply lets out a sigh.
It was tired, exasperated.
"Out with it then."
"If I didn't Lillie would have to step up as acting President."
Gladion watches as emotions cross Hau's face. At first he's a blank slate, absorbing the fact, until his eyebrows furrow, his mouth twists, a gasp fills the room when he stands up straight, shock and concern filling in every crevice of his face.
"Is this why Lillie's been so stressed? The looming fact that she would have to take a job that she never wanted?" Hau didn't say it pointedly at all, instead he just sounded despondent, maybe even desperate to find a new way to help out his own girlfriend.
Gladion was still to blame.
If he hadn't left. If he hadn't broken Moon's heart, he also wouldn't have broken Lillie's will. His mind laced with regrets couldn't even find the words to mutter a simple 'yes', everyone knew that Lillie had been picking up the pieces to the destruction he caused.
Gladion hears the couch give into Hau's weight; the Kahuna's elbows now resting on his knees.
An apology clearly unable to fix anything.
"So what now?" Hau says in a tone that one could only describe it as bitter. It was definitely strange coming from him. "You making up to Moon? You taking over Aether? This is a whole lot of chaos you're stepping into Gladion"
"I know."
"Aether is one thing, that's a business. Something you were to take over, but your sister's forgiveness? Moon's? This isn't even banking on the idea that Moon may not want to speak to you," a scoff, "not that I blame her."
"I know!" Gladion repeats, louder this time, his hands hitting the seat underneath him as Hau simply watches on as Gladion's own head falls into his hands. Five years ago the Gladion he knew would never seem so defeated.
"You've been thinking about this for years haven't you? How many times have you imagined coming back?"
But before Gladion could even respond to the loaded question he hears his dex clattering along the wooden table, a familiar tune soon following that causes his stomach to flip. That sound was only connected to one person, and one person only. He reaches forward almost instantly, his eyes locking onto the caller ID in a panic.
Moon was calling.
"Who is it?" Hau's voice only acting as white noise as Gladion fumbles to answer the call.
"Moon?"
He sounded desperate, and the small gasp that could be heard on the other side only made the silence feel all the more heavier. But then the sounds of crashing waves in the background leaked through as her undeniably soft, yet slurred words came out in a breathy plea.
"C-can you come get me?"
That's all he needed to hear before abruptly bolting to the door. Hau's clarifying questions just lingering in the air as Gladion puts on his coat.
"Does Moon still go to Melemele?"
"What?" Hau asks in utter confusion as he watches the antics unfold in his own living.
"When she's sad!" Gladion shouts, "when she's sad does she still go to Melemele?" Urgent, frantic, that's all he sounded like once more wondering how much had actually changed about the young woman in the time he was gone, but then Hau shrugs, unable to confirm as Gladion leaves heading to the one spot he desperately hope she hadn't changed.
It was almost as if Gladion had forgotten how humid Alolan nights were. How the heat just stuck to skin, how his coat did nothing of use and only continued to slow him down as he failed to run across the sand, the grains themselves acting like a weight.
Maybe he had forgotten on purpose.
An attempt to forget everything that stuck on.
Gladion knew Moon had been drinking, he could hear it in her voice over the phone, but he wasn't sure what he would find because Moon had two drunk phases. The first was the life of the party- the hyper, reckless phase only sparked by just the right enough amount of drinks. But the second one happened when provoked, when Moon would indulge too far. The phase where Moon would be sad and reflective. The prime example of alcohol being a depressant.
His head whips around the shore in search of Moon, of her Pokemon, of something preparing himself for either when finally he catches a glimpse of a huddled frame.
And for the first time he realized how tiny Moon really was. Physically she was small, he knew this, but she never carried herself in a way that showcased her lack of height or frame. Moon, Alola's Champion for 17 years now, looked frail, looked broken.
Something she had never looked like in all the years he had known her.
A heavy lump forms in Gladion's throat as he carefully approaches her, careful to not startle her, to not make her run away—-ironic coming from him. "Moon," he calls out quietly as the girl slowly turns her head. It was obvious she had been crying, her tear stained cheeks giving her away before she even lifted her sleeve to rub the moisture away. "What are you doing here?" Gladion assumed she asked, her slurred words not hard to decipher, but her volume barely above a whisper, her voice easily drowned out by the crashing waves.
"You called me," he responds as he kneels down to her level noticing Moon's eyes dart down to the very device she used; the very one her hands were fidgeting with to distract herself.
"Huh…," a pause, "I guess I did."
Gladion never understood up until that moment how different silences could be. The pause between them wasn't awkward, no , it was strained, and nothing he could do or say could fill in the gap.
The void between them was 5 years too big.
He remained quiet, accepting it as fact, as the only noise joining the waves was the rustling of his coat being taken off and being draped onto Moon's shoulders.
"I-"
Gladion perks up, looks over at Moon who was biting down on her lower lip, whose eyes started trembling.
"Why-"
But her sentence cuts short when heavy footsteps trudge from behind them.
"I don't fucking believe it."
Moon's focus leaves Gladion to look at their new company, but the blonde recognized the voice, the anger, anywhere.
Her brother and his, at one point future brother-in-law.
Gladion stands up straight as if on command ready to face the seething anger of the one who dedicated himself to protecting his younger sister.
"Su-"
The swing to the face, entirely expected, but still surprising as the name gets caught in the action. Gladion's face forced to the side as his own instinct to ball up his own fists, to swing, to defend himself, had to be swallowed down. He deserved the throbbing pain he felt on his cheek, but the cold glare he threw at the intruder was anything but understanding.
Moon gasps, her hands over her mouth, her eyes completely blown wide as Sun walks past the stunned blonde, his hand cradled in his other, as his low voice drops its toxicity, murmuring a quick "are you okay?" to Moon who only watches Gladion stand his silent ground.
She seemed torn, confused, her stance wobbling as she most likely was struggling to understand what was going on.
A scoff forces Gladion to look at the older man. "Don't you think you've done enough?" his grip on Moon's shoulder tightening so much he sees her squirming out from under his hold.
"Your sister, called me," Gladion defends as Sun's eyes widen, his hair hitting his face as he turns to look at Moon.
She says nothing, and that was as good as denying Gladion's claim to him.
"She's drunk, confused, and honestly I don't care if she called you on her deathbed, I forbid you from seeing her!" Sun finishes, nudging Moon to start walking forward, ignoring her small plea as he forces her to leave Gladion behind.
And take steps forward they do, until Gladion speaks up once more.
"Why don't you let her be the maker of her own decisions?"
It was an open challenge. One he was stupid enough to make, Sun grinning in disbelief as he approaches the taller blonde. His finger aggressively jutting into Gladion's chest as if it was a knife ready to stab and twist into his heart.
"You don't get to say then when you're the reason she's like this," he threatens, Gladion saying nothing as his lips form a tightly sealed line.
"Moon let's go," Sun calls out, Moon's stare lingering on Gladion before he sees her pull up his sleeve to wipe the rest of the tears off, her back turning away in a less than graceful manner. Sun glaring back once more before murmuring, "you should've never expected the jilted bride to reach out first, five years ago or now."