No good - I couldn't see a thing. My glasses had been flung over there themselves, and I was mostly blind.
"Shit," I mumbled. Volkner pushed me aside then to peek.
"They're sitting next to each other," he whispered to me. "Talking."
"Can you hear what they're saying?"
"No." Volkner turned to look at Flint, who'd let his Lopunny out of his Pokeball and was splashing and swimming around with it and making a ton of noise. "FLINT!!" he hissed. "Knock it off, we're trying to peek!"
Flint and his Pokemon both made very sad, pouty faces, resigning to sink down into the water and soak. We turned back to our peeping hole.
"... no possible way you could understand what's been wrong with me."
My breath caught in my throat at Riley's voice. I pushed closer, letting Volkner be my eyes, trusting him to tell me if anything happened visually.
"Riley, you've been my best buddy since Roark was born, that's 'round twenty years now. Of course I feel I'd understand any problem you had."
"No, Byron, not this problem."
Volkner's hand groped underwater, finding mine and squeezing it tight. I gulped. It was incredibly suspenseful. Would Riley crack? How would my Dad respond?
He grunted. "It's not like you... it's my sons job to hide things and keep secrets from me and lie to me. He was lying to me for years. Sometimes I still don't know what the hell he's talking about. I always trust you to be open with me, Riley, you always have been. You're the only one who finally told me that my cloak was gross and smelled bad and I needed to get it washed."
"Yeah, but this-"
"And you're the only one who was straight with me and told me I was being too hard on Roark when he was a boy. If it wasn't for you, my own boy might hate me right now."
"Byron, it's not like that."
There was silence for a minute. Then, my Dad's gruff voice. "Is this because of when I got drunk the other night?"
My heart pounded, and Volkner squeezed my hand tighter.
"W...when you got drunk, Byron?"
"After that is when you started to act weird. What did I do, eh? Did I hurt you? Was I violent to you?"
"No, Byron, you've never once been violent towards me."
"What did I do then, eh? I musta done something to hurt you."
There was more silence. I held Volkner's hand to my chest, so he could feel how hard my heart was pounding.
"...you did, Byron."
"Did what?"
"Hurt me."
"Did I hit ya?"
"No, Byron, not physically. You didn't even... you didn't even do anything wrong. I'm the one who hurt myself, really."
"Man, just tell me what I did, so I can apologize, make it right!"
More silence. Then Riley's voice, soft as a whisper.
"You really want to know what you did."
"Yes, man!"
Then - more silence, if not for the slight ripple of water. I heard a small squeak from Volkner's throat.
"What?" I hissed, shaking his hand. "What's happening?"
Volkner stared between the rock, his eyes fixed on something I couldn't see. His mouth moved, his voice the tiniest whisper. "Riley's kissing him."
I couldn't breathe. I wrapped both of my arms tightly around Volkner's back, biting his shoulder to keep myself from screaming out loud.
"Shhh!" Volkner hissed. "They stopped." We strained for any hint of sound, but after another long bought of silence, we could only hear whispering and mumbling, too soft to make out specific words. After ten more minutes we gave up, swimming over to where Flint sat with his Pokemon.
"What happened?" He asked, straightening up a bit. I just shook my head, unable to speak.
"Riley kissed him," Volkner answered simply, and Flint gasped, his hands shooting up to his mouth.
"Ohmigod NO."
"Yes."
"Now what are they doing?"
"I don't know."
I listened to this exchange silently, my insides burning up with mixed emotions. Finally I smacked my fist into the water with a little splash.
"Damn it - I'm gonna go over there and get my glasses."
"No, Roark - you idiot!" Volkner yelped. "Leave them alone, for heaven's sake!"
"NO!" I cried. "They - that's my entire family over there, and it might be splitting up forever, ruined! Besides, we've been in too long and we're all pruney, and it's time for DINNER!" I snatched my soggy towel from the side of the spring and stomped up and out of the water, wrapping it around my waist as I went. Then I padded over to the other side of the spring, blind as a bat and tripping on a million things along the way. Waving my arms out in front of me like a moron, I stubbed my toe on a rock.
"Owwwwwwch!" I howled in pain, falling over.
"Son?!" I heard my Dad's voice. "Roark, are you okay?"
I whined, crawling to the edge of the pool where I could see my Dad and Riley's forms sitting. "No, I can't see very well... Flint threw my glasses into this side of the pool. Have you seen them?"
"Oh, Roark...I'm sorry. I didn't realize." It was Riley's voice. "Hold on and I'll look for them, okay? Just wait a second."
Riley dived down, and I was left alone with my Dad in awkward silence.
"Is it time for dinner soon? I'm starved," he growled. I nodded, plopping my toweled butt down and swinging my legs into the hot water.
"Yeah, we can go eat once I get my glasses back."
I felt strange. I wanted to say a hundred things - that I was sorry for how much I'd lied to my Dad as a teenager, how I didn't care that he'd been hard on me growing up... and I wanted to know what he'd said to Riley after being kissed. They were acting completely normal.
Riley's head popped back up, gasping for air and grinning. "Got them!!" He paddled over to me, sticking my glasses in my outstretched palm. I slid them back onto my face, the pair of them finally coming into focus. They were both grinning at me.
"Well, anyway, they have dinner ready for us, so-" My voice caught in my throat as my eyes had spotted a small purplish-red mark on my Dad's throat. I swallowed hard and continued. "Um, yeah, they have food ready for us, so I'm going to head in, just come on inside when you're ready."
I stood up and walked away briskly, my mind repeating the words, it's a bug bite, or some other injury, just a bug bite, or some other sort of injury, a bug bite or some sort of injury.
"Dinnertime!" I yelped at Flint and Volkner, shooting past them and quickly pulling my yukata back on, rushing into the lobby as fast as my legs could carry me. I hurried into the restraunt, with one lavish low table set up for us. I kneeled down on a cushion and stared at the food as hard as I could.
It looked delicious.
But it also all somehow looked like some small purple mark on a throat.