She looked up at the gym building, its stark white glass contrasting the overcast sky like an ice floe upon a murky lake. Tiny snowflakes flurried around her, the air otherwise still and quiet this far atop the Glaseado mountains. The entire region seemed blanketed in the same shade of dismal gray. From Mesagoza all the way here it had been the same.
The set of double doors opened automatically for Rika as she arrived at the gym, opening to yet another set of doors, manual, to keep most of the mountain wind out of the lobby. She brushed a few snowflakes off her lapels, grateful to be out of the cold after such a long morning of travel.
"Good morning, Miss Rika," the staffer at the front desk greeted her, "how may I be of assistance to you today?"
"Hey, Cass," Rika greeted, looking around as she approached the front desk. "Is Grusha in today?"
Cass sighed, then turned to the computer monitor on his desk.
"Not yet. Can't remember the last time he's been in before ten," he looked up at Rika, then shrugged. "But then again, the challengers we do get never show up this early, either."
"Hm. Okay, thanks." Rika simply turned to head out, but Cass called after her.
"What do you need from him? I can relay your message when he decides to show up."
"Oh, that's okay, I'll just go give him a visit."
"Er… alright. Have a nice day, and good luck with that one."
"Sure thing. Thanks, Cass."
Rika headed out of the gym building, fastening the top button of her black peacoat as an icy gust of wind sliced through the air. She pushed her bangs out of her face, inwardly cursing at the fact that she hadn't gelled her hair that morning.
Grusha's house wasn't far from the gym, but still far from the nearest town. Rika wondered why on earth he still lived out here and hadn't at least moved to Montenevera if he wasn't coming back to Medali, where they'd grown up. If she were him she'd have gotten out of the mountains years ago.
She followed the smooth, snowy path away from the gym, grateful for the insulation in her tall boots. After a bit of walking Rika noticed her shadow beginning to form on the snow beside her, a faint indication of sunlight beginning to filter through the clouds.
A few Pokémon skittered across the path as she walked, nothing more than a Snover here and a Sneasel there. Rika kept her hand on Camerupt's Poké ball at her belt under her coat, just in case.
Once at Grusha's cabin, Rika lifted a gloved hand but the door swung open inwardly before she could knock.
"Oh!" she took a step back.
"Rika?"
"Hey," she greeted, still a bit startled at Grusha's sudden appearance. She was about to ask to come in but noticed the gym leader was completely bundled up for the cold, his Poké ball scarf even wrapped around his mouth and nose.
"Um, hi," Grusha tipped his head up at her, eyebrows set in a confuddled expression. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, well, I was actually just at the gym," she explained, the sight of Grusha's warm getup making her realize just how cold it was outside. "I need to speak with you. About work, that is."
"Oh. 'Kay." Grusha stepped outside and shut the door behind him. "Walk with me?"
"Sure," she answered plainly, wishing they could just go inside instead.
Rika crossed her arms across her chest as they walked, back in the direction of the gym. Her breath came out in little clouds, fluffy in the prickly cold air.
"I was expecting Geeta to come out here sooner or later," Grusha began, keeping his eyes forward and a considerable distance between himself and Rika. "That new Champion… their name always escapes me, but that kid came by again for a battle earlier this week. Said they were here to check in on things, or whatever."
"Yes, Geeta's been caught up with interregional business. The new Champion checked in on every gym in her stead, and I've been reviewing the results."
"Ah. That's why you're here, then," Grusha's voice seemed to freeze over his words.
"You… could put it that way." Rika cast a sidelong glance at him, but Grusha's eyes were forward.
"I haven't heard how the other leaders fared, but that kid brought a beatdown. Haven't seen skill like that in a long time."
"That seems to be common."
"What, me getting demolished by challengers?"
"No, silly. They gave all the gym leaders a thrashing. Not just you."
"Sure," Grusha scoffed.
"Actually," Rika stopped in her tracks, turning to face him, "before you get that idea stuck in your head, let me just tell you why I'm here."
The gym leader turned to her, eyes narrowed. He was slightly shorter than Rika, but she tended to feel smaller in his strong presence whenever he gave her that look. She'd never admit that to anyone, though.
"I'm sure you're familiar with the Champion Assessment I administer to those who challenge the Elite Four," Rika began.
"I know the gist of it."
"Well, one of the questions I pose to each challenger is one asking which of Paldea's eight gym leaders gave them the most trouble in defeating. You, Grusha, are the most common response to that question."
"Is this an interview right now? You're giving off your interviewer vibe, Rik."
"It's not. But," Rika turned and continued walking, making it so that Grusha now had to follow her, "according to our study you are the strongest gym leader our region has to offer at the moment."
"Where are you going?" Grusha caught up to her, tipping his head to one side in bemusement.
"To the gym. Isn't that where we're headed?"
"I wasn't heading to the gym. You never asked." Grusha took the lead, Rika hugging herself against the cold.
"Grusha. I'm here to ask you if you'd like to join the Elite Four."
He stopped, Rika nearly walking right into him from behind.
"Well, then."
Rika didn't respond as they kept walking again. She shivered in annoyance as they passed by the gym, Grusha leading them up a slope above the battlefield for some reason.
"Where are you going?"
"Nice of you to finally ask. I like to come out here in the morning before heading into the gym. Helps clear my head."
"Morning is doing a lot of heavy lifting," Rika muttered. Grusha didn't seem to hear her.
At the top of the slope was a bench which, to Rika's surprise, wasn't covered in snow. In fact, it seemed completely clear of it. Off in the direction the bench was facing was a wondrous view down Glaseado mountain, the snowy slopes running down into the rutted valleys that eventually met the Paldean sea.
"Sit with me?" came Grusha's voice. He was already sitting on the bench, looking up at Rika, his eyes clear but somehow still an impenetrable wall.
"Okay," Rika put her hands in her pockets as she sat down next to him, bracing for the cold surface but even more surprised when she realized the bench was already warm.
"Cool, right? I had it installed so I can hang out up here without literally freezing my ass off."
Rika held back a giggle, finally seeing glimmers of her old friend refracting through his icy exterior.
"It's nice. So is this view." Rika saw a Braviary soaring over one of the lower peaks in the distance, wondering what it would be like to fly so effortlessly. She thought Grusha must know, and that he must miss it dreadfully.
"How's your leg been?" She asked, now that Grusha had begun to warm to her.
"Fine, mostly," he shrugged. "There's less phantom pain every day, but it does tend to flare up in the winter." Grusha tapped his right knee, the one closest to Rika. She knew that just below that knee, Grusha's leg was prosthetic, after that part of him had been shattered beyond repair in the accident.
"That's good to hear. I'm sorry I don't come by as often as I used to."
"You're busy. I don't dwell on it."
Rika looked away, knowing it wasn't a good excuse.
"Forgive me if you don't want to talk about this, but… why do you still live out here? Especially with the cold and all, and, you know…"
"It's fine. I know you're not just asking out of your own morbid curiosity, Rik. Truth is, well… look around you. It's gorgeous out here." The flurry had let up a bit, just a few tiny crystals of snow floating in the air around them, sparkling in the stronger sunlight that was peeking through the clouds. Rika saw that a few flakes had landed on Grusha's dark eyelashes and looked away from him again, off in the distance, towards the slope to the sea.
"And you know how I feel about most people," he continued. "I don't hate them, but… you know. It's just easier for me to be out here, away from it all. Lately I've really gotten back into battling, especially with the new challengers this year. There still aren't many, but they're strong. No wonder you're so busy all the time."
Rika relaxed for the first time since she had stepped off the flying taxi that morning, the comfort of hearing Grusha speak more than a few necessary words causing the tension to release from her shoulders.
"I'm glad you're enjoying all this, Grush. I… I've missed you, y'know? I haven't been great about showing it, but I really do miss having you around."
"Enjoying is still a strong word. It still feels like I'm settling for a second-best life, despite everything. I… sorry, I don't know how else to explain it. You're exactly where you want to be, right? Well, I'm just somewhere that I happen not to hate."
"...I'm sorry, I-"
"Don't be sorry for me. In fact, we can talk about why you're here. Elite Four, huh? Kind of hard for me to believe there isn't a better trainer you could've asked, especially with some of the Champions we have running around these days."
Rika fought the urge to bury her face in her hands. And there's typical Grusha again.
"Don't sell yourself short. I brought the research to back it up." Rika took the leather tote bag off her shoulder and placed it on her lap to accentuate her point.
"Research? Man, this really is your dream job."
"Grusha…"
"Did Geeta really send you here first? Or did you come just because I'm me?"
"Do you really think I'd come all the way out here in December just to argue with the most misanthropic person I know about work?"
"...Oh."
Rika scolded herself inwardly for snapping at him, but as always, Grusha was really getting under her skin. But she couldn't bear the sudden hurt in his voice.
"I did come here for work, but not because I feel sorry for you. You have the talent. You do work hard, when you decide to get out of bed…"
"Hm."
"I would've come regardless of our friendship, but… I really did want it to be me and not one of the others who spoke with you. I… miss our closeness."
Grusha turned to her slightly and an icy breeze blew Rika's dark bangs up away from her face.
"Oh, wow," he looked up at her as he spoke.
"What?"
"Your scar. I never knew it was that bad."
"Oh," Rika hurriedly adjusted her bangs to cover the left side of her forehead. "Well, you never did come to check on me. They had to give me stitches."
"I was still bedridden, you know that."
"You could've at least asked about it."
6 years ago
"Miss Rika, you may visit him, but he's still a bit out of it after the surgery," the hospital nurse told her. Rika wasn't going to let anything get in the way of her being the first one to be with Grusha after his amputation - after all, she'd promised.
"Okay, okay!" Rika ran down the hallway to Grusha's room, her combat boots clomp-clomping on the linoleum. She hurriedly turned at the end of the hall through the open door.
"Hey buddy-AHH!" Before she could finish her greeting, Rika found herself tripping over something she seemingly hadn't noticed until she was halfway to the floor. On her way down, Rika felt her forehead crack against something solid, sending her flying backwards and sending stars blurring at the edges of her vision so that her contact with the floor felt soft in comparison.
"Rik?" a voice called weakly above her. Rika held a hand to her throbbing head, unsure of what had just happened. Looking down, she saw that one of the soles of her boots had become detached from the under at the toes and was folded back limply, likely having been stepped on, causing the fall.
"Hey, Grush!" Rika looked up to see her friend peek over the foot of the bed at her, his eyes beginning to widen beyond his usual range of emotions.
"You're… bleeding!" He covered his mouth with one hand, pointing at Rika's forehead with another. The girl brought her hand away from her head and looked down, a fierce pang radiating through her head as she saw the warm blood on her fingers.
"Uh oh. Well… uh, I'm in the right place, aren't I?" she stood up on trembling legs, forgetting for a moment that she had been so excited to see her friend. The nurse from earlier walked into the room at the sound of commotion, to whom Rika turned around to face.
"Oh, oh my gosh! Are you okay? What happened?"
"I fell… and hit my head, I think."
"You think?" came Grusha's incredulous voice. "You smashed your head against the corner of the bed there." Rika looked over to where he was pointing, at the corner of the hard wooden bed frame that stuck out in a point. She blinked as some of the blood began to run into her left eye. The nurse walked over to her to inspect the wound, muttering to herself, eyes full of worry.
"Oh, dear, we need to get you to the ER. Come, come, you two can catch up later." Rika held the sleeve of her sweater up to the wound and cast an apologetic glance over at Grusha before leaving, who, although still a bit woozy from the anesthetic, seemed in complete disbelief at what had happened.
"I don't remember a ton from those days," Grusha continued. "Between all of the trauma and uncertainty, I think it's best not to dwell on them, anyway."
"That's fair."
Rika turned away from him again. The two sat in silence for a while, the calls of distant bird Pokémon being all but swallowed up by the muffling blanket of snow.
Another gust buffeted them, Rika's bangs fluffing up again. Grusha studied her face, keeping his eyes on her scar as he removed one of his mittens.
"May I…?"
"What? Oh, um…" Rika didn't avert her eyes from Grusha's face as he reached out to brush her scar with his fingertips. She flinched, expecting an icy touch, but his hand was warm from the mittens.
"I still can't believe you did that," he mused, titling his head as he met her eyes with his.
"I wanted to be the first to see you. You know that," Rika pulled back a bit, having had enough of the unsolicited contact. Grusha put his mitten back on, turning away a bit once more.
"We were so different back then. Always rushing into things. All things considered…" Grusha looked down towards the Glaseado battle field, then across towards the gym, "It's nice to slow down, at times."
"Mhm." Rika fidgeted in her spot, feeling colder since the wind had begun to pick up..
"But if what you're saying is true…"
"About the Elite Four?"
"Yeah. What else?" Grusha rolled his eyes but was beginning to smile underneath his scarf. "It would be a nice change of pace, but Mesagoza? You know that's not my style."
"Larry commutes. All the way from Medali, too."
"All Larry does is work. Some people have lives."
"You have a life?" Rika nudged him. "Sleeping til noon and sulking all day doesn't count."
"Hey," Grusha nudged her back. "I go into town sometimes. Been doing a lot more training these days, too."
"You'd probably have a lot more fun if you took the position. Plus, you'd see me all the time."
"Would you let me battle you?"
"Sure. Outside of work hours, of course."
"Hah. Of course," Grusha stood up carefully, but in a way that had been so practiced that no one would be able to tell that one of his legs was anything less than what he'd been born with. "We can head over to the gym, if you want." Rika stood up beside him, brushing some snowflakes off of her black coat.
The strongest gale yet whipped down from Glaseado's summit, Rika watching through a squint as even Grusha covered his eyes from the drifting snow. She put a hand on his shoulder, more so to steady herself, but Grusha shot her a questioning glance.
"I told you, I'm fine."
"I know. Sorry."
"Don't be."
They walked in silence back towards the gym, still quite a ways apart, but the atmosphere between them felt warmer than it had been earlier.
/
"Here are the results from the past twenty-five interviews. On the bar graph, the Glaseado gym is this blue color. See how it has double the responses of the next-highest voted gym?" Rika stood across from Grusha at his desk, pointing at the graph as she described it. He sat across from her, having taken off his coat, scarf, and mittens, but still seeming as closed off as ever in a navy blue turtleneck sweater.
"I see. Are they answering the most difficult gym to challenge or the most difficult to navigate to?"
"Grusha, stop it. You know the answer. All the gym leaders proved their competence in this year's report, but you're clearly outperforming the rest of them by a mile. Can you see now that I'm not just playing favorites?"
"Sure, I can see it. But can you really see me as an Elite Four member?"
"I can. But you gotta start getting up earlier."
"That'll be tough to manage. But I have to ask, if it's Geeta who's leaving, who's going to be Top Champion in her place?"
"See, that's the thing. Geeta and I were contacting people, and we were really banking on getting Nemona for the job. But she's already tied up with the Frontier project, and although she's probably the strongest candidate we've got… well, she wasn't super interested in the business side of things."
"Well, I assumed as much, since it seems to be one of the Four who's stepping in."
"Yes, so…"
Grusha brought a hand up to his forehead in exasperation, eyes focused on one of the documents in front of him.
"Oh my God, it's you, isn't it?"
"Grusha…"
"Did you even battle for it? Or did she just give it to you?"
Realizing she'd been pacing, Rika finally sat back down across from Grusha, willing him to meet her gaze.
"We did battle for it. All four of us, although Larry all but forfeited. It's been in the news, too. I assumed you haven't been watching, so I thought you might as well want to hear it from me, first."
"And the other gym leaders…?"
"If you refuse the offer, we'll start asking the others."
"You'll ask the others."
"Yes, I will."
"Rik, I'm going to have to commute if I don't move, deal with more people in a day than I usually do in a month, make media appearances. God, I don't miss that. What's in it for me, really?"
Rika knew she'd be met with opposition, that talking to Grusha had always been like arguing with a brick wall. But it had only gotten worse in recent years.
"Be real, Grusha. You told me yourself that you aren't really happy here. I…" she broke off, wondering whether it would help or hurt to be vulnerable. "...I would really like to have you around."
Grusha looked away, unreadable as ever.
"Your salary will increase too, of course," Rika added.
"I'd hope so."
"Look," she pushed away from the table slightly, picking up her bag. "You of all people should know that I don't have all day."
"Of course you don't. You'll be La Primera Nueva soon enough." The words were sarcastic on paper but Rika could tell he was being genuine. Nevertheless, she stood up and began to collect all of the documents and graphs that she'd laid out on the desk for Grusha to look over.
"You can change your mind any time before 1pm tomorrow. After that I'll be contacting the other gym leaders. But…" she looked down at Grusha, pausing for a moment, "...I'd really prefer if it were you."
Grusha reached out for one of the papers, but stiffened as Rika's hand stopped to rest atop his own. He met her gaze steadily to see that, despite her harsh expression, her golden eyes were full of warmth.
/
Rika braced herself for the cold once more as she stepped outside the gym, hugging her bag's crossbody strap tight to her chest. It was close to midday now and the sun had fully broken through the clouds, the light turning Glaseado's snowscape to a blinding white. Rika stopped to rummage in her bag for her aviators, not pausing even as she heard the mechanical whirr of the gym doors opening behind her.
"I'll do it."
Before she could even find her sunglasses, Rika spun around to see Grusha who had hastily thrown his coat back on. His scarf was loosely draped over his shoulders as if he'd forgotten its intended purpose of keeping his neck and face warm.
"That was fast," Rika shielded her eyes from the sunlight, but the glare off the snow was blinding enough on its own.
"Like I said, a change of pace can be nice."
Grusha walked up to where she stood, his boots crunching the hard-packed snow path beneath them as Rika retrieved her sunglasses and put them on.
"Cool girl, as ever."
"Pretty boy,"
Rika looked down to see that Grusha had left his mittens inside.
"You can't be out here like that. Even if it's sunny." She took his hands in hers, hoping she hadn't just felt her heart flutter as she noticed the blush beginning to tinge Grusha's nose and cheeks.
"Speak for yourself. You don't even wear a scarf. Aren't you cold?"
"Um, yes. Freezing, actually."
"You should've said something." Grusha let go of one of Rika's hands and pushed her sunglasses up onto her forehead, causing her bangs to stick up in all directions.
"Hey," Rika squinted against the white light, tensing up until she felt Grusha's soft touch above her left eyebrow once more.
"What time do you have to be back in the city today?"
"Not until 3, actually, so…" Rika blinked some of the light away and found herself close to drowning in the crystal pools of Grusha's eyes.
"Do you want to come over and visit for a bit? I can make coffee. I think… I think it would do you some good to warm up."
Oh, he's so adorable when he gets like this.
"That…" Rika met Grusha's hand and brought it away from her face so she could hold his hands in hers once more. "That would be nice, yeah."
For the first time in years, she saw him smile.