Oh my reviewers, how I love you! You inspire me to greater and greater heights, and depths, and... Bath house episodes. Yes, you heard me correctly. I love you so much that I have made this chapter all about Satoshi and Shigeru in the bath. Together. En flagrante nuddiepants and surreptitiously looking at each other. I hope you enjoy it and don't get nosebleeds!

in ruins

chapter ten

When Satoshi woke up, he couldn't believe that he was in bed.

He felt less like he was underneath bed covers and more like he had been trampled by a stampeding herd of Tauros, and had been left to bake in the desert sun and die. The achey soreness spanned everywhere he could think of; his arms, his legs, his abs. He tried to remember the last time he had felt this way and he knew it had been years.

And then he noticed the sand. In his mouth, in his ears, under his fingernails... was there anywhere it hadn't gotten into? He raised his arm, experimentally. Bad idea -- he threw his hand over his nose and began to cough.

He stank. No, that was an understatement. He absolutely reeked.

Satoshi didn't usually pay much attention to how often he bathed, but obviously something was off; when he thought about it, even recently he hadn't exactly been regularly bathing or anything (every what? three days? he was on schedule, then), but in the past three days he'd had a lot of exercise, hadn't he?

The events of the previous night and the previous day seeped into his awareness. Just the day before he had been hiking up a mountain, rowing an old boat into the horizon, dancing nearly the whole night...? It was amazing he was able to wake up at all.

His stomach growled, and Satoshi accepted that maybe his gut had something to do with him waking.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, and yawned.

A voice from across the room drifted over. "Good morning."

Satoshi's eyes widened and he jerked himself around. About eight feet away, Shigeru sat in front of the fire, warming his hands. A pot of boiling water was nestled on a rock in the middle of the flames. He was dressed in the same clothes from the night before. And, he was smiling.

Smiling?

Satoshi warily replied, "Good morning..."

With very slow, purposeful movement (as if he were dealing with a wild Pokemon) Satoshi got out of bed and inched to the side opposite of his smiling room-mate. He sat there dim with sleep, quietly trying to process Shigeru's mood while overcoming the sense of deadness in every limb of his body.

"I'm heating the water for some tea. You can have some if you'd like," explained Shigeru. "It would be a nicer way to wake up; though not as much as a bath."

"Oh good," said Satoshi. "I really need to bathe."

Shigeru wrinkled his nose. "I noticed."

Before Satoshi could defend himself, Shigeru continued with nonchalance, "Kidding. I really need to bathe, too. My skin is sticky, and my hair is greasy, and it's gross. I figured you would want to come as well, that's all."

"Yeah, sure, I guess I need a bath too," said Satoshi. He shook his head, tried to focus his eyes but gave up. Instead he felt his memory of the night before playing before him again (and to be honest, his memory was a bit hazy. What had been in that wine, anyway?). At the time he had thought Shigeru had been drinking - it was obvious from the red on his cheeks when they were dancing. But it was weird that Shigeru didn't seem to have a hang-over, and it was weird that he wasn't grumpy from all the exercise that they'd had yesterday. And he was still being nice, and acting happy.

"Shigeru..." Satoshi fished for the right words, and not finding them, just began to speak: "You do realize that you're actually being nice to me today."

"Mm-hmm."

Satoshi's eye twitched. "So? What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on," said Shigeru, reaching into a satchel of tea leaves and spreading them across the top of the water. He began to stir, and inhaled the scent of the tea; a distant smile appeared on his face.

"Seriously, are you feeling okay?"

He sighed. "I'm fine. But if I've been such a jerk to you, you really shouldn't be concerned about me one way or another."

A trace of a sneer appeared on Shigeru's face. "So I should be the one asking you, shouldn't I? ...Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Shut up!" Satoshi declared, folded his arms and stuck out his bottom lip.

Shigeru just laughed. When he smiled, it reached his eyes.

Satoshi didn't know why, but seeing it, his heart started beating faster.

He was still pouting about Shigeru's mood swing when the grass curtain at the doorway rattled, and Masato had arrived with food in hand.

Finally, something seemed to have put a dent into Shigeru's good mood. Satoshi decided that he would give this strange Masato a second chance; at least he was restoring the status quo.

"Good morning," Satoshi said to him.

"Oh, you're already up," replied Masato, grouchily. Then he sniffed his nose. "God, what's that smell?"

Shigeru looked around himself, then finally, shrugged.

"It's probably us," Shigeru told him matter-of-factly.

"I hadn't showered since before I arrived," Satoshi pointed out. "It's been maybe four days..."

Masato shuddered in obvious revulsion.

"I brought you some breakfast, but you really need to bathe. This is revolting. Do you bathe where you're from?"

"Yes! We're not neanderthals!" said Satoshi, clenching his fists (so much for giving Masato a second chance).

"Well like it or not, you're going to have to bathe more often than you're doing it. You're going to leave a permanent stench in this house," Masato sniffed, muttering the last part. Satoshi made eye contact with Shigeru, hoping that the older boy would stick up for them, but instead he just raised his hands in the air in an apparently 'helpless' gesture.

Shigeru addressed Masato, "You're right. We are absolutely, disgustingly filthy. Is there any way we can get clean?"

It took Satoshi a little while to realize that Shigeru's overly kind voice was actually latent with quiet mockery. Masato realized it a lot faster, though, and said stiffly, "Forget breakfast; you can eat it on the way to the bath house."

Satoshi and Shigeru looked at each other, then at Masato.

"Are you... expecting something from us?" wondered Satoshi.

"Yes!" Masato exclaimed. "I want you to get up, and let's go right now. I don't have all day."

With a dramatic huff, he exited the building. Shigeru and Satoshi followed him to the door, where they slipped into their sandals, which were apparently one-size-fits-all. Satoshi's pair fit him perfectly, but Shigeru's heels stuck out of his. As Shigeru crammed his foot into his shoe, he murmured to Satoshi, "I wonder, what does Masato do all day?"

"Probably whine at people," Satoshi immediately answered, which made Shigeru laugh.

Then they went outside, too, and didn't even have time to adjust their eyes to the light before Masato began walking away with an authoritative step. Shigeru rolled his eyes and sidled up to him and received some rice cakes for the effort. He tossed one to Satoshi, who as soon as he caught it, began to eat with avid interest.

"Hey, Masato-kun," said Shigeru. "So that was your house, right? I've been wondering, since we're staying there, where are you and Haruka staying?"

Masato gave Satoshi an exasperated look. For once, though, it didn't seem directed at Satoshi or Shigeru, but at some unseen assailant.

"We're staying with Hikari," said Masato, frowning.

Shigeru chuckled. "Ah," he said.

"What?" asked Satoshi, aware that Shigeru had just gained some sort of information, but completely unsure of what it could possibly be. Masato ignored him and turned to Shigeru - whom, in Masato's eyes, being able to understand him, was also available for commiseration with him.

"It's terrible," said the green-headed boy, his voice low. "They never stop yelling at each other, or playing mean pranks on each other...Not even at night. I can barely sleep."

"No wonder you hate us," said Shigeru, obviously amused. Satoshi was the furthest thing from amused. He was horrified.

"I don't understand," he said, thinking back on the previous night, and years prior. "I thought that their personalities were conducive to an easy friendship, somehow..."

"Not at all," said Masato. "Or, I don't know, maybe their personalities aren't too different, but I think that Hikari's just jealous of Haruka for being the priestess. She's in a sort of secondary role as ceremonial leader - but she doesn't get to speak with the Unown. But Haruka kind of hates Hikari because she thinks that Hikari is more beautiful. Anyway, it's just a big misunderstanding but it's been going on so long that I don't think they could ever be friends."

Shigeru for the first time looked at Masato in a way that didn't seem condescending in the least. "You are observant," he stated.

"Duh," said Masato, waving him off. "Anyway, we're here. It wasn't that far, obviously."

Satoshi looked above Masato's head, and sure enough, over the door of the building, a banner with the characters for 'hot water' waved gently in the air.

"I have an errand to do, so I'm going to leave. When you're done, I'll probably be waiting for you out here. If I'm not, just stay put."

Shigeru waved him off. "Have fun," he said to Masato's retreating figure, half-serious.

Satoshi took the lead and walked through the fabric curtain and into the staging area of the bathroom. It was a small room with cubbies covering an entire wall.

"You know, this reminds me a lot of the hot springs back home," said Satoshi.

"Seriously? You must go to a lot of cheap hot springs, then," Shigeru replied. Satoshi was about to gripe but then he realized that, although the words had been mean, Shigeru's tone was simply commentating and not sneering or anything. Satoshi tried to continue as if nothing in that was odd at all.

"So, the clothes we're wearing right now might have gotten a bit dirty last night," Satoshi noted, as he slipped off his shirt and bent over to place it in an empty cubby. He could feel Shigeru's eyes on him. When he turned to make eye contact, though, Shigeru was resolutely focusing on his own clothes.

"I think that most people here do their own laundry, probably every day or so. We will probably just wash these tonight to wear again tomorrow."

"Really?" asked Satoshi, pausing as he undid his belt. "So you think that these will be the only clothes you and I will be getting?"

"Clothes used to be expensive commodities, you know," said Shigeru. "It takes a long time to make them in the old-fashioned way... that is, the way that the people of Alph have to make them."

Shigeru raised an eyebrow and smiled. Even though Shigeru wasn't looking directly at him, it was nerve-wracking.

"Are you concerned about messing up your clothes?" asked Shigeru, "I mean, if you ruin you clothes, you'll probably have to go naked."

"Shut up! That's not funny!" Satoshi replied. Shigeru laughed - he had obviously not been serious - but Satoshi was still blushing, and he did have some pride and didn't want Shigeru to know that he'd been successfully baited.

Satoshi took off his last layer of clothes, grabbed his hand towel, and only looked over his shoulder briefly to make sure that Shigeru was coming, too, before entering the bathing room.

The ceiling was vaulted a little higher than it was in the changing area. Two large wooden support beams were stretched across the ceiling. Steam rose and swirled up through them and rested hazily at the highest limits of the room. Also made by wood were two large pools of water, side by side, but one larger than the other. Two old men sat quietly across from each other in the larger one. Satoshi looked at the water basins, curiously. Were they really made of cedar? And how in the world did people who lived on an island have access to cedar trees?

Satoshi bit his lip as he stood there, considering them; the moisture-thick air began to capture on his skin and he could even feel a bit of it dripping down the curve of his back.

"Satoshi." Shigeru stood behind him, at the wall, with his hand on a water faucet. "You're going to rinse off before you get in, aren't you? Or are you really a neanderthal?"

He smirked as he turned on the water with a twist of his wrist.

"I didn't know if they rinsed off before they bathed," Satoshi protested. "I was just trying to figure it out, okay?!"

Shigeru looked up at Satoshi with an expression that usually Satoshi would've interpreted as You're an idiot, but for some reason it didn't seem too serious.

Choosing for once to ignore Shigeru's teasing as much as possible, Satoshi went up to the water tap beside Shigeru, and filled up one of the bathing pots with water, and taking a deep breath, dunked it over his head.

"Woah!" he exclaimed. "It's not cold!"

"I guess they heat it with fire pokemon," said Shigeru, shrugging as he lathered himself with an oddly shaped grey bar of soap. Satoshi stared at the soap bar for several moments, somehow mystified by it, and by the way that Shigeru rolled it over his biceps, before he caught himself in surprise. He returned his attention to his own faucet, pot, and soap, and finished getting clean.

The two elderly villagers left the water several minutes later. By the time Satoshi and Shigeru were done cleaning off several days' grime, the room was their own.

Satoshi had always liked taking hot springs baths. The bath house of Alph didn't get its water from a hot spring, but in Satoshi's mind it definitely made no difference. The water from the faucet had been warm, true, but the water in the pools was hot enough to burn him. It wasn't bad, though. If anything, it was a controlled burn; a cleansing one, a satisfying one. As soon as his feet dipped into the water, he let himself slide in all the way to the top of his neck and melt.

"Oh.. wow... It feels so good," sighed Satoshi.

Shigeru moaned agreeably, settling deeper into the water in the opposite pool. They both sat there in a gentle, rolling sort of silence after that. Eventually Satoshi's face began to lightly perspire and he lifted some of the bath water to his lips and drank it.

And then, Satoshi's tongue was loosened like all the other muscles in his body had been. That was his excuse for breaking the comfortable silence, barely even knowing what he was going to say before he said it.

"Shigeru..." he asked. "Why did you dance with me last night?"

For a while he could only hear his own breathing, and maybe Shigeru's, but he couldn't be sure if he was just imagining it over the sound of the water steadily pouring into the tubs.

"I felt like it," said Shigeru finally.

"Really?"

"Mmhmm."

Satoshi blinked up at the rafters and felt questions vying for his attention, but they were as hazy as the steam from the water. Finally he was able to choose one. "Why are you so different today?" he asked.

"Because I'm happy now," said Shigeru, and it was completely honest - he could hear it in Shigeru's voice.

Satoshi stretched his limbs out in the water, letting the tension out of his legs. They dropped for a moment, then floated to the surface of the tub. He watched the water ripple around his kneecaps as they peeked out, followed by his lower legs. The way that the water moved made him smile, and he looked at Shigeru. He was almost perfectly still; his eyes were closed and there was a soft smile on his lips. The low level light glowed on his face and shoulders, and it reminded Satoshi of something from the past. I used to be jealous of how good-looking everyone said he was, he remembered. Whenever I saw him, he was sneering, so maybe that's why I didn't see it before, but... But I guess he really is handsome.

Satoshi closed his eyes and exhaled. He didn't know where it had come from, but he felt all the bad things being expelled from his skin. Maybe all it took was being in the water with Shigeru, his friend. And that same happiness began floating in him, too.

"I won't worry about the way you're acting anymore," decided Satoshi.

"Good," said Shigeru, breathlessly.

Satoshi hummed in reply as the water soaked into him. He felt his insides turning light like sugar spun into cotton candy. His chest rose up, buoyed to the surface of the water, and that place behind his heart was filled with the distant certainty that he wouldn't be worrying; not about anything, anymore.