Reviewers, you lot are amazing. I'm writing this for you guys; you are my supreme motivators, and I re-read your messages nearly every time before I write. Greenflower, you are a great beta and a greater friend. In Ruins wouldn't be here without you and you know it. Here we go again - with a chapter that's double the usual length!
In Ruins
Chapter Sixteen
When Shigeru tried to remember his and Satoshi's trip to the Temple, most of it was lost to a hazy memory of tightly twined pain and fear, overlapped with older memories of a past equally hard to relate.
Satoshi had led ahead, brash and thoughtless as always. If he hadn't, Shigeru didn't think he would have been able to move. A day's worth of anticipation had brought him to the entrance of the ancient building tense, wired, and nervous. But he hadn't expected paranoia to settle on him, a sticky film like dried sweat, just from seeing the temple doors appear from where they'd slept inside of stones. It didn't matter that he knew the Temple like the lines of his palm; that as he'd walked the corridors, it all looked the same as the place he'd left behind in the future. But that was wrong. Things weren't just supposed to feel different in this Alph, they were supposed to actually be different. And so was he. He was supposed to be a different Shigeru here. The Shigeru he would've been if there had never been an accident; happy, easy-going, eager to find a hundred Temple rooms filled with treasures for him and Satoshi both.
He had eventually realized with a bitter-laced resignation that, while perhaps the town of Alph had been made enjoyable to him, it was his irrevocable fate to be denied any satisfaction inside the walls of this Temple. Ever. In sum, the Temple was his hell, but an endurable hell - at least until he'd entered the Main Room.
His foot had barely crossed over the door-frame before everything escalated. He didn't think it, he knew that he was being watched, so much so that he'd been compelled to look back and behind him. Of course, there was nothing there that he could see. Shigeru blinked once and his mind slipped back to a time when the halls had been just as empty, and he was fourteen years old and on the floor, his leg being crushed by a fall and boxes, and he'd been looking through that same door, hoping someone would come, someone, anybody come, please, please, please, I don't want to die-
As soon as the memory came, it left him. He was left with little more to show for it than a sense of whiplash; nauseated and strangely cold. Satoshi, of course, had been completely oblivious. He was stubborn and so persistent that Shigeru had been reduced to begging for them to leave. For once, he was the one who had to pitch a fit, just like a whiny brat. Like he was a child.
There was so much wrong in that.
Playing in the sand and clay at Tano's, walking around without pokemon on his belt, watching from high places as the fingertips of sunsets dabbled color on the tops of waves, it was easy to pretend that he and Satoshi had never been separated from each other; that nothing bad had ever happened to them. But as Shigeru had looked at Satoshi, he was forced to realize that while he'd been acting like a child, he'd also been pretending that Satoshi still was a child.
He couldn't understand how he'd ever managed to be that stupid.
Because when Shigeru had finally lashed out at Satoshi, Satoshi had shouted back, with barbed accusations and a burning glare in his eyes. It shocked Shigeru. He knew at that moment that Satoshi had changed irrevocably, just like him. Satoshi wasn't a child anymore. His arms were stronger, he was taller, and and he didn't act like he had when he was barely pubescent. He didn't put up with cruelty anymore, and Shigeru couldn't help being afraid that Satoshi would never forgive him. And that fear was even stronger than his fear of the Room.
But then he'd heard the footfalls.
The memories, the anxieties that Shigeru had been pushing from his mind were crawling back from their corners, dragging themselves across the floors of his mind with gnarly grey hands, and they were humming the words without words:
It happened in a room like this, in a room like this.
Shigeru's heart had hammered in his chest. He had clenched his fists, fighting to reason with himself: He was in Alph. In the past. Even if someone were looking, they wouldn't find him here. They couldn't. But he had felt it. And there had been footsteps... And it was too late to hide it in his mind any longer. He had been trying so hard not to let it happen; he had been so damn reasonable about it, putting up dams and dams, but Satoshi was always right there, wearing him down, and the ruins, too. It had all finally ruined him. The feelings stormed over his thoughts and poured out into the empty space where he'd left the past confined.
His hands had started shaking. The memories came back in the rush, all at once and he couldn't tell what was the past or the present, it was just the fear, the fear that no one would find him, no one would find him, he was going to bleed to death and die. He had to get out of here. He had to get to the door. But there was no way and no hope and no one would find him.
Satoshi's voice reached his ears as if it was muffled, though he only stood several feet away.
"Shigeru, what are you..."
He never answered, because he ran. He ran from Satoshi, crossing the threshold of the room; he took a right and the dark and winding catacomb flew past him as he ran; he was only unconsciously aware that it must, at some point, lead back to the outside and to his freedom. Whether he was right or not about it was irrelevant, because he never got that far.
The door - the door, with the glowing blue light, a skewed sort of halo - shone to him like a beacon. The room pulled him in before he even knew that there was a pull, and then everything happened in terrifying fast succession. Foster appeared. After years, he was there, all of him; right down to the mole on his neck, bobbing on his Adam's apple, half-tucked in to the rib of his orange turtleneck. Shigeru had barely had time to cry out that single word of a name before the pain struck him. Shigeru's leg gave, for the first time in a month, and he crumpled like a maple leaf tossed into a flame: He curled up inside of himself and disappeared.
He knew nothing but darkness and pain when he knew; this was only punctuated by a hollow pain and the vague memory of harsh breathing, of beating wings, of something cool on his forehead. Then the blank darkness lifted up, like breathy fog over hillsides in the morning. It rose, rose, rose, until so did he.
When Shigeru first began to wake, he let out a soft, pained moan. It was quiet as a sigh, but to Satoshi it may as well have been gunpowder exploding from the barrel of a gun. He had been feigning sleep on the mat adjacent to Shigeru for countless hours, listening so intently to the mingled sounds of his and Shigeru's breathing for the entire length of the night, that even the most subtle of distractions, like the distant whine of Kricketune or the slightest rustle of fabric, startled him. Satoshi shot up from his pallet, abrupt and shaky as he held himself up by his arms - they were still exhausted from dragging Shigeru out of the Temple - and looked over and down toward where he and Haruka had laid Shigeru down the night before.
Satoshi could barely see the edge of his form in the darkness, even as close as they were. There was light in the room, but only the thinnest thread from the spool of moonlight. It had seeped in from the sliver of space between the obfuscating curtain and the rocks of the window, and it illuminated Shigeru's face, framing him in the vertical line of a portrait . The thin edges of the balls of his eyes, his lashes, his lids, were all illuminated. A sliver of his cheek was lit up, too, and the line dipped from the curve of his cheekbone down to his jaw, settling in for a plunge at the edge of his lips. The skin around Shigeru's eyelids twitched in tiny spasms, as if flickering from fear. Satoshi whispered out Shigeru's name tentatively.
"Shigeru. Are you awake?" he asked.
When there was no reply, Satoshi wondered if Shigeru had made the noise in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming. Satoshi had no idea if that were a good sign or not, and his hope warred with his concern. He had no idea about sick people; he didn't understand what had happened to Shigeru in the first place, or how he'd been injured without a single bruise on his body. It was too complicated for him to think through, so he set everything aside in the back of his mind and reached out for what he knew, and shook Shigeru from the shoulder.
"Hey, wake up," he intoned. He could feel the raised goosebumps across Shigeru's skin. His warmth seeped into Satoshi's extended palm.
Shigeru began to move, and he made that same groan again. But this time he sucked in a deep breath of air and opened his eyes.
"Where...?" he grit out. It was hardly a word but Satoshi rejoiced to hear it.
"Haruka's," Satoshi answered readily. "We're out of the Temple. It's just us here. You're safe now."
Shigeru searched Satoshi's eyes for a moment. Whatever he found there must have been enough: his shallow breathing deepened and Satoshi could feel the tension draining from the muscles underneath his hand.
"My leg..." started Shigeru.
"It's fine. You didn't need stitches, or had broken bones or anything. You've just been sleeping a long time."
"...Okay," Shigeru exhaled. It was a half-reply at best, too sleep-ridden to bear much meaning. Satoshi watched helplessly as Shigeru's lashes flickered, and his eyelids closed. The even breaths resumed, far apart and steady. He was sleeping. Satoshi knew he had to be tired, btu he wanted to shout him back awake. He had so many questions. What had happened earlier? How was it normal to be that tired after sleeping most of the night, when there was nothing wrong that Satoshi could see? Why couldn't Haruka have stayed here and helped him?
Satoshi let go of Shigeru's shoulder, and laid back down in his bed.
At least he now knew that Shigeru was recovering. He would wake up again, and perhaps, come later in the morning, they could discuss what had happened, who had invaded Alph (people from their past?). And if there were more invaders coming, and whether or not Alph was safe. And for that matter, if they were safe. Satoshi didn't really know if that was true or not, no matter what he had said to Shigeru just moments before.
Somehow, he found sleep.
The next time Satoshi woke up, he felt warmth. It was like a heater had been affixed at odd angles to his left thigh, and the space above his hipbone, his right cheek, one of his hands - and quickly discovered that the sticky, achey feeling spread from wherever he and Shigeru's bodies were touching. He hadn't meant to fall asleep beside Shigeru, much less had he meant to fall asleep against him. He was embarrassed to see that he had curled his hand around Shigeru's arm somewhere in his dreams. Though it felt like letting go of those night memories, he reluctantly let the other boy go with a heavy, sleepy blush.
Shigeru woke up last night. He's going to be all right. That was all Satoshi could think of, and it was for the moment the only thing that mattered.
The sliver of light from beyond the curtains had grown brighter, and stronger, spreading out a wide fan of light over a little less than a quarter of the floor. Satoshi crawled to the hearth, groping through that patch of darkness for the tea that Haruka had left them. The fire had simmered out long ago, long before Shigeru had even woken for the first time, but beneath the ash he could still feel the glow of coal. Warmer than the fireplace were the tendrils of heat spreading from the open space near the doorway and the window. It was late in the morning, then; or at least too late to want to make things hotter. Satoshi fumbled at the pot handle, and at last poured lukewarm tea into a cup and onto his hand. He took the tea to Shigeru and cleared his throat awkwardly.
"I know that you just woke up - but you've been asleep for a long time. You really need to wake up, you know..."
"I'm awake," Shigeru croaked, to Satoshi's surprise.
"Oh," he said, uncomfortably staring at Shigeru. His tunic had ridden up, exposing a flash of skin above his waistband, and for some reason all Satoshi could think of was how sticky and hot his skin had felt when he woke up with Shigeru against him. "I, uh, you should have some tea. It's not really hot, but Haruka said it might help a little..."
Satoshi leaned down and pressed the cup to Shigeru's lips. With apparently great effort, Shigeru turned his face from the tea. When he spoke at last, his voice was scratchy but resolute: "I don't want it. I don't want to talk," he said hoarsely.
"Will you talk to me later?" asked Satoshi astutely. Shigeru didn't answer, and instead avoided his eye. Satoshi was momentarily proud to have understood Shigeru correctly; to know that no answer to 'later' really meant an answer of 'never'.
The first embers his anger let out a spark. "Shigeru, I saved your life back there," he pointed out curtly. "But I don't even know what happened. You don't even seem injured!"
"I'll tell you what happened when I'm ready. Later. I need... time to think," Shigeru answered. Although his eyes were quite slitted as he said it, ultimately he seemed unable to gather the energy to glare. Satoshi knew that it meant he shouldn't try to ask for more information, but Satoshi was itching to know, because as it was he didn't know how to feel. He'd been too busy being determined to be afraid or act like anything but reckless (which was something he'd sworn to Kenji that he wouldn't do), so he started to inform Shigeru of it, but Shigeru stopped him in the middle of his first syllable of protest.
"Satoshi, if you push me, I won't tell you anything. I need to think," he reiterated.
"Just tell me if you're okay," Satoshi replied in rapid-fire. "Are you sure you're not hurt somewhere I don't know about? Your leg-"
"I'm not hurt anymore." Shigeru's eyelashes fluttered mostly closed. His voice settled into the soft pillows of his bed along with them. "...Just tired. Come back later."
Satoshi had no choice but to give in. He felt the flicker of anger return to the pit of his belly, being replaced with empathy. It was hard to argue with a sick person. It was hard to argue with a sick Shigeru.
"Okay, I will," he said, subdued. "I'll come back later. I'm going to tell Tano that, you know, we won't be going to work today, unless you want to... Shigeru?"
But Shigeru had already drifted back asleep.
Before he left, Satoshi checked everything according to Haruka's specifications; that Shigeru was properly settled, covered in blankets, and that there was tea nearby. Then he turned on his heel and left the dark swell of their room.
Stepping into the dusty, limestone cobbled-street was worse than it was on most mornings; the sun seemed unusually piercing in its brightness. Satoshi was forced to shield his eyes from its glare as he adjusted, squinting until he saw as much eyelash as he saw landscape, and walked to Tano's house by himself.
It was nearly noon when he arrived. Tano sat near the shade of a large tree outside his cottage, drinking from an over-sized goblet of water. He was so enthusiastic in drinking that it spilt around the edges of his mouth, at the thick creases of his smile lines, and dripped dark puddle-trails onto his shirt.
"Tano-san," greeted Satoshi, entering the cover of the tree.
The old man looked up with surprise in his brows. "What are you doing here?" he asked with a fond smile. "Haruka said you wouldn't be able to work today."
Satoshi couldn't help but be grateful to Haruka for her knack at remembering to do all the responsible things, all the time.
"Well, she was right. I can't work," he said apologetically. "I don't think I'm up to it today. I'm, uh..."
He hesitated, wondering if Shigeru would have wanted him to lie to Tano. He didn't have any reason to distrust Tano-san, but he didn't know if he was supposed to talk about the Temple with anyone but the priestesses. But before he could deliberate his way to an explanation, Tano held up a weathered hand.
"Say no more," he said firmly. "Your explanation is not important. I don't mind your absence today. Sometimes, it is necessary to sacrifice a day of poorly made pots."
Satoshi looked at him curiously. "... Do what?"
"Your work suffers when your mind suffers," Tano reiterated.
"Ah," said Satoshi, though he only half-understood. He had a feeling that Shigeru would've understood, but the fact that Shigeru wasn't there brought a little pang to his chest.
Tano gestured to the ground beside him. "Do you have time to sit? It must be hot, standing in the sun."
"Yeah," said Satoshi, gratefully stepping under the cover of the tree.
The old man picked up a carving tool - it was really just a stick with some rope affixed to the end - and began rubbing circular patterns onto the rim of his pot. "Where is Shigeru?" he asked conversationally.
"He's still at Haruka's, sleeping, I think. Noon is kind of late, but..."
Tano nodded. "He is probably ill."
"He said he wasn't," Satoshi replied.
Tano tapped his skull and smiled wryly. "The mind, my boy. It is possible to be ill in the mind."
"He's not crazy!" Satoshi defended, and Tano actually laughed.
"Even the sane can have days when their minds grow tired, Satoshi. Shigeru may just need to sleep, today. And if not sleep, perhaps the space to think to himself. I imagine that when you return to him, he will be ready to speak with you."
Satoshi dropped his shoulders back and sighed. Tano seemed so right about everything. It had to be because he was old, old people always knew a lot (like Shigeru's grandfather, for one).
"How do you know all this stuff?" Satoshi lamented. "Sometimes I think I understand Shigeru but I'm really no good at reading him."
"When you are my age, you will understand better," said Tano, completely proving Satoshi's theory.
He conceded grudgingly, "Yeah, I'll figure him out by the time I'm ancient. Shigeru really would take a lifetime to make sense. He doesn't make it easy at all."
"Ah, that he does not. But I would dare say it is worth it."
Satoshi felt himself nodding. Tano was right, and though Satoshi knew it, the knowledge alone couldn't explain why his gut tightened when he thought of his friendship with Shigeru as being worth anything. Shigeru's value was simply so much more than he knew how to express.
After the visit, Satoshi meandered the streets in the remaining interim, visiting the crowded plaza filled with market vendors and their assorted goods. He passed most of them, only half-hearing their greetings. It was the food that caught his attention; tantalizing him with their aromas. Juices, fruits, and simmering meat kabobs sent scents as strong as tastes wafting out into the air. He had missed two meals already, and the hunger swelled in the empty pit of his stomach. No matter what had happened the night before, he was faintly glad to still be hungry - it meant he was that much himself, at least. He laid out in the central plaza where the green grass grew in long, flat terraces, and a few small and crooked trees provided him with knots of shade. He gorged on his food, pointedly ignoring everything but what he saw around him immediately. The heat, the food, and the lack of stimulating company conspired against him, so eventually he dosed. By the time he awoke, the sun wasn't too bright for his eyes, and the radiant waves of afternoon heat were settling back onto the receding ocean tides.
Satoshi finally returned to Haruka's at the edge of evening, and by chance he approached the building just as she was finishing a visit. Masato had come with her, too; he shrugged past the curtain before it fell behind her, looking distinctly green beyond a frame of already dark-green hair. Satoshi called out to greet them, and Haruka raised a thrice-braceleted hand to wave back.
"Satoshi. I wondered that you weren't inside," she said to him vaguely. Satoshi jogged over. On closer inspection, her smile seemed drawn.
"I'm just back from Tano's and uh, stuff," said Satoshi by way of explanation. "Have you just...?"
"We just came to check on both you and Shigeru, yes."
"I'm leaving," interjected Masato before Satoshi could offer another query. With a quick, glinting glare he stalked past Satoshi and left. Haruka shook her head, obviously bemused by his behavior. Then she made eye contact with Satoshi and put a finger to her lips.
"Shigeru is sleeping," she stage-whispered.
Still? thought Satoshi. "I thought you would have woken him up with your visit."
"No, no. He needs the sleep more than he needs to be awake," said Haruka reasonably.
"When he wakes up he'll probably complain that you were letting him be lazy," pointed out Satoshi.
Haruka laughed weakly at his joke, but Satoshi was too consumed by worry to join her. He looked at the ground, frowning.
"Satoshi," she suggested after a moment, breaking him out of a blank and empty stare, "If we're going to keep talking, can we... can we sit down somewhere?"
"Sure," Satoshi answered immediately. Haruka smiled gratefully at him.
They wandered the sharp curves of street for a few minutes before finding a low outcrop of wall. Satoshi touched the dusty surface of the tightly hewn stonework and remembered Haruka taking him to that same place on the night when he had first arrived in Alph. It was an isolated nook for speaking; quiet, shadowed, and the rock was even cool through the fabric of his pants as he sat down on it. He traced a pattern in the dust beside his thigh.
"So..." Satoshi let his voice trail into the air, but looked up to Haruka as the word drifted away from him. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Last night," she said so bluntly that for a moment, Satoshi saw the soul of a young pokemon trainer shining out from the eyes of a woman in a priestess's gown. He shook off the strange feeling he'd gotten when he'd thought of Haruka, back at Tano's. No matter where she was, Haruka was Haruka, after all.
Satoshi lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck. "I'm still not really sure I understand what happened last night. I don't think I can explain what happened, really, but..."
Satoshi thought back on carrying Shigeru from the room, and he had been so heavy that his arms had burnt like fire. It had felt like there were rocks in his lungs that kept him from catching his breath, but eventually he had made it to the first split in the corridors with Shigeru on his back, arms slung over his shoulders. By then, he was close enough to be heard when he shouted, and Haruka and Hikari had appeared immediately. Hikari and Haruka had helped him carry Shigeru the rest of the way out of the Temple, but they hadn't been composed. When Haruka first saw them, she'd dropped the jar of incense she'd been holding, and her hands had flown to her face. Hikari had grabbed at her to keep from wavering so badly that she would fall.
He hadn't felt much of anything at the time, except a determination to leave, like Shigeru had wanted, and the desire to be alone, which was what he had wanted. Haruka's home felt the most safe, so at her blessing he'd called out for Staraptor to carry them back to the city below.
There'd been nothing apparently wrong with Shigeru. Haruka had laid him on the cot and waved her smelling salts, but he didn't wake. Satoshi had checked his clothes - there wasn't blood anywhere. And as far as he could see, there weren't even new bruises, or swelling. The only thing wrong, like Tano had said, was something in his mind.
But there had to be more to it, somehow. Satoshi was absolutely certain of something: he knew that he'd seen Foster. He'd been just as Satoshi had remembered him; in a lab coat, an orange turtle neck, with memories of modern times and memories of Satoshi. But the impossibility of it was impossible to understand. Alph was supposed to be in the past, away from everyone and everything from the present. Alph was supposed to be safe.
"It is safe," declared Haruka vehemently, as Satoshi concluded his story. "The Protectors-"
"The Protectors aren't doing their job," Satoshi returned. He frowned darkly. "If they were trying to protect us, then they wouldn't have let that person from our time come here and attack Shigeru.
"And... You told us when we came here that you thought that we were here to be part of some, some myth, and that we're supposed to help you leave the island or something. But we can't do that, either. And we don't know how to fulfill your legend. And now, on top of everything, Shigeru's hurt because, apparently, the legend exists to protect you guys but it says nothing about protecting me or Shigeru."
Haruka sat, pale, with her bottom lip quivering.
"So what am I supposed to do, Haruka? He's hurt, and I don't know how to help him!"
It hit Satoshi that he was still scared, and he had no idea what to think about Foster or any of it. That was what scared him the most - He didn't know what to do next.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Satoshi."
Satoshi furrowed his brow and looked at Haruka with some hesitance. "You don't have to say you're sorry; I know this isn't your fault. I saw the person who attacked Shigeru."
"But..." Haruka shut her eyes, like the words caused her pain. "I might have caused that man to appear."
The words came out thickly when Satoshi answered her.
"You... You did what?"
Haruka didn't have a chance to answer. She was interrupted by a voice, answering from several feet behind: "She prayed to the Protectors, that's what."
Haruka and Satoshi both turned to face the boy who matched the voice. Masato stood a few feet away from them with a woven basket filled with fruits, flatbread, and vegetables in his arms.
"I don't understand," Satoshi said slowly.
Masato put down his basket. His face was surprisingly rueful as he elaborated on his earlier statement. "Look. The legend wasn't solving itself like we'd assumed it would. It's been a month. We've waited for so long, and it was becoming unbearable, so I... Before Haruka went to the mountain last night, I suggested to her that we ask the Protectors for a sign. So when she performed her rites, she did. She asked. So if whatever happened to Shigeru last night was a 'sign', then it's her fault, but mine too."
Satoshi stared at the siblings in shock. He knew his mouth was gaping, but he had to see if there was truth in what Masato had said. Haruka's head was down, and the fringe of her bangs cast shadows over all but her lower lashes. Her breathing was thick, and he wondered if she was crying, but didn't really care. Masato, however, stepped in reaching out a hand to Haruka's shoulder in a gesture of kindness. Satoshi looked on, fairly surprised; the Masato of Alph had been so annoying that Satoshi had forgotten that he was still Haruka's brother.
"I know you're upset, but can't you tell that she is, too?" Masato sneered at him.
"Upset! Shigeru was injured last night. This is way more than just being 'upset,' you know?"
"I'm really sorry," Haruka added, and looked it.
Satoshi couldn't accept it. He pouted. "You didn't mean to hurt him, but you're still at least partially responsible!"
"I only asked the Protectors to help you." Haruka's bell-voice sounded brittle. "I asked for help. Just because things happened last night, it doesn't have to mean that the Protectors did it. Are you sure that this man you saw... That this man wasn't someone from Alph?"
"I'm positive of it," said Satoshi darkly. "The outsider who I saw came from the same place where Shigeru and I come from. But he wasn't real like Shigeru and I are. At least, I don't think he was. He had no body."
"He had no body?" Masato stared at Satoshi, clearly baffled.
"I don't think so. I couldn't touch him," Satoshi clarified.
Haruka asked hesitantly, "Do you think he was a ghost?"
"No," Satoshi answered, shaking his head. He'd seen a ghost when he was ten years old, and this was totally different. "He couldn't be dead in this time if he hasn't even been born yet, right? Besides, Fost... The person I saw... he was too human. He didn't float around. He walked on two feet. He held a conversation with me. So, I thought that he had to be real. Except that when I tried to tackle him, I fell straight through him. He wasn't solid." Satoshi's breath caught at the word and understanding struck him. "He wasn't solid because he was an illusion."
Satoshi wasn't sure why he hadn't connected it in his head immediately, but everything clicked now. He understood why the way that Foster had turned blue and disappeared wasn't unfamiliar. He'd seen the exact same thing happen before - four years before, to be exact, when the Unown had visited Molly of Greenfield.
He remembered the first time he saw Molly. She had been easily eighteen, even though Satoshi knew that she was only 5 years old at most. She'd challenged Takeshi to a pokemon battle, won, and then went up against Kasumi. But before starting the battle, she changed. Physically. In half a moment, she was covered in blue, and her body melted down and reformed itself into a girl just about aged twelve.
Kasumi had whispered in his ear, "The real Molly must still be somewhere else."
Which meant that the blue Molly had been an illusion. And the blue Foster must have been an illusion as well. An illusion that had been created by the Unown.
"The man I saw last night wasn't real," Satoshi concluded, and he thought to himself that Shigeru would've been proud. " The Protectors must have brought him here just to attack Shigeru, I bet."
"I don't understand," cried Haruka. "I already told you, the Protectors would never do that-"
Satoshi cut in, "If you think they're so great, then why is Shigeru hurt!"
"I know what you are aiming at, Satoshi, but the nature of the Legend isn't pain," Masato interrupted. His voice was matter-of-fact, and grating as it was, at least it was filled with placidity instead of anger. "The Protectors are good. They have been kind to our people, keeping us from sickness, hunger, and war for hundreds of years."
Satoshi folded his arms defiantly.
"They've been good to you, maybe. But I know what I saw. And Shigeru knew it too. He knew - He knew that something was wrong before I did. He tried to get me to leave the Temple, but I just didn't get it. Maybe he wouldn't have been attacked, maybe he'd be awake right now and everything would be fine."
Masato looked at Satoshi like he was an idiot.
"What do you mean, 'maybe he'd be awake'? Shigeru and I were just talking a minute ago."
Satoshi was taken aback.
"What?" he asked. "Just now?"
Haruka turned to Masato with a flair.
"I can't believe you! Shigeru was supposed to be taking a nap," she reprimanded her brother. "He needs to sleep off whatever happened to him in the Temple."
Masato returned, "Yeah? Well so do you. I saw how exhausted you were last night after the ritual, and I doubt you've eaten much all day. Besides, Shigeru's the one who started talking to me, and not the other way around."
"Shigeru's awake," Satoshi burst out between them. "That means he's okay, right?"
"See for yourself," said Masato, and scowled. Satoshi hastily stood and dusted the sand from the seat of his tunic.
"Satoshi, wait, please. You should take this food for your dinners," Haruka picked up the food basket from the ground and offered it to Satoshi like a supplication. "I know you're still upset, and I don't expect that I can make it better with this, but you need to eat."
Satoshi looked at her fleetingly, before he focused on something down the street. "I'm not really mad at you. I'm just mad at everything," he corrected her. "Anyway, I don't wanna talk about this anymore. I've gotta go and see Shigeru."
He did, however, take the basket.
When Satoshi bent back the door flap, he found Shigeru sitting against the far wall with his right leg stretched out carefully on a pile of rugs as if perhaps it pained him. It took him a moment to realize what made Shigeru seem so different: he was wearing his white lab coat. Satoshi stifled a laugh of surprise; he'd forgotten that they still had their old clothes, that they hadn't just arrived naked or something, like babies when they were born.
It was strange enough to mask Satoshi's brimming frustration with nervousness besides, but at least Shigeru wasn't buried under a pile of stone, and at least he wasn't still unconscious in a pile of blankets on the floor. This eased the pain a lot.
"Hey. You're wearing your lab coat," he commented.
"It's not like there's any deep, psychological reason for it," Shigeru said quickly. "I just wanted to feel something familiar."
That sounded kind of like a deep, psychological reason to Satoshi, but he decided not to say anything. He missed wearing his pokemon league hat, after all, and walking around Alph without the heavy weight of his trainer's belt had felt awkward for at least the first week. Sometimes, it still did.
He crossed the room and sat down at Shigeru's side. He felt conspicuously aware of his entire body, right to his fingertips. It was strange. Even though he could see that Shigeru was obviously acting normal, or normal-ish - which really just meant he didn't look like he was about to die for no reason - Satoshi could feel his own heart thrumming inside of his chest, beating almost painfully fast as he looked at his friend.
"Do you need more tea?" Satoshi asked, though he really wanted to ask, 'Are you all right?'
Shigeru saw through him like he were an untinted window.
"No, Satoshi. I don't need more tea," he answered. "I'm upright and conscious on my own, thanks."
"Yeah, I noticed." Satoshi settled his back against the wall and slumped down. "You're not tired?"
"Mostly just hungry," said Shigeru. "Want to shower. Hasn't the time for us to go in changed with the new moon?"
"Yeah, but there's something I wanna do first. I need to tell you what I think I've figured out about what happened yesterday."
Satoshi looked up for a response from Shigeru. But when he only met passivity, Satoshi decided to barrel ahead.
"Haruka said she asked the Protectors to send a sign that would help us solve the legend. So when you got injured in the Temple - and Foster was involved - that was the sign, apparently. But nothing actually happened. Even your injury was an illusion created by the Protectors."
Shigeru swirled the dregs of the tea in his cup, and frowned at them.
He asked Satoshi finally, "How do you know about Foster?"
Of all the things to ask about, Satoshi was surprised that Shigeru had fixated on that particular point.
"Well, for one thing, you've had nightmares before about him," Satoshi pointed out. "I've heard that much. Besides, I met Foster in the Temple, remember? When I ran after you. But I only just connected the name and the face last night, because I met him almost five years ago. Back when I was traveling through Johto."
Shigeru nodded slightly. "But you said he was an illusion."
"Yeah," Satoshi agreed. "There's no way he could've been a real person because he wasn't even solid. I watched him turn blue and completely disappear. It was exactly like I saw happen in Greenfield."
Shigeru seemed more eager to pitch in as Satoshi progressed his thoughts. "It would be possible. The Unown create illusions, after all." He grimaced. "It just... It didn't feel like an illusion."
"I guess so. But the Unown's illusions are always convincing ones. I mean even Entei said that he didn't feel like an illusion. He really thought that he was real, and it was kind of disturbing. I remember... that he smelled like the burnt edges of paper."
Shigeru closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he avoided looking at Satoshi and was staring up at the ceiling. Satoshi wondered if he'd been imagining Entei, a legendary pokemon that smelled like burnt paper (of all the un-legendary things to smell like), but then he realized that Shigeru's hand was at his leg; not holding it, but resting on it.
"Is your leg bothering you again?"
"In a way. Last night, I relived my old injury point by point, like I was back in my past," Shigeru explained, cognizant of Satoshi's stare but with a voice flat of expression. "I found myself speaking the same words I had spoken before. Stepping back in the same way. It all felt out of my control, and then... Then the pain, you know? It hurt in the exact same places. Foster, the rest of the junk in that room, I don't know whether any of that was real or not but I know that my leg still hurts. It is not an illusion."
"But I thought your accident put you in the hospital," Satoshi blurted out in his confusion. "If it happened again, why are you okay now?"
"I'm not 'okay'," Shigeru retorted. "I'm in a pain."
"But that's the only thing, right? Because yesterday, even though there wasn't any blood, you were covered in heavy stuff. And you weren't waking up, and I was... I was..." He'd been terrified, but doesn't want to admit it past the knot in his throat. "I thought you were going to die."
"How much did you see?" Shigeru asked him abruptly.
Satoshi considered the question.
"Not a lot," he admitted. "After you ran away, I found you in a room. And I saw - I saw Foster. I saw you, too, on the floor, already... hurt. Anyway, I tried to ask him for help in rescuing you, but when he wouldn't, I figured out that he was... That he'd attacked you."
"Well, you were wrong. He didn't attack me," said Shigeru, looking away.
"You looked like you were dying," Satoshi repeated stubbornly.
"Well, I wasn't," answered Shigeru with equal mulishness. "I'd just forgotten how much my leg had hurt. I blacked out from the pain, that's all."
"That's all'? If you blacked out, you were going through way too much pain. And besides, Foster as much as told me that he wanted you to be hurt," Satoshi argued.
Shigeru looked up at Satoshi with an indiscernible expression. "Really?"
Satoshi remembered Foster's weird smirk and he had to set his jaw firm to keep himself from shivering. "Yeah."
"That's strange, Satoshi. He... Foster wasn't just some evil person who liked to inflict pain. I don't know why that's the person you saw, but-"
"Then what kind of a person was he, Shigeru? You keep insisting it's no big deal, and then you go whining in self-pity. If it wasn't an attack, what happened? Why did I find you on the ground like that?"
"Like I said, it was just - it just seemed like a flashback of the past. Of when I messed up my leg."
"Yeah, I know that's what it was, but what actually happened? Will you tell me about it?"
"I don't really talk about it," Shigeru evaded.
"Just give me a condensed version, won't you?"
Shigeru began hesitantly.
"Fine. Just so you know, I was only fourteen at the time. Dumb and clutzy," he said, and brought a tea cup to his lips. In his anxiety to drink, his tooth clacked against the brim. Both he and Satoshi pretended not to notice.
"I was in the Temple researching when I knocked over a ladder. The boxes in the room with me, including those leaning on the ladder and such, were supporting several boxes of heavy equipment. When I was climbing to reach some of them, the ladder and the boxes toppled over me. I screamed. Something pointy went into my leg - each surface was sharp like a book of pens - and I could feel myself losing blood. Foster looked at me, panicked, and ran away."
"He ran for help?"
"No... He ran away. It was almost an hour before some other researchers found me in a pool of blood. I'd nearly died. And my leg has never been the same since."
Satoshi waited for it to be clear that Shigeru was finished with his story. When it was, he stood up slowly.
"Shigeru," he said. "When you feel like telling me the truth, I'll listen. But don't treat me like an idiot."
"I'm not-" Shigeru protested.
Satoshi clenched his fists. "You are. You don't think I saw what happened with my own two eyes, but I did. So why are you lying to me?" he shouted, "Why are you still lying to me?"
"Because you won't like the truth!" Shigeru answered in a raised voice. He got to his feet with effort.
"So you admit that you lied?"
"Most of it was true. All of it but..." Shigeru's face raced through emotions. "Don't get angry; I'll tell you, okay? I'll tell you whatever you want to hear."
"I can't believe you'd lie to me in the first place," Satoshi insisted angrily. He found the wall to his back and sat down, using the stone as a brace to keep him in check when everything in him strained to resist and break free of any composure at all. He wasn't sure where the sudden violence was coming from, but it was strong. He'd always felt this way in the past with Shigeru; he'd felt that mix of anger and betrayal. He looked up at Shigeru, who was pacing now; red-faced from the shouting. Evidently, his leg wasn't hurting that badly, thought Satoshi with some bitterness.
"How much do you want to know?" asked Shigeru abruptly.
Satoshi folded his arms tightly. "I already told you. I want to hear the truth."
"It's long and complicated," said Shigeru evasively. Satoshi rolled his eyes, in what he thought to be a very Shigeru-like gesture.
"We don't have anything better to do," he said to Shigeru. "You might as well just tell me everything. Starting from where you started to lie."
Shigeru met Satoshi's eyes for a split second, and the intense regret and fear he felt was enough to make Satoshi cringe and take back his words. He didn't, and Shigeru broke the eye contact. He looked off at the wall behind Satoshi, as if he couldn't see.
"Foster," he said slowly. "...didn't attack me."
Satoshi nodded. "Okay."
"He was really a good guy," Shigeru continued. "He was friendly. Very protective of pokemon. He was brash... A lot of things that reminded me of you. Older, obviously. I respected him a lot."
So far, so good.
"Okay," said Satoshi.
"So... So I began to like him."
Satoshi nodded. "Okay," he repeated. "Go on."
Shigeru stopped pacing and looked at Satoshi incredulously.
"Are you listening to me? Did you just hear... Do I have to spell out everything for you? I began to like Foster. I had a crush on him."
Satoshi's face fell.
A what?
"A what?"
"It wasn't a really big crush," Shigeru continued, quickening his story. "I don't think Foster even noticed. At first I never meant for him to know; he was obviously interested in girls anyway, and looked at me like... like the kid I was."
"You're rambling," Satoshi interrupted. The words were out of his mouth before his brain could remind him, You still haven't figured out what that last bit even meant; you aren't ready for this information yet, but it was too late. Shigeru, resigned, was agreeing with him.
"Right. None of that matters," he said, in an unconvincingly flippant tone. "Like I was saying. One day when we were in the Temple, he was upset. I don't know why he was in a bad mood; we weren't getting anywhere in our research, I guess that's it... But I'd recently been promoted and I was confident or something, and to make things better I was in the same room with him, so I was happy, and... I guess it was too much. He'd figured out how I felt by then and had decided to pin me down with it."
"Figured what out?" Satoshi barely asked.
"That I liked him. Geez, are you even listening?I'll stop," Shigeru threatened, but Satoshi looked at him with a borrowed exasperation.
"Stop being a jerk and just tell me what happened!" he insisted.
Shigeru looked put out but gave an exasperated sigh and continued. "We had been in the room for a while, working quietly. But out of nowhere, he just asked, 'Are you in love with me?' I wasn't, even then, but I didn't know what to say. I was too shocked to reply immediately. Foster wasn't patient enough to wait even ten seconds. 'You are, aren't you?' he'd said. He barely sounded like himself when he said it. Anyway, by that time, I'd stood up and I'd prepared something to say - but I paused when I saw him coming toward me from across the room. I couldn't see his face at first. There are a lot of shadows in that room. You know that. But then Foster passed by a light and the darkness trailed away from his face... From everywhere but his eyes. They were... He was so angry that he looked crazy. Deranged. Then he was right in front me. He called me a 'little faggot' and punched me in the face."
"He did what?!"
"He punched me in the face." Shigeru rubbed his knuckles over the crest of his forehead ruefully. "And of course I wasn't expecting it. He was bigger than me, stronger... When he hit me, I practically flew backward. And I hit some boxes as I went down. They weren't that heavy; they hurt, just not too badly, but... some of them hit the ladder, and... and it toppled over. All of it. The ladder, the equipment, it fell all around me. On top of me. It was hard to breathe. I could taste blood in my mouth from the punch, but then I couldn't even feel it anymore, because something crashed down on me and I felt the pain in my leg. For the first time, I could feel the stab wound. I could feel the blood gushing out from it.
"Like I told you already, when I cried out for help, Foster didn't do anything; he just stood there. I don't know if he was horrified or proud, but then... he ran away. And he didn't go for help. He didn't even go back to camp to pick up his belongings. He just... disappeared. No one's seen him ever since. "
Shigeru stopped.
"They found you, though," said Satoshi quietly.
"Half-dead," Shigeru agreed.
"That time when I got the letter from Professor Oak... about you being in the hospital. It wasn't a small thing. You nearly died. No one told me that you nearly died."
"Yeah, well..." Shigeru shrugged like it didn't matter, but Satoshi felt every fiber of his being insisting that it mattered a lot.
"Why did you try to lie to me about this?" he asked, unable to keep the hurt from his voice.
"The last time I told anyone anything about myself that mattered - or that they even thought they knew something like that - it didn't end well."
"With Foster," Satoshi guessed.
"Yeah. With Foster."
Satoshi furrowed his brows. "That was... three years ago. You've been keeping this to yourself for that whole time?"
"I didn't want anyone to know," Shigeru answered tightly. "Kenji found out because he pressed it out of me when I had no choice, but I didn't want him to know, either. I didn't want - I don't want my grandfather to be disappointed. I don't even know what my sister will do if she ever finds out, and-"
"You could've told me."
Satoshi looked at Shigeru sincerely, hoping that he would catch his eye, but Shigeru just shook his head, and kept looking at the ground.
"No, I couldn't have," he said in a short puff of speech. He sounded like he was fighting to hold back tears.
"Yeah, you could've. God, Shigeru. I don't care about stuff like that," Satoshi told him earnestly. "I just care about you."
Shigeru didn't reply. He just turned to the side, and his shoulders began to shake, and Satoshi had no idea what to do.
Shigeru was crying. And he had been nearly murdered. And he was gay. And he hadn't told anyone. Satoshi didn't even know what it meant, just that it was important... and that none of it mattered to him. The sense of betrayal he'd felt in the Temple had been sucked out of his chest just like the sun had stolen the water from his throat. He felt empty of any feeling but a nameless, faceless hurt. All he wanted now was for Shigeru to be all right.
Shigeru had never actually told anyone what had happened in the Room with Foster. Not really. He'd given the emergency response team the same story he'd given Satoshi: after he'd fallen under the debris, Foster had simply disappeared. Of course there'd been speculation at the timing of the events, but Shigeru hadn't made a point to indict Foster in any way. He'd known that Foster probably deserved whatever justice would be given to him- and Shigeru would've been more than happy to see karma turn around and shatter Foster's leg in turn - but when he was being deeply honest with himself, he really just didn't want to see Foster ever again. He didn't want to have to tell the whole story. Because that way, no one would ever know how he'd hurt his leg, or how he'd fallen stupid in love with Foster, and how those feelings had ultimately led to the accident. He'd just closed up the truth inside his chest like he were a coffin for its keeping, and hoped that no one would come to dig up the remnants of the past.
It had stayed far away from him for three years. And then, suddenly, he came to Alph, and everything he thought he knew had turned on his head. Over the past month it had been like Satoshi was leading him out of the graveyard. He had been so struck by hope that he'd actually made himself believe that he might be able to say farewell to the past forever.
But then they'd gone back to the Temple, and it was as if his past had never had a burial at all.
Upon waking the following morning, late, he'd laid in the bed, watching the uneven shadow of the window sill scraping its way across the dirt floor of the room. Its travel was agonizingly slow, lagging across the room hardly a millimeter a minute. He stared and he stared, the disbelief churning in his stomach until everything dropped out of a meaningful frame of reference and he began to drift in his own mind.
He had gotten up from the bed after some effort - he couldn't determine whether the instability of his leg was imagined or actual - and found his old clothes folded in a pile of coarsely woven blankets.
He'd put his dirt-smeared lab coat on, wrapping it around his shoulders like a shroud. He closed his eyes, focusing on the starchy fabric, and remembered a life that was familiar. With the feel of the cloth on him, and the silence thick with heat inside the room, he could imagine he was back in his research lab, the sand getting into everything.
The old Shigeru, the tense, sarcastic, and lonely one that came back with the coat reminded him that he needed to activate his scientific sensibilities. He knew that there were things in Alph that weren't right, that Unown were involved in the maintenance of the island, and that likely included the Temple as well. It meant that the Unown had been involved in the impossibility of what had happened the night before. Though Shigeru wasn't sure if they had caused Foster to appear, they had certainly known about it, and not done anything to protect against it.
The Protectors were unpredictable and dangerous, and that's why he needed to bring both himself and Satoshi back to the world where they belonged. But to do that meant they needed to solve the mystery of the legend that had apparently brought them to Alph in the first place.
Yet Shigeru found himself wondering why he should bother at all.
If he were to go back, what was the point? Why would anyone keep living, either there or here, when there was only more pain? He couldn't avoid the consequences of his choices, not in his 'real' world, nor in this new one. If his past was to be the ruin of his entire life, destroying everything that followed, then why should he force himself to act like there was a reason to change his fate? To act like there was hope?
He couldn't feign hope anymore, so he didn't even try.
He just shut down.
But Satoshi wasn't like that. When Satoshi had come into the room and expertly stripped away Shigeru's hasty defenses as if they were crusty layers of old bark on a tree.
Satoshi had tried to do what Shigeru usually did. He was trying to be logical; trying to fight his way out in the only way that he could. He had thought about the problem and come up with the same answers as Shigeru had in the silence of the room, and Shigeru couldn't help but be impressed out of his apathy.
He could see that Satoshi had done it because he cared. And Satoshi's caring was as frightening as anything Alph could throw at him, because it broke through his apathy and into the truth that he'd kept dead in his chest. It spurted up in him, alive, like sap in the trunk shooting up from the roots of his heart, and led him into saying things he swore he'd never say - and not just about the Room.
Shigeru let go of everything.
Satoshi, miraculously, had said it didn't matter. He hadn't cared about what had happened as much as he cared about the fact that Shigeru had been hurt. And then he'd ultimately accepted what had happened. Accepted him.
Maybe it meant that he didn't have to hate his life. Maybe he didn't have to give up just yet.
Maybe there was still hope.
Satoshi, he realized, had been silent for a while. He was looking at Shigeru as if he were waiting for an answer. He was remarkably still, his jaw set with the biding of seriousness and a fixed dent between his eyebrows showing the shadow where his brow was furrowed down.
Shigeru couldn't seem to remove his tongue from the top of his throat. He turned away, wiped at his face; tried to control his breathing. Then at last he looked back at Satoshi, and met him eye for eye.
"Thank you," he managed finally, and Satoshi's expression immediately changed.
His frown was replaced with an awkward smile... and subsequently, so was Shigeru's.