JMJ
(6)
A futile dream
Bringing broken lives
To further shame
Who would have ever guessed that Team Galactica would dare to get in the way of Team Rocket business? In the days of Old Team Rocket such an idea would be laughed to scorn. As far as Teams went Galactica had been a joke, but they had grown. In the absence of Giovanni, Team Galactica had grown strong, and with New Team Rocket slowly regaining what had been lost in its own regions, Team Galactica had been pretty much ignored until now.
Team Rocket was still by no means weak. Their arsenal had grown, their fingers snuck into places for secret control, and though their numbers were not nearly as much as in Old Team Rocket, every agent now trained to the point of being at least worth two or three agents from the old days.
When Team Galactica brought up their challenge, Team Rocket did not back down but in fact were proud to show what they were made of and would fight to the death if necessary to keep the regions of Kanto and Johto and even the Orange Islands. So far they were winning, though Galactica did put up a good fight.
Both sides remembered what had happened between Team Rocket and Team Polsar. No one wanted a repeat of that horrific event, but the more the teams fought over territory with pokémon battles, and the more they sabotaged each others' work and spied on each other, the less fun it became. Everyone felt the tenseness between Rocket and Galactica. Anxious to move on with their personal business, Team Rocket wanted to end this war quickly, and Galactica, eager to expand with their new found power with annoying phrases such as "The entire galaxy will be Galactica's domain", wanted to end the conflict quickly as well before their moment of glory past them by. So far no one had been killed. There had been a couple serious injuries but those had been more the result of the victim's own doing and not the side of the enemy.
This is how Yamato found herself near the water treatment center on the edge of Vermillion City. The dam overlooked the treatment center, not a huge dam, but large enough. From the bridge she watched, the tangle of trees and greenery hiding most of her unless someone happened to be looking directly at her, which aside from her partner, this proved doubtful. Holding a pair of binoculars, she studied the windows of the old, stone building below.
This was for more private business than for the war between Team Galactica and Team Rocket, but Yamato knew that they would not be wasting their time here if Team Galactica had not been seen snooping around.
It was not the treatment center that they wanted so much as the outpost. When workers were not around, not that it needed much staff anyway, Team Rocket could easily use it as a base to overlook the specialized water pokémon center, where the stronger or more aggressive water pokémon such as garydos would be taken in for the best quality care. With the river just behind it and the ocean not far away the location was perfect for the pokémon center. No doubt, Team Galactica thought it perfect as well, but Team Rocket beat them to it.
Just now Yamato's partner was working there. It would have been suspicious if they had both applied at the same time, Yamato knew, with the size of the staff at the water treatment center. Together they decided on her partner being younger, more innocent looking, and just all around looking to be more likely to be the type of person who would even want a job there, should be the one to go.
Besides, Yamato preferred her post as the watchful eye at the moment anyway. She did not like her partner. They got along well enough to work without getting into conflict, but Yamato at times despised him. For no reason really. She just found him naïve and annoying. His eagerness sometimes unnerved her, but Athena had long since decided that although she would keep the male to female partners, she preferred there to also be one older than the other to mentor the younger, and to keep unprofessional relationships out of the field.
All other workers could be seen leaving for lunch, but her partner remained behind. The trap would be set behind their very backs. Team Rocket had developed a drug that although would do little harm to humans would put water pokémon into a drowsy state. The Pokémon Center below only housed water pokémon, and with all their pokémon asleep, they would be defenseless in a Team Rocket raid.
"Almost set," she whispered as she watched the silhouette of her partner through the window of the water treatment center.
He would put the drug in the water. The water would go straight to the Pokémon Center. The Pokémon Center would then be ripe for the taking.
"Just don't do anything stupid", she muttered to her partner as if he stood beside her. "Stay on track, and don't let anyone—"
"Sneak up on you?" suggested a voice.
Yamato let out a gasp of surprise and spun around.
Two identically dressed and styled Team Galactica agents stood directly behind her. Although one female and one male as most team agents, like most Team Galactica agents even their hair had to be the same length and dyed the same crisp blue/green.
It had been the male who had spoken first, and now the female said, "Surprised?"
"So how much do you think you're worth to Team Rocket as ransom?" asked the male agent.
"Or do we just throw you over the bridge right now?" asked the female.
"Oh, no you don't!" hissed Yamato, and snatching a pokéball from her belt she threw it onto the ground and released, well she almost released houndour (now a houndoom and not the same houndour she had owned before, for not one of her old pokémon had been found after the end of Old Team Rocket), but remembering the water, she released vaporeon, prematurely evolved perhaps, but she still fought well.
The water fox readied herself for action as the other agents released theirs. They had come prepared however. One had a pikachu and the other a tropius.
"Vaporeon!" cried Yamato, hoping that she could at least do enough damage or even distraction to get away. "Take down!"
All her other attacks were water based.
Yamato should have grabbed her last pokémon, a flaffy, but she did not have the chance now.
"Tropius, use leaf tornado!" cried the male agent.
"And, Pikachu, thunder!" cried the female agent.
The pokémon obeyed, and although the take down had hit tropius, both Galactica pokémon also attacked vaporeon. She was down in a moment.
"Houndoom, Flaffy!"
Yamato released both at once, but Team Galactica followed her example and both released a new pokémon of their own.
"Fire spin!" shouted Yamato to houndoom. "Thunder!" she ordered of flaffy, and she dove past the agents. Or at least she tried to. With one on either side, she had to pass one to get off the bridge. She tried the male agent, but he grabbed her by the arm in her leap to safety. She landed flat on her back against the sharp metal grating that was the bottom of the bridge.
"Oh …" she groaned.
While she was down, the female agent snatched Yamato's communicator from her belt but had not gone far before Yamato snatched her by the wrist causing her to drop it. It rolled for the edge of the bridge, but just before it fell through the cracks to the bay, Yamato snatched it, and leapt to her feet, doing her best to ignore the pain in her spine.
At least all pokémon and both agents were on one side of her now, and she could return her pokémon past them and dart in the opposite direction to escape or at least get better ground and call her partner as backup. She returned her pokémon and was just turning to follow her plan, when she saw two more Team Galactica agents. She was surrounded! It would be best to surrender. She could escape later, but if they drugged her, they could get valuable information about Team Rocket from her. That risk, Yamato would not take.
Climbing up the side of the bridge, she would have leapt right down the dam and into the water below, but the enemy agents grabbed her back. A leach seed was sent out to her. That nasty attack bad enough to pokémon was even worse to humans. Draining her energy in painful shocks, she collapsed onto the ground, shaking miserably and screaming with rage and pain.
In one last desperate effort, however, she cut the nasty vines surrounding her on the sharp metal points on the rusting bridge. Yamato freed herself, but the throbbing pain and weakness could not be denied now. Her thoughts also had been muddled, and thinking only of escape and not whether she should risk what remained of her strength in what she was about to do, she leapt clear over the bridge and into the water with an almost inaudible splash against the booming roar of the dam.
The Team Galactica agents could only watch dumbfounded from the bridge, but they probably assumed that the Team Rocket agent would bring them no further trouble.
#
Our friendship was a strange one. I have to say that, not that I knew what friendship was by that point in my life.
Kojiro met me many times. I don't know what he told his wife. It was not as if I would have asked him, but I assumed she knew about it. He talked about her as if she knew; though honestly he did not talk about his family much. Just enough for me to see how in love he was with his family. That in itself would on occasion arouse envy, but usually our time focused on me and what I was doing more than on him.
The way he tried to help me fix my life was like an awkward teacher and I grew to teasing him with the title, Kojiro-sensei, which he did not particularly like, but which he rarely protested about it. I think he liked it just a little.
He would come to my house sometimes, but mostly we would eat out very businesslike. He usually insisted on paying for the meal, and I usually did not argue. Coming in very cheerful with a bag of visual aid, or whatever one may wish to call it. That weird little man would plop the bag beside him and pat it affectionately as if patting a puppy. I would roll my eyes. Then we would order lunch and the lesson, so to speak, would begin.
"So! The first thing like I said is to think better of yourself! Treat yourself like you're something to respect, and other people will too!" said Kojiro, but quickly added with the shake of his finger, "Not too overboard, though, that's not good either. Balance is the key!"
I put up with his eccentric manner and his eager expressions and excitable nature as best I could. He was like a jumpy, little phanpy. His childish happiness annoyed me more than his eccentricity. You would think he was still seventeen or younger the way his youth and vigor remained strong in him. For anyone who saw us, I am sure they assumed Kojiro at least ten years younger than me rather that one or two. I looked older than I was and Kojiro looked far younger. Although I had no mirror I could feel the contrast as if summer and winter sat across from each other.
Another day he said, "Treat others they way you want to be treated. Once you have confidence and respect for yourself then you can move on to respecting others!" He paused scratching his head a moment. "Of course the other way around can work too. I think."
His clichés annoyed me most of all.
"Honesty is the best policy."
This one caused the urge to throw him across the room, but I remained calm and only grunted, which he took as agreement.
"Think with optimism! Get into the habit of noticing the beauty around you. It's everywhere. In the flowers out the window here, in the way the restaurant food's been prepared so nicely for us, in the blueness of the sky, and even the beauty of the clouds when you can't see the sky! The gleam of the cars, the life of the other people passing by …"
Why I put up with him I can only say that besides the fact that he was somewhat amusing, something about his childlike joy I wished I had myself. I would not say much but would watch him. I watched him more than I listened to him, for more often than not he would end up babbling before the end of our session. He bounced, he laughed in his stupid nervous way, and he clasped his hands together like a five year old, yet still managed to keep some of the dignity of his age. I envied him. I hated myself for envying him, but I envied him, and although a lot came out of his mouth, nothing he said really explained to me how he had this inner peace that I could not have.
Maybe he had it more naturally than I did. Probably. No doubt he did.
But as I wondered about him that was when I found out why he kept his home life a secret and how could give me things and money so easily. In an attempt to better myself I had been on the lookout for better jobs, but I had not expected to see in the newspaper, "Help wanted at Niwa Estate."
I did a double take, and yes, I could not believe what I read, but it definitely said "Niwa". It could have been another person named Niwa, but I doubted it even as the thought passed through my mind. Everything made too much sense for it to be otherwise. His old pansy attitude as a Team Rocket agent, his ability to bring his life up again so easily, the way he could spend money so frivolously, everything!
I found the address. It was not much of a secret once I knew about it, and I went to see for myself the fantasy-sized beast dared to be called a house. It was the Taj Mahal as far as I was concerned and the last straw. I do not know how he reacted when I did not show up at our next lesson. I wanted nothing to do with him, and he did not try to find out why.
The rich, little playboy hypocrite who said that gain was not everything and other stupid things would be out of my life forever. I wanted to move to the far reaches of the Northern Regions to get away from him and his wife and everything to do with my old life or theirs.
#
Although I wanted nothing to do with Kojiro, some of his suggestions had somehow rubbed off on me, and taking time for a longer and more satisfying lunch away from the store was one of them. I carried my own bento with me out to a park not far from the water treatment facility. The roar of the dam could be heard from my bench, but I had my back to it and stared absently at the movements of farfetch'd bobbing up and down for their lunch and eyeing me with suspicion now and then or my lunch.
I think they expected me to feed them eventually as no doubt many people did, but I had no intention of doing any such thing. Lifting a rice ball I shoved into my mouth as a sign that I did not feel like sharing. The farfetch'd looked annoyed, but the river must have had enough food to satisfy them. Farfetch'd could be exasperating pests at times. I had to consider myself fortunate.
After lunch and a thermos of tea, I meandered across the street to the dam near the water treatment building. Something about watching the power and hearing the deafening roar of thundering water brings a sort of comfort to the eyes. Interesting, since if a person fell down it he or she would most likely be crushed by the weight of it and drown, especially in a dam like this. That was the morbid thought that passed through my mind as I looked out over the fence that blocked the dam off and let myself be entranced by the continuous white raw energy pouring down as flat as a sheet over the wall behind it.
A sound penetrated over the roar.
Spinning around, I saw that someone had just slammed open the door of the building, and he looked quite frantic. I could not make out what he said, but he pointed to a few other men who had been finishing up their lunches, and they all came hurriedly to investigate. The strong curiosity to see what had happened for myself surged through my mind, but I did not have to go far to see that something more blamable than a leakage had happened at the treatment center. A window had been broken, a wall singed. I could only imagine what the inside looked like, but I would have to continue imagining it.
The words of the judge came back to me that if I ever committed another major crime …
Well, I had not committed a crime, but I could certainly be picked out as a suspicious character at the scene of one. Would I take that risk? Not a chance. I sped across the mesh bridge and leapt into the small wood on the other side. Tripping over a root, I caught myself on the tree it belonged to and did not stop running again until I came to the slope. Gentle falls made their way down to some Pokémon Center I had never seen before.
Vermillion City had more than one?
What did it need another one for? I wondered.
I shook my head, but did not think on it long, for I saw some strange black creature stuck on the edge of a pool between those many, little falls. Wait, no! It was not a creature, I soon found out. It was a human. I could see the hair. Cherry blond. The color Yamato had always dyed it. I knew that shade of blond anywhere. In fact, the pigtails too reminded me of Yamato. I wondered if it could be possible that …
Darting down the slope, I at once caused a small avalanche of rocks to fall ahead of me. I caught myself again from tumbling after them, but I stumbled backwards enough times that I had to slide down with my hands carefully holding any nearby branches to as not to go too fast.
A few feet away from the form, I had lost all doubt about who this person could be. It was Yamato. Her hair looked exactly the same as the last time I had seen her, exactly the same as the first time we decided to play into Rocket ethos and show them just how much we could flow as partners by making our bangs identical, and all the times in between.
She had never changed it. Her face could not be seen distinctly, and at first I had to wonder if she was dead. Swooping down beside her, I put my finger to her neck and felt satisfied with the pulse that met my finger, yet looking closer at her body, she did not look at all good.
I had not taken one sick day since I started working, but I thought that now I would be needing at least two.
#
"Kosaburo?"
That she recognized me so quickly surprised me. It surprised me also that she got my name right even though it should not have. It was a paranoia that would forever hang over me. As far as recognizing me period however, I must have looked nothing like I had the last time we had met. The voice may have given me away as I had chased the little nyaasu away from sleeping next to her on my bed where I had set her just before she woke up.
She studied me a moment with obvious effort, and then closing her eyes painfully, she moaned, "I must be dreaming."
"Yamato," I said in a stern tone. "You're seriously injured. I brought you in. You're anything but dreaming."
"But …" Yamato started as she attempted to lift her head up.
A terrible groan escaped her, and she fell back down in defeat. I could not help the pity I felt for her, even though part of me wanted to stay angry with her and to say it served her right. The energy for such anger however had long since left me. I was not quite forty yet, but I had done it to myself. Even the youngest and strongest of us can only take feeling of rage and hurt for so long before it begins to wear one down (or drive one completely off the deep end).
"Just rest," I said, standing still and away from the bed as I stared down at her writhing under the light blanket I had placed over her. "You'll be safe here. I won't call the police, and the hospital won't press information from you."
Yamato only moaned again.
"Why?" Yamato finally asked.
I did not answer.
All her wounds had been taken care of in the best way I knew. Team Rocket agents had been given strict courses on first aid and then some. It was important for keeping agents, I suppose, not that the Rocket itself had ever cared much about the team members.
With nothing further to do for now, nudging the nyaasu with my foot to come with me and leave my X-partner be, I withdrew from the room and closed the door behind me.
#
I had never claimed to be the greatest cook, but I knew how not to over spice. Unless professionals at restaurants were mixing up the concoctions, I liked my food plain. Too many mistakes had been made with too many stupid agents for me to want any food made by people not taught how to cook properly. When Yamato complained that her soup was too tasteless, I could only roll my eyes, but I think also that she just felt the need to complain without bringing attention to what really bothered her: her wounds, her pride, and her loyalty to a ninja clan who had no idea where she was at the moment.
"Why did you rescue me?" Yamato asked again after a moment of staring wistfully out the crack of waning twilight between the curtains.
I lowered my head, and still did not have a strong urge to answer. A long pause ensued and when she did not press, I wondered if she had fallen asleep again, but when I lifted my head her quite alert eyes locked directly onto mine and I found myself trapped in them.
Hurt as she was, even a large bruise on her chin and a cut on her lip, she still looked very much the same as she had when we were partners. Quite a contrast with me who could hardly be said to have much of shadow of resemblance, but her sameness felt to me unreal or unnatural. I don't know what she did or how she did it, for it could not be blamed on makeup as the river had washed most of it clean, but through her mask I saw that lines of age under her eyes, tightening her chin and clinging at her neck, but mostly I saw it in her eyes. Her eyes were not as optimistic nor sparked with wild energy as they once had been. The optimism had turned to cold reality, her energy to hard pride, and there was a weariness that had dulled the spark at the edge of her eyes, but only a little.
I think she saw in my eyes one thin the same as I saw in hers. I have no claim on being greatly poetic, but I think that that was the most poetic moment in my life and not in a good way either. In those violet orbs I saw the life we once had. The strength I had felt, the confidence, the simplicity. I saw how easy it had been to laugh at the world then, and how failures though irritating had been brushed aside for a new mission to begin. Images of stupid kids who got lucky, and pokémon that just barely got away flew through my mind. We even had a few successes for a while … then I remembered the keva.
I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away with a growl.
Yamato slowly turned away as well.
It was not something we wanted to really remember.
That probably explains why I asked so fast I had hardly thought it before it escaped me: "How did you get into that mess?"
With a roll of her eyes she turned back to me. A look very familiar to me crossed her face which told of annoyance but of not feeling it worth arguing about.
"I jumped in," she said simply.
I could not help the thought of suicide from passing through my mind.
"Why?" I demanded.
"I was trying to escape enemy agents," Yamato retorted. "I would not risk Team Rocket secrets falling into the hands of Team Galactica."
"Team Galactica?" I spat. "Yamato. I'm surprised at you. A Team Rocket agent could take out an agent of Galactica any day. Even Gingie could have taken two or three of them out handily."
Yamato sighed, rubbing her temple with further irritation.
"They're not what they used to be, believe me," she muttered. "The little twits are like a horde of beedrill, and we are doing all we can to banish them from Kanto back to Sinnoh where they can rot."
"I see," I muttered in return.
"Not really," she half shrugged, and she relaxed in her pillow again and looked very thoughtful for a few minutes before she said, "I want to contact Team Rocket."
"I don't want to be involved with Team Rocket," I reminded her. "I rescued you, but I don't want a hundred Rocketers poking around here forever after, understand?"
Then I remembered that I had been planning to move up to the Northern Region, and being hounded by Team Rocket would be a good enough excuse to leave as any.
I shook my head.
She closed her eyes and breathed heavily; though all her breaths were a bit heavier than they should have been considering how she lay in bed, but I did not think much of it at the time, and her single breath here was only an expression of her disappointment. A typical pout even formed on her lower lip.
"Hai," she said and paused before adding for her cause, "It would not be an official call. It would be to my husband."
I could not help the surge of disappointment that struck through me at that phrase. I had never expressed or barely thought of marrying Yamato, but the idea of her marrying someone else for some reason made me feel betrayed. Yet I managed to hold down the rage.
"Won't he tell the rest of Team Rocket?" I asked honestly enough.
"Maybe," she admitted. "But they will think I'm dead or captured. I don't want them starting a full out gang war because of me. So far there's been no killing in the Galactica/ Rocket conflict, and I want it to stay that way."
"I don't want to get involved with Team Rocket," I told her again. "If their smart, they'll try to find you before they go running wild like barbarians."
She glared at me a moment, and then she turned away.
"Fine," she murmured and lay her head back down.
#
I slept on the couch that night and woke with a nyaasu sleeping right on my face.
"Get off," I grumbled, pushing him off, but I let him stay nearby and watch me curiously.
He knew there was something wrong. I was not much for petting, but I patted his head then rather absently, before I rose to my feet. I had slept in my clothes and the kitchen had been left a mess from the soup I had scraped together last evening. Ignoring it all, I just took a quick shower, because I had forgotten to take one at night before I fell asleep. I put my clothes back on from the day before, and then I went to check on Yamato.
Asleep in the bed, she looked paler and sicker than before. Her breathing sounded strained and hoarse, and her face was wet with sweat.
"Nya?" asked the nyaasu suddenly at my feet.
Ignoring the cat, I went to the kitchen to get some herbal tea, and some medicine that may help her. Even as I brought these things to her, I knew that she was worse than I had the ability to support. The doctor was still out of the question. Musashi and Kojiro's betrayal in calling the police had never left me, and now I promised myself not to make the same move as they had.
Self righteous? Maybe, but I told myself that Yamato would have it no other way.
Still, I had to call somebody, but the only person I knew who could be even the slightest bit trusted with Team Rocket business was—
#
"Kojiro."
"Well, you aren't explaining this very well," said Kojiro with great indigence. "It's been, I don't know, three months maybe since I last heard from you and now your acting all mysterious. What am I supposed to think?"
"This has nothing to do with that," I retorted. "Besides you're the one who was being all mysterious about your great and mighty family estate."
Awkward pause.
"I—!" Kojiro squeaked and then he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to think …"
"Well, I did think," I said.
"I know," he replied sullenly.
"It'll be under the bridge," I told him. "Just as soon as you get over here and help me, and I won't ask you for another favor ever again, and no, I can't tell you before you get here, because I don't want anyone else involved."
"I'm not keeping secrets from Musashi," Kojiro said, "especially not like this."
"I know," I said.
"She won't like your mysteriousness either," he warned.
"Tell her I won't let either of you in if she comes too."
"Well, why not?" Kojiro demanded.
"Because," I said running my fingers through my hair angrily. "Because it has to do with … Yamato." I whispered the name barely loud enough for Kojiro to hear, and after a shifty pause in which I wondered if he still had not heard it, he let out a heavy sigh.
"Okay, but I still don't like," he said.
"I know. Neither do I."
"Musashi won't like it either," Kojiro reminded me.
"Probably not," I admitted.
"Oh … I can't promise anything, but if I'm there, I'll be there in a half hour maybe, okay? And, Kosaburo, I'm sorry about not telling you about the estate thing. It's just—"
I clicked him off.
I was not in the mood. I rarely was. I only had to recall him again to tell him to bring as many decent medical supplies as his estate had to offer. His further lack of enthusiasm hardly surprised me, but again I did not let him explain himself before I clicked off again.
#
When I returned to Yamato, she was fully awake and told me she heard me talking on the phone. Luckily she did not know I had been talking to Kojiro, but she did not press the "who" so much as the "what" I had been talking about.
I slumped down on the stool beside the bed.
"Help," I told her. "Someone that can be trusted, and who won't call the police on you is coming to help."
"Are you sure?" she croaked.
"He won't do anything I don't want him to, and if he does, you won't believe how much trouble he'll be in," I told her.
Yamato closed her eyes wearily, and she looked so frail and weak that I had to look away.
"Arigato," she whispered.
I could not keep my eyes away from a phrase like that, especially with the sincerity with which she spoke it. My surprise must have been evident, for she smiled as weak as it was, and just a touch of wryness hung about her mouth.
"Well!" I said quickly. "It's not like I could have just let you die there! I don't hate you."
"I thought you had never forgiven me," said Yamato; that guilt I had seen when she invited me to join New Team Rocket returned to her eyes.
"I didn't," I admitted.
"And now?" she asked.
Oh, what else could I say to the poor, miserable woman?
"There's no reason for me to keep that grudge against you anymore," I said. "We were both different people then." I could not help but mutter: "for the better or not we were different."
She struggled to resituate herself on her pillow before she said in a manner gentler and warmer than I had ever thought her cold coo capable of, "Yes, we were different."
Her whole face softened as she looked very deeply into my face, searching for something, I could not guess what, but I doubted it was anything she would find. I don't think anyone had ever in all my life stared at me as she had then, and I just stared stupidly in return to her until she said, "Oh, Kosaburo."
"What?" I asked, my throat dry and my voice shallow.
"Seeing you again, I … I … it makes me never want to leave you again," she said.
"You're sick," I told her, my senses for a moment returning. "You're not in your right mind."
"When I get well," she said as if she did not know what I meant by the phrase, "would it be out of the question for us to just elope away. You and me. I mean it." Her hand slowly stretched out for mine, and despite my words, I allowed her to grasp it. "Seeing you again makes everything clear again. I should never have abandoned you."
"What about your husband?" I asked even though, I was falling into the trap she had made for herself. I could feel my heart going out to her and being enchanted by her words in spite of myself.
She cursed her husband and told me that her old husband had been killed in an accident and her new one was nothing to boast about.
I felt sickly satisfied by her remark.
And she went on.
"Don't you remember us?" she asked.
"I've tried not to," I admitted.
"But ever since I left you," she said, his voice so frail and yet so determined, "You've been haunting me. Always at the back of my mind. When I married the first time, you were there on our honeymoon. I loved him, I thought, but I did not forget you. My second husband I married made me think of you more. Not because he reminds me of you. When I got my new partner, you can't believe how many times I wished it would be you. Your cool confidence, your skill, your quick thinking." She laughed sadly. "Even when you lost your temper about—"
My free hand stopped her statement dead as I held it front of her.
"Gomen," she said sheepishly.
I just shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. The uncontrollable scowl had grown, and I smoothed it out the best I could as I returned to her.
"I just know, I know, that we were meant to be," said Yamato. "That's why we were put together again. You feel that, don't you? It's like it was destiny. Please, Kosaburo. When I get well let me take you away. You look so awful here in this little hovel. Let me take you far away from here. Somewhere where no one will ever find us."
I did not even realize I drew closer to her until we were inches away. I was not sure I heard her so much as felt her. It was as if she imparted to me her longing, and it grew as strong in me as in her. The longing for a hope that had never been but could be, a life of belonging that only once half existed within the strong confines of Team Rocket, but which could be set loose now, a life where we would be understood by only each other, that was what she was offering me. A life with someone I could touch and not hold back, and though I may not have been fully conscious of my slowly drawing to her face, I realized that as she squeezed my hand tighter that I had not touched another human being with that hand since the half felt handshake of my acceptance into my sales' clerk position three or so years ago now, and Kojiro pulling me out of the ditch did not count.
And as for my hovel? I had no loyalty to this life I lived now. Everything could be dropped in an instant, and I would be lost in the paradise of the Orange Islands with a woman who had loved me all this time, and I had not known it, but so far I could not find the words to answer. The first time I had gazed into her eyes when she arrived may have been the most poetic moment in my life to that date, but this left that moment far behind, and I was lost in this one, lost in her dream, that perfectly painted picture, and I burned for it, ached for, grinded my teeth for it.
"Kosaburo?" she asked, her beautiful eyes pleading so pitifully, and despite how I cynically thought in the past that her makeup was the only thing that made her beautiful, almost all her makeup had washed out in her fall down the river. She truly was beautiful even in this state, as beautiful as the life she offered me.
"I want that," I told her, swallowing hard, and surprising myself by the sound of my own voice. "I really do, Yamato."