"TSUKI!" Crystal exclaimed, remembering exactly who and her friends were. Crystal looked up at Tsuki's Gardevoir "I see Hope is doing well," Crystal smiled up at her and she half smiled back "… or not," Crystal whispered as her smiled faded

Tsuki stepped in front of Crystal, "You've certainly grown" she said motioning how they were now eye level, growing more than a head.

"Yup!" Crystal motioned her chin up with pride.

Cyndaquil climbed up onto Crystals head and copied her actions, earning a soft smile from Gardevoir. Eevee then came up and climbed onto her other shoulder and waved at them with a single paw.

"You didn't just start your journey, did you?" Tsuki smiled as she waved back at Eevee

"Actually we just did!" Crystal pointed to Jay, walking up to them.

Tsuki gave Crystal an obviously puzzled look and come closer to Crystals ear as she slouched down with her

"Where's james..?" she whispered

Crystal laughed as she stood back up "We're on our way to meet him! This is Jayson," she signalled over to him beside her.

"Hello there" Jay awkwardly waved at the sudden announcement of his name. The wind softly blew against his long brown hair, his white open button up swaying with the wind.

"I'm Tsuki! A friend of Crystals," She turned her body to him, "We met about three years ago when I visited her school and we got in lots of trouble together" she winked at Crystal. Jay shot a disbelieving look at her.

Crystal laughed, "It's actually true"

"That I'm not surprised at, you always get yourself into loads of trouble" he glared at her jokingly, "but why is it you visited her school?"

Her other friend along with her came up and introduced himself as Hiro. "Well you see, I was her teachers son and that year Tsuki won the Johto League; the Silver Conference, so my dad asked if we could visit them and teach them about Pokémon for little while"

"That sounds really cool!" Jay exclaimed at them "Our school here in Kanto never did anything like that" he grumbled "… none of our teachers were cool. Huh. So you have tons of experience as a trainer" he stated.

"Hiro and I have been at it for a few years now, yeah," Tsuki laughed

After talking for a little while longer, the group realized they had a few more days on the ship to cause as much trouble as her and Crystal got in years ago. They decided to meet at the party in the ships main recreational area where a live band would be playing, dancing, and drinks to be served.

..

Crystal twirled around in the only dress she brought with her. It was red and black and perfectly swirled around her body reminding her of her hidden ability but also hugging her body to show off her curves. Her long black hair was also curly at the tips hanging down her spine.

"How does this look, guys?" she smiled down at her two Pokémon and they smiled up at her "cynda!" "eeee!" they cried, excitedly

Crystal giggled a thank you to them and they jumped on her opposing shoulders as she walked out of the bathroom to face Jay doing up his vest and tie in front of the bedroom mirror. He turned around to face her and questioned, "too much?" with a worried look

"I think it's appropriate and very pretty" she smiled at him and twirled "How about me?" He finally took notice to her fitted and flow-ey dress

A slight blush crept to his cheeks as he looked back at the mirror to fix his shirt "you look beautiful, as always" he put Charmeleon's pokeball in his pocket and headed to the door "ready?-um. Are they going to be on your shoulders all night?" he froze his hand on the door knob

"Huh?" she suddenly realized that Cyndaquil and Eevee were still on her shoulder "Oh. Um. Should they not be?"

"Well. They may get lost if you get separated... And its a party"

They jumped off her shoulder and Cyndaquil seemed like the only tired one so she told him to sleep in his pokeball while Eevee and her go.

she looked up at Jay, "I feel safer with a Pokémon with me so I'll keep Eevee around," Eevee jumped back on her shoulder and nuzzled into her cheek.

"Alright" Jay sighed, "let's go then".

Eevee's coat reflected the dimmed evening lights of the ship as they walked through hallways. The two teens earned weird stares and cute winks from passengers, assuming they were a couple. After the years of knowing Jay, Crystal never grew feelings for him as she was always thinking about James and how she left him behind. But Jay has always found some place in his heart for Crystal, showing him her strong natured attitude and beliefs, Jay fell for fer. He was certainly cute enough for Crystal to recoognize and his personality was similar to her but perhaps if James wasn't so deeply rooted in her mind, she may have reciprocated his feelings.

James and Crystal haven't spoken regularly over the past few years but whenever they could they would always mail the other and hope. The one thing they always went back to talking about was meeting again and starting their journey together; not wanting to abandon someone that they were so close to. The last few days Crystal spent with James, he confessed to her how important to him she was and how much he deeply cared for her and loved her. Crystal figured three years a part would have settled his feelings and made them fade. This made her force herself to try and stop loving him and missing him, and convinced herself that she did.

She didn't.

...

"… don't you think so Crystal?" Jay nudged her shoulder as they approached the doors to the party

She got startled after being interrupted from her thought and nearly tripped. "-what?" she caught herself

"Woah are you okay?" He grabbed her arm and helped her regain her balance. Eevee fell on the ground looking up at her as she was staring blankly down at her. Crystal felt her eye water and her temperature rise for a reason she coulldn't pinpoint so she decided to forget about it.

Eevee jumped into her arms and knocked her out of her trance and started licking her cheeks, knowing she wouldn't want anyone to see her tears. The moment Crystal realized what was going on, she hugged Eevee and thanked her as she returned to her previous position on Crystals shoulder.

"You alright?" Jay's green eyes filled with concern. In the corner of her eye she could see more and more people walk through the big doors, processing the loud music coming from them.

"Oh. Yeah I think I'm fine. Let's go have some fun!" She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind her as she ran through the doors, excited

The room was bigger than she thought it would be and certainly had more people than she thought. In one corner there were singers, in another there was a very large bar and the other two corners looked like they had the most dancing going on; closing in on the stage with the singers.

"Have you ever been to a party before?" she asked Jay. "I haven't."

"Plenty of times actually, and I say we start with getting some drinks" He led her to the bar and pushed her into a seat.

Jay ordered her a drink and was eager to start dancing with some other people, the music being his type, completely upbeat and obnoxious. It didn't take long for the drink to get to slightly get to Crystals head, Jay saying that that was the point. Jay noticed something on her but let his eagerness get to him after having a couple of drinks. He told Eevee to look after Crystal as he joined the group of dancers.

After a while of Crystal sipping her rum, the bar tender gave her a colourful drink and pointed to the boy coming to sit beside her, a Pikachu close to his feet. She turned towards him and noticed his own black hair and brown eyes. He looked the oddest bit familiar to her. She figured the drinks were why she couldn't recognize him. She quickly decided she liked the fruit mix and thanked the guy beside her.

"My pleasure," He sat, smiling at her, leaning on an arm. She pretended not to notice him staring. He laughed when she didn't do anything back but drink.

She decided to look back at him and try at conversation, "That's a cute Pikachu," The Pikachu jumped into his lap, leaning into his stomach playfully

His cute Pokemon made him trustworthy, according to Crystal. He had a young honest face. She judged him to be about her age, if not older. His black hair framed his face nicely around his ears and behind his head as his red tie hung low on top of his white dress shirt.

"Pika!" Pikachu smiled at Crystal.

"Same to your Eevee," They boy smiled at the Eevee on the bar, although Eevee was softly growling at him. "Did you come here by yourself?" He asked as he called the bar tender.

"Nah I came with a friend but he's probably dancing with some girls or something," Crystal mumbled into the drink

"So I assume you two just came as friends?" He face sort of lit up as he got handed his drink

"Yupp. He's nice and all but I'm looking forward to meeting my friend I'm uh meeting in the um," she starred into her drink for a moment and leaned on her arm, tiredly, as her head waved, "In Johto"

"Hey are you alright?" His arm went for her shoulder but Eevee barked at him so he backed off, "Did you have anything to drink before this?"

"Yeah," she laughed "Why he left. That's why. To dance. Um. That's why he left me here. Or um," she couldn't find the words to explain herself

"That's sort of a dick move" He took her drink away from her and gave it to the bar tender "If I knew I wouldn't have got you anything but then again that's my fault for mistakenly assuming you didn't drink anything when you were already at a bar," he said awkwardly, half to himself, half to Crystal

Eevee's face faltered and put some hope in the next face she gave him. Crystals temperature started to rise again and she knew she was slowly getting warmer after drinking so much, or maybe some other reason. He ran his hand through his hair, with a troubled expression looking through the room.

"What does your friend look like?"

"oh we were gonna meet people here. One has gardevoor"

His eyes widened "Gardevoir?" he repeated, surprised..

"I need to find them," She started to get off her seat but stumbled after losing her footing only to be caught by this stranger and placed back on the chair before she could fight back. "wHAT are you going?!"

"Crystal," He sternly looked into her eyes, "I'll find your friends, hold on" He took a couple steps away from her and scanned the room carefully.

"You know my name" She whispered into her hand, barely audible in the loud room.

"Of course I do, just surprised you don't know mine" he laughed as he kept scanning.

Eevee jumped into her lap and nuzzled her cheek with both of there eyes closed. Eevee was suddenly startled at Crystals temperature. "Eee?!" she looked taken back and jumped to the bar

The boy took notice, walking up to her and felt her forehead himself, not earning any protest this time. She heard him mumble something about… yuki? Sooki? She started to lose her breath. She couldn't tell how long she stayed sitting there until she hear a higher voice calling her name, getting louder and louder.

"Hey" She pulled Crystals chin up to look at her. She opened her eyes to look into light blue eyes. High voice. "You're turning red,"

Crystal mumbled an agreement before her head softly and slowly fell into her shoulder.