Flint knocked on the door, and a few moments later, Roark answered. He must have just gotten off work, because he was still wearing his high-visibility uniform, though he'd taken off the gloves and hardhat.

"Hey, come on in," he said, stepping aside to leave the doorway open. "I just made tea, if you want some."

"Thank you, that would be great." Flint didn't actually care much for tea, but accepting seemed the polite thing to do. The front door opened directly into Roark's modest living room, so he looked around the room for a moment before taking a seat on the couch.

Meanwhile, the young gym leader went around the corner, and Flint heard the clinking of mugs and the thud of cabinet doors, before he returned with two steaming cups. Roark handed one to him, and then sat down in a weathered armchair. His Cranidos wandered into the room and lay down at its trainer's feet, blinking sleepily.

"Thanks for agreeing to meet with me," the Elite Four member said. "I know my request came a bit out of the blue, and it's a very personal thing to talk about."

"It's no problem, really," the young miner answered. Frankly he had just been relieved when Flint had clarified that he wasn't calling about the Oreburgh Gym. "So what's bothering you?"

"Well, I have a friend I'm worried about. I think he might have depression, and I wanted to talk to someone who knew what it was like first-hand."

Roark watched the steam curl and twist in the air above his tea. "I'm not sure how much help I'll be, to be honest. No two cases are alike. If your friend does have depression, he still might not experience it the same way I have." He nibbled on his thumbnail. "And, of course, you'll need an actual doctor for any kind of diagnosis. A medical doctor, I mean, not a paleontologist." He offered a slight smile.

"I know," Flint said, nodding. "I just wanted to learn a little more before I actually, y'know, talk to him about it. I have a feeling he won't react well."

"Neither did I," the gym leader said. He paused to sip his tea, and continued. "I swore up and down nothing was wrong with me. Didn't stop Dad from dragging me to the doctor, and hey, what do you know, turns out the old man is right sometimes."

"Is that normal? Having other people notice something's wrong before you do, I mean?" He'd been intending to ask Roark how he'd first figured out that he had depression, but it sounded like that line of logic was shut down.

Roark smiled grimly. "Part of being mentally ill is insisting you're the sane one."

Flint drank his tea without even noticing its flavor, too lost in contemplation. After a moment, he said, "When you said Byron dragged you to a doctor…"

"Yeah, I meant it literally." He smirked. "He physically grabbed me by the arm and forced me to go to a psychiatrist."

But Flint just looked troubled. "That sounds a bit… drastic. What triggered that?"

The smile vanished from Roark's face instantly. "I… would prefer not…" He gulped, then sighed and fussed with his glasses. The Cranidos, sensing its trainer's distress, rose to its feet and put its head on his lap with a soft coo. "No, you have a good reason for asking. And maybe this'll help prevent your friend from getting that far." He looked Flint directly in the eyes. "But promise me you won't tell anybody about this, okay?"

"You have my word," Flint said, wondering what he was getting himself into.

"I… had an 'accident' with the equipment in the mines," Roark said quietly, staring down at his Cranidos and softly running his hand back and forth along its shiny blue dome. "It wasn't an accident. Dad figured it out."

There was a silence. "I… Wow. Roark, I had no idea."

"Neither did anybody else," he said with a mirthless smile. "I was very good at hiding it. The depression, I mean. Kinda hard to hide those injuries. Thank Arceus for modern medicine, I guess."

A cold feeling settled in Flint's gut. If Roark had been depressed enough to intentionally hurt himself and nobody but his father suspected a thing, then Volkner might be much worse off than he realized, too.

"Obviously you know your friend better than I do," the miner said, seemingly picking up on the Elite Four member's thoughts. "But I think the sooner you talk to him, the better. You never know how much farther someone can dig before they hit bedrock, so to speak. Maybe nothing's wrong after all, but on the other hand, maybe you'll stop him from doing something drastic."

They sipped their tea in silence for a few minutes while Flint processed the information. "Can I ask what brought this on?" the miner prompted gently.

"He's always been morose, but lately things have gotten out of control. He stops eating, goes through these bouts of sulking that just get worse and worse, stops talking to me sometimes… It's started causing problems with his job, too."

Roark nodded slightly as he listened. "Yeah, that sounds like depression to me."

Flint wanted to question why Volkner's condition had started deteriorating so suddenly, but he already knew the answer. It was because of his departure to join the Elite Four. Not directly, of course. But he realized now that Volkner had been relying on his stabilizing presence for all those years. Without Flint around to support him, he simply couldn't cope anymore.

"Alright," he said, slowly getting up. "I've made up my mind. If this keeps up, I'm going to talk to him about seeing a doctor. Thanks for the advice."

"That's probably a wise choice," Roark said. He stopped petting his Pokémon and put his cup down on the end table. "You're a good friend, Flint. I didn't have that kind of support, so believe me when I say Volkner is very lucky to have you."

Flint stared in surprise for a moment, then let out a dry laugh. "That obvious, huh?"

"I've had some suspicions for a while," the gym leader admitted. "Up, Cranidos. I need to see our visitor to the door."

It had, in fact, kept up. Volkner soon plunged right back into his depressed stupor and closed his gym again, although Flint had decided that when that young challenger came to the League castle (and it was certainly a matter of when, not if), he wouldn't mention it. He worried enough about Volkner's mental health issues; he didn't need to burden a promising young trainer with them too. Let the kid think the battle had helped.

Thankfully, this time the gym leader settled for simply staying home or sulking in the lighthouse instead of bringing down the power grid. So Flint was falsely given the impression that things weren't as bad this time around, right up until Volkner answered the door. His hair was scruffier than usual, his shoulders slumped, and his eyes were so terribly empty. Just from where he was standing on the doorstep, Flint could see that the house was a disaster.

"Yo, Volk," he finally managed to say. "You mind if I come in?"

"Yeah, sure. Sorry about the mess. I wasn't expecting company."

Flint bit his tongue. As he stepped inside and looked around, he immediately knew the mess was far beyond simply not having had a chance to tidy up. When he had arrived in Sunyshore, the position he'd intended to take was 'have you considered going to a doctor?'

Now he knew it was 'you need to go to a doctor.'

It wasn't going to be easy, and he knew it. It would be the toughest battle of their lives, in fact. But Flint vowed to himself, then and there: his fire would light the way forward and burn away the darkness in Volkner's heart, come hell or high water.