"Oh my word, you are just so cute. So cute! Hisoka." A sharp shoulder dug into Hisoka's ribs as Tori leaned into her friend. "Tell Meowth how cute it is."
Tori held the feline Pokémon upright against her chest, supporting its back feet with one arm and letting it hang its front feet over her other arm. When she turned to face him, the Meowth faced out at him too. Both of them blinked up expectantly.
"So cute."
"What?"
"SO CUTE. Meowth, you are so cute."
Meowth didn't react to Hisoka's compliment, but Tori smiled and hummed a few triumphant notes to herself.
Instead of following their up-til-today daily route, the pair opted for a narrower forest path that would keep them out of sight of Tori's family and staff. They walked at a casual pace, but one Bulbasaur couldn't maintain. Hisoka had recalled it to its Pokéball shortly after setting off.
Their path cut north from the school grounds, though the surrounding woods, then diagonal across the fields to the west of their small town.
Technically, the fields all belonged to Tori's family estate, their property butting right up to a wide creek several kilometers north of the main house. They planned to meet Aiden at a familiar site along the shore, far out of view and earshot. There at the water, Tori, Hisoka, and later Aiden too had spent summer afternoons splashing around, playing at primitive crafts, lounging on blankets with books and snacks... For tonight, it would be the perfect place to camp, and not too long a walk from where they would meet Samuel's team in the morning.
The surrounding land was lightly tended by landscaping staff, but otherwise left unused. Hisoka never understood why Tori's family cared to own so many acres and such a big house...and so many houses and so much stuff in each of them really...but he supposed when you had money like that, it was all you could do to keep spending it.
"Noisy tonight," Tori said after a lull, breaking Hisoka out of his thoughts.
"Hm?" Hisoka stood up straight, looking left and right over the waist-high grass. A few trees split the horizontal rays of the summer sun.- they would be setting up camp in the dark. He listened for a moment, but didn't hear anything especially loud. It was all the same chirps and rustles he heard every walk home.
Tori walked a few steps ahead of Hisoka, swaying along to her own tuneless humming. He'd followed her down this trail so many times, but always before dark, before Tori's curfew. Seeing her now in the last golden light of the day made him panic at first, reflexively concerned about returning her home in time...
But Tori didn't look worried. She was making happy noises, satisfied hmphs that he wasn't sure she was even aware of.
Hisoka didn't remember when he first started keeping track of Tori's habits. One day at school, he just found himself suddenly, intensely aware of everything about her. How she laid out her lunch on the table, and the order she liked to eat it in (dessert in the middle). The way little pieces of hair always stuck out from the top of her ponytail. Emotions that would twitch across her face when she sat in class daydreaming, and the way she always came back around to a small, sad smirk.
He watched her stride further ahead, eager to cover the last few meters to the campsite. Her long ponytail swung from one side of her bulging backpack around to the other with each step. She was chatting away, explaining the evening's plans to her Meowth, he assumed.
As he looked on, Tori froze mid-stride, looking alert. "Aiden?" she called out, then continued forward at a jog.
Hisoka picked up his pace. He caught up to Tori as she reached the dirt cliff above the creek. Below them was an empty sand beach. An ancient wood bench sat next to a flat-worn stump, relics of summer days past, but nothing, and no one, else.
"I thought I saw Aiden over here."
Hisoka looked around the area, squinting into the gathering shadows. He brought a hand up to his mouth. "Aiiiiden!"
Aiden wasn't the type to play pranks. He would answer if he heard them.
"My mistake, I guess!" Tori took another step forward, over the lip of the raised creek bed, and slid down the embankment on the heels of her boots. The momentum carried her forward a few steps at the base and she trotted it out nearly to the water's edge.
Hisoka slid down after her. He gave the area another quick search, but he couldn't see very far.
Tori knelt and gently placed Meowth on the ground. It pressed its front paws into the sand a few times, curious.
"Hey, Meowth?"
The small Pokémon looked up at its master.
"Let us know if you hear anything coming. Ok?"
"Mrrrp." Meowth tilted its tiny head, all oversized ears and bushy whiskers. It was a really cute Pokémon. Hisoka reached to his belt, suddenly reminded of Bulbasaur.
"Bulbasaur, come on out."
The waterside was lit for a moment by a white glow as the Pokémon emerged. It gave a cry of delight once solidified. Two sinewy vines unraveled from the base of its bulb and waved about in the air over its squat body. Hisoka took a step back.
"H-hey, we're here. Are you hungry?"
Bulbasaur gave a raspy croak, then let its wide mouth hang open. Hisoka looked down into its huge eyes, searching them for some spark of understanding.
"Let's go grab some firewood and then get started on dinner. Ok?" He took a couple steps, then looked back at the Pokémon. It hadn't moved.
It just stared at him, blinking, one eyelid slightly out of sync with the other.
"Bulbasaur? Buddy?" Hisoka patted his thigh. "C'mon!" He heard Tori giggling.
It took a few seconds of coaxing, but Bulbasaur started to waddle towards him. Hisoka cheered as it took its first few steps, and that encouraged it to pick up speed, charging up to Hisoka as enthusiastically as it charged up to his mother earlier. As Bulbasaur got close, Hisoka turned and trotted off, and Bulbasaur kept following.
When he found the right sticks for a fire, Hisoka showed them to Bulbasaur and encouraged the Pokémon to collect more. It took to the task cheerfully, snaking its vines through the undergrowth and reaching up into the sparse canopy to snap off dead branches. Arms and appendages full, the pair returned to the camp.
Tori had propped up a flashlight on a nearby rock. By its light, she had set the stump like a table with three settings and three cups of water. Hisoka picked one cup and drained it.
"Should we put up the canopy?" Tori asked from beyond the lighted circle. Hisoka looked up. The sky was clear of clouds and the stars were emerging.
"Nah. Doesn't look like rain tonight."
He set to work lighting the campfire. Bulbasaur was interested in the eye-level activity at first, but as the flames sprouted, it gave the fire a wide berth. Meowth, however, drew dangerously close out of curiosity, then settled into a loaf just beyond the flames.
No longer relying on the light from her flashlight, Tori grabbed it off the rock. She swung the beam out into the bushes and trees around their site. Creatures scattered, crunching twigs in the darkness. She turned off the light, but kept peering towards the horizon.
"Aiden should be here by now."
"Are you worried about him?" Hisoka meant the question as genuine, but realized it maybe didn't sound that way. "I mean, do you think we should go find him?"
Tori was shaking her head. "No. I'm sure he's fine...but I guess whatever Arden wanted to talk about was serious."
"Maybe our guy's getting fast-tracked into some ranger business." His suggestion brought Tori around. She joined Hisoka by the fireside.
"I hope so! He'd like that. ...But I wish he could be here too."
"Me too," Hisoka lied. He wasn't sure what was keeping Aiden, but he was enjoying the thrilling novelty of time and setting and private company.
Ever since Aiden had joined their class, Hisoka and Tori spent less and less time alone together. The three friends were, infamously, a unit. There were a few maddening weeks where Tori and Aiden sort-of-dated, but it fizzled out and their trio carried on as if it never happened. So Hisoka felt entitled to spend time with Tori now, to have her full attention. It warmed him more than the campfire. And anyway, they could all camp together some other time, after he and Tori returned from their trip. They would only be away for two weeks…
Two weeks away from home together. Hisoka glanced at Tori. Her cheeks and nose were rosy. The dancing light reflected in her eyes as she stared absentmindedly into the flames.
Two weeks would fly by.
Quietly, Hisoka put away the third table setting. He started to prepare the food.
