Nine: Slice of Life

The next couple of weeks flew by as the students settled into their routines. Elaina hung out with Nemona on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Arven on Wednesday, and spent Friday night with Penny, though Penny elected to slow their shenanigans to an absolute crawl. The classes weren't too awful either, save for ABS. Elaina and Nemona were hunched over their lecture notes. "How in the fuck do you quantify how skilled a Pokémon is in its speed stat?" Nemona grumbled as she flipped the page.

"Those values were determined experimentally; you have to memorize them." Elaina muttered sadly. "There's a chart in the textbook." Nemona sobbed sarcastically as she pulled the textbook out of her bag. "There are four hundred Pokémon native to Paldea. How are we going to memorize them all." Elaina thought for a second, then smirked. "Mr. Vaughn did say that this was reference material, so I say we learn the ones we learn by training."

"I fucking hope so. I don't need to worry about the fact that battling a zubat makes the Pokémon 0.48% faster at its apex." Nemona's phone buzzed. "Arven's downstairs. I'm going to go grab him." Nemona stood and headed out. Elaina put in her headphones and hit shuffle. The melody that played reminded her of Penny. /

…it must have been the way you kissed me
I fell in love when I saw you standing there.
It must have been the way,
today was a fairy tale.

After a few minutes Nemona and Arven walked into the room, and Elaina pulled her headphones out of her ears. "'Sup, Arven?" Was Elaina's simple greeting as Arven dropped to a seated position and took his notebook from his bag.

"What the hell is Swords Dance for?" Arven scratched his head as he flipped through his lecture notes. "I get it in theory, it makes your Pokémon hit harder, but I don't understand why you'd take a hit from an opponent to make your attacks hit a bit harder." Elaina snatched Arven's notebook.

"Swords dance boosts two stages, not just one." She handed the man his notebook back as he scratched out one of his notes. Elaina returned to her ABS notes and to Nemona, "The real bitch is each Pokémon's individual strengths and weaknesses. I shudder at the dark age Mr. Vaughn talked about where there were like ten people in the world who could tell them to you." She sat her notebook back down. "Arceus bless the programmer who built the Judge function."/

"Wait is that what that thing does?" Arven sighed. "I'm kinda glad I didn't place into ABS after hearing you two go back and forth." He laid back on his hands and smiled. "It's nice having friends this time around, last year was lonely." The girls looked up from their discussion on the merits of Hyper Training to nod along.

"Yeah, and I'm guessing it's not just because you get to study with two or three gorgeous women." Elaina ribbed playfully. Arven chuckled at that statement before responding with a hearty, "Yeah, that's a decent bonus I'll admit, but I'm more interested in your brains than your tits, 'Layna, especially since you seem to be making eyes with Penny every Friday night." Elaina blushed and looked to Nemona for support.

"I hear the music you play when she's over, don't look at me like I'm not going to rib you for playing sapphic love songs." She chuckled as Elaina's face got redder. "Besides, literally the whole school knows you're only into pussy."

"Look, just because I lead the Rainbow Flag Brigade doesn't mean everyone knows I'm gay. Oh, wait." Elaina joked. Nemona raised an eyebrow at her friend, then turned to Arven. "Did you do the assignment in Bio 203? The one with the different Pokémon type interactions?" Arven pulled it out of his bag and handed it to Nemona. "Yeah, it was simpler when you applied the Pokémon's Tera Type." Arven said as Nemona looked over the page.

"Shit on a Sunkern." She shouted as she pulled the worksheet from her bag. "Between this class and Mr. Vaughn's practical on Wednesday I've been fucking swamped. By Giratina's altered wings I need to get laid." She stood. "I think I'm gonna bounce, Allie's out with her boyfriend so I'm going to take advantage of being alone in the room. Later, gators." She said the last part so delightfully cringey that the other two both laughed.

"Enjoy yourself, Nemona." Arven chuckled as Nemona walked through the bathroom door and back to her side of the suite. Arven turned to Elaina. "Can I get supervision as I bounce? I have a tutoring session for culinary in like 15 minutes." Elaina stood up and led Arven out of Dragontongue. She pulled Rotom from her pocket to check the time. "6:30 on a Tuesday night, guess there's only one thing to do." She tapped Penny's contact photo and held the phone to her ear.

"H-hello?" Penny sounded distracted, as if she were far away mentally. Elaina noted the peculiarity but pressed on. "Hey, Penny. You want to hang out?" Elaina asked the girl on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, but can you come to Dojo? I'm not good to leave my room right now and I can't be alone." Elaina responded with a cute "I'll be there soon." And hung up. She left her room, locked her door, and made her way across campus to where Penny was waiting.

Hey, I'm outside. Elaina texted to Penny

Cool, I'll come down to get you. Penny responded. As she got to the door, though, something looked wrong. Penny's eyes were red, and she seemed to have a case of the sniffles. Her clothes were disheveled too. Elaina looked her over one more time. "Penny, are you ok?"

Penny's face darkened. "No, I'll tell you about it when we get to my room." Elaina swallowed her worry and followed Penny up the stairs and into her room. Penny sat down and tugged off her hoodie. There were blue lines drawn on her arms, and two stars drawn on each arm. "I have PTSD, 'Layna. Like, really bad. On nights when it gets so bad that I can't bear it, I take my markers and do this." Elaina simply nodded.

"I won't ask how you came by it." She said as she sat next to Penny. "Just know I'm here for you however I can be, ok?" Penny wrapped her arms around her.

"That's why I didn't want to get together when we met. I was too scared after what happened last time I was out with a girl." Elaina took Penny's hand and looked into her eyes. "And I hate it. I hate that my brain works like this. I hate that I can't just be happy and tell you I love you because I'm afraid I'll get hurt again." She pulled her hands free from Elaina's "Because I do. I love you, but I'm too fucking scared to be out and proud because it's only been a year since I lost Jessica!" Tears started to fall down Penny's face. "And you shouldn't have to skulk around in the closet to be with me. You're a bombshell out there demanding the world take you on. There wouldn't be a man out there who would dare try to force himself on you."

Elaina gasped. "Is that what happened?" Penny looked up with tears freely flowing down her cheeks and slowly nodded. Elaina's emotions were many and complex. Hurt, fear, grief, and rage all combined into one big cavalcade of calamity. She took both Penny's hands in hers and looked deep into her eyes. "I love you, Penny." Penny's tears began to flow harder as she pulled Elaina into a hug.

"I just want it to stop hurting. I don't want what happened with Jessica to happen to you too." Penny began to actively sob into Elaina's chest. "They damn-near killed her, 'Layna. They beat her down in front of me, then they knocked her out and…" Elaina hugged her tighter. Penny's next statement made Elaina's heart drop. "It got worse when her dad found out. Jessica is no longer with us." Elaina felt tears well up in her own eyes.

"Baby, it's alright. We'll figure out the world together." Elaina held Penny in her arms for what felt like hours until she finally was able to stop her tears. "I'm not leaving you alone, Penny." She wiped a tear from Penny's face. "It'll be you and me against the world, if you'll have me." Penny's face went ghost white, but she shook her fear from her mind and looked to Elaina.

"Yes, I'll be your girlfriend."