Hnghhhhh it is taking all my willpower not to publish these all at once because there's SO MUCH ON THE WAY and I'm SO EXCITED but for now we're doing gradual release and trying to be reasonable about the pacing and who knows? Maybe I'll have written more by the time I catch up to what I wrote in November :O

The plan leading up to my battle with Volkner was to head home for the weekend, fully take Sunday off of training, and then battle on Monday. Friday night after Dawn and I went over strategy, all the trainers I knew in Sunyshore met up to get dinner together.

We talked about pokemon training, but also about music and our favorite movies, and what our favorite subjects had been in school. Dawn and Emily Wu bonded over a girl group they both listened to. AJ Kaur and Lucas discussed dirt bikes. Ashley de Leon and I joked about our parents, Sean Obi and I talked about middle school band, Kyle Nguyen and I nerded out over physics.

And it was nice, it really was, to be surrounded by lovely people I could consider friends. They were all super great, and they'd all gone out of their way these past few weeks to help me wait for and then prep for Volkner. And still it felt like someone was missing.

It had been nearly a month and a half now. I'd done the math: that was almost a quarter of the time I'd known him. Could I even consider him someone I knew anymore? How long did it take to stop knowing the physical absence of a person?

How long to stop feeling it?

Ashley nudged my elbow. "You okay?"

I hesitated, then smiled. "Yeah, just zoned out for a sec there."

We were one of those annoying groups at restaurants who sit around talking long after the food is gone. At some point, I looked to the bar and spotted a fluffy red head of hair.

I was near the end of the table, so I was able to escape with just a couple words murmured to Ashley. Flint looked up as I approached. I caught his expression right before it shifted to something more upbeat.

"Oh, hey," he said, putting down his glass of ice and amber liquid.

"Hey. You okay?"

He shrugged. "I'll be fine. Just one of those nights."

"I feel that." I frowned. "I mean, I think I do. I don't know what you're going through, exactly, so it's hard to say for sure."

Flint chuckled and waved the bartender over. "Could we get a… you're probably not drinking age, are you?"

I shook my head.

"Whatever she wants, then," Flint said.

I wound up getting a soda. "What brings you away from your friends?" Flint asked, gesturing back at the table.

I thought about it. "Feeling lonely. Saw someone else feeling lonely. Figured you could relate."

"Who's it for you?" he said, taking a sip.

I faltered. "…A friend."

Flint gave me a skeptical smile.

"I don't know what he is," I confessed. "He was my friend. He was my travel partner. He was someone who helped me through the dark. Maybe I loved him, but I'm still not sure I did; I just know it hurts that he left."

Flint nodded. "I'm sorry."

It moved me more than I thought it would. I thought I hated sympathy. Maybe in the face of someone feeling the same thing, it felt less like pity, and I felt less weak.

I took a sip of my soda to disguise that my eyes were watering. "Anyway. Who's it for you?"

"Who says it's someone specific?" he replied.

I narrowed my eyes. "You certainly jumped to that conclusion for me."

"Yeah, fair," Flint said, his characteristic grin peering through. He sobered and said, "I just feel like I'm losing my bestie, you know?"

I nodded. "Volkner does seem like the distant type."

"Well, that's the thing. He sort of is, but more specifically, he's the type of person to throw himself entirely into what he's doing at the moment, and then let go and distance himself all at once," Flint said. "He got bored of the tournament circuit, he got bored of the IP, now he's bored of being gym leader. I didn't think he'd ever get bored of me."

"Volkner was in the IP?"

"Briefly. A while ago."

I did remember Looker saying they'd worked together before – I just thought he meant for the Spear Key. "Well… I mean, you've been so close for so many years, is it even possible to lose someone after so long?"

Flint chuckled. "Our reputation precedes us, I see?"

"Uh, I mean–" I stammered.

Flint shook his head. "It's all right. People like to ship their faves. I take it as a compliment. Besides," he said, hesitating a little before finishing, "it's probably my fault anyway."

"How so?"

"You've heard the rumors," he said. "They're only half true. Only one of us is in love with the other."

He said the word "love" with a scoff, like disdaining it lessened its power.

"Oh," I said, unsure how to respond. "I'm… I'm sorry."

Flint waved it off. "Ehh, I'm used to it by now. The love of my life will never reciprocate, and that's something I gotta live with. As long as I don't lose him in a way that matters, I'll be fine."

"'Fine,' but also drinking alone and sad on a Friday night."

"Do I look alone right now?" he said, gesturing at me.

"Do people usually walk up and join you?" I pointed out.

"Would you believe me if I said yes?"

I shook my head with a smile, looking down at the condensation on my glass.

"I do mean it, though," said Flint. "The daily heartbreak is worth it if I get to keep him in my life. I'm lucky, in a way. Getting to keep him around. Then again, most people, if they lose the person they're in love with, it sucks, but they've got their friends to get them through the loss. Me, if I lose Volkner, the only person I'd want to talk to about it is my best friend."

I nodded slowly.

"Not that that's healthy," Flint said, knocking back the rest of his drink before continuing, "My therapist says having one person be literally everything to you – bestie, confidante, pokemon rival, romantic interest – it puts a lot of pressure on that person."

I blinked. "Your therapist?"

"Yeah, Tanvi's a homie. She's helped me a lot; I just haven't actually kicked the Volkner addiction."

"You go to therapy."

Flint smiled. "Surprising?"

"I guess… I dunno."

He laughed. "Everyone should go to therapy, tbh. If only because none of us really know what we're doing, and it's good to get some outside perspective. 10/10, would recommend."

"I'm… I made a deal with someone that we'd both start therapy."

"I can get you a referral," Flint said cheerfully.

"That would be great, actually." Considering I had no idea how to get therapy going.

Flint glanced at a notification on his poketch and grumbled. He stood and stretched, then pulled a business card from his bag. "I gotta go, but here's my poketch number. Message me and I can set something up."

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem. Hope things work out for you."

"You too."

He paid the bartender and headed out, while I returned to the other trainers, thinking about something he'd said.

Having one person be literally everything to you puts a lot of pressure on that person.

Is that what happened with…? Did I depend on him too much for my wellbeing, directly and implicitly? He was my protector, my Jenga partner, my rival, my advisor, my friend… If he'd suddenly felt the weight of all the roles I had him carrying, plus another that he hadn't signed up for…

He didn't have to care so much, part of me argued. That's on him.

The rest of me said nothing, because all of me remembered that he was the kind of person to offer a stranger his body as a punching bag so that they'd stop hurting their fist on a wall. All of me knew he would always wind up caring in the end.

Saturday was pretty chill. My team and I did some training, and then Megan and Tricia and I hung out. Tricia had to leave early, but we made plans for Sunday morning coffee (or, more accurately, tea and mocha at the local coffee shop).

We taught my more tactically-minded pokemon how to play Spoons, which requires a lot of players. Hope and Faith zoomed around Megan's backyard while Coeur, Prom, Trust, and Def learned how to play. Coeur nearly gave up in the beginning due to not actually having hands, but Def helped her out by showing her the cards he'd just looked at rather than just passing them on. She also quickly realized that the cards didn't matter as much as her reaction time after the first person had taken a spoon, so she did well overall.

Megan and I stuck around all afternoon and evening. By the end of the night, we were just sitting around on the floor of her room, talking. My pokemon had gone to sleep in their pokeballs (Def told me to wake him up when it was time to teleport home).

I was telling her about Flint. "He's basically unrequitedly in love with Volkner."

"Oof."

"I know. He says it's worth it, though."

"What? What do you mean?"

"The pain of unrequitedness is worth getting to be around him still."

"How is that possible?"

I paused. "That's just… that's sort of just how it is. I felt that way when Lucas was giving me the cold shoulder."

"That seems so silly, though. Not that you're silly," she quickly backtracked, "but, just in general that doesn't make sense."

"Well, yeah."

Megan looked baffled.

"Haven't you ever been in love?"

The words rushed out of my mouth. Arceus, my heart was still sore from a month and a half ago; I couldn't do this right now.

Megan thought about it. "I'm not sure. I've had crushes, but it was nothing like the way you were about Lucas. Maybe I'm just not that into boys."

And for once I voiced what I was scared to say:

"What about girls?"

She turned to look at me, and suddenly I realized how close our faces were. She smelled like lavender and a fruit I couldn't quite place. Her topaz brown eyes held mine gently, despite the surprise running through.

I could have cried from the simple fact that the window shutters within her eyes did not close.

"Possibly," she said quietly. "I've thought about it."

My heartbeat slowed. I felt lightheaded in a strange, cozy way, like I was asleep and dreaming, curled up in a soft bed. This was not something I'd felt with… with him. This was not even something I'd felt with Lucas.

She was so close.

My mind rushed back to me all at once, as if I had woken up falling out of bed. "Yeah?" I said too loud, shifting so that our faces were farther apart.

"I'm not really sure of anything right now, though."

"Ah. I feel that."

I asked about something fully unrelated to the topic at hand. We kept talking until late, but never strayed into dangerous waters again.

"I should go home," I said around eleven.

"Okay," she said.

Neither of us moved.

"Call me after your battle with Volkner," she said. "I wanna know how it goes."

"Okay. If I don't mention the battle, assume it was a humiliating defeat," I joked.

"Sure. So I'll definitely be hearing about your battle, then," she said, meeting my gaze with a challenge in her eyes.

I smiled, looking away. "All right, well, see you then."

She walked me to the door. Her parents had gone to sleep ages ago, and for a moment I thought of people who kiss each other good night on the doorstep before parting ways.

But I let out Def and waved goodbye to her, and we disappeared into the night.