After making notes for a while, Al checked the clock and realised it was about time to leave. However, because this was Galar, it was raining quite a lot, as usual. Thankfully, one of the perks of attending a private school is being able to borrow an umbrella before you go out the door instead of standing in the rain and not having to feel bad about it, so long as you return it.

He exited the school gates and noticed Akahana standing there too, without an umbrella or coat, and with soaked clothes. She'd probably been waiting there for a while and, unable to read the sign, never knew she could take an umbrella.

She waved at him, and of course he waved back, then did a double take upon realising why she'd still be here, immediately hurrying over to her.

"Hold on, why are you still here? Don't they pick you up a while before now? What's going on?"

She just shrugged, both out of not understanding him and, at this point, a useful apathy. She'd been standing in the rain since school ended, expecting someone to take her to wherever she was supposed to go, and since nobody'd told her they weren't coming, surely they would sometime soon. Then again, the only other people who knew Hisuian around here probably had no idea what was going on, but that wasn't really the point.

"...No idea? If you're still waiting, at this point you might as well–"

Just then, Bob made a grand entrance to his car radio's epic Stickmin music.

"Work's hectic right now Al, we've got to make tracks so–" He paused and lowered his sunglasses, though surely he couldn't have seen or heard much given the rain. "Is that one of the exchange students?"

Akahana seemed startled by the sudden events she couldn't even make sense of right now.

"That's right. She's been standing here to get picked up for..." Al knew some of what was happening, but had to pause and look towards Akahana, then the clock before she pointed at the 3 on said clock. "At least two hours? Someone's late, and nobody even thought to tell her to stop at this point!" Hopefully they just forgot.

Bob sighed, seeming to consider his options before unlocking a door and looking towards them again. "Help her in the car."

"Isn't that illegal?" Al asked, surprised. "Y'know... kidnapping and all that?"

"I know the guy in charge of the exchange program — part of my job. I'll tell him to come pick her up, but I can't just leave her out here. Now wouldn't that be illegal..." Bob chuckled as if he'd found his wits at the perfect time.

When Al jumped in the car, somehow Akahana understood unprompted and did the same despite the risk of things going from bad to worse, and Bob quickly drove home. They entered the house which looked a fair bit older on the inside, and Bob found Akahana a change of clothes before promptly fucking off to work. After she got changed, Akahana and Al sat alone in an awkward silence for several minutes.

"So, uh... Wanna watch something?"

Unsurprisingly, Akahana just looked at him funny. A few more seconds of thinking of something to say passed before the phone rang, Al hurrying over to answer it. "I should probably get that, sorry... Hello, Mongus household, who's ca-"

"This is the exchange officer. Is Akahana available?"

After blinking at the no-nonsense interruption he got, Al looked to Akahana and brought the phone over. "It's for you..."

He had absolutely no clue what was being said in the Hisuian conversation, but he did know that it sounded like a conversation, and Akahana seemed upset. If Al had to take any guess, it was because she didn't like being constantly misunderstood, or that Darren was Darren, or that they just left her in the rain for 2 hours, or that her parents wanted her back or something... Take your pick.

After several minutes of awkwardly listening to a conversation he couldn't understand, Al received the phone from a dejected Akahana to put back on the wall, and the latter looked for the TV remote. Once she found it in her hair... somehow, she turned on the television.

Nobody was about to question that the current channel was playing a classic Hisuian anime, with Galarian subtitles of course given the region. What wasn't left unquestioned by Al was the batshit plot that somehow involved an insanely verbose superhero... He thought that was what was going on, at least. It just didn't make any sense, which in hindsight was a warning for a few years in the future. Akahana seemed to be enjoying it though, as if she somehow understood something about it, and she was writing something? Maybe she was using the subtitles to learn Galarian. One way of doing it.

Either way, with almost perfect timing there was a knock on the door. The one from the exchange program who was going to pick her up earlier had finally arrived.

"So... I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" Al said, trying to punctuate that with a rather awkward bow.

Akahana nodded, hesitated, and then handed Al a piece of paper which read as the following:

"Thank you for your kindness.

I hope that we can do this sort of thing again.

金子赤花"

By the time Al had read it, she'd left. ...Eh. If they spoke again, they did, and if they didn't, they didn't. She seemed nice from what little communication they'd had, but it wasn't like he knew her well or anything.

He couldn't put his finger on why he'd given a fuck about what happened to her, though. He still did even, which was strange, because after his parents died, he thought caring this much about someone else again was impossible...

...Alright, seriously, what the fuck was with this anime?! Croagunk didn't make energy blasts like that! This wasn't Dragonair Ball X!

While he thought about that, he thought he should do some light reading, so he went back to the book he was reading earlier.

...He didn't need to know what this guy was having for breakfast that day, that's for sure. You'd think they'd remove the unnecessary details.

Ah, now he's got to something good. March 1968, the date of the Galarian election.

"It must have been Michael. Even with my skills there's no way we would have won that with how anti-establishment everything about us was. Especially when my dad of all people was against me, though I knew that would happen.

Other things appear to have changed as well. Kanto, Johto and Hoenn appear to be productively talking to each other now, and they're possibly on the way to a major alliance. This new PM I work for actually seems to like the idea of being part of it as well, which still wasn't guaranteed given he mentioned so little about any region other than Galar during the campaign.

He's asked me to go figure it out for him. Asked me to get the public on board. That won't be easy with all the newspapers against us, but I'm hoping Michael has an idea for that too."

Now, time for your irregularly scheduled flashback.

Jordan closed the diary, seemingly satisfied with what he'd written, and picked up the phone.

"Hello, Prime Minister's off-"

The person on the line cut him off. "Oh come on, you must have known I'd phone to congratulate you, so cut all this 'It's the PM's office how can I help you' shit."

"Michael! ...It's been a while, I'll give you that."

"Two years in fact! But you know that's not why I'm calling."

"...Alright, what do you need from me?"

"I think you might already know, and you're probably already working on it. But don't worry, I'll be there to help you with it like I was this."

"That didn't answer the question."

"Just... nudge... the top man in our direction for us so I can figure out what to do about these newspaper headlines."

"Okay... Sure, I'll do what I can on that... You hear from Jinen?"

"Nah, he's busy. He'd asked me to phone you to get all this shit sorted — I think he and the others were checking the ownership of some islands or something."

Al closed the book again. This was too deep for him this time of night, but at least it would be a different presentation.