welcome home.

(Then, do something about it, she says, eyes everywhere but him.)

The sign doesn’t shake. There’s no cracks in the wall – he’s not that strong. Kind of ridiculous to even entertain the thought.

(Do something about it, she whispers, and the side of her mouth starts to curl.)

His palm stings. His fingers lay flat against the surface, and his knuckles are seared red.

(Do something, she hisses, laughing at him, only barely holding it in.)

When he closes his fist, he can feel his pulse hammering. It’s loud inside his head.

(Do–)

‘You know what?’

He backs up a step. He curls his hand, uncurls it, almost experimentally. His gaze climbs up to the sky, where the first drops of rain have started falling, but he barely notices.

‘We’re done.’

And it’s like that, just like that, for one second. Gold, staring at her, all of the emotion gone from his face. He wipes at his mouth, fidgets, and it’s like he could walk away. Just like that.

Except he’s jamming his hand out towards her, palm open to receive.

‘Give it back.’

It.

(The same it she threw at him: do something about it. He gave it to her and now she’s blaming him, she’s glaring, acting like it’s not in her hands.)

‘My stuff. Give it back,’ he repeats, fingers twitching the slightest bit. The rain’s hitting him now, bouncing off the side of his hat. ‘All of it. I’ll go someplace else. And you can just…’ He breaks character to rotate his hand vaguely, like he doesn’t know or doesn’t care what she was doing before this.

It’s over.

‘They’re all gonna get hurt because of you. ‘cause you don’t get it. So just.’

He lifts his head like he expects her to just throw it, two steps away from a sigh.

“Wh—”

It’s less a stutter and more a scoff.

“—I won’t. I’m not the one who’s hurting them.”

She takes a step back, or more like a step away. There’s the sound of rain pounding in her ears, sure, but louder still is the way Gold’s words fall at her feet. Kotone lifts her foot, like she’s about to kick them away—like, for an instant, there’s something tangible there—but she stops the action partway.

The rain makes it hard to think. “You’re the one who’s hurting them—but you think you can just— ... take it back? I can’t trust you with them.” I’m not done yet, says her stance.

But forget it, says her expression.

It’s not because he asked for her help that she’s having trouble accepting it. A step back, and it’s not even that she’s having trouble accepting it—whatever it is, it’s starting to feel like she can’t trust him.

Worrying about Gold is the last thing on her mind and everything else is infinitely further away. “You’ll just keep hurting them. Is that what you’re after?”

She says it, and suddenly it sounds ten times more believable. “—Is that what you’ve been after?”

(He gives her his Pokemon, says that she needs to get as far away as possible. He says that he thought she’d understand, and all of the signs are pointing towards only one thing.)

Lightning flashes over her head and she thinks she might throw everything out into the rain. “Forget it,” she says, and his wallet falls to the ground. “I’m done,” she says, and his badge case lands neatly on top of it, skitters off to the side.

He’s got plenty of questions.

Not about the things that matter, probably. He barely bats an eyelash at how she’s commandeered his supplies, can towers and doll totem poles the least of his worries. He follows her imaginary path with no issues, either, only growing more interested with how convoluted the whole thing’s become.

So this whole thing is pretty fucking pointless, and whoever wins, it’s not gonna change things too much. But he’s excited anyway.

There’s just a couple things. Like.

‘Who’s gonna judge us?’

Issue number one, there.

Gold moves forward, toeing the starting line like a judge appraising a contest. Some red masking tape divides the cave into start and finish, his only contribution to the cause. ‘I don’t really wanna watch you once we get going. 

‘Plus – who’s gonna keep track of the time?’ 

He digs around in his pocket and produces the stopwatch he found somewhere earlier.

Everything else is fair game. He gives the racetrack one final look over, and then he’s turning back to Kotone, rolling his shoulders for the umpteenth time. The lack of impatience on his face pretty much spells it out: he’s got things figured out already.

Basically.

Her voice cracks at the end of it, peters out into a squeak high enough to brush at the poor Tangela doll’s foot, and then lands right where it started.

—Oh.

Right. “Um, yeah?”

Gold and his nicknames. It clicks soon enough, and Kotone’s already halfway to her bag and rifling through it before she stops to put together the pieces of what it is Gold’s really driving at. “— Wait.” She’s got the Pokeball cradled in her hands, but when she turns back towards Gold, she’s squinting.

“... No foul play, right?”

Like she really thinks he’d take advantage of that. No, she’s mostly kidding, but that doesn’t stop Kotone from eyeing him warily as she sets her Pokeball down next to the stopwatch. “Because, umm...”

She’s circled back around to his first question in the time it takes the suspicion to slide off of her face. “... I was thinking, like, we’d just judge ourselves. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins, that sort of thing?” Honor system, then, is basically what she’s trying to say. The subsequent look she shoots over at Gold says it all: she doesn’t really expect him to buy it, and more importantly? She’s realizing how silly it sounds when she says it out loud.

But, well. It fits somewhere in between weed-growing champion and racing for racing’s sake, and Kotone shrugs as she stands back up.

“Anything else?” She hooks her arms behind her back and towards Gold.

　　　　　The gaze he turns back on Kotone is hostile. Because –

Nobody cares, and everybody wants, and he could rattle her right here and now.

‘You don’t get it,’ he says darkly, like it’s an accusation. But it can’t be, not when Kotone’s already admitted to that herself. ‘Do you know what – I’m so fucking tired, you know? Of having to – to – spell all this shit out. Why’s it always up to me?’

He’s talking about the situation they’re in (– he’s in, because he shouldn’t be forcing this on her, not even now –). But he’s also kind of not.

Thunder rumbles in the sky overhead. It might as well not exist.

‘Why me?’ he asks again, and he looms over Kotone like black clouds gathering. Somewhere in the fog, the bookstore locks its doors, switches its sign to closed. ‘I’m not even that special. That’s what they always say, right? Like – I “just happened to be there?” “It could’ve been anyone?” It could’ve been you, or Silver –’

They’re getting away from the topic. He’s not letting her get a word in edgewise. But it’s not like she has anything good to say.

I can’t, she’ll mutter, and she’ll be like everybody else in the world.

‘Why wasn’t it YOU? Why isn’t it you? Why’s this…’

He looks down at her hands, which still have his Pokeballs. He grits his teeth.

It’s unfair, and the thought hits her all over again. Because, Gold has the upper hand, Gold’s had the upper hand, and every word he says has her shrinking further and further away, has her feeling smaller and smaller.

Is that how it always was?

It’s hard for her to remember. It's hard for her to think.

It’s hard for her to say anything. —That much, she knows, isn’t like her, but it’s hardly reassuring for its revelatory nature. She should be able to say something, she should be able to come up with something, but—

Nothing.

Silence falls when she lowers her hands (when had she first raised them? and to cover her face?), and helplessness hits her like the bricks at her back.

“... So what,” she manages, and the words fall to her feet and land hardly above a whisper. “If it’s you instead of me.”

It could have been her, running far ahead, leaving everyone else in the dust, playing hero because nobody else could keep up. But instead, it was her, always hanging back, always three, four steps behind. Always coming through to clean up the aftermath, always finding problems in the wake of their solutions.

The sound of Gold's jaw grinding cuts into her thoughts and she finds herself losing track. “—That’s just the way it is. And,”

Her voice picks itself back up but she still can't bring herself to find his gaze. “You aren't even explaining anything. You're just—”

None of it makes sense. “—saying these things, saying them like they all mean something.” Maybe he's right. “Something bigger? ... I don’t know.” Maybe she wouldn't be able to get it even if she tried. “I don’t get it.”

Maybe he’s just trying to be as awful as he can.

It would explain a lot. “You think this isn’t fair?”

A lot of things aren’t.

Well, unless it was them who got reported in the end.

Kido raised one hand to stroke her chin, lost in thought and hardly listening to her excited companion. “I’m not so sure”, Kido said, more to herself than to Kotone, but it still worked as an answer to her questions. “— but, er, yes, I can do that”, Kido snapped out of her thoughts, at least confirming that she didn’t brag with powers that were just a lie. Starting to move to not lose sight of the man with the case and spoil their plan before they even had it, Kido nodded. “It last for about fifteen minutes, thus I suggest we save it for a little while.”

What exactly should they save it for? Kido had no idea. Maybe it’d all come down to just tackling him anyways. Just that they were not going to be seen doing it.

Unfortunately, Kido was not given much time to come up with a detailed plan. “For now, we should just tail him.” Feet moving on it’s own now, her gaze quickly wandering around ti take the surrounding in and perhaps find anything to make use of, Kido trusted the other girl to not lose sight of their target.

Or, well, close to perfect. Perfect aside from the whole potential-witnesses-to-a-robbery thing, perfect aside from the whole tailing-a-potentially-dangerous-criminal-with-a-complete-stranger thing— no, it’s perfect, because this girl really gets it. She really gets how to throw herself into a scenario.

If nothing else, Kotone’s steps are infinitely more eager thanks to that knowledge alone. If anything, she’s ten times more alert because of it.

So alert that she spins on one heel, walking backwards for a few steps as she addresses the other girl. “You think there might be others?” A quick glance over her shoulder renders the surrounding area predominantly streetlight/lamp post-free, and she lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I mean... I saw a bunch of people go down that alley, right? You think they’re involved, too?”

If she was remembering correctly, those other guys hadn’t come out when Mr. Briefcase had made his escape from the alley. So, then, did they have a shortcut? Were they going to meet up with Mr. Briefcase again at some mystery location?

“Or... Could it be someone completely different?” If this were a movie or a novel, it’d have to be the group from before. But this was real life, and it didn’t seem like they were walking back towards the alleyway even after all of the twists and turns that tailing this man entailed. “What do you think?”

She turns back to face forward and falls back in line next to Kido. “Keep following Mr. Briefcase for now?”

The words are hardly out of her mouth before the man in question, Mr. Briefcase, takes a corner sharper and more sudden than the rest of them, ducking past a woman holding a waffle cone and disappearing down an alleyway.

It’s more of a musing to himself, but he’s genuinely curious at the creature in the younger girl’s hands. 

(It takes a few chirps of disapproval from her Chikorita for her mind to fully catch up with the implications of what this guy’s said.)

Yeah: what is the point? Bickering back and forth or doubting her for as long as he has. He’s caught in this net of indecision, and the longer he waits, the more he starts to forget. All the tension has slid from his shoulders, replaced by something colder – something that resists for the sake of tradition, for all his empty promises and principles.

There’s got to be a point to this, right? He’s not just putting her through the ringer.

‘All I’m saying is –’ What is he saying? Gold’s eyes find the neon again, for some inexplicable reason. ‘It’s not that simple, all right? You haven’t got a clue. And it’s like. What am I supposed to do, you know? Why can’t you just figure it out?’

Why can’t she just be perfect, more like. Rise to the challenge when he needs her to, back off without so much as a word. He needs her to be a mind reader, and even though he knows that’s bullshit –

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Gold grits his teeth.

Somewhere between I’m done and fine, he finds himself boxing her in.

‘What do you even think this is? You know I’m not making this up, right?’ He curls his hand into a fist. It’s the one he’s got braced right above her head. ‘Just – use your brain. I can’t fucking do everything for you, Kotone, it’s not –’

Not supposed to work like that.

There’s an alarm bell going off in his head, distant. But maybe it’s just thunder.

‘You tell ME. Even if I said okay –…’ And he pauses for the longest time.

Distantly, in the silence in between his words, something reminds her that none of this is fair, first and foremost. It’s not fair that this is happening to him. It’s not fair that he’s having to deal with this. She follows his gaze upwards for lack of anything better.

Which brings her to her next point.

“That’s not what I’m saying. You—,” she bites back the accusations and it sounds sort of like a gasp, kind of like a sob, “—you know that’s not what I mean, right? I’m not— I don’t think you’re lying...”

Her voice trails off and she sounds all the more insincere for it, all the more conflicted.

No, he couldn’t be lying. But the truth sounds farfetched and none of it makes sense to her. None of it’s fair, and none of it has a reason.

She’s losing ground and her eyes dart down, left, right. “Okay, okay. Let me just—” Let me think, but she’s out of space to think. Let me talk, but she’s out of things to say. Gold’s arm hovers above her, just out of her field of view, and it’s clouding the sky. “I’ll think of something, promise.”

The air is heavy and it makes it hard to breathe. “But how am I supposed to know?” It comes out halfway between a squeak and a whisper, gets caught between the creak and subsequent jingle of the bookstore’s door opening. A woman emerges in the wake, and in between her irritated glare for the overcast sky and her worried glance at the paper bag in her arms, she hardly notices the two kids standing beneath the awning as she digs through her purse for her umbrella.

Eventually, the woman walks away, unaffected. Kotone follows her footsteps with her gaze, waits until the clack of her sandals fades completely to look back towards Gold and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

For how her persistence gets to him. He could break something, and it’s a wild thought Gold entertains as his eyes dart away from her. Window, doorstopper, sign for Buy one get one thriller free. If he makes some show of aggression, she’s got to give up the ghost, right? Just leave him be, nod her head and finally understand that he can’t be around her.

She takes a step back, and he takes a step forward. He thinks he might go through with it.

But there’s so much blame he hears in the cracks of her words, old brick walls that also promise help, and he’s not sure what he wants.

He’s used to the world deciding things for him.

‘… what would you even do?’ he asks, and he braces a hand against those walls she’s put up. The sign above their heads lets out a buzz of electricity. ‘I dunno what’s going on, so… so why would you? You can’t figure anything out.’

But I want you to. It’s the lurch of his next step forward, the way he doesn’t even fix his hat.

He doesn’t say it, but everything he does gives him away.

‘I was gonna – gonna wait it out,’ he continues breathlessly. ‘I wasn’t running away. I was fixing it. Don’t you get that? You’re the one who’s supposed to…’

Get it. Does she get it?

A car honks its horn ten miles away.

Her voice could crack and she’d be none the wiser.

“I don’t know.”

She doesn’t know what’s with him, she doesn’t know what’s with her, and she doesn’t know what she would or could do to fix it, or where to even start.

Weren’t they supposed to go at it together? Wasn’t that the point? “... I don’t get it.”

First he gets angry, runs away, tries to do everything by himself. There’s the Gold she knows, playing hero by any other name and all the more stubborn for it. She’s thinking it fits, somehow, that he’d try to solve this by himself. That he’d try to go at it alone.

So, then, what about Gold when he’s standing in front of her, asking her for help, asking her to understand, whether it’s to shut up and listen or take his Pokemon and run? Gold, when he’s waiting it out, when he hasn’t got any idea of what to do or say?

It doesn’t fit. “How is this any different from what you always do?”

She falters, but only long enough to gather her thoughts. Long enough to take another step backwards. “I— I mean, I want to help you fix things. Fix this. But—” But I don’t know what to do.

“—You aren’t making this easy for me.”

If anything, he’s doing the opposite. It’s like— it’s like he’s trying to make this difficult, it’s like he’s trying to push her into a corner. She rubs at her eyes and expects them to sting.

– so he jerks back, retreating towards the open road.

He’s not the type to bolt. But his body language is incredulous, and the look in his eyes is nervous. She has no idea what this situation even means.

And neither does he, either.

‘What do you even think this is? Voltorb Flip?’ She’s good at guessing games. He remembers seeing her stroll out of Goldenrod’s Game Corner one time, a bag full of coins and a skip in every step. Why it’s on his mind now, he’s not fucking sure. ‘I don’t want you to guess. Just – go already! Why do you have to know?’

What gives you the right. That’s sort of what he’s asking. It doesn’t matter that he’s dumping all this on her.

　　　　　　　　　　… except it does, and she won’t budge, and the longer this goes on the worse it gets. Gold studies her face intently, balling his hands into fists.

Not even Kotone could just shut up and go with something.

‘There’s some shit – happening – I don’t know. It’s, like, if I get close to somebody, or if I’m pissed off, it’s like…’ He splays his fingers helplessly. ‘It’s fucking with my Pokemon. It’s fucking with me. So can you just not? Can you not?’

'I don’t know what you want me to say!’

Somewhere. It’s miles away for the deafening screeching on the pavement, a half-hearted warning in the back of her throat. Instead, her eyes fixate on Gold’s hat—it’s been knocked off-center this entire time, but she’s only just now noticed.

There’s lots of other things she’s just now noticing. The stormclouds hovering over the horizon, the tree-swaying wind that says now’s not the time to be outside. Now’s the time to seek shelter. Then, there’s the flickering lights of the sign hung over bookstore they’re standing outside of, blinking in and out between blue and pink and yellow. None of the letters are burnt out, making it stand out from the other shops lining the street.

It’s eyecatching. Funny she didn’t notice it earlier.

“So you’re just gonna run away?”

It keeps coming back around to that point. That point is what she settles on, the idea that Gold’s running away from his problems. Because, somehow, it fits. Somehow, it ties together all of the loose ends. “You’re not going to deal with it?”

If she’s disappointed in him, it’s hard to tell what for. Because, for all of Gold’s back and forth, all of his agony and indecision in the way he reaches for things that aren’t there—it’s not like he’s not doing anything. The realization’s saddening more than it is angering, and so she takes a step back, looks down at her hands.

It’s been hard to settle on feeling one way. “Because, there’s gotta be a better solution? I’m sure of it—we can figure something better out.” The doubt in her voice hovers in between her words and in between the way her fingers clench around his wallet.

Not really, not probably – because for all her ditziness, Kotone’s never been stupid. It’s a fact he recalls more unwilling than not – because for everything it means, it makes it harder to avoid her eyes. He’s halfway struggling through a fuck off before he stops himself.

For all her flightiness, she’s not always running and not always looking for a way out. He can’t just push her and expect her to get going.

It’s a fact he recalls unwilling, and it comes with an angry scowl.

‘Doesn’t matter, right? Look –’

He’s doing something with his hands, but he can’t seem to figure out what. He backs up for the step she takes toward him – then two, then three, hovering just outside friendly space.

If he doesn’t get close, then…

　　　　　　　　　　That’s the way he’s thinking.

‘I’m just… I’m gonna…. I don’t know, alright? Somewhere. I don’t know, and you don’t care.’

But that’s not true. It’s not, right? He stares at her and scrubs at his face.

If he doesn’t get close, then he won’t try to stay. That’s what he’s starting to think.

Like she’s scared he’s going to run for it the minute she takes her eyes off of him, maybe. Or duck inside of the bookstore, hide between the shelves and run off to somewhere she can’t see him.

But, 'scared' doesn’t quite match with the expression on her face. “I dunno.”

“Okay, so...” 'Skeptic', maybe, is a better word. She takes another step forward, angles her head to somewhere halfway between 'worried' and 'frustrated'. “Why do I have to go somewhere?”

It’s not so much that she’s taking the offensive, not so much that she’s confused, and not at all that she’s refusing his request outright.

It just doesn’t make sense.

The city is huge.

Weeks pass and the most she’s seen of him is a torn out sheet from a notebook here, a broken-off piece of a rock he’d dug out of one of the districts there, and all of it covered in I’ve been doing my own thing, but what have you been up to.

Bottom line? It doesn’t make sense. “And why do I—” she kicks aside a crumpled up receipt, takes a step towards him, “—have to take all of your stuff? This is— Gold, this is— seriously?”

This was serious. It had to be, she’d figured, for him to ask her for help, even if asking for help meant doing it in the most roundabout and aggressive way possible.

‘Kotone. Look, I –’

She’s barely arrived before he’s upon her.

‘Just – don’t ask, okay? Just… do what I tell you, and – here, look –’

She’s barely arrived, and already he’s demanding things of her, tossing her things from as wide a berth as he can give. His wallet flies at her – his belt, right after – and even his badge case, just for good measure.

‘Take it. I need you to take that stuff, and… go somewhere. Don’t care where – doesn’t even fucking matter – just take it all and go. Like right now.’

He shouldn’t be swearing at her. He shouldn’t be standing here like this, tension pulling his shoulders taut, pale and scratching a frenzied hand through his hair. He shouldn’t be ordering her around, or looking like such an asshole, but… he is.

The middle of the street is a weird-as-hell place to surrender all his Trainer gear. They’re standing outside some bookstore, a place with the flashiest sign he could find to get her here sooner. He’s been pacing for the last five minutes, and he’s barely noticed the stormy weather; his sleeves are rolled up, and his hat is all skewed.

‘Okay? Thanks. Great. Go. I’ll –’

Talk to you later, but no.

‘… I said thanks. Go.’

Weird place, situation, time to throw his Pokemon at her. But –

This is really fucking happening.

His badge case skitters across the concrete, but it mixes in with the rest of what’s coming out of Gold’s mouth and her hands are already full.

Sure, she’s used to checking in on him, but— this?

—This was a whole new level.

She crouches down to pick up his badge case, dusts off the scuffed edges. One thing at a time, but she’s only halfway up before she notices the way he’s got his feet pivoted and primed to cut for a dash in the opposite direction.

“Okay, —wait. Wait. Stop, hold on,” Hold it, she wants to say, shuffling the load in her hands so she’s got his belt looped around one and his wallet slotted next to his badge case in the other. Couldn’t he have just given her his whole bag?

Not that she would have felt any better taking that. Kotone sighs, and it’s marked with disbelief. “Gold, um—” It’s been so long. “I don’t know—”

I don’t know what’s going on? There’s tension in the air and even though she can’t feel it yet, even though she can’t tell what’s got Gold so wired up, not from this distance, her legs feel five, ten times heavier.

She takes a step forward, settles on something.

Calling her out like this, she doesn’t mind. Dropping his Pokemon onto her like this, she’s sure there’s a reason. Calling her out so he can tell her to take his Pokemon and run, though?

His brow furrowed as she indicated the candy, unsure why her thoughts would jump to that first. The bar shape was strange, but wasn’t the creature stranger? Unless it was commonplace wherever she was from. That might be it…

“I did not- that was not what I meant. I will take it….? If you do not want it.”

Connor sighed, continuing,

People asking after Pokémon was still so weird.

“Oh! Well, um, you can still have the candy? If you want it.” It’s a tacit enough indication that she doesn’t want it, rules of giving candy to (or taking candy from) strangers be damned. “Anyways,” she dusts off her newly freed hand on the side of her shorts, “She’s a Pokémon, annnnd... She doesn’t bite.”

“… What is that.”

Polite, sure, polite, yeah—Kotone’s hardly in any place to judge, not with the way her head jolts up from whatever it was she’d been doing, fast enough to give anyone whiplash. Her hat wobbles in the wake of the movement.

She takes one look at what she’s got in her hands (the broken off half of a Hershey’s chocolate bar in one, a picky eater Chikorita in the other), and then another at the kid. And then, she holds up the candy bar. “This thing? Um, I think,”—really, she’s not sure—“It’s candy, maybe?”

Innocuous though the chocolate bar may have been, her Chikorita was having none of it. So, why not offer it to the kid, instead? “You want it?”

‘You’re kidding.’

She’s not kidding.

It’s not just doubt that colours Gold’s words – it’s honest confusion, like the thought of a race for a race is just beyond his reach. It’s an idea that stands on the shores of wherever Kotone finds herself, a place that just… does things to do them, most days. He thinks he must’ve visited once, but it’s not his neighbour; it’s not even a bike ride away.

The world of Because she finds herself is a different city.

‘Whatever. I guess we could,’ he says dismissively, watching his Tangela doll sway by the one tendril keeping it aloft. It’ll be on the floor before they’re even through. ‘But that just – doesn’t that take the fun out of it? I mean… if you’re gonna win something, it’s like…’ His fingers flare out, curl into his palms a couple times. He can’t find the words.

But it’s passion, it’s drive. It’s feeling, something that keeps you awake when the rest of the day tries to pull you into sleep. It’s that undeniable instinct that every Pokemon trainer is supposed to have, and him in spades. Kotone, though…

… Kotone is Kotone.

He finds a towel on the floor somewhere, and he sends it flying.

‘Okay. You know what? Winner gets to decide what the loser has to do.’ It’s simple, and he grins with the efficacy of it; he’s also grinning to say I won’t lose. Same thing, really. ‘So are we done? Can we start? I only have, like, twelve thousand blankets…’

Which begets the question, which floor would it be on?—and then, the question, “Where did you get all of these blankets from, anyways?”

Not that it really matters, or has anything to do with the incentive Gold’s suggested. Kotone’s gaze travels up and across the ceiling, with all of its blanket artistry, and then, by the time she’s gotten all the way to the ground, she’s already moved on. “Okay!”

The Tangela swings from side to side in the wake of Kotone clapping her hands together. Very few things about this setup were okay, even by any stretch of the word.

“Alright, start here.” She points at where she’s got a line of pillows stacked in a row, forming the most haphazard starting line imaginable. With how the pillows’ trajectories match up to a stack of canned food she’d lined up a few feet shy, Kotone’s obstacle course looks less like an obstacle course and more like a twisted Rube Goldberg’s attempt at really causing a cave-in.

Or, whatever the equivalent would be. “We’ll race one lap, all the way around.” It sounds simple enough when she says it, but the path Kotone’s tracing with her finger is pretty convoluted with all of the loops and twists and doubling-back she’s trying to convey. Not to mention, she has to drag her words out to make it all the way around the track before she finishes her sentence.

　　　　　Any way he wants, apparently.

Again, this is Kotone being Kotone. This is Kotone throwing herself at his mercy – like she does with everything, just hopping off the edge of any cliff she sees and trusting whatever comes. It shouldn’t really shock him, because that’s how she’s been for years. But with all these months he’s spent in her absence, lots of ways to forget her and none to remind him…

The mark she’s leaving on him now is bright red. Like a slap to the face.

Or a slap to the ceiling, as it turns out.

He blows out a sigh and picks up a couple blankets.

‘Forget it,’ Gold says – gestures – as the pile in his arms bounces with the strength behind his words. His eyes roam the ceiling for any sticky-outy-bits like the one Kotone found before. ‘You’re not gonna cheat. And if you do, it’s not like – it’s not gonna help you anyway.’

And he’s not going to do it. Not when this is the one person he trusts not to pull one over on him. He’s not going to let her be like anyone else.

An entire tapestry of Squirtles launches into the air as he throws a blanket up. It snags noisily on whatever sharp corner he found, and it sounds like something tears.

He wipes his hands like it’s a job well done anyway.

‘So what’re we playing for again? “Best Racer Ever” title?

That’s right—Kotone, she wouldn’t cheat. Her face lights up at that, but more like she’s thought of a neat trick than if she’s been reminded of her own personality. An empty protest—but maybe I would—dies before it can even make it halfway past the newly-retrieved bundle of blankets in her arms.

It’s pretty difficult to cheat when Gold’s involved. And it’s not only because of the way he looks at everyone like he’s expecting them to cheat, like he’s already bracing himself for the worst.

(In this case, the worst is probably just the sound of seams on a quilt tearing. Maybe that’s why Kotone’s smiling.)

“Um, do you even know where you’re throwing those?” She sounds like she can’t decide whether to be tastefully offended on behalf of whatever mental blueprints she’s cooked up for this obstacle course, or she’s quietly pleased that he’s taking an active stance on something. Even if that something happens to be property damage to his secret base.

Who’da known, right?

She throws another blanket, and it’s hard to think that she’s got anything even remotely resembling a final picture in mind. Not when they’re draped across the ceiling every which-way, looking more like sad spiderwebs than anything else.

Gold’s question hangs in the air, caught somewhere between the Tangela doll she’d pitched towards the ceiling and the corner of the Squirtle blanket.

The watering can. Right. Kotone looks over her shoulder at it, more skepticism than smiles for once. “You really want it? ‘Cause, I was just planning on leaving it...”

Loser takes the watering can. ... That’d be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? Kotone shrugs. “I mean, I kinda thought... We were just racing?”