#akarei

   She hoped they were doing okay with her, that they weren’t worried for her because she was doing fine, all things considered. Because heaven knows all the people who cared about her… They would probably move mountains for her because she did the same for them in what was such a past life.

   Akari hoped they knew that she was fine. She was safe, she had comrades and accolades, food on her table and a place to shower. Especially now that she had a roof over her head. Again.

   Akari couldn’t believe that the basic creature comforts she had been given at the beginning of her journey, granted with a generous smile, could be taken from her as easily as they had been gifted. Those four walls, the wooden flooring and the wind chime that adorned her awning, the stiff pillow and the futon and tatami, the treasures that she had stashed in her chest and inventory. It had meant so much to her and it was a kind gift to give a stranger but…

   The recently overturned eviction still loomed in her mind.

   Akari took a deep breath but that did little to centre her. She slammed her front door regardless as she made up her mind. She wanted out of here, to clear her head and feel her feelings.

   Her stomach knotted as she recalled how Kamado and the people of Jubilife City had turned their backs on her, that she was an omen of ill and an enemy in their midst. Instead of their strongest asset and dare Akari call herself it but their saviour, too. All the good will she generated, the errands she had run and research she had conducted, turned on the round of a coin. They accepted her again, sure, but the cuts remained.

   Akari wandered.

   She wanted out of here. There was nowhere to go, as Akari craved modern amenities and her old life. Well, that was a lie, actually. There was somewhere she could go as her head turned full of thoughts like air conditioning and indoor plumbing. She could go to where it all began, the room that she had been plucked from as Arceus’ chosen.

   She could go home but what a home it was. There was nothing there. Yet. One day, there would be, Akari thought as she walked around, kind of aimlessly, kind of on purpose, like a ghost either way. 

   The weather was poor today. Not bad, just poor. Cloudy. A little bit cold but sometimes it would feel warm, hard to predict in a difficult season. The lake that she had her back to reflected all the clouds that blocked out the sky and made it seem even more grim. As Akari looked upwards, at those sluggish, grey clouds, she couldn’t help but think it looked how she felt, for what it was worth.

   Still, Akari remembered days like these from her childhood in her home. She stood at the approximate location that would become her address in the tiny cross section of streets of Twinleaf Town. It seemed like the right place, though. Even if everything was hilly and overgrown, didn’t look like much, let alone a place that could become a settlement and evolve from there.

   Over there… That mound of dirt would become her neighbour’s garden. And right here, that’s where the local geek would hang out under a tree and jibber jabber about the power of technology all day.

   It was familiar and yet not at all. The grass wasn’t quite the same but the dirt had that sandy quality to it and looked like it would hold snow quite well. Akari closed her eyes and when she did…

   The Pokemon cries were loud. She could pretend that they were the distant hustle and bustle of grocery shopping and the people of the town chatting but it was the same. Akari had to withhold a sob. 

   Searching inside of herself to find a sense of calm, Akari breathed deep and… That’s what broke her because it smelled the same. The fresh scent of fir and pine, the evergreen trees and the freshwater nearby. That didn’t change. Between now and then.

   Akari started to cry. Now and then. How absurd. Then had yet to be and now… Now was the past. What a sick joke. Akari’s shoulders shuddered, her chest heaved and her heart broke. All there was tears. They were hot and slimy, streaking over her cheeks and she came to her knees.

   She curled up and cried into her lap, her head over her knees, arms wrapped around her calves. She looked like an overgrown and cowardly Happiny. Akari cried. She didn’t care how pathetic she needed or sounded, she just needed the release. It was just her and her memories. Everything else was irrelevant, her Pokemon and the environment, it wasn’t the same and it wasn’t ever going to be the same again.

   Not for a long time, if she was lucky - and she mightn’t even be there again, when someone got the bright idea of putting a town here, or a village first. Arceus, what have you done?

   Her misery went on and on. Akari lost count of how many tears she had shed or how much snot she had blown. She felt gross and disgusting but she didn’t care but just as she had exerted herself in her despair, she heard something.

   A step, the crackle of a twig stepped on.

   Akari whipped around, her sense of danger flared. Her hand at her hip, her fingertips ghosted the outside shell of her Apricorn PokeBall and she saw the threat.

   “Rei.” she breathed.

   She settled again, seated herself in the dirt but her hackles remained raised. Rei awkwardly smiled.

   “I… I thought I’d find you here.” Rei gingerly offered.

   Akari stared blankly at him, emanating all the hostility of an Alpha Pokemon as she snarled, “What are you doing here? Go away.”

   He didn’t though. Maybe he should have but he didn’t. He came closer, instead.

   “Does this place mean something to you?” Rei asked, he put his hand flat over his eyes to reduce the glare as he scanned his surroundings. “Sure looks like a whole lot of nothing to me.”

   “Shut up.” Akari snapped.

   “I’m sorry. That was out of line.” Rei conceded. “It probably means something to you, huh?”

   “It's my childhood home.” Akari groggily replied. She wiped her face but not her expression, just the tears and snot.

   “Aah, I see, yeah…” Rei murmured.

   He sat down next to Akari. He huffed and puffed, as though it were such a strenuous thing to do. If Akari was meant to laugh, she wasn’t going to. She glared at him as he got comfortable next to her, her all balled up and him slightly more relaxed than that. One leg sprawled out, one knee up and one arm over said knee and his other arm propping him up.

   Trying to look cool… That wasn’t his style, Akari thought to herself as Rei was finally sorted.

   “Do you need someone to talk to?” Rei asked.

   Akari turned her gaze down. She stared at the blades of grass, the minute granules of dirt and rocks. She didn’t know.

   “Do you need someone to think out loud?” Rei asked.

   Again, no reply. Akari’s lips didn’t even so much as twitch as she tilted her head up again and allowed her gaze to sprawl and unravel across the next thousand yards - and a fair few decades of years, too. She tried to imagine it. The construction, the people, the houses, the way it would all eventuate to becoming what she knew.

   That this place, not even marked on any map but her own as having import, would become her childhood home. 

   “I’m sorry.” Rei murmured. “It… It was a bad idea of me to follow you. I was just worried about you, is all.” He started to ramble.

   He took Akari’s silence as he should. That he hadn’t overstayed his welcome at all, that he didn’t even have one to begin with.

   So, he started to go through the motions of reversing all the effort he had taken to sit down with Akari in some vain hope of getting to know her and then, just as he was dusting off his pants… Akari reached out. She pinched the fabric of his sleeves and tugged on it.

   “I change my mind. Don’t go.” Akari said and her voice cracked. “Stay.”

   “Ah. Okay.” Rei said.

   He sat down again but this time, Akari moved in closer to him. He had given her a respectful distance before: close but not intimate but Akari desecrated that first. She let more than just their shoulders to touch, she rested on his chest, her shoulder to his breast. Her head fit under his chin and she closed her eyes. She listened to the sound of his beating heart.

   “Heh.” she giggled. She opened her eyes and Rei looked down at her. “First time cuddling a girl?”

   “Th-There aren’t many people our age around here…” Rei pointed out.

   True, it was a variety.

   “Thank you for… for caring about me.” Akari mumbled and she closed her eyes again, peacefully. “You always did and… you never stopped.”

   Rei turned embarrassed, he tried to hide his flush under his cap.

   “I appreciate it.” Akari murmured. “I… I just want to rest here, if you don’t mind. I need to process, still, but thank you for being here.”

   “You're welcome.” Rei replied, earnest. He shifted slightly to support Akari better as she decided he would make for a wonderful pillow to have a nap against.

   “If… If even one person knows about Twinleaf Town, aside from me, that… That’d make me happy. Be-Because it’s… it’s my precious hometown, my family.” Akari mumbled as she drifted into not quite sleep but not a daydream either.

   Rei held onto her and allowed Akari to have her peace. Slowly, under her breath, she would share it with Rei. What she remembered now that her spell of amnesia had been broken and it all sounded like a marvel amongst marvels to Rei. The love that Akari had for the future but the love she had for the right here and now, too.

   He listened closely as Akari sleeptalked. That brought her a far greater catharsis than crying and being miserable, she found as her burden lightened within her heart.