#ventifacts

“Never seen anyone out here alone on a Wednesday morning before. What’s on your mind?”

She glanced over her shoulder, hearing the scrunch of boots against sand. After spending a week in Sunyshore, she’d grown used to greeting the residents and tourists who frequented the beach. This person was a new face, but the badge pinned to his jacket was enough of a giveaway. She hadn’t expected to meet him so soon, and the first answer that rose up in her was swallowed by a wave of uncertainty.

“This… reminds me a lot of my city, I like spending time here when there’s no one around.” Jasmine threaded her hands together as the ocean wind tickled her cheeks. The crisp scent of the beach was different from Olivine’s, but she did not dislike it.

The man arched an eyebrow at the mention of her hometown. He stepped closer to get a better look at her face, but kept a polite distance, his hands firmly in his pockets. Jasmine angled her chin slightly, but otherwise did not turn away.  

“Hey, aren’t you…” he trailed off, eyes wandering to the clouds overhead as he searched for a name. When the silence became too much to bear, Jasmine took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

“I’m Jasmine, Gym Leader of Olivine City. Um… Nice to meet you.” She shifted her feet and held a hand out to him.

The man nodded as he shook her hand. The nonchalant expression on his did not change. “Volkner. Sunyshore Gym Leader.”

“I know who are you, you’re…” Jasmine hesitated, but then, she remembered that she’d come all this way to become stronger. “The gym leader who’s causing power outages in the city.”

This earned a dry laugh out of Volkner, breaking him from his cool demeanour. “Didn’t expect someone like you to call me out on that,” he said, the corner of his mouth turning up in a small, amused smile.

Jasmine pressed her lips together. “It’s… It’s not funny.” She never was good at sounding angry, but Volkner did not laugh this time. “A lighthouse is important for a port city. You should take better care of your people and the ships mooring here. They keep the city thriving.” Somewhere in between her words, she lifted her head, and her voice was no longer a whisper.

Volkner considered this before saying, “Weren’t you the gym leader who refused to go back to her post until your pokemon got better?”

Jasmine clutched the skirt of her dress with both hands. It seemed that gossip among gym leaders was equally prevalent in this region. “Yes…” she said, glancing down at the pokeballs clipped to her belt. Amphy was sound asleep in one of them.

Seeing her reaction, Volkner quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I mean. It’s just that sometimes, we can get carried away with what we want to do, and we forget that we’re gym leaders, that we owe something to people other than ourselves. Don’t you get bored of having to do that?”

Jasmine wanted to tell him ‘no’, that he was being foolish and irresponsible and that he should surely be a better role model for the young children in town. And yet, who was she to say this, after handing over the key to the gym to her best trainer and catching the next ship out to sea?

“We’re not immune to making mistakes… That’s true,” she mumbled. “But all the more, we have to own up to them, we have to become better.” She brought her hand to her heart, to center herself. She’d come here for a reason, not on a whim.

If her words got through to Volkner, he did not show this on his face. Instead, he heaved a sigh and kicked up a patch of sand before saying, “I’ll get back to my gym and see how I can balance out the power usage, alright? Go easy on me, it’ll probably take a few more tries before I get it right.” As he turned to leave, the crunch of sand mixed with the crash of ocean waves against the beach. Volkner raised a hand to her after a few steps and shouted, “You never did answer my question truthfully, didja’? Swing by the gym when you’re ready.”

Jasmine wanted to ask how he knew, but he was already too far off for her voice to reach him. She wondered what about her gave it away. Was it the way she carried herself? Was it because she’d always been a subpar liar?