Work Text:
Daichi doesn't fall, but it's a near thing: he has to rest his weight against his aggron's back as his knees wobble. Aggron glances back at him but returns her attention to the battlefield, still crouched in a ready stance. We're so close, he thinks, come on, come on, come on.
The smoke clears slowly. When he and Aggron can see again, he sees Lapras sprawled on the floor, unmoving. Suga stands a short distance behind his pokémon with his back painfully straight and his head bowed, hands clenched into fists.
The silence is almost as deafening as the roar and crack of fighting moments before. Aggron straightens when she realizes that the fight is over, but it takes her trainer a bit longer to recover. He pushes away from his pokémon slowly and takes a hesitant step forward, one hand lingering on her shoulder.
"Good job," he whispers to her, and she snorts once in acknowledgement. Then he raises his voice. "Suga?"
Suga has moved forward to kneel beside his fallen lapras and apply a revive, his tense posture relaxing as she awakens. "There you are," he murmurs as she blinks open large, doe-like eyes. "There's my girl." But he won't look at Daichi, and it's such a change from the last month where Daichi has battled and trained beside him that it makes something cold and uncomfortable settle in Daichi's gut.
He recalls Aggron and walks over to Suga's side of the battlefield, waiting until he looks up. It takes a long moment, and Suga's mouth is at first pressed into a tight, thin line before he forcefully wills the expression away. He beams; "Congratulations, Daichi. You'll go on to the elite four, won't you?"
There's a waver in his voice that Suga does a poor job of hiding. Oh, Daichi thinks. He's not just mad about losing.
"I can come back," Daichi blurts. Suga's eyes grow round with surprise. "I mean, if it's okay with you."
Suga looks at him for a long time, his expression soothed from wound-up frustration into something considering and quiet. He runs a hand across Lapras's neck as she nudges him, and then recalls her to her poké ball.
"Oh, Daichi," he murmurs, holding his gaze. "You're always welcome here."
Daichi swallows hard, feeling fourteen and clumsy with his first crush all over again.
Suga gets to his feet and punches him in the side. As always, it's hard enough to make him wince a little bit. "When you come back, I expect you to have the champion title, you understand?"
"Yessir," Daichi murmurs, his tone a little spellbound as he rubs at his sore shoulder. Suga takes one glance at his face and bursts out laughing.
"And I want a rematch," he says. "Don't forget!"
"I'd never forget you," Daichi says.
Suga's eyes soften and he punches Daichi, a little softer this time.
Daichi pauses at the doorway as he leaves, looking back. Suga is already returning to the leader dais where he has stood every day since Daichi arrived, beaming at him like it's their first meeting all over again. It makes something in Daichi feel relieved that Suga will always be here, in this place, defending his gym title—but still nervous, too, to be leaving.
"Get out of here," he says, flapping a hand at him. "Go make us proud!"
Daichi goes, eight badges clinking in his pack and the hardest battles in his life ahead of him. But he's ready for them, he thinks; with Suga's support, he's ready for anything.