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The sun’s setting by the time Red exists the Indigo Plateau.
The adrenaline rush from beating Blue has long since faded, and the energy spent dealing with league formalities has him drained. He wants nothing more than to go home and allow both himself and his Pokemon to finally rest.
He lets Charizard out of his pokeball, and he roars in delight. He brings his head down to nuzzle up against Reds, who pats him in return. He’s proud of his team, incredibly so, and he has high hopes for their future.
Being so high in the air, it makes him feel somewhat melancholic. It’s only been a year since he’s started his journey, and he’s done what takes most years, if ever, to do. He went above and beyond that even, taking down Team Rocket and everything. Though that wasn’t something he planned, and maybe not something he actually wanted to experience. Still, he’s glad he was able to help out all the Pokemon that were at risk of their schemes. He hopes no one else attempts to replicate them.
Instead of going straight home, it seems Charizard wants to take a detour through the mountain range surrounding the area. Red doesn’t complain, in fact he finds it refreshing. Being alone, with just him and his Pokemon, it’s nice after having to deal with so many people at once.
As they get close to one mountain top, however, he does spot someone. It’s actually both surprising and not at all to see him up here too.
Red gestures over to where he’s looking, and Charizard understands.
They land a bit of ways away, so that Red doesn’t surprise him too much. It looks like he’s spaced out pretty hard, at least.
Blue has his legs pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped snuggly around himself. Red can’t tell much else from behind, but he does see Pidgeot snuggled up next to him. He can tell his Pokemon’s worried about him, or maybe feels some kind of guilt? No, it seems more comforting than anything.
Red takes a seat next to him, legs crossed with his hands placed inside the crevice. He leans forward slightly to get a better look at Blue’s face.
He looks like he’s been crying, and Red’s not sure if that’s fair or if he’s annoyed by it. Red won fair and square. That’s just how it is sometimes. It’s not like there won’t be other opportunities for them to battle. There will be more chances for Blue to challenge him, for him to try to beat him. He’s just going to have to earn it.
“I’m not that much of a brat, you know.” He sounds tired, and it surprises Red that he seems to know what he’s thinking.
“Of course I knew you were going to beat me. You always do. I’ve always been second best. In the league, in town, my own grandpa likes you more than me.” Blue’s grip tightens. “I don’t get it. What do you have that I don’t?”
Red knows off the top of his what Blue lacks, but he’s not sure how to communicate it. He just stares at him for a moment, as Blue keeps his gaze set on the horizon. After a moment, Red relents and joins him.
This isn’t like anything they’ve done before. Blue’s always after him, always trying to get a rise out of him. Teasing, poking, pushing, shoving, insults and low blows, anything to get Red to react. Was it Reds fault for giving it to him? It’s not like he could help himself. Blue’s unrelenting, even during their journey. Always goading Red, doing his best to brag and prove how much better he is than Red. It really pisses him off.
Part of Red feels good about putting Blue in his place.
The other part doesn’t quite know what to do now.
It was good that Blue got an ego check, it’s something that he’s needed for a long time. He’s never seen him so distraught, so completely lost. Is he a bad person for feeling like he deserves it?
The sky’s orange with pink clouds floating lazily above them. The light of an ending day draping over them like a warm blanket, and dyes the snow beneath them into something far more tender than the biting cold reveals it to be. The scene unveiling before him is surreal, just like the rest of his day has been.
He’s sitting with a boy he absolutely hates, who brought him close to snapping and running away from it all, who’s never even felt sorry for how he’s treated him. Yet he’s not angry.
He’s proven himself more than once, justified his existence and stepped up to the challenge. Nothing was given to him, everything earned. Everything fought for tooth and nail against people who thought he would never be more than what he was sitting at home with his mother. He was ten years old and people had his life predicted without even knowing who he is.
And he showed them. He showed Blue and he showed all the other kids who were awful to him. He showed the teachers at school who treated him unfairly for things he couldn’t help and he showed the adults who treated him like an infant who needed his hand held. He showed his mom that he’s something to be proud of.
The thought of now having to return to those people is even more tiring than the back-to-back battles he just had.
He puts himself in Blue’s shoes, if only for a moment.
He’s had everything handed to him. Expectations set on him since birth because of his grandfathers accomplishments and parents social standing. Lost his parents at a young age, and raised by his older sister and grandfather who only ever seemed to be working. He has so many friends though, they adore him. They love his cocky attitude and spiky hair and loves how he flaunts his knowledge of Pokemon and then acts as if people are stupid for not knowing what he does, despite his advantages.
Why did Blue have to pick on him? Why did he treat him like he was stupid, when they both know they’re practically equal in everything. Why did Blue treat him like he was nothing, not even worth paying attention to when he wasn’t being kicked around
But that did stop at some point, didn’t it? Red blinks. When did that happen?
He can’t remember when Blue started taking him seriously, but he knows it happened. At some point or another, Blue accepted that Red was a force to be reckoned with. Even before he took down Team Rocket, Blue recognized that. He was a lot less cruel to him at that point, though still a complete ass. Not so much that Red wanted to punch him in the face, but that he’d roll his eyes at his narcissism.
He wonders what changed.
He wonders if things will change between them even more.
Would he be able to forgive him even if they did?
Twilight sets and as blue begins mingling with orange, Red’s starting seeing his breath puff up against the cold.
It’s freezing, but it’s stabilizing. He can think clearly, though not get entirely lost in his thoughts. He feels strange, thinking about it all, but he can tell he’s not as lost as Blue.
“What are we going to do now that it’s over?”
It’s the first thing Blue’s said in a while, and it makes Red jump. He looks back over at him, and is met with the full force of Blue’s gaze.
He doesn’t look desperate, but still expects Red to give him a genuine answer. As if he’s supposed to have everything figured out. He just won the Indigo League, and he didn’t expect to even get this far so quickly. He certainly didn’t expect Blue to ask him what they, the two of them, would be doing. Does he even want anything to do with Blue anymore?
Not really.
He shrugs, and pulls his own knees up to his chest as well, and rests his head on them. He doesn’t relinquish eye contact. Neither does Blue.
“You really don’t talk, huh?”
Red shakes his head.
“You used to. When we were really little. You stopped talking when you were five.”
Red doesn’t react. He doesn’t know how.
“It’s my fault, isn’t it.”
It’s more of a statement than a question, so Red doesn’t react to it either. It is partly his fault, after all. It’s not like he was incredibly talkative before then, but he would talk. He would talk to Blue about Pokemon, and they would talk about what they would do on their Pokemon journey together.
This was supposed to be their journey, he remembers. They wanted to do it together, the whole thing. Not as rivals, but as best friends. They were going to fill up the Pokedex his grandfather had been creating at the time together. They were going to have so much fun together.
Then they started school, and things changed.
It hurt to think about. He sees his own expression reflected in Blue. He must be thinking the same thing.
What would have happened if they kept that promise? If they lifted each other up and did their best together? Would they have come this far? Would they have already gone above and beyond by now? Red’s never doubted their individual capabilities, and they already pushed each other to new heights. What would it have been like, if they were friends?
“I don’t want this to end.” Blue confesses. He pauses for a moment, seeming to collect his thoughts a little more. “I hate losing to you. Ever since we started our journey and you won our first battle, I hated it. But…” His face scrunches up a little. “You made me a better trainer because of it. I always ever thought about beating you. No one else mattered, not really. Everyone’s so weak compared to you that it was so easy. You never made anything easy.”
Red raises an eyebrow and points at Blue, as to say you never did either.
Blue chuckles, but it sounds empty. “Yeah well, someone has to take you seriously.”
It looks like Blue wants to say something else, but instead he gets up and stretches. Pidgeot coos and Blue strokes his head.
“I think I’m going to go home. It’s gonna be crazy for the next few months for the both of us. We’re champions, and we’re the youngest Kanto champions ever, they’re gonna want to talk to us. Gotta get my beauty sleep.”
He hops onto Pidgeot’s back, and gives Red one last good look. He stares back, not quite sure if this same serenity will continue after they leave the mountain top. Not sure if Blue will go back to poking fun at him or changing into someone entirely else. He’s not sure what he wants out of him.
It doesn’t matter either way, as he’s gone now. Red’s left to himself, with his Charizard fast asleep at his side. He’s freezing, the sun finally set and the temperature dropping as if the heat of the day as well needed to rest.
With no one else in the world to bother him, Red thinks about what he wants, and what he wants out of someone he can’t quite hate, but can’t quite bring himself to like either.