Chapter Text
The first time Hinata Shouyou loses a Pokémon battle to Kageyama Tobio isn’t so much notable for the match itself as it is for what happens about a year later.
But more about that later. For now, Hinata’s fourteen years old and it’s the first officially recognized Pokémon battle he’s ever taken part of.
A couple decades ago he’d probably have started his journey at eleven, but times have changed since then, and the legal age for Pokémon trainers got bumped up to fifteen after some kid got eaten by his own Carnivine.
Yeah. Real fun.
.
The battle club at his school has finally scraped up enough people to enter one of those tournaments for kids not yet old enough to be proper trainers with Pokémon of their own, and he's so excited he’s practically vibrating. The tournament’s being held in Kanto so they hadn't had to travel to get there, but it's an interregional one.
If Hinata's remembering things right, there are a few schools from Sinnoh and Hoenn in attendence, but knowing Hinata's track record...
Well, suffice it to say that most people wouldn't take his word for it.
The tournament venue is outside, and it’s one of those nice breezy days when everyone who’s in their right mind wants to be outside. The air tastes like autumn.
Hinata breathes it in and tries to enjoy it, but it's impossible. His stomach’s tight with nerves and he’s thrown up in the restroom twice already.
Hinata's sitting in one of the boxes they’ve marked out in the grass with chalk for trainers to stand in. The rental Zigzagoon he’d gotten for this match snuffles at his knee, and then, after a moment's hesitation, licks him.
Hinata laughs. "What're you doing?" he says, and scratches the little creature behind the ears. The Zigzagoon purrs happily and nuzzles him.
Someone coughs. Hinata looks up.
It’s a tall boy, lanky but handsome in a weird way, with thick black hair and a stony look on his face. He's got a standard issue pokeball tightly clenched in one of his hands.
“You shouldn’t do that, you know,” he says.
Hinata looks up, blinks. “Do what?”
The boy sighs. He gives Hinata the sort of withering look that teachers save for hooligans and students who seem particularly slow. “You shouldn’t be playing around with that Pokémon. It’s not even yours, and anyway, battling is serious. What, did you come here to just to goof around and ‘make memories’ or something?”
Hinata bristles. He’d been trying to be on his best behavior today, but, well, things don’t always work out exactly as planned. To be fair, fourteen-year-old boys are not typically known for their spectacular self-control, and even among his peers Hinata’s short fuse is the stuff of legends.
It’s like everything this guy does is designed specifically to push people’s buttons. Even if by some miracle Hinata hadn’t been fazed by how freaking haughty the boy’s sneer is, the sheer amount of bored arrogance condensed into that one remark is so irritating it could probably even piss off a saint.
“I came here to battle!” he snaps.
The boy crosses his arms over his chest and scoffs. “You say that like you think it’s going to be so easy,” he says. “It’s not. Even an idiot like you has got to know that strategy is the most important thing in a Pokémon battle. Do you have a strategy that you can put your confidence in? You don’t look like you do.”
His eyes shine with conviction. It's sort of charming, in a weird kind of way, but Hinata's too busy being angry to take too much notice.
Okay, so it’s all too clear that this guy loves Pokémon battling, but he's still a total jerk. In fact, that somehow makes Hinata even angrier, because seriously, how is it possible that someone who likes something as amazing as Pokémon battling can have an attitude like... like that?
“I may not have a strategy,” Hinata growls, heat rushing to his face. “But my Pokémon and I are going to work together to beat you, y’hear me?”
“Working together without a strategy still means you don’t have a strategy—” the boy starts, but then an old guy in a referee shirt shows up out of nowhere, finally, and they both fall silent.
They settle for glaring daggers at each other instead.
“Kageyama Tobio versus Hinata Shouyou,” the referee says in his reedy voice. “Are you ready to begin?”
“Yes,” says Kageyama immediately.
“Yes,” says Hinata, glaring daggers at the other boy.
.
Hinata’s Zigzagoon growls, hackles up and spiky fur standing on end. Kageyama’s Murkrow hisses right back, circling around just high enough for Zigzagoon not to be able to reach it.
The stupid thing’s been using Quick Attacks like nobody’s business, darting in and then flying out of range too fast for Zigzagoon to counterattack. Zigzagoon’s looking pretty battered: it’s probably going to faint soon. They haven’t put a single scratch on Murkrow.
Both of their Pokémon are at fairly low levels, and neither of them have any long-distance attacks yet, but even Hinata –who’s never had much of a head for strategy-- can tell that Kageyama is milking the fact that his Pokémon’s a flying type with all he’s got. If this goes on it’s inevitable that Hinata’s going to lose, and badly, so he’s gotta do something to shake things up a little.
He grits his teeth.
“Okay,” he growls, frustration coiling like a Seviper in the pit of his stomach. “Try jumping up as high as you can and biting it!”
Kageyama’d been staring intensely at the two Pokémon duking it out since the battle began, but at that he looks up and blinks.
It’s kind of hard to tell, but he looks sort of incredulous. “Seriously?” he says scornfully. “That’s stupid. Even your Zigzagoon’s gotta know that’s stupid. It’s not going to do that.”
Hinata frowns. He is so freaking sick of this guy’s attitude, and anyway, he hadn’t thought that the suggestion was that bad.
“Prove that jerk wrong, Zigzagoon!” he hollers.
And so the next time Murkrow comes circling around, Zigzagoon jumps, and bites down hard on its feathery tail. Murkrow squawks in alarm, thrown off, and teeters precariously in the air.
Kageyama stares, eyes wide, but doesn’t waste a second.
“Higher, Murkrow!” he yells. “Go as high as you can and then shake it off!”
Oh, no: so that’s why Kageyama had thought it was such a dumb move. With surprising strength, Murkrow strains upwards. For such a small bird, with something so heavy attached to it, it's doing startlingly well.
Zigzagoon, on the other hand, is hanging there by its teeth.
And then, in a wholly unsurprising turn of events, it falls.
Hinata's heart doesn't just sink: it crashes into an iceberg, rips itself in half, and then it sinks.
And yeah, trainers aren’t supposed to physically interfere in Pokémon battles and all that, but of course Hinata isn't going to just stand back and let Zigzagoon hit the ground like that.
“I forfeit!” he shrieks, and then he’s running onto the field and diving.
Zigzagoon lands in his right in his arms. It looks a little worse for wear, but not like it’s just broken every bone in its body.
The fall knocks the wind out of him, but he looks at Zigzagoon and Zigzagoon looks at him.
And then Zigzagoon licks his cheek, and then he’s just kind of giggling, because Arceus that had been close.
The referee stares. Kageyama stares. Murkrow swoops down and stares too.
“Erm,” says the referee finally. “Kageyama Tobio wins and advances to the next round?”
“Thanks for the battle,” Kageyama says, after a pause. He spins on his heel and leaves without another word, Murkrow fluttering after him.
Hinata sighs. Damn. He’d lost in the first round.
Zigzagoon licks him on the cheek with its scratchy tongue, so Hinata gets up and shakes the referee’s hand with the hand he’s not holding Zigzagoon in. Then he goes off to find the rest of his school.
.
Later on, after an extensive bit of lurking around and asking everyone he knows, he learns that Kageyama Tobio is something of a prodigy and on track to studying under a gym leader after graduating from middle school. Some people, Hinata thinks bitterly, just have all the luck.
.
The year he turns fifteen, Hinata gets on his father's Pidgeot on the day that trainer registrations open. They fly all the way from their little house in Kanto to Hoenn, the home region of his personal idol: the 'Small Giant', who'd swept the League with his team of Hoenn's biggest Pokémon despite his diminutive stature.
Littleroot Town has the same familiar small-town vibes to it that Pallet Town does, but this is the Hoenn region, and Hinata’s about to become a Pokémon trainer and so somehow it seems about a hundred times more exciting. It’s six in the morning and far too early for anyone sane to be up and about. The air is cold and crisp with all the freshness of a new beginning.
Hinata’s sense of direction is appalling. Luckily, Littleroot Pokémon Lab is the biggest building in the entire town, and he ends up finding it no problem.
Unluckily, it only opens at nine.
“What the hell is this,” he says disbelievingly, and then slumps down against the locked door, with no choice but to twiddle his thumbs and wait.
Ten minutes later a Swellow lands in front of the lab and—
It’s like something out of a nightmare. “You,” he says, disbelievingly. “Kageyama Tobio.”
“You’re…” says Kageyama. The Swellow cuffs him affectionately on the shoulder and flies away, but he ignores it. “I don’t know your name.”
Ouch. Hinata snorts.
“Course you don’t,” he says. “Someone like you wouldn’t remember a guy who lost to you in the first round, huh?”
“No, I definitely remember you,” Kageyama says, and then goes silent, no explanation given.
“What the heck?” Hinata says. Arceus, it’s been a year since they’ve met and this guy’s still irritating as all hell. For one thing, he isn't making any sense. “You wanna fight or something?”
Kageyama stares at him. "Are you an idiot?” he says disbelievingly.
Hinata blinks, taken aback, and then grits his teeth. “Okay, so I lost last time. So what? I’ll beat you next time!”
The other boy just looks Hinata up and down icily, not even bothering to reply.
“What?” Hinata says, suddenly feeling strangely defensive. “Why are you even here? Weren’t you going to go study under a gym leader or something?”
The other boy stiffens. “As far as studying under a gym leader goes,” he says coldly. “I didn’t get any offers. What about you? I thought you were from the Kanto region. Why are you in Hoenn?”
“I’m here ‘cause the ‘Small Giant’ did his journey here too,” Hinata says, pride bleeding into his strained voice.
“The ‘Small Giant’? That trainer who ranked second in the Hoenn league last year?” says Kageyama. “So you’re a fan of his, huh.” He falls silent, looks away.
“Yeah,” says Hinata, and sinks back into a squat. “Whatever. The lab doesn’t even open until nine, so you might as well sit down.”
Kageyama nods. “I see,” he says.
They settle down to wait in silence.
.
They make it through the registration process without too many problems. Hinata and Kageyama get into exactly six separate arguments over the course of an hour, and Hinata accidentally knocks the Professor’s toupee off, but other than that it’s all smooth sailing.
The pokeball has a good weight in Hinata’s hands. “This is so cool,” he says to himself, and then repeats it again, louder. “This is so cool!”
Kageyama pockets his own pokeball. He’s even smiling to himself, sort of, looking pleased, in a weird, Kageyama-ish way. He turns to head outside.
“Hey, hey, where are you going? Let’s battle!” Hinata says.
“Battle you?” Kageyama says. He doesn’t even stop walking. “No.”
Hinata scowls. “Why not?”
The other boy pushes open the lab door. “Because,” he says, leveling Hinata with a stare dripping with contempt. “There’s no point. We haven’t even started training these Pokémon: it would be like battling with rentals, and if the battle’s going to come down to pure strategy we both know I’d win. Anyway, this town doesn’t even have a Pokémon center.”
And then he leaves. Hinata gapes.
“What an asshole,” he grumbles, good mood gone. He presses the white button on the pokeball, releases the Torchic inside onto the cold linoleum floor in a flash of red light. “You think so too, huh, little buddy?”
The Torchic cheeps curiously, and Hinata bends down, scoops it up. “Aren’t you a cutie?” he says, and immediately feels embarrassed for cooing over it like some girl. Then the Torchic nuzzles its head against his shirt, and he gives up on maintaining any semblance of his dignity.
It's just so fluffy.
.
The nearest Pokémon Gym is in Rustboro City. Since challenging Gyms is what Pokémon trainers do, that becomes Hinata’s first destination.
Camping out is harder than it sounds. Hinata spends the whole trip struggling with setting up his tent, running away from wild Pokémon, and contemplating how much of an asshole Kageyama is.
He eventually comes to the conclusion that he and Kageyama are destined rivals.
.
The next time he sees Kageyama is at Rustboro Gym, about a week after he first sets off.
He gets there just in time to see Gym Leader Sugawara’s Onix slamming Kageyama’s Mudkip against a rock. It doesn’t get back up.
Kageyama returns his Pokémon wordlessly. A few seconds later, Sugawara does the same, and crosses the battlefield to put one hand on Kageyama’s shoulder.
“Do you understand why you lost that match?” Sugawara says, finally. “All of your Pokémon were fairly strong, and your strategy was flawless. But you lost anyway, because your Pokémon didn’t listen to your commands.”
“I see,” Kageyama says tersely, and glares angrily at the ground.
Sugawara clucks sympathetically. “You have some trouble conveying your feelings to your Pokémon, don’t you?” he says. “It’s a problem a lot of trainers have when they’re just starting out. Don’t feel too badly about it.”
Hinata fidgets. As interesting as it is seeing Kageyama getting upbraided by a Gym Leader, Hinata kind of wishes that they'd just get on with it already, because it's almost closing time and come on, he wants to have his match too!
Plus, this whole thing seems a little too personal for him not to feel awkward about standing there and listening.
“Um,” he says. “Gym Leader Sugawara?”
Sugawara looks up. "Oh, sorry. Another challenger?"
Hinata nods frantically, and Suguwara smiles. "Right this way, then."
.
The match begins without much further ado.
Sugawara sends out the same Onix as before. Hinata tosses his pokeball up in the air and releases Torchic, who bursts out and lands on its feet in the sandy battlefield.
“Okay,” he says. “Um. Charge it!”
And charge it Torchic does. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a great idea to ask a chick Pokémon (barely tall enough to peck someone in the knee!) to charge a thirty-foot-long rock snake.
“Tackle,” says Sugawara.
Hinata’s eyes widen. Oh crap. “Dodge! Dodge! Dodge!” he yells.
Torchic dodges frantically; squeaking in alarm, and promptly gets whacked out of the battlefield by Onix’s tail.
“Out of bounds,” Sugawara says apologetically. “Do you have any other Pokémon?”
Hinata blushes. “Um. No.”
.
Also in hindsight, it probably wasn't a good idea to get into a screaming argument with your rival right in front of a Gym Leader, because of course Sugawara would come up with some creative way to get them for it.
“You want us to what?” Hinata says uncertainly, staring at Sugawara in disbelief. Kageyama doesn’t even say anything, just gapes. In any other situation, Hinata probably would have enjoyed the sight of Kageyama with his mouth hanging open like a Goldeen. As it so happens, it’s all he can do to keep himself from falling over.
“I want you two to train together,” Sugawara says serenely. “I think you would both benefit greatly from it.”
“No,” Kageyama says, finally managing to scrape his enough of his brains off the floor to put together a coherent sentence. “Absolutely not, Gym Leader Sugawara.”
Sugawara smiles, and it’s the single most threatening thing that Hinata’s ever seen in his life. “Why not? Kageyama, you are an excellent strategist, and as for Hinata… while your strategy is somewhat lacking, there are very, very few trainers who can convince a first-stage fire-type to charge directly at a Pokémon that’s thirty times its size and made of rocks. There is plenty that the two of you can learn from each other. So I think you should try it. So what do you think?”
Hinata opens his mouth, and then thinks better of it and closes it again.
Sugawara hums. “Come back in two weeks, all right? I’m sure you’ll both be able to earn a badge from me if you do.”
His eyes gleam menacingly.
A shiver runs down Hinata’s spine. Kageyama looks like he’s paralyzed.
“Okay,” Hinata babbles. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll do it, okay?”
Kageyama makes a strangled noise of assent.
.
And that's how they end up spending an impressive amount of time together over the next two weeks without trying to claw each other’s eyeballs out. For the most part.
It’s not easy, though.
Kageyama's attempt at teaching Hinata about strategy goes a little like this:
“I don’t understand,” Kageyama says, horrified. “So you’re telling me you challenged a Pokémon gym that specializes in rock-types with one puny little fire-breathing chicken that only knows how to tackle things and use Ember, even though fire-types are weak to rock-types and Gym Leader Sugawara's favorite Pokémon are all more than thirty feet in length… and you still don’t get what you did wrong?”
“Uh…” Hinata says. “Yes?”
Kageyama buries his face in his hands. “Alright,” he says, and his voice is kind of muffled but Hinata can still hear how strained it is. “Let me explain to you the basics of strategy. Rule number one: have more than one type of Pokémon.”
.
Honestly? Hinata appreciates the effort, he really does. But the whole 'learning how to do strategy' thing?
Yeah, probably the most boring thing he's done all year. Also, Kageyama's a jackass, and it's so unfair that he understands all that stuff, because Hinata sure doesn't.
But even though Kageyama's desperate bid at giving Hinata a lesson on the finer details of competitive Pokémon battling ended up being a little humdrum, it's nothing compared to how painful Hinata's little class on how to interact with Pokémon ends up being…
Well, for Kageyama, that is.
For Hinata, it's just flat out hilarious.
“So what’s the problem?” Hinata says, digging his toes into the grass.
Kageyama scowls, his face contorted into this weird expression of pain that’s sort of scary but also sort of makes him look like he’s really, badly constipated. “My…” he says, and then stops abruptly.
Hinata waits.
“None of my Pokémon like me,” Kageyama finally grits out. “Satisfied?”
There’s a long, drawn out silence as Hinata’s brain tries to comprehend this information. “Your Pokémon… don’t like you?” he repeats helplessly.
Kageyama growls. “I should have known you couldn’t help me,” he spits out, and gets to his feet to walk off. That's totally not okay, though, because at least Hinata tried paying attention when Kageyama was droning on about strategy, right?
“Hey, hey, wait!” he says, and grabs Kageyama by the wrist. “Have you tried, um, talking to them? Like, what do you mean they don’t like you?”
The other boy sits back down, a little reluctantly. “They don’t do what I tell them to do,” he says flatly.
“What, like, in a battle?” Hinata pictures Kageyama getting all frustrated barking orders at his Mudkip and it just not listening. The mental image makes him laugh, and he has to choke it back before Kageyama gets offended and walks off like the prissy little princess that Hinata knows he secretly is.
“Yeah,” Kageyama says gruffly.
“Okay, okay,” says Hinata. “Well, try letting your Mudkip out of its pokeball.”
“Alright,” Kageyama says dubiously. He fishes a pokeball out of his pocket and tosses it up in the air.
His Mudkip does a funny little wriggle in midair and then proceeds to nail the poor guy right in the eyes with a blast of water that leaves him sopping wet from head to toe. It makes a noise like a mix between a coughing fit and someone scraping their nails down a chalk board that Hinata knows with an iron clad certainty is the amphibian version of an evil cackle.
In the stunned silence that follows, the laugh that bubbles out of Hinata’s chest is both completely unexpected and totally inappropriate.
Kageyama punches him in the nose.
.
“Oh, it’s you two,” Sugawara says with a beatific smile. He’s just finished wiping the floor with yet another unfortunate challenger looking for his first badge. The poor kid looks a little shell-shocked, staring at his unconcious Treecko in stunned silence. “Here to challenge me again?”
“That’s right!” Hinata hollers. There's a bandage over his nose from where Kagayama punched him. “And we’re both going to win this time, too!”
Kageyama nods. He's got a steely glint in his eyes. “We’ve both improved a lot. We’ll definitely win this.”
Sugawara laughs. “Is that so?” he says. “I knew you could do it. Well, shall we start then? Who wants to go first?”
“Me!” says Hinata, brandishing his two Pokeballs. “I have a secret weapon this time— a Lotad! The most amazing Lotad of all time!”
Kageyama rolls his eyes. “It’s not a secret weapon if you tell him what it is,” he says, but his tone somehow isn’t as mocking as the words would suggest.
.
Sugawara’s second Onix roars and goes down like a sack of bricks. Mudkip does that weird cackle thing again and then proceeds to go do a little victory dance on its unconscious opponent’s head.
They’ve won. They’ve actually won.
"Holy crap," Hinata says. "I just won. You just won. Both of us won. We won."
Kageyama stares at him with wide eyes, Mudkip's pokeball clenched in one hand. "Hell yeah," he says.
.
When they leave the gym, the sun is already setting on Rustboro. It’s just starting to get dark out.
Hinata’s shoes click on the stone pavement.
“Man,” he says, stretching. “I'm beat. Winning sure feels good.”
They pass a streetlamp. The light catches on the badge clipped to Hinata’s jacket.
“You know,” Kageyama says, so softly that Hinata almost doesn’t hear it. “I became a trainer because of this feeling.”
“The feeling of what, victory?” Hinata stops walking and laughs, a little ruefully. He looks at the sky, breathes in the cold Hoenn air. “Jeez, I kind of get what you mean. Winning, it’s like— bwaah! It feels great! But, well. I didn’t really become a trainer because of this.”
“You didn’t?” Kageyama looks at him sharply, but in the pale yellow light of the streetlamp his face looks softer, somehow, more… peaceful.
“Nah. I mean, I kind of lose more than I win anyway, y’know?” Hinata closes his eyes. The Kricketunes are chirping in the distance. A single Venomoth flits past, attracted to the bright, glowing streetlight. “But, well, I really love Pokémon. I want to spend my whole life with them! So that’s why I decided to become a trainer.”
“You could have become a Pokémon breeder,” Kageyama says. “Or a Coordinator. Or even just a regular person who owns a bunch of Pokémon.”
Hinata shrugs. “Yeah, well,” he says, “I don’t know. I think there’s something about fighting side-by-side with your Pokémon that’s special.”
“Yeah,” Kageyama says. He looks down at the badge in his hand with this weird, thoughtful expression. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“You do?” Hinata snickers. “Hey, Kageyama, you’re not such a bad guy after all. Tell you what, race you the rest of the way to the Pokémon Center!” He takes off like a shot. Hinata is a fast runner when he has to be.
“Hey, wait—” Kageyama starts, but Hinata’s already long gone. He shakes his head. There’s a smile tugging at his lips.
He starts running, trips over a trashcan in the darkness, and starts swearing so loudly that Hinata actually runs back to come check on him.
By then, Hinata kind of figures that it’s pretty safe to say that they’re friends, sort of.
Or, well, friendly rivals, at the very least.
But that's good enough for now.