Chapter Text
She catches his eye. She never did before. But of course Raihan remembers her. He remembers their battle some months ago, and he remembers how she lost to the new champion, and when their eyes meet, he smiles.
She doesn’t smile back and turns her head away.
Rude.
The room is packed and stuffy. A nice ceremonial hall Chairman Rose used to rent for them every year (now, Leon is the one having the honor of doing so). In order to celebrate the champion cup and its winner. Which usually would have been Leon. Strange to see another person in this position. And strange to see that girl right next to the current champion.
“What’s that girl called again?” he asks out loud without looking away from her.
Next to him, Sonia gives a sound. A pretty dress emphasizes her soft curves. It’s different from the way she usually looks, and he still remembers the little girl trying to keep up with Leon all the time. Seems like it’s been an eternity. “You mean Gloria?”
“Yeah. Her.” He raises his eyebrows. “Why is she here? She lost to Victor, didn’t she?”
“She’s one of his closest friends.”
“Huh. Really? Never seemed so.”
“Friendly rivals, I guess?” Sonia pauses. “Reminds me of Leon and me. Well, I guess it does. Gloria has far more fight in her than I do.”
It’s not like Raihan can disagree, but openly agreeing would have been rude, and instead, he flashes her a smile. “Now look at you. A proper respectable researcher. Got far on your own, didn’t you?”
“Quite the charmer.” Sonia smiles at him half-heartedly. “Some people are made for being trainers. Some aren’t.” She shrugs, averting her gaze again. “You know that Hop is under my supervision at the moment, right? He is reading biology at Motostoke University. Wanting to follow in my footsteps, I guess.”
“I heard,” Raihan replies. “From Leon. Bloke’s massively excited about his lil’ bro’s antics.”
“He is. It’s kind of cute.”
Raihan snorts and looks at Gloria again. She’s a pretty girl. Cute, small, not quite his type. Too fragile. Too delicate. Too young, maybe. She must be seventeen by now, or eighteen if she set out later than her peers. A pink short dress which doesn’t quite seem to fit her. She’s still talking to Victor. She isn’t smiling. It makes her face look cold. He realizes that his arms are crossed, and as he rolls his shoulders and assumes a more casual pose, he sees Hop. A fidgety boy, he always was. Curiously, even more fidgety than usual as he starts talking to Gloria.
In the far back of the room, Leon is talking to Bea, a constant smile on his lips. Sonia is watching them. Her arms are crossed. She looks unusually pretty, he begins to think. Her lips are pursed and a small wrinkle has formed between her eyes. Raihan leans against the wall behind his back, choosing a perfectly neutral tone.
“Does Hop have a girlfriend?”
Sonia wrenches her head around to him, eyebrows drawn together. “Pardon?”
“I feel like you would know, being his supervisor.”
“I,” she begins, and directs her gaze towards Hop. “I don’t know? Maybe? I never asked. Why?”
“Because he seems nervous around – what was she called? Gloria.”
Sonia’s face stays skeptical as she keeps watching Hop. “I mean, she sometimes turns up at the lab and has a talk with him, but other than that … Why would you even care?”
“Just curious. Leon never talked about his brother’s love life. I began to assume there isn’t one to begin with, but maybe I’m wrong.” He shrugs. “Maybe Hop is quite the ladies’ men, what do I know?”
Sonia barks out a laugh. “He’s sweet as a pie. Similar charm as his brother, I’d say.”
“You mean, the kind of clueless charm no bird would ever find attractive?”
“You’re so funny, Raihan.”
“Thanks. I’ll be here all night.” With a sigh, he reaches for his phone. “Literally. We have no choice. Don’t get why you’d come here of your own free will.”
“Free drinks. Free food. Doing some catching up. Enough of a reason, is it not?”
He doesn’t comment on the fact that her eyes drift to the far back of the room again, and instead, he looks through his social media accounts. Looking for a trace of that girl. Gloria. It’s not like she is that interesting, but there’s nothing much do to otherwise. Leon is occupied with his former colleagues, Sonia is occupied with her thoughts, and he is occupied with the desire to leave as soon as possible. But he can’t find her anywhere. Victor has no pictures with her. Neither does Hop.
Raihan looks at her again, and this time, he catches her staring right back. Just for a moment before she quickly averts her gaze.
Still rude. But somehow becoming interesting.
“How about we join our dear new champ in his conversation?” he suggests.
Sonia shifts her weight from one foot to the other, blinks at him. “I don’t know if I feel like socializing.”
“Sure you do.”
“I’m not you, Raihan. I don’t have endless energy for that kind of stuff. It’s late anyway, and I –”
He grabs her arm and pulls her with him. She hardly protests. It’s a shame, really. It has been a shame since they started their gym challenge, since he realized that Sonia stumbled over words when talking to her childhood friend, since Leon laughed at the suggestion of seeing Sonia as the proper woman she grew into. He stops in front of the three of them – the champ and his loyal entourage. It would almost be funny if it reminded him more of his own days journeying through Galar, but it doesn’t, and he smiles at Victor.
“Hiya, champ. How you holding up?”
“Good. I guess.” There’s a bottle of beer in Victor’s hand, and it seems somewhat surreal, considering Raihan saw him as nothing more than a kid some months ago. “Still a bit overwhelmed, but overall? Good.” He sends Raihan a smile.
“With all that support, I’m sure things won’t get too difficult for you.” Sonia pats Hop’s shoulder with a grin.
“Sure!” Hop is a ball of enthusiasm and energy, and once again, Raihan asks himself how Sonia does it, being surrounded by an image of could-have-beens day after day. Her grin not wavering in the slightest, holding onto memories that should be long forgotten.
“Can always count on us, mate,” Hop adds.
“Speaking for others, are you?” Gloria chimes in. Her firm voice betrays her fragile form. Raihan remembers it; the tone she used when battling him, the willpower behind every syllable, and he can’t help but stare at her. “But yeah. We’ll be there for you.”
“Appreciate it. Cheers.” Victor lifts his bottle. Hop is holding a glass of something, and Gloria is, too. Raihan assumes it isn’t alcoholic beverage. At least he hopes so. They are quite young, the bunch of them; but they aren’t kids. Not anymore, maybe.
“Just a bit funny,” Raihan continues. “Because that bloke – Bede? He is a gym leader now, isn’t he? And that bird, Marnie – her too. And even though you are here right now, an official festivity organized by the league …” He smiles at Gloria. “You haven’t been offered a position as gym leader, have you?”
She looks at him. There is an icy shimmer in her eyes, and he doesn’t know if it is a loathing for him, or for herself, or for the league in itself. He isn’t surprised at all when it is Hop who comes to her rescue, his tone just a tad sharper than before.
“There wasn’t any open position left.”
“The gym leaders aren’t chosen by the league, anyway,” Victor adds, looking pointedly at his drink. “Most of the positions are directly passed onto a trainer the previous gym leader deemed worthy.”
“It has nothing to do with skills,” Hop huffs. “Gloria’s a strong trainer. If it was about skills, she would have been given her own gym right away.” A beat as he stares at Raihan, all the bubbly energy replaced by a tension Raihan didn’t anticipate. “I mean, she also beat you, didn’t she?”
One corner of Raihan’s mouth twitches upwards. When he shoots a look at Sonia, he sees her shaking her head slightly, her eyebrows drawn together once again. He tries to relax his shoulders, giving a sigh in the process.
“Right. Got a bit too careless. Should never judge a book by its cover, they say.”
At that, Gloria raises her eyebrows. “And what do you mean by that?”
“He’s just trying to make himself look less of a sore loser than he really is,” Victor says. He sounds somewhat tired.
“Harsh.” Raihan laughs. “If you’re ever up for a rematch, you know where to find me, love.”
Gloria scrunches her nose up, and yet it’s Hop once again who answers, his words hasty and accompanied by disdain. “She’s an elite trainer. Challenging Lee all the time. Sorry, but I guess you’re out of her league already, mate.”
An exhausted smile appears on Gloria’s lips, but it’s only reserved for Hop, and when she looks at Raihan again, her face looks carefully blank. “Don’t want you to cry your eyes out because you can’t beat a little girl, love.”
Again, Raihan has to laugh. This time genuinely. Across from him, Sonia sends him a hard look before turning to the champion and putting on a smile. “Now that that’s out of the way, let’s chat about more pleasant things. For example, your training with Mustard! Tell us, Victor. Are the rumors true? Does he eat nothing but beans on toast all day?”
It’s a trivial conversation, one Raihan isn’t even remotely interested in. So he keeps watching Gloria as inconspicuously as possible. It’s painfully obvious that Hop fancies her. Less obvious why. Nothing about her is as feminine as he thought. A smile here, a smile there, and it never seems quite as genuine as it should. He doesn’t know if Hop can’t see it, or if he is blind to it, or if there is something Raihan is missing.
In the middle of their conversation, her eyes meet Raihan’s. She quickly looks away again. He doesn’t know if her cheeks become pink or if he is just imagining it. She grabs Hop’s arm, quietly whispering something in his ear before leaving the rest of them on the spot. Her hand is still gripping his arm as they walk towards Leon.
“I think she doesn’t like me,” it escapes Raihan.
“You’re not making that very difficult,” Sonia sighs.
“Seriously,” Victor mumbles. “She’s a good trainer. I almost feel guilty.”
“For being better than her?”
Raihan’s words make the champion pause. “I don’t think it’s about better or worse. It’s about luck. Maybe I was just lucky, and before me, Leon was always the lucky one. I don’t know.”
That’s funny, a new-fledged champ like Victor saying things not even Leon would have ever thought about.
Sonia cocks her head in response. “You are quite something, Victor.”
“Thanks?” He shrugs. “Just stating the truth.”
“And you can be a real pain in the bum,” Sonia sighs, smacking Raihan’s arm softly. “Don’t go and give a girl you don’t even know a hard time, will you?”
Raihan grins, but doesn’t apologize. Instead, he turns his head to watch Gloria and her admirer at the buffet. Something about her softens when she is talking to her friends, and he has to admit that a smile fits her. Makes her look more approachable, more like the pretty picture people expect to see.
The thought makes him shiver.
“Childhood friends, huh? The three of you?” Raihan asks.
“Gloria moved to Postwick when we were ‘bout eleven,” Victor says. Raihan notices that he is staring in her direction too, and he can understand the pensiveness shining in his eyes. “Made a promise that we’d set out together, yeah.”
“Aw,” Sonia sniffles. “That’s so cute. Three childhood friends setting out together.”
“Two childhood friends would have been even cuter, eh?” Raihan smiles at her, his tone gentle. “Nessa and I should apologize.”
As Sonia is waving her hand in a gesture of nonchalance, Victor blinks at him. “Nessa, too? I always thought that only you two and Leon traveled together.”
“Nessa was such an annoying kid.” Raihan laughs. “Always trying to be the best of us all.”
“Wish I was as patient as Milo,” Sonia mumbles. “He was the only one who could calm her down. Every time I tried to have a serious talk with her, she’d just shut me up. Until the champion cup, that is. She mellowed out afterwards.”
The memories make Raihan smile, even though he doesn’t want to think about the feelings accompanying them, and he nods towards Gloria. “So you became the third wheel? Seem to be a cute couple, the two of them.”
Victor stares at him long and hard. “Hop and Gloria aren’t a couple.”
“Shame,” Raihan drawls. “Seeing how much Hop fancies her.”
Victor keeps staring at him. Raihan stares right back. Next to them, Sonia starts fidgeting, clasping her hands together.
“Quite the assumptions you’re making here,” Victor eventually says.
“Just some observations.”
“Ah.” With that, Victor shoots him one last glance, walking away and leaving Raihan and Sonia alone once again.
It takes her a few seconds to say something, and when she does, weariness colors her features. “You can be such a prick.”
“That really hurt.”
“You say with that shite-eating grin.”
“Can’t help it. I’m just a naturally curious person.”
“Oh, sod off,” Sonia sighs.
He doesn’t smoke. Never did. Hardly anyone does anymore. When they were kids, Leon stole a pack from his father. He made his Charmander light up a cigarette, took a drag, and passed it on before having a coughing fit. Pretty amusing, and a bit sad, and Raihan learned to not inhale too deeply. No use in doing so. No use in drowning senses.
The smoking area outside is empty, a tiny balcony with two benches and way too many plants, offering a view over Wyndon. The doors are right next to the cloakroom. Nobody would stumble in here on accident. Nobody who doesn’t know about this place, that is.
So when a pretty girl enters the balcony and freezes as their eyes meet, he isn’t surprised in the slightest.
“Who do we have here?” He grins. “Lost your way, little birdie?”
Gloria sends him a look and approaches the railing, her crossed arms propped on it. She looks at the view of a metropolis by night in front of her as she speaks. “Do you always underestimate people? Or is it especially funny if it’s a young girl?”
“Making me out to be that kind of tosser, I see.”
“I’m stating facts.”
He chuckles and wishes he had a drink right now. Instead he looks at his phones, scrolling through pictures that don’t interest him in the slightest. “Left your doggie in there, did you?”
“My what?”
He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t look up from his phone. “That fuzzy ball of energy that follows you like a good little doggie. Don’t play dumb.” He snorts at himself. “Oh, or did I overestimate you right there?”
“Shut your gob.”
“Sorry. That was rude of me, you’re right.”
Silence. With some double taps, he likes pictures which he didn’t even properly look at. He likes pictures of pretty women in which they are showing their bodies, beautiful makeup, beautiful outfits, beautiful hair and faces and sunsets. He doesn’t like loneliness, he thinks, and he wonders if she feels the same, or if she would want him to go. But it would take too much effort to ask. He waits.
“You were with Sonia the whole evening,” she eventually says.
He doesn’t answer, staring at the picture of a blonde woman he is fairly certain he met some time ago.
“I don’t think you fancy her, though. You just made sure she had a distraction.”
Raihan snorts. “A psychologist, I see.”
“People watcher.”
“What I said.”
“You’re not as much of a prick as you like to pretend.”
He stops scrolling for a second. When he notices as much, he opens his private messages. Most of them he’s left unread. Most of those women are pretty and like to please him. Some of them he met, and slept with, and maybe met again once or twice, and slept with again once or twice, and he tries to smile. “What’s the real you, then? The friendly one you like to show your doggie, all sweet smiles and sweet words? Or the one you are showing me right now, trying so hard to be intimidating and getting nowhere?”
“Stop calling him my doggie.”
“Your cute boyfriend, then.”
“I don’t …” She gives a heavy breath. “He isn’t. He never will be. He’s not going to be my boyfriend.”
“Why not? You’d make a cute couple.”
“Because I don’t have feelings for him. Easy as that. I don’t.”
Easy. That’s easy. Right. He wants to close the app and goes back to scrolling through pictures. Nessa posted a picture of herself this evening, a black dress that fits her wonderfully, and he remembers talking to her too, a long time ago. About feelings, and about broken hearts. He stares at the picture longer than he intended to.
“You should tell him,” he says.
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I’m not saying this to tease you. I think you should tell him. You’re leading him on, and it’s only going to break his heart.”
“What would you know about broken hearts?”
When he looks at her, he can see how much she regrets her words. She ducks her head and doesn’t meet his eyes. Her cheeks are colored pink.
“Sorry,” she whispers. “That was rude.”
“Seems like I’m a bad influence, aren’t I?”
A snort. It sounds unamused. “I’m not leading him on. I’m doing nothing.”
He barks out a laugh. “You think so? You should take a hard look at yourself, then.”
“What?” she says. “Just because I’m nice to a friend, I’m leading him on? Ever thought that it isn’t fair on me, either? What am I supposed to do, be mean to him?”
He shrugs. “Be honest to him, maybe.”
“Rich coming from you,” she mumbles.
She doesn’t see his amused grin as she walks off, leaving the balcony hastily. Women told him they like his smile. Women told him they like the way he teases them, his confidence. They love his attention, they say. Most of the time, he doesn’t care. Sometimes he doesn’t know what to think. So he looks at Nessa’s picture again. An annoying kid, years ago. He almost can’t believe who she has grown into. Who she is now.
A knock, a thump, someone cursing sharply.
Raihan sits up and stares at his hotel room’s door. He is already in sleepwear, a t-shirt and his boxers, and he quickly pulls some trousers over his legs before opening the door. He finds a little girl in front of it, trying to grab her keys from the floor and failing miserably.
“Wrong room,” he tells her.
“What?” is the response. Gloria looks up to him. Her eyes are reddened and unfocused, and she reeks of alcohol. She almost falls to the side as she tries to keep looking at him. “’S not. ‘S my room.”
“No, it isn’t, love.” He sighs and crouches to her level, snatching the keys away from underneath her fingers. “See. Your key says 305. This is room 315. You get the difference?”
“I’m not fucking dumb.”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Stop fucking with me.”
He sighs yet again. After all, he’s not a babysitter. But still. Nobody seems to be with her – which is pretty careless. That girl can barely stand up on her own, and he has to offer her his arm so she doesn’t collapse to the floor right away. How she even got to the third floor on her own is beyond him.
“I’m going to bring you to your room now,” he tells her. “That all right?”
“Whatever.”
Brat. But he’s not that much of an arsehole. So he helps her. When he realizes that she can’t walk properly, he doesn’t hesitate to grab her waist and lift her up. She squeaks, then smacks his shoulder harder than necessary. She weighs so little that it’s almost worrying.
“Let me go, you neanderthal.”
“Don’t you worry. I’m not going to kidnap you.”
“I don’t need your sodding help.”
For the third time in just a few minutes, he sighs. “You can’t even speak without stumbling over every second word.”
She bombards him with some more curse words, presenting an alarmingly extensive vocabulary, and then she starts thrashing in his arms. It’s getting annoying. So he’s more than glad when he finally manages to unlock the door to her hotel room. Without reacting to her insults, he lets her sink to the bed, and because he secretly does have a heart, he enters the bathroom and searches for a glass. Her senseless protests ebb away. He is even becoming worried as he fills the glass he found with water, and he leaves the bathroom only to find Gloria stare at the ceiling in silence.
“You feeling sick?” he asks.
“A bit.”
At least she seems calmer now. He puts the glass on the bed table next to her. “If you want to throw up, do it now. Get it out of your system. You’ll sleep better, too.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“I’m just trying to help you.”
“I know.” She turns to her side, showing him her back. “I know you do.” Her voice gets heavy, tearful. “That’s just it. I don’t get it.”
The whiny kind of drunk. Great. He massages his forehead and sits down at the edge of the bed. The gym will be closed tomorrow, and he isn’t that tired to begin with, and anyway, she’s just a girl. A pretty little girl. Nothing more. “What do you not get?” he asks, elbows propped on his knees.
“Why someone would ever like me. Why Hop would like me.”
He doesn’t know what to say. She’ll forget about it anyway. Their talk will be nothing more than a blurry memory, and if it’s her first time getting drunk, she will swear to herself to never drink one drop of alcohol again. She will wonder how she got in her bed, if someone helped her, and she won’t remember that it was him. She won’t remember what she told him.
He shouldn’t use that to his advantage.
She hiccups. He doesn’t touch her, even though the urge to comfort her becomes stronger. Instead he clasps his hands and stares at them.
“Maybe there’s no reason behind it,” he says.
“That’s not what I mean.” Her voice almost becomes lost underneath her unshed tears. “He doesn’t even know me.”
“You’re childhood friends. He’s known you for years.”
“He doesn’t know me.”
Raihan keeps quiet. His phone is in his room. His hands feel empty. It’s spring, and the room is suffocatingly warm, and he tugs at the neckline of his shirt. In the silence, Gloria’s sob echoes just so much more cruelly.
“Did you tell him?” he asks.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t hurt him.”
“You could let him see who you are. Open up.”
“I can’t.”
He keeps staring at his hands. It’s getting harder to breathe. He wishes he could forget just like she will.
“I’m going to go,” he says.
She doesn’t respond. She just keeps sobbing. Despite his words, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t know how much time has passed until he hears her voice again.
“Whoever broke your heart – did she see who you really are?” she whispers.
“That’s getting really deep.”
“I think that’s why you get it,” she continues, sounding so completely different from before, from some months ago when she challenged him. Sounding like the girl that she really is. “Because maybe, you could have loved her, and she could have loved you, but it’s scary. Being yourself is scary.”
He isn’t sure if he understands.
Maybe she didn’t need a response anyway, or maybe she is too tired already, but it doesn’t take long until her breaths get more even. She looks helpless in her pretty pink dress, and fragile, and he wonders for a moment just who she is trying to fool. He stands up, puts her keys on the bed table, and exits the room. Nobody followed her up here. It’s late, and for a moment he wonders what she did, why she got drunk, what she wanted to forget.
He decides that honestly, it shouldn’t be his problem. And it isn’t.
The next day, he sees Victor in the entrance hall.
“Had a great afterparty last night, I heard,” he says.
Victor looks tired, evidence of just how much fun it must have been. A pair of sunglasses hides his eyes from giving even more away. “Was all right.”
A grin forms on Raihan’s lips. “Having a hangover breakfast with your friends now?”
Victor shrugs. “With Hop, yeah. No idea where Gloria is. She already checked out.” He sighs. “That’s just Gloria for you. Up and away. Can’t keep her in one place for too long.”
Raihan stares, and wonders, and decides to stop wondering.