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You’re not sure when your relationship with Green Oak changed.
When you were kids, he was a menace. You were no better, but it was always Green getting the two of you in trouble. Between rushing through the tall grass Pokemon-less, exploring nearby caves with “borrowed” equipment from Professor Oak’s lab, or dumb dares down at the coast south of Pallet, the blame would befall both of you, despite all of the instigating being Green’s doing.
Even during your journey, most of your trouble—when not dealing with an interregional crime syndicate—came from the one and only Green Oak.
Roadblock of the century, Green Oak was always waiting for you. Town after town, route after route, you found him flaunting his progress, forcing you to pause in your own as he challenged you. Given, you’d always win, and Green always gave you some piece of advice or a tip you genuinely didn’t know after, but it was still a momentum breaker; another bullet point on your list of annoying habits of one Green Oak.
Squaring up against him at the final point in your journey, however, was much more fitting than fighting Champion Lance.
Green was devastated when he lost, despite the front he put on for you. There was no name for the way he left after his grandfather came into the room other than retreating, and if Professor Oak hadn’t corralled you towards the Hall of Fame, you would have run after your rival.
Champion duties took over from there, and though you were a kid, you were swamped with work. Between interviews and tv appearances, photoshoots and League meetings (the last one, you’re sure, was the only true duty you had. The other stuff was most likely Lance fishing for funds for the League—two child prodigies claiming the title of Champion within a few months of beginning their journeys was honestly quite the cash cow), you rarely saw Green.
You found out later—sometime after most of the euphoria had died down—that Lance had hired Green as the new Viridian Gym Leader.
As Champion, you had the final signature on the paperwork to make it official. When Lance presented it to you, you almost thought it was a joke. Green Oak, willingly working with the League? With you?
He’d gone radio silent the moment he left the Plateau after you won the Champion battle. You only learned from Daisy after you nearly knocked a hole in the Oak residence’s door that Green left for Sevii Islands— that he’d been gone for weeks now, I thought he let you know?—and when he got back, he had ignored you. You! Rivals, best friends, whatever, he hadn’t said a word, and now—now?!
You signed off on it, of course. Your beef with Green was yours, not the League’s, and with how desperate you knew Lance was on filling the empty hole where Giovanni once stood, you weren’t going to be petty about this.
It turned out that Green was actually an excellent pick for a gym leader. You knew he would be—duh, he was Green Oak—, but you were proud of him anyway.
Viridian perked up nicely with a new gym leader at the helm—the influx of new trainers in Kanto the season Green stepped into his position nearly rivaled the season following the Champion battle between the two of you the year before. It was a testimony to Green’s fame, as well as another boost in profits for the League, which always made for a happy Lance.
Your rival had a way of elegantly beating aspiring trainers into the ground. Sometimes, it was the breaking point for journeys, and others, it drove home just how determined they really had to be to continue. The average rate of Earth Badges actually being given out per season dropped with Green as the Viridian Gym Leader when compared to Giovanni, but Lance had agreed with you—Green was every bit the better gym leader.
Until, at least, he seemed to get bored.
Viridian Gym fell to the wayside some time during Green’s second year of running it. Your rival had openly complained about paperwork, about guest lectures and special appearances, about the banquets and meetings and get-togethers whenever someone would spare him a second on the topic. It wasn’t a surprise to see Lance pulling Green away at all those gatherings to scold him, and you weren’t surprised by the way Green would always let it roll off his back either.
Green Oak operates by no one’s rules but his own when he can get away with it, and if the worst repercussion Green was going to face was Lance being disappointed with him, you knew nothing would change.
What snapped Green out of his funk was some cocky brat from Johto. His name was Gold, you learned, when Green complained to you at some banquet. He spoke about Gold bugging him at Cinnabar, about how the kid wanted to fight him right there, on top of all the ash and cinders. You had smiled wryly at him, and had told him, “I bet you would have if you were still twelve.”
Green snorted in response, lifting his glass of champagne to his lips as he spoke. “Good thing I’m not twelve anymore then.”
Gold tore through Green’s gym when he finally arrived, about a month later.
You heard about it from your mother first, who apparently had been keeping up with Gold’s journey after the boy came through Pallet and charmed the little town with his familiar and nostalgic ambition. Your immediate thought upon hearing the news was how Green would want a rematch without the League rules he was required to follow as a gym leader weighing him down. When you saw Green the following morning, he voiced that exact sentiment to you. You laughed at his predictability.
Shortly after Gold had bested you a few weeks later, Green stepped down from Viridian Gym. He had an internship in Kalos under Professor Sycamore, as well as a scholarship to some college there for evolution sciences. Apparently, he spoke enough Kalosian to get by, and hearing him speak it to some lab assistant over the phone while dining at a cafe with him rattled your brain.
Green kicked your shin under the table, and, belatedly, you realized you had been staring. Cheeks rosy, you settled on staring at your drink instead.
League meetings were insanely boring without Green there to take your mind off them after he left. Gold had won the title of Kanto Champion, yes, but he had already besieged the Johto title, and held the responsibilities that came with it. He had stepped down from any sort of toe-in-the-water as far as Kanto went, and thus, Lance had kept you around. Besides, after a rematch a month later, you had beaten Gold anyway. The two of you were on pretty even footing.
These meetings though—they were boring. Green somehow never paid attention and yet always could summarize them for you afterwards. Now, with him halfway across the world, you had to struggle to keep your eyes open alone under Lance’s droning voice. At least you could find comfort in Erika, who always fell asleep at some point in these meetings without fail.
Unova was where you saw Green next. The Champions Tournament was an event entirely too flashy for your tastes, but you could see the way Green shined under the attention. His battles were magnificent and dramatic while still being calculating and precise. You ate up the way he directed his hand towards the camera with a blinding grin on the tiny television in your hotel room at the start of one battle, and from the tinny shrieking blasting through the shotty speakers, so did everyone in the arena.
Your battle against one another was apparently referred to as the highlight of the tournament, and while you understood why everyone screamed in delight as Green’s Aerodactyl took down your Charizard, you couldn’t quite place why they practically deafened you upon your victory. You had nowhere near the showmanship Green did, but when Green shook your hand post-match, the way he looked at you… His smile was soft, proud in a way that could only be directed at someone else, and with his eyes locked with yours, you realized his pride was placed in you. That was a rush of emotions not even ten thousand people chanting your name could ever hope to give you.
He was on break, Green told you later in your hotel room. He was doing fine in school, which you knew meant he was acing every one of his classes, the bastard, but the highlight for him was the data collecting he was doing for Sycamore. It took him all over Kalos, from rocky shores to snowy mountains, from quaint little towns so similar in feel to Pallet, to eternally autumn forests. Green had stated somewhere between his descriptions of the aquarium in Ambrette Town and the sundial in Anistar City that he would love to show you the region one day. When the two of you turned in that night, with Green passed out in his day clothes on the other side of your bed, you dreamt of summer days exploring a new region with your oldest friend. Maybe, after Green had finished his research under Sycamore, the two of you would make up for your childhood journey.
Your chance came nearly two years later in the shape of a man named Kukui.
He was a professor from the Alola region, a region famous for its beautiful shores and stunning flora. Your mom had vacationed there once upon a time, you knew, back when your dad was around. The way Kukui described it was from the view of a man in love with his home. When he asked for your notoriety to draw in more than just vacationers to their region, you almost gave in due to his passion alone.
Convince Green Oak first, you managed to tell him. If he had your rival on board, you’d go too.
Alola was humid, you found out. Humid and hot, forcing your clothes to stick to your skin as you trudged through the wilds of the routes. The benefit, you discovered quickly enough, was that Green would unbutton his polo down as far as the shirt would let him when the sun was at its peak.
He was a view, under the glow of the Alolan sun, no matter the hour of the day. Even the moonlight felt like it knew how to accentuate his features for you to admire as the two of you camped along routes. His hair lightened with the weeks, and his skin took on a sunkissed complexion that suited him so nicely. He had teased you for staring multiple times at first, but between weeks of Mantine surfing, battles with locals who only had passing knowledge of yours and Green’s fame, and evenings spent talking softly between the two of you, you had noticed his eyes on you just as much.
You’re not sure when your relationship with Green Oak changed, but, as you kiss him in the evening light, cool ocean waves lapping at your waists, you don’t think you particularly care.