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“Good work, Espeon.” Green tilts his head, gesturing for Espeon to re-enter the locker room. “We’ll call it a day.”
Espeon yips, rubbing up against Green’s jeans before lapping at the water from the fountain in the corner he’s recently installed for the Pokémon in the Viridian gym.
Leaning back against a wall, Green gulps down a cold energy drink, wiping himself down with a towel.
It’s been a long week. Well, a long few months, really. Green has never considered himself a patient person, and the radio silence from Red for the last year or so has made him antsy. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered dropping everything once or twice to make a trip to see how his ridiculous, reckless rival is doing with his recovery. To hold him to it, even, what with Red’s penchant for pushing himself when he shouldn’t — Green knows him all too well.
Then again, that’s something that the both of them have in common. Always have.
Holding out a Pokéball with his hand, he lets Espeon return inside the capsule with a flash of light, hooking it back onto his belt. The training rotations with Red’s Pokémon have been doing well. Green’s been subtle enough with the scheduling that most challengers and journalists from the league haven’t caught on, even if the scene continues to be rife with speculation.
It just simply wouldn’t do for others to get wind of how the Champion and most powerful trainer in the region has been severely injured, especially with the few stragglers from Team Rocket in Kanto.
There’s too much at stake — it’s a secret that only Green, the Elite Four, and Professor Oak are aware of; one that they will guard with their lives.
Green’s just pulled his gym leader’s jacket on when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket.
That’s odd. It’s well after dinner, and there aren’t any vendor appointments this week for the maintenance fo the gym.
Green hoists his backpack over one shoulder, fishing out his phone just as the message lights up his screen.
Where are you? Is all it says.
Green starts.
It can’t be.
His phone vibrates again with a second message.
I’m at the Viridian gym.
Slamming the locker door with a bang, Green breaks into a run.
He doesn’t even need to read the name. Doesn’t need to check a profile picture.
There’s only one person in the world who would message him in so few words, yet say so much.
The corridors through the back of the gym and the stadium area are dark now that all the other trainers have gone home, but Green knows the winding paths by heart. It takes him no time at all to burst through the main doors, panting as his puffs of breath form little clouds in the brisk evening air.
A man’s silhouette emerges from the darkness, stepping into the light of the lamp posts just outside the Viridian gym statues, where both Green’s name and his have been engraved all those years ago.
Red takes off his battered cap, giving Green a crooked smile.
“Hey.”
It takes all of Green’s self-restraint that he’s honed as a gym leader to not punch him. “Hey?!” Green says instead, stepping forward to jab Red in the chest, holding back only because he knows Mewtwo had broken a few of his ribs the year before. “You drop off the face of the earth for the better part of year without bothering to even let us know you’re back, and all you can fucking say to me is ‘hey’!?”
“Sorry.” Red does look contrite, at least, rubbing the back of his neck. Green tries not to look too long at the way Red is favouring his left leg ever so slightly, or the way the gash on his dominant arm has scarred over. Worry bubbles up in him, but he’d be damned if he voices it all out loud.
“I was feeling a lot better. I wanted to come back sooner, but there were blizzards. Weather finally cleared up enough last week for me to make the trip down with Charizard, but by the time we flew over Victory Road, I clean forgot—”
That’s the most Green has heard Red talk for a long while. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d missed his voice.
“Well, have you spoken to your mother?” Green demands, raising an eyebrow. “You know she’s been worried sick.”
“No,” Red admits. “Um. I came here, first.”
Green looks at him, incredulous. “Huh?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Now that does strike Green speechless. He looks at Red, mouth agape, unable to find the words. Red, too, seems to have suddenly realised the implication of his words, turning a shade worthy of his namesake.
“That is, I meant—” Red stammers, at the same moment Green blurts, “Me too.”
It’s Red’s turn to stare at him.
“Oh, shut up,” Green snarls, looking away and hoping that Red can’t make out his expression. “I haven’t seen you in a year, you selfish imbecile. I trained a bunch of your Pokémon and visited your mum and had to check the news to make sure an idiot didn’t freeze to death on Mt. Silver because I didn’t hear shit from you, and — what?”
“Man.” Red stifles a chuckle into the back of a gloved fist. “You haven’t changed.”
Green shoves him. “Neither have you.”
Red’s gaze softens into something sad. A few solemn seconds pass, before Red says quietly, “Are you sure?”
Whatever Green would have said as a retort dies in his throat. After their ill-advised journey in the Cerulean Cave, when Red saved Green from Mewtwo’s last attack — the injuries that Red sustained would likely mean he would never battle to that level of mastery again.
“Of course,” Green croaks, gripping Red’s arm, thumb grazing the side of that raised scar. “You idiot.”
“Green.” Red notices, of course. “You must know I don’t blame you. I never have.”
“Red,” Green snaps back, looking up at Red. There was a point in their youth he was sore about Red having grown a little taller than him, and then another point where he fantasised constantly about it. It all seems so trivial, now — when they’ve been through so much more. “It doesn’t matter. If only I wasn’t there, all that wouldn’t have happened. If I had only—”
Red kisses him.
Green’s eyes go wide, barely processing the way Red has cupped his face and the little rustle of Red’s cap falling onto the grass. It’s all so much at once; simultaneously not at all how he’d imagined his first kiss with his best friend to be, and everything that he never knew he wanted until this very moment.
“Stop,” Red asks, resting their foreheads together. “Green. I would do it all over again.”
“You…” He hadn’t realised just how much he’d been holding back all these months until he feels the sting of tears in the corner of his eyes. “I never asked you to.”
“You don’t have to.” Red pulls him into his arms. “But I still would. Because you matter.”
“Well, you matter!” Green says, clutching at Red’s stupid white and red jacket. “I don’t care what you say. Don’t fucking do that without my permission again, or I will sic my Pokémon on you myself.”
“What, like when you got Charmander to singe my curtains when we were ten?”
Stepping back, Green does punch Red’s arm this time. “Smartass.”
Red chuckles. “Sorry.”
“Do it again,” Green says, pulling Red in by the collar and meeting his eyes.
“I thought you just said—”
“For the love of…” Green rolls his eyes, cupping Red’s cheek. “I meant, kiss me again.”
“Oh. Oh!” Red suddenly flushes. “Sorry, I just, um. In the spur of the moment, I didn’t think that—”
“Do it,” Green says exasperatedly, but not without fondness. “Red, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been waiting for you for years.”
Red does.
Fin