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As Bede gets home, reaches for the colorful tie in his neck and loosens it, letting a long sigh out. He leaves the package in his hands on the floor nearby, before deciding it’s best to push it a bit to the side so that he doesn’t stumble on it – on her – later. Then he looks around.
Empty, silent, almost eerie.
He decides standing there will do him no good and proceeds to go straight to sleep. It’s not a graceful walk, he realizes as he stumbles on the way almost as if he’s drunk, and he has only managed to unbuckle his belt by the time he reaches his room; then he decides to just not bother with changing before he collapses onto bed.
He hasn’t slept properly for days – hell, he’s not even sure whether he’s slept at all in the last 48 hours or so – so he welcomes the sheer exhaustion that takes over his body as soon as his skin touches the sheets. He knows staying awake will do him no good. A part of him knows he’ll regret not changing his clothes properly tomorrow, but at this point he’s too exhausted to care. He plunges into a dreamless sleep, something he is thankful for, simply because he knows anything he may dream about now will not be positive.
-
As expected, when he wakes up in the next day, he deeply regrets not changing properly.
His hips are sore, strangled all night long by the belt he just barely had bothered to unbuckle. His neck hurts because the not completely removed tie forced him into an awkward position. The binder he didn’t bother to unclasp dug into his ribcage and he was sure some rashes must have developed in the surrounding skin as well.
Nothing unexpected, if he were honest. If anything, it offered at least something to bother him that didn’t come directly from the demons in his own head. Not that he needed more bothersome stuff, but at this point any distraction would be welcomed.
Anything that let him forget for a few moments that he was alone once more.
-
While there are no laws regarding bereavement leave in Galar, Leon is merciful enough to let him choose when he wants to go back without major repercussions. It’s not Challenge season, after all.
However, while a part of him wants to bury himself in work so he doesn’t have time to be alone with his own thoughts, another wants nothing more than to just run away and never come back to any of this. A third just wishes the “temporary” chairman would just tell him when to come back so he doesn’t have to think about it. He ends up never informing the former Champion – or even any of the employees of his own gym – when he intends to come back.
Which is why everyone is so taken aback when he appears in his usual workplace after just three days. They’d thought he was doing badly enough that he didn’t want to even call, much less well enough to work. At least, it was how everyone thought it’d go after seeing how he’d been at the funeral.
They’re not entirely mistaken, though. It’s clear the Ballonlea Gym Leader is in no shape to work, no matter how much he refuses to go back home.
He can’t go back home.
He’ll be all alone if he goes.
-
Bede used to take a lot of pride on the fact that he was quite resilient. That against all odds, he could call himself a successful athlete. That he had managed to reinvent himself time and time again and not break, that he’d “made it” and could give himself credit for it.
Now he’s not so sure.
It’s so pathetic that such a little thing can break him down that bad. He’d been able to go back to work, despite his bumpy first day, and by now, some weeks later, he’d like to think he’s back to… normalcy, at least.
How foolish of him.
The toppled container and the grey powder scattered at his entrance remind him that he hasn’t really dealt with it at all, he’s just… shoved it at the back of his mind. He’s also forced to confront the fact that he isn’t really functioning as well as he’s been trying to convince himself he is, if the gigantic pile of unwashed clothes and dishes he can see from the entrance are anything to go by. Theodora has offered to help, but he’s far too proud to accept it… and also not cruel enough to demand more of her when she’s also grieving.
It’s just that he thought it wouldn’t hurt as bad this time.
Not when he knew it was coming sooner or later. Not when she hadn’t outright abandoned him like Rose or his parents had.
(And also because I thought I’d be used to it at this point , a bitter voice in him sneers.)
But it does hurt just as much as every time before, and all of a sudden he doesn’t feel like Bede, the Ballonlea Gym Leader, rival of the Champion, the most famous Fairy-type trainer in all of Galar.
He feels like the problem child at the orphanage, the insufferable trainer that nobody wanted to team up with in trainer school, the disowned Challenger whose former endorser didn’t even remember his name.
He knows it’s not exactly the same, he knows he’s been through worse. He knows (or at least expects) he’ll eventually gather the now broken pieces of himself and make something new out of that, just like so many times before.
Yet why does it feel so hopeless? Why does it feel so lonely?
Bede knows he isn’t as much of a loner as he claims to be anymore. He knows at least a handful of people who genuinely care about him. It’s not like nobody will notice if he vanishes, not like he isn’t an accomplished professional, not like anyone dares question his identity. If anything, he’s never been better in pretty much every aspect of his life. He knows there are people who would kill to be in this position.
Then why, why is it so hard to just move on, or even just start moving towards that?
Honestly, all Bede wants to do is just sit down and cry. Cry, like he did when he found out mommy and daddy weren’t going to come get him. Cry, like he did when his classmates stole his sports bra at trainer’s school. Cry, like he didn’t do when Rose finally discarded him. It had to be cathartic, didn’t it? He’d once heard that sometimes a good cry is all someone needs to get back on their feet…
Yet he isn’t sure he can do it anymore at this point. Crying had always been a display of weakness, put a target on his back, and vulnerability sounds like something straight out of a fantasy book. Even if he tried, the tears would not come out. Keeping a stiff upper lip had spared him so much suffering in the past, so much so that Bede feels betrayed when he realized he’s now being harmed by this same behavior.
It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel anything, though. Quite the contrary – Hatterene seems particularly bothered by it, but all of his Pokémon can clearly sense it and he’s pretty sure any human who knows him a little bit can see it as well. And Bede knows this can’t be healthy, this can’t be productive, this can’t be what she’d want or expect him to do. Bottling up is a recipe for disaster, as previous experience has taught him.
But he knows no other way to deal with it.
Why was he so upset over something that had happened before, over and over?
-
Opal had owned surprisingly few assets, namely only the small cottage she’d lived in since before anyone else could remember – and the many, many objects stored there or in Ballonlea Stadium, though most of them had little to no monetary value. Bede found himself quite surprised when he found out she’d left a will, and even more that it delegated him as the sole heir to… everything, really. It was quite welcome in some aspects – namely, not having to worry about rent for as long as he was to live in Ballonlea – but it also meant he was the one responsible for whatever he was supposed to do with all those items, most of which predated his own existence, and her Pokémon as well.
And also left him to wonder why, of all people, it had been him. Theodora was single and could have used a house, Annette had a kid whose godmother was Opal, Teresa had been the one to catalogue most of the items at the Stadium to begin with, and all of them had known her for far longer than Bede had even been alive. Bede was also aware that, while she had never married or had children, Opal had a few living relatives and wasn’t on bad terms with them, even if she wasn’t super close either.
He’d once mentioned it to Teresa, but all he’d gotten in response was a melancholic smile, a pat on his shoulder and a “you’ll have to figure it out yourself”. For weeks, maybe months, he’d thought it to be just bullshit, something she’d said only to avoid having conversations about delicate topics. Annette and Theodora giving similar answers only reinforced the thought; either they’d decided not to talk about it together or all of them thought it was something they really didn’t want to discuss.
He didn’t expect to come to understand this way.
It’d started as something fairly innocuous – Bede needed to check some notes she’d taken on his Pokémon for training, something strictly professional. Yet, as he checked the pile of notebooks she used to keep in her nightstand, he realized one of those didn’t contain doodles, or notes on Pokémon, or journal entries like the others.
Instead, it was chock full of all things… Bede.
The first photo of him in Ballonlea’s local newspaper. Several cutouts of news articles covering his interruption of the Champion Cup. Magazine covers with his face. Printouts of interviews he’d given to websites. Tickets to the first play he played a main character in. A piece of cloth from his first, oversized Fairy-type uniform. A piece of gift wrap with “to: Opal” written in his handwriting. The label of his first puberty blockers. A note he’d written haphazardly to let Opal know he was spending the night out. A photo of him someone most certainly took when he wasn’t looking, brushing Hatterene’s hair.
Bede doesn’t quite remember the exact context surrounding each of those items, but from the notes written in careful, beautiful (if a bit shaky) handwriting next to each of those carefully glued items, it’s clear Opal knew.
The truth hits him like a train, and all of a sudden he knows the Gym Trainers were right. No words could have possibly convinced him, conveyed what needed to be conveyed to answer such a deceivingly simple question. Even if someone had told him, he’d just laugh it off as nonsense. Now that he knows it, it seems so obvious, and Bede can’t help wondering why he hadn’t realized something as clear as that.
He had been loved .
Cherished, treasured, cared for.
Sure, her reason for taking him in hadn’t been completely selfless in the beginning, but she’d never lied to him about it and, more importantly, hadn’t let any of her interests get in the way of just doing what was best for him. How ironic that the one that was the most unabashed about her intentions had been the only one not to hurt him with them.
He’s interrupted by a concerned Gothitelle, who puts a hand on his shoulder, and a melancholic Alcremie, who comes and wipes his cheek. It’s only then that he realizes tears had been falling from his eyes. As he looks up, he sees all the Pokémon in the household gathered around the door to Opal’s bedroom, all showing worry, some of them slightly afraid, some of them confused. Bede tries to choke up the sobs, but they come out before he can suppress them.
Bede was no stranger to loving, contrary to popular belief. He was no stranger to hatred either – Leon’s little brother knew that all too well –, yet, as much as it still stung to admit it, he did at least at some point genuinely love and want the approval of many people, most notably the ones that eventually abandoned him. Even as dad wouldn’t make lunch and mum would put out cigarettes on his skin, five-year-old Bede did want to go to school and be successful and give them a big house like the ones he saw on TV. Even as Rose couldn’t remember his name after years of sponsoring his education, thirteen-year-old Bede was still determined to gather those Wishing Stars he and Oleana never seemed to stop talking about. Bede had become wary of devoting himself so fully to anyone else because it’d always ended badly, indeed, but that feeling of love, of devotion, of determination was all too familiar.
What was not familiar at all was actually being loved back. To realize he didn’t have to complement “I love this person” with “despite what they did to me”. To have someone actually be clear about what they wanted from Bede and to not change their minds even as the circumstances change. To have someone actually care enough to keep a record of the mundane little things he’d done and said.
It was simple, it was the whole point of an entire market niche, yet Bede had always thought it to be incredibly silly. Now, however, he knew why. He just had never experienced what was needed to understand the appeal of such oddness. It turns out people really do act differently when they are loved by someone they love back.
And yet, why had she never told him?
Why hadn’t she ever felt the need to show him she cared?
The album could very well have been a work in progress when she passed, something Bede quickly confirmed by checking and noticing several pages were still empty, but it still didn’t explain why she never let him know how much she cared. Not directly, at least. Bede was well aware she’d been the one adult in his early life who had actually steered him in the right direction, but how was he, who’d been deprived of even basic human respect for so much of his formative years, supposed to know that was what love looked like? Being loved wasn’t the kind of thing that came naturally to him, what were the signs? How did normal people recognize it? How could he even hope to do the same as them?
Was it his fault he hadn’t noticed earlier?
He could’ve done so much more for her if he’d noticed earlier. Shown her he also loved and was devoted to her. Been more appreciative of her efforts to raise him into a fine young man. Given her more peace of mind about being strong and independent and competent enough to navigate life on his own – though that was a bit of a stretch, if the last few months were anything to go by.
But he hadn’t. He’d only noticed now, when all that was left of Opal was a grey powder.
Guess that cliché line about only realizing what you had when it’s gone had more truth in it than expected.
And yet... the very knowledge that he’d been loved, no matter how belated, was strangely comforting.