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The South Paldean Sea, as usual, was still. Not a wave to be seen, the wind barely even grazing your skin. You came here all the time, before your enrolment at Mesagoza Academy; just you and your mother out for some fresh air, freshly made sandwiches in hand.
She wasn't alongside you today, of course. Away at home with Skwovet, doing whatever moms usually do when they're not busy raising their kids. Today, the face sitting next to yours was one you've grown attached to over this past month. You remember feeling terrified back when Nemona was leading you out to Mesagoza for the first time, fearing that you'd be left alone amongst people who didn't like or understand you, students that would tear down every little bit of you if given half an opening. But now? You can't help but look back on those fears fondly – seeing how far you've come since then makes you proud... and just a little bit stupid for feeling that way in the first place.
Because, of course, you found people. People with the sort of kindness and patience that you rarely encounter outside of books, people who saw something within you worth helping grow into what you could become. People like... Well, Arven, basically. You chat with Nemona about Pokémon battling now and then and with Penny about how the Team Star bosses are re-acclimating into academy life, sure. But more often than not, you're out here spending time with the person sitting next to you.
"Something wrong?" Arven asks after a moment, catching your gaze. You've been staring out at the sea like a weirdo for the past few minutes, the sandwich he'd oh-so kindly prepared for you hanging idly in your hands, forgotten. "The saltwater is supposed to relax you."
"No, no," you force out a soft laugh. "Just... daydreaming."
"Oh yeah? About what?" He leans forward, taking a closer look at you as though he's trying to peer through your skull straight into the depths of your mind. You're not used to such close scrutiny; most people seem uncomfortable when you get so deep into conversation, but not him. There's a comfortability when you're by his side that you can't quite explain, as if he's made it his mission to let you know everything is going to be alright. That there aren't any huge problems you need to deal with alone. You needed to have someone like that around you. Someone who wasn't scared of the things you were.
"A lot of things," you tell him honestly, taking another bite of the sandwich before answering. It's incredible, just like always, flavours mixing together and creating new ones that make up something altogether different from what they started off as. It's only ham, cheese and butter, but you'd think he was an expert chef for how perfect it tastes each time. Just like the way your mom made them – with love. "The past few months, mostly... They've been a lot."
"They've been great!" He interrupts your negative thoughts with a grin, throwing his arm over your shoulder to nudge himself against you ever-so-slightly. You always find yourself leaning into him whenever he does this, whether you're conscious of it or not. Like his body heat is melting its way into your skin, spreading to every inch of you until there's nothing left for either of you apart from shared warmth. "Going across all of Paldea with a good bud? I mean, what more could anyone ask for? Gotta admit, it feels pretty special right now..."
"Yeah," you half-heartedly murmur in agreement. And to some extent, Arven's right! This has probably been the most carefree period in both of your lives – especially his. Seeing the 10 Great Sights of Paldea, climbing Glaseado... Even getting so lost in the Tagtree Thicket that the academy had to send out search parties – it was all fun, that's for sure. But pretending as if everything was hunky dory felt dishonest somehow. You've spent plenty of time alongside him since everything at Area Zero happened, and everything that happened down there is obviously biting away at his nerves worse than anyone else. He still puts on this brave, tough façade, but there's no mistaking the sadness he tries to keep locked up inside. The kind of hurt that makes it hard to look people in the eye when they talk about the world outside their walls.
There were nights on your cross-Paldea journey where you could never comfortably fall asleep because you knew that Arven would be stuck lying awake, images of the professor repeating in his head. Too afraid to close his eyes out of fear that he might slip into a nightmare about their death. In those moments, even with a pillow pulled over his face, they were always there – hovering over him, a spectre watching over a young man who'd gone from living a simple life filled with only smiles to suddenly having it all taken from him after a fanatic had dedicated themselves too fiercely to their work, leaving their son behind to fend for himself...
On one of those sleepless nights, he needed someone beside him. Climbing into your tent, his face was streaming with tears, chest desperately heaving like he was trying to hold the dam back by force. He didn't give you the time to ask questions or think twice, he just threw himself down on your bedroll and buried his face into your chest. Starving for any kind of affection, desperate to take any form of comfort you could offer. Caught completely unawares, all you could do was wrap your arms around him, holding him tight to you, running your fingers through his hair until the shaking finally slowed down... falling asleep with him in your arms. Looking back on it, you wish you would've said something to him. Saying it's okay, asking him what's wrong, just talking to him... Anything would've done, but the words failed you, and neither of you had gotten proper sleep in days, so sleep claimed you too soon after.
The following day, Arven wasn't next to you. Having woken up bright and early as ever, the picnic set was already up. A forced smile was plastered on his face, making it clear that last night's events weren't something he wanted to be brought up.
His fingers are idly running through the sand now, like it calms him somehow. Like he needs it so badly that he can't help but keep doing it. It's been a good few weeks since that night, though – not long enough to have him feeling better about what happened, yet at least there were no more tears being shed from those green eyes anymore. None that you can see, at least. But if nothing else has changed, then maybe this is the way it'll stay.
"Arven..." You try again. "Are... Are you okay?"
He turns to look back at you like a Deerling caught in the headlights. "Of course I am!" The slightest of laughs escapes his lips, almost an involuntary reaction to how ridiculous his own statement sounded. "I mean, who wouldn't be after going on this kind of adventure with someone like you? This trip is definitely gonna go down as one of my favourites!"
"But Profess-"
"I'm fine! Really, I'm fine, uh... Hey! What do you say about heading on up to Glaseado's Grasp next, huh?" He pushes himself upwards, sand trickling out between his fingers as he stands. There's something off about his mannerisms; he seems unusually agitated and quick to change the subject, but you can't exactly blame him. After everything he'd been through before and after Area Zero, even just thinking about the place where the professor had fallen to their death must be torture.
You don't want him to suffer like that any longer than necessary, either. You know all too well the guilt of leaving your friend to grieve alone when they need it, but with him coming to you in the night for comfort instead, you can't help but feel that he just needs someone to ask; a shoulder to lean on. That if he's left to himself, it'll just keep bubbling and boiling over until he explodes into a thousand pieces of Arven, impossible to put back together. And yet here he is – pretending like there's nothing wrong, trying to pretend that life is still alright by continuing to smile. That it's only a little bit bad, nothing more.
"Arven," You take his hand gently in yours, looking up at his face as his eyes widen slightly. "You're not okay."
"Wh... How would you know?!" He shakes his head, giving his free hand a playful swat against your shoulder as though you've been taking things too far with such an accusation. He's trying to play it off like he's joking, but you see right through him. His breathing is fast and heavy, chest heaving with every word he speaks. "I'm doing great, y'know? Mabosstiff's feeling better, I've been going around Paldea with you! I'm... I'm FINE, okay?" There's an undeniable fragility in his voice, like you're close to pushing a button that'll either crack his mind open completely or put him back together again, if only by a little.
"Look, Arven..." You try again. "What happened in Area Zero isn't just gonna go away overnight."
He opens his mouth to speak again and then shuts it firmly, shoulders sagging heavily. A moment later, he falls back against the picnic blanket, collapsing onto it like a puppet whose strings have been cut. A deep, long, tired sigh escapes between his lips, eyes shut tightly like they can ward off the hurt inside them. For the first time since you met him, you realise how exhausted this boy really is.
He has spent days on end exploring Paldea alongside you, visiting places he hadn't set foot before, meeting new friends that he could never even have dreamed of having, and seeing sights that no one in their right mind would ever be able to forget seeing. But as much as he wanted it to be otherwise, he wasn't feeling any happier. When he's next to you in moments like this, there's something like happiness in his heart, but it's a thin, fragile thing at best – quickly replaced by the ghosts of the past rising up into view when they shouldn't. And yet here he is, feeling everything, all the time, stronger than ever. All he wants is to scrape those needless thoughts from his memory, leaving them abandoned and forgotten forever...
"I... I know it's not. I know that." He shakily sighs once more, as if the words were so hard to say out loud that speaking was simply too painful an experience. His eyelids flutter open briefly, staring at you with such intensity that you find yourself leaning slightly away from him. "But I'm fine. I've gotta be fine."
It feels almost like a betrayal now. Like telling a child that they don't want their favourite toy back after losing it in a shopping mall and expecting them to understand why they can never have it again. They still want what they had in life before - a simple way to distract themselves from their pain without the means to actually do anything about it. The same goes for Arven; he knows exactly who he needs to blame for all of this – the professor that raised him gave him love for a moment before stripping that love away completely. He'd always assumed that they didn't care about him at all, their work in Area Zero being their only motivator in life. But with their AI Replica saying otherwise... It was like a bullet to the chest every time he remembered those words spoken in his parent's voice.
He sits up, legs folded under him as he tries to calm down his breathing. "I don't want to bother you with my problems..." He pauses, swallowing thickly and taking another breath. "'cause then you'll start thinking that you're responsible for fixing them. And then, you'll be sad when you can't, and then you'll...!" He swallows, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head lightly. He doesn't finish the sentence, but you understand what he means. He's been left behind by people he loved once before; risking it happening with you would shatter him all over again. "...And I really need you right now, okay?"
You sit on your knees beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Your heart aches at how genuine it is. It feels like there are more things you could say to him, more ways to help fix whatever is wrong inside that beautiful head of his... But what more is there to say? How many more platitudes can you tell a boy who just wants to run away and pretend nothing ever happened in the first place? This is the least you can offer him, yet he still clings to it because he can't find the strength to move past it. The same way he has done time and time again since the day he lost everything he cared for. "I know," You murmur quietly into his ear. "You don't have to explain yourself to me."
Tears. They come so quickly for Arven, having been repressed for this long. It takes no effort whatsoever for them to flow from his eyes down his cheeks, dripping off onto the blanket below as if they were falling from the sky. He practically hurls himself into your arms, clinging tight as he cries out loud enough that it hurts. All those years spent holding back the tears and refusing to show weakness, fearing that the world would snap him up – all of a sudden, they've burst free and caught him entirely unaware, leaving him helpless and at your mercy. His voice sounds broken when he speaks through trembling lips, barely even comprehensible through his shuddering, pained breaths; "I'm sorry... I... I didn't want you... to feel responsible...!"
You brush his hair softly, not knowing what to do other than hold him close. You'd never seen anyone cry like this before; it's such a foreign concept that you're too scared to say or do anything about it. So you sit there in silence instead, letting the boy cry on your shoulder and curl up against your chest as he shakes with every single sob that wracks his body. The two of you sit together in silence until he runs dry, hiccupping slightly with each laboured breath he takes as he tries to calm himself down again. After another moment of thinking things over, he slowly pulls away from you, looking into your eyes apologetically.
"Sorry..." He mumbles. "I didn't mean to fall apart on you like tha-"
You shake your head immediately. "Don't be silly." You wipe the last few tears off his cheek gently with your thumb. "I'll always be here for you." You take his hand once more, smiling kindly at his shocked expression. "Just tell me what I can do to help."
"Really?" His brow furrows as though it's just occurred to him that this is a genuine offer, not some sort of empty platitude he should've been expecting after so long. You nod firmly, meeting his gaze steadily as he swallows thickly and looks down at your hands. "...Well... I guess talking about it might help..." He sighs heavily and turns to stare at the waves rolling past the shore. It seems almost like he doesn't know where to start.
"You don't have to force yourself to talk if you aren't up to it," You murmur.
"It's okay, I'm fine now..." He repeats. It's clear that he isn't and that whatever you do, he's not going to be completely fine. But at the very least, by talking about the past, it might stop haunting him quite as badly.
He speaks for what must be hours about everything he and his family had done together back then. How, when the workload was light enough, and they had the time, they'd come down to this beach to do simple things; make sand castles, swim, picnic; spend a whole day out on this stretch of sand. And even though all of those memories are far in the distant past, how he describes them still makes you smile; a child's excitement and joy... You can picture him smiling alongside the professor in a simpler time. Despite everything you've heard in recent months, seeing Arven laugh like an innocent boy fills your heart with hope. He didn't get a childhood like most people - one spent growing up around other children who care nothing for each other as they fight over toys or shove each other into mud puddles. No, he was made to live alone from such an early age that his only companion has always been himself. But on his face, while recalling these moments of his youth, you can see happiness. True, unadulterated, pure-hearted bliss.
It's not until much later, once the sun has set and the air is cooling off, that his voice stops. He rests against you, shoulders sagging ever so slightly as he sighs tiredly before taking another deep breath and continuing. "I don't really want to talk about it anymore." He doesn't seem upset about it – more grateful to have finally gotten something off his chest after days upon weeks upon months of holding it all inside. His words might have sounded harsh when he first said them, but there's no anger or bitterness in his tone now, just exhaustion.
You rub your thumb gently across his cheek, smiling softly at him. If he were someone else, he'd have said 'I love you' plenty of times by now. But saying it out loud, putting it out there... That's scary. It makes it real, opening himself up to hurt and disappointment yet again. So, instead, he lets actions speak for themselves, wrapping his hand around yours with a gentle squeeze while he leans closer towards you. You hold his gaze for a few seconds longer than necessary before speaking.
"What happens next?" You murmur quietly. He stares back in silence, looking into your eyes without a hint of doubt or worry as if he knows what will happen. And then, he smiles the same smile that has graced your life every day since he met you. A little more real than the ones before it.
"Sandcastles..." He says simply, releasing your hands so he can lean forward and kiss you once on the lips. "...and picnics."
It's late. Very late. You left the Secluded Beach behind a while back, making for the Mesagoza Academy's dorms together instead - you've frankly slept in enough tents in the middle of nowhere over the past month to last a lifetime. Your head is resting against Arven's shoulder as his fingers brush through your hair slowly, tenderly; he looks exhausted from all the time spent talking the night away, but you know how to keep him distracted. His soft sounds of satisfaction fill your ears like music, calming you down as his breath warms your cheek.
"Mm... Bed," He mumbles tiredly, tightening his grip around you slightly and shifting until he finds just the right position. "'S comfy." You assumed that after spending an entire evening recounting the good old days with one another, he'd be fine sleeping by himself, letting you return to your dorm room with no trouble whatsoever. But given how strongly he's holding onto you for dear life – even now – you realise he needs you here. So you don't push the issue, allowing his arms to close around you tighter still as his breathing steadies into a slow rhythm.
You try to wiggle free gently, a little uncomfortable under the sheer force he's exerting on you, only for him to tighten his arms ever so slightly. "Arven?"
"Mm?" He breathes into your ear as he snuggles in close, nuzzling gently into your neck in search of something warmer.
"Is this... allowed?" You ask timidly. It doesn't say anything about sleeping outside your dorm in the school rules, but... you'd really rather not have the faculty hearing about this.
He shrugs lazily and runs a hand through your hair again. "It's fine, it's fine... Not like Clavell's gonna do anything about it..." His voice is rife with fatigue, clear that he's only moments away from getting some of the best sleep he's gotten in ages. Too tired to care about consequences, he's here with someone who makes him feel a little bit better about the world despite all the bad things that have happened to him over the years. It's rare to find someone you can feel safe around, someone whose presence means more than just filling up space or air. But now, he's found you.
You sigh, relaxing against his warmth as his arms continue to squeeze you. "Goodnight then," You murmur softly before he slips off to sleep once his breathing has become deep and steady. It doesn't take long before his soft snores fill the room, leaving you alone in the dark, running your hands along the curve of his back. He's warm and safe, at least... And even though your body aches from being curled into a ball for so long on the cold sand earlier today, your mind feels calm. You aren't the magical miracle cure that's magically going to 'fix' Arven's trauma, that much is obvious. But at the very least, you'll try to be there whenever he needs you.
And so you hold him close, hoping to be exactly what he needs, at least right now.