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Juliana flopped backwards onto the bed of her friends room, letting out a long, heavy sigh, as the other girl continued typing away, not even looking away from the many screens of her PC. Juliana shut her eyes, letting her head rest on the soft, albeit unmade, sheets of the bed. In the corner of her eye she could see some laundry that had yet to been put away that she had narrowly avoided throwing herself onto.
It was almost comforting to see that after all these years, the state of Penny’s living space remained the same, even in a different location. She sat herself up on the bed, petting the Flareon that had taken the opportunity to jump into her lap.
“Something Nemona related again?” Penny spoke at last, still not budging from what she was doing as she did. Juliana gave a nod, as if it would mean anything even when Penny couldn’t see her.
Juliana loved Nemona more than anything else in the world, and it was clear the feeling was mutual. But things had just changed since they were kids. There were times nowadays she found herself wishing she could go back to 8 years ago, when they were doing the treasure hunt, where every meeting was just battle after battle. A wave of nostalgia and calm washed over her just thinking about it, back to when she first moved to Paldea and met Nemona. Nemona was the first friend she had when she moved, but more importantly, Juliana was the first person Nemona could truly be fully herself and be as passionate as she is about battling with. And Juliana was more grateful for nothing than she was to have been able to be that person for Nemona.
Nemona was someone who Juliana admired, who pushed her to be stronger, to keep going. She felt a sense of warmth inside her whenever she ran into Nemona and battled with her along her way to challenging all of the gyms. She couldn’t have asked for a better rival ever.
And she couldn’t have asked for a better girlfriend than that same rival. It wasn’t long after their trip to Area Zero that Nemona asked, saving Juliana the trouble of having to work up the courage to ask herself. And separating them after that was near impossible.
That was, until Geeta stepped down, and Nemona took over as Top Champion. The two still spent a lot of time with each other, living with each other, going on frequent dates.
But it just felt like something was missing now. Something had changed for sure, but Juliana couldn’t put her finger on it.
“I just don’t get it Pen..” She muttered. “I mean, sure, we definitely spend a lot more time apart than we used to, but we’re still as affectionate as ever. It’s not like I want Nemona to drop everything and just spend time with me, but…”
Except that was exactly what she wanted. But even then she wasn’t sure that happening would be the solution to fill in the gap between them.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Penny pushed her chair away from her desk, spinning to look at Juliana. Honestly, now that Juliana got a good look at Penny, she looked like she hadn’t moved from her desk for hours, and as though she hadn’t had any sleep for the past few days. Penny adjusted herself a bit, clearly having picked up on Juliana’s expression. Penny rested her hands on the arm of her chair as she spoke. “I think you do infact want Nemona to drop everything and spend time with you, but it’s not just that you want to spend time with her. I mean, you and Nemona used to battle at every opportunity possible, but I don’t think I’ve seen you two battle for at least a month now. That’s a record for you.”
Juliana barely noticed the snarkiness behind Penny’s teasing comments at the end as everything suddenly clicked.
That was what was so different.
Nemona was so busy, they were both so busy nowadays, that they almost never battled anymore. Sure, there was far more to their relationship than just their rivalry and battling, but that was what brought them together, and something they were most passionate about with each other. Juliana gently lifted the Pokemon out of her lap, setting it down to the side on the bed as she stood up, brushing the fur off of her clothes.
“I’ll see you later, I need to go talk to Nemona!”
And she was gone before Penny could even say a word. She just shrugged, turning back to her computer. She was used to it when Nemona and Juliana, they were always like this when it came to each other. It was almost comforting to see them be like that.
A knock sounded on the door of the office.
“Come in!”
Juliana near burst through the door the moment she was given the all-clear to enter. She was out of breath, her face red, as though she had just ran all the way there. Nemona stood up, walking over to her. Her brow was raised as she looked down at the shorter woman.
“Juliana, what’s–?”
“Nemona, I want to battle you!” She interrupted, grabbing onto Nemona’s hands. Their eye’s met, with Juliana barely holding back the tears that were clouding her deep, brown eyes. “I don’t mean like an official match or anything, I just want to battle you!”
“Juliana…?” Nemona planted a kiss on her forehead, leaving a mark of her lip gloss glistening as the light shone through the window onto them. She pulled Juliana closer to her, wrapping her arms around her once Juliana had loosened the grip she had on Nemona's hands.
“I miss battling with you.” She tried desperately to hold back the tears. She was being selfish, she didn’t want to cry over this for that reason. "It feels like we just keep getting further and further away no matter how much time we're spending together."
Don't cry, don't cry. It was like the more she kept repeating this to herself in her head the more she wanted to cry, the closer she was to just breaking down over it. She could've stayed like this forever, crying in Nemona's arms, but she didn't want to stay like that. She wanted to feel the rush of battling with her, testing their skills over, and over, and over again. Because it wasn't just battling in the same way they'd battle any other trainers. It was their own special way of showing affection, their love language.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You know I love battling you more than anyone or anything else in this world.” Nemona caressed her girlfriends back. She admittedly felt the same way, but she didn’t know that Juliana had felt this way, let alone that she had been bottling up her feelings about it to this point.
“I mean, it’d be selfish of me to ask you to just drop everything to battle me.” Juliana rubbed her eyes. “You’re so busy, and it’s not like I’m not busy as well, so I can’t just expect you to do that for me.”
Nemona’s face relaxed a bit, her eyes fixing on Juliana’s face in a soft gaze. She bit her lip, trying to hold herself back from getting overly emotional from how Juliana was. To think, they had been feeling the exact same way this entire time, but neither of them had the courage to say anything.
It almost reminded Nemona a bit of when she first met Juliana, before they started going out. She wasn't oblivious, she saw how Juliana's cheeks would gain a slight pink tint to them whenever they talked, or whenever their hands or shoulders lightly grazed against each others while they were in classes together. But even knowing fully well that Juliana had liked her, it took her so long to muster up the strength to finally ask Juliana to be her girlfriend all those months later, and even then, it had been an impulsive decision to ask. For as good as she was at battling, she never really knew what to do when it came to other people a lot of the time, but Juliana always seemed to understand that.
“Are you kidding..?” She let out a bit of a nervous laugh, stepping back from the embrace so Juliana would be able to properly look at her. “Juliana, the world could be ending, but if you asked me to battle you then and there I would.”
She grabbed Juliana’s hands, pulling her towards the battlefield. There was a light breeze in the air as they got out the door, the sunlight illuminating Nemona brighter than ever. Or maybe that was just how Nemona always shone to Juliana.
Nemona smiled at her, stopping and holding her hands again.
“I’ve battled a lot of people, but nobody else has ever made me feel the way I do while battling you. That’s why we’re best rivals forever, isn’t it?”
She felt her heart race at the thought that Nemona had held onto that title for them for so long. Even now, with how little they had been battling…they were still best rivals forever. The tears had stopped, as she wordlessly stared up towards those golden eyes, still filled with the same passion as ever. The passion that Juliana loved so much about her. Juliana stood up on her tiptoes. One thing had never changed, Juliana hadn’t grown tall enough to be able to kiss Nemona normally.
“So, let’s have that battle then!” Nemona cheered, slowly separating her hands from Juliana’s.
But this time, even as she got further away towards the other side of the field, Juliana felt closer to her again. Like how they always were.