Chapter Text
Scarlet's gaze was stern and stoic as she studied the meticulous process unfolding in front of her. She watched with her mouth covered by her left hand, her head standing still while her crimson eyes followed Nemona's nimble fingers dancing across the table.
“-and then... add some o' this~” Nemona murmured cheerfully, giggling with mischief as she sprinkled some shredded cheese across the first stack of ingredients. “And some for youuu~” She skipped to her right and repeated the cheese sprinkling for the other sandwich.
Scarlet nodded to herself thoughtfully, wondering what this would end up tasting like in the end. Her stomach gurgled grumpily, and she clutched at it, flinching a little from the pain. Nemona wasn't looking her way, however – too caught up in preparing their lunch. She was bouncing on her toes a bit, her ponytail swaying to and fro as she hummed a little tune while she worked on the sandwich crafting.
That afternoon, Nemona was dressed in her usual Academy Uniform, with her tights, shorts, dress shirt, and neck tie – as well as her matching sneakers and arm brace as usual. Her shoulder bag was on the ground, next to a couple emptied out paper bags from when she'd brought the fresh ingredients they were using for this meal. It was a strange concept to Scarlet – being able to just... buy food, whatever ingredients caught your eye, on a whim. Just buying a bunch of food all at once, for a single meal. Sandwiches like this... were kind of extravagant, weren't they? The very notion of sandwiches was... kind of fancy, in a way – using a little bit of all of these different ingredients, just for a single meal... It wasn't practical.
The whole notion was a little foreign to her, now that Scarlet was dwelling on it. The kind of thing a rich girl like Nemona perhaps took for granted... But Scarlet Koito wasn't going to air these grievances if it meant she was soon going to be the benefactor of a rich friend's last minute meal purchases. Nemona had acted very surprised to hear that Scarlet had never made a sandwich like this herself – not on this kind of bread, not with more than, what, two ingredients at a time?
Nemona was sprinkling a little bit of pepper now on top of everything.
“... Huh,” mused Scarlet with mild intrigue.
“That's the last little extra,” Nemona said, wagging an enthused finger around as she set the pepper shaker down. “Arven says it's like his little signature at the end, I guess. And this is his recipe, so I'm totally not leaving a single thing out! Now, urh-...” She swiped a small notepad up from the edge of the table, where she'd been reading off the instructions from. “Mm-hm, mm-hm,” she hummed to herself, nodding as she tapped her finger against each item on the list...
Scarlet hovered by the right side of the table, gawking at the massive mounds of food in front of her. Just one of these sandwiches looked like enough to last three meals, not just one!
“Oh-oh-oh, right, almost forgot!” Nemona cried out, snapping her fingers. She scurried over past Scarlet, bumping her aside as she grabbed a pair of little toothpicks with tiny flags on them. “Now, we just-...” Nemona cautiously, ever-so-slowly wedged one of the top halves of the loaves onto the pile of ingredients from the left side sandwich. She delicately adjusted its position just so, eyeballing it up close to make sure it was even and straight.
Scarlet went to follow Nemona's lead, eager to get to the eating part of lunch time wrapped up here before dinner time arrived. But as she reached out her hand, Nemona practically barked like a Growlithe at her.
“Ahp-ahp-ahp!” Nemona swatted Scarlet's hand away, which really caught Scarlet off guard, causing her to flinch slightly – her though her expression remained as dull and glowering as usual. “Did you wash first?” Nemona demanded sternly.
Scarlet sighed, rolling her eyes up.
“Don't just go touching your food when we've been running around all over Paldea!” Nemona scolded, huffing in this very amusing way that seemed offended that Scarlet would sully all her hard work. “You don't know what kinds of stuff could be on your hands! Here.” And she passed a half empty bottle of water to Scarlet, along with a mini bar of soap in a little plastic container.
Scarlet had watched Nemona use this to clean her hands before prepping the food. And it was... just as strange to watch that as to do it herself. Water meant to drinking, dunked all over the grass, just to clean her hands? A portable bar of soap? She wasted valuable space in her travel bag for that?
And yet, when Scarlet was done, and was offered a small handkerchief to dry her hands off, she couldn't deny how refreshing it felt. To be out in the wild, with such a nice-smelling meal mere moments away, and her aching, sore hands to be relieved and swept clean of all of the sweat and grime built up over the morning.
Nemona beamed with smug pride at what Scarlet could only assume was the mildest of bashful smirks at the nice sensation of actually clean hands.
“... And now...--” Nemona announced, eyes closed as she bowed slightly – pointing her hands to the table. “--... you may close your sandwich. Hehe.”
Scarlet puffed a bemused laugh through her nostrils at Nemona's exaggerated performance, accented with her slipping the mask off and chuckling at the end. Classic Nemona.
Scarlet stepped forth, her almost alien-feeling, squeaky-clean hands raised as if she were about to perform surgery. She could practically feel Nemona's eyeballs burning a hole into her back.
She grabbed the piece of bread, the final piece of her sandwich. She held it aloft. Her hands trembled. She bit her lip. She swallowed.
She dropped it unceremoniously onto the rest of the pile.
“... Grk-!” Nemona uttered, her head shrinking into her shoulders as her eyes popped wide with shock.
Scarlet, her hands hovering above the small mess she had made, smiled devilishly.
“That's the final step, right?” Scarlet joked in a dry, flat tone of voice, wriggling her fingers with maniacal mischief.
“That-...! It-...!” Nemona slammed her eyelids shut, fists clenched at her sides, and took in a deep breath, smiling through her confusion. She suddenly clasped her hands together in front of her, opened her eyes, and said, “You... really are a bit of a prankster, huh?”
“...” Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “I'd say more of a 'rebel'...”
“Th-That, too!” Nemona placated sheepishly. She broke out of her cutesy, bubbly pose she'd often do and snapped her fingers. “Y-You know, it's... that rebellious spirit that makes you always interesting to be around...”
Scarlet was actually a little annoyed. She'd meant to rile Nemona up. Get some kind of a reaction out of her. Why she wanted that, she wasn't exactly sure. Maybe it was just seeing the girl always people-pleasing was getting boring.
Watching Nemona delicately place a flagged toothpick into her sandwich with precision, Scarlet asked a blunt question.
“Aren't you pissed?”
Nemona blinked wide at her, administering a dab of hand sanitizer to her palms – including her arm brace – before scooping up her massive meal with both hands. Nemona had froze, her mouth open, at Scarlet's inquiry.
“... Huh?” she uttered, brows furrowed.
“You worked hard on this,” Scarlet cited plainly, flicking a dismissive wrist at the sandwich she had muddled for her own amusement. It was a bit of a mess on the plate, now, but completely edible. And she very much intended to eat all of it. Still, though... “I shit all over your sandwich science. And you're fine with that...?”
Nemona blinked at the food Scarlet stood in front of. The at Scarlet's deadpan face. Then back at the food.
“I-... It's your... food, if you wanna... ruin it, I mean-...”
“Didn't ruin it,” Letty pointed out sharply. “Perfectly fine to eat still. Just messy.”
“And-... That makes it... more difficult to eat,” said Nemona with a bit of impatience, still holding her own sandwich in the air in front of her.
“Which annoys you,” Scarlet observed plainly, grabbing a flagged toothpick without a trace of decorum.
“Wh-?! It doesn't-...!” Nemona grumbled out sheepishly. “I'm not annoyed about it, hah, it... it's just a sandwich, and... you did it for a laugh, so. See? Hah! Aheheh... Got me... real good...”
As Nemona scratching her cheek nervously, glancing off to the ground, Scarlet stabbed her flagged toothpick through her messy pile of food. It did managed to go through both pieces of bread, and... many of the ingredients...
Nemona winced warily at the site as Scarlet picked up her desecrated concoction with both hands, holding it above her plate on the table.
“Time to eat, right?” Scarlet dryly proposed, her eyelids halfway down as she savored the flustered embarrassment on Nemona's face.
“R-Right...” Nemona agreed, clearly not sure how to react to this. She grabbed her well-crafted and proper-looking sandwich in both hands, holding it up to her face.
Nemona watched as a slice of tomato slipped out of Scarlet's sandwich, landing on the plate with a soft squelch. A bit of mustard dripped down onto it. She sighed to herself, closing her eyes.
“Let's, uh... dig in, I... I guess,” she mumbled with a small shrug, her enthusiasm apparently having deteriorated in the face of Scarlet's disrespectful joke.
Both girls sunk their jaws into their food and went to town scarfing them down with eagerness – they were both hungry after an afternoon of Pokemon training.
Scarlet was a bit confused by how easily Nemona's energy had been drained, though – of course, Nemona was the type to get tired out easily. But it wasn't that kind of lacking energy Scarlet was noticing. Even in spite of her low stamina, Nemona had a strong spirit, always eager to keep going with a smile of determination on her face. Yet, somehow, poking fun at making a sandwich had sucked away the girl's joy.
As the two continued to eat in silence, Scarlet couldn't help noticing that Nemona was avoiding eye contact.
'Damn,' Scarlet thought to herself. 'Thought that'd be funny... Guess I made a mistake, here...'
The way Nemona looked suddenly glum while eating her sandwich... there had to be more to it than just a sandwich, right...?
Scarlet didn't want to draw attention to the matter, though. The idea of asking Nemona if something was wrong...? That felt... extremely uncomfortable to Scarlet. It might give Nemona the idea that Scarlet cared. It might make Scarlet wonder if she cared... And she didn't want to deal with any of the awkwardness that any of that might lead to.
So, instead of asking Nemona what was wrong, Scarlet ate her messy meal quietly, picking loose ingredients off of her plate and snacking them down to finish her meal.
“... Pretty filling,” Scarlet remarked on the food when she was done.
“... Mm,” Nemona hummed sullenly, still chewing on hers. She was only halfway finished.
Scarlet lingered for a moment – Nemona wasn't looking her way. So she cleared her throat, then went about summoning out her Pokemon, one at a time, to feed them some of the extra left over ingredients.
As she was finishing up-...
“Letty.”
Scarlet stopped in her tracks when Nemona spoke her name. The way Nemona was said it was... strangely serious. Scarlet was caught off guard.
“... What?” Scarlet replied in a dull voice, though her eyes were wide with alarm.
Nemona wasn't looking at her, instead staring at the ground, twirling a finger through her green bangs. Scarlet knew this hair-twirling gesture meant something, but had yet to figure out exactly what it meant in Nemona's case. Sometimes it seemed good, other times it seemed bad. This time... it seemed bad.
“What is it?” Scarlet asked again when she didn't get a response.
“Umm...! Nemona's eyes blinked rapidly a few times as she took in a breath, removing her fingers from her hair. “N-Nothing. Nevermind. Let's just... feed our Pokemon and... call it a day with training, yeah?” She shrugged in a weird way that Scarlet didn't understand, and began walking to the table.
“... Sure.”
–
(The Next Day)
“Oh, Arc... Aghh... Haha, hahhhhh...”
Nemona was puffing and panting through weak laughter, her arms wobbling as her run slowed to a stop. Scarlet was worried she might topple over with how tired she looked.
Scarlet jogged in place for a few steps, maintaining her heavy (but quiet) breathing. Nemona hunched forward, hands on her knees, tilting her abdomen forward as she gasped for air. A cough. A whimper. Her ponytail slid off her shoulder, dangling against her cheek. She coughed and sputtered, spitting hair strands out of her mouth, then groaned with irritation and exhaustion.
“... I... I'm done...” she wheezed out, wiping sweaty black strands off of her forehead. “Can we-... Can we take... a lunch break... now...?”
“Sure.”
Scarlet slowed her in-place jogging until she was standing, then checked her RotomPhone. Hm. Five minutes and twenty three seconds... A little bit longer than last time. It seemed Nemona was improving a bit, little by little. Scarlet wondered if she could improve, too, in a different way.
The pair of them approached the small creek they'd been jogging beside, and Nemona cupped a few handfuls of water to splash her face down with. As she did this, Scarlet carefully checked her bag – the important items she'd prepared just before their run were all wrapped and neat. As Nemona found a nice, flattened boulder to sit at, Scarlet snuck up behind her. The two of them unslung their packs and peeled off their nylon training jackets, discarding them to the grass beside the boulder.
Her heavy breathing beginning to calm down, Nemona untied her ponytail shaking her disheveled hair loose. Scarlet untied her side braid and flicked the wavy curls behind her shoulder before grabbing the two wrapped items and sitting beside Nemona, who leaned back over the boulder's edge to grab a pair of protein drinks from her bag, along with a small, clear container. The two exchanged items so each of them had one drink and one sandwich. The small container had non-tocic hand sanitizer in it, which Nemona applied and left for Scarlet to use in turn. It was probably better than trying to wash their hands in the creek water, anyway.
“Ooo~” Nemona chirped with glee as she unwrapped her sandwich. It was neatly packed with veggies and spicy mustard, with some sliced boiled eggs for that protein Scarlet knew Nemona liked. “Wow, looks like Arven's handiwork to me. You get him to make these while I wasn't looking?”
Scarlet smugly smirked, unwrapping her own sandwich.
“I made them,” she replied simply.
Nemona blinked, taken aback. She stared down at the sandwich, then back up at Scarlet, scratching her cheek.
“... You?” Nemona balked. “But... But this looks so... neat. And organized. I thought you didn't know how to make a proper sandwich...” She pouted a bit with confusion and skepticism. “And... when I tried to teach you the other day, it-...” She trailed off, not finishing the thought, but Scarlet figured it would've ended somewhere saddening.
“I had Arven show me,” Scarlet explained dryly, taking a bite of her own sandwich. It wasn't half bad. She liked the spiciness of the mustard Arven had given her.
After watching Scarlet dig in, Nemona had to take a bite herself.
“... Mmm~, mm-hmm, mm-hmm!” she hummed with satisfaction, nodding with some surprise. She swallowed and coughed a little. “Whoa, that spice... It works so well with this bread type, with the seeds on it? And the combo of veggies here is pretty good, too. I mean, I wouldn't think this would work together so well, you know? The refreshing veggies and the spicy mustard, I mean. But it does, actually... It does work.”
Scarlet licked a bit of mustard off her thumb, the corner of her lips smiling a little at Nemona's mumblings.
“... It does,” Scarlet agreed, taking another bite as something other than spice created a warm surge in her stomach.
The two consumed their lunch for a minute or two in quiet, with the trickling creek in front of them carrying a few Pokemon downstream here and there.
“So-...” Nemona started up, still working through her food, while Scarlet had already finished eating. She took a swig of her protein shake to clear her throat before speaking further. “So, like, you.... what? You... asked Arven to show you how to make this?”
Scarlet nodded, sipping at her shake as she watched a Buizel chase a Surskit playfully in the water. The Surskit would dodge every time the Buizel went to tackle it, but the two seemed to only be playing around.
“Mm,” Scarlet hummed in reply to Nemona's question. “I, uh-... Wanted to make one properly for you. So... yeah.”
Scarlet watched at the Surskit in the water saw the Buizel coming in for another tackle. Rather than dodge away again – which there was certainly time to do – the Surskit let itself be tackled into the creek. The two Pokemon tangled together and continued being washed downstream, making amused noised and tickling at each other as they separated.
Scarlet looked back to Nemona, who had mustard and lettuce bits around the edge of her lips, her cheeks puffed with food – the last bite of her sandwich. Her eyes were watery and wide, shimmering with another one of her excitable emotions that Scarlet... didn't know what to do with.
“Mmmm~!” Neona squealed through her nose. She coughed and swallowed quickly, pounding at her chest to get the food down fast. Then, she grabbed Scarlet by the arm with both hands, shaking her around a bit. “That makes me so happy, Letty! I appreciate that so much! You can really be so thoughtful when you want to, ugh, I love it...!”
“S-Sure,” Scarlet muttered, rolling her eyes away from the freckled face beaming in her direction – she didn't want to get burned by such a bright sun. “It's... no big deal,” Scarlet grumbled out as Nemona giggled. “Just... practical to know... how to make 'em myself, yeah?”
“Heheh~” Nemona snickered with mischief, letting go and giving Scarlet a firm pat on the back.
Scarlet returned the gesture with a light punch to Nemona's upper arm.
“Grrf-!” groaned Nemona with surprise, rubbed at her shoulder. “Guess I deserved that for shaking you around, huh?”
“I'm pulling my punches,” Scarlet teased dryly.
Nemona raised a brow and smirked, leaning back, her weight against her palms on the boulder.
“Now, what have I told you about doing that?” Nemona taunted slyly.
Scarlet shrugged, drinking the last of her protein shake. She crushed the empty can in her hand.
She replied, “When have I ever done what you told me to?”
Nemona's eyelids lowered to match Scarlet's expression.
“More often than you'll admit to,” she said, with a sly smirk and a twinkle in her eye.