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Blue can hear the chatter of the crowd outside, excited to meet the new champion of Kanto. That crowd was supposed to be for him.
Gramps was supposed to congratulate him, too. And look how that turned out. Whatever.
So, Blue camps out in the championship room. He all too aware that he is hot headed and doesn’t know how to handle his own temper, so he doesn’t want to know what he’ll end up doing if he actually has to see that crowd.
The doors from the hall of fame slam wide open, and in walks the absolute last person Blue wants to deal with right now.
Red has always carried himself like a champion. It’s part of the reason why Blue has hated him, ever since they were little kids. He has a stupidly calm, aloof demeanor and yet somehow carries the willpower of a charging Tauros with him as he walks. Stupid Red and his stupid jacket and stupid hat and stupid creepy eyes, always judging him.
There’s still traces of triumph on Red from their battle, a little extra spring in his step and his back is a little more upright. Red doesn’t even bother looking at him as he walks, his hat covering his stone-cold poker face.
Halfway between the doors of the hall of fame and the doors leading to the outside world, Red comes to a sudden halt, and looks down at him with an intense gaze.
“What do you want?” Blue snaps, standing up. His eyes are red and puffy, and his voice is scratchy.
Red doesn’t react in the slightest, save for blinking at him once. It reminds Blue of why none of the other kids in Pallet town like him. There’s something uncanny about his demeanor. He doesn’t react to things like a normal kid- or adult- would.
Blue wants to punch him in the face, again and again, until Red knows what it’s like to feel- whatever it Blue’s feeling right now, been feeling, ever since they were six. Something in the back of his throat burns, and Blue takes a step forward.
Red turns away from him, unceremoniously. He walks towards the exit with a painfully slow speed, almost as if it’s a challenge.
It’s wrong. Blue’s the one who’s supposed to always be a step ahead. Now, Red’s walking down a path where Blue may not be able to catch up to him, ever.
Red’s always been a step ahead in the way that matters most.
Blue does nothing, and simply watches as the distance between them grows wider and wider.
As Red gets closer to the big door and the blinding light beyond it, the corners of Red’s mouth twitch upwards into a smile.
Blue skips out on the celebration they hold for Red, and instead opts to move in his room. It’s an understandable reaction, considering the fact that the culmination of what he has been working for his entire life and what was supposed to be the best moment of his life got ruined after just 30 minutes in the most humiliating way possible.
Later, Gramps barges into his room and starts to yell at him a bunch. Blue isn’t even surprised. Blue is pretty sure he has never had a conversation with the man that didn’t involve Gramps criticizing him one way or the other.
“Blue! I am disappointed! Truly. With your immaturity, I fear that you may have tainted what was supposed to be the climax of all of Red’s endeavors-”
Blue curls into himself. He could tell Gramps that Red was gloating about his victory, but Gramps wouldn’t believe that his star pupil would do such a thing. There’s a pang of anger, made worse by how familiar it is.
“-learning how to accept defeat gracefully is an important lesson for any Pokémon trainer to learn. A good rivalry like the one you and Red have is difficult to come across. You should learn to appreciate what you have before it’s too late.”
The next day, Blue’s moping is interrupted by his Alakazam, who decides it’s a good idea to drag Blue out of his room with her telekinesis.
Alakazam drops Blue face first into the floor of the kitchen. It’s a bit humiliating, but it doesn’t hurt. It makes Blue miss the times when she was just an Abra, who spent all of her time outside her pokeball clinging to his side.
He shoots his alakazam a withering glare. “What was that for? I don’t have an interview, so I have every reason to sleep in, thank you very much.”
“Me and Alakazam made curry together,” Daisy says, laughing at the sheepish face Blue is probably making. And still, her voice is pitched up a bit like it always is when she’s worried about him. Blue’s already getting sick of it. “Give it a try.”
It’s then that Blue actually notices what’s going on around him. Alakazam doesn’t dignify Blue with a response, and floats a plate curry and utensils onto the kitchen table. Daisy and Blastoise, meanwhile, seem to be doing the dishes.
Blue has been missing a few meals recently. Or eating them in his room. So he is hungry, just a little bit. But he’s miffed about being dragged out of his room, so he doesn’t budge. “And Blastoise?”
As of right on cue, Blastoise uses water gun on the plate. Because it’s a flat plate, water ends up getting sprayed everywhere. And Blue ends up drenched. Because of course he does. At this point, blue is convinced the Arcus himself hates him.
Daisy laughs.
Great. This is exactly what Blue needed right now. To be wet, cold, and more miserable than he was before.
Blue looks Blastoise dead in the eye, or looks him the best he can because his bangs are in his eyes, as something rears its head.
“Why are you so useless?”
Stupid Blastoise. Can’t even do the dishes by himself. Can’t even win against Red’s Charizard, despite the type advantage and despite it being the one reason Blue picked him as his starter in the first place.
Blastoise flinches, his head practically tucking itself in his shell.
There’s dead silence. Daisy and Alakazam are staring at him.
Why did- Is that how his Pokemon see him? Something to hide from?
Blue’s stomach plummets, and crumples into a tiny little marble.
Maybe. Maybe Gramps did have a point.
He did push his Pokémon hard, training them to be the very best. To make sure that they would become the battle-hardened Pokemon of a future Champion. Sometimes, when he got upset, he would say things. But he didn’t mean- he didn’t want his Pokemon to see him like this.
“You’re not useless,” Blue says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I would’ve never made it to the elite four without you.”
It comes out more stilted than he’s expected. When was the last time he apologized to his Pokémon? Or to anyone? He feels like he’s missed the mark, somehow.
Blastoise sticks his head back out, his face brightening a comical amount. He didn’t know a Blastoise could be that expressive. It’s kind of adorable.
Blue tosses a towel at its face.
“You’re still helping me clean up.”
A particularly bold interviewer asks him what it’s like to be the shortest reigning champion ever on live television.
For a moment, Blue’s smile falters. But then he looks at his interviewer, and really looks at him, and realizes that man. He’s really glad he isn’t that guy, with nothing better to do with his life than to ask people who actually matter weirdly invasive questions on TV.
“I’m not too bent up about it. I’m still a champion. That’s more than you’ll ever amount to in life, anyways.”
The interviewer makes a face, and the crowd watching mutters amongst themselves, shocked. Half of pallet town must have gone to watch his interview, and he can make out the faces of several kids he was friends with before his adventure.
Blue was referring to the interviewer, but he’ll also let the crowd believe he was referring to them too. It’s not like it’s possible to get the wrong idea about something if the idea itself isn’t wrong.
Blue runs a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. He can’t believe that he almost forgot about how being a jerk can be so much fun.
He teaches Blastoise how to do the dishes properly. He and Alakazam even try cooking recipes they found online together. It turns out that Alakazam is much more of a control freak than he thought.
He even cuddles with Arcanine when he’s moping in his bed. Sometimes, Arcanine begins nudging him with his snout, worried about why Blue’s spending so long in his bed, and Blue has to send him back into his pokeball for a while.
Surely, Blue has to be getting a good grade in bonding with his Pokémon. He’s doing exactly what all of the books have been telling him to do, no matter how cheesy and stupid it may seem. He has to be on Red’s level by now.
Daisy creaks open the door. “So,” She takes a deep breath, giving the same tell that she’s worried about him.
“Daisy, don’t get so excited. I can handle it, I’m not a baby, you know,” Blue huffs. He probably looks like crap. By his standards, at least. Arcanine began to nudge at him a while ago, so he’s curled up in a pile of blankets by himself.
“Red is in pallet town.”
Blue finds himself standing in the middle of Viridian forest.
Alakazam is staring at him funny. She probably thinks that using her teleportation abilities to get them out of the house unnoticed like that is unnecessary.
Blue shuts his eyes. Great. The one thing he needs right now is more disapproval. He takes a deep, ragged breath.
God. What kind of pokemon trainer is he? Can’t even face his own rival. Can’t even treat his Pokemon right, either, apparently. This is the first time he’s leaving pallet town, too, since the championship. How pathetic. He wishes that the forest would swallow him whole so he could just disappear forever.
A nearby patch of grass rustles, interrupting his spiraling.
A wild Pokémon? Really? Shouldn’t it know better than to try to attack him, since Alakazam would be able to decimate it in a single attack?
Blue laughs at the thought. Maybe, just maybe, seeing some poor loser get flung halfway across Viridian forest is what Blue needs to feel better about himself. He’s been neglecting to train his pokemon as of late, anyways.
He takes a step forward, so he can get a better look at what’s causing all of this ruckus-
-And comes face to face with an Eevee, cowering in fear.
Red is all over the news. It sucks. Especially when Blue is trying to catch the latest episode of PsyduckTales in his room, and gets flashbanged by a picture of his greatest adversary.
Blue changes the channel immediately. And then changes it back.
Red looks every bit like the champion that they both dreamed they would be when they grew up. He looks towards the camera with a frown, his eyes hazed over in a disinterest as if he had been champion for decades. He’s holding a pokeball in his hand, as if he’s challenging the viewer, already knowing that he’ll win anyways. A charizard looms over him with his wings spread wide, a display of power. Even the Pikachus on his shoulder seems intimidating, but that may be due to Blue having experienced that stupid electric rat’s power firsthand.
Beneath it, a headline reads: “Champion Red Drives out Team Rocket Remnants from Hidden Warehouse!”
Blue stares at it. Leans in close enough to the tv that Daisy would scold him about it.
To most, it is a glimpse of Red living the life they all wish they could have.
But to Blue-
Red looks small. Small in a way that Blue has been trying to get Red to feel for a long, long time.
Blue recognizes how Red’s shoulder are hunched, ever so slightly. His fingers are curled tight around the pokeball, almost as if he wants to pull them into a fist and crack the pokeball open. Red’s Pilachu is perched on Red’s shoulder, alert, shielding the vulnerable parts of Red’s neck with his tail. Pikachu does that a lot whenever Blue is around.
The biggest giveaway of all, however, is that despite the imposing presence and the powerful Pokemon, Red looks like more hat and jacket than boy.
He thinks about Red, standing in front of the class, eyes glued to the floor, stuck on the first slide of a presentation, unable to say a single word, Blue jeers at him and the entire class begins to laugh.
Red sitting by himself at recess, watching Blue and all of the other kids play together and have fun.
Something deep within him burns with satisfaction.
“Blue,” Daisy says, having barged into his room without any prior warning. “I'm worried about you.”
Blue squints at her, sitting on his bed in the exact same spot as before. He’s got Arcanine on his lap and Evee on his shoulders.
“I’m peachy,” he says, airily. It’s true. Alternating between giving Arcanine and Eevee head scratches has been doing him wonders. Realizing that Red was miserable helped more, though. “Well I was, until you decided to barge in here for no reason.”
“You’ve been in your room for a while,” Daisy says, with a gentle tone that Blue knows is forced. “I know this is hard for you to deal with. But staying in your room like this isn’t healthy for you. If you want someone to talk to, I am here for you, okay?”
Blue turns his back to her so she’ll go away. He’s fine . He is upset because he lost the championship to his rival. He lost to Red seven times in a row during his Pokemon journey. He bounced back from that, so he will bounce back from this, too.
He doesn’t understand why Daisy is so worried about him moping in his room. It’s only been a week. Or a few weeks. Time kind of blurs together for him, now.
Daisy doesn’t get the memo. “Red wanted to know where you were.”
“Liar,” Blue twists back around to face her, even though he should know better. “You can’t know that. He doesn’t talk.”
Daisy frowns. “There’s other ways to know what Red is thinking without having him talk to you. You know that better than anyone.”
Blue almost laughs at that. One, It’s not like he had much competition. Two, Red hates him. They aren’t friends, and they never will be. Blue hates him back. He thought Daisy of all people would have enough of a brain to be able to notice that.
There’s more silence. He wishes that Daisy would pull a Gramps and just yell at him and call him a terrible person or whatever.
“You told Grandpa that you’re at Sevii islands,” Daisy tries again.
Ah. He forgot about that. Gramps sent him a text message, formatted like an email, asking about where he was and Blue just said the first thing that came to his mind. Gramps suggested he go there, during one of those awkward family meals that they share on occasion.
“He’s going to be upset at you if he finds out you’ve been in your room this entire time.”
Blue’s stomach churns. “Who cares what gramps thinks? He’s gonna just yell at me anyways.”
Daisy gives him another look, one that Blue prefers much less. “You know that isn’t true.”
“It is,” Blue wants to explode, just a little bit. The most infuriating part about what’s going on between him and Red is that nobody seems to understand why Red always manages to make Blue so angry.
Daisy sighs, crossing her arms like she does when she’s trying to give him a lecture.
“The best thing that ever happened to you won’t happen to you when you’re eleven.” Her voice cracks for a moment, and she takes a deep breath. “Your Pokémon journey isn’t the culmination of who you’ll be, both as a person and as a Pokémon trainer.”
Blue rolls his eyes. Of course Daisy wouldn’t get it- she never went on a Pokémon journey of her own. The most she’s done is fly to a bunch of random cities for the coordinator contests.
“Whatever. If you say so. Since you’ve gotten all of the experience and stuff. Well, I’m going to Sevii islands. You’re welcome. Smell ya later!”
For a moment, Daisy looks genuinely mad at him. But the expression melts into something else as she closes her eyes and lets Blue walk past her.
Sevii island is strange. Blue does explore, and catches several rare Pokémon to fill out his Pokédex. There isn’t the same sense of accomplishment there, anymore.
He flies on the back of his Pidgeot, and loops around the islands, once or twice just to enjoy the view. Pidgeot gets into a race with a Fearow and wins. Blue taunts the Fearcrow and its trainer, and then beats them both in the ensuing Pokémon battle. Pidgeot spends the rest of the day practically preening, and Blue does too, but just a little bit.
And yet, it feels like there is something missing.
He wins all of the battles he gets himself into, even with an underleveled Eevee on his team that messes up the type balance of his team. There’s just one issue:
“Why won’t you evolve?” Blue crosses his arms and glares at Evee, tapping his foot in disapproval.
He’s practically spent forever trying to get him to evolve into an Umbreon. He needs a dark type on his team.
Eevee looks up at him with a glare, tail lashing back and forth.
“You know, if you don’t evolve, I’ll have to kick you out of my team and send you to my gramps.”
His disposition, EV’s, IV’s, mean that he could be used on a championship team. There is better out there, and Blue would be lying if he said he was thinking about going back into the wild and trying to catch an Eevee with better stats. But If he doesn’t evolve into an Umbreon, then he won’t have a choice but to kick him out of his team. There’s no hard feelings involved.
Eevee flattens his ears to his head and begins to cower, just like back in Viridian forest.
“Sorry,” Blue says. Blue picks him up, and begins to scratch behind Eevee’s hair. And gives him a Macaron, for good measure. It’s been only a day or two since Eevee joined his team.
Eevee devours the macaron with a surprising ferocity, and cleans the crumbs off of his mouth with a few licks. He closes his eyes in contentment and begins to purr, and nudges his head against Blue to demand more head scratches.
“Jeez. You’re such a diva,” Blue says, before giving Eevee more head scratches. Maybe he’s getting soft.
“They say that an Eevee’s personality takes after its owner.”
The voice is stilted and monotone, and if he didn’t know any better, he would assume that Ranseigo wasn’t his first language.
Blue would recognize that voice from anywhere.
Red.
Oh god. How long has Red been watching him? Did he see his whole exchange with Eevee?
Blue spins around. “I just got him yesterday,” he blurts out, his face burning up.
He feels Red stare at him beneath his cap. After a moment, he shrugs.
Really? Red hasn’t spoken for years, and the one thing he decides is important enough to actually say is a jab about Blue and his Eevee? Honestly, Blue shouldn’t be surprised at this point.
Eevee must be sensing his distress, as he mewls and paws at Blue’s face. Blue sighs, and send Eevee back into his pokeball. Red’s pikachu is perched on his shoulder, his fur puffed up, tail shielding Red’s neck. And yet, Red still keeps him out of his Pokeball.
It’s obvious- Red is just trying to goad a reaction out of him, just like back in the championship room. This time, Blue won’t give him what he wants.
“Hey! Red!” He says, because he isn’t sure what to say. “What are you doing in the Sevii islands?”
He still remembers what was said, back before their Pokemon journey, over and over again in both actions and words. That they aren’t friends, and they never were and never will be.
And yet, he’s still here, blabbering to Red about some nonsense.
“You should quit copying me, you know! Anyways, I got my Pokémon egg so I’m done with this island-”
But you started it, Blue wants to say. He still remembers the day that Gramps took notice of Red and began to shower him with praise and attention that should have been Blue’s, how Red looked at him with a big smile on his face, like he expected Blue to be happy for him. An all too familiar anger fills him. It has to be rational, this hurt, this anger, because it's been driving him too long, and it’s the only thing left between the two of them that actually makes sense.
How could Blue be happy for him, after Red took everything from him? All of his hopes and dreams of becoming the champion. Gramps attention. His Pokemon journey, too. Blue was looking forward to his Pokémon journey, because it was supposed to be the first thing in his life that was supposed to be about himself . And then it became about Red, too, nothing more than a string of failed attempts to be better than him at something for once. He’s been always told that the Pokémon journey is about growing up. His Pokemon journey is over, Blue isn’t even sure that anything about him has even changed . He’s still a jerk that treats his Pokemon like crap, Gramps still doesn’t take him seriously, he’s still worse than Red at what matters most, he isn’t strong enough, he isn’t good enough.
But Red got to grow up. Red got to have the pokemon journey, Red became the champion, the boy-savior who rid the region of Team Rocket whom everyone knows and loves. Red took the region from him, too; made it revolve around him like everything else in Blue’s life. That is the extent of Red’s malice, a dim light masked by a blank poker face and a general obtuseness.
“-we both know on this island. Why don’t you take a look around if it makes you curious? Me, I don’t have time to waste. Smell ya later!”
There’s a pause, as Blue realizes that he’s out of random stuff to say about this island in order to prevent Red from realizing the emotional turmoil he’s going through.
Red frowns at him, his eyebrows furrowing. A classic Red maneuver; perhaps the only emotion he’s able to express like a normal person on a regular basis.
Blue practically runs off the island, trying his best to ignore how Red’s stare bores into the back of his head.
Blue runs into Red again on Six island, because the universe hates him.
He spots Red off in the distance, and judging by how Red stops in his tracks and shoves his hat down, Red probably sees him also.
Strangely, Blue beckons him over with a wave. Stranger still, Red actually walks over, and sits next to him on the bench.
There’s silence, once again. This time, it’s a comfortable one. It reminds Blue of a time when he and Red used to go fishing for magikarp in a river nearby pallet town. They would sit on the edge of the pier, Blue swinging his legs back and forth as he sang to himself, and Red would dangle his legs, watching him silently. Sometimes, when they hadn’t caught anything in a while, Red would lean against him, and Blue could feel his chest rise and fall.
I want to make you miserable, Blue thinks. Red made Blue feel alone and ignored and worthless at home, it only makes sense for Blue to want to do the same at school. That’s why Blue can never be sorry for what he’s done. All of the other kids in their class were already bullying Red, anyways. Red should have seen it coming; Blue was Red’s only friend, but Red was not Blue’s only friend. So he stopped hanging out with Red and sticking up for him and joined all of the other kids in calling him insults and laughing at him and making sure he had nobody to talk to during class, lunch, and recess.
Blue may have stopped, if Red didn’t retaliate by showing up to Gramp’s lab and impress him more and more. Whenever Red got the attention Blue desperately craved, Red would sneak a glance at Blue to see the face he was making. Blue swung back in the only way he knew how; calling him meaner and meaner things in school and going out of his way to make Red excluded and left out, and became one of the ringleaders of the bullying himself. Red bites and claws back by learning more and more about Pokémon and how to bond with them than Blue can ever dream of, leaving him in the dust both literally and in the eyes of Gramps.
That is the nature of their relationship, they both want to make the other suffer.
It’s Red’s fault that he’s a wierdo who didn’t talk in class or at recess. It’s Red’s fault that his mannerisms made everyone around him uneasy, that he couldn’t read social cues, he was practically asking to be excluded and bullied. He probably would have ditched Red regardless, he can’t imagine himself willingly hanging out with any social pariah these past few years. He did himself a favor by cutting him off, as after he began to bully Red all of his classmates went from thinking Blue was wierd for hanging out with Red to wanting to become his friend.
Blue realizes that he’s been talking again, and Red’s been listening to him intently. He really wishes that he had somebody better to talk to, or that Red would just wander off. But maybe that is the nature of their relationship, too.
“I’m not going to get all desperate over this,” Blue says.
Blue wishes that he got out of his funk by learning how to love himself or whatever.
Instead, it was getting a job offer to be the gym leader.
“Gym Leader Blue,” Blue repeats to himself.
He strikes his iconic pose in front of his bathroom mirror. For the first time in a while, the smug look on his face is fully genuine.
“I like the sound of it.”
The gym leaders throw him a move-in party.
They younger gym leaders- Misty, Brock, Sabrina and Erika show up and give him a crash course on how to be a gym leader. There’s a lot more paperwork and taxes and regulations than he first expected.
Blue must be making a face, as Misty slaps him on the back, laughing. Blue stumbles forward- Misty’s stronger than she looks. Misty laughs harder.
“C’mon!” Misty says, laughing even harder. “Where’s all the bravado from when you got your badge from me?”
“Oh yeah?” Something stirs within him. He pulls a Pokeball from his belt. “I’ll show it to you, right now!”
Misty beams, and pulls out her own pokeball. “Hmph! Just because you beat me during your gym challenge doesn’t mean you get to take me lightly!”
Before Blue can send out his first Pokémon, Brock steps between them. “We have a party to set up. There’s no time to battle.”
“Aww…” Misty practically pouts. “We’re not the only ones wasting time though.”
Misty narrows her eyes at Erika.
“Oh dear,” Erika says, yawning. She smiles, soft and demure, somehow managing to look like a picture-perfect shrine maiden despite the fact she’s slumped on the floor.
Luckily, Blue doesn’t have to do any of the preparing for the party. The party is celebrating him, after all. So he just watches the three other gym leaders continue to bounce off of eachother, a small smile on his face.
“Is there anyone else who is going to be invited to the party, other then our fellow gym leaders?” Sabrina asks, tilting her head to the side slightly. She’s looking at him like she already knows the answer to his question, and has decided to prod him about it anyways. It makes Blue uneasy.
“I invited the Elite four, since they kinda hired me and Daisy, Gramps, and-” Blue pauses, just for a moment, “and Red.”
“Oh,” Misty says, a bit of apprehension flashing across her face before she claps excitedly. Whatever. It’s none of Blue’s buisness. “I haven’t talked to Red in a while, so it'll be nice for us to catch up!”
“I didn’t invite any of my other friends because I wanted this to be a small party thing anyways,” Blue finishes.
Sabrina stares at him, as if she’s already seen through his lie.
Technically, Daisy arrived first out of all of the guests, having practically moved in Blue for him into the apartment housed within his gym.
Eventually, everybody else arrives as well. Even Gramps. Except for Red.
“You know Red,” Gramps says, after showing up an hour late. “The poor boy hates crowds and whatnot. He’s been especially busy with his champion duties.”
Despite what people may think, Blue doesn’t get angry because he wants to. He knows that this is the one place where he isn’t supposed to lose his cool. He knows that it makes him a hypocrite. But he gets angry anyways.
“I thought that dealing with gym leader stuff was one of the champion’s responsibilities,” Blue says. “He wasn’t involved at all with my hiring either. Geez, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was a slacker or something.”
Gramps frowns at him, and a bunch of other people are staring at him. Before Gramps can say anything, Blue storms off, a strange, dull ache in his chest.
Whatever. Blue leans against a wall next to the snack parlor, and grabs a handful of chips and stuffs them into his mouth.
Blue expected this. Another reminder from Red about how he’s the champion and is so much better than him and that Gramps and everybody thinks it too. It’s fine. He only invited Red because everybody would have gotten mad at him otherwise and tell him how he’s a massive jerk. They wouldn’t be wrong.
“Is that really how you children treat your elders nowadays?”
Blue can’t deny it: he flinches and squeals, but just a little bit. He snaps his head to the side. It’s Agatha.
Blue groans. He really doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Especially Agatha. She gives him the heebie jeebies. Also, she talks about Gramps way too much and says things like how Gramps used to be “handsome” and “charming”. Gross.
“I wasn’t talking about how you treated that old coot. Give him all of the grief you can,” Agatha says, leaning on her walking stick with a mischievous smile. A Gengar is standing besides her. “I was referring to myself. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume that you were avoiding me.”
The worst part about dealing with Agatha is that she is probably the one person in this room Blue is obligated to respect. As the former temporary gym leader of Viridian, she was the one who selected him for the job.
“Thank you for offering me the job, it is an. An honor.” It feels like Blue’s dragging each and every syllable out of his throat.
“Practicing gratitude builds character.” Agatha hums to herself, satisfied, ignoring Blue’s obvious aggravation. “It’s something you children should do more often.”
Blue’s grateful act folds instantly. “I’m not gonna be grateful to you! You should have done a better job maintaining this place!” He’s pretty sure Agatha has never been grateful once in her life.
“It has a quaint atmosphere, does it not?” Agatha muses, ignoring him once again.
“No.”
The gym is nearly identical to how it was when Giovanni ran it as the hub for team rocket activity, except that it has become slightly dilapidated under Agatha’s neglect. The gym leaders did attempt to make the gym appear more cheery with banners, colorful balloons, and fancy lights, but it only served to make the whole scene feel more uncanny.
Agatha feigns an attempt to look hurt. Much like Blue’s gratitude, it’s not a very convincing act.“My heart has become fragile with age, sonny! If you keep that attitude, you may end up sending me to the grave! And then I’ll haunt you as a ghost Pokémon until you’re sorry!”
“Good thing I’m trying to evolve an Umbreon,” Blue grumbles.
Agatha pauses, looking him up and down before nodding to herself “You have a better sense of humor than that old coot. Good.”
“That’s not surprising,” Blue’s practically had to walk on eggshells (to the best of his ability) around him for as long as he could remember. There’s no way Gramps has made somebody laugh that wasn’t out of pity or to suck up to him.
“This gym serves as a reminder of your Pokémon journey and your rival, does it not? That way, you’ll never be able to face yourself if you give up,” Agatha demands, her voice growing rough with frightening intensity. Her Gengar paws at her, and she relaxes. “Oak and I used to be good rivals, too, you know. Just like you and Red. So I know what it’s like. And that you’ll appreciate it,” Agatha says, winking at him. “Especially when you’re older.”
“What? ” Blue squawks, his face turning pink. That’s it. His first official action as a gym leader is going to be getting this stupid place remodeled. “Why would I appreciate a reminder of that loser ?”
Agatha smiles at Gengar and winks again, like they’re sharing a joke at Blue’s expense. At this point, Blue is convinced that Agatha chose him just so she has an excuse to torment him.
“If you really care about Gramps that much, why don’t you talk to him?” Blue says. He just wants to be left alone at this point.
Agatha barks out a laugh, a cold and bitter thing. “Why would I? Relationships wither and die, just like you and I. Too much has happened between us. I have nothing left to say to him, not anymore.”
A few days later, Blue gets a phone call from Daisy.
“Daisy!” Blue says, interrupting whatever Daisy was going to say. “Viridian’s cool! The people there are aware of how awesome I am, and twenty people asked for my autograph today!”
“Blue-”
“This gym leader stuff seems pretty rad, too!” He’s been in a good mood lately, due to obvious reasons. And when he’s in a good mood, he tends to talk. A lot. Daisy should know this by now. “There’s this secret group chat with all of the gym leaders and you won’t believe what Misty told me about what Erica gets up to in her free time-”
“Blue-”
“Did you miss your amazing darling little brother that much?” Blue grins. Pissing off his sister is a lot of fun. Even though she’s pretty unflappable.“Do you feel like an empty nester now?”
“Blue!” Daisy barks.
Blue goes quiet. Usually, it takes more to get Daisy to snap like that.
There’s silence. Daisy takes a deep breath.
“Blue, Red’s gone missing.”
Blue still remembers, vaguely, the afternoon that he met red. The hot, humid air, the sun shining bright enough to make one squint if you looked up at the sky, and the buzz of the calls of wild Pokémon.
He was seeking refuge under the shade of the trees in the forest behind Gramp’s laboratory when he spotted Red, hunched over near an overturned rock.
His four year old self runs over to Red the best his lis legs would let him.
“You won’t find any Pokémon under there, stupid.”
The boy swerves his head to look at Blue. Even back then, his face was hidden by that stupid red baseball cap. After a moment, Red goes back to staring at the mud near the overturned rock, as if Blue wasn’t even there.
“Um,” Blue says, craning his neck in order to get a look at Red’s face. “Did you hear what I said?”
More silence. Red grabs the rock with his small hands and turns it back over with surprising gentleness, and dashes into the forest, away from Blue.
“Hey!” Blue calls out, running after him. “My Gramps is a Pokémon professor, so I know what I’m talking about!”
Blue finds Red once again behind some bushes, this time catching him turn over a fallen log. A pair of eyes peer up at him, clearly unimpressed. Blue remembers being surprised at how big Red’s eyes are, accentuated by the shadow cast by his hat. Later, Blue tells Red that he looks like a Caterpie. Red takes this as a compliment.
Blue didn’t really pay much attention to that- the boy was his age, which meant that they could be friends! He and Daisy had just moved to Pallet town unexpectedly, for reasons Blue didn’t quite understand yet. Daisy barely left her room since they moved, Gramps spent all of his time on research, and his parents were newly six feet under, meaning that Blue found the opportunity to make a friend his age particularly exciting.
“Hi! My name is Blue! What’s your name?” Blue says, crossing his arms, in an attempt to seem cool.
Red’s eyes dart off to the side, hazed over, and frowns slightly. There’s more silence, before he hunches up his shoulder like a squirtle trying to retreat into its shell.
Blue hears the bush rustle once again, with an unfamiliar woman walking towards them.
“His name is Red,” The woman says, her voice gentle. Blue would soon find out that her name is Masami, Red’s mom. “He’s a little bit shy, so he doesn’t like to talk.”
“Oh,” Blue says, tilting his head to the side. “That’s okay! Everybody tells me that I talk too much, so I guess we can cancel eachother out!”
Masami smiles at him, her eyes wrinkling. For some odd reason, her smile has always stuck with him. “I’m glad,” She says. Masami stopped smiling at him like that, ever since he started being mean to Red.
Red, meanwhile, lowers the hat on his face.
“So,” Blue turns over to Red with a toothy smile on his face. He goes with his classic go to conversation starter with any fellow four-year-old at the time: “Do you like Pokémon?”
It’s strange, really, how much Red’s face lights up after those few words. He looks up at Blue, like he’s really seeing him for the first time, the light of the afternoon sun glinting off his eyes, and Blue finds himself unable to look away.