Chapter Text
Mossui had always felt like his whole world, but coming back from Area Zero and the overengineered landscape of the Terarium had made it feel small. It didn’t make the pollen-thick, Kitakami late-evening springtime air any less comforting, though. Getting off the bus and taking that first breath made him feel brand-new… until he was divebombed by a Yanma. Even that was kind of comforting. At Blueberry, being harassed by Pokémon in the middle of an assignment is a pain. In Kitakami, it was nostalgic.
Kieran finally drops his bookbag half heartedly against the tatami and shuts his bedroom sliding door behind him with finality. The change of clothes, his battle binder, his textbooks for his classes had made it almost unbearable lugging it around the airport, and the final stretch hoisting it up the road that led to the Kitakami Highway almost defeated him. He really needed to put some muscle on or something. Now that all his traveling was over, he could finally relax, and so could his Pokémon.
He had given them a chance to stretch immediately after deplaning, but Furret still manages to make a big show of refreshing itself before curling up on his futon. You weren’t lugging anything around… he thinks with a friendly scoff. Maybe his Pokemon were still not used to the plane rides. This was only the 4th time they’d ever been in an airplane, after all. He finally hit the light switch and looked around his childhood bedroom.
His bed is just as he left it. His corkboard above the floor-level desk is bare, still. One of the pushpins still has a little bit of paper stuck in it, from when he angrily ripped off a photo. A twinge of worry pulls at him. He should probably look for that. The bookshelf was still filled from both his childhood and adolescence, miscellaneous figures, and electronics, all which had a layer of dust. The hard-working fan sitting next to his futon had been unplugged by his grandma. She’s always worried about the electric bill… The teal mask he had forgotten to put in the shed after the festival from last summer sat next to a pile of unused notebooks. A handmade keychain made by Carmine sat untouched since August by the windowsill. It was engraved with “Mask Reclamation Tour” and a crude carving of Ogerpon, and it had made him feel all sorts of ways before. Now he smiles. A few packages (ones that were accidentally sent to his Kitakami address) were the only new additions.
It was home, sweet home. He tries his best to resist the urge to flop down into bed with Furret, (he seriously needs a shower first) and finally starts to unpack. Not before tucking the neglected keychain into his pocket.
Blueberry Academy is a high-level school, and it comes with high-level perks. One of which being the care of a whole department of scheduling staff. He thought they’d put up a fight, but only a few hours after it was submitted did Kieran get his request for leave approved. So, he had packed a little hastily, and to his lack of surprise, forgotten his laptop charger. He knew he left something behind- Carmine kept pointing this out nearly the entire way home. Gonna have to share with her for the foreseeable future , he grimaces. Maybe he could ask Lacey to mail it to him, but yeesh, shipping across the ocean is a pain… Maybe his BP would cover it…
He found that ripped-off photo as he was aimlessly putting away his heavily-used battle ruleset handbook. He was glad he stumbled upon it, rather than being forced to turn his room upside down to track it down. It was a picture from the first night of last year’s festival. Kieran studied his own face in the frame, with that lopsided, shy smile he wore during the first half of that school trip. The intricate design of the fancy fan Florian had bought that night was now split by a purposeful tear, and reunited at an odd angle with some hasty tape. He should go to Peachy’s to print another. Actually, the copy machines at Blueberry have special photo settings, so maybe…
He nearly drops the picture when he hears Carmine call him down for dinner. This gives him an excuse to stop looking at it.
“Kieran. Kieraaaan! Kieraaaaaan!” Each more annoyed than the last, and since he had the right mind not to earn any more teasing from her- “Not having dinner is dork behaviour.”- he dumps the rest of his bookbag onto the mat floor and tries not to be too loud running down the stairs.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’! Don’t holler like that!”
His grandma chewed him out for bounding down the stairs again, (it seems some things never change with age) but at least dinner was good. Handmade cold buckwheat noodles are refreshing during humid spring nights. Turns out, his grandma had been prepping all day for dinner. It really showed. That wasn’t to say that the cafeteria food at Blueberry is awful in comparison or anything, but he had really been missing this. They left the screen door open for more airflow, and all sat around the low table as Carmine and Kieran finished the last of the soybean mochi their grandparents had in stock and spilled what had happened during their last semester (avoiding the more… sensitive subjects). There were a few bug type Pokémon clinging to the screen doors, attracted by the warm light of the interior, and the sound of Politoed chirping in the distance. Furret likes to beg for food at the table, but seems a little too tuckered out from all the traveling
“So… yeah. That’s basically it.”
“Well, as long as you two are making good grades, it’s all we could ask for.” Hideko smiled as Carmine ended her spiel.
Kieran tried not to grin across the table at that comment, and fails, earning a death glare from his sister. Only he knew that she had gotten a B- in her battle history classes.
“If your school lets you take breaks, you may as well take advantage of it. You’ve always got a home t’ come back to, both of you.” Yukito nods.
“Thank you, papa.” Kieran pushed a few more mochi onto his plate.
“Though, I wish you’d getta phone, Kieran. Carmine chats with us all the time, but we hadn’t heard from you personally in months!”
Now it was Carmine’s turn to smile maliciously.
“That’s because I love my grandparents the more than him! I’ll buy another Rotom phone- one for nana, one for papa!”
“Sis, c’mon…” Kieran laments.
Yukito guffawed. “She’s only pullin’ your leg, Kieran. You’re gettin’ to that age where you may need one, that’s all. Traveling overseas is different from traveling ‘round Kitakami.”
He kept chewing on the last mochi to have an excuse not to talk. He always ended up bringing up excuses when his classmates asked, saying he “couldn’t get one, not til I’m 17, ‘cause of my grandparents…” and “My nana told me it ain’t good to sleep with a electronic that close to your head ‘n stuff”. (That last one earned a well-intentioned skeptical side-eye from Lacey.)
Carmine answered for him around another bite of soba. “Kiki cant get one, even if he wanted one. He keeps spending his pocket money on the move machines- what did Lacey call them? TM dispensaries? The ones they got in Unova are a little more varied, and a little more expensive, and he’s gone buck wild trying to keep them all in stock!”
After he was lectured a little on budgeting, and assured that his grandparents would buy him one anyways, Kieran managed to speak again. “Gran, it’s okay, letters work fine for me. I think all the notifications would drive me up the wall.”
Hideko frowns. “You got friends overseas don’t you? It’d be nice to talk to them easier. We just don’t want you getting lonely, Kiki. Can’t you use that laptop the school gave you?”
He popped another mochi into his mouth, nodding noncommittally. He didn’t have an excuse for that. Aw man… she was probably right.