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Tanba always breathes easier as soon as he's left the Mauville City limits behind.
There may be gardens in Mauville, ones made up of long, verdant stretches of grass sprawling out above shops and businesses grouped together down below, but those gardens have a distinct feel of sterile neatness. Growing up in Petalburg City, where nature is real and alive and teeming with all manner of grass and bug-type pokemon, Tanba doesn't know what to do with cultivated greenery. It's easier if he doesn't have to.
It's easier for Tanba to walk out along route 117, where the trees grow thick along the road and aren't pruned into predictable regularity. A breeze between the branches carries with it the scent of fresh-turned loam, a hint that someone else has recently been by the community berry garden farther down the road. The daycare center rises up before Tanba, the sprawling acreage of its estate penned in by old, worn wooden fence posts. Tanba hesitates on its doorstep.
There comes an electric hum from behind him, and Tanba knows that he isn't alone.
Before Tanba can sink into ruminations on whether it's worth interrupting the daycare center's daily operations, the question of how to broach a visit is answered for him. A throat clears itself, and Tanba's gaze moves from the red door of the daycare building to the space along the fence where Chris has come to rest his arms.
"Your shadow is back again," Chris points out, inclining his head toward Tanba. Then, as a bit of an afterthought, he adds, "Hello."
Tanba doesn't turn to follow where Chris is looking. He knows already what he will see; the little magnemite has been following him for days. Even when he goes into shops where it isn't swift enough or bold enough to enter after him, the small creature simply waits outside, floating beside the building like a dog Tanba has left on a tether. When he emerges, the magnemite resumes its vigil, floating serenely along in his wake wherever he might go.
"I'm not sure how to get rid of it," Tanba admits, almost apologetically.
Chris is quiet a moment, his expression calm, contemplative. Then he nods to himself, and gestures toward the gate that's latched shut farther along the length of the fence. "You can come inside, if you'd like."
"You're working," Tanba protests.
"You can help me," Chris says. He's already unhooking the latch to the gate, standing just to one side and opening it wide enough for Tanba to ease through.
Tanba does so, walking into the yard. Its grass is thick and plush beneath his feet, well-tended by Chris' golduck when the rains dry up in the summer and chewed down to a short pile by whichever grazing pokemon trainers have left in the care of the center. The smell of earth is stronger in the yard than it had been on the road, layered over with the more delicate scent of the flowers the old woman working there cultivates in her free time.
Down by Tanba's feet a plusle pops up, a basket of pokemon kibble nearly as big as it is clutched in its tiny arms. A minun walks behind it, bending to pick up a round nugget of feed every time plusle's trotting dislodges one from the basket. Tanba can feel his expression softening, going from the already relaxed look that comes over him when he leaves the city to one that pulls subtly at the corners of his mouth. He thinks he might be smiling.
The magnemite that has been following him glides down toward its fellow electric-type pokemon, emitting a long string of strangely mechanical-sounding noises. Plusle hugs the basket of feed away from magnemite, suspicious, but minun leans up toward it, his eyes wide and bright with curiosity.
"Perhaps this is why that magnemite has been following you," Chris points out. "You've been spending too much time at the center."
Tanba wants to protest this, but he can't. He has been visiting Chris with steady regularity, venturing outside the city in order to stop in at the daycare center or spend an hour in the afternoon turning soil in the berry garden. The rains have come only in the mornings, lately, and by the time lunch has passed there's only warm yellow sunlight slanting down, the buttery sort that Tanba's sudowoodo likes to stand in. He lets her do it for the entire time he's tending to the berry plants and cannot begrudge her the few still-green, barely-ripening berries he ends up feeding her from the crop.
He looks down at the magnemite, orbiting around plusle and minun and letting out the occasional delighted bleep or clank, and thinks Chris might be right. If magnemite has learned that Tanba will lead it to the daycare center and its electric-type helpers, it's as good as feeding a stray meowth. Tanba has become stuck with it.
"Come on," Chris says, when Tanba doesn't say anything. He's speaking to the daycare's pokemon; they reluctantly leave off chattering at magnemite and resume following in Chris' wake.
"What are we caring for today?" Tanba asks, careful not to step on the pokemon he falls to following after.
"Someone's left a flareon," Chris says. "And a cyndaquil, from Johto. Not to mention the usual suspects."
Tanba knows the ones. Some trainers make use of the daycare center for its excellent breeding services and the facilities that make any pokemon feel safe enough to settle down and brood. Others rely on them for boarding, coming back every few months with the same pokemon and disappearing again for weeks at a time.
It always seemed lonely, to Tanba. But the pokemon never seemed to mind. The daycare center became as familiar to them as a second home and they happily gamboled across its green lawns and into the cool ponds dug into the earth toward the back of the yard. He thinks Mauville might be like that, for him. It's no Petalburg, but Tanba has been there so long that it's no less a home to him, familiar for all the time he's lived there.
Tanba finds himself making the rounds with Chris, refilling the feed bowls at the various stations where different pokemon come to eat, checking on the fussier ones to make certain none of the guests were bullying each other, even stopping to groom out the burrs from the coat of a young eevee who'd gone tumbling through the daycare center's bushes picking up snags.
Tanba sits on the grass with Chris even after the brushing is finished, dampness from the earth seeping in through his pants but not proving discouragement enough to trouble him to move. Eevee has trotted off for further exploration and plusle and minun are playing a ways away, Tanba's fair-weather magnemite orbiting around and around them to the tune of its own joyous electrical hum. Occasionally plusle or minun will bat at it, pushing with their little paws so magnemite goes coasting through the air. It always drifts back, drawn magnetically in toward their center of gravity.
"So," Chris says, his voice coming out low and warm. "When are you going to take the job here?"
"That's — what?" Tanba asks.
He's startled, but Chris is only staring at him evenly. He hadn't thought the old man and woman who ran the daycare were offering, but Chris isn't incorrect. With how often Tanba has visited, he's as good as an unofficial worker for the center.
"I have a job," Tanba says, when Chris appears to still be waiting, but he looks away as he says it.
Chris lets that settle, and doesn't push it. Tanba is considering privately whether he's lying. It's been a long time since he's traveled, since he's had even the barest aspirations of participating in the league challenge. Likewise, it's been too long since he's followed the road from Mauville all the way through to Verdanturf Town. There's always the daycare center, or the berry garden, and then somehow it's late and Tanba is turning back toward home.
It all seems very practical, in the moment. But maybe it isn't — maybe he doesn't want to see the contest center, perched at the heart of the little town like it's waiting for him.
"How's your father?" Tanba ends up asking, softly into the silence between them.
Chris breathes out, slow enough that it isn't quite a sigh. His chin is tipped up, his golden gaze slanting out across the lawn toward the road. Tanba doesn't usually ask about Animal. Chris doesn't usually mention him, either, save for in passing.
"He's still competing," Chris says, at length. "He doesn't win as often, not any more. But he still has dedicated fans who come out to the contest hall every time he's participating."
"Have you considered... Starting again?" Tanba ventures.
Chris shrugs, and the look in his eyes loses focus. Tanba stares off with him, remembering the first time he'd witnessed one of Chris' performances in a contest spectacular. His pokemon was graceful and elegant, body undulating with a perfect economy of movement that was lovely to behold. During the contests, milotic commanded the attention of every body in the room. Now, she cavorts in the ponds of the daycare center instead, playful and carefree, but Tanba can still see the beauty inherent to every flick of her tail or shake of her head.
"My father wanted me to perform in the toughness circuit, with him," Chris points out. "It confused him, that I might choose to pursue something different."
"The toughness circuit was... something else," Tanba says. "It never let you forget who you were fighting against."
It's where Tanba met Manaka, back when they were both young and eager. Manaka had the talent for it. He hadn't picked it up by chance, the way Tanba had, nervously signing up for a first contest in Verdanturf because the hiker he'd been traveling with thought that standing up on that stage with his pokemon might do Tanba some good. He supposes that it had, in a way.
He'd been good at it, at the entry level. Good enough to sign up again when his feet carried him to Fallarbor Town. Good enough that it hurt, when he couldn't pull off the win. But he shook his opponent's hand with all the dignity he could muster, congratulating the contest's victor on his win. And Manaka had grinned at him, and told Tanba to try it again. He'd told Tanba he wanted to fight him again, wanted to have another go against someone who was worth facing.
They alternated contests, once they both got into the swing of things. Tanba would take victory one day, Manaka securing a win the next, each of them bowing politely as the cheers from the crowd washed over them in waves. Tanba's breloom loved the limelight. And so he kept going, swept up in the charisma of the competition until the tide of it pulled him to Slateport and served him a ruder awakening than he knew how to take.
Manaka could fight it out at the Hyper Rank contests, digging in his heels and dueling alongside his pokemon to present the best showing. Tanba never quite lived up to that example.
He realizes, all at once, that Chris is watching him. A dull heat rises to his cheeks, floods down the back of his neck.
"You spent a lot of time in that circuit," Chris says. It isn't a question.
Tanba shrugs, uncomfortable in his skin. He loved performing with Manaka and truly admired the other boy's ability as a contestant. He wanted to become something like Manaka was, but different. He wanted to be seen as an admirable performer in his own right.
He met Chris for the first time in that contest hall, after he sat through a round of the beauty contest just by chance. It was nothing like the toughness circuit. Everyone was polite and polished, sparkling with certainty and striding onto the stage with heads held high. There was no intimidation, no jockeying rudely for position. Everyone in a Hyper Rank beauty contest walked in utterly certain they would win, and when victory didn't come to pass, they accepted defeat just as gracefully.
Tanba had congratulated Chris after his performance, eye unwillingly drawn to the fluttering ribbons pinned to both trainer and pokemon's breast. It stirred something similar in Tanba's chest, a nervous fluttering like he'd swallowed a whole host of butterfree.
"I spent time in the beauty circuit, too," Tanba says. "After I met you."
It was after he met his petilil, too, spoiled little creature that she was. She'd been a gift from a sailor, docked in Slateport after a long stay overseas. At first she hadn't taken well to Tanba, but he was patient, coaxing the tiny pokemon around with pokeblocks and poffins, treats he'd made with his own two hands.
Tanba had met Chris, and met petilil, and though his enthusiasm for contests was waning those experiences grounded him with resolve enough to attempt the spotlight once again.
"We only competed against each other the once," Chris remembers, voice distant enough that it sounds as if he's lost in his own thoughts and memories. "It was a good performance."
"You won," Tanba reminds Chris, without a single trace of bitterness.
"I had more practice," Chris says, modestly. "I can't say which of us would win, if we made an attempt of it now."
"If we made an attempt now," Tanba says, "I suspect some new competitor will take the victory from both of us."
Chris laughs, a warm, rippling burst of sound, and shakes his head. He's smiling, even after the laughter dies away. "Not about to let me rest on the laurels from my previous achievements, are you?"
Tanba shrugs, and ducks his head. He doesn't mean to insult Chris and he thinks Chris must not be too terribly injured, if he's laughing. But it's bittersweet, remembering the showings they had both given in the past. He isn't certain why he doesn't do it any more. Maybe it's lilligant. She's difficult, and doesn't love the spotlight near as well as breloom did. Maybe Tanba is making excuses for his own reticence. There's no real way to tell.
"I like retirement," Chris says, and suddenly the warm steadiness of his voice sounds far more serious. "I like working at this daycare. I can make a difference to a lot of pokemon here, can give them good experiences."
"Is that why you want me to ask for a job here?" Tanba asks. "I wonder if I would like it nearly as much."
"Don't you?" Chris asks in return. "You've done the work."
Tanba has to think on that. It's true that he's performed the same chores as Chris often enough to have an opinion, enjoying the outdoors and the regularity and how it's working with a whole changing host of pokemon. He isn't certain he's as ambitious as Chris, doing it for the greater good, but it is solid, satisfying work.
"I think it would be different," Tanba says. "If I was doing it full time, and committed to it."
Chris nods, thoughtfully, like that makes a whole lot of sense. The sunlight is still streaming down, warm on their skin and starting to take on the gilded, orange cast of the golden hour, as the low drone of bug pokemon sounds from off in the distance. It's peaceful. Tanba thinks on it a little further and concludes that he could get used to this — working with Chris, relaxing in the yard when the pokemon are tended to, sitting through quiet, companionable moments in a silence that fits comfortably over them.
"I think I'd do it," Tanba says, softer than before. "If your bosses give me the job."
Chris doesn't respond right away, and Tanba doesn't quite look at him. He can feel the familiar weight of Chris' gaze slanting toward him, can detect the way the wheels in Chris' head are always turning. He might be a contest performer no longer, but the sharpness, the polish, the things he mastered while performing have never left him. Chris is too clever for someone like Tanba to dare to underestimate him, and though this fills him with the certainty that there is some unspoken further intention beneath Chris' offer, the fact that Tanba doesn't see it is in no way a discouragement.
All he's really wanted, for long enough that the feeling has sunk into his bones and become a certainty of his being, was to work with Chris. He wanted it when he met Chris, back in that busy contest hall with competitors and spectators bustling all around them. He wants it still now, when neither of them lives that life any longer.
He thinks, they could have a good partnership together. Could build something together. He wants to do that.
"I'll tell them," Chris says, and Tanba knows exactly what he means in spite of the pause. "Tomorrow, I'll tell them that you'll take the job."
"I didn't think they had made the offer yet," Tanba says. It isn't quite an argument; he doesn't mean to complain.
"I already asked them," Chris admits. "I wanted you to be here."
It's startling, to hear such words spoken aloud, confirmation that Chris was always counting on this changing, budding partnership. At the same time, hearing it doesn't surprise Tanba at all.
"I'll come back in the afternoon, then," Tanba says. "When it's time to give the pokemon their dinners, so I can help."
"Would you like to have that?" Chris asks, glancing towards him with a quick, knife-bright slice of his eyes. "Dinner?"
Tanba thinks about it, taking his time over the invitation just the same as he takes his time over everything in his life. He's never been able to rush in blind, always too nervous and careful to do anything but stop and consider. It's a simple offer. Dinner. With Chris.
"I'd like that," Tanba says, hearing his own voice coming out low and deep but somehow soft.
Chris pushes up from the grass, standing and looking across the yard towards the gate. Tanba takes the unspoken invitation and walks with his friend across the grass. Plusle and minun ignore them, still cavorting amidst the garden weeds, and magnemite stays with the other pokemon. Tanba wonders if this was something it was waiting for, too — an invitation to stay, a place where it felt it belonged. He feels lighter for it, no longer having the specter of that hovering pokemon weighing on him from over his shoulder.
Chris opens the gate for him, and they step out together onto the road. The sun is sinking beneath the tree line and the sky has begun to stain itself orange and pink. Chris holds out his hand by his side, palm just tilted toward Tanba. After a pause punctuated by only the usual amount of hesitance, Tanba takes it.
"We could eat at the Mauville Food Court," Chris points out, so casually that Tanba almost doesn't realize he's making a joke. "I've heard the Magnemite Croquette is good."
Tanba starts, and Chris squeezes his hand.
"Let's eat somewhere less adventurous," Tanba suggests, thinking of the battle culture in the food court, thinking of fighting in double battles with Chris. Thinking of partnership — the one between them, fledgling but not new. "I don't think I have that much of an appetite tonight."
"Alright," Chris says, agreeing so easily. He's ever-flexible, bright with insight. "We can go somewhere lighter tonight."
"I'd like that," Tanba assures him.
And Chris agrees with it, "I'd like that, too."
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