Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“So, which of them do you think is gonna break first?”

Naveen glanced up from his phone at Lida’s question. The two of them were in Hotel Z’s lobby, with Paxton and Taunie having just set off for their not-date at Hotel Richissime. With any luck—and given how the two of them had looked at each other when they saw the other’s outfit, they might not need luck—Lida’s wingwomaning would be successful and they’d stop dancing around each other. And then she and Naveen could tease them to hell and back for it.

Or, well, Lida would. Naveen would probably just chip in with a sarcastic comment or two.

Naveen hummed in thought. “Taunie, probably. They’re both way too far in their own heads but I think she’s impulsive enough to just go for it at some point.”

Lida stroked her hair. “Eh, I think she’s internalized this as one of those things that she has to do, even to her own detriment,” she said. “Paxton’s gonna have to make the first move.”

Naveen shrugged before focusing back on his phone—apparently Canari was already streaming. Lida wasn’t exactly sure why, given that she obviously wasn’t at Hotel Richissime yet, but Naveen seemed like he was having fun watching regardless. “Either way,” he said, “them working out what to do with their mutual crush should make things smoother for the team overall.”

Lida nodded along for a moment before an idea struck her. “Hey…you wanna put money on it?”

Naveen raised an eyebrow at her as she dug through her hoodie’s pocket. “What?”

Lida retrieved a wad of cash that she placed on the table with a grin. “Fifteen hundred poké on Paxton confessing first.”

“Seriously?” Naveen asked.

“Ah, c’mon, Naveen!” Lida cajoled. “It’s just a harmless bet! What’s there to lose?”

“Fifteen hundred poké,” Navenn deadpanned. He sighed. “But, fine, I guess. I’m confident enough in my assessment that I think I can win that bet.”

“Sweet,” Lida said. She glanced over at the counter. “Hey, AZ, you want in on this?”

AZ said nothing, instead just giving her a flat look as Floette laughed. After a few moments, he just shook his head and that was that. Lida wasn’t about to try and push him on this. Or most matters really, given that he was providing her housing for free.

In the meantime, Naveen had returned his focus to the stream. It was standard behavior for him, really, though there was one thing that was different than usual. Normally, Naveen would retreat into his studio to watch Canari’s streams unless he was otherwise occupied; him doing so out in the open of the hotel lobby was new. It was a nice change, in Lida’s opinion. She knew quite well that he was an introvert to his core—Naveen would likely never be a social butterfly, and that was fine—but he’d been getting steadily more social with the rest of the team ever since Paxton joined. Even if it was small things, like choosing to watch a stream in a communal space instead of isolating himself.

Content to just hang out in the lobby for a while, Lida moved seats so that she could more easily peer over at Naveen’s phone. Paxton and Taunie were sure to show up on stream eventually, and she needed to be prepared to tease them if they did anything embarrassing on camera!

Naveen was pretty sure that this was how he died.

His battle with the Rogue Mega Froslass had started out fine enough. He’d arrived at the rooftops above Aymlis Park just after it had gone Mega, having had to force his way against the way the crowd was moving. His Ariados had immediately launched a Sticky Web at her, sticking her to the roof and keeping her from potentially drifting off to attack somewhere else. That let Sableye and Mega Scrafty move in to start attacking her, too, which was an added benefit.

At which point Snow Warning fully kicked in and everything went to shit.

The rooftop had been entirely engulfed in a thick, cold cloud in seconds. At least Naveen could still hear that his Pokémon were active and attacking the Rogue Mega, but trying to see what was going on would be hopeless. He couldn’t really fall back, either, since he couldn’t get a clear line of sight to actually return his Pokémon. And besides, with how thick the cloud was, moving at all ran the risk of stepping straight off the roof. His Rotom phone would save him from a lethal fall, sure, but an unexpected drop still risked serious injury.

Shivering, Naveen wrapped his jacket more tightly around himself and made sure his scarf was properly secured. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought about before, but now that he was standing in one it was quite apparent just how wet clouds were. Every breath stung from how cold the air was and the droplets of water clinging to his exposed skin were just making him lose heat even faster. As it stood, his team would need to wrap this up fast or else they would need to retreat, potential falls be damned.

One of his Pokémon made a pained sound—Ariados, based on the sound of it. If they were starting to go down now, that necessitated a change of plans. Sticking around on the roof without his Pokémon occupying the Mega Froslass’s attention seemed like a bad idea, especially now that Naveen could see ice crystals beginning to form. The cloud had gotten cold enough for it to properly snow, even this distant from the Mega Froslass.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he had dallied just barely too long in coming to that decision. He moved close enough to peer through the fog and see that Ariados had been knocked out, but returning the Pokémon forced him into Mega Froslass’s field of view. Eyes widening, he managed to dodge out of the way of the first attack she sent his way—an Ice Beam—but was promptly slapped in the face with a wave of ice and snow from her followup Blizzard.

Sputtering, Naveen wiped the snow away from his face to see Mega Scrafty leap back in with an Iron Tail to keep the Mega Froslass occupied. It was a bit too little too late, however, since that Blizzard kicked off a chain reaction, rapidly cooling the snowcloud even further. Keeping the battle in view became a fool’s errand as the swirling ice and snow restricted Naveen’s vision to mere meters ahead of him. The wind picked up—likely from Mega Froslass using Blizzard again—and its howling drowned out even most sound from any Pokémon moves.

Slowly, Naveen began wandering, trying to get line-of-sight on his Pokémon so he could return them and flee. He wasn’t quite sure how long he spent on that, but it was long enough that he was starting to lose feeling in his fingers. When he did finally get a chance to recall his Pokémon—Sableye having been knocked out and Mega Scrafty clearly only hanging on by a thread—he nearly fumbled their Premier Balls. He didn’t drop them, thankfully, but when he tried to make for where he remembered the edge of the roof was after returning them he felt slow and weak, the cold having made him sluggish. Just getting his legs to work properly felt like he was forcing his way through molasses, and he barely made it more than a couple meters before he felt a chill in the air—even moreso than how cold it had already gotten.

Naveen slipped on a patch of ice as the Mega Froslass used Blizzard again, painfully landing on his arm but fortunately avoiding the brunt of the attack. Looking back at the Rogue Mega Evolution felt like he was staring Death in the face, given how this was likely going to go for him. Dying a few weeks before he turned nineteen hadn’t exactly been in his plans for his life and the thought came with quite a few regrets. If he died here, he wouldn’t get to see Sasha turn ten. He wouldn’t get to prove his grandmother wrong and make his designs into a career. He wouldn’t get to sort through the confusing mess of feelings that Team MZ had left him with, particularly those regarding Lida.

Being friends with Paxton was easy; the two of them were both rather reserved and fine with simply existing in the same space while doing their own thing. Taunie, as excitable and impulsive as she was, was also content to just let matters lie when it came to things he didn’t want to discuss—she clearly had secrets of her own, after all. But Lida was different. She’d push and prod Naveen until he’d agree to open up about things, but never too much—never enough to get him to close himself off entirely. Strangely enough, he didn’t really mind that. It was refreshing, almost, to have a friend who was willing to call him out if he got too standoffish. Even if her push to get him to spill his backstory to Paxton had been a bit much, enough that he’d been a bit frosty with her for a few days.

It was still confusing, though. Before Taunie had roped him into joining Team MZ, Naveen hadn’t really met anyone willing to chip away at the icy, introverted exterior he liked to project. Well, other than his sister, but Sasha didn’t exactly count for that—she was family. Lida had been a complete stranger when they met, but in the months since she’d become a close enough friend that many of the emotional barriers he’d erected around himself dissolved around her. Not all of them, but enough that Naveen found himself opening up to her at times—and the rest of Team MZ by extension.

It was strange, the places that one’s mind went when they thought they were about to die.

“Power Gem, Staryu!”

Naveen slowly blinked, dimly registering that Mega Froslass’s next attack was cut off by a series of glowing gemstones pelting her. She staggered backwards as a Staryu spun into view on an Aqua Jet, finally granting Naveen a bit of reprieve from the cold as the wind around him died down slightly. As a figure emerged from the fog, his addled mind finally began to work out what was going on.

He was…being rescued? A part of him supposed that it might be an illusion, but while Froslass were known to produce illusions rather frequently, they weren’t psychic. Naveen doubted that a wild one would know enough about him to produce an accurate illusion of his friends.

“Lida?” he asked, his voice weaker than he expected.

She definitely still heard him, though. Naveen tried to push himself up off the ground as she rushed over, but with how icy the roof was he couldn’t get much purchase. Lida knelt down to help him up, wincing when she grabbed his hand. “Wow, that’s cold,” she noted.

Naveen took a few moments to respond, and when he was successfully in a sitting position he gestured broadly at the stormcloud they were still in. “The Froslass knows Blizzard,” he elaborated.

Lida frowned and placed a hand on his cheek. “It’s not just your hands,” she said.

Before Naveen could really react to that, Lida withdrew her hand and shed her hoodie. She started shivering a bit as she wrapped the garment around him, but she nodded satisfactorily at him having an extra layer.

Mega Froslass screeched as she tried to fire a Shadow Ball at Staryu, but a Dark Pulse from Lida’s Clawitzer ate through the attack and slammed full-force into her. On top of everything that Naveen’s Pokémon had put her through beforehand, that finally seemed to be enough to knock her out, the wild Pokémon collapsing down onto the tiled rooftop with her Mega Evolution reverting. Staryu and Clawitzer still had a defensive stance for a few seconds to make sure she was down, but once the storm started to dissipate they relaxed.

But even as the sun began to pierce through the clouds and Naveen held Lida’s hoodie tightly around himself, he still felt like he was chilled to the bone. Oddly, he wasn’t shivering all that much despite that, and with the Mega Froslass defeated the adrenaline crash left him tired more than anything else. He blinked, and despite it feeling like it only took a moment when he opened his eyes he’d nearly fallen over. Lida had caught him before he could hit the tiles, and was looking at him with a concerned expression.

She reached around him to find her hoodie’s pocket and withdrew her phone. “I’m gonna call an ambulance, alright?" she said. “I’m pretty sure you’re hypothermic.”

Naveen slowly blinked again. Right, that…made sense. He’d been in a snowcloud for who knows how long and subject to multiple Blizzards in that time—he’d have been surprised if his body temperature had stayed high. It explained why he felt like he was having trouble processing what was going on, too. That bit concerned him more than anything else, really.

Though as the clouds broke and the sun shone through, Naveen’s mind focused in on the young woman beside him. The air was still chilly—he could see Lida’s breath condensing as she spoke to the emergency operator on the phone—and some snow was settled on her hair. The sun’s rays shining through the ice crystals contrasted sharply with her black locks in such a beautiful fashion that there was no way his eye wouldn’t have been drawn to it.

Perhaps it was the near-death experience and the fact that she’d saved him, but some basal part of Naveen’s brain had decided that Lida had an ethereal sort of beauty to her. That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t found her beautiful before, of course. He was a fashionista at his core and could recognize beauty when he saw it. But this was the first time that he found himself actively attracted to that beauty. Or perhaps not the first time—just the first time he could really recognize it.

There wasn’t any time for him to dwell on the thought, though, as the biggest Pidgeot he’d ever seen swooped up onto the rooftop with an EMT on its back. Naveen was promptly flown back down to ground level and loaded into an ambulance as Lida made her own way down from the roof, though she reached the ground a few moments before the paramedics finished securing him in the vehicle. The last thing he saw before the doors closed and he was brought to Lumiose General was her concerned gaze meeting his.

Lida sighed as she thumbed through Phantasmal Psyche, Shauntal Weber’s most recently published work. It was the finale of a trilogy set in a fantasy world where each Pokémon Type had a nation representing it, which Lida had been reading religiously since the first book came out. Romance, after all, was one of her favorite genres and a new series from an established author was always a fun time.

Though apparently this was Shauntal’s first take on romance. Lida had looked into her other works after the first book had her hooked and found that Shauntal’s experience was mostly in adventure stories. Very well-written adventure stories, of course, and that writing experience transferred well to her romance series, but it did show in the plot being a bit standard. The crown princess of the Ghost kingdom falling in love with the daughter of the Psychic warlord was the kind of forbidden love story that Lida had read many times before, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

Personally, given what Lida knew of Shauntal she thought that she might’ve been projecting a bit of her life onto the page. Perhaps she could ask Paxton about that? He might know more about the internal dynamics of Unova’s Elite Four than her. Granted, that might not be a given—Lida’s knowledge of the Hoenn Elite Four was limited to publicly available information, after all. Well, that and the fact that Phoebe and Champion May frequented a tea shop in Lilycove, but Lida only knew that because said tea shop was right across the street from her family’s home.

Regardless, she wasn’t getting much enjoyment out of the book at the moment. Lida had brought it along in case Naveen had still been asleep when she showed up to Lumiose General as soon as visiting hours had opened—which he had been—but she was finding focusing on the story to be a bit difficult. Her mind was swimming with potential ways that this could have been avoided. If she was faster to deal with the Rogue Mega Altaria, or if she hadn’t had to rely on Quasartico for it, or if she hadn’t suggested that she and Naveen split up to deal with different Rogue Megas in the first place, he might not have been in a hospital bed.

Lida glanced over at him. He was astonishingly still, really. If it wasn’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest she’d have been worried that something had gone very wrong. It grated on her to see him like this, but Doctor Dubois had assured her that he’d be alright, so for now Lida would trust in that.

At least some of her morning had been entertaining, though. When she’d entered Hotel Z’s lobby to see Paxton and Taunie cuddled up on the couch she had to resist the urge to outright squeal at how adorable they were. She’d taken a photo, of course, both for future teasing purposes and to show Naveen—hopefully that would get his spirits up a bit as well.

Her musing was cut short as Naveen began to stir. After a few moments, he blearily opened his eyes and sat up with a yawn. Lida set her book aside and offered him a soft smile as he glanced around the room, to which he blinked in surprise. “Lida?” he asked. He looked up at the clock on the wall before looking back at her. “You’re here early.”

Lida shrugged. “I came as soon as visiting hours opened.”

Naveen didn’t seem quite sure how to respond to that. “You’ve been here since seven thirty?”

Lida held up her book. “I mean, I did bring this since I figured you’d still be asleep.”

“Ah,” Naveen said. After a few moments of silence, he spoke again. “So, did anything happen overnight that I missed?”

Lida grinned and grabbed her phone. Opening the photo app, she displayed the most recent picture in her gallery and spun the device around so Naveen could see. “Well, I think Jacinthe was still able to harass Paxton and Taunie into her tournament since they weren’t at the hotel when I got back, but whatever happened there clearly went well for them.”

Naveen’s eyebrows rose as he looked at the picture. “That’s a lot faster than I expected either of them to move.”

“I know, right?” Lida enthused. “I’ll have to ask them what happened when they wake up, ‘cause they were just too cute for me to wake them before I left earlier.” She pocketed her phone. “But I guess that bet of ours will be settled sooner than we thought!”

“Eh,” Naveen hesitated, “maybe. But they were on the couch, so it might’ve been accidental on their part.”

Lida paused. She hadn’t considered that, but Naveen had a point. “Well, it’s still super adorable if that’s the case,” she said. “And it just means we’ll have to push them more to make Operation Peaceful Town a reality.”

“Peaceful Town?” Naveen asked.

“Y’know, since pax means peace and Taunie sounds like town,” Lida replied.

Naveen went silent for a few seconds. “You made a ship name for them?”

“Is it really a ship if we know both of them and know for a fact that their feelings are mutual?” Lida asked, pouting a bit. “I just wanted a cute name for them.”

Naveen chuckled softly and shook his head. “Fair enough.” He looked over at the clothing neatly piled off to the side. “Would you mind stepping out for a bit?”

Lida tilted her head. “Hm?”

“I, uh, kinda would like to get changed,” Naveen said, his cheeks lightening a bit. “And I am just in a hospital gown right now.”

Lida could feel her own cheeks warm. Quickly, she gathered her book and stood. “Ah, right. I’ll go see if I can find Doctor Dubois while you do.”

Thankfully, Naveen was decent by the time that Lida returned with Doctor Dubois in tow a few minutes later. He was discharged from the hospital shortly thereafter with some paperwork and instructions to stay away from cold environments for a few days. That wasn’t a problem for Naveen—it wasn’t like he was planning on going back to Aymlis Park anytime soon. Indeed, all he really wanted to do right now was to head back to Hotel Z and get to work on his commissions.

Unfortunately, he and Lida ran into a major slowdown almost as soon as they’d exited Lumiose General.

“Naveen, you’re alright!”

Naveen stumbled back and had to brace himself to keep from falling over as he was hit by a tackle-hug from his sister, who had seen him from across the hospital’s parking lot and had practically catapulted herself at him. Lida, snickering a bit, offered him her elbow to grab onto to keep himself upright, and Naveen appreciatively nodded at her for it. As he wrapped his hand around her forearm, he glanced down at the girl still clinging to him like a Komala.

“Hello, Sasha,” he said. “It’s good to see you too.”

Sasha let go and backed up, though Naveen’s hand lingered around Lida’s arm for an extra few seconds. “Grandma said the hospital called and that you were hurt but you’re okay now!”

That statement was a bit obvious, but Naveen wasn’t about to judge a nine-year-old for making obvious statements. Reaching down, he ruffled Sasha’s hair. “Yeah, the doctors say that I just need some rest,” he said, though his attention was elsewhere. Mostly on the fact that Sasha wouldn’t have been allowed to roam the streets of Lumiose unsupervised, so Naveen was scanning the parking lot to watch for his grandmother. He supposed that it was obvious that Lumiose General would have called her—despite the two of them not getting along much, he hadn’t taken her off of his emergency contacts yet.

Sure enough, said woman was walking towards the three of them at a brisk pace, a frown visible on her face. She was a short, older woman—only standing at around 155 centimeters and being in her early seventies—but despite that her glare being fixated on him still had Naveen tense up. “Sasha,” she admonished, not taking her eyes off of her grandson, “as I have told you, do not run off.”

Sasha, who at this point had turned to face their grandmother, shrunk in on herself. “Sorry, Grandma,” she said, far quieter than she had been when greeting Naveen.

Naveen himself frowned but acknowledged his grandmother with a nod and a curt greeting. “Grandmother.”

“Naveen,” she replied, her own frown deepening.

Neither of them spoke for several seconds, with Naveen’s grandmother using her glare to speak for her. It was something that he was unfortunately used to, as the woman’s main strategy of displaying her upsetness was to fix him with a withering, disappointed stare. He was matching her gaze, but internally Naveen was squirming. He’d gotten better at resisting over the years, but he could still feel himself wilting under her glare.

Lida either picked up on that or couldn’t stand the tension herself, because she painted a smile on her face and stepped forward. “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met,” she said, offering her hand. “I’m Lida, one of Naveen’s friends in Team MZ.”

Mercifully, Naveen’s grandmother took her gaze off of him to focus on Lida instead. Despite the fact that Lida was quite a bit taller than her, her frown didn’t waver as she analyzed the younger woman. After a few moments of silence, she turned back to Naveen and huffed, not having even bothered to take the offered handshake. Switching from Basic to her own native tongue, she spoke. “Clearly she is a poor influence on you.”

Naveen crossed his arms as Lida stepped back, not understanding what his grandmother had said but clearly a bit offended at the lack of politeness nonetheless. “Who I chose to associate myself with is none of your concern.”

“My concern is the image you project of our family,” his grandmother protested. “Continuing to pursue this foolishness will end in nothing but ruin.”

“I am indebted to Team MZ’s kindness,” Naveen countered. “It only stands to reason that my friends’ loyalty to me is repaid in kind.”

“And yet, you could not even defend yourself from a single wild Pokémon,” his grandmother said sharply.

Naveen winced and Sasha, whose attention had been ping-ponging between them like she was watching a tennis match, spoke up—in Basic, presumably for Lida’s benefit. “Grandma, couldn’t you just-”

Their grandmother cut her off by turning her piercing gaze to Sasha, who cringed and stopped speaking. “This is a matter between myself and your brother,” she said. “Do not interrupt.” She returned her attention to Naveen and continued. “I have arranged for you to meet with a tutor beginning next week to refresh your mathematics skills so you can retake calculus come autumn.”

Naveen raised an eyebrow. “I graduated this spring.”

“And nearly failed calculus,” his grandmother responded. “I can easily arrange with Académie Étoile to allow for you to retake and retest the course to amend your transcript. No prestigious university would take you as-is.”

Naveen could feel his eyelid twitch. If he was going to go to university for anything—a prospect that he frankly found rather unlikely—it would be for design, and while he was fully aware that some amount of mathematics was necessary for the field it wasn’t exactly something he was interested in. And besides, despite his grandmother’s claims, he had still comfortably passed Académie Étoile’s Calculus I course. But simply passing just wasn’t up to his grandmother’s standards, apparently.

But before he could voice any of these complaints, his grandmother turned and gestured for him and Sasha to follow her. “Come. Leave these flights of fancy and this ‘Team MZ’ behind and return home.”

Alright, enough was enough. “No,” Naveen firmly stated, switching back to Basic. “I’m not leaving the team.”

Lida’s eyes widened when she heard that, her own offended look returning and focusing squarely on Naveen’s grandmother. The woman whirled around. “No?” she repeated, seeming almost confused at his defiance. “You would prefer to stay with those who would force you to face battles you cannot win?”

“Hey!” Lida protested. “We didn’t force Naveen to do anything!”

“I went to Aymlis Park to battle that Froslass of my own free will,” Naveen confirmed before his grandmother could get a word in edgewise to try and discredit Lida’s claim. Staunchly ignoring his cheeks’ warming, he continued. “And Lida was the one that saved me, too.”

Sasha looked up at Lida, her eyes practically sparkling. “Really?” she asked.

Lida blushed and rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. “Yeah. I did, I guess.”

Naveen held back a chuckle of his own as Sasha’s excitable affection was turned on Lida. She was tall enough that she wasn’t completely bowled over by the surface-to-air missile that was one of his sister’s tackle-hugs, but it was a close thing. Naveen took a deep breath as he turned his attention back away from his sister and his friend. “I’m not going back to school, Grandmother,” he said. “I’m an adult. I can make my own decisions.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “Your father would have never-”

His grandmother had already been testing Naveen’s patience, but that statement was multiple steps over the line. “I. Am. Not. My. Father,” Naveen hissed out, interrupting her.

That finally gave his grandmother pause. Even Sasha, who had previously been repeatedly thanking Lida for saving Naveen’s life, stepped back to watch the two of them with wide eyes. Lida herself seemed surprised at Naveen’s outburst too, which made sense to him. The only time she would’ve seen him get this animated before would be over something to do with Canari.

After a few moments of having fixed his grandmother with a smoldering glare, though, Naveen allowed his gaze and his voice to soften slightly. Much as it irked him for her to compare him to his father, he knew she had her own reasons to do so. “I miss Dad too,” he said, “but your son died eight years ago. Trying to turn me into his replacement doesn’t do either of us—or his memory—any good.”

Naveen’s grandmother spent a few seconds imitating a Magikarp at that, opening and closing her mouth as she searched for a response. Eventually, she snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes. “Fine then,” she said, “if you are so insistent on staying with this Team MZ, perhaps you can do so permanently.”

Naveen’s eyes blew wide open, Lida’s jaw dropped, and Sasha outright gasped. “Grandma, you can’t-”

Naveen’s grandmother crossed her arms. “As you said, you are an adult. I will gather your things and place them on my doorstep. If they are not gone by tonight they will end up in a dumpster.” She turned on her heel. “Come along, Sasha. We are going home.”

Sasha looked horribly torn and tears were pricking at the corners of her eyes. Naveen kneeled down to her eye level with a sigh and gave her arm a quick, comforting squeeze. “It’ll be alright, Sasha,” he assured. “You can go home with Grandmother. I’ll be at Hotel Z.”

Sasha threw herself into an embrace around him, giving him a quick squeeze before running off to catch up with their grandmother. The sounds of the world around him felt like they faded for Naveen as he watched them disappear around the corner, the few pedestrians that had stopped to stare at the confrontation quickly moving away to continue on with their day. He wasn’t quite sure how long he stood there for, slowly processing what had just happened, but eventually Lida began gently leading him in the general direction of the Vert District.

Naveen’s mind swam as they walked in silence, the world around him feeling unfocused. He and his grandmother had fought before—the incident where she’d destroyed his brand new sewing machine and he’d stormed out of the house because of it came to mind—but he hadn’t been outright evicted before. It was a strange feeling, especially since it wasn’t something that he’d considered even could happen. It wasn’t entirely clear to him how long they were walking—maybe one minute, maybe five—before Lida broke the silence.

“Naveen are you…alright?” she asked softly. “I know you didn’t get along with her but that seems extreme on her part.”

Naveen sighed but forced his contemplative frown into a neutral expression. “I’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ve fought before, and I’m sure Sasha will get Grandmother to calm down and things will be back to normal in a few days.”

He felt like he was trying to convince himself of that more than Lida.

Lida frowned. “If you’re sure…” she said, trailing off. “Just…know that I’m here for you if you need to talk.” She paused for a moment. “I mean, Taunie and Paxton would probably be fine if you wanted to talk to them instead-”

“Thanks, Lida,” Naveen cut her off. “I appreciate that.”

Lida blinked in surprise at him interrupting but smiled at him nonetheless. “You’re welcome,” she replied. After a few more moments of them walking, she spoke again. “You know, Naveen, no matter what happens with your grandmother or the Rogue Megas or anything else, I’m glad we’re friends.”

Naveen snorted. Trust Lida to take a moment like this and make it sappy. Still, he appreciated it, and he felt his lips quirk into a small smile. Team MZ really had become like a second family to him. “I’m glad too, Lida,” he said. “I’m glad too.”

The rest of their trek back to Hotel Z was made in silence, though one that was markedly more comfortable than it previously had been.

Lida snapped her book shut with a yawn as she leaned back in her chair. Phantasmal Psyche had been quite a fun read; she’d have to order some of Shauntal’s other books at some point, even if they weren’t romance stories. The action and adventure parts of it had been riveting enough to sell her on that being Shauntal’s genre of choice and Lida was, frankly, hungry for more. For now, though, Lida slipped the book next to the other two in the trilogy and started to get herself ready for bed.

It was the evening after she and Naveen had taken down the Rogue Mega Starmie. The training that Paxton and Taunie had offered over the past few days had certainly paid off, letting Lida and Naveen deal with the Rogue Mega with a lower risk to themselves than had been the case with the Mega Altaria or Froslass. And it had helped Lida with her professional battling as well, as she’d eked out a win—albeit by a slim margin—against Philippe just before Naveen had arrived. The Rust Syndicate hadn’t just packed up and left afterward, sticking around on the rooftops in case the two of them needed backup or evac, but Philippe had been nice enough to offer them some hyper potions and a few revives for the trouble. Lida was still wary of the organization as a whole, even with Philippe having spilled a bunch of information about himself and Corbeau following their battle, but she did appreciate the help.

Pausing for a moment, Lida glanced over at the Water Stone on her shelf. Philippe had thrown that in as a sign of goodwill given her specialty, even if it wasn’t immediately useful since Paxton had already given her one for Staryu. Though she supposed she had been considering catching an Eevee…

Lida shook her head. Ah, there were bigger fish to fry at the moment. Like everything that had gone down regarding the Mega Starmie. She and Naveen had had less trouble with it than Paxton and Taunie had had with the Rogue Mega Dragonite, clearly; Paxton had still been a bit twitchy when he’d returned to Hotel Z earlier, though apparently Taunie was off collecting enough points for a Challenger’s Ticket at the moment. The most exciting part of Lida’s battle had been when she’d pulled Naveen into an impromptu twirl to get the both of them away from one of the Rogue Mega Starmie’s Zen Headbutts. And as her own Mega Starmie flew in with a combination of Rapid Spin and Thunderbolt and Naveen’s Mega Scrafty darted in to dish out some Payback, Lida nearly completed the twirl by pulling Naveen into a dip as well. It was almost instinctual, given her lessons on how to dance with a partner—something that she had less interest in than solo dance but the school she attended covered all its bases—and how much shorter Naveen was than her, but she stopped herself before she committed to it. With him being unprepared for it they probably would’ve just ended up on the floor, anyway, a less than ideal prospect given the situation.

Despite that, however, they’d ended up with Lida’s left hand on Naveen’s lower back and their right hands intertwined. Even though she quickly backed off, his cheeks had noticeably lightened and he maintained that flustered state for the rest of the battle, through to the selfie she’d taken to show Taunie how it went. Lida had seen Naveen get embarrassed before—it was inevitable, given how much she pushed him to try and open up and the missteps she’d made in that regard earlier in their friendship—but the way that that embarrassment manifested felt different than usual. Usually, when Naveen was actively upset with something she did, he made it known with sarcastic comments and witty comebacks. But here? He’d said that he needed to think about something and retreated to his room as soon as they’d gotten back to the hotel, with nary a mention of any commissions or a stream he was missing. He seemed almost demure, really. It was kinda cute, if Lida was being honest.

Well, that was certainly a new thought.

She stopped short just as she was about to jump into bed, turned on her heel, and scrambled back to her bookshelf. Acting quickly but taking care not to damage the book itself, Lida swiped the second in the trilogy into her hands and started flipping through the pages. There was a section in there that she was suddenly finding rather relatable and she wanted to make sure that she wasn’t misremembering it.

The second book in the trilogy featured a prominent subplot between two secondary characters, one of the Ghost princess’s ladies-in-waiting and the Psychic warlord heiress’s younger brother. They had been wingmanning for the romantic leads over the course of the story, pulling all sorts of shenanigans to distract the kings from their daughters’ entanglement, and the story pulled them together in such a way that they eventually found themselves falling in love. The part of the story that Lida was looking for was right at the start of what would be the third act of a hypothetical film adaptation. It was when the heiress’s brother realized his feelings and mulled over his interactions with the princess’s lady-in-waiting, putting together the puzzle of his mind to discover that he had been getting closer and closer with her over time until his feelings simply spilled over into being romantic attraction.

That process—the comfort of simply being in someone’s presence growing stronger and stronger and the little things like smiles and laughter and blushing getting more and more common—was almost disturbingly familiar to Lida. Naveen was still aloof and perhaps a bit standoffish, but her interactions with him were almost strictly positive lately. She’d heard him snort in amusement from across the room when she sent memes his way, he wasn’t nearly as self-depreciating about his battling skills when they sparred anymore (and he even joined in on some friendly trash-talk during their practice double battles against Paxton and Taunie, if a bit half-heartedly), and he’d taken her offer of lending an ear if he needed to talk about his grandmother.

According to Sasha (who didn’t have a phone of her own but had borrowed one from a friend of hers at Étoile to contact Naveen), the woman was currently pretending that she didn’t even have a grandson. That grinded Lida’s gears something fierce. She was no stranger to abnormal family dynamics—she had a half-brother that she’d never met, after all—but it wasn’t like her father was trying to pretend that Tierno didn’t exist. She was rather incensed on Naveen’s behalf because of it, and now that her train of thought was leading her in this direction she came to the realization of just why she was so angry for him.

With her cheeks warming, Lida played through a few scenarios in her mind to confirm her suspicions. Most of those thought experiments ended with her considering if the so-called Kalosian kiss had merit to it and proceeding to go for a make-out session with Naveen. She was pretty much certain that she had a crush.

Taunie was going to give her so much shit for this if she didn’t confess, wasn’t she.

Closing the book and returning it to its proper place on the shelf, Lida marched over to the door. She wasn’t one to be a hypocrite, and if she was going to push Paxton and Taunie together then she had to face her own feelings before they developed into a mess of pining. And there was no time like the present!

As she stepped out into the hallway, though, Lida slowed until she completely stalled before she could knock on Naveen’s door. It was three in the morning, she supposed, and maybe, just maybe confessing to a crush she’d just realized she had while in her pyjamas wasn’t the best move. After dallying for a few moments, though, the decision was made for her by the elevator dinging.

Lida was back in her room with the door closed behind her in seconds. If it was Naveen it would be awkward enough to explain why she was in the hallway, and she really did not want to deal with Paxton or Taunie asking why she was staring at Naveen’s door at three in the morning. Plus, at least she could get some sleep before making any decisions. She’d find the time to have a proper discussion with Naveen about what her feelings were and what they meant for their friendship when they weren’t dead tired.

Naveen slumped into one of the lounge chairs of Hotel Z’s lobby, staring out the front windows to watch the ambulance speed off through the alleys towards South Boulevard. He hadn’t been nearly as close to AZ as Taunie—or even as close to him as Lida or Paxton had been—but the man’s death was still hitting him hard. AZ had offered him a place to work on his commissions outside of his grandmother’s prying eye, had let him stay in Hotel Z free of charge when she kicked him out, and generally had just had a far larger impact on Naveen’s life than he’d first expected when he agreed to Taunie’s request that he join Team MZ.

Across from him, Lida fell into one of the other chairs, her hair a bit frazzled and a profoundly tired look on her face. “Man, hell of a day, huh?”

“It’s six thirty,” Naveen said with a sigh.

“Exactly,” Lida agreed. “Six thirty AM and I already need a nap.”

That was certainly a sentiment Naveen could agree with. Between fighting their way through the city to get Paxton up to Zygarde, just about having a heart attack when Ange fired with Taunie still inside, and returning to Hotel Z just to find AZ’s corpse, he felt like the past three hours were some of the most stressful of his life. And with Taunie having gone with the ambulance to Lumiose General (and Paxton going with her to keep her company during what was obviously a rough time for her) it left Naveen and Lida alone in a disquietingly empty hotel to stew with their thoughts.

Thoughts that were clearly a mess for both of them, going by Lida’s expression. “You look stressed,” Naveen noted.

Lida snorted. “No, really?”

Naveen raised an eyebrow. Lida’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, which set off a few alarm bells in his head. “Do you need to discuss it?” he asked a bit hesitantly.

Lida dropped her face into her hands and groaned. “Maybe? I just…don’t think I know how to really deal with this.” She looked back up. “I’m not even sure it’s really set in for me that he’s dead yet.”

Naveen shrugged. “Mourning isn’t linear and lends itself to irrationality,” he said. “Case in point: my grandmother.”

Lida’s face soured. “Ah, right. Her. I assume you’re talking about her being irrational, then?”

Naveen nodded. “I don’t think she ever truly processed my parents’ death, which overall has been pretty detrimental to our relationship.”

“You could say that,” Lida said tersely. It was a bit of an odd thing to Naveen, that she seemed more upset about his grandmother’s treatment of him than he was, but he supposed that that was part of what he found endearing about her personality. Lida was generally fairly easygoing, but she was willing to go to bat for her friends no matter what. Hence her anger with his grandmother. “If you don’t mind me asking,” she eventually added, “just to get another point of reference, how did you and Sasha deal with it?”

Naveen frowned slightly. “Well, Sasha was only one when they died, so she doesn’t remember them at all,” he explained. “And as for me…” he trailed off in thought. He had a lot of complex thoughts about his parents and their untimely demise. Not exactly grief—not anymore, years removed from the crash—but he knew that their death had likely contributed to his aloof behavior. He’d been considering finding a therapist now that he was well and truly independent of his grandmother, especially since he didn’t want to burden Lida with the emotional toll of dealing with him venting, even if she’d offered to lend an ear.

Regardless, his thoughts had drifted from the question. Naveen shook his head. “I mourned them, for sure,” he said, “but I think I eventually internalized the inherent fragility of life and accepted it as just something that happened. Mostly because they died semi-randomly; a drunk driver ran a red light and hit them at full speed.”

Lida winced. “Did the justice system do its job, at least?”

“He’s still in prison,” Naveen replied. “If I remember correctly, he got a life sentence.” He leaned back in the chair. “But it’s not something I’m all that pressed about anymore. I can’t change the past, and sometimes the worst will happen no matter if you prepare for it or not.”

“So your philosophy is that shit happens,” Lida summarised.

Sure, he could go with that. “Shit happens,” Naveen agreed, “So it’s best to enjoy what you have while it lasts.”

“Huh,” Lida vocalized, sinking into her own chair a bit. “I can’t say that’s the kind of philosophy I’d’ve expected from you. It’s something to think on, at least.” After a few moments of silence, she sat back up. “Alright, I think we need some levity. What do ya say to going double or nothing on the bet? I’ll put three thousand on the trend continuing and Taunie proposing first.”

Naveen snorted, caught off guard by the sudden change in tone but amused nonetheless. “Sure, why not,” he said. “Paxton can probably get his act together in however long it takes them to get to that point, assuming they make it that far.”

“Hey, those two are my real life OTP,” Lida protested, though she maintained a somewhat joking tone of voice, “don’t make me think about that possibility.”

“They’re two barely-adults in a first time relationship,” Naveen pointed out. “Statistically speaking…” he trailed off.

“Well, I guess it’s like you said, then,” Lida said after a moment when it was clear that Naveen wasn’t going to continue the sentence. She flashed him a toothy grin. “That’s the sort of thing you have to enjoy in the now.”

AZ’s funeral was a solemn affair, as funerals tended to be. Granted, Lida hadn’t exactly attended many before—she had vague memories of her great-grandmother’s funeral from when she was four and that was about it—so a sample size of two might not be the best to make an assessment from. She was generally confident in assuming that most funerals were solemn, though.

The entire process was shockingly mundane, in Lida’s opinion. AZ had been over three thousand years old. He was a former king, had seen empires rise and fall, and wandered the world for centuries, yet he was being buried in a standard cemetery to a crowd of merely the few people that he had been closest to in the end.

AZ hadn’t wanted his burial to be a massive event, so it had been fairly subdued as well. There was no eulogy—unless one were to count Team MZ talking amongst themselves—as the four of them and Floette were the only ones to stay for the entire process (aside from the funeral home’s staff that took care of the burial itself, of course). Emma came by for a few minutes to pay her own respects and both Vinnie and Tarragon briefly showed up to offer their condolences, but all of them were still busy with the fallout of Ange’s destruction and couldn’t stay for the whole thing.

The Pokémon that had known AZ on a personal level—Meganium, Feraligatr, Emboar, the Lucario that he’d left to Paxton and, importantly, Floette—had taken some time out of their balls to mourn as well. Most of them returned themselves to their Poké Balls after a few minutes, though a few of their other Pokémon were further back, preventing any curious wild Pokémon from elsewhere in the Wild Zone from interfering. Floette, predictably, had elected to remain in the physical world for the entire process. None of them would’ve denied it if their Pokémon had wanted to be outside of their balls for the funeral, of course, but Floette especially had known AZ for far longer than anyone else alive. Taunie trying to return her would’ve just been silly and entirely unlike her.

L showed up after the proceedings had ended, when the members of Team MZ were the last people there to pay their final respects before dispersing. He offered his own cryptic condolences before leaving without another word, leaving the team to it. “It” being standing at AZ’s grave in silence as they contemplated the effect that he’d had on their lives. Or, at least, that’s what Lida assumed the others were doing. At around the three minute mark she started to get a bit uncomfortable with the silence, herself.

Before she could get too antsy, though, Floette broke that silence. Letting out a mournful noise, she drifted down to ground level in front of AZ’s ornate headstone. She shed no tears, instead waving a hand to send out a low-lying glittering cloud around the grave. With a pink sparkle, grass and flowers sprung up, inching in from the sides of Dormez Bien Cemetery’s paths to cover the newly-upturned dirt. Satisfied with her work, Floette nodded and floated back up to eye level, perching herself on Taunie’s shoulder.

Taunie, who had spent the better part of the last five minutes silently staring at AZ’s grave, finally moved because of it. She reached to her side—where Paxton had been positioned as a pillar of support for her for the entire funeral—and took his hand in hers. He stepped a bit to his left so that they were physically a bit closer to each other, and if the situation were less melancholy Lida would’ve found it adorable enough to squeal.

Sighing through her nose, Taunie looked over at Lida and Naveen. “I think Paxton and I are gonna head back to the hotel. Are you two coming?”

Lida and Naveen exchanged a glance, where in a few moments it felt like they came to a silent agreement. Lida shook her head. “I think Naveen and I have some things we need to talk about.”

Taunie’s face fell a bit. “Oh…I guess without AZ we might have issues with the hotel…”

Lida, realizing where Taunie’s mind was going, quickly backpedalled and cut her off. “No no, it’s not anything to do with that.” She crossed her arms. “I’m sticking with Team MZ through thick and thin.”

Naveen corroborated with a nod. “I am too,” he said. “You two can go home; we’ll just be a bit behind you.”

Taunie looked between them, a faint impression of unshed tears in her eyes. “Thanks, guys. That…that means a lot to me.”

Paxton gave her hand a soft squeeze. “We’ll see you two later, then?”

“Probably in an hour or so,” Naveen replied.

“Eh…” Lida added, “maybe two. It is nearly lunchtime.”

Taunie snorted, and Lida internally celebrated that the light bit of humor went over well. “Alright, then, we’ll see you whenever Lida’s finished off her seven croissants.”

Lida chuckled. “I’m not that bad,” she protested. “I might just grab five. Naveen’s paying, after all.”

“I don’t think I ever agreed to that.”

Taunie let out a small laugh as well, shaking her head fondly before looking back out at the cemetery’s main path. “C’mon, Pax, let’s go home.”

Lida watched as the two of them walked towards one of Wild Zone Four’s exits, catching a glimpse through the small copse of trees of Taunie’s Meowstic telekinetically wielding a wild Honedge against a Ghastly. Paxton’s Absol joined her efforts to keep the path clear of wild Ghost Types once the two of them had reached the main path, prompting Lida and Naveen to follow relatively close behind them as to not need to clear out the wild Pokémon again. Once they were out of the Wild Zone, though, their little groups went in different directions. Paxton and Taunie began their trek to the nearest Métro station while Lida and Naveen turned east towards Hibernal Avenue.

The pair sort of wandered for a while, both knowing that there were many things between them that needed to be said but neither willing to broach the topic in the middle of the street. After several minutes of that, Lida caught sight of an alleyway not far from Restaurant le Wow. She gave Naveen’s arm a gentle tug to pull—though given he didn’t put up much resistance that term may have been inaccurate—him into the alley. “Okay,” she said once they were off the street proper, “I think we need to talk about what happened during the Mega Starmie fight, ‘cause I think we’ve both been a bit weird about it and need to set the record straight.”

Naveen’s cheeks lightened. “I…suppose that I have been acting off since then, yes.” He fidgeted a bit as Lida stepped closer to him. “I assure you that it’s not your fault in any capacity-”

“No, I think it is,” Lida cut him off with a smirk. “Was it the twirl?”

Naveen imitated a Magikarp for a few moments before taking a deep breath and seeming to come to a decision. “In part,” he replied. “Though in truth I think that that was simply a breaking point. I have…feelings for you that are romantic in nature,” he admitted.

Lida blinked in surprise as the shock got her to drop her smirk. Naveen confessing so frankly—or at all, really—had not been on her bingo card. Truthfully, she’d been expecting to get her own feelings off her chest and then have to deal with a rejection, so this was a pleasant surprise. But before she could announce that, Naveen kept talking.

“I was unsure at first since I thought it might just be gratitude from you saving me,” he explained, “but I think the week following and that we were so close to dying during everything with Ange makes me think that these feelings are real. I’ll understand if you don’t reciprocate, though. I don’t want to jeopardize our friendship over it.”

Lida smiled softly as her cheeks warmed. “Naveen…” she said, trailing off as she struggled to find the words she wanted to say. “I…haven’t dealt with romantic feelings myself before, but I think I feel the same.”

Naveen blinked and, for a long moment, Lida felt rather awkward as he failed to reply. She shuffled her feet a bit as she waited for the response. “I, uh, can’t say I expected that, to be honest,” Naveen eventually said.

The admission was so straightforward that Lida couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “You’d think after helping Paxton and Taunie figure themselves out this’d be easier.”

Naveen laughed lightly, prompting Lida to smile as the awkward tension dissipated. “I don’t know, their example wasn’t exactly swift or easy either.”

“Well, it worked out for them anyway, didn’t it?” Lida replied. “So do you…want to treat lunch like a date, then? And see where this goes from there?”

Naveen smiled back, an expression that sent Lida’s heart twisting in entirely novel ways to her. This conversation was recontextualizing so much of her friendship with Naveen that she was quickly realizing she might’ve fallen quite a bit harder than she’d thought. “Sure,” Naveen replied, “I’d love to.”

Lida gave a toothy grin in response, an expression that she was certain was rather goofy but her emotions were riding high enough for her to not really care about that. And it gave her another idea that might be a bit risky but, hey, carpe diem. She reached forward, taking his hand in hers and absentmindedly running her thumb over his knuckles. “In that case,” she said, taking another step closer, “mind if I try something, first?”

Naveen’s eyes were wide and his blush rather noticeable. He swallowed. “What is it?”

Lida leaned down so their mouths were level with each other and dropped her voice to a whisper. “This.”

Tilting her head a bit, Lida shut her eyes, closed the gap between them, and pressed her lips against his. It wasn’t her first kiss—that went to an ex of hers from high school back in Lilycove—but it felt wonderful nonetheless. Even with it being clear that it was Naveen’s first kiss, given that he didn’t seem to be sure what to do for a few moments. He worked it out soon enough, though, and Lida smiled against his lips as she felt him return the pressure against her own and hesitantly place his hand on the small of her back.

Yeah.

She’d definitely made the right call.