IceCreamAndPizzaWrites @icecreamandpizzawrites - Tumblr Blog

Oct 29, 2025

(a fic about ash and misty going on a blind date that turned into a 16k deep dive on caution........)

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“Serena kissed me.”

They’re standing under the porch light of his childhood home when he tells her. Ash blurts it out, red-faced and flustered, like he has no idea what to do with the words now they're out.

He looks at her like she has the answer to something that is not a question, and for the first Misty cannot pretend to have an answer. Her mouth fills with something metallic, something iron-sick that isn’t blood but seeps into the corners of her mouth the same way.

It seems she has bitten her tongue for too long, this time.

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Careful.

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The cab’s engine sputters to a stop. A timer on the dashboard beeps, red digits flashing like a countdown that's finally spent. Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, it reads.

Misty lingers, caught in a pause while the driver’s eyes flick toward her in the rearview mirror. She debates telling him to drive on. To drive away, to let her sit in the back of his slightly musky smelling cab for another seven minutes and thirty-two seconds, to take her back to her hotel.

Instead, she shuffles out into the evening rush of Vermillion City. The cab is gone before she can change her mind, and she is left standing under the faint glow of the sign above the restaurant she’s expected at.

Click, click. The sound of her heel taps against the pavement restlessly as she glances at her phone. She has two minutes. She could always claim something went wrong at the gym. That Psyduck got his head stuck in the banister again. Even that sounds better than the “fun” Brock has planned inside.

When Brock had first brought up a blind date, she refused flat-out. Laughed, even. Turned her nose up to get her point across through her Pokégear while he grumbled on the other end. He’d known her for nearly ten years, though. Long enough to know that a blind date was about the furthest thing from what she’d call romantic.

Maybe, once upon a time, she could have. Back when they’d stumble upon little cafés in some quiet town and she’d get that thrill watching a couple fumble through their first-date jitters a few tables over. Back when the idea of candlelight dinners and fated meetings were enough to carry her off to sleep, to dreams that only a kid who’d barely held the hand of a boy she liked could believe in.

But Misty isn’t that child anymore. At twenty years old, she knows exactly what comes from pushing strangers together like puzzle pieces that could never fit. Lily and Violet had set the perfect example; less about a connection, more about the bragging rights that came with a free dinner and an excuse to dress up pretty.

She tugs again at the fabric of her outfit, a simple emerald shift dress she’s paired with kitten heels and she briefly wonders what her date will be wearing. If they’ll look more at home in the fancy restaurant than she feels standing outside of it.

The thought barely settles before a scowl does.

Misty knows exactly who she is- one of the top Gym Leaders in Kanto, for Arceus’ sake, and she looks fine. She may still carry a tomboyish stamp proudly, but no one could say she was that scrawny kid who stomped around in sneakers with holes in anymore. And he could be as sweet and suitable and well-travelled as Brock promised, but whoever was waiting inside was not worth doubting herself over.

She just has to get this over with. She hadn't ticked Brock off lately. Surely the worst thing this guy could do was like the sound of his own voice so much that he has his own podcast.

Her heels tap across the polished tiles as she steps through revolving doors. At reception, a man in a sharp suit looks up, and when she gives the reservation with Brock’s surname, “to keep the suspense,” as he’d teased, she’s told her date has already arrived.

The elevator she’s escorted into gives a quiet ding before they step out. The room is filled with quiet chatter and ahead, floor-to-ceiling windows frame the ocean beyond Vermilion City, sparkling with reflections from the city lights above.

She pauses, a little taken by the details; fresh flowers blooming from vases in whites and pink, velvety red decor and gilded accents. Because as much as she dislikes the idea of a blind date, she is far from unromantic. Misty believes in love so deeply that it almost hurts for her to dwell on some of those careful standards she’s set.

Especially when she’s basically spent her teenage years dreaming about being swept away somewhere just like this by the love of her life.

That part still hadn’t happened.

It’s not that she hasn’t tried. She’s had her share of - perhaps not love, exactly, but something. She’s felt the flutter of Butterfree swarm her stomach, had a friend leave her breathless enough for her to hope something could come of it. It just doesn’t ever feel right.

Not the way she knows it can.

At seventeen, she kisses Georgio. They're perched on the edge of her pool under Cerulean stars and he’s made a little picnic with tea Sakura has gifted him. His eyes shine with desire while hers fill with remorse; selfishly knowing the spark won't last the way she wants it to but hoping anyway. On Lana’s eighteenth birthday party, she steals a peck on the lips that deepens before either of them can think. That's a bit easier. They both blush and giggle and it means something in the way acknowledging a crush does but nothing more comes of it, and Misty starts to that it might not ever feel right, not unless…

“Ma'am?”

She jumps and turns to the waiter. He is gesturing toward a small, round table that overlooks the water. Her gut bubbles, eyes landing on the man seated there, his attention turned out toward the ocean.

Dark hair. Broad shoulders. His elbow is on the table and his leg in jittering under the table a bit. He’s nervous too.

Good, Misty thinks.

The closer she gets, the more the back of his head leaves her lips parting, though. And then Misty all but stops in her tracks again as he turns to look over his shoulder. A candle sitting on the table casts a gentle light over his face.

Her stomach crumples. Recognition flickers in his eyes the moment they land on her. She squeaks.

“Ash!”

“No way,” Ash jolts from his seat. His knee slams into the underside of the table hard enough that the candle nearly topples over.

He winces. So does she.

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Eventually, Misty takes the seat the waiter is holding out for her after Ash makes no effort to do it himself. He’s too busy gaping, and she thinks that works just fine, because she throws herself down with just as little grace opposite him.

The staff excuses himself soon after, leaving her face itching with heat. Of course. Of course of course of course it’s Ash. She wants to say she can’t believe Brock has done this to her, but honestly, how hasn’t she seen it coming? Her first clue should’ve been the fact it was in Vermillion City- Ash technically lived here now.

The second should’ve been how insufferably pleased with himself about this whole thing Brock has been. He’s watched her feelings linger like a shadow for years. But what did he think would come from this?

They would sit in a fancy setting together, and suddenly Ash would feel all the things she can’t say?

She shrinks in her seat, not knowing where to look, only hoping the little candle on the table is dim enough to hide the embarrassment that is clearly on her face. Ash doesn’t say anything, if he notices. He finally shuts his mouth and leans back, his entire body relaxing as he runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up as if Pikachu had given him a light zap.

“I can’t believe this.” He says. He points his index finger between them. “This is, uh, this is…’

“Ridiculous.” Misty finishes for him, a scoff behind it.

Ash stares at her. “Well I was gonna say not what I expected.”

She glances away and rips a piece of weird looking bread from the small basket sitting on the table and shoves it into her mouth. It tastes worse than it looks, and that just makes sense considering how crappy this whole thing is.

“I’m going to kill Brock.”

When Ash only snickers, she chews so forcefully that her teeth scrape together painfully. “And you, if you don’t stop laughing, Ash-”

“Sorry!” He snorts and holds up his hands in surrender, but his grin sticks. “I didn’t know! I swear.”

“I gathered as much!”

“Then don’t be mad at me. Brock messed with me, as well. He set me up, too!”

Misty slumps back in her chair, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, and tries to get a read on his expression. Now that the shock has settled, he only really seemed amused by this whole thing.

It shouldn’t surprise her. Of course, she thinks, of course he sees this as a set-up that isn’t even worth humouring. Why wouldn’t he? She sees him so often now that she’s come to terms with the fact that he’s completely clueless to that candle she holds for him:

Two years earlier, they are chasing the same thing.

Misty finds Ash on the edge of a cliff overlooking an ocean, and Ash makes the rest easy. That does surprise her. How easy Ash makes that space for her when she is finally bold enough to ask for it, twiddling her thumbs and tasting those pathetic excuses on her tongue before he drags her off to some glorious new adventure.

And suddenly, those rare weekends together and quick phone calls that carry the weight of their bond through their teens are a distant thing because, yes, Ash never stops moving, but… he’s around more now.

He shows up at those league events they always roll their eyes at. Then he’s passing the gym and spends a few days in her pool- on her couch. On the phone, pouting at her with the not so subtle bait of his mother's famous cookies waiting in Pallet Town.

It feels like she has a little part of her she’s been missing back.

But Misty is not ignorant to the fact that it's still Ash. She’s accepted a long time ago that how she feels for him can no longer be folded into a simple word like crush. The boy that tells her we were meant to meet carves a space in her that takes years for her to work through, and that candle she holds for him never really dims. It sits tucked behind her ribs even now, trying to crawl its way out of her throat in a scream with nowhere to go.

But it never makes it out, and there are days she can’t even meet her own eyes in the mirror because of the bruise to her pride that stares back at her. It shows up in the tired drag beneath her eyes, in the quiet bend of her frown. She’s been told she’s too bold more times than she can count. She wears it like armour, but it turns out holding her head high is a lot harder when she has the weight of something unspoken inside there.

Because for all the ways Ash calls her loud, she gets plenty of practice swallowing those things she wants to say when it comes to her how she feels for him.

No.

There, she has learned to be careful.

Misty’s nostrils flare. Maybe now she’ll learn not to listen to Brock. He was officially on her shit-list. From that day on, she will only refer to him as Brock The Betrayer. Maybe when she’s home she can stick a pin in the lure of him she’s carved and he’ll feel it all the way in Sinnoh.

She glances up to see the smirk is gone from Ash’s face. He watches her, lips pressed tightly together, like he’s waiting for her to snap.

“I’m not mad at you,” she finally says, because she realises pathetically that she isn’t. Maybe a little bitter.

Relief breaks across his face in a goofy grin and that starts to ease up too. “You’re not.”

She clicks her tongue. “I’m just…. Surprised.” she settles on, finally managing to look him in the face for more than a second.

It’s a mistake. She wants to reach out and fix the strands of hair he’s messed up, and she can see then how much he’s made an effort. He’s looks smart, a suit she’s not seen before. The blue of his tie makes the brown of his eyes pop in a distracting kind of way.

Daisy’s voice echos in the back of her mind, teasing her over how handsome the kid she brought home to the gym a decade ago has turned out.

Maybe he catches her staring. Ash’s eyes meet hers straight on, and his glance flicks over her.

“You look nice.”

Her heart beats fast. It means nothing. He says stuff like that so easily now.

“Yeah. Well. I thought I was going on a date.”

The little half smirk he’s been wearing since she got here drops, as if he’s needed the reminder that he’s supposed to be on one, too. She sighs.

“What are you even doing here, Ash?”

“Uh—what do you mean? I thought I was going on a date.”

“Not here—here. In Kanto. You were just in Alola for the meetings before the conference starts next week?”

“Oh.” He says, like he hasn’t called her from Alola a week earlier to distract her from the pile of paperwork on her desk. “Right. Yeah. Guess I forgot to mention that part, huh. It ended a day early! I was at the market in Hau’oli, and I only went to grab ketchup for Pikachu, but then we passed the airport and I saw a flight to Kanto calling for check in and—well. So.”

He gives her a sheepish grin. For all the little ways Ash has changed over the years, his impulsivity has not. Misty can picture it without him even needing to explain: him marching straight up to the counter and buying a ticket home on a whim.

He’s been doing that a lot more lately.

Another sigh slips out, something fond barely hidden in it this time. “So you flew home with no luggage and a bottle of ketchup?”

“No ketchup. Pikachu was not happy.”

“They couldn’t even bend the no liquids rule for their four time-returning Champion?”

“Three time.”

She registers what she’s said with a blink. It feels like Ash has been a part of Alola for so much longer- but of course, the conference hasn’t even officially started this year. He hasn’t won yet. “That’s what I meant.”

Her words sink in, though, and he grins with the weight of his ego.“ Not what you said.”

“Ash-”

A half sing-song interrupts her, “You think I’m gonna win.”

“Well, you haven’t lost yet, have you?” She shifts a bit in her seat. “I think you’re going to do your best.”

Ash’s smirk softens, and for a moment, he looks touched. ‘Then I’ll try my best.”

She lets him have this one. Now she’s not completely thrown off balance, she can remember how that call a week earlier had ended, when he’d finished rambling off his plans and every meal he was going to eat at Mallow’s new restaurant just to make her jealous. How his voice had dipped at the end, almost lost in the silence between them:

(“I’ve been offered a place here.” he says. “Full-time..”)

(“In Alola?” she pauses. “... That’s a good thing, right?”)

(“Hmm. I don’t know.”)

(“... You don’t know what?”)

(“ If I'm here.” he gives a shaky breath; “I dunno how often I'll be back.”)

She hadn’t really known what to say to that. The whole thing has been so unlike them; a rare crack in his certainty she didn’t know how to fix. Ash tended to stay where he was and not worry about what came next nowadays.

And Misty doesn’t exactly know what comes next herself. She’s never claimed to. Only what she’s working towards is certain. It wasn’t always; leaving home at ten with no real plan beyond proving her sisters wrong and the far off dream of mastering water Pokémon could only get her so far. But it’s easier now: to plan, to picture what waits for her after everything she’s overcome. Easier to have faith that Cerulean Gym will survive when she takes those next steps. That she’ll twist Lorelei’s ear long enough to secure that mentorship - easier to trust she’ll reach the Elite Four if she keeps pushing.

Ash, however….

She almost brings it up again then, too caught up in wanting to know his decision, when he clears his throat, grounding her. She is not at her gym ignoring paperwork. Ash is not calling her from Kukui’s office.

They are sitting in a romantic restaurant.

And her gaze, as aware as it is, catches on the bob of his Adam’s apple just above the knot of his tie as he speaks.

“So, uh… do you want to stay?”

She snaps back to his face. “Stay?”

Ash gestures around them. “ We’re here. Might as well eat, right?”

When she can’t find a response, the candlelight on their table flickers under the trill of his lips. “What? It doesn’t have to be a date.”

“Oh, how Charming, Ash.”

“No, I mean, it can be just dinner! Dinner between, y know… us. Food. We can eat.”

He rushes on, pointing between them again. Misty’s arms are crossed tightly over her chest, but some of the tension in them starts to ease as she considers his point. Had she been planning on leaving? She could leave. The bubble bath in her hotel room sounds like a good excuse to forget this night ever happened.

But… after spending the whole afternoon thinking this would be a total waste of time, she can’t say the idea of spending an evening with Ash would be. It’s not like they hadn't gone to fancy places together before. Sure, that was usually with the league or some sort of company – but it didn’t have to be weird.

Not if she was careful.

“Fine,” Misty taps her nails on her arm. “ We can discuss on how we plan on murdering Brock.”

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The menu, it turns out, has no pictures, and everything is in Kalosian.

Misty hopes the prices will reflect that.

“A nasty invoice will make Brock think twice about doing something like this again,” she rants. “He only got me to agree to this because I finally got Dewgong to figure out Weather Ball after months of work. I was in such a good mood, I’d have said yes to tidying Lily’s bathroom, and he took advantage of that!”

She huffs, turning back to the menu to squint at the Kalosian words as if she can figure them out with her wrath alone. The prices, at least, are perfectly understood. “He’s been bothering me for weeks about this. So let's make sure the punishment fits the crime. ”

“What’re you talking ‘bout?” Ash asks, muffled around a piece of bread.

“Brock, duh. He left his name at the desk. This is on him.” Misty tells him, eyes still fixed on the menu. “Especially with how much he pretty much begged me to come here.”

“He has?”

When she looks up, Ash is watching her like she’s just told him she’s joined Team Rocket. Her mascara stick together with how fast she blinks.

“He hasn’t?”

“Uh, no.”

There’s a faint twitch in his jaw that makes her mind race. Has he chosen to do this willingly?

… Was he actually looking to go on blind dates?

There's a time when Misty might have blamed Ash’s indifference when it came to dating on plain immaturity. Back when she’d stick her nose in the air to insist she knew so much more about all those things he didn't care about.

Time passes, and it becomes clearer that he understands more than she likes to admit.

When he tells her that Serena has kissed him, they’re at the front of his mother's house. The porch light flickers and demands Misty stare it face on; Ash, maturing in ways she won’t always be around to see. That his experiences are unfolding outside those battle arenas she watches him work his way through over the years.

Like much when it comes to Ash, that becomes harder to ignore.

The crude jokes Gary makes don’t fly over his head the same way, leaving him a little red-faced and bashful. How his voice dips a little when a beautiful stranger brushes past-the curious glint in his eye that follows them walking away. It’s subtle, far from the unfiltered honesty that she can rely on when it comes to Ash, and a reluctant part of her start to brace herself for a front row seat of whatever comes next.

Of course, the monarch, the people's champion,- she should know by now that Ash Ketchum is far from predictable. He continues to show up to at those League events they're shoehorned into with nobody on his arm but Pikachu. He only weaves between groups there like he can belong anywhere and everywhere with little else to be desired.

Which only makes her all the more perplexed here.

“So,” she takes a breath, but the question comes out awkwardly fast. “Are you just going on blind dates now?”

Ash’s mouth parts slightly in confusion. When she cocks a brow, he remembers how to speak.

“What? No!”

She doesn’t buy it, and Ash sees it right away, pouting. “What? Brock said it would be good for me!”

“And you listened to him?” she presses. “What could he have possibly said to get you to agree to this?”

“He didn’t say anything!.He told me I had to come if I lost—”

His mouth snaps shut. His fingers start fidgeting with the collar of his shirt, the same way he would as kids when he would steal a scoop of desert and try to pretend it vanished into thin air.

“ …Did you lose a battle to him?”

“No. Well, not, uh…” Ash winces, “Not Brock.”

Misty leans forward. She pieces it together before he can tell her, before he deflates fully into his seat. “No way. Did Forrest finally beat you?”

His face scrunches up. It could embarrass her how easy it is, then, to beam stupid wide. It wasn’t that Brock's younger brother wasn’t a respectable trainer; she knew quiet the opposite to be true.

“It’s not that funny, Misty,” Ash whines.

“Oh, I disagree.”

“He’s gotten stronger!”

“Then I strongly disagree. The World Monarch, beaten in the first gym he ever challenged? Has a nice ring to it.”

The chokehold on her heart finally seems to ease up. Judging by his expression, his has some a string of words waiting for her. A server approaches just as Ash opens his mouth, and she gleefully watches it snap his mouth shut as their glasses are filled with sparkling water.

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It’s not that hard to drag the details of the battle out of Ash. He mumbles through it at the start, and Misty can tell he’s putting it on a bit, because then he’s all in, finding a way to be smug about the loss and declaring that he’ll win next time. By the end, Misty is assured that his ego is intact.

If anything, it only helps him support her ingenious plan to bankrupt Brock.

They waste no time looking for the most hideously expensive thing to order. When the waiter arrives, Misty taps on the dish with a long name and an equally long price. Ash orders at least four more things she definitely can’t pronounce—his Kalosian is slightly broken, but it’s proof of how long he spent in the Legion.

Just another one of those things she wasn’t around to see.

“What?” Ash asks around a piece of bread, chewing slower as he eyes her.

Misty realises she’s staring at him the same time he must, and quickly diverts his attention by waving a hand, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Ash ignores her, shoving the basket toward her. “This stuff tastes weird, but you might wanna eat more of it.” He taps the menu. “’Cuz this sounds weirder.”

“Weird?” she picks the menu up again. The only word that jumps out to her is the Kalosian word for potato, but Ash doesn’t need to know that, “It’s… sophisticated , Ash.”

“Sophisticated? It’s overpriced and tiny.”

“And how do you know?” She shoots back on instinct, already forgetting that-

“I can read it, Misty.”

His head tilts like that’s obvious, and she sees the challenge in his smile. A cocky one.

She takes a chance. “Okay. Then what does this say?”

Ash’s face falters for half a second. He finds where she’s tapping on the menu, then trills his lips as if it’s not a big deal. “Easy. That's clearly M-Mousse…. Better……fromage, de, uh, cheer.”

He glances at her like he knows she knows that’s not right, and then Ash just stuffs more bread into his mouth.

“So, do you have any idea what you just ordered?”

He shrugs, “Weird stuff.”

She takes a sip of taking a sip of her sparkling water. “And to think Brock said my date was well-travelled.”

Ash pauses mid-chew. Then he swallows, leans back, and raises a brow at her just as she peers at him over the rim of her glass.

“What?”

“Well-travelled, huh?”

She clicks her tongue. “Something like that.”

“Anything else?”

His smirk sends heat up her neck.

“I’m pretty sure Brock mentioned something about being humble.”

“Wow. This guy sounds outta your league, Mist—”

The front of her heel slams into his ankle under the table.

Ash yelps, nearly knocks over his water, and grabs his leg with a gasp. “Brock didn’t mention that my date was violent.”

Misty flashes a sharp grin. “Brock didn’t tell you anything about your date. You lost a battle and ended up here, remember?”

He sinks back into his seat, and she thinks she’s won if he’s sulking - until his brow sets in a way she isn’t used to.

“Is that why you’re here?” he asks then.

“What?”

His eyes drop to the space between them, brow pinched together. “Because of what you were told. About your- uh- y’know… date.”

Misty finds herself straightening. Ash’s eyes lift to hers; there is no edge in them that usually comes with his teases. Instead, he only stares at her, an unarmoured curiosity there that makes her throat go dry.

It takes a second before she manages a quiet, “No.”

Whatever flickers across his face is gone before she can really pin it down. Then Ash just nods like that’s all he wants to know, and flips back to the menu. His nose wrinkles.

“What the heck is faux Magcargo, and why is that even on the menu?”

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When the food arrives, it becomes apparent that Ash has been right about it being weird. She had simply stopped listening when Brock went into the details of the restaurant, but she’s not sure how she hasn’t picked up on it since arriving. The restaurant isn’t just Kalosian.

It’s experimental Kalosian.

Dish after dish begins to pile up on their small table, little arrangements of food in colours that are too bright to be natural with pretty edible flowers around the edges. Seared orange meat wrapped in some kind of neon green spirals. A pink cube with a tiny smudge of sauce fanning out beneath it.

At one point in her life, she might’ve found it exciting. Tiny, pretty dishes that could pass for modern art she could ooh and ahhh at. But after years of uptight League events where the hors d’oeuvres are smaller than a poffin and only leave her craving real food…

She looks at the dish closest to her, then pokes it with her fork. Something that she assumes should be solid slices, sticking to the back of her cutlery with a wet squelch, so she abandons the effort without really committing and grabs her glass of sparkling water instead.

“Sophisticated, huh?”

Misty glances up. Ash quirks a brow at her.

Her lips form a sour pout.

“Yes.”

Ash doesn’t say anything. He only watches her with his elbow on the table, chewing his own dish like he’s trying not to swallow it. When he finally does, he looks down at the table, then back up at her with the start of a smirk.

It grows. “Try the purple one with the Tentacruel legs then.”

He points at a plate, where a foamy purple substance floats with ribbons sprouting from it.

“It’s beetroot,” she says immediately, even though she has no idea if that’s true.

“Doesn’t look like any beetroot I’ve ever had.”

She scoffs. Stubborn, Misty stabs at one of the ribbons, locking eyes with Ash as she shoves it in her mouth with as much grace as a Mankey.

He watches her swallow. It’s both cold and slimy and crunchy, and possibly made of carrot and not beetroot after all. Her eye twitches as she forces it down.

Ash snorts. “You hate it.”

“I do not—“

“ You wanna get out of here?” he says then, cutting through whatever lie she’s been ready to throw at him.

Her eyes widen for just a second as they find him. Ash doesn’t look like he’s joking.

“What—without eating? ”

He points to her plate. “It kinda looks like it’s already been eaten. “

“You just asked me if I wanted to stay.”

“Yeah but– Cmooooon,” he whines, looking a little pathetic as his shoulders slump down, “I’m only in the city tonight. I want real food.”

Misty looks down again at the collection of odd dishes in front of them. It does feel stuffier in here now. And the food, as fancy as it is, is no more appealing now than it was five minutes ago.

She stabs her fork into something on her plate and squints, speaking quieter. “I think it’s supposed to be art.”

Ash leans in. “I think it’s a crime.”

“You’re awful.”

His grin breaks out at the same time hers does. He lifts something pink from one of the dishes with a spoon out to her. “Be my guest.”

For exactly three seconds, she debates taking a bite just to remind him once again that she doesn’t back down from a challenge, but…

The substance on the spoon wobbles, unprovoked.

She squirms out of her seat. “What was Brock thinking!”

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It's been less than an hour since she’s been out here, debating running the length of her cab ride back to her hotel, when the evening breeze hits her. Misty inhales deep; after a particularly awkward conversation with the front desk of the restaurant, the open air feels welcome.

Ash reaches her side a few moments later, his face ridden with a bemusement he’s not trying very hard to hide as he shrugs his coat on. He turns to her.

“That… could’ve gone better.”

“ I doubt it’ll stop you from getting invited back to eat there, Monsieur Monarch.” She scoffs. Ash immediately rolls his eyes.

“I don’t really care if it does.”

There’s an offhand disregard that she can’t help but admire in the way he shrugs. Ash was never the type to take advantage of that title of his, always more impressed by the shinier things in life than by claiming the access to them that his title could offer.

She tries not to smile. “Again. Awful.”

“And hungry.” His elbow bumps hers as they fall into step, weaving into the crowded streets of Vermilion.

“Is Pikachu back at your place, then?” she teases. “ You two are so inseparable that I’m surprised you didn’t drag him along to your date.”

“Ha-ha. Funny,” he says, like she’s not being half serious. “He’s with my mom. Honestly, I think he likes the country more than the city.”

Ash snickers, but she can tell he still isn’t all that thrilled about the fact he’s been forced to have an apartment in one of the major cities the regional League works in. “Taxes or somethin’,” he’d told her, leaving her a little speechless that he even knew what those were.

That had been a year ago, and he had picked Vermilion City because the airport was conveniently there for him to run off to once the League lets go of his leash. Misty finds it a little hard to sympathise with him too much; he only had to show up every three months to sit through some meeting before he was set free again. Sometimes she had them four times a week.

Her future, of course, relied on those meetings a lot more than his seems to. Ash was…

In a way, she envies him.

He has the big thing figured out. The epiphany that a Pokemon Master is not something to chase, but to live, brings him a certain kind of peace he’s been chasing. And now there are no tournaments to claw though, no leagues to claim what direction he takes… Ash moves through life like he trusts the wind to carry him where he needs to be. He calls it instinct and she thinks that sounds right but she can’t keep up; he calls her one day from Paldea and then the next he’s at her doorstop.

The boy with the unbreakable spirit keeps moving.

But that part of her that never really lets go of fussing over him wonders, too. If he understands how limitless his options are. If he can see that, like that breeze carrying him any which way, his future is so, so open that even she has no idea what way it will go anymore.

Misty only really knows that she wants to be a part of it, whatever that looked like.

Her focus is forced back. She yelps, so loud that Ash whips around at breakneck speed, “What–!”

She can’t even raise a hand. She’s been so lost in her thoughts, she somehow nearly misses it and then it's everywhere at once: a towering Scolipede scurrying toward the footpath they’re on. Its owner trails casually behind, as if he hasn’t just released something so obnoxiously off-putting into a busy street.

Ash watches it with a little awe. She half expects him to grab his dex to scan the ugly beast, but he only pauses in his step as it gets closer. Misty jumps back, pressing herself flat against a store window.

“I hate bugs I hate bugs I hate-”

The scuttle of it’s claws on pavement cuts her off. Her eyes squeeze shut, but she can still hear it pass. The image of its shiny little pincers sends a shiver down her spine that has her grab out for Ash’s arm out of habit.

“It’s gone.” he tells her after a moment.

Peaking an eye open reveals that he has moved directly in front of her. Ash stands shielding her view, one arm raised with his hand pressed to the store window beside her. She exhales, her face hot.

“There-there should be a rule that bans anything that scuttles from the sidewalk!”

Ash turns to the side but doesn’t really move. Just enough for the light to peek over his shoulder. It’s late July and the sun sets late, leaving the light to frame his face golden. Sunlight catches on the edges of his dark hair, and she catches the orange in his brown eyes as they focus on the path.

It leaves her face hot in a different kind of way.

She wants to reach out to him.

“It’s definitely gone.” He looks back at her, his eyes lingering just long enough to make her feel exposed.

A little smirk pulls at his lip, “Y’know, it kind of looked like it could be related to Clauncher.”

It takes her a second to catch what he’s just said. Right. The Scolipede. Then the image of some half beastly bug and half handsome crustacean only Ash could come up with comes to mind, “Don’t say that!”

“It does! A really big one. With more arms. Legs?” He grins.

“Stop insulting my precious Pokémon!”

“Calm down. It’s gone! And hey, at least I didn’t have to send Pikachu chasing you halfway across the city this time.”

Her mouth falls open. Just what she wants to be reminded of- he’s talking about the time she’d made the trip out here to find that a bug-fanatics convention was happening in the City centre.

“And whose fault was that?”

“Not mine.” he snorts.

“You didn’t tell me!”

“I didn’t know!”

Misty scowls at nothing. A little pathetic thought lands; she probably would have shown up even if he did tell her. She grimaces. She probably would have ridden a Scolipede into battle to see Ash on her only weekend off.

Ash continues, “Besides, it was cool! We got to meet Katy. And Pikachu got that little hat that looked like a Parasect–”

“Ash.”

“What?”

“Stop talking about bugs.”

“Oh. Uh, sorry.” He says, but she catches the amusement on his face as he nudges her with his arm. The one she apparently hasn’t let go of yet.

Never mind wanting to reach out to him.

She already had.

Misty moves her hands immediately.

“Well. Lucky for you, I’m a forgiving person.”

“ Yeah, yeah.” He waves her off, and then the warmth of his presence is gone. Misty takes a breath. She takes a glance around to make sure that no unsuspecting bugs are lurking in the area again before she falls back into step with him.

He hums in thought. “Maybe I should’ve brought Pikachu tonight, though. Then we could’ve battled!”

“... You can’t have been expecting a battle tonight.”

“Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want one,” he says.

She glances at him. “Did you forget you were supposed to be on a date?”

He stops in his tracks again, which makes her stop too without thinking. “What?” His words come out fast, “I know that. I meant—right now! With you.”

He gestures around them wildly, leaving her to play catch up with what he’s saying. “What? Now? You want to battle me, now?”

“I always wanna battle you, Misty.”

He says it so sincerely. She’s about 90 percent sure her cheeks are glowing rosy like apples. Ash’s eyes, however, don't leave hers, and he watches her like he’s not just admitted anything worth feeling embarrassed about.

Her heart does a little flip watching him; he always did have a way of saying the sweetest things without even realising it.

“...Did you just finally admit that you can’t beat me without Pikachu?”

“You wish!” Ash starts, but the protest dies halfway with an almost nervous grin. “He’d kill me if I tried.”

They’ve stopped at the street that leads to Ash’s apartment, Misty notes. The opposite direction of her hotel. For a moment, she can picture herself already in that backseat of a cab again, seven minutes and thirty-one seconds from her hotel. There is paperwork at the bottom of her travel bag there waiting to be filled out.

Ash didn’t exactly make a plan other than leave the restaurant together, after all.

“Well.” She swallows down that taste crawling its way up her throat again. The copper building behind her teeth lingers a little. “I guess we can have that battle when you’re back next.”

“What?” Ash blinks at her, then glances around like the answer might be somewhere in the street. He scowls off in the distance, “Did that bug mess with you that much? You’re going?”

“Wh—what? Am I not?”

“Are you?”

“Am I?”

They stare at each other for a long moment.

“Don’t you have a flight to catch in the morning?” She asks.

“So?” Ash shrugs. “We gotta eat.”

He pauses, his eyes darting toward the sidewalk before they comes back to her. “I mean…. This isn’t a date, but if it, uh, if it was—it’d be pretty lousy if you went home hungry, right?”

Her eyes snap to his in surprise. It takes her a moment to register that he’s waiting for her answer, and her fingers fidget together where she's laced her hands behind her back.

Careful, a voice warns.

But spending time with Ash isn't what she has to be cautious about, is it?

And he’s just said it himself: this isn’t a date. There’s no place for her boldness to show its head here.

“... Brock does still owe us something we can actually eat.” she says.

Ash’s face lights up, not doing much to help the jitters in her stomach rioting. “Then lets get dango on the way, too!”

“... You’re unbelievable.”

“And starving,” Ash fires back. He’s already moving again, tossing the words to the wind: “C’mon! I know a place where the food doesn’t come in cubes!”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

They leave the busy streets behind, and Misty feels the ocean getting closer as they munch through two servings of dango from a street vendor. The sun disappears over the horizon as they get closer; they could be on a tour of Vermilion City with how many side streets Ash leads her down, but when they arrive at the place he’s hyped up, it feels worth it.

She can’t help but smile to herself; the whole thing is so very him.

Perched at the top of a cliff is an open hut stand, wooden beams strung with tiny glowing bulbs that cast a warmth. The scent of something smoked, or fried, but most definitely delicious fills the air as people and Pokémon crowd around picnic benches, each one brightly painted and scattered across grass that leads right to the hill’s edge.

Just behind the fence that lines the cliffside, Misty catches sight of the ocean.

She thinks it might just be so very her, too.

For the second time that evening, they order an abundance of food. Ramen bowls. Crispy gyoza. Fried steamed buns and fresh cucumber salad, milk teas with extra ice. Ash knows the staff running the stall by name (because, Misty thinks, of course he does), and after poking fun at his suit, they throw in extra sides on top of the two they already ordered.

Hands full of serving baskets, Misty slides into the bench they’ve picked beside a fence overlooking the ocean. The salty breeze hits her just as Ash releases Rowlet from it’s Pokéball.

The Pokémon circles her once in greeting, and she can’t help but giggle. Then, Rowlet, not for the first time, attempts to perch right on top of her head.

“Oh, bud–” Ash snorts. He gently shoos he owl toward the railing, where it flutters down to settle.

Rowlet coos. Ash strokes the top of his beak with the back of his hand before turning back to her.

“Your hair,” he adds, finding the humility to at least sound half-apologetic.

Instinctively, Misty reaches up. Psyduck had watched her from the hotel bed, head tilted in confusion for the entire hour she’d spent straightening out the kinks in her bangs to get them to frame her face the right way.

She flattens some of the strands, a little surprised he’s even noticed. “Thanks, Ash.”

He just nods, and barely manages to sit down before biting into a friend bun without a care for how messy it is dripping in a hot chilli oil. Misty wants to find it off-putting, but if his ability to eat like the food might vanish at any second didn’t stop her from finding him cute back when they were kids, it probably wasn’t going to bother her now.

“Shoo good. Dig in!”

A pang of hunger twists in agreement in her stomach. She pops one of the mini gyoza into her mouth. Then another. It's delicious; the right kind of savoury complimented by something slightly sweet. Considering all she’s eaten today is a flimsy piece of beetroot that was possibly a carrot and two pieces of dry bread, they might be the best dumplings she’s ever had.

Ash watches her with a lopsided smile, already reaching into another basket.

“So?”

“Okay,” she says after swallowing. “Okay, I get it. I can see why you dragged me across half of Kanto to get here.”

There’s an I told you so buried somewhere in his grin. She sticks her tongue out at him. “I’m officially claiming this spot as mine now, though.”

“Be my guest. I’m just glad to eat here before I’m out of Kanto again.” His lip juts out a little. “Theres nothing anywhere near as greasy as this stuff In Alola.”

“Oh can it.” she snorts, “You will not find me feeling sorry for you when you have access fresh fruit and Malasadas every day at your resort.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t good!” he scoffs, “Sides, I’m not at the resort. I’ve been staying with Professor Kukui.”

Misty peers at him “Again? You’re out there a lot lately.”

“I like it there.”

“I know you do. But do you think that maybe...” she wets her lips, choosing her words, “You’ll want to find somewhere a little less temporary?”

“The couch is fine.” Ash replies.

A tiny crease betrays his smile as he turns back to his food though, making her eyes soften.

“I’m sure it is.”

“I’ll be back in Kanto after the conference anyway, I mean, not here—” he continues, then frowns, poking his rice with his chopsticks, like he’s then only considering what the next few weeks will throw at him.

“I’ll be home.” he settles on.

“Pallet Town?” she asks, though she already knows the answer, watching the way his grin splits to something less guarded.

“’Course. Where else would I go?”

“Hmmm.” Misty pretends to think. “ Your apartment here?”

“Boring. Goh isn’t even round anymore.”

“Maybe my gym to distract my hard working Pokemon again?”

He pouts at her. “They like me.”

“Maybe.” she winks, not catching the way Ash’s eyes widen just a little as she turns to her drink. She turns back, taking a sip of her milk tea.

“So how did you even find this place? It’s pretty far from your place.”

“Oh, Serena found it.”

The cup bends a little under her fingers. Rowlet tilts its head curiously at her, like it knows she has no right to feel any kind of way about that.

“Did she like it?” she asks.

He blinks at her, “Huh? Uh… I guess. It was a while ago. I don’t really remember.” He pauses, shrugs. “We just kinda ended up here when we were waiting for May’s boat to come in.”

Misty feels a little stupid then.

Of course. She’s heard about that, straight from May. She’s seen it- on her phone. Together, May and Serena had taken social media by a sparkly storm with their food and fashion reviews across the regions. Shocker. It turned out people liked seeing the two beautiful girls with very different cuisine tastes attempt new foods together in themed outfits.

“Why?”

Her head whips up. Ash’s eyes are lingering on her.

“No reason,” she blurts.

Her heart beats fast against her ribs. The sharp twinge of metal sits cold on her tongue.

Because really, what could she say?

That she knows it shouldn’t. She has no right to—but the thought of him sitting here alone with someone brave in all the ways she can’t be makes her stomach twist like she's sixteen all over again?

But Ash just shrugs, slouching back. “Then why are you thinking about that,” he says, reaching to holds out the second fried bun from his basket. “When you could be thinking about this?”

The breath she’s been holding in comes out.

“Ash, are you actually sharing your food?”

“Misty, are you actually refusing it?” he shoots back, shaking the tray at her.

Her laugh comes out thin, and she snatches it before he can take it back. At the same time, he swipes a couple of the mini gyoza from her tray with his chopsticks.

“Hey—!” she starts. It’s drowned out by the breeze, carried off with his dumb laugh.

“Eat,” he snorts, mouth already full again.

Misty puts on a show of glaring, but he’s right. They're here, out of that stuffy restaurant and surrounded by the ocean. Why was she thinking about something that didn’t have to matter?

She takes a bite of the fried bun, dripping in that hot chilli oil. It’s terribly messy, perfectly greasy, and sure, it's not quite what she’s counted on eating tonight.

It’s much better.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The moon has made a full appearance by the time they finish dinner. Because Ash would call a good meal ruined without a dessert, and because Misty has been eyeing the ice cream menu since they first ordered their food, Ash is sent on the mission to fetch them some scoops.

The city behind her is still alive in the distance. It feels full of possibilities. It was often like that when she travelled now, even across Kanto; she loves her city, but sometimes it’s hard to ignore just how long she’s been there.

That will change if she keeps going, though.

Misty leans against the fence overlooking Vermilion City’s port, her gaze tracing the curve of the ocean as it dips south toward Viridian. Somewhere beyond that is the Indigo Plateau.

She ruffles Rowlet’s feathers absentmindedly, watching a few magikarp sending little splashes to the water's surface.

“Do you like living here, Rowlet?” Misty asks the little owl beside her. It tilts its head in question. She gives a little snort, “I guess Alola is better, huh?”

Rowlet coos softly and turns. Misty glances over her shoulder to see that Ash is standing a small distance away, an ice cream cone in each hand. One of them is starting to drip down his thumb, like he’s been there longer than she’s realised.

He only seems to register he should move when his eyes meet hers. He starts across the grass to her side.

“That better be yours,” she says, pointing at the melting cone in his right hand.

“Duh.” He holds it up, licking his thumb clean. “Bannoffee.” he hums, then hands over the other, “That was the last of chocolate, anyway.”

Misty pulls a face at his choice. Chocolate was the only ice cream worth eating any day, in her opinion - but maybe tonight has shown her that her taste isn’t as sophisticated as she likes to pretend it is.

Ash leans beside her and her heat does that little flip again. There was a time she’d have to fight him for that last scoop of chocolate ice cream. She can’t quite put her finger on when that started to change. When he started to surprise her in those little gestures. Like telling her she looked nice, or making sure her hair doesn’t get messed up, or…

“What?” he sticks his chin up, catching the way her eyes have set on him fully.

Misty freezes. The part of her brain that stores comebacks for Ash is alarmingly empty. The wind picks up around them and ruffles his hair, and it’s like she can only see all the small changes she is so careful not to get lost in all at once. The curve of his lip as he smiles at her. At some point during dinner, he’s shrugged off his coat and suit jacket, and suddenly it's impossible for her to ignore how broad his shoulders have gotten. How the muscles shift beneath the fabric of his shirt.

How his sleeves are rolled up, and the veins in his forearms catch the light.

How there’s the trace of ice cream at the corner of his lip, and—

“Oh,” The word slips out. A smudge of that same ice cream has fallen on his expensive looking tie. Without thinking, she reaches for one of the napkins crumpled in his hand and starts dabbing at the spot.

Misty only realises what she’s doing a second too late. Her face flushes as she pulls her hand back, feeling the way he tenses beneath it.

“You tie.” She explains.

“Oh, crap—” he blurts, then moves likes he’s only just gotten permission. He fumbles with the tie, trying to tug it loose with one hand while awkwardly balancing his ice cream in the other.

Somehow, he only manages to tighten it.

She's not sure if she winces at him or herself. But she can't just stand there and watch him wrestle with a tie while holding a melting dessert.

“Come here,” she says, already reaching out.

A defeated chuckle tumbles out of him. He takes a small step closer, and she hands him her cone again as she hooks her thumb through the material.

It comes undone much more easily than he’s made it look. Misty runs both hands down the length of his ocean blue tie, evening it out so it sits balanced on either side of his collar. She looks back up to find Ash rigid, arms raised with two cones on either side, like she’s just pulled Officer Jenny’s weapon on him.

Her palm, she notices, is still lying flat against his chest.

The gesture suddenly feels too much. Too intimate for two people who can usually reach for each other so easily.

A scoff gets a little caught in her throat.

“Just as I was thinking how much you’ve changed.” Misty hurries to move, and the heat hits her face all over again. She takes a large step back and snatches her ice cream from his hand, quickly busying herself with it.

He sulks back to the railing. “Yeah, well, I hate wearing this stuff anyway.”

“Then why did you wear it?” Her eyes flicker over his outfit. She looks away before any of it distracts her again, rolling her eyes at herself.

Ash glances down at himself reluctantly. “I— Brock said I should. Said I had to, actually.” He groans, scrubbing a hand through his hair, wilfully messing it up. “It was supposed to be a date, remember—?”

He cuts himself off, pauses, then side-eyes her with a raised brow, all in the span of three seconds.

“You think I’ve changed.”

“...It would be odd if you hadn’t.”

“Hmm.” Ash pays no attention to the dismissal in her tone. A slow smirk pulls at his lip. “Is that so?”

She turns back to the sight of the ocean, willing herself to pretend she doesn’t see the smug look on his face in the corner of her eye. If he is chasing something out of her, Misty can run faster. And if she can't, she can jump in the water and swim better than he can. She finishes most of her ice cream and offers the cone to Rowlet, who takes it in his beak and chirps in gratitude before hopping off to enjoy the prize.

A second later, Ash’s shoulder bumps against hers, sending her heart back into her throat.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Look,” Ash points across the ocean. “That’s Pallet Town,” he says, gesturing somewhere over the horizon.

Misty squints. Cupping a hand over her eyes to try and make out what he’s pointing at. She knows Pallet Town is somewhere across there, but all she can make out are the clustered lights of Viridian City somewhere in the distance and a lot of empty space blending into the water.

“....Where?”

Ash reaches around and gently takes her wrist, steering her toward him. He doesn’t seem to mind that her elbow brushes his chest.

“There,” he insists.

Misty holds her breath. Maybe she can see it now. A couple of faint lights out in the distance. But that’s a lot harder to focus on when Ash is so close and his chin is bumping her shoulder.

He lets go of her wrist, but his arm stays hovering around her waist as his hand clutches the railing. Personal space has hardly been an issue between them since they day they met, but she moves to squirm out from where he has her pinned back, twisting just enough to make out the slight pull of his brow.

She pauses.

“What is it?”

“Hm? Oh. Nothing.” He says, then. “Just thinking about Pikachu.”

“…and home?” she finds herself asking, quiet.

Ash doesn’t answer right away. He watches the horizon for a moment, then, softly, his words tickle her ear.

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“I think I always end up finding my way back there, y’know? Even when I don’t mean to.”

She turns back to the ocean. “I have noticed.”

“It still feels like the only place I can really sit still.”

Misty considers a retort. A chance to remind him that he’s never sat still a day in his life, but that doesn’t really feel true anymore. It feels more of an excuse to have him bark back and force that careful space between them.

But the weight of his arm never really feels dangerous. It only feels warm.

“It suits you.”

“Hm?”

“Pallet Town. Can’t really take a boy out of the country. Even if he does trade his cap for a crown.”

He snorts. “I didn’t trade my cap.”

“Well, you took it off tonight.” She smirks. His chin taps on her shoulder, making his hair brush her cheek like a reminder of just that. She has to take a moment to let it happen.

“Alola does, too, y know.” she finally says, “Suits you.”

“You think?” he asks, but something tired is at its edges, even as he manages a low chuckle, “It does feel a bit like a second home.”

“Do you miss it the same way you miss Pallet Town?”

He takes a moment to think. “No. That’s different.”

Her hair falls on his shoulder as she peers over her own., “Well…they haven’t offered you a place out there without thinking it through, you know?”

His face tenses a little. She tries to keep her tone light, and not like she’s digging for something she’s been considering since his call. “It’s been four years since the Manalo Conference started up again… Hau’oli City is pretty major. Lana’s told me how much tourism it brings now.”

A breeze hits her shoulder as Ash drops his arm. She turns so her back is to the railing, facing him fully. He looks at her a little dumbfounded.

“You want me to move to Alola?”

“I don’t want you to move anywhere.” She tells him, “You told me you were offered a place out there. And the League only needs you set up somewhere they consider a major contender.”

“It wouldn’t be working for the league.”

Her brows shoot up. “It wouldn't?”

“Not really. It’s some sort of teaching position at the school. Not the book stuff.” He gives a small shrug. “Trips, Pokémon excursions. Helping kids learn how to bond with their Pokémon, stuff like that. It sounds…. fun, honestly.”

“Ash,” Misty stares at him with wide eyes. “What are you talking about? That sounds perfect.”

“Well, yeah. But…” Ash trails off, “I dunno,” he tighten his hand over the railing. “ It’s a lot. Making it a whole thing. Uprooting everything. Mom likes it when I’m here. I like it when I’m here, even if-”

His voice catches. “ Even if I do love it out there.”

A quiet, content smiles spreads across his face, like the thought alone is enough to comfort him. It’s been a while since she’s seen really seen that. There are late nights she can remember under the stars where it's been just the two of them, Brock snoring in the distance and Pikachu curled up on her lap while Ash poked at the fire absentmindedly. He would tell her his dreams in a quiet voice, so different to his bold declarations that came out in the day, that she would have to hang on his every word just to make sure she heard it.

Ash was kind of captivating like that.

Misty hangs onto it now, too. The little pang she feels knowing he’ll be around less again slips away.

It really does sound perfect for him.

“Do you want to?”

He stills, eyes shifting slightly as he considers what she’s saying. The hint of something determined sets in his jaw.

“I want to.”

She holds her breath, like she’s been waiting to hear just that. That would probably be all there was to it; Ash tended to do what he wanted. And she’s meant what she’s said- Alola suits him. She’s been there to see that part herself, back when he attended school. When he learned to stand still and focus on something other than what was in front of him. She got to watch a region she fell in love with breath a second life into him.

So there was only really one question left.

“Is there a reason you haven't yet, then?”

Ash’s shoulders lift in a shrug and he stays silent for a stretch. Misty thinks maybe she has dug too much when he turns to her, his back to the railing now too.

“I guess not.”

She isn’t so sure she believes that.

“Maybe.” He says then. He rubs the back of his neck, turning to watch the ocean again. “I haven’t had to stay in one place like that for a while. As much as I trust my gut in wanting to go… ”

He trails off. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip. There were those cracks showing again.

“It could still be worth it.” She offers.

“I’m not worried about it being worth it.” He says, and she believes that much even as his mouth twists, “It’s kind of the opposite. Professor Kukui and everyone out there are so important to me, I don’t want to—”

He stops and swallows, his face giving way.

He doesn’t have to finish the thought for her to understand, though. For a man who would throw himself into a fight for someone else without caring how much his own knuckles bled, the thought of letting someone other than himself down being the reason he’s hesitating made all the sense in the world.

Misty could resent how lovely he could be sometimes.

She takes a small breath. “Did you know that when I got back to the gym — after we travelled together as kids, I mean.… I felt like I had to learn to walk all over again.”

“No.” Ash glances at her. “I mean — you didn’t tell me that.”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything if I did.”

His eyes darken just enough to make her still. There are days she’s written this down in a letter that was never meant to reach him, and she has to rush on before she stops herself again. “It was just such a change of pace, is all I mean. And it was daunting. I had people expecting a lot of me. More than I knew I could expect of myself.”

He raises a brow at her, curious, and it's possible he can’t believe that. A little sigh is caught behind her words. “My point is… I’ve learned that you can’t let people down by trying. And maybe this feels daunting because this is something so very new to you. It’s like learning to walk all over again, too.”

“Learning to walk again,” he repeats, as if he’s trying to understand it.

“Maybe. It’s a lot easier to find where to put your feet on a path you’ve already walked so much of, right?”

What she’s saying takes a second to reach him, and she watches his expression tighten with the kind of pause that makes a flicker of nerves rises in her chest. Perhaps she is still that girl who pretends to know so much more than him, spilling out advice he never asked for. Advice it took her years to figure out for herself.

Her face heats up a little. There are times Ash has hesitated before— times she’s stomped that right out of him, times she made him chase her out of it, but her encouragement feels a little lost in something selfish all of a sudden. She’s meant what she’s said, she doesn’t want him to move anywhere unless he wants to…

So maybe part of her just clings to the idea of being included in his next step, the only way she can be.

But then a big, lazy smile splits Ash’s frown. “You really want me to move to Alola, huh?”

“Only if you want to!” It tumbles out of her a little too quickly, “You said you wanted to.”

He shifts to face her, elbow hooked lazily over the railing.

“You gonna visit?”

Her heart flutters. “Try and stop me. I’m not helping you unpack, though. I’ll be at the beach.”

“That explains it.”

“Shut up.” She rushes on as he grins wide. “Besides, it’s your best bet if you’re looking for somewhere your gut wants you to be. You still need to be somewhere the League accepts, and I don’t see Pallet Town counting as a major city anytime soon if you plan on keeping that monarch title, too.”

He pretends to sulk. “I didn’t say anything about Pallet Town. But now you mention it—”

Misty jerks in surprise and he lunges forward in a sudden jump, pushing himself up on the railing. “PIKACHU! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?” he shouts, cupping a hand around his mouth and calling out across the ocean.

He’s so loud that whoever else is left at the bar snap their heads in toward them.

“Ash—!” she hisses, pulling him back down. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to see if he can hear me from here!” He snorts. “I hope he’s awake.”

The small crowd still lingering on the benches begins to turn away , losing interest in Ash’s shouting match with the ocean. Now it’s just Misty staring at him in disbelief. Any trace of that calm they’ve found themselves in is gone.

She doesn’t know if she should laugh, or scream, or push him into the water.

She settles on shoving him. Her open palm smacks his arm.

“Forget what I said about you changing—you’re clearly still the same kid I met. It’s almost 11 p.m., Ash.”

Ash just proves her point, ducking out of reach with a snicker. “I told him I’d call him, but I didn’t mean like that–”

He turns to her, his expression suddenly serious enough beneath the glow of the string lights above them that it stops her in her tracks.

“It’s 11 p.m.,” he repeats.

“…Now you care?”

“No—I mean.” He gestures around them wildly, “We’re in Vermillion City.”

She has no idea what he’s trying to tell her. “And?”

“Don’t you have a train to catch?”

For a second, he looks so serious, staring at her like that train is the most important thing in the world, that a smile betrays her exasperation. Misty reaches into her clutch and fishes out a key card, waving between them.

“Did you forget that hotels exist?”

Ash doesn’t like her answer. Before she can tuck it away, he catches her wrist, stopping her hand midair.

He squints at the card. “You’re staying there?” He sounds unimpressed. “That place sucks. Remember?”

He’s right, of course. But what surprises her is that he remembers at all.

Misty had planned on staying at the Ponyta Plaza during the time she helped him move into his new place here. She had spent her one free weekend in two months gawking at the size of the apartment and telling him he was overpaid before they drank cheap wine out of a single mug and unpacked. When she found her hotel was double-booked, Ash, in his slightly drunken haze, had collapsed face first on the couch, grumbling that she take his bed.

The next night, a text from him had woken her up.

"My sheets smell like you.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misty yanks her wrist back.

“ I didn’t exactly have much time to plan this da—this.” she huffs. “Brock may have insisted on it, but he sprung the actual plan on me at the last minute, so I had to find a place.”

“Did he?” Ash winces. She watches in real time as something clicks in his head. “That, uh… that might’ve been my fault. I guess me coming back had him putting something together before the conference starts. If I’d known you were— I mean, if I’d known you’d be here-”

Whatever he’s going to say, he stops himself. She fiddles with the card in her hand. Would he not have shown up if he’d known it was her?

It’s not a question she has the heart to ask. Instead, she leans in with something smaller.

“What, Ash?”

He shifts a bit. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Tonight didn’t suck. Not like I thought it would.”

Of course that's true. If he hadn’t been sitting in that fancy restaurant, she knows the night would have been ten times worse. She really could have been stuck trying to eat beetroot carrots with a guy who had his own podcast.

He sure had a habit of turning things around for her.

She slowly lowers the key card from where she’s been clutching it like a lifeline. “Explains why you laughed in my face when I walked in, I guess.”

“Did I?” Ash exhales a little, nervous breath. It’s possible he’s only realising then that’s true. “Oh. Y-yeah. Sorry about that.”

“I guess you’ve made up for it. You did give me the last scoop of chocolate ice cream, after all.”

He resembles a little less a Deerling in headlights then. “Honestly, I was mostly relieved to see you.”

Misty studies him for a moment. Her fingers toy with the card, and she asks, “Relieved?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“...What?” she blinks a little dumbly at his honesty. “I mean- I know why I thought tonight would suck, but….”

Ash’s eyes dart away. “Well, It’s a lot easier than having to sit there with some stranger. And–. I don’t exactly go on dates every other day, do I?”

I know that, Misty thinks, but she can see clear how hard this is for him to even say. His fingers twitch at his side and she considers dropping it because she’s suddenly not sure what she’s trying to get out of him. But he’s choosing to talk about this stuff when he never has before, and that matters more than the ache it stirs in her, telling her again–

To be careful.

“Well. You could always try again. If you wanted. Not with me,” she blurts, “I mean—”

Ash looks back at her so quickly that she fidgets with the key card, forcing herself to keep going. “I’m just saying, Ash. Dating doesn’t have to be all fancy restaurants and outfits.”

She wets her lips, searching his face, “It not always that black and white. It doesn’t always have to… suck.”

“Yeah, well,” he mutters, clearing his throat.

He’s probably done with the subject.

Misty thinks maybe that’s for the best. Something feels a little warped about the fact her heart isn’t in it. About the fact she’s saying this like she has any experience in love to lean on that doesn’t orbit entirely around him. About the fact her mouth is filling with that sharp, metallic taste again, and she wants to childishly tell him don’t date someone else don’t date someone else don’t date someone else—

But then Ash gestures loosely around them.

“Still… if I had to do it again. This wasn’t bad.”

Her pulse jumps. Before she can even think to let him know she agrees wholeheartedly, Ash reaches for her hand. His thumb brushes hers, just enough to make a shiver hit her spine.

He tugs lightly on the key card between them. His eyes flicker down at it, then rise, steady on hers.

“You really came all this way for a blind date?”

A strong breeze cuts between them. Misty doesn’t even blink.

“What if I did?”

Ash swallows. For a second, she thinks he might say something. But instead he lets go, stepping back to lean against the fence. His hand rakes through his hair, leaving it even messier.

“Ash.” She shuffles a step closer. She’s known him long enough to know when he’s got more to say.

“What if I did?” she repeats.

He doesn’t move, just props his chin in his hand, elbow braced on the fence. His frown drifts toward the ocean.

“All that for some guy you don’t even know.”

His voice is so low that his hand almost swallows his mutter. Misty’s lips part.

Whatever she expected, it isn’t that.

“Excuse me?”

He doesn’t say anything. She remembers his stupid laugh earlier, seeing her in that restaurant. Relieved, he’s just told her, but offence spikes in her chest, flush on her cheeks. “You came here from Alola. And so what if I didn’t know who would be here? That’s the whole point of a blind date, Ash. That I don’t know the other person.”

More silence.

Misty’s shoulders lift, tight and stiff as she tries to hide the hurt in her voice. “What?” she insists, “Do you have a problem with me being here? I told you Brock asked me to do this-”

Ash finally turns to face her. “So what? You just say yes to a date?”

Misty flinches. He’s scowling. The fire in his eyes is familiar, except now its pin her still like she’s to blame for it, and she has no idea what she’s supposed to say.

She asked him the same thing earlier. And she knows why she did that.

But there was no way he was—

Her gut twists. He can say she looks nice, and he can put his arm around her waist, and he can tell her his sheets smell like her. He can do all of that and want nothing more, but then sulk when she even mentions glancing somewhere else? She can suddenly taste that iron on her tongue again and a sharp begrudging question come with it– If he can do all of that so easily, why is she the only one whose expected to swallow it?

To be careful?

Her hands clench at her sides.

“Well, maybe you’d know the answer to that if you ever asked me on one yourself, Ash.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Misty’s hand flies to her mouth the exact moment Ash’s elbow slips from the railing.

She feels it instantly. She has crossed a line she has sworn to keep herself from for years.

Why did she say that?

Her heart slams against her ribs. After years of being careful, of choosing the right words despite that copper sting in her mouth begging for release - all it has taken is one knee-jerk reaction and Ash just watches her, stunned, maybe, or confused. Looking more like the boy she’s dragged out of a river and slapped than the man she’s spent her evening with.

Then he takes a step toward her, and she can only take two back in panic, tearing her hand away from her mouth.

“Forget it,” she says, then laughs. It sounds strange and shrill and she’s not really laughing, but she has no idea what else to do. “It’s fine!”

Misty knows she has to leave. If she stays here any longer, she’s going to say something else in all those loud ways she can’t. She clasps her clutch, “I-I’ll- I’ll see you around, Ash, okay? And– and good luck next week!”

Her voice is so high only a Growlithe could hear it now, and she doesn’t wait around to see if he’s made any of it out. She just about sees how his shoulders slump and steps past him.

She doesn’t want him to see her face; she doesn’t want to see his.

The tap of her heels quicken as she reaches the road that winds down from the hill. The wind picks up and frustration pools at the corners of her eyes.

Why did she say that?

She walks faster.

He has to know now. People think Ash is dense, but they underestimate him in ways she has learned to not. She saw it on his face; he knows that she’s put this out there where it doesn’t belong.

She clings to the same line she always feeds herself — that she knows how he feels about her. We were meant to meet is as much as she’s ever dared to ask for, and a heavy lump crowds her throat.

How could she have thought he was jealous?

“—Misty!”

Ash’s voice cuts through the night. His footsteps strike against the path behind her.

Her eyes squeeze shut ; he never could let things be!

Her heel nearly catches on a street sign she doesn’t see in the dark. She sidesteps it and keeps walking, only to realise there’s nowhere else to go. She's reached the road ends at the cliff’s edge. The ocean lies ahead, endless and black and Misty stares at it. She considers it. Jumping in, letting the current pull her under, even just for a moment so she can disappear.

Ash’s footsteps slow. Then stop, long enough that Misty knows he’s just standing there awkwardly now, staring at the back of her head, probably trying to figure out what he even wants to say now he’s caught her.

She flinches when something soft and heavy drapes over her shoulders.

It’s warm. A little stiff. But it smells like summer grass and the faint trace of campfire that always seems to linger on his clothes.

It’s Ash’s coat.

Misty turns to ask him what he’s doing, but Ash stands there, lit only by the faint glow of a streetlamp somewhere above the cliff, and her heart leaps to her throat all over again. He’s a little breathless, his hair moving in the wind.

He looks like he has no idea why he’s done it, either.

Her lips part, but no words come. Waves crash against the cliff and break the silence.

Ash shifts from foot to foot restlessly.

“It’s cold.” He says dumbly.

The weight of the coat feels too much, then. His sweetness and gestures could suffocate her. Misty yanks it from her shoulders and shoves it back at him. “I don’t need your coat, Ash! I need— ”

The fabric hits his chest and hurt flickers on his face and her mouth snaps shut. Ash looks at her like he doesn’t even understand how he’s done something wrong, only that he knows he has.

The sight drains whatever fight is left in her. Misty’s chest aches. She wants to reach for him, but she knows her role here. She isn’t sure what she needs, but she does know she hasn’t spent all these years being careful only to forget what has to come first.

Ash, with his heart of gold, with his loyalty to a fault, will only be okay with this if he believes she’s okay.

Misty exhales hard. “I don’t need your coat, Ash.” Her voice tightens. “I’m fine, okay? I just… I might…need a little space right now.”

She pauses, then rushes to add a shaky, “So try and forget what I said.”

He frowns, as though he’s fighting the urge to argue.

“… Do you know where you’re going?” he asks instead, voice low.

“I’m sure I can figure it out.”

Slowly, he nods. The coat slips down to his side,.

A car winds down the road behind them, headlights sweeping across the cliff and casting their shadows to the ocean. The light floods their faces with white, but Misty doesn’t let herself look at his as she brushes past him.

If she had, she might have seen that crease on his brow linger.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She feels empty. Like a drum.

The sun is only just showing itself when Misty finally drifts to sleep. It has not fully risen when she wakes again.

There is the faint muffle of someone in the hall outside of her hotel room.

The city must be waking up.

Her eyes sting when she opens them, puffy and red and tired under the weight of how violently she’s sobbed the night before. Seven Thirty Two, the little clock beside her reads in tiny red digits. Misty scoffs. She only moves to tug the curtains close, casting the room back into darkness like it can chase the morning away.

Whoever is outside her room has other plans.

A sharp knock echoes down the hall. There’s a pause, then the faint creak of a hinge. Two low voices trade a few words. A door clicks shut again.

Then it starts again.

Knock.

Misty squeezes her eyes shut. She pulls her pillow over her face and wills it to stop; she wants to sleep. She wants to forget.

Knock. Knock.

Knock-

“Oh, for—” She throws the blanket off and stomps to the door, yanking it open in all the wrath she can muster.

Misty almost slams the door shut again.

Standing a few doors down, fist half-raised, Ash stares straight at her.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ash wastes no time in crossing the space to her doorway. His eyes are wide and wild under the bright lights of the hallway,

He stares straight at her. “I need to speak to you.”

She can only stare back in disbelief. “...So you knocked on every door in my hotel?”

“So?” He looks at her like she's the crazy one for thinking that not completely normal, then shakes it off. “I had to talk to you.” He says again. He’s still wearing the shirt he was last night. But her eyes catch on the crumpled edge of his collar, his missing tie. Then wrinkled fabric.

If he has slept, she doubts it is much longer than she has.

“What do you want?” she mutters.

He stares at her. Ash forces air in through his nostrils and–

“I don’t know,” he finally blurts.

Her stomach dips, but her shoulders launch up, and she is too tired to be anything but blunt now. “Then leave, Ash—”

“I—no.” His words stumble, “I have to be in Alola tomorrow—today,” he corrects with a grimace, “and I–”

He stops, sending that empty space in her stomach to twist like a rusting nail has landed in it. She can guess what comes next. That he’s come all this way to fumble though excuses to tell her I can’t ask you on a date —and she hates how small that makes her feel.

Her face burns. “Will you listen to me?” she cries, voice crashing through the hall. “I never asked you to-”

“Hey!”

A door swings open a few rooms away. A half-awake man pokes his head out, scowling. “ You again!” He barks, looking at Ash now. “It’s not even eight a.m.! Would you kids take whatever this is inside?!”

Misty’s hands clench at her side. “No need. He’s leaving,”

“I’m not,” Ash shoots back immediately.

She makes the mistake of turning back to him. That flare is back in his brown eyes, looking wilder now than the one she’s seen a thousand times before in an arena, and her jaw clenches.

He’ll stand here all day if he has to.

He’s unbelievable.

The man down the hall grumbles something about calling the front desk, flustering her enough to flash a fang-baring smile in his direction. She grabs Ash by the wrist, dragging him inside. The door shuts behind them, his back pressing into it as they both blend into the dark.

The light flicks on with a sharp click when she finds it, and suddenly they’re inches apart. A twinge tugs his brow as he scans her face, and somewhere Misty is aware that she must look as shitty as she feels. That her eyes are still red and puffy and there is more than likely some mascara her pillow hasn’t wiped of still staining her cheeks.

He moves forward. She takes two steps back.

“What do you want, Ash?”

His face only scrunches in concentration.

“What?” She demands. “You’ve just woken up my entire floor and now you have nothing to say?”

“Well—” Ash stops again. Pressure builds in her head, and she almost tells him to leave again when he speaks.

“You told me to ask you myself. If— if I wanted that.”

Misty’s cheeks flush hotly. “Not really. I said if you were bothered by the thoughts of me with someone else so much, you should ask me on one yourself.”

He sucks air in through his teeth and she sees it. There it is: the reason he’s here, out loud. Her royal screw up. And even if she knows he’s not here to throw that in her face, knows deep down that’s not like him–

She stares, big green eyes far from tired now, searching his, her heart bracing for whatever comes next.

“Thats not important,” He rushes on,” I couldn’t forget what you said. I tried, because you asked me too. And yeah, it bothers me, because—”

Ash breathes in like the next part has been trying to fight its way out of his throat since she opened the door. “Because I know you matter. More than I can figure out yet.”

His face floods with colour when she says nothing. And her stunned silence must read like dismissal, because his hand finds the doorknob.

“I just—” he starts, “I thought you should know that much, at least.”

The metal twists beneath his hand.

Misty only then realises that he’s trying to walk away.

A panic; she feels the world shift beneath her feet and she moves without thinking.

She presses a palm to the door, pushing where he pulls. It closes with a click and the sound sits heavy around them.

“Don’t you dare leave now.”

Slowly, his hand loses its grip on the doorknob. Like she’s pinned him to the door with her eyes alone, he stands rigid, his gaze caught in a trance somewhere between them.

“What exactly are you saying, Ash?”

Misty watches the strained noise catch in his throat.

“Isn’t that obvious?” he mumbles.

(Ours wasn’t a coincidence.)

Her heart beats fast; she has assumed his feelings before and been proven wrong.

(We were meant to meet.)

“No.” she says, anticipation pooling icy in her stomach.

When he finally lifts his chin, the flush across his face glows rosy.

“I meant what I said,” he says. “ I don’t have it figured out yet. What I’m supposed to do next.”

His eyes meet hers. She hears the tight swallow ins his throat. “I only know I want it to happen with you.”

Immediately, Misty thinks he mustn’t even realise what he’s really saying.

Then she watches it hit him. The words hang there. Ash’s eyes dart down, and she feels the breath he takes on her shoulder, but her mind goes blank. It buzzes with static like Pikachu has sent a shock down to her toes.

Then it hits her, too.

She moves. She paces the small space between the door and the bed three times like it will help make any more sense. Finally, she sits on the mattress. What was he saying? Alarms go off in her; perhaps she hasn’t woken up yet. She is dreaming and this is a new form of torture where Ash tells her something solid and real like I want it to be with you so she wakes up as empty as a drum all over again.

But the light is on. Her pillow is stained with mascara. And in her dreams, Ash doesn’t say those things.

No, as romantic as her imagination is, in her dreams, Ash is simply beside her and that is enough.

But he is impossibly there, at her door, watching her like…

Misty crosses her arms over herself, pressing tight like it might keep her chest from bursting. Ash watches her, and it sends her fingers curling into her skin.

He speaks first. “Is that okay?”

The question must show itself on her face, because he continues. “Those things. Because I do want them," he says, sharper now. "I just—” He cuts himself off. His hand bunches the fabric of his pocket.

He smiles, small and wobbly and reluctant, not like him at all. “I can’t get it wrong.”

Something protective pulls tight in her chest. He looks so far from himself. “It’s okay if you get it wrong.” she says.

“Is it?” He asks. “Because it kind of feels like I’m stuck figuring that out everywhere I turn.”

“Alola,” she assumes.

He sucks in a breath. “Not in the same way. That’s just a long way away. Especially when I keep finding my way back here.”

“Kanto?”

He drops his gaze back to her.

“To you.”

A new rush of warmth floods her face. It sounds like the simplest answer in the world when he says it.

“You’re kind of important to me, too, Misty. And I don’t know what's supposed to come next.”

He looks at her like that’s the embarrassing part. A quiet shock blooms in her, and she stares at him like she’s not sure if she’s heard right.

Then the noise of her scoff cracks through the silence, and Ash flinches.

“Since when have you had to know what comes next?”

He squints. “What?”

“You boarded a plane two days ago because you went to buy ketchup, Ash. Did you know what came next then?”

“I knew I was coming home.”

“Okay, but did you know you’d lose to Forrest?”

“No.”

“Or that you’d get shipped off on a blind date?” She stares at him, and that taste on her tongue is back. But the bitter, iron-sick flavour of restraint presses against the roof of her mouth with nowhere left to go, and her voice is rising, frustration spilling out like a dam has cracked. There was no way Ash has come here, dropped this on her and then tried to leave, and now wants to say it's because he doesn’t know what comes next.

“Ash, when we met, you didn’t even really know what a Pokémon Centre was. How could you have known what came next?”

He glances away. “I had a better idea then.”

“Did you really? Did you know how many shots it would take you to get where you are now? Or that you’d one day throw yourself into the ocean to save the world?”

Her breath trembles. She takes a step closer.

“Or that you’d oversleep on that day we met, or that I’d run away—”

There’s a sharp sting behind her eyes.

“—or that we were meant to meet?”

She clings to the words like a safety blanket, stopping just in front of him. Her nostrils flare. “I’m glad it happened. Aren’t you?”

His head snaps toward her. “Of course I am.”

“Sometimes you can’t know what’s meant to come next for it to be good.” She shakes her head. “But you know that, Ash. You taught me that. You’ve always felt that way to me.” She sighs, the heat draining from her with him so close. “You’re so carefree it makes me dizzy trying to keep up.”

“It does."

She tilts her head, and he follows the motion, eyes not leaving hers. “It does. But I can see the ways you’ve changed, too. Even if you still leave my head spinning.”

“Maybe I don’t want to leave your head spinning all the time.” he says quietly.

He breaks away then. His face crumples like the thought hurts, and his head tips back, tapping the door with a quiet knock.

Her arms fall at her side. The tension in them untangles into a shiver that runs down her spine.

She can see it, suddenly.

Ash, with his so very brown eyes wavering and cheeks blazing, stares at her like that boy she meets at ten who doesn't ask but needs her. That teenager on his mothers' porch, confessing his embarrassment, letting her in how he can. That man on the end of a phone call admitting he still doesn’t have it all worked out. It’s there in the way his jaw tenses, the restless way his hand clenches at his sides—

Ash is being careful, too.

An ache hits her. He has still said so much more than she has ever managed to. Wasn’t that just like him?

Even when he is careful, he is brave.

And suddenly, her nerves feel like they’re hanging by a thread all over again. Here she’s been, trying to fix cracks again when she’s not even sure whether she’s talking about Alola, or their lives, or them. But Ash? He sounds so sure of them that her head does spin.

Because there’s a guarded stillness in the way he stands here, like all the big things he’s said don’t stump him–

Only the idea of getting them wrong does.

She blinks at him. Has she been looking at the line between them so closely she’s left him watching her watch it?

She can’t believe it.

But of course, she believes him.

She wants to reach out and shake his shoulders. She wants to reach out and kiss him so hard she makes him dizzy for once.

“Mist.” Ash’s voice cuts through to her when her eyes well up. She sees the concern in his face just as her vision blur with tears completely. His hand reaches for hers. Instinct tells her to pull away, to say she’s fine. She wants to. She knows how to.

But he tenses like he’s bracing for that and her vision wavers, and she lets his fingers move gently over the back of her hand.

Because if Ash can be careful with his feelings, then surely she can be brave with hers.

“You asked if it was okay.” she breathes at last.

His hand tenses on hers. "Are you okay?" he pauses, then, quieter, "Is it okay?"

A half laugh coming out with a little sob. “Are you dumb?”

“...Hey.”

“Of course it’s okay.” She sniffles. “It’s okay. Make my head spin. Not all the time. But enough. Because you don’t have to have it all figured out. When have you ever, huh?”

She smiles then. It's watery, and it pulls at her lips in all the ways she can’t control and she lets it. There was no place for her to be that girl who pretends to know so much more here. “I never did. I still don’t. I had to learn to walk again, and that took a long time. But I’m finally running toward something, you know?”

She breathes in and blinks her tears away, lifting her chin to keep her eyes locked with his.

“….. and you can be a part of that, Ash. If you want. Even if we don’t know what comes next. You said you wanted it to happen—with me.”

The word catches on her tongue, and then it’s out there as well. She’s talking about them and nothing else now, and her toes curl into the carpet because she can’t take it back. Ash knows that, too. The intensity on his face sets in a way that could make her heart do something unhelpful like send her running away all over again.

Instead, she grasps at his hand with that same heart in her throat. All those times she has wanted to reach out, and now he has given her so much to hold onto. Her fingers squeeze around his palm. His hand is so warm in hers. She doesn’t want to let it go.

So much of her time with Ash has been about letting him go.

“So you do what you need to do, and I’ll be where I need to be. The details can come later. That’s the way it’s always been, right? So-so…”

A small crease tugs at his brow.

Misty glances down so she doesn’t have to see it. His collar, crumpled and still missing that tie, blurs in her vision. For all the things she has learned not to say, there's only one thing she really needs him to hear now, and what’s left of her bravery finds a place to go at last:

“... So just keep finding your way back to me, okay?”

Her face burns hot. Something stubborn in her doesn’t let her glance up. It’s been two years, but she could be standing in that forest, twiddling her thumbs and asking for a space beside him all over again. The lump in her throat feels different now, though. No longer copper clawing its way out, but an empty space where so much has lived for so long.

His hand frees itself from her hold and she gasps like it stings. It does sting. Cold rushes over her face, leaving the heat of tears to spread down her cheeks.

She bites down on her tongue.

...Perhaps she should have been careful after all.

But then she hears his breath hitch. A light touch grazes her chin, coaxing her gaze upwards. Ash’s fingers cup her cheek a little clumsily, thumb moving to brush away a tear that has trailed to her lip.

Her eyes find his again. Ash, looking as flushed as she feels, presses his forehead to hers in a gentle movement.

He looks at her like she might hold every answer he’s been looking for.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phew. that was exhausting even for me. Hope it didn't feel too rushed at the end there! It's so hard to make this kind of big feelings talk fit into something shorter.

Thanks for reading my silly little fic anyway!

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