Highs and lows
There are pits and lands
On the ground that you stand
So, flux and flow
Flux and flow
The first thing he noticed about her wasn't her erratic fighting style, or the cocky grin glued on her face.
The first thing he noticed were her freckles. He could count them all from where he stood, exactly at twenty-five feet away. League rules. The challenger and gym leader needed to be a certain distance apart. Trivia. Nothing important during a battle. Her scolipede charged at his servine, and he commanded his partner pokemon to dodge. Their battle lasted minutes, before her pokemon was on the ground, incapable of fighting.
Fight, fight, fight.
That's all they did.
She occasionally sang some notes with her band, and strummed some chords on her (incredibly badass) bass guitar, and he sporadically ran his hand through his bushy, navy blue hair. When she was left with only a koffing, she laughed, and her bandmates rallied support from the crowd, and he was confused, and perplexed, because the noise was so loud, everything was dissonance, and he hated it so much.
He hated a plethora of things about Virbank City (the grime, the air, the noise, the people), but he didn't hate Roxie. When she lost the match, and realized he won, she giggled like a maniac, and ran across the field, throwing words of encouragement to her poison types. She bulldozed over the referee, and landed in his open arms. She was a bundle of energy, and dark matter, a black hole consuming everything in her path.
(He awkwardly patted her back, totally flabbergasted by her impulsive nature. She grinned, and flung the Toxic Badge at his face, before laughing, and running away. Roxie's guitarist gave him a smirk, and the drummer flashed a rock out sign.)
During that embrace (it lasted 2.67 seconds, he was good with time), he counted seventy-two freckles.
He found them endearing.
.
.
.
Hugh didn't think about Roxie until it was his last day in Virbank. He met up with Mei, and they chatted at the local cafe. She was simply visiting a friend, before heading back to Nimbasa for her fourth gym challenge. He was surprised the brunette girl already had three badges. He hid his shock (and envy) under well placed questions concerning her journey, and her pokemon. Mei was a cheerful girl, and she liked talking, so it gave the blue-haired male time to think. As she prattled on about trainer battles, and passable attempts at capturing more pokemon, Hugh stared behind her twin tails, and towards the gym. He could see the outline of the building from where they sat, two blocks away.
Mei noticed he stopped talking, and waved her small hand in front of his face.
"Hey, Hugh! Are you even listening? Ugh! You're worse than Kyou-kun, and he's atrociously bad with conversations!"
He ignored the Japanese-honorific, remembering for a moment the girl was from Kanto. She had permission to use it in the middle of mainstreamed, and judgemental Unova. He gave her a small smile, and spun the neon green straw inside of his glass of lemonade, the melting ice clinked against the cup's side. He rolled his eyes.
"I'm listening, worrywart. Do you want me to stare in your eyes, or something, while you yap away?" He chuckled to himself, and Mei pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. He took a look at her, and smiled softly at the sight. Her visor was tilted, and her odd hair buns (she kicked him in the shin the first time he made a comment about them), there were visible lines of a swimsuit top under her raglan tee. She was attractive, but she wasn't the one for him.
They grew up like siblings, mud fights in backyards that didn't belong to either of them, sleepovers under the Aspertia sky. It didn't stop him from appreciating her, she was sight for sore eyes.
"It would be nice!" She sniffed, turning away in mock-annoyance. She slowly turned back towards the boy, and propped her elbows up on the vinyl table. Her movements rattled the object, the umbrella above them shook, and swayed, and she took no notice, brown eyes curiously analyzed Hugh's face with a thoughtful glance. "What were you so interested in that you decided to zone out mid-convo, hmm? Did you see a cute girl?"
Her words were earnest, and Hugh couldn't help but blush. Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward.
"Oh my! I didn't know my dear friend Hugh was a player!" She cackled, shooting up from her seat, and twirling around in her hi-top sneakers. "Look out world, our darling Hugh is growin' up!"
The boy simply scoffed, and stuffed his hands into his red coat's pockets. "I am not, Mei. Sit down, you're causing a scene. You're more immature than my sister."
The girl stuck out her tongue, and sat back down. "So, is she pretty?"
"Who said I was talking about a girl? You're making crazy assumptions."
"Your reaction made it obvious. Now spill."
He tested the water with an almost content sigh.
"Yeah, she's pretty."
The conversations ends with her titters, and the payment of their check.
.
.
.
He stopped by the Virbank Music Club before catching the last ferry to Castelia City. Not for sentimental reasons, or because he wanted to, no. Hugh was going for other reasons, important businesslike reasons, there was nothing romantic about the way he pushed the grimy, poster-covered door open with his foot, and ran down the stairs that led to the basement turned gym.
If anyone told you otherwise, they were lying.
The blue haired male waltzed into a room conducting itself in 4/4 time. Roxie's allegro stopped him in his tracks, her periwinkle gaze caught his carmine, and their conflicting cacophonies collided. She stopped playing her bass, her right hand waved off her band, and her left hand dismissed them to their break. The white-haired girl scurried toward him, cake eating grin plastered on her pale face. Her stripped dress hung limply on her bony frame, rippling with her every move, scalloped edges barely brushed against bruised thighs.
She was the picture of wicked elegance, and Hugh couldn't help but offer her a smirk. Visibly amused by his boldness, Roxie arched a brow.
"What brings you back to my lair, Hugh? I already gave you a badge." She talked in a childish tone, reminiscent of his younger sister's. It was a high pitched lilt, scratchy and youthful all at the same time, he would never understand how she managed to perfect the art of speaking in that particular manner.
It was simply another one of her mysterious.
"It can't be that you're here for me!"
Hugh gave her a roll of eyes, and huffed. "As if. I'm here to say goodbye."
Not exactly why, but he wasn't going to tell her the real reason he was here. He wasn't going to tell her that he was actually at the gym to get a good look at her face before leaving, and never coming back. Why would he go back to Virbank City after becoming the Pokemon League Champion? There simply wasn't a point. One good person couldn't save the entire city.
Even if that person was the incarnation of grayscale sunshine, and candied stardust.
"What a shame!" She pressed her fingers against the strings of her bass, and continued plucking at them. After creating a steady rhythm, she looked down to her black boots, then up at Hugh. "You want a memento, or somethin'?"
He wasn't quite sure what he wanted.
Not at all. He was a sixteen year old boy, and he had a really (really) pretty girl asking him if he wanted something to remember her by.
This wasn't something that happened to everyone, no. Hugh wiped his hands on his dark blue shorts, and steeled himself.
He was going to give Roxie (fairy girl, painted lips and serrated teeth, disaster child) something to remember him by.
The boy leaned in and kissed her.
.
.
.
Hugh arrived in Castelia City with a guitar pick, a brand new number in his Xtransceiver, and an imprint of fuschia lipstick at the base of his neck.
