Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t love or hate at first sight. In fact, Juliana didn’t see him at all until they had already collided. 

Her longboard soared away at the same breakneck speed she’d been traveling, flashing the colorful mosaic of stickers on the underside of the deck as it corkscrewed backward through the crisp morning air. The can of fruit punch-flavored energy drink in her hand also said a slow-motion farewell to the tune of Ave Mareep, though not without a parting shot of sticky splatter across her oversized t-shirt.

Juliana, on the other hand, simply ricocheted off the stranger like a stray bullet and hurtled toward the ground. The sun-baked brick pedestrian street rushed up to meet her as though it were a long-lost lover at the airport. She embraced it with bare knees first, then palms.

It was in that two-second reprieve, right in between receiving the familiar kiss of road rash and feeling the red-hot scream of it where the skin on her knees used to be, that she first laid eyes on him.

“Are you okay?” he asked. 

Oh, no—he’s so pretty. 

Kind-looking bluish green eyes you could float or drown in, framed by bold eyebrows and ringed with moody dark circles that suggested late nights bent over a book. Plush lips parted in concern. To make matters worse, his sandy hair was on that devastatingly charming side of messy—no longer than his cheekbones, yet falling to cover about a quarter of a face that had her stomach doing cartwheels even with only partial exposure. 

Broad, rugged shoulders and strong-looking arms stretched under a long-sleeved button down. A necktie in school colors and a slightly oversized sweater vest that could only look better if it were on her bedroom floor instead.

He had a tan that spoke of an outdoorsy sensibility and that semi-polished, old-school preppy je ne sais quoi that always made her want to just sink her teeth into a man and shake him around like a chew toy. He looked as if he could take you hiking, hold a fascinating conversation about something else besides hiking, and carry you when you inevitably rolled your ankle. 

In other words, the unwitting crash pad looking back at Juliana was the textbook definition of her type. Sheesh—she had just wiped out straight into the most gorgeous guy she’d ever seen. 

He’d hit the ground too, but looked to have landed on what she could only assume was an ass as perfect as the rest of him. A comparatively enviable touchdown. Without padding, ass-first was the safest way to fall, and it explained why her stricken prince appeared dazed but uninjured. If she’d had any warning that she was going down, Juliana would’ve maneuvered herself to do the same—she had more than enough experience making friends with the floor, after all. 

Typical of me to ruin my chances before we’ve even met, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should probably apologize…

His eyes dropped to her legs and widened in shock at the precise millisecond that the all-caps telegram of pain dispatched by the nerves in her torn-up skin finally reached her brain. 

“Oh, that looks bad—“ 

He gingerly reached toward her bleeding knees. 

Her left hand shot out to deflect him, grabbing his forearm. 

“It’s nothing,” she hissed, sharper than she intended as she grimaced at the snarling sting of gravel in the wound. “I’ve had worse.”

The worry in those ocean eyes twisted into irritation. He yanked his arm away, shaking her grip from his sleeve.

“Yeesh! What’s your problem?” 

“My problem is that I’m late, and this—“ she huffed, rolling her eyes at her own stupidity while gesturing at her skinned knees and the energy drink stains all over her shirt, “is not the first impression I wanted to make at my first class on my first day of college.” 

“How is that my fault? You ran into me, you little maniac,” he snapped back. “If you’re so worried about first impressions, maybe you should watch where you’re going!” 

Ah—so he’s one of those gorgeous guys, she thought, eyes narrowing. The insufferable ones who think they’re Arceus’s gift to humanity. That makes perfect sense. 

The sharp clothes now read a lot more daddy’s money than brat pack throwback. Before her eyes, his dreamy features twisted into the face of every other rich, stuck-up pretty boy she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting. 

Passerby were beginning to step around the pair, throwing weird looks down at them. Her face felt hot.

Sneering, Juliana scrambled to her feet. She bit her tongue against a fresh flash of pain as she straightened out her legs.

“Are all Paldean guys as charming as you?” she spat. “Far as I’m concerned, you got in my way.” 

Following the rhythmic rattle of its still-spinning wheels, Juliana located her longboard sticking out of a bush a few yards behind her. She retrieved it and tucked it roughly under her left arm. 

“Tch! Why, you little…” Mr. Wrong grumbled, getting up and dusting himself off while she inspected her board for damage. He looked around for something and his face fell, heartbroken, when he found it—the remains of a breakfast sandwich that fared far worse in the collision than either of them. Its components lay scattered in an impressive arc across the brick street like pulverized glass after a car accident.

He scowled at her as he gathered up the pieces in the brown parchment paper that had served as the ill-fated sandwich’s wrapper and tossed the mess in an adjacent trash can. “I’d say you ought to be wearing a helmet if you’re gonna ride around on that thing like a Zubat out of hell, but it sounds to me like you’ve got nothing in your head to begin with. Why even bother going to class?”

Juliana had already turned to leave, but she laughed bitterly and shot him one more look through the stream of commuting students. 

Yet the acerbic comeback she’d locked and loaded got jammed in the barrel when she saw a quarter-sized, vaguely heart-like red blotch on the left sleeve of the guy’s starched white shirt. 

That crimson mark took the precise shape of the flayed, bleeding heel of her left palm. When she pushed his arm away, she’d inadvertently stamped her own blood there. 

It was one thing to have knocked him over, but she did feel a little bad about staining his clothes. She grimaced. 

Great job, Juliana! You meet a guy who looks like he could be a model for a catalog that sells artisanal rowboats, and you give him your bodily fluids before you even get his name! Way to leave a mark! 

Nothing she could do about it now, though. Served him right for being a jerk. And it was really his own fault for reaching out to a bleeding stranger, wasn’t it? Who does that?

The tolling of the ancient bell tower reminded her that she was now late for her very first class.

“Whatever, tough guy. See you never!” She pivoted to sprint into the massive brick classroom building.

The universe has a sick sense of humor, Juliana thought when never arrived about twelve hours later, putting her face to face with the very same stupidly pretty jerk.

The early autumn night was brisk and breezy, stirring up leaves on the street into tiny tornadoes. She was rollerskating across the dark, nearly deserted campus to attend the Grapes Of Wrath’s fall semester welcome party at the apartment of their team captain, Drayton. 

Her 4.0 GPA and stellar test scores had opened the door to every school she applied to, but she chose Uva University because it offered one thing the others didn’t: An intramural roller derby team. 

By the time she graduated from high school, Juliana had proudly called herself a member of the Striaton Strikers, the Nimbasa Boss Rush, and the Castelia Carnage. She’d met all her old friends through those junior teams, so Juliana expected that her new teammates would be just the antidote to this unmoored, out-of-place feeling that always clung to her for the first few weeks of living somewhere new. 

She had been added to the Grapes of Wrath team groupchat, and was stoked to finally get to see the faces that belonged to the names—and derby names—she’d already memorized. 

Or…then again, maybe she wouldn’t see their faces tonight. She’d asked Drayton in the groupchat why the team interest meeting was a costume party, and he replied with something cryptic about it being a great way to get to know people because “every disguise is a self-portrait.” Typical philosophy-major drivel. 

Juliana received the invite a month ago, but completely forgot to actually assemble a costume until this afternoon. Her last-minute look consisted of a full-face plastic Zoroark mask she’d picked up from the school store in a panic and a few articles of black athletic clothing she dug out of her closet.

Her base layer was a pair of the black short-shorts she played in and an old, tattered Castelia Carnage t-shirt. Playing as a blocker in her final bout with the team, the opposing jammer had grabbed her by the back of this shirt to maneuver around her, knocking her to the floor and tearing the hem in the process. The penalty he received for the move allowed her own team’s jammer to sail through and clinch the victory, so Juliana wore the damage as a badge of honor—and, she hoped, a conversation starter for her new friends. 

To this she added a thin black sweatshirt, pulling the hood up over her short hair so it wouldn’t get messed up by the chilly wind. Black tights and her black fingerless skating gloves hid her banged-up, bandaged knees and palms. 

Finally, she opted for her sneaker-skates: A pair of chunky lace-up shoes with small, retractable quad skates in the thick outsoles, which could be popped out by kicking a button on each heel. They lacked the ankle support and sturdiness of a proper skate boot, but they were so convenient that Juliana wore them virtually everywhere she didn’t take her actual rollerskates or longboard.

If this is my self-portrait, I sure hope it’s good enough, she thought, gliding with leisurely strokes under the pulse of the streetlights and turning onto the street with the apartment buildings reserved for upperclassmen. To keep her hands free and peripheral vision unobstructed in the dark, she’d already strapped on the Zoroark mask, but pushed it on top of her head. 

It was with that unobstructed peripheral vision that she saw him.

 Mister Paldea was backed into a shadowy alleyway between two of the apartment buildings, glaring at the three people crowded in front of him. 

So it’s not just me. He’s even a sour jerk to his friends, she thought. 

But something about this tableau made her look twice. 

There was a menacing aura to the posse that had him surrounded. A desperate edge flickered in those lovely blue-green eyes. And his shaking hand was clutching his Pokéball upside down, for Arceus’s sake. 

Damn it…

Juliana didn’t like him, but she hated bullies.

She swerved sharply left. 

With no heel brake or toe stops on her sneaker-skates, Juliana threw her momentum into a powerslide, skidding in that fencing-like stance to a tightly controlled stop right in front of the alleyway entrance. She shook off the inertia with a toss of her head.

At the screech of her wheels, the three bullies turned around. They were decked out in Uva-purple and even some official school gear, but they’d gone heavy on the customization, cutting up their shirts and crewnecks and covering them with punkish star-shaped bleach stains. In addition, all three sported dark star-lens sunglasses—an odd choice for nighttime—and retro-style biker helmets.

It dawned on Juliana that she was five feet tall, a hundred pounds soaking wet, alone, picking a fight against three strangers in a dark alley with no plan whatsoever.

But then she looked down, and saw that they were all wearing skates of their own.

The corners of her mouth tugged up into a smile. Juliana could deal with anyone on wheels. 

“Well, well, well. What have we here?” asked the tallest one, in the middle. “Is this little lost Zorua trying to interfere with our recruitment efforts?”

‘Little lost Zorua’? Is that a Paldean insult, or a pickup line?

Narrowing her eyes, Juliana made the second of a series of impulsive decisions that she would endlessly berate herself for later.

She lowered her soprano voice to something as dark and glossy as a tinted windshield. Maybe it was her derby persona taking over. Years of fake-it-til-you-make-it drilled into her, all in preparation for this moment. Or maybe it was something deeper than that.

“Back off. Or I’ll make you regret it,” she threatened with this new voice, and the words came out in a flawless imitation of a Paldean accent. 

“Aw, now that’s no way to make friends,” sneered the one on the left. She pushed off the alleyway wall with her hands and entered the street to circle around Juliana. Lefty’s stride was wobbly, awkward, and she over-relied on her arms to maintain balance. 

“Do you know how to use those?” Juliana asked, pointing down at Lefty’s skates. Stepping into Lefty’s path, facing her, Juliana pointed her own toes inward and glided smoothly backwards around the same arc. She folded her hands behind her back.

“‘Course I do!”

Juliana snorted. Firmly planting one skate behind her, perpendicular to her front foot, she abruptly stopped—and Lefty’s clumsy swerve to avoid running into her was the last straw for her already precarious balance. Lefty tumbled to the brick street with a shout. 

“‘Course you do,” Juliana giggled. 

She looked to the other two, still peering out from the alley. “Think either of you can do any better?”

Middle and Righty exchanged a nervous glance. They shuffled into the street and drew their Pokéballs. Lefty clambered back to her feet, shaken but unhurt, and joined them.

“Tell you what: If you can beat all three of us in a battle, we’ll say hasta la vi-star and let you have Blondie here,” said Righty, gesturing at the hunky jerk cowering in the alley behind them. “But if you lose, you both gotta join the best team not on campus: The Star Crossers!”

“You sure? I’d just as easily deal with all of you myself. But if you insist: Deal.”

One Dazzling Gleam later, Juliana and her Mimikyu had flattened the opposing Pokémon. Their trainers, too, were knocked off their feet and now lay on the sidewalk in a groaning daze.

She couldn’t resist taking a victory lap, skating past all of them before looping back around. 

Three points, she thought, giggling.

Rolling back up to Righty with her Pokéball in her left hand, Juliana nudged him in the side with one of her skates, then rested the wheels on his chest. “I take it you yield, then?”

“Who…are you?” Righty asked, blinking up at her. “Are you…declaring war on the Star Crossers?”

Juliana laughed, performing a little twizzle-spin just for fun. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever that is. Now get lost, and don’t let me catch you ganging up on anyone else ever again.” 

The three stooges scrambled onto their wheels, tossed some pocket change on the ground and skated away as fast as they could. Which, at their skill level, would not have made a Slowpoke sweat.

Shaking her head, Juliana bent down to pick it up—a few Pokédollars would still net her some extra ramen at the school store. So far, college life was a lot weirder than she expected.

She’d been warned about the sushi in the dining hall and the superstitions around various statues on campus, but her roommate, a bubbly second-year student named Nemona, had neglected to mention the…roving gangs of delinquents on rollerskates?

Standing back up, she saw that Blondie was still glued to his spot against the brick wall of the alleyway, staring at her with starstruck eyes and a bloody nose.

“You…okay?” she asked, and it came out with the same low tone and accent from before. She’d expected him to just run off once she started distracting those three with the battle. That certainly would’ve been the smart move, but it seemed brains didn’t keep company with beauty.

“T-thank you!” he blurted, staggering closer to her. “That was—wow! Way to go!”

“Your nose is, uh…did they hit you?”

He blinked, cautiously swiping a hand over it, and deflated when it came back red. “Ah, man…” 

He pinched his nose between his fingertips, lending his voice a nasally quality that she fought the urge to laugh at. 

“No, nobody hit me. This just happens sometimes.”

She reached behind her to the ripped section of her t-shirt hem and tore off a roughly palm-sized scrap of the black cotton, holding it out to him.

Juliana reasoned that it was only fair, given that she’d ruined one of his shirts with her own blood earlier, to sacrifice part of hers. With that spot off her conscience, she was now free to hate this guy without guilt or reservations. 

His eyes widened. For a moment, he was frozen. Then he sheepishly accepted the makeshift handkerchief.

“Oh…wow, that’s…you didn’t…have to do that...”

Once he’d plugged his dripping nose with it, he unleashed a fountain of breathless praise.

“But—hey—that really was amazing! Those three wouldn’t take no for an answer, and you just cooked ’em like it was nothing! I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t showed up. You’re just—so—wow!” 

Oh, so Mr. Sexy Snob completely changes his tune when he’s a helpless damsel in distress.

“Maybe you should watch where you’re going at night if you can’t hold your own against a couple of thugs,” she chuckled, unable to resist throwing his own words back in his face. “Why’s a tough guy like you need rescuing, anyway?”

“Oh. I’m, uh, not much for battling, I guess,” he said, gazing softly at the upside-down Pokéball in his non-bloody hand. “My partner…his health isn’t what it used to be.” 

He paused, looking back up at her, and his head cocked slightly to the side. “Say, why did you help me? We haven’t met…have we?”

Do so many girls bleed on you every day that you can’t possibly keep track of them all? Or are you just trying to make me feel that insignificant?

“Nope! Of course not,” she joked bitterly. 

“Then who are you?”

She huffed. The nerve of this guy!

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose in disbelief, Juliana’s fingertips instead bumped into a sloping plane of plastic.

The Zoroark mask was on her face.

Her mouth fell open, concealed behind a long snout. How long have I been wearing it? 

Rewinding back through the adrenaline haze to the moment she decided to confront the bullies, she now vaguely recalled the sensation of the mask slipping south as she performed that initial powerslide to brake. Inertia pulled it down off the top of her head, but in the heat of the moment, she hadn’t even noticed.

So he really doesn’t recognize me, she thought. Should I take the mask off and show him? Make him eat his words?

Or…lean into it and have a little fun at his expense?

“You can call me…Zor…Uva,” she said, inventing the dumbest superhero name she could think of on the spot. “Yep. ZorUva. The one and only. Vigilante extraordinaire, at your service. I put on a mask and I save hapless hunks like you.” 

“Well, thank you, Zoruva!” He gave her a genuine smile that nearly knocked her wheels from under her, clearly not clocking the sarcasm from her voice alone. “My name’s Arven. I…really owe you one, big time,” he said, swallowing. “You’re my hero. How can I ever repay you?”

Hero?  

The ego boost hit like a drug. She was grateful for the mask to hide her huge smirk.

This jerk—Arven—had acted like she wasn’t fit to kiss the ground he walked on earlier, and now that handsome face was singing her praises as if she’d hung the moon!

I guess he’s only nice to people when they’re useful to him. What a phony. 

A very pretty phony…

“Just call it even,” she muttered under her breath. 

“Sorry, what?”

“I said—uh, ‘just keep breathing’,’” she stammered. “It’s a…Unovan expression. Not that I’m Unovan! I’m Paldean, of course. Because. This is how I sound. What I mean is, y’know, take care of yourself, bud! That’s enough for me.”

A small crowd of passerby had gathered on the other side of the street behind her. Some were filming on their phones. How long had they been there? 

Uh-oh. This joke might have gone a little too far…  

Juliana decided she wasn’t going to make it to that costume party after all.

“Anyway, I’ve gotta split. See you…never, I hope?”

She turned back in the direction of her own dorm, tore into a running start on her skates, and sped away. 

“Hey—uh, Zoruva, wait!” 

She didn’t dare look back. 

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to….

Juliana turned over and pulled the pillow on top of her head. 

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to…

Her Rotom-Phone simply flopped itself flat on her bed and inched underneath the pillow, vibrating and flashing the light of its screen all the while. She squeezed her eyes shut, determined to ignore it. 

Until it began bumping into her cheek. Persistently.

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to…

“Ugh! What?!” Juliana finally croaked, lifting the pillow off her face and accepting the call. 

“Is this…Juliana Vega?” asked a heavily distorted voice.

“Depends,” she yawned, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “Who’s asking at the ungodly hour of…” 

The clock in the upper left corner of the screen came into focus. 

7:56AM. 

She cursed loudly.

Juliana leaped from her bed, but her foot got caught in the cheap jersey fitted sheet where it had wiggled off the corner of the rock-hard dorm mattress, causing her to tumble face-first onto the weirdly patterned gray carpet. Her bandaged palms yelped in protest when she tried to break her fall. 

She had a class in four minutes. On the other side of campus. 

Her second day of college had only just started, and it wasn’t looking any better than the first. 

Kicking her foot free, she staggered to the particle board dresser that came with the room, yanked open the middle drawer, and snatched out the first pair of shorts she touched. 

“You can call me Cassiopeia,” said the voice in her phone. 

While tugging on the shorts, she hopped to the mirror on the back of her room door. 

“And why—would I—do that?” 

Luckily, she’d slept in yesterday’s makeup. She tried to smudge her eyeliner back into some semblance of order. 

“I know your secret, Juliana.”

She snorted as she dug around for socks, settling on two that didn’t match, but were close enough. 

“Yeah, well, I know what you did last summer. This is a weird time of day for a prank call,” she snapped, lacing up her regular sneakers. Juliana lunged toward the mini-fridge she and Nemona shared, snagged an energy drink, and slammed it shut. 

Finally, she grabbed her longboard by the door, and—fresh out of free hands—stuck her Rotom-Phone in her teeth. 

Now if I can just get down there—

She froze, patting her pockets. 

Oh, no—where are my keys? 

She eyed the monstrous pile of laundry by the foot of her bed with a long, guttural groan. The robotic voice in her phone piped up, its vibrations buzzing in her teeth.

“I know you’re Zoruva.”

Chapter Text

“I know you’re Zoruva.”

Juliana, desperately turning out and shaking down the empty pockets of every pair of pants in the pile of laundry like they owed her money, didn’t even flinch. 

“Not familiar with that one,” Juliana said, after dropping her phone from her teeth and hitting the speaker button. “Is it new? I prefer bisexual. And I came out, like, years ago, so you can’t exactly blackmail me with it.”

As she reached a stratum of clothes that were definitely at least a few days old, she gave up. Her keys couldn’t be in the laundry. But if not, then where were they?

“…What? No. Zoruva. The…the one who declared war on the Star Crossers last night?”

Darting around the still-dark room, she searched every surface for her keychain. Not on the blocky bedside table. Not on top of the dresser, either…

“The skater in the Zorua mask? The one that everyone’s talking about? All over the Grapevine Student News’s account on Igglystagram?”

Juliana flung open the mirrored sliding door of the closet. There, on the floor, next to the remains of her costume from last night, she spotted them: Her keys! 

That’s right, she thought, snatching them up. I came straight in and stripped out of all of it.  Ugh! Why did I just leave the keys in here and completely forget them the second they were out of my sight?

Her eyes landed on the plastic mask.

“It’s a Zoroark mask. Not a Zorua mask,” she corrected, as her brain finally caught up to what this Cassiopeia person was saying. Then she froze. 

Zoruva.

She clapped a hand over her mouth as it all came rushing back.

“I mean…uh…that doesn’t ring a bell?” Juliana lied. 

“Nice try, but I already know for a fact it’s you.”

Abruptly remembering that she still had a class to get to, Juliana grabbed her phone off the floor, tapped the speaker button again, slung her backpack over her right shoulder, snagged her longboard, and flew out the door.

“…How’d you get my number?”

“Registrar’s office database.”

“That…doesn’t answer my question!” 

She held the phone between her ear and shoulder as her shoes squeaked rapidly down the purple linoleum-tiled hallway of her dorm building, passing a couple of bleary-eyed girls in clubbing clothes shuffling in the other direction. Sprinting by them, she caught only one word of their whispering—and it quickened her already frantic pulse.

“Sure it does. I got your number from there the same way I got the list of students who purchased Zoroark masks like yours from the school store in the last week,” Cassiopeia said. 

Juliana vaulted out of the building, leaping onto her longboard as soon as her feet hit the street and kicking off furiously. The morning air rushing past made the big crewneck sweatshirt she’d slept in billow up like a sail, as though she were windsurfing on a brick sea.

“Then I just had to cross-reference the student ID card database for the heights and weights of those students. You’re the only one short enough to fit the description.”

Juliana blanched, suddenly sick to her stomach. Her board slowed as she stopped pushing. 

“…Are you stalking me?” she whispered after a moment. 

“No! It-it’s not like that, I swear! I…listen, I know the hacking stuff sounds dodgy, but I just really needed to talk—“

She tapped the red End Call button and shoved the phone in her back pocket. 

The whole way to class, one name was on the lips of every student she blew by: Zoruva. 

Double-checking the apartment number against the text message, Juliana knocked on the door.

It was opened by a lanky guy who looked like he might’ve just woken up, still in what appeared to be pajamas even though it was after 6PM. His hair, bleached silvery white, looked slept-on. But his hazel eyes were bright and sharp, and the black-and-purple GRAPES OF WRATH tank he was wearing confirmed that she was in the right place. 

“Hey, you must be my newest teammate! Juliana, right? Good to meet ya,” he said, offering an easy smile and clasping her hand. “C’mon in, welcome to Casa Drayster.”

She thanked him and stepped inside. The door led into a cozy living room with a few soft-looking old sofas and a beanbag in the shape of a Dragonite arranged around a coffee table. The living room was connected to an even cozier open kitchen, and a hallway further inside.

“Sorry again that I couldn’t make it to the kickoff party last night.”

He waved her apology off. “Nah, no worries. I get it. Stomach bugs are a total drag. You’ll get to meet the rest of the team soon enough, anyhow. Oh—but before I forget, lemme go grab what you came here for! Have a seat, make yourself at home.”

He padded off down the hallway and out of sight. 

Juliana found herself drawn into the kitchen.

Cheerful yellow cabinets smiled above a kitschy sunflower-patterned tile floor. Matching yellow-checked curtains adorned the window above the sink, which looked out to the tree on the street below, reddening bashfully with the lateness of the year. Apricot evening light poured in. On the sill, a small yet lovingly tended and perky collection of herbs grew in upcycled tea canisters.

She stepped around the space slowly, spellbound. 

Wicker bins of potatoes and onions, an expensive-looking blender, a set of well-oiled wooden cutting boards and an intricately carved knife block cluttered up the counters. Next to the stove, a large ceramic cup in the shape of a Fidough held wooden spoons and tongs, with a stack of knitted potholders in a small basket beside it. 

An array of gleaming cast-iron skillets in varying sizes and a green apron hung on hooks from a large pegboard on the back wall. On an open shelf above one of the counters lived an assortment of cookbooks, some of them slightly yellowed with age, others glossy and new. Their colors and sizes, varying yet harmonious, reminded Juliana of the connected brownstones on her childhood neighborhood street in Nacrene City. She ran her index finger along the row of titles as though it were a lover’s spine.

In the center of it all was a round kitchen table with a tablecloth in the same checked fabric as the curtains, four charmingly mismatched chairs seated around it, and an ample bowl of fresh fruit in the center. 

It felt so…loved, this room. Lived-in and homey, in a way that the spaces inhabited by students seldom were. It was hard to cultivate warmth like this in a place that didn’t truly feel like your own, knowing you’d be moving back out in only a year or two—and there was little reason to bother, given that your real home was somewhere else anyway. 

Drayton has immaculate taste, Juliana thought. I’ll have to invent more reasons to come over just to hang out in here. 

She bent to admire the set of protective mitts draped over the oven handle, giggling at the cute Maschiff print, and felt something brush against her leg.

A large, gray, fluffy, and very old-looking Pokémon was sniffing at her curiously. 

Her face lit up. “Hi!” she chuckled, offering her hand for him to smell. He bumped his big nose against it clumsily, and his tail began to wag, drumming a happy beat against the wooden cabinet. 

“Aren’t you a sweetie?” she swooned, gently rubbing a floppy ear. He had a face like an adorable old man, droopy and covered in a beard that had faded to mostly white. The matching white eyebrows above his cloudy orange-gold eyes were permanently upturned, giving him an expression that was almost sad, but that wagging tail was unmistakeable in its joy.

“Mabosstiff!” called a voice from somewhere deeper within the apartment. He ignored the summons so summarily that she wondered if he was truly deaf, or just selectively so. 

Sugar-faced, her mom called these gentle old Pokémon. They were both absolute suckers for them. Kneeling down, she planted a smooch on his stubby snout. 

The tempo of that thumping tail increased as he returned the kiss with slobbery licks on her cheeks. Closing her eyes, Juliana belly-laughed at the ticklish feeling. 

“Mabosstiff, c’mere bud, it’s time for your ba—“

She opened her eyes toward the voice that had come nearer and instantly shrieked, recoiling backward and slamming into the cabinet. An equally startled scream answered.

Standing in Drayton’s kitchen, wearing nothing more than a pair of boxers, was him. 

Mister Paldea. Jerkface. Mr. Wrong. Blondie. Arven.

“What are YOU doing here?!” they both screeched. 

“What am I doing here?! I was invited—why are you here, and w-why are you—?!” she hoarsely sputtered, averting her eyes from all the skin and muscle on display. 

Why couldn’t he just be secretly ugly underneath those preppy clothes?!

“Why am I—I live here!”

Drawn by the shouting, Drayton returned with the rolled-up t-shirt and liability waiver that Juliana should have picked up at last night’s party. He regarded them both with a quizzical brow as he stepped in between them and spoke slowly.

“Arven, this is my roller derby teammate, Juliana. Juliana, this is my roommate, Arven. Or…d’you two already know each other?” 

“Yeah, and I wish I didn’t,” Arven snapped. “This…reckless little…Evel KeSneasel over here nearly killed us both yesterday!”

“Ha! You walked away without a scratch. And I would’ve, too, if you hadn’t jumped in front of me like some con man running an insurance fraud scheme!” 

She hoped they’d both attribute her red face entirely to anger. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Drayton said, raising his hands. “Chill out, both of you. Clearly there’s a story here, and I’m keen to hear it, but take the volume down about ten notches. And…Arven,” he chuckled, untying the purple hoodie from around his waist and tossing it at him, “Put some clothes on in front of our guest, will ya?”

“This court will come to order. Mr…Arven, was it? Your opening statement, please.”

“Opening…what? Drayton, who is this girl?!”

“My name is Lacey. But in my courtroom, you may address me as Your Honor,” she replied, tucking her shoulder-length pastel pink hair behind her ear. She clicked her glitter gel pen and wielded it against the page of her notebook like a lancet. “Anyway, as I said, it’s time for your opening statement, Petitioner. Not for questions.”

“Your courtroom? This is my kitchen! Ugh, Drayton, why’d you have to bring her into this?” Arven groaned, getting up from the chair across from Lacey. 

He’d put on a v-neck shirt and sweatpants that Juliana thought were only marginally less indecent than his previous lack of an outfit. This guy was so hot that it physically annoyed her, like there was a horde of angry Beedrill buzzing under her skin. 

Lacey’s strong brows snapped into a V-shape, glowering at Arven across the kitchen table. Arven sat back down, shrinking into the chair. 

Somehow, the fuzzy pink sweater and cotton candy hair make that withering glare even scarier—like a demon choosing to look like a child, Juliana thought. I like her!

“Because I’m too involved with both of you to be impartial,” Drayton explained, leaning back in his chair across from Juliana with a smirk. “‘Sides, Lace is a pre-law major. I called her ‘cause she’s way more qualified to judge you two than I am.”

Juliana raised an eyebrow. 

You just didn’t feel like dealing with this yourself, did you? she thought. Clever.

“I suppose I have a conflict of interest too—Juliana is my Grapes of Wrath teammate just as much as she is yours, Drayton,” Lacey chided. “Still, she and I haven’t properly met before now, so I see that connection as minor enough to be overlooked. Will you agree to waive this apparent conflict of interest, Arven?”

“…Sure? Let’s just get this over with. I still need to give Mabosstiff his bath, and I’m starving!”

Mabosstiff, evidently exhausted by all the commotion, had laid down underneath the table, flopping onto his side. Though he was technically at Arven’s feet, he seemed to have deliberately positioned himself to keep Juliana’s warm, and she rewarded this kindness by occasionally reaching down to scritch in between his fluffy shoulders. Arven glared suspiciously each time she did. 

“Very well. Juliana, our Respondent, if we could have your opening statement, please.” 

“Her opening statement—wait a minute, what about mine?” Arven blurted. 

“Order in my courtroom,” Lacey commanded, striking a large wooden spoon against the tabletop like a gavel. Every time she moved, a little cloud of her jasmine-cotton candy-orange blossom perfume wafted through the air. “You already used your opening statement to ask Drayton why he invited me here. It’s our Respondent’s turn to speak now.”

Juliana cleared her throat. “Yesterday morning, I was skating to class on my longboard. I was running late, so I was kind of in a hurry. And I’m new to the campus, so I don’t know every incline and hill around here yet. I didn’t realize the street I was on had such a steep slope…or that it had a blind curve…or a nasty uneven spot in the sidewalk…or that there was a cross-street near the end of it,” she admitted. 

“But all of that would’ve been just fine, had this…clueless idiot with no spatial awareness—“ she added, pointing an accusing finger at Arven to her right, “—not decided to launch himself straight into the intersection without even looking! Because of that, I ended up with two bloody knees and a skinned hand! And he didn’t offer so much as an ‘excuse me’ or ‘sorry I maimed you’. Nope, he just asked me what my problem was and called me stupid!”

“I see,” Lacey said, writing something in the sparkly pink notebook in front of her. “Thank you. Arven, you may now question the witness.”

He snorted. 

“Why were you going so fast?”

“I already told you—I was in a hurry and I didn’t realize it was downhill!”

“And that’s an excuse for endangering yourself and any poor schmuck in your path?” 

“Oh, c’mon, it was an accident, I—“

“If you’re gonna ride that thing, don’t you have a responsibility to be careful about it?”

“That’s—I was late—“

“Couldn’t you have just left home earlier? Who’s late on their first day?”

Juliana just sighed, crossing her arms and looking up at the ceiling. It was impossible to talk to this guy. 

“No further questions,” he said. 

“Very well,” Lacey replied, taking more notes. “Respondent, your witness.”

“Why did you walk into the intersection without even stopping to look?” Juliana asked, narrowing her eyes as she sat up.

“It’s a pedestrian street!”

“And? That’s not what I asked.”

Drayton and Lacey’s heads whipped back and forth between the two of them like they were watching an especially tense tennis match. 

Arven growled at her, hands balling into fists. “Excuse me if I don’t constantly expect to be accosted by some…little…wrecking ball when I’m walking down the street!”

He leaned in toward her, clenching his jaw. 

“I was just trying to eat my breakfast on my way to class, and I didn’t even get to enjoy more than a bite of it before you smashed it to smithereens!”

“Mmm, smithereens. Most classic thing to be smashed into,” Drayton remarked to Lacey, scooching his chair closer to hers with a conspiratorial half-smile.

“So you admit that you were distracted?” Juliana asked, raising an eyebrow and sneering.

“That’s not—“

She moved to the edge of her seat, facing him straight on. 

“You were so engrossed in taking a bite of this precious sandwich of yours that you didn’t even think about your surroundings?”

“Now you wait just a—I don’t see why—“

His teeth were bared like he wanted to put them to her throat. The thought pulled her in closer, made her trace the sharp outlines of her own canines with her tongue and eye the pulse point on his neck.

“Do you not have a responsibility to look both ways before you cross the street, for your own safety and the safety of anyone who might have to swerve to avoid you?”

He huffed. She caught his breath in her own. “Don’t be ridic—“

“Hell, doesn’t any five-year-old know that?”

“Uhhh…objection?” Drayton interjected, his expression an odd mixture of amusement and unease. 

Locking eyes again and realizing they were practically in each other’s laps, Arven and Juliana scooted apart, settling back into their chairs with calculated nonchalance.

Lacey was eyeing the two of them like a Noctowl. “Sustained,” she said, throwing a loaded glance to Drayton. “Juliana, that will conclude your questioning. We’ll move on to closing statements now. Arven?”

“My closing statement is that this…Kangaskhan court is pointless, because even though we can all agree that the whole thing was her fault, that still won’t bring back my breakfast sandwich! And I got up extra early to make that maple bacon…”

“Petitioner, you are this close—“ Lacey threatened, pinching her fingers together, “—to being held in contempt.”

Arven sputtered, hands gesturing around in frustration, but he fell silent. 

“Only way anyone’s ever gonna hold you, with that attitude,” Juliana muttered, choking back a giggle. 

Arven shot her a death glare that only sharpened her desire to eat him alive. Perhaps in more ways than one.

Lacey pointedly cleared her throat.

“Since you’ve both chosen to forfeit your closing statements, we’ll move right along to the judgment. In the matter of the collision that occurred at Uva Plaza yesterday, this court finds you…both equally liable.”

“What?!” they cried in unison.

“Respondent, you did have a greater responsibility to exercise caution and yield to pedestrians given that you were the one on wheels. But seeing as your damages were also significantly more severe than Petitioner’s—and Petitioner failed to seize the last clear chance to avoid the accident by looking both ways before he entered the intersection—it evens out, in the end. Therefore, you are hereby ordered to apologize to each other.” 

“I’m not apologizing to him!”

“That’s something we can agree on!” Arven snapped. 

“Friends, friends,” Drayton said. “All this blood-boiling and browbeating is no good. Let’s put it to a vote. All those in favor of an armistice, raise your hand.”

Drayton’s own hand went up, joined by Lacey’s.

“All those opposed?”

Juliana and Arven’s hands shot into the air. 

“Looks like we need a tiebreaker,” Drayton mused. “Mabosstiff, what d’you think? Gimme one woof for peace, two for war.”

Arven looked smug. Mabosstiff didn’t move from his spot under the table, but his tail thumped against the floor.

A single deep “Woof!” reverberated through the kitchen.

The smirk slipped off Arven’s face. “Hey! Whose side are you on, bud?”

“Sounds like you’ve been overruled,” Drayton said, shrugging. “Alright, Juliana, you first.”

She didn’t look at Arven, choosing instead to focus on Mabosstiff’s sweet face. “Sorry I T-boned you,” she grumbled. 

“Beautiful. Your turn, Arven.”

He sighed, eyes cast down at her bandaged knees. “Sorry for not looking.”

Chapter Text

“Watch out!” Lacey, Crispin, and Amarys shouted in unison.

Juliana, skating backwards around the derby track with them to warm up, snapped her chin over her shoulder. She cut hard to the left to avoid the shape in her path. Exiting the tape-lined boundary at the outer edge of the track, she spun out and lost her balance, falling to the vinyl gymnasium floor and landing on her back with a thud. The impact knocked the wind out of her.

Staring high up into the rafters and ductwork as she wheezed, a familiar face popped into her view. 

Of course, she thought. Why would it be anyone else?

“Uh…sorry?” Arven said, grimacing.

“We gotta—stop meeting—like this,” she croaked, glaring at him. The near-asthmatic gasping cost her sarcasm most of its bite. 

He offered her a hand up. She rolled her eyes and popped to her feet on her own, trying not to visibly wince when she pushed her weight off her still-bandaged right palm. 

“Ugh! Why can’t I get away from you?” she groaned. “First you’re in my way on the street, then you’re…” she trailed off, catching herself before she could accidentally admit to their second encounter, when her masked alter ego saved him from those starry-eyed punks. “—Half-naked in my friend’s kitchen,” she blurted instead. “Now you’re making me swerve around you at practice?!”

“I said I was sorry! It was an accident, I—“

“Oh, so now it matters that it’s an accident. What are you even doing here?”

“Hey, roomie!” Drayton called out from behind her, waving as he glided into a plow stop next to them on the sidelines.

Swinging by their fluorescent purple laces from Arven’s fingertips was a pair of quad skates. He handed them to Drayton.

“Thanks! I owe ya one. My ma’s always saying I’d forget my own head at home if it wasn’t attached to my neck,” Drayton chuckled. 

“What’d you need these for if you’re already wearing those?” Arven asked, pointing at Drayton’s skate-shod feet. 

“Oh—uh, ‘cause these are my spares. In case of, y’know…emergencies,” Drayton said, his mouth twisting. “Aaaaanyways, I see you and Lickety Splits here have buried the hatchet and are best buds now, huh?” 

“Lickety-who?” Arven asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Tickety-boo!” Drayton laughed. “That’s right—you weren’t home when I threw the team kickoff party on Monday, so you’re not familiar with everyone’s real names or derby names, are you? On the track, I go by Dray-co Meteor. Get it? And Juliana is Lickety Splits.”

“…Why do they call you Lickety—“

With a deadpan stare, Juliana sank to the floor in a heel split, legs akimbo, balancing on only the back wheels of each skate as her toes pointed toward the ceiling. She shrugged. “No clue.”

It didn’t matter that this wasn’t the real reason for the nickname—the look on his face as he doubled over in a coughing fit was priceless. 

While she stood back up, Drayton patted Arven on the back until he recovered, side-eyeing both of them. Then he turned to the track behind them, where the others were skating around to warm up, their jokes and laughter filling the space.  

“As for the rest of the team, you met Lacey,” he said, pointing at her as she blew by on her bright pink wheels. She waved and did a little pirouette. “But here, she’s the fine and fearsome Fairly Legal.”

He waved back to Lacey with a warm smile, then pointed out the others. 

“That’s Amarys, or as we call her, Steel Wings. And over there’s Crispin, a.k.a. Hot Wheelz. With a ‘z’.”

“Oh—I know him,” Arven said, tapping his chin. “I mean, I’ve never spoken to him. But I had a couple classes with him last year.”

A tall girl with long black hair loose under her helmet skated out of the locker room and up to them, tightly circling the group like a Carvanha before she stopped. Her intense gold-hazel eyes were framed with soot-black eyeliner, and her black t-shirt read BITE ME.

“Who’re these two randos, Dray?” she asked, unsubtly sizing Juliana up. She was mean-girl pretty, and carried herself in a way that suggested she was very aware of it.

“If it isn’t Carmine! This is Juliana, the one who couldn’t make it to the kickoff party. And my roommate, Arven.”

“Gosh, how sweet of you to finally grace us with your presence,” Carmine gushed, tone dripping with sarcasm. “I’ve heard so much about you. Drayton wouldn’t shut up about how you were one of the best jammers in the Unovan junior league. Thanks for doing us the honor of showing your face at our humble little team practice!”

Juliana cocked an eyebrow, looking her up and down. “Nice to meet you, too?” 

“Heyyy, Sucker Punch, could you do me a favor and go ask Kiki if he’ll take stopwatch duty today during the timed drills?” Drayton asked Carmine, elbowing her in the ribs.

“Sucker Punch? With those prickly manners, you really oughta call her Spiky Shield,” Arven said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Staring daggers at both Juliana and Arven, Carmine skated off toward the bleachers, where she barked something at a scrawny-looking freshman boy that Juliana felt like she recognized from move-in day.

“Don’t mind her, Splits,” Drayton chuckled. “Carm’s…chilly around new people, but once you get to know her, she’ll have your back like nobody’s business. Or...so I'm told. She's one of the best blockers on the team, though. That’s why we call her Sucker Punch!”

“Although, heh heh, that Spiky Shield line was good, roomie,” Drayton added, lightly punching him in the chest. Arven stumbled backwards. “Look at you! Yesterday you couldn’t stand Juliana, and today you’re leaping to her defense. Warms my heart.”

“I am not!” Arven huffed, brushing some lint off his sweatshirt. “I just—didn’t care for that girl’s attitude, is all.”

“Psh, you’re one to talk about attitude,” Juliana jabbed, taking a step toward him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think?”

“Man, this is why I can’t get along with you!”

“Hey, hey, easy!” Drayton laughed, stepping in between them on his toe stops before they could get any closer. “Save some room for Arceus, you two. Now, how ‘bout it, Splits? You ready to jump into your first Grapes of Wrath practice?”

“You sure it’s a good idea to let…Juliana on your team, Drayton?” Arven asked, stumbling over her name even as he puffed up his chest and stuck out his chin defiantly.

Not like it’s hard to pronounce, she thought. Maybe he doesn’t like the way it tastes. He should keep it out of that pretty mouth, then.

“She’s gotta be the worst skater I’ve ever seen. Can’t get more than a few feet without running into someone or falling over and getting hurt,” Arven spat, leering at her. 

“Well, y’know, the funny thing about roller derby is that it’s a lot of running into people and falling over…” Drayton began to explain. But Juliana heard none of it over the whistling steam coming out of her ears.

Her sneer had turned bloodthirsty, half-manic. “You mark those words,” she warned, pointing at Arven. 

With every intention of making him not just eat them, but swallow them whole, she tore off down the track.

Lowering her stance and sharply accelerating on the straightaway, Juliana nimbly zipped through the rest of the team around the first curve, delighting in Carmine’s yelp of surprise as she left her in the dust. She entered the second straightaway without slowing down at all. 

Then, centering her concentration while still rolling, she stepped forward on her right foot to spring up and leap into the air, tucking her arms in and feet together. Rapidly rotating her body once, twice, then one more half-turn, Juliana landed facing backwards on her left foot, knee bent deep, with her right leg extended and arms held out as gracefully as a ballerina’s. 

Cheers and claps echoed off the whitewashed concrete walls, drowning out Carmine’s acidic call of “Under-rotated!”

Juliana’s satisfied smirk deepened. Guess all those winter mornings getting up early to freeze my ass off at figure skating practice weren’t for nothing!

Pushing hard to regain speed through the second curve, she sliced off the track on the straightaway and flew like an arrow right toward Arven. That smug expression of his had died screaming—or maybe she’d just stolen it to wear herself.

She watched him flinch in alarm as she approached, letting him believe that she was about to go wrecking ball mode once again. 

Then at the last second, she carved a perfect powerslide, squeaking to a stop mere inches from that irritatingly gorgeous face. The fear flickered. He cocked his head to the side, mouth falling open. 

“Worst skater you’ve ever seen, huh?”

Arven’s brow furrowed. Shaking his head slightly, his eyes dropped. “Anyone…could do that…” 

He spoke so softly that it sounded less like an insult than a question he was asking himself, but Juliana picked it up and sharpened it into a barb anyway. 

“Oh, really? You think you could do better? Please, be my guest, I would love to see you try,” she shot back, prodding him with a smile that showed all her teeth. “In fact, why don’t you just join the practice, since you seem determined to show up everywhere I go? I’ll take you as a teammate, but the last thing I need is a second stalker.” 

Fury had her spitting sentences with no input from her brain.

Arven’s eyes widened. He looked almost exactly as he did in that moment right after their first collision, before he’d suddenly morphed into an insult comic. His voice stayed low. “Wait, what do you mean by that? Someone’s been bothering you?”

“How nice of you to offer, Splits!” Drayton clapped. “Wanna join us, bud? We’re always looking for fresh meat! Seriously, we need more players. Can’t actually play with the Skeledirge crew we have.”

“I was kidding,” Juliana spat. “With that pretty face, he wouldn’t last half a jam.”

Arven shook off whatever had been vice-gripping his thoughts and scowled at her, ears red. “What do you—I could totally do it! I just…uh, my skating skills are…a little rusty.”

“Well, that’s no problem! The Grapes of Wrath pride ourselves on open doors. We win, we lose, we have a good ol’ rowdy time, and we can teach anybody the ropes,” Drayton said, folding his arms behind his head.

“Ha! Who’s we?” Juliana snarked.

“We is you, Splits,” Drayton drawled, smirk sharpening as he tapped her on the nose. “For your enthusiastic efforts to recruit a new member to the team, I’m appointing you to be our official…Outreach Chair! How about that—only your first practice, and you’re already moving up the ranks. Your first task will be to teach Arven here everything he needs to know about the fine sport of flat-track roller derby.”

I liked Drayton’s offload-problems-onto-others strategy before, she thought. Being on the receiving end of it…not so much.

“But—he doesn’t even have skates!” Juliana sputtered. 

Drayton squinted at Arven’s sneakers, placing his own foot next to them. “What size d’you wear, roomie? Eleven? You look like an eleven. Here, my spares oughta fit ya. Bet we can scare up a helmet and some loaner pads, too.” 

Drayton handed a baffled Arven back the very same pair of skates he delivered to him just a few minutes earlier. 

“Your spares?” Arven asked. “I thought you said you needed them for emergencies?”

“This is an emergency,” Drayton chuckled, gliding away to the center of the gym to lead the team practice before either of them could protest further. As he went, he muttered something under his breath that Juliana didn’t catch.

“Look at me.”

But he didn’t.

“No,” Juliana snapped, squeezing his hands to get his attention. “Not at your feet. At me. Only at me.”

“S-Sorry,” Arven stammered, locking eyes with her under the floodlights and swallowing like it took great effort.

Am I really so hideous to him that he can hardly stand to look at me? She rolled her eyes.

The empty tennis court out behind the gymnasium was a convenient place to practice. Perfectly level and smooth, and it was one of the more forgiving surfaces to fall on. 

Which Juliana predicted that Arven was going to do a lot of in the next hour, assuming he lasted that long. Not that he’d feel those falls much through the helmet and bulky knee and elbow pads she’d strapped him into before he laced up his skates and stood, wobbly and uncertain as a baby Deerling.

“‘My skating skills are a little rusty,’ my ass,” she snorted. “You’ve never done this before.“

“Well…I—“

“Don’t lie. That wasn’t a question.”

Her gaze fell to the hands she was holding. 

The backs were roped with a delta of strong tendons that branched up his forearms. Scarred by an encyclopedic collection of old burns and cuts. Long, elegant fingers. Nails carefully clipped almost to the quick. Calloused upper palms. Rugged, yet dexterous.

These were not the idle hands of a spoiled rich boy. They whispered a story, though she didn’t yet speak their language well enough to know what they were saying. 

Juliana licked her lips. Her mind raced with thoughts of what these hands did, what they could do, what she wished they would do, what she wanted to do with them. 

Why does he have to have such sexy hands, too, on top of everything else? 

Sweat slicked between his palms and her own.

“Sorry, I—uh. Cook’s hands. I know they’re…rough.”

Cook’s hands?

She flashed back to the gorgeous kitchen at Drayton’s apartment that she had wandered around so fondly yesterday, until someone came barging through in his boxers.

Oh. When he told Lacey it was his kitchen…

She wanted to shove her knees into her eye sockets and scream herself hoarse. 

“No, it’s…fine,” she finally said, clearing her throat and forcing herself to make eye contact again. “Cut it out with the apologies, will you? Yesterday you wouldn’t even entertain the word, today it’s all you know how to say. There’s no ‘sorry’ in roller derby, you know.”

“Sor—I mean, uh, got it.”

“Good. First thing you’re gonna learn is how to stand still without rolling around or falling. This is called a T-stop,” Juliana said, demonstrating. “You just turn one foot perpendicular to the other and squeeze them together, heel to inside arch, like this.“

Arven was too tense to pick up his foot, so he had to jerkily pivot it into position like he was reversing a car in a tight space. But after a few tries, he managed to get there. She released his hands.

“See? Long as you stay like that, you’re not going anywhere. Even with your balance."

His arms stayed cautiously out at his sides, but he soon relaxed enough to let them drop. 

“Huh. Okay, this isn’t so bad.”

“Don’t get cocky. Second lesson is falling.”

He snorted. “You think I can’t figure that one out myself?”

“Falling safely, so you don’t get hurt. Much. For a backwards fall—“ she explained, turning and skating back about ten feet before swinging back around and letting herself tip into the ground, “—you gotta pick a cheek, and keep your hands and head up.”

“Pick a—wait, why not try to catch yourself?”

“You’re right, I must not know what I’m talking about! You can do that if you want. Instead of a cheek, just pick which wrist you’d prefer to snap.” She flashed him a saccharine smile as she picked herself back up. 

He scowled at her, but his brows had drawn together with anxiety. “…Really? …Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. I can’t afford to break my wrists.”

Pretty sure they’ll x-ray you and splint it for free at the student health center, she thought. And even if they didn’t, you dress like you’ve never had to worry about a medical bill in your life. 

Does he just mean he’s a baby about pain? I was right. He won’t last half a jam.

“No problem, princess! We’ll just tell Drayton you couldn’t handle it and quit,” she said, giddy, already turning to skate back toward the back door of the gymnasium where everyone else was getting to do juking drills right now.

“Wait! No. I…I can do it.” He was studying his wrists and hands with a trepidation that made her feel…not nauseous, but something similar.

Maybe it’s…a glimmer of respect? Because even if he is insufferable, stuck-up, arrogant, and Lechonk-headed…at least he’s not a quitter?

Sure. Let’s go with that.

She groaned. The cool night air was split by the ripping sound of velcro being unstuck. 

“Here,” she sighed, removing her reinforced wrist guards and chucking them at him. “For your precious wrists. Probably a little small on you, but better than nothing. If I’d had those on when…well, I wouldn’t have skinned up my hand or ruined your shirt.”

He caught them, annoyingly kissable lips slightly parted, pulling into a tiny smile. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t fall in love with me over it,” she snarked, and giggled when his expression twisted with annoyance. “Still try to hold ‘em up, though. Those’ll help, but you need to build the habit, because if you hit hard enough…”

He’d finished putting them on. “Anyway. Ready to fall now, sweet cheeks?”

He growled at her. But he took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut in determination.

Like a Magikarp using Splash, nothing happened.

“Relax. Bend your knees and tip back.”

He still didn’t budge. Juliana skated up closer, facing him. 

“Bend them more than that. No, more than that. Ugh, just…stick your ass out! Bend ‘em so much that you feel silly,” she commanded.

His temples were dusted pink as he gritted his teeth and opened one eye to glare at her. “I’ve felt silly the whole time!”

“Know what? I’ve got a better idea.”

She hip-checked him. Gently, by her standards. 

He crashed backward with a shriek and landed ass-first, head and hands in the air. Perfect form. Staring up at her with a look of complete betrayal, she was almost proud.

“What was that for?”

Giggling, she couldn’t resist resting one foot on his chest. Why didn’t I realize how much fun it would be to mess with him like this? I could almost thank Drayton right now. 

“Helping you lose your fall virginity,” she replied, smugly grinning down at him as he sputtered and blushed.

“First one’s the worst. Rest will be easier. And if you don’t like getting touched, grabbed, and knocked into, trust me—this really isn’t the sport for—“

His nose was bleeding. 

“—You. Um, uh-oh…”

He must’ve felt it, eyes widening. Arven moved to pinch his nose, forgetting the wrist guards on his hands, and stained the stiff baby-blue material red.

“Shit—sorry—I mean, uh, my bad—“

Juliana sighed. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

She skated back into the gym, retrieved some paper towels from the adjoining bathroom, and returned. He had removed the wrist guards and was kneeling on the court on his knee pads, head tipped back while he pinched his nose. She handed him the paper towels, which he pressed against the flow of blood.

“This happens to you a lot, huh?” she asked.

“Yeah—wait. How’d you know that?”

She froze. “Uh…you just…look like someone who gets nosebleeds easily.” 

Arven stared up at her for a second too long, just enough to make her sweat, then shrugged. “Creative insult, I guess. And…I am sorry about the wrist…things. I’ll wash them and get them back to you.” 

“S’okay. Not the first time they’ve had blood on them.”

He removed the paper towels, wrinkling his nose at that comment. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. He wiped his face with the clean edge, then she offered him a hand up.

He sneered, incredulous. 

“C’mon, you couldn’t possibly pick me—Yeeeaaarrrgh!”

She’d hauled him to his feet by one arm before he could even finish the sentence. “Hm? What was that?” she taunted.

His face was red again. Clearly someone’s too proud to handle being proven wrong, she thought. Or just fragile about a girl being strong enough to toss him around!

“But…you’re…tiny!” he stammered. “How…?”

“I’ve been playing a full-contact sport since I was thirteen, Pretty Boy. You think I made it this far in one piece by skipping the gym?”

A flush of angry scarlet burned like wildfire from the tips of his ears to the collar of his sweatshirt, making those swoon-worthy green eyes pop. She’d rendered him speechless.

Her mouth tugged into a half smile. ‘Pretty Boy’ makes him so mad that he shuts up. Good to know!

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to….

Juliana pulled her phone out of the pocket of her compression shorts. The screen was flashing ‘NO CALLER ID’.

With a frustrated sigh, she skated a few feet away and silently answered. 

“Cassiopeia here,” the artificially deep voice said, confirming her suspicion.

“I blocked your number. Why didn’t it stay blocked?” she snapped, trying to keep her voice low. 

“Well, there’s this thing called ‘spoofing’—“

“You know what? I don’t care. Just…what do you want from me?”

“Cutting right to the chase, I see. It’s about the Star Crossers. Those troublemakers you trounced on Monday. Am I…correct in thinking you don’t actually know anything about them?”

“Does it matter if I do?” Curling her fingers through the holes in the chain link fence around the perimeter, her annoyance grew.

“Jeez, you’re…really not how I imagined you’d be, you know? Aren’t superheroes usually…? Anyway. The Star Crossers are a group of…skating enthusiasts formed by some students a while back. They caused some headaches for the school, and now they try to bring other students down to their level. And I refuse to sit idly by and let them get away with it.”

Juliana said nothing, rolling around the court and letting her silence speak for itself. 

“So…I've come up with a plan to bring down the Star Crossers and force them to disband for good. I call it...Operation Starfall! But I'll need allies to carry out this operation...and I'd like you, as Zoruva, to be one of them,” the voice said. 

“Why should I?” Juliana replied. “In fact, why shouldn’t I just turn you in to the campus police for harassing me?” 

“Well, for one, you don’t know who I really am,” the voice said. “And for two, I know who you really are. I could expose Zoruva’s true identity. Which would be a problem for you…as I’m sure you know.”

“Why?”

“Oh, so you didn’t read the press release after the Zoruva ‘declaring war on the Star Crossers’ video went viral, then? Uva’s administration has threatened to take disciplinary action against Zoruva if they’re caught. They don’t want anyone getting involved with the Star Crossers, including vigilantes going against them. So…hypothetically, I could anonymously send my intel about Zoruva’s identity to the Grapevine Student News…and that would be pretty unfortunate for Juliana Vega’s academic career. If you catch my drift.”

Juliana laughed darkly. “So you’re not just stalking me. You’re also blackmailing me.”

“Look, I don’t want to! And—I’m not saying I will! You just asked me why you shouldn’t go snitching about my hacking activities, and I told you.”

“How chivalrous of you.”

The robotic voice sighed. “You don’t need to give me your answer right this second. We can discuss the details later. Just…give Operation Starfall some thought, will you? This campus needs a hero, and I think you could be it.”

A hero. Arven had called her that, too…

Nope. Wrong, she reminded herself. He called Zoruva a hero. He’d never in a million years call Juliana one. 

Zoruva is cool and competent, mysterious and sexy. Zoruva rescues innocent hotties from bullies. Zoruva puts on a mask and saves people. 

But Juliana…crashes into them and makes them hate her. Loses her keys. Can’t show up on time to save her life.

The word hero was pure power coursing into her fingertips. Flattering. Tempting. Intoxicating. Corrupting her judgment. 

“…I’ll think about it,” she muttered, tapping the End Call button.

When she rolled back over to Arven, his face was practically purple. 

So impatient, she thought. I wasn’t even gone that long. Or is he still pissed about getting called ‘Pretty Boy’?

“Who was that?” he snapped.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she teased. “Moving on. Lesson three: Going forward by pushing sideways.”

Chapter Text

“Oh, my. I’m afraid I am unable to offer extensions in the absence of a documented extenuating circumstance, Miss Vega.”

“But…” Juliana sighed. Her face flushed red with shame. “Okay, that’s fair. This was all my fault. I understand, Professor Tyme.”

Exams in Professor Tyme’s Intro To Calculus course were administered not during regular class time, but instead in a proctored testing computer lab used by the entire math department. Students were expected to reserve a time slot online and sit for each exam prior to a given deadline. 

The first of which whizzed right by as Juliana somehow spaced and completely forgot about it, earning herself a nice, fat zero for her first entry in the gradebook.

“The transition to college life can be quite a rocky one. But try not to fret too much, Miss Vega. It’s early yet in the semester." Professor Tyme offered her a reassuring smile from across the desk. A framed painting of colorful gemstones arranged in a tessellation and a large clock made from a cross-section of an amethyst geode decorated the walls of her office. "Have you reviewed the course syllabus?”

Juliana’s eyes widened, recalling the packet that was distributed throughout the large lecture hall on the first day. 

What did I do with it? She hurriedly unzipped her purple Mimikyu-patterned backpack on the floor in front of her and reached into it. The contents rattled and rolled around inside like balls in an overstuffed bingo cage. 

An empty energy drink can. Three pens given out by student organizations at Club Interest Day, one of them broken. Five notebooks, their cardboard covers already bent and dog-eared. Keys. Her own team’s Pokéballs and a handful of Quick Balls that Nemona gave her. 

Headphones—oh, hey, I’ve been looking for those—and a sprinkling of the bobby pins she used to secure her signature side braid behind her right ear. Her wallet. The travel-sized toothbrush and toothpaste she had begun carrying for when she woke up too late to brush before running out the door.

Her old, dinged-up laptop, plastered with stickers—and, separately, the protective sleeve it should be in, which had some loose papers—were these from move-in day? Was I supposed to do something with these?—stuffed inside. Receipts for ramen hauls and eye-wateringly overpriced textbooks. 

A waterproof vinyl Uva Academy sticker—where did this even come from?—and two identical brown drugstore eyeliner pencils, both used. A cookie she got from the dining hall last week that she’d wrapped in a napkin to save and forgotten about, shedding its dry crumbs all over the lining of her bag.

Finally, crumpled up like an accordion at the very bottom, she found it: A stapled packet of paper with the heading “INTRODUCTION TO CALCULUS - MA-2564 - PROFESSOR TYME”. The first page was stained with a few little splashes of pinkish-orange, probably from the loose can. Juliana tugged it out sheepishly, face and throat burning. 

I would kill for that Zoroark mask to hide behind right now. 

Politely controlling her grimace, Professor Tyme cleared her throat. 

“As you can see, Miss Vega, your grade will be determined by the average of all five exams, including the final. As long as you study hard, apply yourself, and make sure not to miss any of those next four, there’s no reason why a gem of a student such as yourself can’t still be successful in this course.” 

After leaving Professor Tyme’s office hours, making a quick pit stop in the bathroom to cry, splashing some cold water on her face, and fixing her eyeliner, Juliana skated off toward Drayton’s apartment. She was late, but what else was new?

I just need to try harder, she thought, grounding herself in the rhythmic ker-chunk ker-chunk of the sidewalk joints under her wheels as she whizzed up the oak-lined street on her board. College is on another level! Starting tomorrow, I’m gonna get my life together. 

Juliana knocked on the door, and was answered by calls of “S’open!” from within. 

She plastered on a fake smile before she entered.

”This Zoruva character…whoever they are, they ought to knock it off,” Lacey was saying, animated. “I dislike bullies as much as the next person, but vigilante justice…it’s just not right! What if we all went around with masks on, carrying out whatever actions we saw fit with total impunity? Discipline of wrong-doers should be left to the proper channels.”

”I hear ya! But I’m just saying, if the proper channels aren’t doing their job…” Drayton equivocated. 

“Hey, guys,” Juliana piped up, hoping her tone didn’t sound too flat or too interested in that particular topic of conversation.

Carmine and Crispin were sitting on the couches in the living room, watching a recorded broadcast of the professional roller derby league playoffs in Unova and debating strategies for walling up. The former shot her a dirty look as she stepped in. 

By contrast, a welcoming scent, toasty and golden, spicy and alluring as a Hydrapple’s Supersweet Syrup, wafted from the beautiful kitchen to greet her with a warm hug. It mingled with a muted base note of pine-scented cleaning solution.

“You are twenty-three minutes and—” Amarys, seated at the kitchen table, looked up only briefly from her textbook to check the two watches she wore on her left wrist. “—Sixteen seconds late.”

“She’s right. Just because it’s a team hangout rather than a practice or a bout doesn’t mean you can be tardy without so much as a warning! We have important matters to discuss.” Lacey, sitting across from Amarys, scowled at Juliana. “It’s just not right!”

“Sorry,” Juliana offered, wincing. I really can’t do anything right today, can I? Why did I even bother coming?

“Cut her some slack, Lace,” Drayton, seated next to Lacey at the table, picked his head up off his forearms to wave at her. “It’s Friday! We’re here to have fun, remember? It’s not like she missed anything major.”

Lacey turned the full force of her frown on him, and Juliana breathed a sigh of relief to be momentarily out of the line of fire. 

“She didn’t miss anything important because you had us vote on whether or not we should start the team fundraiser brainstorming session without her! Amarys and I were all for going ahead,” Lacey snapped. 

Scanning around the room, Juliana realized that this meant Carmine and Crispin must’ve joined Drayton in voting to wait for her. 

What’s Carmine’s angle with helping me? she wondered. Maybe she wanted Lacey and Amarys to be mad at me…? 

Lacey looked back to her, and her scary expression softened slightly. “Sorry, Juliana. It’s nothing personal, but rules are rules! The Grapes of Wrath bylaws stipulate that all club functions are to begin no later than fifteen minutes past their scheduled time.”

What kind of collegiate intramural sports team has bylaws? Juliana thought, but she wisely kept it to herself.

“Chill out, Lace,” Drayton chuckled. “She’s here now! Don’t scare her back out the door when we need every member we can get. You and I both know roller derby players don’t just grow on trees here like they do back home in Unova.”

“Wait—you’re both from Unova too?” Juliana asked, slinging her backpack over the back of the only open chair at the table and sitting down.

She deflated slightly when she saw that Mabosstiff wasn’t under the table, or anywhere else in the common space—she hadn’t realized how much she was hoping she’d get to smooch that sweet face again. Still, just being back in this honey-golden room was a balm to her shame-wounded soul, despite now knowing who decorated it. It seemed even cleaner and more orderly than it did last time. 

“How long have you two been playing for?” she added.

“Since I was in high school,” Lacey said. “You and I went toe-to-toe in a couple of bouts in the junior leagues, actually. I played for the Driftveil Demolition. I was a bit surprised you didn’t recognize me when we met again here, even though my derby name has changed.”

“Oh!” Juliana cried, smacking her healed palm on the tabletop. “Wait, yeah, I see it now! Your hair was dark back then, wasn’t it? And longer? Wow, you look so different! But I totally remember you now. You were two years ahead of me, and the only person I’ve ever seen argue with a ref and win,” she laughed. 

Drayton smiled fondly, resting his head back down on his folded arms. “That so? Sounds just like Lace.”

“What about you, Dray? I definitely don’t recognize you from back then.”

“Ah, yeah, I haven’t been playing quite as long as she has,” he said. “I was more of an ice hockey guy growing up.”

“But you were always a fan of watching roller derby,” Lacey added matter-of-factly.

“Ohoho! Right, yep. Big fan. The biggest.”

“I guess hockey to derby is a logical move to make,” Juliana mused. “Both on skates, both pretty rowdy.” 

As they were chatting, Arven tiptoed into the kitchen, not making eye contact with any of them. 

At least he’s wearing clothes this time, Juliana thought, although the sweatpants and tight t-shirt unfortunately made him look nowhere near as frumpy as she wished. In fact, the opposite—she had a real weak spot for the softness of a man in pajamas. 

He slipped on the pair of Maschiff-print mitts she had admired and opened the oven door. More of that incredible apple-spice smell poured out and drenched her senses.

Arven removed a tray of what looked like cookies from the oven. Then, after taking off the mitts, he pinched the corners of the parchment paper that lined the tray and expertly slid the whole batch onto a wire cooling rack on the counter, like a magician yanking away a pristine white tablecloth in a single fluid motion without causing so much as a ripple in the glass of red wine perched atop it. 

Damn it. Why is that so hot? 

Arven flinched when he looked back and caught her staring. Then he cleared his throat, gave her a single, brisk nod, and walked back out without saying a word.

Juliana’s stomach growled. 

“Dray, d’you think…are those…for us?” she asked timidly. She was unaware of it, but in that moment, with her big, sad, pleading brown eyes locked on the cooling rack, Juliana resembled nothing so much as a baby Sprigatito in a black-and-white commercial for the PokéHumane Society. All that was missing was the call for donations and the mournful crooning of Sarah McLapras.

For just eighty cents a day…you can feed a college student who frequently forgets to eat…

“I dunno,” Drayton replied. “That’s the first time I’ve seen him all day.”

“Wouldn’t he have said something if they were for us?” Lacey asked, giving a skeptical stink-eye. 

“Maybe? Arven tends to keep to himself. And I don’t know what you did to him at practice last week, Splits, but he’s been even quieter since then,” Drayton chuckled. 

She hadn’t seen him since that night a week and a half ago. Evidently the universe heard her complaint about how frequently she was running into him—literally—and granted her a reprieve. 

Juliana was thinking with her stomach. Wishfully. “Maybe they’re a peace offering?” 

He looked at me and nodded after he set them down—did that mean “Here, help yourself”?

Crispin, who had quit watching the bout on the TV and turned around to peek over the back of the couch, piped up. “Well, they smell absolutely fire! I say don’t sweat the small stuff. If you wanna do something, just do it! Snag one! And snag me one while you’re at it!”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s one way to find out…” Drayton yawned.

Needing no further encouragement, Juliana rose from her chair and snatched up one of the warm, golden disks. 

“But…what if they’re not for sharing? You should at least ask him first. That’s just not right!” Lacey snapped, crossing her arms in front of her scowl to form an X. Curiously, her ire seemed to be directed more at Drayton than at Juliana. 

“C’mon, lighten up, Lace. What’s one little cookie?”

“It’s not the cookie, it’s the principle! Taking it without asking is stealing!”

“Not everything in life is so black-and-white, y’know,” Drayton said, leaning back in his chair thoughtfully. “Hmm…black-and-white cookies…”

Blowing on the still-steaming cookie as she leaned against the counter, Juliana laughed. “Man, you two get on like a house on fire,” she snarked, then winced at her own choice of words. “A friendship like yours could only have started with roller derby. In a setting any less violent, I think you might’ve killed each other.” 

“Not so,” Amarys muttered, her nose still buried in a very heavy-looking textbook. The top of the open page read “OVER-ENGINEERED FOR SAFETY: REDUNDANCY IN MODERN FLY-BY-WIRE FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEMS.” She paused to take a sip of her ginger ale.

“Their friendship got its wings in a philosophy class.” 

“Yep. ‘Technology, Ethics, and Society’, last fall. Ugh, Drayton drove me positively Zubatty in that class!” Lacey groaned.

“All I did was provide the Drayster Take on the readings when Euds asked me for it,” Drayton said, smiling and raising his hands in front of him as if to defend himself. “You were the one who always had to chime in about why I had it wrong.” 

“We were taking up so much class time debating each other that Professor Eudaimonia paired us up for our midterm paper. I think she was hoping we’d either get it out of our systems or—as you said—kill each other, so that she could teach in peace,” Lacey added, giggling and rolling her eyes. “But near the end of the semester, when he found out I played roller derby in high school, we decided to start up an intramural team together. And the rest is history!”

“Huh,” Juliana said. “I didn’t realize the team was so new.”

”Rumor has it that there was one before. But they disbanded all of a sudden the semester before Lace and I started as freshmen. When I went to register the club with the stuffed shirts in the Student Admin office, I asked ‘em about it, but they wouldn’t tell me why. Vibe I got was that there must be some kinda weird gag order about it,” Drayton said. 

“Weird,” Juliana agreed. “Hey, if Drayton had no experience playing before then, how come he’s the Captain instead of you, Lacey?”

“Ask him! He insisted,” Lacey answered with a shrug. “And I knew I wouldn’t have time for another leadership role anyway. I’m already the secretary of the Uva Honor Society, and the vice-chair of the Debate Team, and the philanthropy chair for my sorority, so I wasn’t going to fight him for it.” 

Lacey leaned toward Drayton, squinting and wagging her finger at him. “But make no mistake, you blockhead—I am holding you to the highest standards as our Captain! And so help me Arceus, if you ever start shirking your duties, I’ll show you the true strength of cuteness!”

Drayton turned his head away from Lacey, but Juliana saw him grinning down at his beaten-up sneakers. “You sure will.”

She finally took a bite of the cookie. 

A bite that changed her, as the very best of life’s cookies do. 

It was like that scene in Rattatatouille where the grouchy old food critic finds himself instantly transported back to his childhood by a single glorious mouthful of the eponymous Rattata’s cooking. The taste gave her chills even as it flooded warmth all the way to the tips of her toes.

She really had forgotten to eat today. Juliana’s eyelids fell closed as she chewed, leaning her weight against the counter and slowly savoring it as she seldom did anything.

Unusually unsweet for a cookie, but the flavors were nevertheless perfectly in accord. It tasted like a perfect October day when she was seven. Not just the sepia-toned memory of it, but the real, firsthand thing, too, fresh and crisp as the skin of an apple yielding beneath her teeth.

Juliana didn’t know it was even possible to perfectly condense such a thing—the cider-drunk pumpkin patch, the flannel-wrapped hayride, the loving arms carrying her home when she got tired—into cookie-form. Surely there should be some loss of fidelity inherent to the conversion, yet this was nothing short of bottled autumnal nostalgia. Pure, heart-aching alchemy. A pleased little hum escaped her lips.

“HEY! What are you—those were NOT for you!”

She jumped three feet in the air and six inches out of her skin. The rest of the cookie tumbled from her guilty grasp. 

Chapter Text

“I’m—sorry—I thought—“

“You thought WHAT?!”

“You—set them down—and you nodded at me! I thought—“

“You thought you could just TAKE them?!” Arven roared at her. “What’s WRONG with you?!” 

“Whoa, roomie, relax—“

“Don’t TELL me to RELAX!” 

She flinched again. To her horror, tears stung her eyes. 

Reflex kicked in and her feet pointed to leave. She could always find a door to escape through, even if it was unmarked, in the dark, with her eyes closed—Juliana had an uncanny sixth sense devoted to exits. Combined with her speed and agility, it made her a frighteningly good jammer, always able to find the hole in the opposing team's defensive wall and dash right through it, lickety-split.

But before she could run, a gray blur bounded into the room, far faster than his old bones should’ve been able to carry him, to plant his paws right in front of her. 

Mabosstiff was growling at Arven. 

Arven’s fury broke like a fever. He collapsed to his knees. 

“B…bud? You're awake? You got up?!”

Breathless. His chest heaved.

“Oh, thank…I was so…”

Mabosstiff quieted. His protective, raised-hackles stance softened, but he didn’t move from his spot. He whirled clumsily to gaze up at Juliana, tail wagging in greeting.

She choked on a wet laugh of surprise and knelt down. “Hi,” she sniffled, trying to discreetly dab at her eyes. “Missed you.”

Chair legs screeched on the tile. Lacey stood bolt upright. 

“Arven. Apologize to Juliana.” 

It was not a suggestion. This was the commanding voice of a drill sergeant who just happened to be a sorority sister in frilly pink crew socks and Mary Jane loafers.

Humiliated, Juliana gathered up the cookie pieces that fell to the floor. The weight of all the eyes on her while she was trying not to cry—stacked atop the weight of all her other mistakes today, this week, this month—was suddenly back-breaking. She wanted to bolt back to her dorm, curl into a ball under the covers where no one could see her, shrivel up and die. 

“No, it’s fine,” she mumbled. “This was all my fault.” 

“No!” Lacey argued forcefully. “It is not fine! You did start it—you shouldn’t have taken the cookie without asking, even if you thought the nod was permission. But that does NOT make it right for him to scream at you like that! The punishment doesn’t fit the crime!”

“Lacey—please,” Juliana begged in a whisper that broke slightly.

She started to lurch toward the living room and front door, but Mabosstiff grabbed hold of her sleeve with his mouth and sat down on his haunches in front of her, his tail still wiggling. Cataract-clouded topaz eyes were fixed expectantly on the cast-off cookie pieces in her left palm. 

One corner of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. She held out her hand and presented the Pokémon with the goodies. With slobbery jowls, he gobbled them up, licking her palm in thanks.

Across the kitchen, Arven squeaked like he’d had the air punched out of him. 

Her eyes snapped up. “Uh—oh no, I’m sorry—was I not supposed—“

He shook his head vigorously. “Those—were for him. He…he wasn’t eating. Anything. Since Tuesday. And today he wouldn’t get out of bed. I’ve been trying everything, everything I could think of. I’m so relieved…” 

Now that she was looking closer at him, Juliana realized that Arven looked terrible. Or, at least, as terrible as someone that gorgeous can look. His seafoam eyes were bloodshot, the dark circles that always hung from them approached a bruise-like saturation, and his hair was even messier than usual.

Arven scrambled to his feet and retrieved three more cookies from the cooling rack. “Here, bud…please, you need to eat more.”

Mabosstiff didn’t budge. He licked Juliana’s hand again, staring at Arven with stubborn defiance. 

Arven’s gaze darted from her, to Mabosstiff, to the cookies in his own hand, and back to her. 

A strange, pained look crept over his wan features. Tired eyes dropped to the floor, and his posture slumped.

He swallowed.

“Could you…help me?”

Arven pronounced this four-letter word as if it were a twenty syllable incantation of shapes cut from some foreign tongue, all unfamiliar fricatives and halting glottal stops pasted together like the letters of a ransom note. Dragging one hand over his face, he groaned in frustration. “I don’t know why. But I guess he’ll only take 'em from you.”

Expressionless, she nodded, crossing the sunflower garden on the floor without a word. 

“Juliana, stop! He should apologize!” Lacey protested. “And he didn’t even say please! This is all wrong!”

“Lace,” Drayton murmured, gently grasping her arm. “Let’s sit back down.”

Juliana didn’t hear them. She took the cookies from Arven and sat down cross-legged on the tile. 

“Here, cutie,” she called to Mabosstiff, soft and sweet as a song, copying the tone her mother used with the especially skittish Pokémon she worked with at the rescue. Looking into that sugar-dusted face, she even managed to smile. “These are so good, aren’t they? Best damn cookies I’ve ever tasted. Will you please come and have some more of them for me, handsome?”

The snow-bearded hound lumbered over to her, panting with the effort. 

One by one, he ate the morsels out of her small hands. No sooner were they empty than Arven replenished them with more from the cooling rack, until he’d polished off the whole batch. 

When Mabosstiff was done and licking the remaining crumbs from her fingertips, Arven threw his arms around his neck, burying his face in the downy charcoal fluff. Juliana watched him take a deep, shaky breath. Suddenly feeling like an intruder upon a private moment, she rose to move away.

“Wait!” he gasped. 

What did I manage to screw up now?

“Th-thank you. Thank you…Juliana. Thank you so much.”

She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “It’s nothing.”

The air in the room had grown leaden, strange, stiflingly quiet. Lacey and Drayton were intensely whispering to each other at the table. The derby broadcast on TV was paused. Crispin peered over the back of the sofa at Juliana and Arven, while Carmine pretended to be scrolling through her phone as she side-eyed the scene as well. 

Only Amarys, still reading and taking meticulous notes, seemed unaffected by the events of the last few minutes. But closer inspection revealed that even she had stilled, her pencil hovering above her notebook for an unnaturally long moment.

Juliana felt nauseous. 

“I should…get going,” she mumbled to no one in particular. 

“You’ll do no such thing,” Lacey declared. She snapped her fingers and pointed at the chair that Juliana had vacated. “Sit. We’re going to talk about the fundraiser.”

This, too, was not a suggestion.

“…Car wash?”

“Do you see a lot of cars around here? No way.”

“Raffle?”

“Takes too much budget upfront, which we don’t have.”

So far, nothing met with Lacey’s approval. 

Drayton may be the Captain in title, but in practice, she seems to be the one really in charge, Juliana thought. Interesting.

She sat in silence, arms folded over her chest, while Mabosstiff snored softly underneath her chair. Her stomach hurt.

Arven awkwardly lingered in the kitchen. Occasionally, she felt the uneasy back-of-the-neck prickle of his eyes studying her.

I get it—you hate my guts! I’m a grimy little thief who stole food out of Mabosstiff’s mouth. Message received, and I feel awful about it—so why are you still here? Ugh, I wish I could leave! I'll say yes to whatever the next idea is...

Her leg bounced to vent the self-loathing. 

“I got it!” Crispin sprang up off the couch. “A bake sale!”

“Hmm…” Drayton nodded. “That’s not half bad.”

“It could work. Are you offering to do the baking?” Lacey asked.

“Uh…well, y’see, I’m actually not so hot at that,” Crispin sheepishly admitted. “Cooking, sure! Cooking’s simple! Your dish is either spicy or not spicy! But with baking…one false move, and the whole thing blows up in your face. Sometimes literally—don’t ask how I know that! But y’know who’s great at baking?” 

He pointed at Arven, leaning against the fridge. 

“…Me?” he asked. 

“He’s not technically part of the team, though,” Drayton said. Mischief sparked in his eye. “I mean, unless he wants to be. Or we…persuade him.”

“Persuade him?” Lacey asked, suspicious. “Drayton, you know it’s not right to go around manipulating people!”

“Nobody’s manipulating anybody. The Drayster Take is merely that we should offer him the opportunity to repay a debt.”

“A debt?”

“He got a free skating lesson from Splits last week. That took the team’s time, and he borrowed our equipment.”

Wasn’t that your idea? Juliana thought.

“Plus, she helped him with Mabosstiff, even after he flipped out on her. Arven owes her—ergo, he owes the team. To steal your line, Lace…” Drayton pitched his voice up into a surprisingly good imitation of Lacey’s and crossed his arms into an X. “‘It’s just not right.’”

Amarys snorted.

Lacey elbowed him, nose wrinkling. “You do have a point. But Juliana’s not innocent either! She also needs to make amends for the cookie larceny.”

Carmine prowled over, an impish jack-o-lantern smirk tugging at her mouth, and spoke up for the first time since Juliana arrived. “I've got an idea that will allow everyone to serve their sentence. Arven will be our baker...and Splits will be his assistant.”

Juliana let out an affronted squeak. 

“That’s not a bad plan, Punchy,” Drayton hummed. “How ‘bout it, roomie? Up for a little indentured servitude?”

“Alright,” Arven said, with a measured calm that perplexed her. “That sounds fair. I’m free tomorrow. We can do it then.” 

"That would work out quite nicely," Lacey mused. "I'm helping run a regional high school debate competition tomorrow night, so I can sell them then. If they're good, I bet we could earn enough to cover our equipment and shirts for the whole year..."

“Sorry, do I not get any say in this?! I’ve never baked anything, and I don’t want to! Especially not with him!” Juliana cried, deliberately not looking over at the him in question. 

“Hm…I’m sensing some dissent.” Drayton tapped his chin. “Let’s put it to a vote, team. All those opposed to the idea?”

Juliana raised one lonely hand. 

“And all in favor?”

Every hand in sight shot into the air.

She groaned, laying her miserable head down on the table. 

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

“Hi! Uh, what do you think? Do you want this one, or this one?”

Arven answered the door the next morning clutching two different aprons. And smiling. At her.

Lip curling, Juliana stared at him as though he’d just sprouted a second annoyingly attractive head. 

“I think I liked you better when you were mean,” she muttered, eyes shifting. Grabbing the smaller one in his left hand, she pushed past him into the apartment. 

This insincere politeness made her skin crawl. Not least because she couldn’t comprehend the motivation behind it. 

Reaching the kitchen, she froze.

The counters were laden with bags of flour and sugar, canisters of cocoa, jars of chocolate chips, rolls of parchment paper and foil, molasses and eggs and vanilla extract and shredded coconut and baking powder and spices and vegetable oil. Only a roughly four-foot-wide space to the left of the oven remained clear. 

Oh, Arceus. What have I gotten myself into?

Too late to get out of it now.

“Shall we get right to it?” he asked, still in that bizarrely chipper tone, though it had cooled slightly from when she walked in. 

She slipped the purple apron over her head and tied it behind her. “Well, I’m not here to play Marowak Kart.” 

Arven cleared his throat, putting on his own apron. Regrettably, the blue-green fabric brought out his eyes. He looked much better rested today. “So! I was thinking we could do brownies and cupcakes? Everybody likes those, right?”

She didn’t respond, washing her hands at the sink while he opened a cabinet to retrieve bowls and pans. 

“Do you have a favorite, Juliana?”

Probably the cookie I stole from your starving, elderly Pokémon yesterday, she thought, wincing.

“No.”

“Not too sweet on sweets, eh? Maybe I can change your mind.”

This is getting on my nerves. 

“Why are you acting so…” Grimacing, she fumbled around for the right word and trailed off. “Did Drayton put you up to this?”

“Put me up to…what?”

“This…pretense. We’re in Saturday detention. Let’s just get through it. Quit pretending to like me. It’s weird.”

“…Well, excuse me for trying to make conversation,” he grumbled, though the retort fell oddly flat, all gums and no teeth. “You’d prefer to work in bitter silence, then?”

“Yes.”

He peered at her from the corner of a sly, twinkling green eye. “Are you sure you can rise to the occasion of baking without my help?”

“Your help?” Ignoring his attempt at a pun, she huffed, pointing to the cookbook on the counter. A recipe for brownies lay face-up. “You think I can’t figure it out when you’ve left the answers right here? It’s like an open-book exam. I could probably make them better than you could.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Okay. Prove it.”

He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and faced her, smirking expectantly.

Smug bastard.

Smug, pretty bastard…

Juliana rolled her eyes.

After skimming over the ingredients list, she marched to the refrigerator and plundered it for butter. Tearing the wrapper off a stick, she consulted the recipe, then squinted at it in disbelief—Tablespoons? For butter? But it’s solid! 

Scanning around the room, her eyes landed on a cheap-looking microwave wedged in between the sink and the fridge. She opened the door and found the inside of it splattered with dried splashes of sauce and oily yellow residue. It seemed so out of place in the clean, orderly kitchen that she knew it could only be Drayton's. 

She looked to the stove and nervously chewed her cheek, hesitating. 

In the end, she tossed the whole stick of butter into a small bowl and returned to the filthy microwave, heating it until it was liquefied and fiercely bubbling. Then she poured it all straight into the large mixing bowl and started adding the other ingredients.

First, the eggs—she accidentally cracked some shell into the bowl by accident with the first one, but thought she was able to fish all of it back out. She grabbed a wooden spoon and mixed them together with the butter. Clumps formed. 

That’s…probably fine, right?

Behind her, he coughed. 

Next she added the flour, eyeballing what half a cup should look like. She stirred this in too, for good measure, giving it a vigorous mix to try to break up those lumps. 

Arven snickered.

She whipped around to scowl at him, then tossed in the cocoa, vegetable oil, baking powder, salt, and sugar. More stirring, this time fueled by annoyance.

Finally, she threw in a few handfuls of chocolate chips. Then a few more. They were the best part, after all. 

She grabbed one of the pans sitting out on the counter and scooped the batter into it. It was weirdly stiff and sticky, resisting her efforts. But eventually, with actual sweat at her hairline, she beat it into submission with the wooden spoon. 

Maybe that’s why it’s called “batter”…?

Into the oven it went. Juliana's hand hesitated again on the dial, but she took a deep breath, turned it to the temperature specified in the recipe, and dusted off her hands. 

“See? Easy.”

Arven leaned a rosy cheek against his hand, biting down on his lower lip. “...Mmhm?” he replied, barely restraining a giggle until he couldn’t anymore.

He burst out laughing. Doubling over. Slapping the table. Gasping. 

The worst part was that this was the first time she’d ever heard it, and it was a good laugh. Unrestrained, infectious, warm and rich and sweet as the melted chocolate on her fingertips. The kind of laugh that, if you heard it after telling a joke, would lead you to believe that you must be the funniest and most interesting person he’d ever met. 

But Juliana hadn’t told a joke—she was the joke. Her face burned. She turned her back to him, arms crossed. 

Once he caught his breath, he got up and removed her pan from the oven.

“Hey—that’s cheating!”

“If it is, I’m cheating for your benefit,” he replied, flashing her a grin that was jarringly genuine and dizzyingly bright. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter, mirroring her own stiff posture but with the easy, relaxed limberness of someone entirely in his element.

“I was rooting for you, and you didn’t even preheat the oven!”

"Preheat...the...?" 

"You're supposed to turn it on and leave it for a while to let it get up to the cooking temperature before you put anything in, bud."

Swallowing, Juliana eyed the oven warily. "But...isn't that...dangerous?"

“Dangerous?" Arven giggled, looking at her like she just asked if the moon was made of cheese. "Look, these are going to be terrible no matter what, but you won’t even get blondies without preheating, let alone brownies. I want them to at least be edible so that you can try them—because I wanna see your face when you do. We’ll bake ours together once I’ve mixed up mine.”

She scoffed and went to take the seat he had left open—but he stepped in front of her and stopped her with a scold.

“Nuh-uh-uh!” Wagging his finger at her, he snickered. “You’re my little assistant, remember? Right now, my task for you is to stand right here next to me while I make these and show you every single thing you did wrong.”

Juliana squeaked and turned to leave. “I don’t have to put up with this!"

“Alright,” he yawned, still despicably smug. "Gimme your apron back. I'll just tell Drayton and the others you ran right out of the kitchen ‘cause you couldn't take the heat."

There it was again: He couldn't resist a pun, even when it wasn't worthy of a groan, much less a laugh.

Nostrils flaring, she returned to his side.

“Fine.”

“Excellent choice,” he said, grinning. “Now, first of all, you didn’t even try to measure the butter…”

Forty-five minutes later, two trays of brownies, not exactly alike in dignity, cooled on the fair countertop where we lay our scene. 

The tray on the left could easily have been the September cover shot for a supermarket magazine whose target demographic was affluent thirty-to-forty-five-year-old suburban moms with curated Pinsirest boards centered around words like “rustic” and “shiplap” and “gender reveal party”. Glossy top, crackled like crushed satin. Envy of the PTA meeting. The beau idéal of baked goods. 

Its gremlin sibling on the right stood oddly squat in height, sported a weirdly furry texture on the surface, and was speckled through with mysterious white flecks. Somehow it looked both dull and oily at the same time. The phrase that kept coming to mind as Juliana stared at it was “seborrheic dermatitis.”

Arven was fighting another fit of laughter.

”Do you take constructive criti—“

”Shut up.”

Chapter Text

Despite his earlier threat, Arven didn’t actually make her eat any of her disastrous attempt at brownies. Juliana owed this mercy not to any sudden proclivity for compassion, but rather to the fact that, try though he did, with tears of laughter in his eyes, he physically could not pry them out of the pan. 

Juliana completely neglected the step of greasing it up before pouring in the batter—so as the brownies baked, the whole mess hardening and seizing up like concrete, they formed an unbreakable, forged-in-the-fire bond with the pan that made the teflon coating look as laughably “non-stick” as the infamous S.S. Cactus was “unsinkable.”

Instead, Arven simply cut his own pageant queen tray into perfectly even squares, slid two of the brownies onto plates, and laid them on the kitchen table with silverware before taking a seat.

Juliana blinked at him. He blinked back.

“Are you seriously too proud to have one?”

“…Sweets on an empty stomach don’t agree with me.” Regardless, she felt awkward just standing there, so she sat down across from him.

“Empty stomach? It’s only ten-thirty. What'd you have for breakfast?”

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

“Tch! Well, no wonder you’re so cranky all the time!” Shaking his head, Arven got up and went to open the fridge. “D’you skip lunch, too, to achieve that sunny-side-up attitude of yours?”

“Sometimes, not that it’s any of your business—and who are you calling cranky?” she snarled. 

Behind her, she could hear the sounds of drawers rolling open and shut, plastic wrap crinkling, a jar lid being unscrewed and clinking against the counter. 

“Last time I checked, you’re the one who finds something stupid to insult or nitpick or scream at me about every single time you—!”

“—Wait, did you eat lunch yesterday?” he asked, interrupting her tirade. The noises of activity behind her stopped. 

“No. I forgot. Why does that matter?”

“…Oh.” His voice was soft. Tinged with regret. “Uh…n-no reason.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? And who are you to lecture me about attitude when you—!”

A dinner plate gently clattered as it was set down in front of her, right next to the smaller brownie plate. Arven then walked around to stand behind his own seat. 

Her eyes narrowed. “What is this?”

“Are you unfamiliar with sandwiches? I thought I was supposed to be the stupid one?” he chuckled, leaning on his elbows over the back of his chair.

She growled at him. “I can see that it’s a sandwich. What are you—“

“You need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You just said your stomach’s empty.”

“That’s different from being hungry!”

“Just eat some of it.”

"No!"

"One bite. C'mon.'

“Why’s it matter if I do?!”

“'Cause you’re my little assistant, and we still have a whole double batch of red velvet cupcakes to get through," he chided, turning back to clean up the ingredients on the counter. "Can’t have you fainting from hypoglycemia in the middle and leaving me on the hook for doing all the dishes."

Juliana pushed the plate away from her.

“You’re trying to poison me.”

He huffed. “I am not trying to poison you. I’m literally a Nutritional Science major. ‘Don’t poison anyone’ is like, the first thing they teach us!”

“That’s exactly what someone trying to poison me would say.”

Arven stared her down, a bewildered grin on his face, shaking his head like she was a puzzle with no solution. 

Then, a Tadbulb lit up above his head. He knelt down beside the table, batting his long lashes at her. 

Why do boys like him always get the best eyelashes? He doesn't even deserve them.

“Here, cutie,” he crooned, pushing the plate back toward her. “This is so good, isn’t it? Best damn sandwich you’ll ever taste. Won’t you please have some of it for me, beautiful?”

She had one hand wrapped around the front door handle before he could blink those pretty eyes again. The plates on the table behind her rattled and shimmered like cymbals with the force of her departure.

“Wait! Wait, Juliana, c’mon," he giggled. "I was kidding."

“That WASN'T FUNNY and you KNOW IT!”

Her razor-sharp shout speared his laughter like a too-slow Magikarp. Arven’s face fell. 

“I’m...sorry. You’re right, it wasn’t.”

There was enough sincerity in his expression to stop her from running away. But she still stared daggers at him from the doorway, clutching the knob.

His choice of words brought to mind a question that had been gnawing at her since yesterday.

“How is he doing?” she mumbled.

“Better today. Thanks to you,” he added, only a little begrudgingly. “He’s asleep—always is at this time of day, and Arceus help you if you try to wake him up—but he got up and ate a little of his regular food this morning. He’s...out of the woods, I think. For now.”

She gave the tiniest of nods. But her death glare didn’t warm by a single degree.

“Listen, I know I never apologized for…yesterday.” He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I don’t need your apology.”

“Let me say it anyway,” he pleaded, crossing the apartment to stand in front of her. “Juliana, I’m sorry. I was worried to death about Mabosstiff. But that’s not an excuse for—and if I’d known you hadn’t eaten all day, I would’ve—!“

“—Will you just cut it out with this fake-nice stuff?!”

Arven looked taken aback. “It’s not f—“

“—If you’re trying to Wurmple your way into my good graces so I’ll come feed him the next time he won’t eat, don’t bother! I’ll do it anyway. But for the love of Arceus, quit acting like this! Two-faced people make me itchy.”

His mouth fell open in astonishment. “…Why would you help me if you can’t stand me?”

“Because I like him! He’s the sweetest Pokémon I've ever met. It’s not his fault that you’re a jerk!”

Arven heaved a deep sigh. “Well, thank you. I’ll keep that offer in mind. But…I’m not being fake-nice to you, Juliana. I know we got off on the wrong foot—“

“—The wrongest possible foot," she snapped. "So wrong it’s a hand!"

“—And look, you and I don’t have to be best buds. But I’d…like it if we could at least…I don’t know. Be civil with each other? Play nice?”

“Why?”

He barked a sharp laugh of surprise. “I need a reason?”

“Yes. Because I sure as hell can’t think of any.”

Arven raked a hand through his sandy hair with a groan. 

“For Mabosstiff’s sake, then? He really likes you. Doesn’t normally want anything to do with anyone except me! Yet any time he sees you, he perks right up and glues himself to you like he’s got Sticky Hold.” Arven sounded more than a little resentful about it.

“And you already said you like him too, so don’t try to Buizel out of that. You could…come over and see him sometimes, if you want? I think it would be good for him. You wouldn’t even have to talk to me at all if you don’t want to.” He was speaking to his feet. 

That does sound nice…

“…Playing nice,” Juliana sounded out, releasing the doorknob but still eyeing him suspiciously. “How would we do that?”

“Well, for starters, you could come back and sit down.” He extended a hand and offered her a charmingly boyish half-smile that coached her stomach through an Olympic gymnastics routine. 

Shaking off the Butterfrees, she schooled her face into her best impression of playing nice, ignored his outstretched hand, and gingerly padded back across the floor to reclaim her chair. 

“This doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to eat anything,” she warned, pointing at him.

“C’mon, why not?”

“I’m still not entirely convinced that this isn’t some sort of elaborate ruse so you can poison me.”

Arven sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he got up and retrieved a large serrated knife from the cutting board he’d used to make the sandwich. 

“Oh, my bad. I see your plan is to stab me instead.”

He pierced her with a long-suffering look. “This isn’t even the right type of knife to—never mind.”

Arven cut a bite-sized piece off the corner of the sandwich. Holding her eyes, he popped it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “See? Playing nice.”

“Fine. But put down the knife first.”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, but complied as she picked up the sandwich and took her own bite. 

“So?”

Arceus, I didn’t realize I was starving!

“What—and I cannot stress this enough—the hell did you put in this?”

“Oh.” He looked a little wounded. “You don’t like it?”

“No. I love it,” she couldn’t help admitting. “It’s so good that it pisses me off.”

That startled a laugh out of him. 

“It’s nothing fancy. Just stuff I already had in the fridge. Sourdough, heirloom tomatoes, bacon, arugula, and a homemade garlic aioli I made yesterday,” he rattled off, counting them on his fingers.

She swallowed another bite. “Garlic…what?”

“Aioli? The sauce. It's an emulsion of olive oil with lemon juice, egg yolk, water, and salt.”

She was starting to feel stupid. “Okay, what’s an emulsion?”

“You know how oil and water don’t get along?”

Mouth full, she nodded.

“Well, pretty much anything that’s cream-based is an emulsion of oil and water. When you have the right amount of each, and the temperature is right, and they have something to hold them together, they can put aside their differences for a bit and…well, play nice. At least until it gets too hot or too cold, or the ratios change. Then the emulsion breaks again.”

She was reluctantly impressed. “How’d you learn all of this?” 

“Cookbooks, RotomTube videos, cooking shows, lots of my own experience and experimentation…” he shrugged.

“No, I mean—why did you learn all of this? I don’t know anyone else our age whose cooking skills go beyond ‘don’t forget to add water to microwave mac and cheese or you’ll set off the smoke alarm’.”

He fidgeted in his seat, eyes shifting away. “Had to, I guess. We’ve all gotta eat.”

In the pause that followed, she finished the sandwich, sucked the aioli off her fingers, and studied him carefully.

“You were a latchkey kid, too?”

Arven’s face clouded, brows drawing together. “Something like that.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, so how did you…get so good at skating?”

Juliana realized that this was perhaps the longest they’d ever spoken without taking potshots at each other. She decided to celebrate the momentous occasion by moving on to the brownie, cutting a corner of it with the side of her fork and taking a taste.

She cursed, eyes rolling back in her head. It didn’t beat the cookie from yesterday, but it was an extremely close second. “Ugh, how do you do that? You’re so good it’s unfair. I could eat these every day and never get sick of them.”

Reopening her eyes, his expression was unreadable, cheeks tinged pink. His fork hovered warily above his own brownie.

Uh-oh—maybe Mr. Prep School doesn’t like it when I swear?

She coughed. “I mean—sorry. You asked about skating. I guess I’ve sorta always been doing it? My mom’s from Kalos originally, and everybody there skates, so she had me on wheels as soon as I could walk.”

“Ah, so you do it to make her happy.”

“Psh, no way—I do it because I love it,” she said, a wide smile breaking over her face. “Man, I don’t know how I would’ve turned out without it. It’s like…breathing, y’know? Like being free. When I’ve got wheels under me and I’m going fast enough…it drowns out all the other noise in my head. I just have to put one foot in front of the other, watch the road in front of me, and focus on not losing control,” she explained in between bites of brownie. 

“And skating’s the best way to get used to a new place. You learn every bump and sidewalk crack and invisible incline, and they start to feel almost like friends. Helped a lot with all the moving around Mom and I did,” she added, a somber note sneaking into her voice. “Getting to know the ground is how I re-plant my roots, I guess.”

His ocean eyes felt like they were staring into her soul. Hypnotic. And a bit frightening. 

“Sorry. I don’t mean to bore you. I’ve been told I talk way too m—“

“No—I—this is nice,” he blurted. 

Both plates in front of her were now empty. She cleared her throat, unsure how to respond. “So, um. Red velvet cupcakes, you said?”

“See, you can’t just throw your ingredients into a bowl at the same time and whisk it all,” Arven, standing next to her at the counter, said. “You have to beat the sugar and butter together first, separate from everything else. The sugar crystals dissolve, so they won’t be gritty, and they also help force air into the butter. Airy butter gets you a lighter, fluffier cake,” he explained. 

There was a splash of red velvet cake batter on his right middle finger, just across the first joint. 

Wonder what he'd do if I sucked that batter right off of it, she thought as she stuck cupcake wrappers into each divot of the pans in front of her. Colorfully flip me off? Or...

He snapped his fingers at her. “Hey, are you paying attention?”

She was not. She was, in fact, thinking an extremely loud menagerie of thoughts that would’ve made a sailor squeal.

“Yeah…you said something about…Air Budew?”

He sighed. “You’re hopeless, you know that?”

“Am I? Or are you just not a very good teacher?” she giggled.

You’re way too distracting…

He shook his head in exasperation, but couldn’t hide the hint of a smile poking through on that aggravatingly hot face.

This playing nice stuff really isn’t so bad…

“As I was saying, you cream the butter and sugar together, then you add the rest of the wet ingredients, and then you combine the dry ingredients separately and add those in. If you wanna bake your dreams crumb true, you have to follow the instructions! A rolling scone gathers no...you get the idea.”

He turned his back to open a cabinet and put away the flour and sugar. While he wasn’t looking, Juliana snatched one of the whisks off the egg beater he’d been using. She hopped up to sit on the counter and stuck it in her mouth.

The crimson batter was toe-curlingly good. Don’t-touch-that good. Forbidden good. Original sin good. 

“Hey! No sitting on my counter! What are you—“

Swirling the whisk over her tongue, she snickered.

He held out his hand. “Give me that back.”

Playing nice or not, Arven was still about as fun to mess with as this stolen cake batter was to eat. And sitting up here, she was finally at his eye level.

Tomboyishly splaying her knees to take up even more space on his precious counter and kicking her heels against the cabinets, she pulled her prize from her lips.

“Make me, Pretty Boy,” she taunted, smirking. Then gave the oblong whisk a long, defiant lick before popping it back in her mouth.

Arven’s eyes widened. Silence dragged between them for a skipped heartbeat too long. 

Oh…I guess…that might’ve sounded a little…

He swallowed. Her stuttering pulse spiked.

Oh?

The temperature in the kitchen had shot up ten degrees.

Arven took a step toward her. Then another. Then he was standing practically in between her knees. Close enough to touch. And she wanted to touch. Was his skin as hot as hers, or was it just the oven beside her? Shouldn't she check?

Darkening green eyes dropped to lips stained with red.

“...How—?“

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to…

Arven flinched. 

Reached over her left shoulder and yanked a wooden ladle out of the ceramic Fidough cup behind her. Cleared his throat. 

Lunged away to the other clear counter space to start scooping the batter into the cupcake pans, his back turned to her. All in the two-and-a-half seconds before the next ring.

Ro-to-to-to….Ro-to-to-to…

NO CALLER ID.

She ripped the whisk out of her mouth and smacked the Accept Call button, bringing the Rotom-Phone to her ear. “What?” she snapped in a furious whisper.

“Uh…Cassiopeia here?” 

Juliana was too irritated and flustered to even respond. 

“I was wondering if you’ve had a chance to think about what we talked about? Operation Starfall?”

“Are you really this desperate, Cass? You can’t just let it go?”

“…I have my reasons,” Cassiopeia said cryptically.

“Well, I’m going to need more details,” Juliana drawled sarcastically, pinching the collar of her T-shirt and using it to fan the sweat on her extremely un-kissed collarbones and neck. “Tell me all about why you need me so bad. Don’t be shy.”

Arven froze with the ladle in his hand, his back tensing up. After a moment, he resumed his work. 

While Cassiopeia droned on and on about the Star Crossers, Juliana twirled the whisk handle between her fingertips and let her mind wander back to the moment that this stupid phone call had interrupted. 

Was I just imagining it…or were we about to…?

“…which I know you’re very familiar with, but they’ve sort of put their own unique spin on it…”

There’s no way. Right? We’re just playing nice. He can’t stand me! I drive him crazy! Then again, that doesn’t mean I can't also drive him 'crazy'...

“…definitely not sanctioned by the university, but not technically on campus, so it’s a gray area…”

Might even make some things better…Damn, I could really get my teeth into a dynamic like that. Get him all frustrated and see how he reacts…

“…jammer, you’ll need a good pair of skates, and a solid team of four Pokémon…”

Or maybe I’d make him beg. Oh, that would be delicious. That smug, proud, gorgeous face of his…

“…try not to wear anything too, er, flammable…Are you still there? Hey, are you even listening to me?” Cassiopeia asked. 

Absently rummaging around for “Yes,” her brain accidentally grabbed another three-letter word and handed it off to her mouth without so much as a quality check.

“Beg,” she blurted.

Arven dropped the metal mixing bowl onto the counter with a loud clang that made them both jump.

“Uh…pardon?” Cassiopeia replied. 

“I said…beg,” she doubled down, fighting the urge to laugh at herself as she recovered from the startle. “If I’m the only one who can do it for you, then you’d better talk real sweet to me like you did last time.”

“O...kay? You’re…a hero? Please help me?”

She snorted. “C'mon, you can beg better than that.”

Arven whirled to face her. A sudden purple rage had transformed him into the spitting image of an Annihilape. 

“Actually, I’ll…call you back,” she said, lowering the phone from her ear with a raised eyebrow and tapping the End Call button.

“You have—just—awful taste in men!” he spat.

Oh, buddy, you have no idea.

“Huh?” she chuckled.

His expression flickered through all five stages of grief in a matter of seconds. “Or maybe…awful taste in women?” he mumbled under his breath. “Guess I…didn’t…”

“—It’s both/and, thank you very much,” she corrected. “Wait, no it’s not—I don’t have awful taste in—what are you even talking about?”

He flipped back to cold anger with a growl, baring his teeth at her. “Forget it. Put them in the oven. Take them out in twenty minutes. Frost them with this—“ he said, shoving a bowl of white fluff into her hands, “—when they’re cool. And have fun cleaning up!”

With that, he stormed off down the hall without so much as removing his apron. The slam of a door blew a chilly gust of wind right through her. 

This was the worst possible moment to think of a pun about icing. 

What was it he said about emulsions? Oil and water will only play nice as long as they’re not too hot or too cold?

Juliana took the whisk in her hand and threw it into the sink as hard as she could.

Chapter Text

While she waited for the cupcakes to cool enough for the icing, Juliana worked through the imposing mountain of dishes produced by the day’s baking efforts. Like a framed prisoner serving a lengthy sentence, she had nothing but time to seethe and stew and curse the man who had abandoned her to this fate. 

Who does Arven think he is? she thought, putting her anger to good use as she chiseled her own solid-marble mistake of a brownie batch out of the pan and into the trash using a pitiable butter knife that would hereafter be even less straight than she was.

He asks me to play nice, then spits in my face and leaves me to pick up after him. His moods change like a Cherrim. Mercurial temper to make a Tyrantrum look tolerable. Perpetually pissed off as a Pangoro. 

Sure, she could’ve just blown it off and left. But she didn’t want an earful from Drayton—or, more likely, from Lacey—for skipping out on her end of the baking duties. And Juliana was too proud to leave a job half-done and a mess for someone else to deal with.

Unlike some people.

Elbows-deep in soapy dishwater, scrubbing at the scarlet residue on a cupcake pan with a clump of steel wool that had seen better days, she muttered more colorful curses under her breath. The twee little herb garden on the windowsill seemed to shiver with fear.

“Whoa—what’s got you all bent outta shape, Splits?”

Drayton was leaning on the open door of the fridge, drinking orange juice straight out of the carton. He might've just woken up, but it was always hard to tell with him.

“Ask your roommate," she snapped. "And while you’re at it, ask him what his damn problem is!"

“Heh heh. I take it the baking was a good ol’ rowdy time, then. You two get into it again?”

She sighed in frustration. “He—he just—ugh! Every time I think we’re starting to find some common ground, he yanks the rug right out from under me! One step forward, three steps back. He makes no sense! He’s such a—augh!”

Drayton smirked knowingly as he sat down at the table. “Know something? Arven’s really not that bad.”

“He’s the worst! I’ve known it from the moment I met him. It’s like my dad always said: ‘When someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time.'”

“Phew! You sound like Lace, always seeing things in absolutes. First impressions can be deceiving, y’know! There’s more to most people than meets the eye.”

Sneering, she scrubbed faster, harder, paying no mind to how the steel wool was cutting into her fingertips.

“I seriously don’t know how you put up with him as a roommate, Dray. Just being in the same room as him makes me wanna put a fork through my skull.”

“I’ve only known him since the start of the semester, but so far, he’s been a great roomie, actually. Way cleaner than I am. Shares his leftovers, and they’re always top-tier. Considerate, devoted to his Pokémon, real quiet and reserved…with one exception.”

Juliana looked over her shoulder at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Never seen anything get under his skin like you do,” he said, clicking his tongue. “And vice versa.”

“Yeah, thanks, I’m very aware that he hates me.”

“Wasn’t what I meant, bud,” he chuckled.

Juliana’s busy hands froze. She looked back again to fix one piercing eye on Drayton and slowly raised the large serrated knife up out of the dishwater, soap gleaming on the steel blade.

“What did you mean? Choose your next words like your life depends on it.”

“Heh heh! You’re only proving my point, you know.” Drayton took another swig of juice.

“You better not be implying what I think you’re implying.”

“I’m just givin’ you the—“

“Do not give me the Drayster Take.”

He laughed. 

“All I’m saying is there’s some kind of wild chemistry between the two of you, or you wouldn’t be snapping at each other’s throats like this. And the way you showed off for him at that first practice…We both know that wasn’t just because he called you a bad skater, Splits.”

Juliana chose not to respond, letting the silence hang as she continued with the dishes. Only when she heard Drayton stir to get up from his chair did she speak again.

“So, you mentioned that you were a big fan of watching roller derby when you were growing up, even though you didn’t play. Which pro team in Unova was your favorite?” she asked, keeping her back to him.

“Oh…y’know, the one from my hometown takes the cake.”

Her hands froze in their scrubbing. “Opelucid City?”

“Yep,” Drayton replied, popping the p like a soap bubble.

“The…Opelucid Legends?”

“The one and only.”

“Makes…sense,” she said slowly, rinsing a plate under the faucet. “You went to a lot of their bouts, then?”

“Oh, sure. Many as I could.”

“Were you at the…Thunderdome Throwdown in Nimbasa City, the year that they played? I went to that. Maybe we crossed paths.”

“Ohoho, yeah, I was! Great bout, that one. The greatest. Wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Interesting,” Juliana said. “Just one more thing, Dray…” 

She finished rinsing the last plate and set it on the drying rack beside her. 

“The Opelucid Legends don’t exist. Opelucid City doesn’t have a pro derby team.”

The silence behind her was deafening.

Juliana switched off the faucet and dried her hands on her apron, turning to face Drayton. She found him draped face-down over the kitchen table like an unattended wet mop that had fallen over.

“So, since Lacey said that only you could answer this question, I’ll ask it: Why does a guy with no experience playing or watching roller derby whatsoever, who sings the praises of sitting and in general seems to have straight-up reptilian ideas about conserving his energy, volunteer to not only start a derby team, but Captain it in the absence of any other founding member with the time to do so?”

Drayton peeled his face up off the table just enough to peer at her. Grimacing like this, he had never looked less cool, confirming a suspicion that had been gathering evidence like a snowball since Juliana first saw him and Lacey together. 

“Is it possible that he did it so that the girl he’s down abysmally bad for could play the sport she loves? Or was it because the class he had with her was ending, and he needed an excuse to keep seeing her regularly?”

Drayton’s forehead thumped back onto the table. His low, miserable voice was muffled by the tablecloth.

“…Please don’t tell Lacey? If she knew I lied…You can probably imagine how rigid she is about honesty. She’d never forgive me.”

“I won’t.”

Don’t tell Arven, she didn’t say, but her tone did it for her.

Chapter Text

What the hell am I doing here? Juliana asked herself. 

The abandoned warehouse just a few blocks removed from campus with “SCHEDAR” freshly painted on its weathered brick side in star-spangled graffiti was as lively on this Saturday night as any of the dance clubs over on the more fashionable side of Mesagoza. 

On the smooth concrete floor, an oblong track was drawn and marked up in spray paint—not to the precise standards of the sport’s governing body, but close enough to be instantly recognizable to any roller derby player or fan. Bright spotlights danced over the white lines. 

Along the sidelines, worryingly close to the action, a cluster of about thirty young adults in bespoke "STAR CROSSERS" shirts and star-shaped sunglasses jumped up and down and cheered over thundering metal music. 

Mingled in among them were regular students who wandered in through the bay doors of the warehouse that were rolled open to the street. Some were drawn in by the music. Others by whispers of the word “Zoruva,” or a cryptic post made by the Star Crossers’ Igglystagram account. But all were now clamoring and elbowing to catch a glimpse of the sport of the Star Crossers' own invention, rumored to be so thrillingly dangerous that Uva University strictly forbade it: PokéDerby.

The short answer to Juliana’s question was that she had called Cassiopeia back after Arven’s baking blowup and impulsively agreed to join Operation Starfall that very night so long as it meant she’d get to hit something.

But now that she was here, peering through the screened eyeholes of her Zoroark mask at the Schedar Squad’s jammer next to her and seeing her own reflection in the dark visor of the girl’s black full-face motorbike helmet, that explanation no longer felt sufficient.

A scarlet star was crisply detailed on each side of the helmet, and the back of the girl’s black jersey, embellished with sequined red flames, read “HOT TO GO." Just ahead of the two of them, a pack of eight Pokémon jockeyed for position. 

There was no time left to question her own motives and decisions. The whistle blew and Juliana took off like a rocket.

“So, how does all of this work? Not the skating thing—I think I’ve got that about as well as I’m ever going to get it—but the whole…roller derby…thing?” Arven asked at that first Grapes of Wrath practice the previous week, once he and Juliana came back in from the tennis court. They’d both swapped their skates out for shoes once again, but he was still walking like he had sea legs.

Juliana snorted. Wish I could see his face tomorrow when he tries to stand up and finds out he’s sore in muscles he didn’t even know he had.

Bet it would be fun to massage some of it away for him…

“Glad y'asked, roomie! Splits here must’ve been a real A-1 ambassador of the sport to get you hungry for more, eh? Heh heh.” Drayton was leaning back in a folding chair in front of the bleachers, the whistle around his neck perched like a stalk of wheat between his teeth. 

Juliana and Arven traded barbed looks in lieu of a verbal answer.

“We just wrapped up the drills. Phew, I’m wiped, but I think we could give you a little demo before we go-go," Drayton singsonged.

“Wiped?” Juliana scoffed. “You look like you've just been sitting here the whole time.”

Drayton ignored her, stretching as he rose from his chair. "I’ll have Kiki walk you through the basics while we show you.”

“Kiki?” she asked, unfamiliar with the name. 

Drayton pointed up into the fourth row of the bleachers behind him at the scrawny kid Carmine was yelling at earlier.

“W-wowzers—really, Drayton? You want me to do it?” he asked timidly as Juliana and Arven climbed up there and sat down next to him. He shook the dark hair out of his face to reveal big, hopeful eyes. 

“Sure thing. See, roomie, we’ve only got enough players on the team to give you half a demo. And without Splits, I’ll have to jump in. Real pity we don’t have more members. If we did, we could scrimmage, and even compete against other teams,” Drayton explained.

“As it is, we kinda just show up to practice for the love of the game. Drill our skills to keep ‘em sharp, rough each other up a bit, talk shop, swap scar stories, that kinda thing. Anyway, Kiki here’s got the rule book memorized front, back, and sideways, so I’m leaving you in good hands. Enjoy the lesson!”

Typical Drayton—pass the buck to someone else. Why can’t I just explain the rules to Arven? 

“Okay…I-I got this! Thanks, Drayton!” the kid replied, hurriedly closing the sketchbook on his lap and stuffing it into his backpack. The team took their starting positions on the track. Carmine shot them a scathing look over her shoulder that had Juliana fighting a laugh. 

“I’m, um, Kieran. C-Carmine’s brother,” he said to Arven and Juliana.

Ah, I see the family resemblance now. Same eyes and hair. He looks way less constipated, though. 

“S-so, um…roller derby works like this. Each team has five players on the track at a time. One called the jammer—see, t-that’s Lacey right now, with the star cover on her helmet—who can score points. And the other four are called blockers. They play both offense and defense at the same time.”

“Ah—so that’s why Drayton said it could only be half of a demonstration,” Arven remarked, nodding. “You’d need ten people to show us a full game, but you only have five here.”

“Right,” Kieran said, sitting up straighter.  His nervousness seemed to be falling away as he got more and more into the explanation. “Both teams’ jammers start out next to each other on the track, behind a big group of all the blockers called the pack. And, um, once the whistle blows, the first thing they have to do is get through all the blockers in the pack for an initial pass.”

Narrowly dodging a Will-O-Wisp hot enough to melt her mascara and make her eyelashes curl even behind the mask, Juliana wrestled with a wave of panic. 

Why did the first one have to be the Fire-type specialist? No wonder Cassiopeia said that stuff about not wearing anything flammable…

She zigzagged through the loose formation of four opposing Charcadet blockers and made a break for the first curve.

Keep calm. One foot in front of the other. Lean into the speed.

I can do this. Right? Even if I don’t know why I’m doing it…

Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she saw Hot To Go struggling to get through Juliana’s own blocker Pokémon. The Shadow Balls hurled by her Mimikyu and her Sableye's floating Power Gems combined to create a tricky obstacle course of rocks levitating in a swirl of dark energy.

Juliana snickered. At least things were going according to plan.

“Oh, and the first jammer to get through the initial pass is called the lead jammer,” Kieran added. Their eyes followed Lacey down below as she wove in between Crispin and Amarys. “They can call off the jam any time they want.”

Juliana whipped around the track like a vengeful whirlwind. 

Two whistle blows from the referee with his finger pointed at her confirmed her status as lead jammer.

The cheers from the sidelines shifted—the spectators in Star Crossers gear became outraged, but the gathering crowd of people who walked in from the street went wild. Roars rose and fell like a wave of dominos as she passed them by. 

The energy was electrifying. 

Whoa—these people are cheering for me, she thought. I’m doing something they’ve never even seen before. And I’m kicking ass at it!

“So, um, once they’ve made the initial pass, both jammers can come back around the track and score one point for every opposing blocker they skate past,” Kieran explained. “And they keep doing that for the rest of the jam.”

Hot To Go finally found an opening and broke loose from the pack as Juliana swung back around. The opposing Charcadet blockers had managed to get themselves into a square formation and were now combining their Fire Spins to create a flaming vortex right down the middle of the track. 

A flaming vortex that Juliana was about to careen straight into. She tensed, gripped by genuine fear for the first time in the bout, running lightning-fast calculations in her head about whether intentionally wiping out to stop would put her in more or less danger. 

C’mon. There’s no way that’s allowed with the fire code. And with a huge crowd in here like this? What are they thinking?! 

She locked eyes with her own Frogadier just beyond the swirling inferno and called out a command. It let loose a fierce Water Pulse right down the middle, leaving a steaming strip of slick, but passable, concrete for her to skate through.

A way out. An exit. I can do this, she thought. I have to…

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and zoomed right through, splashing an arc of hot water on the crowd and scoring four points. The Charcadets didn’t know what hit them.

Over her shoulder, she shouted an order to her Frogadier to finish dousing the Fire Spins.

“Wait, slow down, hang on, my head’s spinning,” Arven sputtered, closing his eyes and holding up his hands. “What kind of jam are we using? Strawberry? Grape?”

“Aw, man. Did I get too excited and forget to explain what a jam is?” Kieran rubbed his forehead, accidentally transferring a little smudge of blue ink from his right hand onto his face. “Roller derby is played in these two-minute rounds called jams.”

“Bummer. Not the jam I was hoping for,” Arven said wistfully. 

They watched as Lacey tried to fake out Drayton by juking left and moving right, but he anticipated the trick and blocked her with an easy smirk. Undeterred, she slid underneath his arm and tore off down the track, leaving him laughing.

“So, anyway, the two jammers just keep trying to get around the track and score as many points as they can during the two minutes, or until the lead jammer calls off the jam,” Kieran continued. 

“Why would they do that, though? Don’t they want to keep scoring?” Arven asked.

“Usually for defensive reasons. The goal of each jam isn’t to score a lot of points. Just to score more than the other team.”

There was little time for Juliana to celebrate the grand slam she’d just pulled off. Hot To Go was hot on her heels. 

Juliana tapped her hands to her hips to call off the jam before her opponent could get back around the track and start scoring points. The whistle blew, and everyone skated back to their starting positions.

Her tongue toyed with her mouth guard. Bent at the hips and panting, she now felt keenly one of the key differences with PokéDerby: There was no other jammer for her to switch out with and take a breather in between jams. Each and every jam would depend on her alone. 

The crowd chanted, “Zor-Uva! Zor-Uva! Zor-Uva!”

”You’re doing great,” Cassiopeia’s voice piped up in her wireless earbuds. 

Behind painted plastic, Juliana smiled.

“I know,” she replied.

I can do this. I’m the incredible Zoruva, after all. I put on the mask and I…

Well, I guess I’m not really saving anyone here, am I?

Juliana sucked her mouth guard back into place. With the next shriek of the whistle, she launched forward again. 

“So is the score really just a matter of which jammer is faster?” Arven asked, puzzled. 

“Not really,” Kieran answered. “It’s a full team sport. The blockers are…well, they’re working to help their own jammer, but mostly they're blocking. Trying to slow the opposing jammer down, stop them, knock them over. They can’t use their hands, elbows, head, or feet, and they can only hit between the shoulders and mid-thigh, but everything else is fair game. It can get kinda ugly…”

“Huh.” Arven crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Juliana. “So when you body slammed me on your longboard at full speed, was that your way of trying to haze me into the team or something? Yeesh, you’re no better than the Star Crossers.”

Juliana laughed harder than she should have. The irony was just too delicious.

“Please. That was a light tap compared to the hits I’ve taken on the track. I meant what I said, princess—you wouldn’t last one jam.”

“As a jammer or a blocker?”

“As a spectator,” she hissed.

This time, the opposing Charcadet blockers put up a slightly more coordinated resistance. Two of them turned their attention to impeding Juliana, while the other two focused on dealing damage to her blockers. They tried a super-effective Flame Charge on what appeared to be a Honedge...until the illusion shimmered, and a Zorua appeared in its place, shaking off the hit with ease and appearing to even smirk. 

Gasps went up through the crowd.

While the blockers were distracted by their own confusion, Juliana once again broke through. She managed to loop back around and maneuver through three of them, but the fourth had already fainted to another Water Pulse from Frogadier. 

Three points for Zoruva—and now her opponent was permanently down a blocker. 

Hot To Go angrily shoved through Juliana’s defensive wall and powered her way up alongside her.

“Tch! I ain’t burned to a crisp just yet!”

Kicking out one leg, she snared Juliana’s ankle with her wheels.

Juliana tried to recover as she spun out, but lost too much traction on the slippery wet floor and crashed backwards into the concrete. 

“You said it gets…ugly,” Arven said, eyeing Juliana with a strange unease. “Do players get hurt?”

She rolled her eyes. Nobody's making you play. Your pretty face is safe. 

“S-sometimes, but not usually,” Kieran said. “Bruises are common, but all the safety equipment helps. Everyone has to wear knee pads, wrist guards, elbow pads, and mouth guards. Oh, and of course, a helmet.”

"So you'll wear a helmet here, but not when you're skateboarding down a hill at a million miles an hour and crash into me," Arven snapped at her. "Do you only care about safety when you're forced to?"

"Oh, that's rich coming from the numbskull who made me crash in the first place!" 

"I thought we settled that!"

"You thought wrong!"

Juliana popped back up onto her feet like the reflex it was. The longer she spent on the floor, the greater the risk of someone running over her. 

She was already lunging down the track by the time she recognized that she now had a mild, yet annoying, headache. Her eyes widened slightly as she realized why. 

She bumped her head when she fell. Not hard. She’d taken much gnarlier knocks reaching for an object underneath a table and swinging back up without looking. But she’d never even felt it when she hit her head in derby before—because she had always been wearing a helmet. 

The full-face Zoroark mask was incompatible with a helmet, so she simply left it off. She rollerbladed and longboarded around without one all the time anyway—what was the worst that could happen? 

The ref blew the whistle and called a penalty on Hot To Go for the illegal trip. 

Juliana smirked. With a power jam, she could tie this thing up with a bow and end it before Hot To Go could even score. 

"You thought wrong," Kieran repeated in an irritatingly precise caricature of Juliana's thick Unovan accent. "Wowzers, somebody should blow the whistle on you two. Oh, right—penalties. Illegal hits or other rule violations can get jammers and blockers sent to the penalty box for thirty seconds of the jam.”

This guy's clearly a derby fanatic, Juliana thought. Why doesn’t he just join the team? We really could use more players.

“Wait…does that mean you can have a jam where nobody can score, if both jammers have a penalty at once?” Arven asked, scratching his head.

“Good thinking! You're really getting this! But no,” Kieran replied, growing animated. “Only one jammer can serve a penalty at a time. While they do, it’s called a power jam for the other team, because it gives them a chance to score a lot while they don't have to think about defense. Wowzers, doesn’t that sound cool?”

Juliana and her team scored five more points and knocked out another Charcadet before Hot To Go was released from the penalty box, bringing the score to 12 - 0. 

The crowd's enthusiasm was at a fever pitch now. And Hot To Go had only two Pokémon left.

“So…how do you know when it’s over? D’you just keep going until someone dies?” Arven asked.

“That usually doesn’t happen,” Juliana scoffed. 

“Usually?!”

“You play as many jams as you can fit in the two thirty-minute halves. And that’s a bout!” Kieran said, grinning.

“About what?”

“S-sorry—Games in derby are also called bouts.”

As Cassiopeia explained to her, the win condition of PokéDerby was a bit different. Once a jammer scored at least ten points, all they had to do to win the bout was knock out all of the opposing jammer’s blocker Pokémon. 

“Now!” Juliana shouted, and Frogadier unleashed one more Water Pulse on the exhausted Charcadets. They tumbled to the wet floor in a steaming pile and were recalled to Hot To Go’s PokéBalls. 

The crowd, which had swelled since the start of the bout to roughly a hundred, erupted with deafening applause. 

Juliana recalled her Pokémon, skated to the center of the track and treated them to a pirouette before taking a theatrical bow, sweeping her arm in front of her. The cheering grew even more rabid. 

This feels…awesome, she thought. Maybe Juliana Vega forgets an entire exam and tanks her grade, or pisses off a hot guy, or can’t do much of anything right—but Zoruva can defeat a bully in a boundary-pushing sport and send a crowd into a frenzy with her fingertips. 

Maybe I like…getting to become someone else? Like a derby persona, but more intense? Putting on a mask, and…

Maybe that’s what I’m doing here?

She beamed a big smile at the crowd, before deflating slightly with the realization that no one could see it behind the mask. 

Hot To Go skated toward her with a jerky reluctance, stopping in front of her. 

"I burned through everythin' I had...and now I've sputtered out." Her voice was muffled slightly by the full-face helmet. “That Frogadier of yours really let us have it. Guess this is where it ends...The Schedar Squad’s cooked. Donezo. I'm so sorry, Hack 'N Slash...we really tried...”

She sounds…more than just mad about the loss, Juliana thought. Almost heartbroken, talking to her Pokémon like that...

Even though she knew these people were bullies, she queasily questioned whether she was really the good guy here. 

Hot To Go pivoted to skate out the front bay doors of the warehouse. “I hope you’re happy, Zoruva,” she spat back over her shoulder.

Left alone in the middle of the track, fans in the restless crowd began to rush toward Juliana. She tensed.

Praise from a distance is one thing, but if anyone gets too close, they might recognize me even with the mask on…

Her escape artist’s sixth sense kicked in. Bolting back further into the warehouse, behind a number of what looked like old semi-trucks in various states of disrepair, she followed that familiar tingle at the base of her neck.

There’ll be a back door. There’s always a fire exit.

One or two of the boldest fans rushed after her, their footfalls loud on the concrete floor. 

She looked up. Above her swung an old fluorescent light fixture, the only source of light in this part of the warehouse. 

Not up to code, she thought. No emergency exit lights? Seriously?! I know it’s “abandoned,” and hopefully after tonight it actually will be. But I should really send the Fire Marshal an anonymous tip about this place…

Thinking quickly, she pitched a spare Quick Ball at the light as hard as she could. The bulb shattered on contact, plunging this corner of the room into shadow.

The fans pursuing her grumbled in confusion, footsteps halting.

In the cover provided by the darkness, she silently slipped out the back door into an alleyway, yanked her hood down and mask off, and tucked it into the front pocket of her hoodie. Just like that, the incredible Zoruva was Juliana Vega once more, an ordinary Uva University student in forgettable black clothes and roller skates. 

“Good work,” Cassiopeia said in her headphones as she kicked off toward her dorm.“One down, four to go.” 

Chapter Text

Juliana studied the dirty old windowpane. Behind the Zoroark mask, her lip curled. 

Is this…wrong? There’s no other way in without anyone seeing me…

She winced, imagining what Lacey would say.

Nevertheless, she took a deep breath, wrapped her left hand up in her black sweatshirt sleeve, drew it back, and threw her best Bullet Punch through the window. 

The grimey glass splintered and gave way under her fist, shards tinkling as they hit the dark concrete floor inside. 

Entering the disused warehouse that served as the base of operations for the Star Crossers’ Schedar Squad without being detected was easy. Zoruva had "declared war" on them, but no one knew when, where, or even if she would strike—she still had the element of surprise. She’d been able to just pop the mask on behind a dumpster and roll right in through their front door without anyone batting an eye. 

But a week later, all of Uva was abuzz with talk about which base the masked Curse of Cassiopeia would challenge next.

According to Cass, the Star Crossers’ bases were all warehouses in varying states of dilapidation. And all of them, this one included, faced the street in parts of Mesagoza with significant foot traffic. The sentries posted out front confirmed that the Segin Squad was on high alert for a Saturday night strike.

To minimize the danger of her secret identity being discovered, Juliana had no choice but to minimize the time she spent in the mask. Skating out of her dorm room and across campus as Zoruva was out of the question. Nor could she waltz into the place as her boring self and change inside without raising questions about why Juliana Vega wanted to enter a Star Crossers base.

Thanks to Zoruva's newfound fame, almost everything in between now carried the risk of someone seeing her put the mask on or take it off, or making note of which direction she came from. She yearned for the simplicity and slickness of storybook superheroes with secret underground tunnels to hide out in and conveniently emerge from. 

She had a much more theatrical plan for her escape once she was done here, involving Smoke Balls. But a little fence-hopping and light B&E around the back seemed like the cleanest way in, even if she felt dirty about it. 

Not like Dad never had to break down a door or two, she thought. Then again, he did that to save people…

After smashing the window in, Juliana paused and listened for a moment. Her hand smarted from the hit, but the glass hadn’t cut her. When no alarm wailed and no Star grunts came running, she swept her protected arm around to dislodge the shards of glass that didn't fall inward on their own and grabbed the sides of the window frame to haul herself in. 

Then she froze. 

Voices. 

“I don’t want to battle you!” one suddenly said. He sounded stilted. Awkward. 

But…unsettlingly familiar.

“Huh? Who said anything about battling?” said another. The conversation floated on the chilly night air from the other side of the loading dock, at the corner of the chain link fence surrounding the warehouse perimeter. 

“Uh—You did! You…wanted to make me join you!”

A third voice piped up. “I mean, sure, man, if you’re interested—you missed our official rush week, but we've got some recruitment pamphlets inside—“

“I won’t join the Star Crossers!"

"O...kay? Gettin' some mixed signals from you, dude..."

"Oh, if only Zoruva were here to save me…?” the familiar voice opined. 

Damn it...

She checked that her mask was securely affixed, then skated out of the shadows toward the disturbance. 

Juliana had been doing her best to avoid him since their baking misadventure a week earlier. But Arven was there, backed into a dark corner by two Star Crosser peons, clutching that damned PokéBall upside down again. 

For some reason, he showed up to the Grapes of Wrath practice on Wednesday and sat in the bleachers next to Kieran, looking all sullen and sexy and stupid as he carefully studied each player with the heavy brows and keen eyes of a film noir detective. Juliana made a concerted effort to ignore him, but unfortunately, this worked about as well as being told not to think of a Copperajah.

When she had to skate over there to grab water from her backpack, he sat up, waved and called out to her. 

“Hey, Juliana, I—“

“Save it,” she said, refusing to even look at him.

“But I want to say—“

“We have nothing to say to each other."

“I’m sorry about—!“

Deciding she didn't need water after all, she abruptly pivoted on her heel and glided away.

Arven quit trying to talk to her after that. And yet, when she returned to the bleachers at the end of practice and unzipped her backpack to throw her gear into it, atop of all the crumpled papers and notebooks and junk, she found a carefully wrapped BLT sandwich just like the one he made for her on Saturday.

Her first reaction was horror that he'd seen the inside of her bag. And yet…

Looking up and catching those turquoise eyes watching her, she tried to shoot him a polaroid scowl. But when he developed the film, it came out more like a coy half-smile. 

As soon as he saw her now, his face lit up. “Oh! Zoruva! Thank goodness you’re here!”

“These guys bothering you?” she asked, drawing Mimikyu’s PokéBall and slipping effortlessly into that deep, Paldean-accented voice she used the first time. She’d been practicing it in the shower just in case she needed it again, but somehow could never get it right without the mask on. Maybe something about the long, hollow snout provided resonance. 

“Whoa! Uh, we don’t want any trouble, Zoruva,” one of the grunts stammered, wild-eyed. 

“Your word against his,” she replied. “Square up, Star-Face.”

It was over before it began. The Star Crossers henchmen shuffled off toward the nearest Pokémon Center, grumbling. Fortunately, no one seemed to notice the window she’d broken, but she was now on borrowed time to get in there and do what she came here to do before half of Mesagoza descended upon this loading dock to see Zoruva.

Arven whistled, eyes bright. “Way to go! I swear, it's like you're my guardian angel! Thank you for saving me again.”

He was unharmed, unruffled, unbloodied. Chipper, even.

A little too chipper for someone who just got jumped. 

She squinted at him through the mesh-screened eye holes of her mask. “Why do you look so excited?”

“B-because I’m just—so glad you rescued me!”

“What were you doing here?”

“Uh…I was…”

She poked him in the chest.

"You've already been picked on by these goons once. And you have no Pokémon that can fight. Why were you hanging out behind one of their bases, at night?"

Arven blinked like a Deerling in headlights. He chuckled nervously.

She grabbed him by his shirt collar with both hands and hauled him around to press his back into the chain link fence.

“Arven. Did you put yourself in danger...on purpose?!”

His face glowed a guilty pink. He bit his lip.

"...Maybe?" he squeaked.

“What is wrong with you?!”

“S-sorry! See, I really needed to talk to you, Zoruva! I've been trying to track you down ever since you saved me the first time. You’re a tough nut to crack! I tried to catch up to you after your bout with the Schedar Squad last week—which was awesome, by the way, wow—but you slipped through my fingers again."

She tensed. 

Those footsteps that chased me to the back door! 

I was way closer to getting caught than I thought…

“That was a clever trick, knocking out the light like you did," he added. "Where’d you get the idea?”

The praise made her blush behind the plastic. Letting her guard down, she released her grip on him. “Read it in a book once. That guy did it with a sword and candles, though ¹. Way more dangerous, but much less messy than shattering a fluorescent bulb. You know those things release mercury if you break them? Wait, damn it, why am I telling you this—I’m in a hurry, and I'm pissed at you! Can’t you just stay out of trouble? Why are you making my job harder?!”

“Because I need you, Zoruva,” he pleaded. “I have a dream, and I need your help to make it a reality!"

She snorted. “A dream?”

“Hehehe... Caught your interest, have I? You want to hear all about my dream, right?" He grinned at her, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed like he was a suave Casanova, and absolutely, definitely not a guy who just got done pretending to be a damsel in distress to get her attention. 

With that face, I think I'd want to hear you recite the dictionary, she thought, then pinched herself for it.

"Well, this might come as a surprise, but fact is, I'm all about that picnic life: The great outdoors, the perfectly prepared sandwiches, all of it. Not half bad at cooking either, I can tell you.”

A loud growling noise rose up from between them. She didn't immediately identify it as her stomach.

“I'm actually a Nutritional Science major. And right now I'm researching new recipes that'll help Pokémon feel better. Real health food, see. I found this book the other day—" Arven paused, digging out an old volume bound in purple leather from his bag to show her.

"It has a section about this stuff called Herba Mystica...Basically, they're some kind of special herbs that heal up any Pokémon as soon as it eats them! Now, there are a total of five different types of Herba Mystica, based on what I read. Just taking a little lick of them once they've been powdered will get your blood flowing, provide nutrients, prevent aging—it'll even boost the immune system! These herbs seem like they're the real deal. Only found here in Paldea—and rare to boot!"

Her eyes flicked nervously in the direction of the broken window. Is this some kind of sales pitch? I don't have time for this. I've gotta get in there...

"But this book says they're all guarded by Titan Pokémon, meaning that it's gonna be pretty tough to try to grab even a few sprigs. 'Cause, see, Titans are— Well, I think they've gotta be...things like this!"

He flipped to a dog-eared page and pointed to an ink drawing of what looked like a massive leviathan of a Klawf next to a regular-sized one. 

"I really want to get those herbs for myself, but...I'm not very good at Pokémon battles. Don't have any friends with strong Pokémon to lend me a hand, either..." he added sheepishly.

She winced. 

I guess he really doesn't consider me a friend, Juliana thought. He never said we were, so why does it hurt?

Either that, or he doesn't think I'm very strong. I don't know which one is worse...

"But then this superhero comes out of nowhere and saves me! You've got to help me out with this—please, you'd be perfect!" he begged.

Asking Zoruva for help seems much easier for him than when he asked me to help him feed Mabosstiff, Juliana thought. Why is that?

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “You want me to help you slay a bunch of dangerous, legendary monsters…to get…an herb?”

“Exactly!”

“Ha! Not interested. Try a grocery store.”

She turned back toward the building. He grabbed her arm.

“Wait! I really need your help! Please…” The lightheartedness had fallen away, leaving his face stricken and pale. “I’m…I'm running out of time!” 

She laughed in his face. “What could possibly be so time-sensitive about a sandwich ingredient?”

Arven's shoulders slumped. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it in a hard line. “Forget it. I’ll do it myself.”

He marched away toward the narrow alley that led to the front of the building and the street. Under his breath, he muttered, "Even if it kills me."

Even if it…kills you?

…I'm researching new recipes that'll help Pokémon feel better…

…heal up any Pokémon as soon as it eats them…

...prevent aging...

The image of a certain sugar-faced Pokémon, geriatric for his species, prone to illness and worrying episodes of food refusal, crystallized in her mind. And of a sleep-deprived Arven throwing his shaking arms around him like he'd nearly lost his whole world. 

Juliana’s stomach lurched.

Oh, Arceus. He really does mean ‘if it kills me’—and it probably will! He has no Pokémon that can fight!

“WAIT!” she shrieked. Her voice cracked so badly that for half a second it lost its sultry disguise. 

He spun around, scratching his head like he wasn’t sure where the cry came from. 

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’ll help you! Please, just don’t try to do this alone,” Juliana screamed, words tumbling out of her before she could even consider them. She'd yanked the dark tarp back down over her soprano tones, but she sounded hysterical.

A beaming smile broke over his face, hands clenching into excited fists.

“Really?! Thank you, Zoruva! Thank you so much. You won’t regret this! Oh man, you really are my hero. Once we get those herbs, I'm gonna make you the absolute best sandwich you've had in your life!"

Relief and dread cut her like twin blades. She doubled over, hands on her knees, out of breath. For someone with a Houndooini-like knack for escaping, Juliana had managed to ensnare herself in a Spidops' web of lies so convoluted that even she couldn't see a way out of it. 

Arceus, you're at it again with that sick sense of humor, she thought. I already ruined one of my shirts for the one of his that I bled on—is this ingredients fetch-quest your way of making me atone for destroying his breakfast sandwich?!

Chapter Text

The thrill of her second PokéDerby victory was still tingling under Juliana’s skin as she jumped out of the shower and rubbed a towel over her short hair.

The travel-sized bottle of shampoo she brought with her on the plane from Unova had finally run out, so she’d been quietly siphoning off a little of Nemona’s for the past three days or so, kicking herself each time she forgot to pop in to Delibird Presents to buy more. She berated herself for being a bad roommate and made a silent vow that she would remember to do it tomorrow, ignoring the voice in her head that seemed to recall her saying the same thing yesterday. 

Juliana shut the bathroom door behind her, hit redial on her phone, and left it lying on the unmade bed while she got dressed.

“Okay! All done rinsing off. Let the debrief continue,” Juliana said when it picked up.

“Cool, so uh…what was it like out there?” Cassiopeia asked.

Pulling on a denim miniskirt, she snorted. 

“You were watching the livestream on the Star Crossers' RotomTube channel, Cass. You know what it was like!”

She fished two sweaters out of what she thought was the clean side of the Great Laundry Pile, giving them a sniff to make sure, then held them both up to her Mimikyu on the bed. It bounced higher for the fuzzy white v-neck, so she slipped that one on top of her tank and slung the other over the bed post, planning to properly hang it back up the moment hell froze over. 

“No, I mean…tell me what it felt like. The…PokéDerby. The skating.”

“Oh,” Juliana said, checking her outfit in the mirrored closet door. Still missing something. “It was…intense, and high-pressure, but wicked fun, too. It's such a rush to get to do something that nobody else can do, y'know? And to feel like I'm good at it...it's kind of addicting. As for the skating, it felt the same way skating always feels to me? Like spinning a thread out of thin air just by shifting my weight from one foot to the other, and dancing on it like a tightrope walker at the same time.”

She was smiling until she dug around in her dresser and discovered that her lone pair of fishnet tights had really seen better days. 

At least they’re fishnets. The holes are harder to see when it’s all holes.

”Nothing to worry about but the here and now," Juliana added, tugging them on with a giggle. "Like how I’ve heard other people describe meditation, only it doesn’t make me want to scream."

She grabbed her makeup bag off the dresser, kicked aside some more laundry of unknown origins and sat down on the carpet in front of the mirror. Mimikyu hopped over to be next to her. 

“Do you skate, Cass?”

A long pause followed. Smudging up her eyeliner with her pinky finger, Juliana was about to ask whether her robotic conversation partner was still there.

“Sorry, got caught up in my thoughts for a second. I...used to.”

They sounded a thousand miles away. For all Juliana knew, maybe they were. It seemed like a sore spot, so she changed the subject. 

“So, do you know anything about why Uva’s administration banned PokéDerby?"

Another long silence.

“The short answer is that it’s dangerous.”

“Psh! Regular roller derby is dangerous,” Juliana scoffed, ignoring the part of her that agreed that dodging fireballs from Pokémon while indoors was a recipe for disaster. “But admin allows that, and even gives a little funding to the team, just like any other intramural sport. What’s the long answer?”

“Are you, like, incapable of fear, or what? All you need to know is that it’s dangerous! But the ban didn’t stop them from playing it, it just drove them underground, off campus, and made them more aggressive with their recruiting tactics. They play with those full-face helmets so they can’t be identified by administration. Still, it's only a matter of time before someone gets caught…or someone else gets hurt…”

Cassiopeia trailed off. “...Sorry, I got distracted for a second there again. Anyway, that’s why I need your help to defeat each of the Star Crossers' squad bosses. Their honor code states that they can’t refuse a challenge, and if they lose, they have to disband their squad.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Juliana asked, trying not to stab herself in the eye with her mascara wand a third time.

“Uh…Because I…hacked around. For info on them.”

“I should’ve known,” she sighed. “You and your hacking…you know my height and weight and probably all kinds of other stuff you shouldn’t know about me. And you’re the only one who knows the brave, sexy masked hero taking on the Star Crossers is secretly none other than the flaky, sloppy Juliana Vega…” She was smirking, but a chill spread under her ribs as she said it. 

“That sounds…kinda lonely, actually. Isn’t it?" Cassiopeia asked, as if sensing her tone shift.

"...I guess it is. Of all my friends, you're the only one who knows both sides of me.” Juliana frowned at herself in the mirror. “I feel like I deserve to at least know something about you in return,” she added.

“Okay…as a...friend, what do you want to know?”

“How about I make you a deal: For every squad boss I defeat, I get to ask you a question, and you have to truthfully answer it.”

“But you won’t even know if I’m being truthful! I could totally just lie, and you’d have no idea,” Cass replied.

“True. But you’ll know. And you’re a good enough person to want to stop a bunch of strangers from getting hurt or expelled, so I’m betting that the guilt of lying to a friend would eat at you.”

”I’m also a bad enough person to hack your phone and use you for this stupidly dangerous mission!”

Swiping on a dark cherry lipstick, Juliana paused.

”Do we have a deal or not, Cass?”

“…Okay, deal. On one condition: You can’t just ask what my real name is.”

“You think I'd try asking a genie for three more wishes? Psh, I may be an idiot, but I'm smarter than that,” she said. Her hair was already mostly dry, so she fixed her usual side braid, tucked it along the side of her head like half of a circlet, and pinned it behind her ear. She turned her head to show Mimikyu, and it gave her a little pirouette of approval. “Hmm…alright, my first question for you is: What’s your favorite Pokémon?”

When Cassiopeia spoke again, it sounded as though a smile was warming their distorted voice, like sunlight filtering through frosted glass.

“Eevee,” they said. “All the Eeveelutions. My Sylveon's actually asleep on my lap right now.”

Juliana grinned. “Aww, nice. I’m hanging out with my Mimikyu right now.”

“Not Zoroark?”

“Nah. I like Zoroark, but I don’t actually have one yet,” she said, smiling at her Pokémon and fluffing her powder brush over its disguised face. Mimikyu always wanted to be included when Juliana did her own makeup. “Never really had a reason to train up my Pokémon so they'd evolve, I guess.”

“For my second question…huh, I guess I already asked you three questions today, didn’t I? Skating, how you know so much about the Star Crossers, and the Pokémon question.”

“Choose another one,” Cassiopeia blurted. “Those first two…didn’t count.”

Juliana was immediately suspicious. Cass is always so cagey—why would they just offer to let me ask another question?

“Because those first two were before the deal, or because you didn’t answer them truthfully?”

“Look—just—pick another question!”

Then she caught sight of the clock on her phone.

“Uh-oh—I’m gonna be late for my alibi. I’ll ask you the second one when I think of it. Talk to you soon, Cass!”

She hung up the call, shoved her feet into her sneaker-skates, and yanked at the laces. Then, with an all-too-familiar sinking feeling, she patted her pockets. 

Oh, no—where are my keys?

Chapter Text

“You are—“

“—Ten minutes late, I know, I know. Sorry!” Juliana cut Amarys off as she rushed up to the big U-shaped booth, breathless. “First round’s on me?”

Lacey tsked at her. “You really ought to be on time more. It’s wrong to keep your friends waiting like this. Especially when we cleared our schedules for you on such short notice!”

Is half an hour really short notice? Juliana wondered. The idea for a girls' night came to her as she skated home from the Segin Squad’s warehouse, partly from a desire to firm up an alibi that would make her seem a less likely suspect for Zoruva’s true identity in the event anyone ever started to look closely at her. 

Especially since I now know of at least one stupidly hot Nutritional Science major who is looking closely at Zoruva, she thought, then shook it off. She was determined not to worry about that tonight. After all, her other reason for sending the invitation was a simple wish to celebrate her win, just as she would after any other derby victory—even if she couldn’t actually tell her friends what she was celebrating. 

Juliana slid into the booth next to Lacey, giggling and pulling her into a jasmine-cotton-candy-scented hug. “Cleared your schedules? You sure replied to my text fast if you were so busy. Be honest, did either of you really have anything going on?”

"Negative," Amarys admitted. “And I abhor to waste a perfectly amenable Saturday night. Therefore, I'll excuse your tardiness for the price of a drink.”

“Me neither,” Lacey huffed. “My sorority's charity mixer got canceled at the last minute because of a mass outbreak of aggressive wild Tauros, so I’m also glad you had this idea."

Izakaya Munchlax, well known for its sushi and cocktails, opened within the last year or so to seize upon the cultural zeitgeist of izakaya-style Johtonian restaurants popping up in Mesagoza. The shareable small plates proved wildly popular with Paldean diners who were already well accustomed to gathering with friends for drinks and tapas, and a ringing endorsement of five out of five chili peppers from foodie influencer HotEatzPaldea shortly after the restaurant’s grand opening had kept it busy ever since.

The dining room was significantly larger than a traditional Johtonian izakaya, but the warm, dim lighting, primarily supplied by the flickering LED candles on each table, lent the space an intimate feel that belied its size. Decorative paper lanterns were suspended from the ceiling above the bar. Wood-paneled walls displayed a hodgepodge of modern art and traditional sumi-e ink paintings, while an equally eclectic mix of students, professionals, and their Pokémon crammed into the cognac leather booths and produced a welcoming hum of chatter and clinking glasses. 

Wonder how Lacey and Amarys managed to score such a huge table for only the three of us when it's this busy? Juliana thought. Maybe Lacey slipped the host a bribe? Or just intimidated the poor schmuck without even realizing it...

"Hey, Crispin!” Lacey called out, waving.

Their flame-haired friend waved back as he approached the table and scooted in next to Amarys. “Slay-cey! Ama-rizz! Cool-iana! What’s cookin’?”

“Crispin, hi! What a coincidence! What brings you here?” Juliana asked.

“Coincidence? Lacey invited me! I wouldn’t have missed it. I love this place!”

Juliana raised an eyebrow at Lacey, who just folded her arms stubbornly.

“The rest of the team is en route. They should arrive any minute,” Amarys said. 

“The rest of the—Lace, it was just supposed to be a girls’ night!” Juliana groaned, elbowing her.

Yet it was Amarys who responded, brow furrowing sternly above her silver half-moon framed glasses. “A girls’ night to which you failed to invite our dear friend Carmine.”

“It’s just not right to exclude the rest of the team,” Lacey added to the scold, but a sly sparkle flashed in her eye. “That’s precisely how cliques get started, you know. It’s bad for team dynamics.”

Juliana sighed. The large table made a lot more sense now. “Fine. Not like I mind hanging out with Drayton and Crispin anyway,” she said, blowing a raspberry at Crispin when he playfully stuck his tongue out at her.

Carmine, on the other hand…

She looked around for a waiter, but they all seemed to be tied up with other tables. “What’s a girl gotta do to get a drink in this place?” she asked.

“They appear to be short-staffed,” Amarys replied. “We have been unsuccessful in getting their attention.”

“Guess I’ll try the bar. You guys want anything? Like I said, first round’s on me.”

“Oooh, a Pink Dratini, please,” Lacey said. 

“Ginger ale for me,” Amarys added. 

“A habañero marg all the way! And a bottle of hot sauce on the side,” Crispin added.

Ten minutes later she returned, carefully juggling four drinks between her hands and the crooks of her elbows. The friendly yet bumbling little Psyduck assisting the frazzled bartender had filled the cup of ginger ale to the brim, so to avoid sloshing it, she moved at a glacial pace through the bustling dining room and didn’t dare take her eyes off the glass. Four drinking straws were hooked in her curled pinky. 

“Here—let me—“ someone offered when she approached the table, removing two of the drinks from her hands. 

“No, it’s fine, I’ve got—“

Then Juliana locked eyes with her would-be helper.

He gulped. She groaned.

In her absence, Carmine arrived and snagged the right-side end seat, next to Crispin. Drayton was sitting in the spot Juliana initially claimed next to Lacey. And on the other side of Drayton, in the left-side end seat, trying to help her with the drinks, was…him, of course. Who else if not the nexus of nearly all her problems?

The delicious adrenaline rush of the PokéDerby bout allowed Juliana to all but forget the masked conversation she had with Arven just an hour or two ago, but being face-to-face with him again brought it all rushing back. 

I have to pretend to be Zoruva and help him slay those Titan things, and act like I’m not pathetically attracted to him whenever I run into him as myself, without him figuring out the truth behind both. On top of my completely separate obligation to destroy a gang-like group of rollerskating freaks by defeating three more of them in a dangerous new sport that the university has banned anyone from playing—all because I impulsively decided to save his pretty face from some thugs one night.

Oh, and I’ve gotta try not to flunk my math class. Easy, right? So easy I might just throw up. 

“Drayyyy,” Juliana whined, wilting into a squat until her chin rested on the outside edge of the table. “Why’d you have to bring him?”

“He’s kind of an honorary member of the team at this point, isn’t he? Our bake sale wouldn’t have been such a W without his help.”

“And you stole my seat!” she griped through her teeth. “Lacey, why’d you let Drayton sit there?”

“It was...vacant,” Lacey shrugged, pursing her lips and looking askance. “He has now been in it longer than you were to begin with. That’s adverse possession. Perfectly legal.”

“Legal, but not right—you knew I was coming back! I was only gone so long because the bar was as swamped as everywhere else. I braved the crowd to get you all drinks and this is how you thank me?” Juliana pouted as she stood back up. “There’s nowhere for me to sit…”

“You can just squeeze in on the end,” Drayton said, waving her off. The cool breeze of his tone carried an unmistakeable whiff of mischief.

Juliana looked at Carmine first. The tall girl swung her long legs over the open end of the booth, taking up as much space as possible and pretending to be engrossed in her phone.

Her eyes slid reluctantly back to Arven. In a simple blue turtleneck that fit him like a glove, sandy hair falling into his eyes, he looked gorgeous to the brink of absurdity and nervous to the point of terror.

She hadn’t forgiven him for his outburst a week earlier, mainly because she still didn’t understand it.  How did we go from playing nice and being maybe-almost-about-to-kiss to him shouting at me about my taste in men and storming off?

Arven was practically flattening himself against Drayton’s side to create more room in the booth, studiously avoiding her gaze.

He’s really that repulsed by the idea of having to sit next to me, she thought, rolling her eyes. 

Oh.

Another wave of nausea hit her. This time, it held hands with shame.

He said, 'your taste in men is terrible’ when it probably looked and sounded like I was desperately throwing myself at him. 

Even with seven days to stew about it, Arven's words hadn’t clicked for her until now.

He meant that he’s out of my league. That I’m aiming way too high and have no shot. And then, to really hammer home just how not interested in me he was, he ditched me!

The soles of her feet itched to flee. 

The front door that she entered the restaurant through lay in the five o’clock position behind her and exactly nineteen steps away. And though she had never been here before, she knew a building of this size would have at least one exit in the back for fire code compliance, somewhere off that little hallway in between the kitchen and the restrooms. Probably even two exits.

All I wanted was a girls’ night…

Juliana’s eyes snapped back to Arven again and she imagined slipping on the Zoroark mask to hide her burning face. A bold, cool defiance instantly came over her, rooting her flighty feet to the spot.

I already paid for this overpriced espresso martini. Why should I have to leave just because he sucks? These are my friends. And if he’s so repulsed by me, he shouldn’t have tagged along to a hangout that I organized.

I’ll show him just how mutual the feeling is. I’d rather sit with anyone else but him!

Feigning a confident smirk, she plunked herself down on Carmine’s lap. 

“What do you think you’re—“

“Make room, bestie,” Juliana cackled.

“There isn’t any,” Carmine growled. “Take your boney ass and go sit on the other end!”

“Ha! Make me.”

Gripping her by the tops of her arms like a disobedient toddler, Carmine picked her up, kicking and squirming, and deposited her in the empty spot next to Arven, drawing laughter from the rest of the table.

So much for that plan, Juliana thought, flushing with fresh embarrassment. She glared at Carmine as her friends resumed their chatter.

Warm and noticeably tense against her left shoulder and arm, Arven cleared his throat.

"Hi."

She refused to look at him.

“Juliana…about last week. I never got a chance to—“

“I’m not flirting with you! Don’t worry! You’re safe!” she blurted, hiding her bruised ego under a sarcastic laugh. 

Arven paled, but there was a flash of anger there, too. 

“…Okay? I know that. I would certainly hope you’re not the kind of person who—“

“Arceus, I’m nowhere near drunk enough for this,” she muttered, bringing her martini glass to her lips, tipping it back, and gulping it down despite the burn.

“Will you please just let me—Hey, slow down, don’t drink that so fast! At least eat something first. And won’t all that caffeine keep you up all night?” he scolded. From in front of him, he pushed an extra cup of water and straw toward her. 

Slamming down her empty martini glass, she tore the end of the wrapper off the straw and puffed into it to shoot it like a blow dart at Arven. He flinched as the little paper tube hit him right between the eyes and dropped into his lap. 

But instead of lashing out like she expected, he chuckled and cracked a blinding grin. She wanted to smack it right off his face.

Or kiss it away…

“Why are you here?” she whined, because she was being very mature and articulate today. “Just to ruin my night?”

His face fell. “To tell you that I’m sorry about...how I behaved last week. Since you didn’t give me a chance to at practice on Wednesday. I hope you liked the sandwich, at least.”

Oh. Right. Forgot about that…

If he's disgusted with me, then why is he trying to apologize?

This was an odd wrinkle for her theory about the cause of his sudden, inexplicable rage. But she still had no other explanation for it. 

Maybe he feels bad about the way he said it, but the underlying message was true?

“No, I mean…why bother? What’s it matter to you?”

“What does it…because I shouldn’t have yelled at you like I did and left you to do all those dishes alone!”

Juliana crossed her arms. “Why’d you do it, then?”

He sighed, not meeting her eyes. “I overheard your side of that phone call. And it sounded like the person you were talking to…wasn’t being very nice to you.”

Her face twisted in disbelief.

“You thought someone was being rude to me, and that made you want to be rude to me yourself? What, were you concerned about your job security? You're sorry you didn't beat 'em to the punch?"

Arven pinched the bridge of his nose. “No,” he said, grimacing. “Cass makes you upset, and I don’t like that.” His upper lip twitched like he was suppressing a snarl. “I guess I’m kinda…overprotective. Of my…friends.”

“You think we’re friends?”

His eyes leaped to hers. Hopeful and bright as a summer sky. Intoxicating. 

“I mean—I’d like to be?”

Not even two hours ago you were telling Zoruva that you had no friends you could ask for help!

“Liar.”

“…What?”

“You don’t want to be my friend. You can’t stand me!” she said. She stabbed the straw into the glass of water and took a sip. 

He huffed a laugh. “Why would you think that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Since we met, I can't think of a single time we've spoken where you haven't made your disdain for me crystal clear. And I can't even blame you—I’ve been nothing but trouble for you!”

Arven’s smile turned bittersweet. “I disagree,” he said. “With your second point, at least. You’re right that I haven’t been much of a friend to you so far, Juliana. I’d like to change that. But even if you really were nothing but trouble…well, Mabosstiff likes you. You can’t be all bad.”

A little smile broke free of the prison she’d placed it in and she quickly fought it off, chewing her straw and hating that Arven’s charm seemed even more potent by the artificial candlelight. She blamed the martini and her empty stomach.

Seeing her face, he sighed again. “Look, you don’t have to forgive me, but I owe you for all that cleanup you did. Lemme buy you dinner to make it up to you?”

”I’m not hungry,” she lied. She came here with the express intention of snacking her way through a few drinks, but she’d sooner die of starvation than give him the satisfaction now. 

”C’mon, you need to eat something, bud. It’ll help keep all that alcohol from hitting you at once. Your liver will thank you tomorrow.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” But her longing eyes contradicted her as a waiter set down a plate of vegetable dumplings and an avocado sushi roll that her friends ordered while she was off fighting for the bartender’s attention. 

Drayton picked up his chopsticks and went in for a dumpling, but Lacey blocked him.

“You’re really going to start eating when everyone else is still waiting for their dishes?” she scolded.

“They’re small plates, Lace. I ordered ‘em, but I’m happy to share.”

“But it’s rude! Everyone else is hungry!”

“And everyone else, yourself included, is welcome to snack on some of these,” Drayton replied patiently. He evaded Lacey with his chopsticks for long enough to pick up a dumpling. “Here, have one. No meat in ‘em.”

Lacey crossed her arms. 

“I will do no such thing until everyone’s arrive.”

“You’re making a mountain out of a Durant-hill,” Drayton chuckled.

“It’s the principle!” Lacey hissed.

”Heh heh. Do those principles taste good? Is that what keeps you stuck on 'em? Live a little, Lace. It’d be good for you.”

”What keeps me stuck on 'em is integrity!”

“Those two make me wish a Loudred would blow my eardrums out,” Juliana muttered to herself under her breath. She rubbed her temples as the bickering carried on.

“Ugh, tell me about it,” Arven mumbled back. “What are they even arguing about?”

“They’re rehearsing for their two-man production of Much Ado About Not Getting Any.”

Earnest laugher burst out of him until he managed to stifle it. “She should just tell him she likes him and quit making it everyone else’s problem,” Arven whispered.

Juliana choked on the water she was sipping. “You think she likes him? It’s clearly the other way around!” She turned toward him and leaned in close to whisper without being overheard.

Looking into her eyes at point-blank range, Arven blinked as if momentarily dazed. Then he raised a conspiratorial eyebrow.“Wait. Really?”

“Guess I know your roommate better than you do. You don’t know what I know,” Juliana said, shaking her head. “You’re right, though. If they could both drop their pride at the door and have one honest conversation with each other instead of doing this…weird mating dance, they’d probably be engaged by now.”

“And then we could all eat in peace!” Arven added.

Juliana snorted. “Should we do something about it, then?”

“Do something…? We?”

She rolled her eyes. “Forget it.”

The waiter had returned to take their orders. Like its size, Izakaya Munchlax's menu was not strictly traditional by izakaya standards, as it featured a hearty selection of both small plates and larger entrees. Juliana didn't bother scanning over it, though.

“Just another of these for me, please,” Juliana said, raising her empty martini glass.

Arven side-eyed her.

“One bento box with fried tofu, please,” he said. “And two more waters.” The waiter nodded and moved on to Drayton.

“No, don’t forget it,” Arven whispered, leaning back in to her. “I’m tired of those two steaming up my kitchen with their fights. How do we get them to stop?”

Juliana chuckled. “You really wanna get involved? Be warned, you might be trading one kind of noise for another.”

Cheeks blooming pink, he coughed. “At least that wouldn’t be happening in my kitchen.”

Juliana covered her mouth to snuff out a hysterical laugh as she recalled a peculiarly charged moment of make me in that very kitchen last week. 

A moment that she was now all but certain had meant nothing at all. Oh well…

Lacey and Drayton's appetizer argument increased in volume.

"Rudeness is a social construct," Drayton said. "And a culturally relative one, at that. Not every culture even thinks it's rude to start eating before everyone has their food. Can't we all just chill out and have a good time?"

”Would it really kill you to care about something besides having a good time? Can’t you take anything seriously?!” Lacey snapped. 

"What’s the point in being so serious? Best thing to be in life is nonchalant. Soon as you start getting all chalant, things start going left!"

"That attitude—it's just—"

"—not right?" Drayton snickered, doing his Lacey impression. Lacey, on the other hand, was doing her best sorority-sister-about-to-murder-someone impression.

"Can't you two just get over yourselves?!" Crispin said. "Quit sweating the small stuff!"

"Indeed. Every second of every minute must be spent with great care. This disagreement is a gross misuse of our finite time together," Amarys concurred.

"No way," Carmine snarled. "Give 'em hell, Lacey. Who raised you, Drayton?! You've got no damn manners!"

Juliana groaned. “It’s spreading.”

"Imagine this, but it's in your home, so you can’t escape it. That's what I'm dealing with every time she comes over," Arven muttered to her. "Which is pretty damn often, for someone who acts like she can't stand him.”

”Your scorn for me makes sense,” she said, sneering. “But what has my sweet friend Lacey ever done to you to earn it?”

“I don’t…scorn either of you! I’ve got nothing against her by herself. But she and Drayton together, like this? They’re the two bickering heads of a Zweilous. Inseparable, and insufferable.”

”You’d rather they be insufferably inseparable?”

He laughed. ”Anything’s better than this. And it’s not like I'm opposed to seeing them happy together.” 

"Well, if you'd be interested in a friendly alliance...I think our goals are aligned," Juliana mused. "If you're sure about meddling in your roommate’s love life, that is. I’ve got some ideas about how we could nudge them to finally move on toward Act Three of Much Ado About Not Getting Any.” 

"Please, I'm all ears," Arven replied, plugging his left one with his thumb.

Twenty minutes of whispered scheming later, the entrees came out. Arven thanked the waiter who set the bento box down in front of him and immediately pushed it to the right, in front of Juliana, just as he had done with the water before. 

“Hey, what are you—?“

”You need to eat something.”

She pouted. “I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

”I know. And you still need to eat.”

“But—this is yours! You ordered it!”

”I ordered it for you. I already had dinner." He smirked.

”What—why—how do you know I didn’t already eat, too?” she squeaked.

”I can just tell.”

”What do you mean, you can ‘just tell’?!”

”More like water-you mean. Best practice is one of these—“ he said, rattling the ice in the water glass she’d already emptied, “for every standard drink, so keep at it.”

”Why should I?!”

”Juliana,” he said, a half-smile tugging at his devastatingly kissable mouth. He made her name sound like music, which did something funny to her pulse. “I bet you can’t finish it all. Wanna prove me wrong?”

She wrinkled her nose at him, flailing around for a counterargument, but some combination of his face and the two drinks in her empty stomach was muddling her brain.

The bento box did look yummy. Fried tofu with a sweet-savory sauce, rice, sesame green beans, stir-fried noodles, a vegetable spring roll, and a salad, all tucked neatly into their own compartments. 

By comparison, her pride seemed a lot less flavorful, so she swallowed it down with another swig of water, picked up her chopsticks and began eating. 

“How’d you know what I'd want?”

”I didn’t,” he admitted with a shrug. “Not everyone eats sushi, but most people can find something they like in a bento box. It’s balanced, and it gives you options.”

I hate to admit it, but Drayton was right. He's...really quite considerate, she thought, chewing. 

"I do," she said. "Eat sushi, I mean. I'm not picky. But...it was nice of you to think of that."

”Is this the first thing you’ve eaten today?"

“None of your damn business! I can take care of myself just fine, you know!”

“Can you, though?”

His concern sounded completely sincere. Somehow, that made it sting worse than an insult.

I know I'm a trainwreck, she thought. I don't need you to tell me how obvious it is. 

She clenched her jaw. ”Yeah. I can."

“I worry about you.”

Juliana set down her chopsticks and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to snap at him. Reaching over, she squished his cheeks between her flat palms.

”Do me a favor.”

”Uh-huh?” he replied, looking startled and very pink.

”If you wanna be my friend, quit worrying about me. I’m not a problem for you to fix.”

Chapter Text

"Well, this is looking a little rough,” Arven said, swallowing as he looked up fearfully at the massive Klawf poised to pounce on them. But he gripped the sky-blue Quick Ball upside down in his hand and stood firm. “Shellder, let's serve up a helping of defeat—on the half shell!"

Arceus help me—I can’t stand his food puns, Juliana thought. She was grateful for the Zoroark mask to hide the way her face twisted in amusement, though in the inky dark of the overcast night, he would’ve had a hard time seeing her regardless.

Wonder if he makes them even when he’s flustered? Or would he get all tongue-tied…

Speared by the silver lance of Arven’s flashlight beam, the Stony Cliff Titan picked up a rock the size of a Naclstack and flung it forth with its powerful pincer. The deadly projectile whizzed right by her hood-covered ear, missing her head by mere inches and reminding her that this really wasn’t the time for her impossible fantasies.

She drew her own Pokéball and sent out Floragato.

"All right! Look at my hero Zoruva, coming through like a champ, just like you always do! But these Titan Pokémon are...yeesh. I sure don't like having something so tough out to get me!" Arven said as they recalled their Pokémon and brushed the red dust off their clothes. 

She preened a little at the rush of hearing him say my hero, yet the Zoruva part of the compliment sucked some of the joy out of it.

He’d never talk about Juliana like that, she reminded herself. He thinks I can’t even feed myself.

And he’s…not exactly wrong. With everything else I have to do, it’s just not that high on the priority list. Either I can’t make myself get up and hike across campus to the dining hall, or it feels too overwhelming to try to make something, or I just completely forget to eat. Not that I could ever explain that to him without sounding even more pathetic than I already do…

“Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” Juliana asked, keeping her voice low and dusky. He had set down his flashlight upright so it could serve as a torch, illuminating the cave entrance and their faces. Or rather, Arven’s face and her mask.

“Fit as a Flittle, thanks to you! Man, you and your Floragato are something else…” He grinned at her in amazement, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Behind the façade, she blushed.

This part’s nice. He never worries about Zoruva. I just wish the real me could be like this, too…

“Nah, it was no big deal.”

“It’s a Titan-sized deal to me! Not only did you almost singlehandedly steam that thing with a side of lemon butter, you even caught me this little buddy,” he gushed, smiling down at Shellder’s PokéBall while he stroked the blue and yellow surface with his thumb. “I’ve always been a one-Pokémon guy…until now, I suppose.”

Arven’s aquamarine eyes sparkled and glowed in the dark like the surface of a bioluminescent sea. She was briefly mesmerized. 

“I’ll take good care of him, I promise. Thank you, Zoruva.”

“That was no skin off my back, either,” she eventually replied, waving him off as she turned away and tried to control her disguised voice. “A Quick Ball on the first turn will catch a lower-level Shellder a hundred percent of the time. Everybody knows that.”

“Well, everybody but me—have you got a catch rate calculator in your head or something?! And even if I had known that, I’d never have felt safe approaching the little guy without any Pokémon that could fight.”

“Ah, yes—because Shellder’s real scary and dangerous,” she drawled, chuckling.

At nightfall on Tuesday, ahead of their scheduled Titan-hunting rendezvous at midnight, Juliana set out, alone and unmasked, to find a wild Pokémon that could serve as a partner for Arven against the Klawf. Even though catching it required a longer trek out to the East Paldean Sea, she’d specifically chosen Shellder for its favorable type matchup against the Rock-type Klawf and its completely nonthreatening, goofy appearance.

And absolutely, definitely not because I thought he’d appreciate something food-themed, she thought. Though the way his face lit up like an Illumise when I showed it to him…really was worth the extra effort. 

“I guess you’re right," he agreed, nodding thoughtfully while he read from his Rotom-Phone. "Shellder’s Pokédex entry says that it can open up and clamp down on an enemy, but that reveals its most vulnerable parts, so it only does that as a last resort."

“Reminds me of you,” she mumbled, her mind flashing back to Mabosstiff and cookies and the way a desperate Arven pronounced the word help as though it had never once passed his lips before. 

“…Hm?”

“I said...uh, it’s a nice shade of…blue," she stammered. "Or purple. Might lick you to death with that tongue, though. Took half my skin off before I nabbed it for you, in fact—that’s why I wear this mask. I’d be too ugly to look at otherwise.”

Arven laughed heartily. Then he pushed his hair away from his face and gazed at her for a long moment with eyes so intense they seemed almost to pierce the mask she wore.

Shaking his head with a playful smirk, he said, “I doubt that.”

Her whole face burned. What exactly does he mean by that?

Arven cleared his throat, hair falling back over his eye. “Anyway, I bet somewhere in here there's more of that Herba Mystica the Titan was eating. Quick, let's have a look around before it comes back!"

Juliana’s feet dragged as she shuffled into roller derby practice the next day, skates slung over her shoulder, exhausted from the late night followed by the usual early morning for her eight o’clock class. 

But when she saw Arven chatting animatedly with Kieran in the front row of the bleachers, she perked up. 

Absolutely, definitely not because I’m happy to see him or anything, she thought. This is just necessary for my cover. Can’t have him making connections and getting suspicious. Not that he’d ever believe someone like me could be Zoruva anyway…

“What brings you here?” she asked him, stifling a yawn. “You don’t have anything to apologize for this time, right? Or have you come to tell me you’ve wronged me in a way I don’t even know about yet?”

Officially, she last saw Arven at dinner on Saturday, and they hadn’t spoken since then. This was perhaps the first time they’d ever reunited without any bad blood between them. 

The dark circles under his eyes matched the ones she’d hidden with her concealer, but Arven was as casually stunning as ever and appeared to be in good spirits. He swallowed a bite of the apple he’d just bitten into and chuckled at her joke. “Drayton said I’m an honorary member of the team, right? It’s only honorable to show up for practice.”

She gave him an incredulous smile. “Are you coming for my job as our jammer? If you can beat me in a race, maybe I’ll let you have it.”

“Uh…maybe not,” he said, grimacing and scratching the nape of his neck. “That’s where the honorary part comes in.”

“You sure? You know, you’d probably make a good blocker. You’re…built well,” she added, then immediately regretted it when she heard how it sounded and saw his cheeks color to match the apple in his hand.

‘You’re built well’?! Oh, Arceus, why the hell did I say that?

She flailed around for a way to change the subject. 

“How about you, Kieran?” she squeaked. “I’ve often wondered why you aren’t on the team when you clearly enjoy roller derby so much.” 

“Oh…uh,” Kieran mumbled, studying his shoes. “It’s…complicated. I’ve got asthma, and my Sis thinks I’d get hurt. She says I’m…too small and scrawny to play.”

“What?” she exclaimed. “Psh. Who cares what Carmine thinks? Her reasoning doesn’t even make sense. You’re exactly the same size as me!”

Kieran’s eyes, big as saucers, peeked out from behind his hair. “Have you ever gotten hurt?”

“I mean, yeah, but so what? You can’t let that stop you from living your dream.”

Kieran propped his elbows on his knobby knees and rested his head in his ink-stained hands. “Well, I…I asked Drayton if I could join the team, but since my Sis is so against it, he said he didn’t wanna get in the middle of a family dispute. And I guess…I feel like I wouldn't be good enough to play with you guys anyway, you know? Wowzers, you’re all so cool.”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him out of his closed-off posture. Arven choked on a bite of his apple.

“Then fake it ‘til you make it!” Juliana grinned at Kieran, then released her grip on him to playfully punch him in the arm. “When you don’t have the confidence, act like someone who does. If you wear a mask for long enough, sometimes it becomes real.”

Kieran brought a hand to his chin, his eyes suddenly distant but bright as Tadbulbs. “Huh…never…thought of that.”

”I thought you said two-faced people make you itchy?” Arven piped up, recovered from his coughing fit. His blue-green gaze was as sharp as any of the knives in his kitchen.

”Well, they do…but that’s…different,” she reasoned, though she found herself unable to explain why. 

“T-thanks, Juliana,” Kieran said, offering her a rare smile to dispel the strange tension that had entered the conversation. “And, um, hey! I forgot to congratulate you!”

“Uh, what for?”

“Your short story! For freshman composition with Professor Salvatore? Yours won the most votes in the class competition!” 

“Oh, right. Uh, thanks! I...didn’t realize you were in that class too?” she said, feeling bad. 

“R-right, sorry. I don’t, uh, talk very much in that class. And I sit in the back. But...I read your story, and I thought it was awesome! Wowzers, that must’ve been so much work!”

She grimaced, then gingerly sat down next to Arven. “To be honest…I don’t think I deserved to win. I pulled an all nighter the night before it was due and wrote the whole five thousand words in, like, five hours. It’s a wonder I even finished it,” she admitted, avoiding their eyes as she changed into her skates and laced them up. 

Both Kieran and Arven were silent until she looked back up. Their mouths hung open.

“You do realize that’s way more impressive than if you’d spent a week on it, right?” Arven asked, blinking at her. “You wrote five thousand words the night before and it was so good that the whole class voted it as the best one?” 

“Nah…really! I—I just got lucky, I swear. It…feels like it shouldn’t count.”

“Why not? You wrote it, fair and square.” Arven’s perfect brows drew together. “Whether you should be staying up all night is another matter,” he muttered under his breath. 

A hotter hypocrite never walked the earth!

”You’re looking pretty tired yourself, Pretty Boy,” she teased, messing up his hair and finding it was just as stupidly, unfairly soft as she’d feared. “We all have our vices.”

He sputtered and went red as a tomato. Unfortunately, Drayton chose that moment to skate up to them. 

“Heh heh. Look at you two, thick as Thievuls! You spent half the night on Saturday whispering to each other and now I catch you canoodling before practice!”

Juliana narrowed her eyes at Drayton, then very pointedly looked behind him at Lacey, who was skating around the track to warm up. Keeping her gaze on her pink-haired friend, she spoke to Drayton with a voice as deadly and cold as black ice.

“Hey, Dray—how are the Opelucid Legends doing this season? You know, I haven’t heard a damn thing about them.”

She stuck her leg straight out and flicked one of her front wheels, just to hear it spin. 

“T-t-that reminds me, I’ve gotta, uh, tighten my skates before we start!” Drayton stammered. He was gliding away at record speed on his allegedly loose skates before he’d even finished talking.

“That’s what I thought,” Juliana muttered, strapping into her knee pads. She was surprised he’d even try such a bold stunt…and it made her hungry for revenge.

“Wow, what’d that mean? I’ve never seen Drayton make that face before,” Arven said. “Dude went white as meringue!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied. Then she leaned in closer to him and dropped to a whisper. “Hey…you remember that idea we talked about on Saturday? The big one?”

“Oh, of course.” Half of his mouth pulled into a covert smile. 

“Let’s do it. Sooner rather than later.”

The smile bloomed bigger until it claimed Arven’s whole face, dimpling his cheeks and crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Just say the word. How soon is soon? D’you think…this weekend would work?”

Damn it, the PokéDerby bout…everyone would expect me to do the third one this Saturday. 

But maybe that’s all the more reason to put it off? Keep those Star Crosser cronies guessing until next weekend? Plus, I’m beat from one Titan battle—I’ll really be running on fumes after we take down the second one tomorrow night. Wonder what Cass would think of the idea…

“If you’re free, I should be able to Buisel out of my current plans,” Juliana said as she buckled her helmet, chewing her lip to keep her own grin from growing wide enough to spill all her secrets to him. “This weekend it is. Weather permitting, of course.”

Drayton blew the whistle to start the practice. Juliana winked at Arven over her shoulder as she skated off. 

Chapter Text

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

As she yanked the middle drawer out of her dresser, Juliana's pocket began to buzz insistently.

Ignoring this, she upended the drawer on top of the dresser and rummaged through its spilled guts with all the delicate care of a SWAT team executing a timed search warrant.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

She sprang toward her nightstand to check the drawer there. But, tripped by what she could swear was a zombie hand popping up out of the burial mound of laundry on the floor, she failed to reach her target. She lay face-down on the pile, cursing it even as it cushioned her fall. 

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Saturday morning was off to an auspicious start. Juliana huffed, pulled out her Rotom-Phone, and tapped the button to accept the call.

"Not a good time, Cass,” she said, putting the phone on speaker so she could continue her hunt.

But the voice that responded was not Cassiopeia’s artificially robotic one.

"Oooh, who's Cass? Are you breaking hearts and taking names already, sweetie? You're only a month into the semester!"

Juliana laughed, getting up from the floor. "My bad, I should've looked closer at the caller ID. Hi, Mom, what's up?"

"Oh, you know, the usual! Never a dull moment at the rescue—we've got a whole litter of bottle-baby Lillipups right now, and in between feedings, I've been running myself ragged trying to find the right home for this very sweet senior Furfrou with mobility issues..."

While her mom prattled away, Juliana remembered and dove headlong back into her frenzied search. She tried her desk next, sweeping the haphazard patchwork quilt of loose papers off of it with both arms, straining her ears for a telltale metallic clink that never materialized.

"Anyway, I just wanted to check in on you since you didn't ring me at our usual time this week," Juliana's mom said. "Is everything okay?"

Did I not call on Thursday night?

Running from her late-afternoon class to the dusty West Province to hunt down and catch a Nacli for Arven to battle with against the Open Sky Titan, then all the way back to her dorm on campus for the all-important Zoroark mask she'd somehow neglected to bring with her, and finally back out to the West Province to meet Arven at their rendezvous point up in the highlands, Juliana had completely forgotten about her standing weekly call with her mother.

"Shoot, I'm really sorry, Mom. It...slipped my mind."

She snatched the desk drawer off its tracks and held it aloft to dump it onto the workspace when a knock at her room door froze her in place.

"Uh, Juliana? 'S me, Arven. You ready to go?"

Dropping the drawer, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets and groaned. Keys, Mom, Arven—too many things to deal with at once!

"Jules, it's okay, I’m not mad! But...is something the matter?"

"Um—just a sec, Mom!"

Panicking, Juliana careened toward the door, ripped it open, and dragged Arven inside by the collar of his jacket, covering his mouth to muffle his surprised squeak of protest. 

Keys, she mouthed to him—as if that would make any sense—then staggered back over to the desk to continue rifling through the drawer. "K, I'm back, sorry, Mom—what was your question before?"

Mouth slightly ajar, Arven took in her room like a critic who had stumbled upon an exhibition of modern art in some baffling little gallery only a smidgen larger than a broom closet. As he turned his back to her, Juliana imagined, with a crescendo of cold horror, what each tiny placard would say.

Vega, Juliana. 

Topographical Map of Sinnoh's Coronet Highlands, 20–.

Laundry on carpet. 

Vega, Juliana.

Forgotten Reminders: A Retrospective Collage, 20–.

Ballpoint ink pen on paper sticky notes.

Vega, Juliana.

Environmental Storytelling #1, 20–.

Laundry découpage on displaced oak desk chair.

Vega, Juliana.

Environmental Storytelling #2, 20–.

Overturned polyethylene laundry basket in front of oak desk with open laptop.

Vega, Juliana.

Self-Portrait, 20–.

Twenty-three empty PokéMonster energy drink cans in polyethylene wastebasket vessel.

Why, why, why did I let him in here?! Why didn't I just tell him to wait out in the hall?! 

Bile rose in her throat. Her only saving grace was that the door to the bathroom she shared with Nemona was closed, sparing her the humiliation of revealing what her half of the vanity looked like.

"I said, is everything alright? You sound a bit stressed. I know that these big moves and life transitions can be hard, even for a tough cookie like you. And this is always a rough time of year, with the anniversary coming up…are you sure you're doing okay?"

"Oh, yeah! I'm great. Nothing I can't manage," Juliana answered automatically, slipping on a smile and bright tone that fit her like a second skin. 

At that moment, her gaze fell upon the plastic Zoroark mask where it lay amongst her all-black getup in the shadows of her closet floor. A closet which currently stood wide open.

A throb of adrenaline shot through her as she lunged for the mirrored sliding door and wrenched it shut just before Arven turned back around. Juliana leaned her weight against it, practically dry-heaving with relief that he hadn't seen.

"That's good to hear! I never did have to worry about you—and with everything else we had to worry about, thank goodness for that! C’est mon petit champion, always landing on her feet and pressing on, no matter what life throws at her."

Tears replaced bile as the source of the sting in her throat. She pretended not to notice Arven studying her out of the corner of his eye.

As if the strings holding up the corners of her fake smile were the laces on her skates, Juliana tugged them brutally tighter and tighter until the loss of circulation numbed everything, then tied them up with a bow.

"Yep! That's me. I can handle anything."

"Are you sure you're eating enough?" her mom asked.

Juliana and Arven blinked at each other. 

"Totally, yeah. Every day! And just...such a...correct, normal amount," she lied through her teeth. Arven put his hands on his hips and opened his mouth to speak. 

Juliana dove for her phone. "Gotta run, Mom, but I'll make sure to call on Thursday! Loveyoubye!" she babbled, frantically smacking the End Call button. 

Biting her lip guiltily, she cleared her throat. "Sorry. I’m all packed, but—keys. Can't find them."

Arven looked around the floor—littered with a nightmarish eruption of mismatched socks, old roller derby t-shirts, neon bras, ratty plaid pajama pants, and fruit-patterned lace underwear—with eyes popping out of his skull and what she could only describe as an extremely loud raised eyebrow.

She set her jaw, crossing her arms. "Yeah, yeah, I already know what you're thinking, so don't say it! If my room isn't up to your astronomically high standards, you're more than welcome to wait outside!"

"No, it's..." Arven sputtered. "It feels very...you?"

Juliana buried her face in her hands. Where’s a Dugtrio with Fissure when you need one?

"Arv?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the meanest thing you've ever said to me."

"N-no! I didn't—I didn't mean it in a—"

"I know,” she said, keeping her burning face covered. “And that makes it ten times worse."

I can cry about this later, but not now. Not in front of him. Pencil this sob session in for…3:45?

"I meant—the photos on the string with the clothespins! And the little Mimikyu plushie on your bed! It's—it's cute! You're—argh, that’s what I—"

"Please, just shut up," she begged, spreading her fingers apart to glare through them like the bars of a cell.   

Arven opened his mouth to say something more, then closed it again. Reached out with a pained expression as if to touch her arm, then drew it back into himself and rubbed the back of his neck. Finally, he gulped and looked down at his shoes. “Sorry. Back to the keys. Do you lose them a lot?”

She let her stone-faced silence serve as an answer.

”Er—what I mean is—do they usually end up someplace specific when you lose them?”

”If they did, wouldn’t I know where they are?” she snapped.

”Right. Um…when did you have them last?"

"When I came home Thursday night," she answered. "Or I guess it was technically Friday morning."

"You didn't go anywhere yesterday?"

"I was tired and had a bunch of work to do, so I skipped class and stayed in."

His head cocked to the side. "Wait, what were you doing out so late on Thursday?"

Juliana’s eyes widened as she realized she'd just admitted to being out at precisely the same time he was Titan-hunting with Zoruva.

“I was...bar-hopping. With my roommate."

To her relief, Arven seemed to buy this explanation and walked over to the room door. She followed him. "Okay, so you come in, it’s late, you're tired. What would you have done next?"

She scoured her bleary memory. "Uh...I guess I probably...got naked and went to take a shower?"

Arven coughed and avoided her eyes. "So...when you...did that, where were you?" 

"Closet, probably?”

He stepped in that direction.

"WAIT!" she shrieked.

Arven stopped in his tracks and whirled to face her. Yet his startled expression was also puzzled, like he'd just heard a snippet of a song that he recognized but couldn't quite name or place. 

Juliana took advantage of his hesitation to hurl herself in front of the mirrored sliding door. Dropping into derby stance by reflex, she prepared to block him from grabbing the handle.

"Um, sorry. Please don’t. It's, uh…messy in there."

He burst out laughing, looking at the disaster area around them and mercifully not saying what she knew he was thinking. "You got a dead body in there or something?”

I wish, she thought. That would be so much easier to explain!

"I already looked in there, anyway! They’ve gotta be out here somewhere."

"Okay, well, are you sure you just came straight in and went into the closet? You didn't get keyed up and make any detours?"

Satisfied that he wasn’t about to try to open the closet, she did what he'd done before, walking over to the door to retrace her own steps from that night.  

"I…came in the door, and..."

It was after two or three o'clock in the morning by the time they finished harvesting the glowing Bitter Herba Mystica in the mountain cave that had served as the Open Sky Titan's lair. Exhilarated and exhausted, sweating under her mask and hood despite the chilly night, Juliana sat on the ground while Arven assembled their foraged prize into a midnight snack by lantern-light.

“I’m curious about something,” Arven piped up.

“What?”

“When I first asked, you didn’t want to help me do this. What made you change your mind?”

“Uh…well, you just seemed…really determined,” she said, voice deep and accented. “I didn’t think I could stop you, and I knew you’d get hurt if you went alone.”

Arven nodded, but seemed almost disappointed by that answer. 

“I am. Determined, I mean,” he said solemnly. “The Herba Mystica...it's not just a sandwich ingredient to me. I didn’t tell you before, but I suppose you deserve to know the full story, Zoruva.”

She tensed as he drew Mabosstiff's Pokéball. "Come on out, bud..."

Oh, no. Nonononono.

Scrambling backward on her hands and heels, she put as much distance as she could between herself and the old hound. Mabosstiff sniffed at the air curiously from where he lay, and gave her an unnervingly lucid look with those milky orange eyes, but fortunately, he was either too blind or confused by the mask to recognize her. Her relief was painful.

"This is Mabosstiff. My partner."

Arven began to feed him little bite-sized pieces of the sandwich he'd made. 

"Here you go, bud. Eat up. Slowly now, take your time. Small bites are fine. Just chew nice and slow..."

Mabosstiff accepted the food, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Arven looked back over to her. 

“My buddy here…well, you can see, he’s no spring Torchic. And he's...getting sick more and more often." He paused and turned his gaze back to Mabosstiff, stroking a floppy charcoal ear.

"But he’s all I’ve got. Always has been, ever since we were both little.”

“All you’ve…? You…don’t get along with your family?”

He continued to look only at Mabosstiff as he talked. His face was like an ice sculpture.

“My father...the Professor…I almost never saw him. Always busy with work, off doing who-knows-what on his research trips. Dad hardly ever came home.”

Through the eyeholes of the mask, she blinked. 

“And…your mom?”

He just shook his head.

“Giving Mabosstiff to me was the only good thing Dad ever…" he trailed off, then cleared his throat. His tone was as bitter as the sandwich in his hand. "Has ever done for me. And I’m pretty sure he only did that because the babysitters kept quitting. The great Professor Turo would say he’d be gone for three hours and then vanish for days, weeks." His upper lip curled into a snarl. "Months."

"But once I turned seven, I guess he figured that with a Pokémon of my own, I could fend for myself just fine. And he wasn't wrong.”

Seven?

At seven, Juliana had run wild through a pumpkin patch, breathless with giggles, her little cider-sticky hands grabbing at autumn leaves as they fell. When the sun went down, her dad carried her home in the warm safety of his arms. 

She pictured what seven-year-old Arven must've looked like, all rosy little Skwovet cheeks and sandy blond hair and kind eyes the color of loneliness.

The Zoroark mask hid Juliana's trembling lip and the rivulets of tears that flowed down to pool underneath her chin. 

Oh, Arven, you were all on your own...at seven?

“Anyway," he continued. "About a year ago, I decided to start looking for ways to keep Mabosstiff healthy for…as long as I can. And I stumbled on the legend about the Herba Mystica not long before the start of this semester.”

She fought to keep her voice Zoruva-like. “What happened a year ago?”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Ask me something else."

"...Why are you telling me all of this?"

And why won't you tell me all of this? 

Juliana had asked him, when they were playing nice, if he'd been a latchkey kid like her. He could've told her then. It would have more than explained and excused his prickliness about Mabosstiff's cookies. In fact, it would've made her feel even more awful for stealing one, and for the way she'd treated Arven since the moment they met. He had every right to rub this in her face and make her beg for forgiveness. But instead, he'd just changed the subject as quickly as he could. 

"I...don't know," he admitted. "I've never told anyone that, actually. I'm sorry to burden you with it."

"You're not a burden!" she snapped, briefly sounding a bit too much like herself. "...But you should really...talk to your friends about this. There's no shame in sharing your problems, or in asking for help!"

Arven pushed the hair away from his eyes and fixed her with another one of those keen, searching stares. Her skin itched beneath the plastic mask. She blamed it on the trapped moisture and salt from her sweat and tears.

"Maybe...that mask of yours is a knife that cuts both ways," he said, letting his hair fall back over one eye and shaking his head. "Makes me feel like I have nothing to lose."

When she finally trudged back into her dorm room, mask tucked into her hoodie pocket, Juliana slouched against the door, slid down to the floor, dropped her face into her hands, and silently wailed. 

Sitting in the same spot now, she groped around to her left and found her keys on the carpet in the corner where the door frame met the wall. Right where she'd set them down.

"Oh. Found 'em." She picked them up and jingled them sheepishly. 

"How’d they end up there?" he asked.

"...Doesn’t matter. Let's get going—I bet everyone else is already on their way there!"

Chapter Text

As their Flying Taxi ascended out of Mesagoza and set a northerly course, climbing up over the gauzy clouds that covered the mysterious Great Crater like a shroud, Arven spoke up.

“Almost forgot,” he said, reaching into the oversized hiking backpack that barely fit in the floorboard between his knees. He retrieved a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and handed it to Juliana.

“…What’s—“

“—Breakfast. Do I need to go over what a sandwich is again?”

Her face heated with anger. “Why—?”

“Because we have a long day of scheming and meddling ahead of us, and I need you sharp, not rusty. Or crusty?”

"I'm not—!"

"—You still need to eat even if you aren't hungry." He was counting something on his fingers. 

“But—!”

”—I bet you can't eat the whole thing. Wanna prove me wrong?”

Juliana’s mouth fell open. She squeaked, dismayed. "Did you—!?"

"—Rehearse this whole argument ahead of time? Yeah," he chuckled, biting back a grin. "You're such a consistent contrarian. Very easy to predict."

His strategy was laid bare with a flourish. Arven had trapped her and left her with only two options: Give in, or keep arguing and prove him right.

It was as if she had brought a loaded gun to a knife fight, but when she pointed it at him, he calmly sidestepped her, took it, emptied all the bullets out, replaced each one with a stupid little kazoo, and handed it back to her with a friendly pat on the shoulder before she could even process what was happening. Never in her life had anyone made a fool of her so efficiently—save for Juliana herself.

He won her respect for it even as he pissed her off by touching this particular nerve yet again. 

"I told you—"

“I am not trying to fix you, Juliana. I swear.”

She ran a quick mental calculation on the likelihood of breaking her neck if she simply opened the cab door and rolled out right now. A wary glance out the window at the tiled terraces of Cascaraffa far below answered her question. 

Juliana huffed and opened the brown parchment paper to reveal a breakfast sandwich. Fried egg, melty cheese, greens, and some kind of sauce in between two hearty slices of whole grain toast. It bore a strong resemblance to the one she slaughtered in her initial collision with him, smelled heavenly, and felt entirely undeserved.

“Good. You’d be wasting your time.”

“Agreed.” Arven crossed his arms. “There’s nothing to fix.”

She barked a laugh and folded the paper back up. The cab suddenly felt suffocatingly small.

“Yeah, me—the perfect paragon,” she snapped. “You’re hilarious.”

His face bore no trace of humor. The dark circles under his eyes were half-moon cyanotype prints. Arven stared at her for a long moment, steely and stern, then clenched his jaw and leaned forward in the seat.

“Stop here, please,” he called out to the driver, who grunted in response and clicked his tongue twice at the flock of Squawkabillies. The taxi began to slow and descend.

Juliana cocked an eyebrow. “Here? We’re not there y—“

“Changed my mind. I’m out. You can do this all by yourself, since that's clearly what you want.”

“Ha! Over a sandwich? Because I don’t eat breakfast?!”

“Because you were right. I am wasting my time. I’m not interested in spending my weekend begging you, ‘til I’m blue in the face, to let me be your friend!”

The cab touched down on the outskirts of Medali. Arven fumbled with his unwieldy backpack. 

“What are you—of course you’re my friend?”

His eyes flashed. 

“Then quit taking it personally every time I try to care about you! It’s exhausting and it…hurts!”

Taking it…personally? 

Juliana sputtered, struggling to form words. 

Arven finally managed to pry his backpack free from the floorboard and reached for the door handle. 

“Arv, hey, hang on!” 

She grabbed his hand and he froze. 

”Sorry. I’ll…I’ll try to do better,” she promised. “I’ll get it together and learn how to feed myself so you won’t feel like you have to prod me about it all the time.” Her eyes dropped to her shoes in shame. “I’m sure it’s annoying to have a friend who can’t even do that.”

“That’s—“ Arven dropped her hand, shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what I meant.”

He sighed heavily, studying her with a look of pity that made her queasy while he chose his next words. 

”Juliana…how do you show people that you care about them?”

“Uh…hm. Never really thought about it…”

In your case, I pretend to be someone way cooler than me and slay legendary monsters so that the only creature who has ever shown you unconditional love can become immortal... I hope. 

“I guess I try to stick up for them? Help them when they need me? Protect them?”

“And if you had a friend you couldn’t do any of those things for, how would you feel?”

“Like I’m not really their friend?”

His expression was deafeningly deadpan.

“Oh.”

“Yeesh. For someone with more friends than I’ve..." he trailed off, shaking his head. "You act like this is news to you!”

“I’m sorry, Arv. And...thank you. I'd have given up on me, like, three arguments ago."

She unwrapped the sandwich again and took a bite. The mild bitterness of the greens was perfectly balanced out by the other ingredients. As she chewed, she closed her eyes and melted back into the seat, humming quietly without realizing it, stunned by how hungry she actually was when it had always been a struggle for her to eat anything before lunchtime. 

“Why is this so damn good?"

"It's the bread," Arven replied with a soft chuckle. "I've been making my own sourdough for six years. Good things take time. And patience."

Good things?

She swallowed. "You deserve a better friend than me."

“I don’t want anyone else," he grumbled.

Her surprise nearly made her choke on the bite she'd just taken. 

“As a—friend, I mean!”

Right. Silly me. 

I guess being friendzoned is still way better than being enemyzoned? she thought, recovering from her coughing fit. 

The taxi driver turned around in his seat to glower at them. “Meter’s running.”

“Sorry, sir, I’ve changed my mind again,” Arven said. “We’d like to keep going to our original destination, please.”

When they circled Casseroya Watchtower #3 and descended, the rest of the team was already there waiting. 

In the gently waving grass, Lacey sat in front of Carmine while the latter wove the former’s hair into two pastel-pink braids. Drayton reclined against the trunk of a nearby pine tree with the hood of his purple jacket pulled low over his eyes, having apparently dozed off. Crispin was sharing a concerningly spicy-looking snack with a wild Tatsugiri, while Amarys was perched up on the first level of the ancient stone watchtower, surveying the sky with binoculars. 

As Juliana hurriedly scrambled out of the Flying Taxi, Amarys pointed toward her like a compass arrow and called down. “You are precisely eighteen minutes and—“

“I know, we’re late, I’m sorry.” She shut the cab door behind her. “It’s all my—“

“—My fault,” Arven cut in, walking around to stand beside her. The Squawkabillies beat their wings and carried the taxi back up into the sky. “I made the driver turn around and go back because I forgot something. Sorry for holding everyone up.”

He held out the lilac Mimikyu-patterned backpack she carelessly left behind in the seat in her haste to explain her tardiness to Amarys. 

Juliana opened her mouth to protest.

We’re late because I lost my keys. Why would he take the blame for me? 

As if he'd read her mind, Arven fixed her with that deadpan face again.

She bit her tongue, accepted her backpack from him and mouthed thanks, even though she felt squirmy and hot.

“As the organizer of this gathering, and a first-time offender, your lateness is forgiven,” Lacey declared, standing to greet Juliana with a hug. Over Juliana’s shoulder, she pointed a stern finger at Arven. “But watch yourself.”

“I appreciate your lenience, Lacey.” Arven clapped his hands together. “Okay! Is this everybody?”

Amarys had climbed down to join them on the ground, and Drayton appeared to be moving at a Goomy’s pace in their direction. Crispin had finished his snack and gathered with Lacey and Carmine. 

“No,” Juliana answered, brow furrowing as she scanned over the group. “Where’s Kieran? Carmine, I specifically told you to invite him! If Arven’s part of the team, then Kieran oughta be, too—he deserves to be included in these things!”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Carmine sassed, rolling her eyes. “I did invite him. He said he had other plans. Guess your little outing wasn’t important enough for him.”

“That’s right—Kieran was telling me about this convention in Levincia he was planning on going to,” Arven said. “I forgot it was this weekend.”

“I didn’t realize you two were friends?” Juliana asked. 

He shrugged. “I don’t know if we are, but I’ve been talking to him at practice sometimes. Turns out we…have some stuff in common,” he added cryptically. 

“Well, if he’s not coming, then everyone’s here.” Standing on tiptoe to whisper in Arven’s ear, Juliana added, “Having an odd number of people does throw a bit of a wrench into the plan, though.”

Undaunted, Arven hooked his thumbs under the shoulder straps of his backpack and addressed the group. “Then let me be the first to welcome you all to the first-ever Grapes of Wrath annual teambuilding camping trip!”

“Heh heh. I’m feelin’ very welcomed!” Drayton yawned as he trudged over. “This was a real dynamite idea you had, roomie—but be careful, keep it up and I might just have to appoint you to be the team’s Social Chair.”

”I can’t take full credit.” Arven nudged Juliana. “Your Outreach Chair here had the idea of doing a group trip, and she helped me organize it. I was more of an…outdoorsman consultant.”

”Impressive,” Drayton said. He tossed a knowing half-smile at Lacey, then looked back to Arven. “Warms the heart to see how two people who are so different can complement each other so well!”

Juliana narrowed her eyes at him in warning. 

“What items are on the itinerary?” Amarys asked, pulling out her Rotom-Phone. “I will add them to my—hmph. This is unfortunate. I seem to have no phone service here.”

“Nope! No phones this weekend. We’re here to tune out our distractions and connect with each other,” Juliana said, slyly eyeing Drayton and Lacey. 

Two of you in particular are gonna do a lot of connecting...

“Good question, Amarys,” Arven said. “I was thinking we’d kick things off with a little hike up to our planned campsite. That way we can set our stuff down before we start the activities. But listen up—before we move a muscle!” He threw his hands out for dramatic effect. “Can anyone tell me the most important thing we need to do to stay safe in the great outdoors?”

Crispin raised a hand. “Does it involve lighting anything on fire?”

“No,” groaned everyone in a chorus. 

“Anyone else?” Arven asked. He was answered by only the roar of nearby Casseroya Falls and the occasional chatter of wild Slowpoke.

“The most important thing is to stick to the buddy system! So let’s pair everyone up now. We’ve got an odd number of people, so we’ll need one group of three.” Arven’s gaze quickly flicked to Juliana. “To keep things simple…we’ll assign buddies alphabetically, based on last names.”

Lacey stepped over to Drayton and folded her arms with an annoyed sigh. “Knight, guess I’m stuck with you.”

Drayton chuckled and dealt her a playful punch to the arm. 

”Heh heh. You don’t wanna be my buddy, Kaolin? This is just like old times! I owe our whole friendship to that alphabetical seating chart in Professor Eudaimonia's class.”

Lacey glared daggers at him, then messed up his hair on purpose. Things were off to a promising start.

 “So, um, guess that means Vega would be paired up with Turo, right?” Arven said to Juliana with a wink that made her stomach flip. “End-of-the-alphabet buddies.”

“Uh, right! And that leaves Laflamme, Montgolfier, and Towada for our group of three,” she replied, nodding and looking to Crispin, Amarys, and Carmine.

“Hey—what kind of logic is that?!” Carmine sneered. “Shouldn’t the group of three be Towada-Turo-Vega?”

“Aww, Carm! You’d really choose me over your bestie Amarys? I’m touched,” Juliana teased with a pout.

Carmine grimaced so fiercely that she was practically vibrating and lunged to swipe at her. Juliana shrieked and leaped around like a Stantler, gamely dodging her attacks. 

“Uh…anyway, adventure awaits! Anchors aweigh—away!” Arven said, leading the march before anyone else could protest. 

"Operation Fairly Drayco?"

"Nah."

"Operation...Legal Meteor? 

"Look, we can workshop it,” she murmured, giggling.

The sun was at their backs as they made their way along the windswept northern ridge above Casseroya Lake toward the redwood trees and golden grasses of the Socarrat Trail. It was a crisp, dewy autumn morning, ideal weather for hoodies and hiking. 

And hunks, she thought, looking to her left at Arven, though she questioned whether there was such a thing as bad weather for those. 

”The name isn't nearly as important as the plan itself,” she added. “While we’re on the topic…what is the plan, officially? I know we talked about it, but…I was two martinis in, and the details are a bit fuzzy.”

"We get those two together, away from the same old environments and topics they fight about, and out here in the majesty of nature,” Arven explained. “A change of scenery does wonders for the heart.”

"Does it? Never pegged you for a romantic.” 

Arven laughed. “Does it take a romantic to appreciate a view like this?” He ran to the edge of the ridge and stretched out his arms, sweeping them around in a dramatic gesture. 

Miles and miles of aching blue were broken up by an archipelago of rocky islands dotted with trees. Clumps of mist, cousins of the puffy white clouds above, crawled like Surskits along the surface of the water. Owing to the cratered edge of the lake and the West Paldean Sea below, the waterfalls at its western edge seemed to spill right off the earth. 

"Can you really look at this and say that you're completely unmoved!?” Arven asked, cheeks pink with the chill, bouncing up and down a little. His giddy smile could’ve knocked over a Copperajah. “Man, I’ve missed being out here.”

"It's…gorgeous," she replied, turning her head away from him before her blush could reveal that she was not talking about the same view. "I'll give you that. Who could find breath for arguing in a place this breathtaking?”

A few yards behind them, Drayton and Lacey were giving their lungs a workout.

“We’re on vacation, Lace. You’re supposed to relax!”

“It’s not a vacation, it’s a teambuilding trip!” Lacey countered, getting up in his face. “Gosh, I’d much rather have been paired up with someone a bit more active. If I got separated from the group and got lost, would you even come looking for me?” 

“‘Course I would, silly—what kinda question is that?”

”Just as long as it wasn’t inconvenient for you? If I went missing right before your naptime, you wouldn’t leave me to be eaten by the Lycanrocs?”

Arven leaned in. “Yeah, I take it back. We’re cooked,” he muttered. 

Juliana groaned and whirled on her heel to face them. “Alright, you two, cut it out!”

”Cut out my concern for my safety? Sure, just as soon as you let me swap to a different buddy,” Lacey said, pouting at Drayton. 

“Everyone, stop,” Arven called out to the others. “Nobody’s walking another step until these two learn how to get along.”

The trio bringing up the rear gradually made their way up to four of them.

“Lacey, say something you like about Drayton,” Juliana commanded. 

”Something you like about Drayton,” Lacey said, batting her eyes.

“Ever the rules lawyer,” Juliana sighed. “I don’t know what I expected. Drayton, your turn. Say something you like about Lacey, and it can’t be ‘something you like about Lacey.’”

Drayton softly smiled down at his dusty sneakers.

“I like…how rebellious she is.”

Everyone else, including Lacey, laughed. 

“Wait, I shouldn’t be laughing at that!” Juliana groaned. “Ugh! Why can’t either of you take this seriously?!” 

Drayton raised his eyebrows. “I am serious.”

”Lacey? Little Miss Letter Of The Law? What’s rebellious about her?” Arven asked. 

“Plenty.” Drayton gazed at Lacey, stonefaced, hands buried in his jacket pockets. “It takes real guts to go against what your family expects and do what you know is right for you. Guts that very few people have.” 

Lacey’s mouth took the shape of an O. She blinked at him, wide-eyed with shock. “Wow…thank you, Drayton. I…admire the same thing about you, actually.”

Arven and Juliana exchanged devious glances. 

“Maybe we’re not as cooked as we thought?” she whispered to him.

”You read my mind.”

Chapter Text

“Alright, bud—I know it’s been too long since you’ve gotten to enjoy some fresh air. C’mon out for a bit, at least until you get tired.”

Arven tossed Mabosstiff’s Pokéball and a mountain of gray fluff burst out, blinking those eyes like the caramel candies that spawn from grandparents' pockets. 

“That's right, you remember this place, don’tcha?”

Mabosstiff sniffed at the cool, crisp morning air and tentatively picked up an enormous red leaf, mottled with magnificent watercolor strokes of orange and yellow and veined in verdant green.

Arven knelt down on the ground next to him. “Don’t worry, bud, it’s just me now. Well, me and Juliana. The others—“

Mabosstiff’s nose suddenly twitched as if he’d caught wind of something. Tail wagging, he dropped the leaf from his mouth, spun around toward where Juliana was leaning against a tree a few yards off, and galloped right for her, splashing more leaves around in his wake.

“Whoa—take it easy! Mabosstiff, hey, don’t overdo it!”

Mabosstiff took no heed of this whatsoever, leaping up on his hind legs to tackle Juliana straight into a leaf pile like a linebacker. Her shriek of surprise startled a nearby Sudowoodo into playing dead—or rather, playing tree. A family of Foongus likewise looked on with disdain. 

“Are you okay?!” Arven called out, running over. It was unclear which of them he was asking.

Juliana was belly-laughing and kicking her feet, stirring up the earthy petrichor scent of the forest as the Pokémon gleefully snuffled and snorted and licked her ticklish face.

Her peals of laughter, bright as bells, only seemed to amplify his joy. There was dirt on her jeans and drool on her favorite purple hoodie, but she couldn't have cared less.

“Bud, that’s not—very—polite!“ Arven grunted as he tried in vain to lift Mabosstiff’s huge paws off her shoulders. "Gah! How come—you won’t—listen to me—anymore?!”

Through her squeals, and while thrashing her head from side to side to dodge Mabosstiff’s sandpapery tongue, Juliana managed to reassure him. “I’m fine—hehe, don’t apologize—he’s—aha!—so sweet! Aren’t you, you big, handsome sweetie pie? Haha, yes, you are! Thank you—ahah—for the kisses! I missed you, Ma—ahaha!—bosstiff, did you really miss me too? Hahaha!”

Arven melted back to sit on his heels. If Juliana’s field of view had not at that moment been completely taken up by Mabosstiff’s slobbery jowls, she might have seen the strange hues of wonder and defeat and unbearable softness mixing in the palette of his expression.

“I still don’t…” he mumbled, barely more than a whisper, letting his chin rest on his folded forearms. “Why you?”

“Why—wahaha!—what?”

”Nothing.” He shook his head and chuckled. “You’ve got a great laugh, you know that?”

“So you’re gonna loop the cord around the stake like this,” Arven explained, demonstrating on a tree limb above his head.

With the other end of the same dark green nylon cord he was holding, Juliana followed his instruction, looping it around the hook he had staked into the ground.

Mabosstiff was rolling around in a bed of leaves next to her, luxuriating in a warm patch of sunlight that fit him like a sweater. He seemed to be taking a self-appointed break from keeping watch for any of their teammates wandering into this lonesome back acre of the Socarrat Trail while completing the scavenger hunt Arven had sent them on.

How the near-blind and mostly-deaf Mabosstiff was supposed to serve as a lookout was a mystery, but Juliana didn’t dare question it for fear of hurting the poor old beast's feelings.

“Then you bring the short end underneath the long one and loop it around itself,” Arven said. “Good. Next, do that same loop one more time, and pull the short end through.”

He was loosely tying the knot’s mirror image around the branch while watching her do it, not even needing to look back at his own work or correct for the difference between his right-handedness and her lefty loops. Just like when they baked together, she felt begrudgingly impressed and mild-to-moderately turned on by his competence. 

“Okay, now the last step is to take the short end and make one more loop around the outside of the knot. Yep, just like that. And Bob’s your uncle! Two loops and a swoop, and you’ve got a taut-line hitch!”

He beamed and gave her a thumbs up, just as giddy as he had been on the hike out here.

Damn, he’s so cute like this, she thought, head spinning a little. What kind of nerd gets this excited about tying knots?

“See, the knot slides, so you can adjust the position of it easily—“ Arven tightened the knot so that it choked up on the high limb. ”—but if you tug on this—“ He pulled hard on the long end, to no effect. “—it’s not going anywhere. Knot bad, huh, little bud?”

She nodded, testing its steadfastness herself. Mabosstiff sniffed at her handiwork and licked her hand in approval. Juliana scratched under his chin, giggling, and his tail wagged so violently that his whole body swayed with it.

“Not bad. But…how does this relate to the plan again?”

Arven’s nose scrunched with mischief. He took off his backpack, plunked it down, reached into it, and produced a big, folded-up net made of rope. “We’re gonna catch ourselves a couple of lovestruck loudmouths!”

“Catch them?” She scratched her head. “Catch them doing what?”

“No—catch them in a trap!” He handed her the net to hold. “There’s clearly already a spark between those two, so we just gotta push ‘em into each others’ space!”

Arven bent the large tree limb down toward the ground with shocking ease. It was sufficiently sturdy to support the weight of two adults, yet his voice barely even wavered as he flexed it like a pool noodle. Mabosstiff rolled over to wiggle around on his back in the leaves, evidently unimpressed.

“See, the net’s big enough for both of them, but they’re gonna be practically on top of each other. They won’t be able to deny their feelings for each other then! All we have to do is…”

He continued to set up the trap as he described it. 

Somewhere in the far back recesses of Juliana’s mind, a squeaky little voice launched into an “um, actually” about why this wouldn’t work. However, she couldn’t possibly have heard it over the unholy chorus of other thoughts she was currently having. 

Sure, she caught him in his underwear by accident that one time, but the whole situation was such a bizarre shock that she averted her eyes as much as possible. She hadn’t actually taken that close of a look at his physique—and it would’ve been wrong to deliberately leer anyway—but this easy strength of his certainly implied some things about it.

Things that she was considering in vivid detail. Mild-to-moderate had progressed to moderate-to-severe. 

“…And now we just sweep some leaves over the net to hide it!” He inspected his work with pride, clapping his hands together to dust them off. The sound snapped Juliana out of her dizzy daydreaming. “The counterweight should be enough to make sure it only deploys if they’re both standing on it," he added.

“How are we gonna get them both to step right on that spot, though? The scavenger hunt zone is the entire Socarrat Trail area. There’s no guarantee they’ll even come back here.”

“Same way you get anything into a trap: Bait.” Arven smirked. ”Specifically, Tamato berries.” 

He pulled several handfuls of the spiky red berries out of his bag and dropped them right in the center of the hidden net.

“They’re on the scavenger hunt list I gave everyone, but you can’t actually find them growing around the Socarrat Trail.”

”Very shady,” Juliana remarked, admiring the berries with a click of her tongue. “Gotta admit, Mr. Wilderness—I'm impressed. You really put a lot of thought into this, didn't you?"

He scratched at the back of his neck with a shy smile. ”I mean, it really wasn’t that hard."

She stared at him incredulously. "A rigged scavenger hunt and a net trap? I would never have thought of that. You're clever, Arv. Take the compliment." 

"Thanks," he said to his hiking boots, sloshing them around in figure-eights in the ankle-high leaves as though he were playing in a puddle. "Ahem! Anyway, now we just gotta find Drayton and Lacey, tell them it’s lousy with Tamato berries back here, and they’ll run right into our trap. It’s foolproof. We’ll let 'em hang there and get cozy together, then come to their rescue after a—AAAAUGH!”

Whirling around, Juliana came face to face with the cause of his alarm: A Spidops had silently descended from the tree, either disturbed by their branch-bending activities or intrigued to meet another species that shared its passion for setting net traps. It crouched a few yards ahead, studying them suspiciously.

Juliana waved at it. "Uh, hi there?" she tried. "Is this...your tree?"

The Spidops glared at the three of them, beady black eyes glinting menacingly, and hissed.

Definitely disturbed, then. 

Arven had skittered somewhere behind Juliana, crouching and covering his head with his arms like a little kid. A shaking Mabosstiff was glued to his side, trying to hide his own giant head in the shallow leaf pile and failing comically.

The family resemblance between the two had never been so plain—in fact, the more she looked, the more Mabosstiff’s kaleidoscopic grayscale salt-and-pepper fur began to look like an ashier version of Arven’s sandy blond locks.

Peeking out from the leaves to see that she hadn’t taken cover with them, Mabosstiff lunged forward and tugged at her sleeve, whining with concern. 

Juliana couldn’t help but chuckle at both of them. The Dark-type Mabosstiff’s fear of a Bug-type Pokémon made sense. But Arven? 

This man stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me while we took out two Titan Pokémon that could’ve eaten us like snacks, but one tiny little Spidops sends him running? 

Her fond smile warmed her voice. “Arven…are you afraid of Bug-type Pokémon?”

He raised his wide eyes to hers, then seemed to notice his own posture. Abruptly standing back up, he recalled Mabosstiff to his ball and puffed out his chest. 

“…No,” he grumbled, clearing his throat. “Of course not.”

“...Really?”

“I can totally handle some little bug! I’m a seasoned outdoorsman. Mr. Wilderness." He put his hands on his hips, sounding like he was trying to convince himself rather than her. "Bugs...come with the territory.” 

“Arv, it's okay. Just lemme take care of this. I’m not scared of it. Like, at all.”

“No! Th-that’s…not necessary, I’ll…” Arven made eye contact with the Spidops. It had fashioned a lasso out of gossamer and was threateningly whipping it around in a circle. He gulped. “I can do it. Don’t worry, I’ll keep us safe,” he declared, extending an arm in front of her.

His other hand trembled ever so slightly as he drew a familiar sky-blue Quick Ball, white-knuckled and still holding it upside-down.

Juliana walked underneath his arm without needing to duck. It was her turn to make that stony, are-you-kidding-me face at him. 

“Arv?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me be your friend.”

She sauntered off to face the Spidops with Mimikyu’s Pokéball in her sure grip. 

In turn, the wild Pokémon stalked toward her, crunching the carpet of dry brown leaves beneath four of its eight legs. This was unnecessary and done purely for intimidation purposes. Spidops were capable of completely silent movement.

Nevertheless, the noisy theatrics must have startled Arven, because just before Juliana could pitch out her Pokéball, he grabbed her by the back of her hoodie, and with a roar, yanked both of them a considerable distance backward to safety.

Or what would have been safety, had they not just laid a trap for two in that very spot. A well-hidden trap that Arven had completely forgotten in his fright. 

Triggered by their combined weight, the hook popped free, the bent tree limb unleashed its potential energy, the rope cracked taut, the net snapped up around them, and they were hoisted up, up, up into their own snare.

Chapter Text

It was good that he liked her laugh, because Juliana was absolutely howling.

The commotion sent the wild Spidops running to tour gentrified trees for lease in a less crime-ridden area of the forest. The Tamato berry bait rolled out through the large holes in the rope net and now lay scattered on the ground. 

Like a pair of oranges crammed into a mesh market bag, Arven and Juliana were caught in their own creation, hanging suspended in a tangled web of instant karma they’d woven themselves. High enough off the ground that falling would smart, but not high enough to kill them—about six feet up. The inverse of the depth at which coffins are buried. 

A hysterical coincidence given that she was already pretty sure Arven would be the death of her. So she laughed and laughed and laughed, helplessly. 

Juliana had ended up crumpled like newspaper on top of him with her face pressed into his shoulder. The tears of mirth streaming out of her eyes were staining the same yellow puffer vest he’d worn on their midnight Titan-hunting missions. 

Arven was not laughing. In fact, he was as tense and stiff and silent as a corpse in rigor mortis. Juliana wasn’t sure he was even breathing.

Catching her own breath and trying to swallow the last of her gasping giggles, she raised her face to look at him. “Wha—haha—what’s the matter?”

From hairline to collar, he matched the Tamato berries on the ground below. His eyebrow was twitching. 

“Wh-what’s the matter?!” he sputtered. “Just—look at the situation we’re in!”

Her smile faltered. “Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that. You gotta admit that it’s a little bit funny.”

“It’s not funny at all!” The level of panic gripping his voice seemed disproportionate for the situation. “We’re gonna be stuck up here—like this—until somebody finds us!”

“Well, it’s pretty funny to me,” she teased, smirking and leaning in closer. “You’re really quite a hypocrite, Arv, you know that?”

He didn’t answer. With a wild look in his eyes, his hands fumbled and grasped at the holes in the net. He tried to wiggle out from under her, but the net was so small that the best he could do was bring his knees into his chest and push her away with his feet. 

Juliana’s upper lip curled. Why’s he acting like he can’t get away from me fast enough?

Grappling at the net to wrest herself up and back so that the lug soles of her boots were pressing against his, she strained against gravity to ensure no other points of contact between them. In the bracing autumn air, she instantly missed the warmth of his body. But her face burned with enough shame to heat a mid-sized city all winter as he relaxed somewhat now that she was further out of his space.

Guess he and Mabosstiff aren't so similar after all. Even with all those friendly overtures, he’s still just as physically repulsed by me as ever...

She swallowed the stinging lump in her throat. It settled in her stomach and flared up into anger.

Fine. Good! Not like I care!

Her escape instinct kicked in for the second time today, but just as before, it proved useless.

"You don’t have some kind of super-duper-Mr.-Wilderness knife in your bag you could use to cut us free?" she asked, sopping with sarcasm.

He gritted his teeth, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I did. Look down."

Leaning over sideways until the netting dug into the side of her face, she spied his backpack sitting right where he'd left it on the ground below them. 

So we really are stuck until someone comes looking for us, and he's hating every minute that he has to breathe the same air as me. Great. Stellar. Perfect, in fact! Serves him right!

“Psh. Well, I knew this never would’ve worked anyway.” She retracted her cold hands into the too-long sleeves of her hoodie, crossed her arms over her chest, and stuck out her chin.

“Why not? I thought you said it was clever!"

Because look at us right now, she thought. This clearly isn’t sexy!

“Because Drayton and Lacey don’t need a reason to touch each other. We already all play a full-contact sport together! This kind of thing wouldn’t even faze them.”

Come to think of it…could that have been another reason why Drayton wanted to start the team with her in the first place?! 

“Wait…really?”

“Uh, yeah? Duh? Like I told you when I was giving you that skating lesson, roller derby involves touching your teammates and opponents pretty much constantly. It’s not really compatible with prudish hand-wringing about personal space,” she spat. “Of course that bleeds over into how we all interact elsewhere. Why wouldn’t it?”

“Oh…huh…I didn’t…think about that.” He was studying her thoughtfully. Probingly. 

“What?!”

”Nothing!” he answered too quickly.

She speared him with a death glare. “Really? ‘Cause it sure seems like something.”

“W-well, it’s just…I’ve noticed that you seem…" He chewed his cheek, avoiding her eyes. "—very...comfortable with touching people, too.”

Her blood rose from a simmer to a boil. It’s like he deliberately seeks out new ways to reject me even when I’m bending over backwards not to flirt with him!

“I heard you loud and clear! Believe it or not, space cowboy, I can take a hint! Look at all this space, just for you! Take it! Take alllllll of it!” she snarled, angrily gesturing at the empty air, though the movement lost most of its edge thanks to her long sleeves flopping around past her hands. 

Arven looked confused. Taken aback. Maybe even a little bit hurt. “I meant…like, Lacey, Kieran, even Carmine. You’re pretty…touchy? It seems like it comes easily to you…”

Seeing red, she huffed. The audacity!

“You’re the one who’s acting touchy right now! I didn’t ask to be in this situation! Might I remind you that this Linooney Toons trap was your idea—and if you'd just let me handle that Spidops instead of flipping out and dragging us both backward, we wouldn’t be stuck in it!” Animated by emotion, her voice swelled louder and louder.

A live studio audience of Pinecos sitting on a nearby branch blinked their red eyes at her and tittered cautiously. Interrupting her own tirade at Arven to heckle them right back, she tried to jab a shaking finger in their direction, but was yet again foiled by her childishly too-long sleeves. “Don’t you give me that look!” she shouted at them. “Mind your own business!”

The shingles of the Pineco’s shells snapped closed and flattened against their bodies, and they hurriedly scuttled away. 

Juliana’s head whipped back around to her original target. “I get that you’re disgusted as usual about having to soil your precious hands by touching me. But this time, you’ve got only yourself to blame!“

Arven gaped at her like a Magikarp, eyes bulging, but his face was crimson instead of orange. 

“…Dis…gusted?" He shook his head frantically, looking as though he just remembered he left the stove on in another dimension. "No!…I want—" He clapped a hand over his mouth. "—Ah, I mean, listen, y-you’ve got it all backwards—!“

“Don’t lie! It’s written all over your face. Has been any time you’ve had to endure the indignity of being within spitting distance of me. You’re not subtle,” she sneered. “Seriously, do I smell bad or something? Or am I just too ugly to view from this close without retching?”

“No! No! It’s—it’s not you!” he stammered. “I mean, it is you, but—it’s—it's more that it’s me—“

“Oh, come on! At least spare me that cliché line!”

“Will you just let me—WHY are you so—UGH!” He barked a laugh, sharp and bitter and utterly exasperated, yet not without a lemony spritz of genuine amusement. “How are you worse at this than I am?! Do you have any idea how messed up THAT is?”

Juliana still wasn't used to how he sounded when he raised his voice. It rattled her into a wary silence. Hair falling into his face, Arven took a deep, measured breath, closed his eyes, and continued. 

“Touching your friends comes easily to you. It…doesn’t come easily to me.”

She just blinked at him, uncomprehending. 

“So…?”

“So that’s not the same thing as not…wanting to! I’m just…a little bit…" Face twisting, he looked her in the eye for the first time in several minutes. "—Out of practice?”

Juliana remembered the things she shouldn’t know about his childhood, things he’d only shared with Zoruva, and it dawned on her that he may never have had the practice to begin with.

But…surely someone as gorgeous as him has had plenty of the more-than-friendly variety of touch since then. This guy can’t even cross the street without indirectly causing accidents. In my case, literally. 

In the theater of her mind, the film jump-cut from that first meeting to when she hip-checked him into the floor and teased him about losing his “fall virginity”—and as the memory of his mortified face flickered over the screen, Juliana suddenly wasn’t so sure. 

I’ve never actually seen him touch anyone other than Mabosstiff …

He’s so closed off…but I thought that was because he didn’t like me. There’s no way he just never gets touched by anybody. Right?

“So...what you’re saying is…even though it freaks you out, you actually…do want me to touch you the way I touch everyone else?”

“…Yeah.” The combination of his incandescent blush and the way his voice sounded no bigger than a Joltik’s did something funny to her chest. "I mean—only if you want to!”

Juliana choked back a hysterical laugh at the notion that she wouldn’t want to, recognizing that any further humiliation now would run the risk of actually killing him. Arven was a bomb of embarrassed tension. But this new permission to touch gave her an idea of how she could relieve and defuse that...

“You screwed up big time by telling me that, y'know,” she purred, a smirk tugging at half of her mouth. “I’m never gonna leave you alone now.”

His breath hitched. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah.” She cocked her head to the side and rolled up her sleeves, running her tongue along her top teeth. “I am gonna be so—“

She cracked the knuckles of her left hand, then the right. "—incredibly—"

Holding his paralyzed gaze, she maneuvered forward onto her knees, leaning over him with greedy hands and a devilish glint in her eye. “—annoying!”

“Wh-what are—ah…AHAHAHAHA!”

Bingo, she thought. Ticklish!

Screeching and gasping, Arven tried to squirm away, but there was nowhere to go.

He was strong, and a great deal bigger than her, but Juliana had experience on her side. Persistent and ruthless, well-accustomed to playing offense in tight-space dealings with opponents who dwarfed her, she expertly faked him out over and over again, reaching to the left as a distraction only to swoop in and attack his undefended right flank. One would expect him to quickly learn and see right through the trick, and perhaps he did—but it hardly would’ve helped him defend himself anyway. 

Puzzlingly, at first he made no attempt to strike back as he tried in vain to block the barrage of tickles. Juliana wondered if he simply didn’t know how. She paused her one-sided siege to grab his hands and place them on her sides, but he stiffened up at once.

”Go on, touch me,” she taunted in between giggly gasps. “Little rough around the edges, but I’m not gonna break.”

Arven still hesitated, watching her with wide-eyed fascination as if bewitched, until she thawed him out with a fresh assault on his surprisingly sensitive neck. At last, he cautiously wiggled his fingers against her ribs to draw a squeal and a squirm from her. 

The grin of wonder, of discovery, of wicked delight, that broke across his face was blinding. It was on. This was a proper battle now. 

They were oblivious to how the net swung around wildly from the tree as they screeched and writhed and howled, a tangle of oversized children, a flurry of weed-whacker elbows and knees. Searching out each other’s weakest spots and exploiting them for shrieks and giggles. 

Breathless, sweating, and sore from laughing so much, she relented only when he begged her, still clinging to his vest as she stilled on her side next to him. With the vermillion leaves and gold sunbeams raining down around them, it felt almost as though they were in a hammock, rather than a trap.

His own gasps quieted, too—and all at once they were just gazing into each other’s still-laughing eyes, cheeks ruddy with joy and chill air, far closer together than even their current predicament required them to be. Close enough to count his eyelashes, to wonder why he always looked like he didn’t sleep much and how heart-wrenchingly beautiful he must be when he did. A gravitational spell held them in thrall. 

Arven reached up, slow and hesitant, to let his fingertips hover like a Combee just above the flower of her upturned cheek. His eyelids fluttered.

She had been gasping only seconds ago. Now she suddenly found herself unable to draw breath at all. It frightened her half to death, but she could no more look away from him than she could free herself from the snare.

He started to say something.

Until, about six feet below them, someone pointedly cleared their throat. 

Chapter Text

“Wait, wait, wait! Lemme me get this straight,” Carmine snickered. “You two got attacked by a wild Spidops, and as you were trying to run away from it like a couple of total Wimpods, you somehow managed to get yourselves stuck in some random hunter’s snare?” 

“Could’ve happened to anyone,” Arven said, tone level despite his gritted teeth. “I don’t see why that’s so funny.”

He set to work on lunch as soon as they returned to camp, using one of the long sides of their large rectangular folding table as a workspace. But their friends’ growling stomachs evidently did not impair their ability to crowd around and rib them about the whole torrid affair.

“Some outdoorsman consultant you are!” Carmine was wiping away tears of laughter. “Oh man, if you’re supposed to be the most competent one here, we’ll all be dead by sunrise.” 

Juliana’s green canvas folding chair was pushed away from the table. Lounging in it sideways, legs dangling languidly over the arm, she watched Arven work with his plaid flannel sleeves rolled up over strong forearms and ran multiplication tables in her head to keep her imagination in check.

“I still can’t believe he doesn’t see the humor in it,” she muttered.

Soaking in the golden grass at her feet like an ancient sun god, Mabosstiff glanced up and gave Juliana a soft whine of betrayal. The pine needles and leaves caught in his sugar-white beard added to the druidic effect.

“Oh, Juliana—please don’t think we’re only poking fun at Arven,” Lacey said. Sitting across from her, she gave the leg of Juliana’s chair a playful kick, which jostled the tiny pink Snubbull snoring in her own lap. It grumbled in protest. 

“Oopsie! Sorry, my sweet little Slugger,” Lacey crooned to the Pokémon, and it quickly closed its eyes again when she scritched its ears. “As I was saying, you’re just as silly, if not moreso! You all wouldn’t believe what she was doing to poor Arven in that trap when Drayton and I found them!”

Juliana scowled and flushed at the chorus of scandalized whooping and table-drumming that followed. 

“We weren’t doing anything!” she and Arven shouted in unison, which only intensified the teasing.

“Tell me more, tell me more, did’ja get very far?” Crispin jested from his spot along the long edge of the table opposite Arven.

A low, rumbling, throaty growl rose up from the Pokémon in front of Juliana’s chair. 

“We—she didn’t—I would never!” Arven sputtered, color rising in his cheeks. “That would be wrong!”

The answer to a question I didn’t ask. Not that I dared to hope any different, she thought. Whatever…I’m just relieved he’s not so repulsed by me that we can’t even be friends.

“It was just a little tickle fight,” Juliana groaned. “Not weird at all, except for you guys trying to make it weird.” But a quick glance at a smirking Drayton, seated to the right of Lacey with his chin resting on his folded arms, confirmed that he wasn’t buying their story any more now than he had when he sent his Sceptile to cut them down from the net with its Acrobatics.

“A tickle fight?” Amarys asked from the middle seat on the long edge. As she lowered the set of binoculars she was using to birdwatch, the view of Casseroya Lake reflected in its lenses with a brilliant cobalt flash. “I see. Is that the euphemism of choice these days? My word, the popular slang changes so rapidly that even I can scarcely keep pace with it.” 

Crispin, Carmine, Amarys, and Drayton howled with laughter. The knife in Arven’s grasp clattered onto the yellow checkered tablecloth.

“Out in the open?” Sitting to the right of Amarys, Carmine was sneering. “Whoa, I had no idea you were that kind of girl, Splits. Have you no shame?”

Arven slammed his hands on the table, causing the sandwiches and jars of ingredients to spring up like Spoinks before settling back down. It silenced the teasing and snickering like a shockwave snuffing out a brush fire. 

“JULIANA WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!”

Meanwhile, Mabosstiff crawled underneath the table to sink his teeth into Carmine’s pant leg. She clutched the arms of her chair to keep from being dragged out of it as she tried to shake the Pokémon loose. 

“It was all my fault the two of us ended up in that net in the first place…and I was freaking out about having no way out of it, so she tickled me to distract me!” Arven snapped, nostrils flaring. “She’s my friend, and she made a bad situation a lot better for me by keeping her sense of humor about it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, so all of you can just…SHUT UP!”

This belligerent bolt from the blue had Juliana baffled. 

I know he’s got a temper like an Electrode, and yet he barely even reacted when Carmine insulted him before. What set him off now? The worst of that wasn’t even aimed at him…

Her mouth fell slightly open as his own words came back to her. 

‘I guess I’m kinda…overprotective,’ he’d said. ‘Of my friends.’

Oh, she thought. Is he trying to…stand up for me?

A fuzzy warmth spread underneath her ribs, climbed up her chest and neck like pink ivy, tickled her cheeks into a smile. 

“Lay off ‘em, Arv,” Juliana chuckled, standing and shaking her hand out of her sleeve to gently tug at his forearm. He jumped like the touch of her fingertips on his bare skin had delivered a static shock, yet it also seemed to pop the bubble of tension that possessed him. “We tease each other. Just part of the friendship package. Doesn’t bother me—I’m fine.”

Arven’s jaw relaxed. He gave her the tiniest of nods and returned to preparing lunch, but not before shooting a glare of warning at Carmine, Crispin, and Amarys that withered and shrank them in their chairs like an unseasonably early frost. Mabosstiff finally released Carmine's leg and flopped back down in front of Juliana's chair as she settled into it again.

”Sheesh.” Carmine rolled her eyes. “Could’ve at least warned us that you’ve got a guard dog who bites. Keep that thing on a leash.”

”That thing has a name: Mabosstiff.” Juliana stuck her chin out. “And he’s not mine. But I wish he was, especially after that.”

“I wasn’t talking about Mabosstiff,” Carmine mocked.

Juliana’s blood roared in her ears. But before she could hit back, someone else beat her to the punch.

“That’s enough, Punchy,” Drayton yawned, calm and cool as the autumn breeze off the lake stirring in his bleached hair. “I know you get cranky when you’re hungry, but as your big-deal mighty Captain, I can’t just sit here and let you unload sour vibes on your fellow Grapes.”

But Drayton didn’t even bother to lift his head from where it lay atop his arms, let alone get out of his chair. He looked away from Carmine, who appeared to be having some sort of fit, and his hazel eyes landed on Juliana with a flicker of mischief. “Even when their flirting gets on your nerves,” he added.

“Ugh! Y’know, it’s pretty sexist and outdated to assume that a man and a woman can’t possibly just be friends,” Juliana said. “Right, Lacey?”

I know I can always count on her to stand up for what’s right, especially where Drayton is concerned!

“That’s absolutely true,” Lacey agreed. “Just look at Drayton and I!”

Drayton blanched. Arven and Juliana’s matched set of stony grimaces were a lot less subtle than his reaction, but all three of their faces told the same story. 

Damn. I did not think that one through…

“Still, even as friends, you two did look super cute!” Lacey giggled, oblivious. 

Drayton smoothly recovered his scaly outer layer of suavity, but the emergence of a barely perceptible new vein in his forehead hinted at the currents churning underneath those still waters. “So, no way out of that net, eh? Heh heh. How come you didn’t just toss out one of your Pokémon and have ’em use a move to cut ya loose? Like mine did?”

Huh. Yeah…why didn’t we think of that?

Arven cleared his throat, his face still a bit red from the shouting. “Um, lunch is ready, everybody!”

“Ooh, what’s on the menu?” Crispin asked, licking his lips and rubbing his hands together. He produced a bib from one of his pockets. Black with a busy pattern of red and orange flames, it matched his usual short-sleeved button down as though he’d purchased them together. As he tied it on, Juliana wondered how he wasn’t freezing.

“Sandwiches! I hope you all like them. Although,” Arven said, furrowing his brow at Drayton and Juliana, “—not everyone remembered to fill out my questionnaire about dietary restrictions and preferences. But I did the best I could.”

“I’ve got vegan for Lacey, gluten-free for Amarys, and standard for everyone else.” As he spoke, Arven began to distribute the brown parchment paper-wrapped sandwiches to everyone according to their labels.  

“Oh, and there’s tea, too,” he added, gesturing at the circle of seven steaming camp mugs he’d poured up, each decorated with delicate hand-painted artwork of Maschiffs and Fidoughs camping at the beach and in the mountains. 

He passed the first cup to Juliana. Finally pulling her hands out of her hoodie sleeves, she wrapped them around the mug and inhaled the warm, slightly spicy scent of darjeeling. The heat seeping into her achy-cold fingers made her shiver with pleasure. 

“Arven, you absolute sweetheart, you shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble!” Lacey gushed, not noticing when Drayton stood, grabbed the sandwich with her name on it and a mug of tea, and set both in front of her so she wouldn’t have to strain to reach them. “I didn’t want to be a burden, so I brought my own snacks.”

“Indeed.” Amarys studied her paper-wrapped sandwich closely, sipping a can of ginger ale. “I did as well. Gluten sensitivities can be quite difficult and time-consuming to accommodate, even for professional kitchens.” 

“It was no trouble at all,” Arven replied. “Never gotten to experiment with baking bread using gluten-free flour before, so this was a fun new challenge.” 

“Wait, you made this bread?” Carmine asked, unwrapping hers with an astounded expression.

“Yeah, I always bake my own.” Arven shrugged. “It’s way cheaper than store-bought, and I’ve always thought it tastes better. More substantial.”

“That was so kind of you! Gosh, who knew you were so talented?” Lacey fawned. Beside her, Drayton seemed to be slowly deflating like a beach ball caught under a Snorlax’s ass. “And wowie—what a cute little sandwich it is! What’s on it?”

“Yours is marinated tofu, pickled daikon radish, slivered carrots, baby spinach, basil, and a peanut-chili sauce,” Arven chattered happily as he sealed up the meticulously labeled ingredient containers and returned them to the big cooler by his feet.

“And Amarys’s is the same as yours, but with the gluten-free bread, and the peanut sauce on hers uses coconut aminos instead of soy sauce. Everyone else has ham, mojo pork, mustard greens, cheese, mayo, stone-ground mustard, and my homemade pickles.” He took off his apron and carefully folded it back up. 

With only his own sandwich remaining in front of him, Arven leaned uneasily on the table in the same spot where he did the prep work. Juliana tried to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look up, so she tore off half of the parchment paper from her sandwich, balled it up, and pitched it at him, hitting him square in the chest. 

Startled, he finally looked over. She raised an eyebrow at him. He mirrored her confusion until she pointed to the empty chair to her right.

His mouth fell open slightly, but he remained frozen, blinking as though he’d short-circuited. Juliana rolled her eyes, stood, grabbed him by the shoulders, and steered him into the seat, then went back for his sandwich and mug of tea. 

“Thanks,” he breathed when she returned. 

“Who’d you think this seat was for?” she whispered, giggling. 

“Still getting used to it. A week ago you picked Carmine’s lap over the empty spot next to me.”

Plenty’s changed since then…

“Love a good sando!” Drayton said, unwrapping his. “Never met one I didn’t like, but this is a step up from the PB&Js I make.”

“Please. I’ve seen your PB&Js,” Lacey scoffed, nose turned up. “Compared to the fine artistry before us, I hardly think those even count as ‘sandos.’ You just sit there eating peanut butter and jelly straight out of the jar with a butter knife. Only on a good day do you even bother with bread!”

…And yet, these two still can’t say three words to each other without arguing.

“Well, y’know what they say, different sandos for different…man-dos.” Drayton shrugged, but he looked uncharacteristically uncool. “Nothin’ wrong with that! Chewing’s just too much effort when the payoff won’t even be that good. But…this one looks like it should be worth the jaw workout.”

I guess that's technically a compliment? Juliana thought, studying Drayton. But it doesn’t really scan like one…

Arven just chuckled awkwardly, apparently not sure what to make of it either. Though he was nervously fidgeting with the paper on his sandwich, he hadn’t actually unwrapped it yet. He seemed oddly tense, shoulders reaching toward his ears. 

Juliana elbowed him in the ribs, and he yelped.

“To us,” she offered, tapping her sandwich to his. “Thanks for lunch, Arv.”

His brows drew together, mystified.

”I’m…toasting,” she mumbled, feeling her face going pink at the stupidity of her own pun. “Get it? ‘Cause…bread?”

When the joke landed, he threw his head back and laughed—in her opinion, much harder than it deserved. The tension seemed to melt and roll off of him like ice.

He flashed her another one of those dizzying grins. “It’s…the yeast I could do!”

Arceus, he is so…so…

Shaking her head, she bit her tongue to contain her own laugh as he dug into his sandwich at last.

”How rude of me to forget—thank you, Arven!” Lacey piped up, making a heart with her hands before taking her own first bite and squealing more praise. 

”Yes, thank you,” Amarys added. “This bread is precisely perfect. I will need your recipe, post-haste.”

“Yeah, thanks, this looks fire!” Crispin said. He pulled a small bottle of hot sauce out of one of the pockets of his cargo pants. “Man, I’m stoked!”

“Crispin, where are your manners?" Lacey chided. "You haven’t even tried it yet. At least taste it how Arven intended it to be before you start dumping mace on it!" 

Drayton sulked, leaning back in his chair. Looking at Lacey out of the corner of his eye, he picked up his heels and rested them on the edge of the table. 

It’s like he’s trying to get her to yell at him, Juliana thought. Then her eyes narrowed.

“Don't worry, Lacey. I don’t mind! In fact, I think that’s a really good idea,” Arven said, tapping his chin. “The filling’s pretty rich, and the bread is starchy. The pickles and mustard are there to provide some acidity to cut through all of that, but a nice, vinegary hot sauce would make sense, too. Could I try some of that, actually?” 

“‘Course, chef!” Crispin capped the bottle and tossed it over to Arven. 

“Thanks!” He caught it and turned it over in his hands. “Hey, wait—I know this sauce! It’s from that new artisan pop-up shop in the Porto Marinada market, right? I wanna get some, but they’re only open on Mondays, and I have class until too late to get over there. But I’ve been dying to try it ever since I saw it featured on this Igglystagram account I follow! Have you ever heard of ‘HotEatzPaldea’? With a ‘Z’?”

Arven opened the bottle and poured a few drops of the sauce onto his sandwich. But Crispin had paled and set his own lunch back down on the table.

“Uh…I guess...you could say that.”

“Never known you to mince words, Wheelz.” Drayton eyed Crispin suspiciously. “What gives? Tea too hot for you?”

“Nah. Thing is…I’m…sorta…the one who runs it. HotEatzPaldea, with a 'Z',” Crispin admitted quietly. 

“What?!” cried everyone at the table.

“It’s not that big a deal!” he croaked.

“But—but—you have half a million followers!” Arven cried, aquamarine eyes watering, either from his first sauced-up bite of the sandwich or just being in the presence of one of his heroes. “You’re one of the biggest foodie accounts in the whole region! I never imagined the person who put me onto some of my favorite little hole-in-the-wall hidden gem restaurants could be someone I actually know!”

“How’d you not recognize him from the posts on the account?” Carmine snarked in between bites. “Are you dumb? Shouldn’t it have been obvious?”

Juliana's eyes flashed. “Does that sandwich he worked hard to make for you stick going down?!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I not allowed to talk to your little boyfriend?”

She rose from her chair. “He is not my—I don’t have a—listen here, you overgrown goth Farigiraf—!“

“Whoa—uh, this doesn’t feel like teambuilding,” Arven nervously stammered, tugging at Juliana’s sleeve until she sank back into her seat. “HotEatzPaldea has never shown his face on camera. He’s always stayed behind it and kept the focus on the restaurants and markets, so there’s no way any of us could’ve known.”

“I’m a little bit hurt,” Lacey said, pouting. “All this time we’ve had a proper celebrity in our midst, and he didn’t even bother to tell us. You’ve been living a double life, Crispin. It’s just not right to keep such a big secret from your dearest friends!” 

Juliana’s face suddenly felt itchy and hot.

“Sorry, Slay-cey.” Crispin grimaced. “You know I never sweat the small stuff, but this is big stuff. I would’ve told you guys if it wasn’t so…complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Drayton asked, still deliberately courting Lacey's ire by talking with his mouth full. Caught up in enjoying her own sandwich, she failed to see him.

A faraway look stole over Crispin’s face. It seemed totally out of place on someone so carefree. 

“See…my parents back in Circester expect me to run our family restaurant once I’m done with my culinary arts degree. And I know how fired up I oughta be to have my future all sorted out for me like that. The restaurant business is cutthroat. It would normally take a whole career to earn the chance to become the head chef of a place with a legacy like the one Bob’s Your Uncle has...”

He chewed his lip, looking off over the lake. 

“But the scalding truth is…I’ve always secretly wanted to become a traveling food writer or TV host. Getting to try bold new flavors all over the world, and introduce other people to new things, too—that’s the dream that really lights my fire. Variety is the spice of life!”

Crispin’s gaze dropped to his hands folded in his lap.

“The idea of being stuck for the rest of my life in the same ice-cold city, where people think ketchup is spicy—" he physically recoiled, "—working six days a week and never having enough time off for a vacation even to someplace within Galar, chained to a menu that’s been exactly the same since before my parents were even born…” Crispin trailed off.

“I had to make sure my family didn’t find out about HotEatzPaldea, because they wouldn’t approve. So…that’s why I kept it a secret. Sorry.”

Eyes blazing, Lacey bolted upright, plopping a startled Slugger down in Drayton’s lap. “I forgive you for not telling us. But I cannot forgive you for giving up on your dreams!”

Crispin blinked. “…Whuh?”

“Heh heh. Oh boy, here we go.” Drayton grinned, laced his hands together behind his head, and reclined further back in his chair—slowly, so as not to disturb Slugger, who appeared surprisingly at ease despite being shifted around once again.

“You’re going to spend your whole life toiling away for your parents’ dream, even though you’ve already proven you're more than capable of achieving yours? It’s just not right!” Lacey shaped her forearms into her signature X. “Have some backbone! Exposing audiences around the world to food and experiences they’d never know about otherwise—why, it’s a crucial medium for cross-cultural understanding and peace! You have unique gifts, Crispin, and the world needs you to use them!”

Juliana was dumbfounded. Judging by the number of jaws that had hit the table, everyone except Drayton was, too. 

“Huh…Maybe you’re right,” Crispin said.

“Lacey…you’re seriously taking Crispin’s side in this?!” Carmine was baring her teeth, twitching with rage. “The right thing for him to do is be a good son and do what his parents ask! Who'll take care of their restaurant if he doesn’t?! What’ll happen to their legacy and all of that history?!”

Steam whistled out of Lacey’s ears as she stared daggers back at Carmine.

“Careful there, Punchy,” Drayton chuckled. “This one’s real close to home for Lace.”

"Yeah, well, it's close to home for me, too! Don't you know how lucky you are to even have parents?!” Carmine growled. Amarys gently took her arm and whispered something to her, but no one else seemed to pay her outburst any mind. 

“Hey, that reminds me—Lace, this morning, when Drayton said he admired you for rebelling against your family’s expectations…what did he mean by that?” Juliana asked. 

Calming down, Lacey took her seat again and pulled Slugger back into her own lap. “It’s kind of a long story…”

“My Daddy adores me. But he’s always expected me to take over his Pokémon Gym and his mining company when I grow up.” The glitter polish on her dainty fingernails sparkled in the sunlight as she gripped her mug of tea.

“He came from nothing, and built his business with blood, sweat, and tears, so I’ve always done my best to work hard and make him proud. But…me? Covered in dirt and grime all the time, working those gigantic steel mining machines? Totally not cute!” Lacey shivered, pulling her pink flannel shirt closer around her.

“I want to be a lawyer, and someday, maybe even a judge. Which is quite possibly the worst thing I could ever become, in his eyes. I genuinely think he’d be happier if I joined a gang!”

“Why?” Juliana asked, trying not to wheeze at the mental image of Mob Wife Lacey—no, Mob Boss Lacey—flanked by a couple of Granbull enforcers.

She’d be terrifying, all right. Even with a vegan leather jacket and all those little flower clips in her hair, she could break your kneecaps with the power of cuteness alone if she believed it was the right thing to do. 

Lacey sighed. “My Daddy has this joke he loves to tell. What do you call five lawyers at the bottom of a mine shaft?”

“I dunno,” said Crispin. 

“A start.” Lacey’s nose wrinkled with disgust. “Daddy can’t stand lawyers. When I was little, he got in trouble with the city for doing some major mining underneath his Gym without obtaining the proper permits and keeping things up to code. To this day, if you ask him, he says that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants with the land, since he owns it. But he got sued, and he lost pretty badly.” With sad puppy-dog eyes, she slowly shook her head. “Partly because he stubbornly insisted on representing himself in the case and taking it to trial, instead of accepting a settlement offer. He never stood a chance against those big-city lawyers.”

“I was only nine at the time, but I sat in the courtroom every day to watch the proceedings. At night, I read the Driftveil building and construction codes cover to cover—and I did end up finding a couple of things that helped his defense. But in the end, Daddy was in the wrong, so he lost. He had to pay a huge fine. And he never let it go.”

“Even so, all that research I did, and the thrill of using it to help him and put those attorneys on the back foot…the whole thing made me fall head over heels in love with the law.”

Lacey gazed guiltily down into her mug.

“When I started at Uva, I was a business major, because Daddy pays my tuition and that’s what he wanted me to be.” She winced. “I believed with my whole heart that I had a duty to make him proud. But…trying to be somebody I’m not? It’s like wearing black when nobody’s dead—just doesn’t suit me,” she chuckled.

”So once I finished up my general education requirements, I started quietly taking some of the classes for the pre-law track, since the business degree program has a lot of elective wiggle room anyway.”

Lacey looked over at Drayton. Her whole demeanor shifted, as though the sun had come out from behind a cloud. “And then in my second year, I met you,” she said, smiling even as she finally saw his feet on the table and sharply elbowed them off. “I told Drayton that whole story, and he…understood.”

“He went round and round debating me about it until he finally got me to see things from a more…utilitarian perspective, rather than a purely deontological one. And he changed my mind about what was right.”

“I didn’t even think it was possible to change Lacey’s mind,” Juliana remarked, mind-boggled. “You’re so…well, Snubbull-headed. And I mean that as a compliment!”

“What kind of future judge would I be if I refused to consider other points of view and change my opinions accordingly?” Lacey pouted. 

“Sure, but…seriously, how did you persuade her, Drayton?” Arven asked.

“All I did was tell her that if she wasted her talents and passion in a career that would never make use of them, the world would be worse off.” Drayton slouched and shrugged, the picture of nonchalance, but Juliana swore she could see pink blooming around his temples. “And…she’d never be happy like that. I know I’m the king of nuance, but c’mon—anybody could tell you that’s just not right.“

Lacey affectionately punched Drayton in the arm. “You’re forgetting the part where I couldn’t muster up the courage to officially change my major, so you did it for me.”

“‘S nothin’,” Drayton waved her off, a fond smile warming his face as he recalled the memory. “I just clicked the final button on the registrar’s office portal, ‘cause you’d been having a staring contest with it for ten minutes. You made the decision, and you told your pops about it after. That was the hard part.”

“Yeah, that must’ve been scary! How’d he take the news?” Crispin asked. 

“Oh…um…you know…” Lacey fidgeted with her Snubbull’s fur. “Uh…I bet people have harder conversations than that every day. But enough about little old me! Let’s finish this adorable meal!”

Chapter Text

“I just don’t get it!”

Dejected, Juliana lowered the binoculars from her eyes. She’d seen enough.

The autumnal afternoon sun had slipped behind a screen of overcast clouds to slowly undress before it crept toward bed. Casseroya Lake's indigo waves teemed with wild Veluza, Azumarill, and even the occasional Gyarados. Now and then, a huge, inky shadow gliding by beneath the surface whispered rumors of a Dondozo or two.

Lying with her chin on the splinter-studded bow of their rowboat like a sniper, Juliana spied on their targets in the boat up ahead of them as they neared the finish of their circumnavigation of the lake.

Arven took rowing duty in the back, and Mabosstiff sat in between the two of them. The rising wind catching his snowy beard lent the elderly Pokémon the stoic air of a general crossing a river to sign a historic peace treaty—only the tricorn hat was missing to complete the picture. 

“They're nuts about each other. There's no doubt about that,” she continued, flipping onto her back to stare up at the churning sky and beg it for answers. “We know they’ve got shared history, common interests, even some mutual respect! And we’ve put them out here, alone together, in a stupidly romantic little rowboat..."

Groaning, she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes to blot out the image of Lacey and Drayton's boat spinning in aimless circles like they were caught in a Cloyster’s Whirlpool. But even her eyelids provided no escape. Their argument over rowing techniques was so obnoxiously loud that she could hear it even from a quarter of a mile away. 

“So…why isn’t this working?!”

Mabosstiff closed his eyes and twitched his nose at the air. He whined.

Waiting for Arven to say something, Juliana sat up and found him staring at her. Or seemingly, through her. He’d stopped rowing, and a dreamy little smile played on his gorgeous face.

I badly misjudged him about plenty of things when we first met, she thought, chuckling. But I was right on the money about this. The artisanal rowboat catalog model in his natural habitat. 

He was completely spaced out. Juliana raised an eyebrow and waved.

”Hey, Arv? Anyone home?”

Arven startled and picked up the oars again. 

“Sorry! Fresh air makes me a little air-headed sometimes. What did you say?”

”Operation Giant Flaming Meteor, or whatever we decided to call it,” she sighed. “Why do you think this isn’t working?”

“Oh, that! Yeah, I have a theory.” A gust of wind ruffled his hair. “Have you been listening to the things Lacey says when they’re arguing? They’re not random.”

“Blah blah blah, I’m right and you’re wrong, blah blah blah?” 

“And you said I had scorn for her!” He snorted. “Try again. Look a little deeper. What's underneath the words?”

Mabosstiff turned in a circle on the floorboards and whined more insistently. Juliana stroked his head in an effort to reassure him.

”Poor Mabosstiff—are you afraid of the water?”

Arven’s brow furrowed. ”No,” he said. “Or if he is, that’s new. We’ve been out here together plenty of times before, and he’s never had an issue with it…”

She shrugged it off, kissed Mabosstiff between the eyes, then answered Arven’s earlier question.

“Their fights consist of Lacey picking on Drayton for being lazy and unprincipled, and Drayton passive-aggressively telling her to lighten up. You really think it’s deeper than that?”

“You know Lacey. With her standards, would she stay friends with him if she really felt that way?”

“I mean, she stays friends with me?” Juliana muttered. 

“You are not—!”

The sky ripped open like the bottom of a paper grocery bag and sent a torrential downpour crashing down upon them without so much as a drop of warning. This was not the gentle caress of a summer drizzle—each fat, ripe raindrop hit its mark with a cold, vengeful sting, as though it were hurled from the sadistic massage setting of an overzealous atmospheric shower head. The machine gun fire of it seemed to boil the lake. 

Amarys and Crispin had seemingly speedrun their circuit of the lake to finish first and already headed back to camp to reunite with Carmine, who vehemently refused to join in the rowboat regatta. And Drayton and Lacey's boat was only a Stonjourner’s throw from the eastern shore they'd all launched from, so they would likely also seek refuge that way.

But Arven and Juliana found themselves much further afield on the water. They could’ve booked it back to shore if the downpour was their only problem, but an abrupt explosion of unnervingly close thunder suggested they were in imminent danger of far worse than just getting drenched. 

With the strength of an entire collegiate crew team, Arven frantically rowed them toward the nearest island of the rocky archipelago in the middle of the lake, while Juliana covered Mabosstiff with her body to shield his old bones from the rain.

The two of them hastily dragged their boat up onto the bank as lightning flashed and another thunderclap rattled the ground, even closer than the last.

“This way!” Arven shouted and pointed. Mabosstiff trotted on ahead, barking as if to lead them there. 

Half-blind in the storm, she scrambled through the mud behind them, dodging wild Tatsugiri splashing around in the puddles.

Hands on her knees, Juliana caught her frosty breath. Water dripped off her nose and chin to puddle up on the floor of the cave.

It was dark, damp, and even chillier than the outside, but at least it offered them some respite from the lightning and punishing rain. The last dregs of that first-rain-in-a-week petrichor wafted in to be sucked up by winded lungs. 

Arven dragged a hand up his face and through his wet hair with a groan. 

“I thought,” she gasped, “—the weather was supposed to be good this weekend?”

“It was. I checked the forecast seven times, including this morning," Arven huffed. "But life’s just full of wonderful surprises.”

The rain droplets beading up on his long eyelashes gleamed in the grey light from outside. Striding further into the cave, he took off his backpack and roughly flung it down. 

Even soaked to the bone, he’s still so pretty that it’s unfair. Another one of our plans failed, and we’re marooned here, reaping what we sowed, just like with the net trap...

Mabosstiff wound himself up like a propellor and shook off, starting at the top of his head and shoulders and shimmying all the way down to his tail. The spray of water hit both of them.

…So how come I just feel like laughing, same as I did then? 

I guess I really do enjoy hanging out with him, she thought, feeling warm inside despite the cold. Not that I’d ever have believed that a month ago…

“Yeah,” she chuckled, biting her lip to keep the smile in check. “Like meeting you.”

Arven’s head snapped back around toward the sound of her voice. He glared at her like she'd slapped him.

“You little…I'm trying my best here, okay?! There have been times where I really did deserve that acid tongue and nasty attitude of yours. But this isn’t one of them, so SHOVE OFF!”

Juliana stumbled backward as that little vessel of warmth within her shattered, and its contents evaporated. She was left holding the sharp-edged shards of it, shivering, soaked clothes clinging to her skin in a cave that felt at least twice as cold and drafty as it had only a moment ago.

Her eyes flicked to the exit, but another lightning strike and the deafening crash of thunder right on its heels banished any immediate hope of bolting. So instead, she took that shard digging into her palm and turned it outwards.

“For the record, I meant that sincerely,” she spat.

“There was a moment just now when I really did feel lucky that I met you. Well, my mistake! If all I’ve done is ruin your trip with my acid tongue and nasty attitude, you're free to leave! Take the boat with you, I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way outta here. I’ll have an easier time taming a damn Gyarados than trying to get along with you!”

She turned her back to him, shaking either from the cold outside, the tempest within, or both. Waiting for him to shout back, or to flee. But Arven himself was full of surprises, because he did neither of those things.

She was beginning to wonder if he really did leave when Mabosstiff padded over, whined gently, and nudged at the hand encased in her waterlogged sleeve.

“Why do you do that?” Arven asked softly. All his anger had melted like salt into water.

“Do what?”

“Push me away,” he said. “I know it’s not because you’re heartless. You’re not like…”

He trailed off, swallowing.

“In the beginning, I thought so, but...no. You do it because you have a heart. A big one that bruises a lot more easily than you let on. You lash out to hide, instead of just...telling me when I've hurt you, or when I’ve pressed on something that was already bruised. Am I right?”

Juliana’s pulse pounded.

For the first time, someone had leaped over her little art gallery's velvet rope and charged right at her counterfeit masterpiece with a magnifying glass.

Perilously close, he could see the wobble in each uncertain brushstroke, the canvas too new for a genuine old master, the sloppy pencil outlines normally concealed by the carefully chosen viewing distance. Close enough that if the guards didn't tackle him fast, he might see her for the fraud that she knew herself to be—and what would happen then?

Pinprick-pupiled and paralyzed, she didn’t say a word, and to her intense relief, Arven inexplicably ducked back under that velvet rope on his own. 

“You’re not ruining my trip,” he added, pulling his flashlight out of his bag and setting it upright to serve as a torch. It poured a soft glow over the cave walls like a luminescent mushroom in Glimwood Tangle. “In fact, even with all the ways I’ve managed to screw things up and put us both in danger, I’ve had a really good time.”

She whirled around to gesture at their dripping clothes and the merciless gale outside. “This is your idea of fun?”

“With you? Yeah. Any day.”

The sincerity and remorse in his half-smile made her breath catch. 

“I love camping, but it’s been so long since I’ve been. Even back then, I never had someone I…someone like you to share it with,” he admitted quietly. “And having lunch with everyone earlier…I never really get to eat with anyone besides Mabosstiff, so…”

“What I’m trying to say is…thank you, Juliana. For being my friend. My buddy.”

She pictured seven-year-old Arven roasting marshmallows over a campfire, alone. 

Scarring up his beautiful hands trying cook himself dinner when he was barely big enough to see over the stove, alone. 

Teaching himself wilderness survival skills like knot-tying from a library book, alone. 

Alone, always, except for Mabosstiff. Arven espoused and evangelized the buddy system, but all his life, the only buddy he’d ever had was his beloved, increasingly fragile Pokémon. 

As Juliana struggled to stem a rising tide in her eyes that she’d have a hard time explaining, doubt overtook his features.

"Sorry, that was probably…is it…alright that I—?"

Juliana flung her arms around his waist and hugged him just shy of tightly enough to crack a rib.

He yelped, and at first, his arms just hovered above her as if repelled by magnetism. But she knew Arven well enough now to be fairly sure that this was his endearingly painful awkwardness, not disgust or discomfort. 

Even so, she felt compelled to check.

“Too much?”

”Yeah,” he breathed. “But it’s…a good kind of too much.”

Just like with the tickle fight, she took his arms and showed him what to do with them, winding each one around her shoulders before swooping back in to hug him again, burying her face in his chest. After one more moment of hesitation, he was squeezing back even tighter than she was. 

“Arv?”

“Uh-huh?”

“The buddy thing—anytime, okay?”

She turned her head so her ear and cheek lay against his vest, slick with rain and a few secret tears that she didn’t realize were not entirely her own. Underneath, she could hear his heart. 

It’s beating so fast. If being touched at all is new for him, then maybe hugs really are too much. Should I let go? Or is that all the more reason not to?

”Seriously, nobody with your cooking skills should be eating alone so much if you’d rather have company,” she said. “You ever get lonely at dinnertime, just text me. I’ll be at your door so fast you’ll get whiplash.”

“Don’t offer that unless you're sure you mean it, bud,” he mumbled against the top of her head. She couldn’t see him smiling, but his voice was infused with it. “How’d you put it earlier, right before you tickled me half to death? I’m gonna get annoying. Never leave you alone.”

She was glad she hadn’t let go of him. Partly for that smile she could hear, but also for the less altruistic reason that she’d become all too aware of just how freezing cold she was. 

“Mmm...” She melted against his chest with a shiver. “How are you so warm?”

He cleared his throat.

“Sorry!” Her lantern-light shadow on the cave wall flinched away from his as though it had been caught stealing. “I shouldn’t just...use you like a furnace. That was rude of me.”

“No—! No, I don’t…mind, not at all,” he stammered. At arm’s length from hers, his shadow looked down, rubbing at the back of its neck. “It’s more that…wouldn’t…Cass be upset?”

Juliana’s shadow cocked its head to the side as she laughed. 

“Cass? Why would Cass care if I hug you?”

“Uh…r-right!” He pulled her back into his arms so fast that he momentarily lifted her feet off the ground. “Yeah. No reason. There’s nothing weird about this. Two buds. Huggin’ it out.”

Juliana snorted. “Except you. You’re pretty weird.”

Nuzzling back in, she hummed again. The roar of the rain outside had been tamed into a soothing murmur. The scent of rosemary shampoo and damp skin—new yet familiar, pleasant, his—filled her head. She wondered if she could fall asleep like this. 

“Should we get you out of these wet clothes?”

Am I so hypothermic that I’ve started to hallucinate?

Wide awake and doubting her own ears, she pulled back to blink at him in confusion.

“Gah! I—I didn’t—not in, like, a weird way! I have—a spare shirt! In my bag! That you can have! That’s all I meant, swear!”

Juliana couldn’t help but laugh. Oh buddy, if you knew how badly I wish you meant it in the weird way…

“I’m alright,” she said, moving to tug the hoodie off over her head. “I think I’m pretty dry underneath this, actually. But you probably should change.”

"Right, good idea. I like prunes, but I’d rather not turn into one.” He got up to dig around in his bag. 

Sure enough, her thick fleece-lined hoodie had taken the worst of the battering rain. The henley-style tank she wore underneath offered little insulation against the chill, but at least it wasn’t drenched.

Once she shook her wet hair back into place, she noticed him staring at her, clutching at the extra shirt. 

"Don't worry, I won't look." She sat down and covered her eyes with her hands. The rock wall was cold, jagged, and damp against her now-bare shoulders. "I may be touchy, but I’m not a creep."

Arven coughed and mumbled something under his breath. She heard him unzip his vest and take it off. 

"Oh, I was wondering," she said. "When it started pouring, you brought us straight here. How'd you even know about this cave?"

“I’ve…been out here before, with Mabosstiff. Like I said, we used to go camping a lot, and this was one of our secret bases. But, um…to get back to what we were talking about before the sky fell on us," he said, working through the snap buttons on his shirt. "Would Lacey put up with Drayton, even though he constantly makes her mad, if she truly saw him as some hopeless flake?”

“…I g-guess n-not,” Juliana said, teeth chattering. She pulled her knees in to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “B-but…if not…why d-does she p-pick on him all the t-time?”

“Think about what she was saying to Crispin earlier—about his talents and the world needing them.”

“Oh!” The chill on her bare skin was really starting to get to her. “She’s t-t-trying to f-f-fix him!”

“Not really the word I’d use,” Arven replied, suddenly sitting next to her. “You can open your eyes, by the way.”

Shivering and gritting her teeth, she did. He was clad in a blue flannel now, peering at her with concern—and thinly veiled amusement.

”Juliana, do you want me to…” He chuckled and shook his head. “You know what? Just tell me if you don’t.”

He wrapped his now-dry arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. She hugged him back greedily, quietly gasping with grateful relief at the generous heat that radiated off of him. Mabosstiff, who had also managed to get mostly dry, snuggled into her on the other side. 

She sighed, going limp as her desperate shivers began to taper off. “Thanks. You two are the best. I feel like the filling in a warmth sandwich.”

Mabosstiff kissed her cheek. Arven snorted at her, but his tone was tender. “Why didn’t you just ask, silly?” 

Instead of answering, Juliana returned to trying to solve someone else’s problems. “About Lacey…d'you think…she feels like Drayton’s not living up to his potential?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But take it a step further. Remember what she was saying earlier when they fought about being safety buddies?"

"She was afraid that he wouldn’t look for her if she went missing.” Head resting on Arven's shoulder, she looked up at those mesmerizing green-blue eyes. “Hang on, does she actually think...he doesn't care about her?”

“I think she wants him to prove that he does. She’s waiting for the Grand Gesture.”

“The ‘Grand Gesture’?”

“A lot of the classic romantic comedies follow the same recipe. Before the end, one of the leads has to do some sort of big, dramatic, inconvenient thing to prove their love for the other and show they’ve changed. I bet that’s what Lacey wants Drayton to do.”

Juliana giggled with disbelief. “You like romcoms?”

“Uh…no?" He blanched, face falling. "They're, like, super lame. Right?”

“I know I said it earlier, but you’re a really bad liar, Arv.”

And it’s cute…

“I’ve…seen a few of them. By accident! They just…came up on TV sometimes. When I’d lost the remote.”

“Y'know, it’s funny you brought up Cass," she said, smirking. "You two are more similar than you’d think.”

”Hey! I am nothing like—what do you mean by that?” Arven scowled at her. 

“I mean that getting to know you feels like pulling teeth from a Gible. What do I really know about you? You like cooking, camping, puns, and apparently, prunes?”

Plus the stuff I shouldn’t know, she didn’t add, feeling a twinge of guilt.

“Meanwhile, this morning you heard my mom’s embarassing pet names for me and saw, like, all of my underwear.”

“I—didn’t—that was an—you dragged me into your room!” he squeaked. “How was I supposed to—I wasn’t trying—You saw me in my underwear that one time!”

“That was different! I didn’t look!” She laughed and punched him in the arm. "C’mon, Arv, throw me a bone here. I like romcoms too.”

He perked up. “Really?” 

“Kinda,” she admitted. “My mom really loves them. So on the rare occasion that she'd have a day off, a lot of times we would watch them together. You got a favorite?"

”It’s tough to pick just one, but…Munnastruck." His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “It’s so melodramatic that it loops back around into something sincere and profound. I just can’t resist it.”

“Munnastruck? I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. Maybe I'll give it a try the next time I go home,” she said, homesickness hitting like a hunger pang. 

"What about you? Which one’s your favorite?"

Juliana breathed heat into her icy hands and smiled. “I don't know if I have one, but my mom’s is You’ve Got Marill.”

“Hm.” Arven chewed his cheek. "Well, I've seen that one, but to be honest, I’ve never liked it.”

”How come? Too sappy for you?”

”Nah, the opposite. I don't get why she forgives him in the end.”

”For being the reason her shop had to close?”

”Not for that. The whole second half of the movie, he knows that it’s really his rival he’s been talking to all along, but he doesn’t tell her! He just keeps hiding behind that screen name, pretending not to be playing her from both sides, right up until that very last scene when his Marill runs around the corner in the park and she finally puts two and two together.” He shook his head. 

“Sure, it makes for an entertaining plot, but…how could you ever trust somebody after they lied and played you for a fool like that?”

“Yeah…I guess…you’re right." Juliana scratched at a sudden, ferocious itch right between her eyes. “So...grand gesture, eh? If that’s really what Lacey’s waiting for, we’re in deep trouble.”

“You think Drayton’s too lazy to put in a little extra effort for the girl he’s in love with?” Arven scoffed. “If that’s the case, he doesn’t deserve her.”

“No. Much worse." Grimacing, she folded her arms over her stomach.

“I think he’s already done the grand gesture, and she's got no idea. But just like the guy in You’ve Got Marill, he's afraid to tell her the truth, because it could ruin everything.”

Chapter Text

“Know what I appreciate most about you, Lace?”

“My adorable sense of style and correct opinions about everything?”

Juliana laughed. 

Arven, Drayton, and Crispin had adopted the name Team Valor, and after winning the coin toss, they picked the shorter and shallower of the two fishing piers on the left side of Casseroya Lake's south bank. To make the teams even, Amarys offered to serve as the referee, though Juliana suspected her real motive for volunteering was so that she could continue her bizarrely intense, stopwatch-timed birdwatching from atop Casseroya Watchtower #2 without being disturbed.

It’s almost like she’s trying to get the world record time for spotting all the Flying-type Pokémon that live around here, she thought with a chuckle. But Amarys would never waste her time on something silly like that. 

Lacey, Juliana, and Carmine chose to call themselves Team Mystic, and happily took the longer jetty on the right side, about a hundred yards away from the left one.

Juliana felt uneasy about just telling Arven the details of Drayton's secret grand gesture—and the grand lie it required—even though she’d technically only promised Drayton that she wouldn’t reveal it to Lacey. So instead, she suggested splitting up on Sunday. Under the guise of a guys-versus-girls team angling tournament, she and Arven would each cast out their lines in a different sort of fishing expedition. 

If Arven gets him alone and asks the questions I told him to ask, I bet Drayton will just tell him the truth about how the Grapes of Wrath came to be, she thought. And while they’re over on the other pier doing that, I can test Arven's hypothesis about the other half of this equation...

“Yes, of course. But I was going to say that I love how I never, ever have to wonder where I stand with you. You’re an open book with nothing to hide. Not a duplicitous bone in your body.” Juliana sighed, baiting her hook with a juicy pink slice of Pecha berry. “Man, I envy that about you…it seems so freeing.”

The two of them sat about halfway down the length of the jetty, their legs dangling over the water. Lacey was quiet beside her, attempting to disentangle her glittery, heart-shaped magenta lure from a clump of fishing line that was horrifically wrapped and knotted around it. Carmine had stolen Juliana's tube of cherry-flavored lip balm right out of her fingers and stomped off to the end of the pier, evidently preferring her own taciturn company to theirs. Juliana had no intention of trying to persuade her to join them.

She swung her pole back, line and hook soaring over her head and behind her, then snapped it forward again, tracking the bobber with her eyes until it hit the waves with a gentle plop.

“And I really had no idea you and Drayton were so close," Juliana continued. "Seems like the two of you have a really special friendship.”

The silence deepened. Juliana waited. But Lacey didn’t bite. 

“I'm curious, though. Is it…just a friendship?”

“I don't know what you could possibly mean by that." Lacey glanced up from picking at the knots in her line to glower at her.

The side of Juliana’s mouth that Lacey couldn’t see tugged up into the tiniest of smirks. Staring straight ahead at her bobber, she felt a nibble.

“I’m just saying, with the way he makes you furious all the time, it seems like you might have some…big feelings about him.”

Lacey’s eyebrows snapped into a fierce V-shape. “Juliana, it is not right to go poking your nose in other people’s personal business like this!"

The line tugged taut.

“That’s not a no, though, is it?”

“Could you seriously not right now?"

Juliana began to crank the reel on her rod, slowly pulling her catch in. 

Nice try, Lacey. But if there’s one thing I know you’ll always do, it’s tell me when I’m wrong.

“Sorry, sorry. Got it. You hate Dray’s guts, can’t stand the guy, think he’s the scum of the earth and wish he’d just drop dead. My mistake!”

Lacey huffed and pouted, resembling her Snubbull to an impressive degree. “That isn't fair. Drayton…has his moments,” she grumbled. 

"Truthfully...I think he’s brilliant. Back when I had that philosophy class with him, he was the only other student who actually did the optional extra readings each week. Ugh! It was supposed to be a Socratic, discussion-based class, but everyone else was just treating it like some dull lecture that they could nap through!"

”Wait, wait, hang on. That can't possibly be right,” Juliana wheezed. “Drayton did extra credit?”

”It wasn’t for credit—just for the sake of learning and engaging in discussion. But whatever I had to say about the readings, he’d take the diametrically opposite position. I swear, sometimes it felt like he did it specifically to annoy me!”

You’ve gotta be kidding me, Juliana thought, barely able to contain her laughter. In all of human history, it’s possible that no one has ever been as down bad for someone as Drayton is for Lacey! 

“He could take either side of a philosophical debate and advocate for it in ten different ways, always with that insufferable I’m-so-cool-and-sexy smirk on his face," Lacey continued, sneering. "And that drove me absolutely Zubatty! It was as if he had no core principles of his own whatsoever!"

"So you do hate him," Juliana prodded.

"No! He was irritating, but at the same time…he constantly forced me to examine and question the beliefs I held as sacrosanct. Sure, that infuriated me, made me feel all off-balance and wobbly, but it also led me to realize…that’s the whole point, you know? The unexamined life isn't worth living. We should question what we believe. Otherwise, what good is it to have a brain? What good are concepts like right and wrong, truth and ideals?"

”Can’t really picture you ever losing an argument, though,” Juliana said. “I’d expect Drayton to know better than to try…”

The shimmering waves reflected in Lacey's sad eyes. ”That’s the thing. It’s no fun to talk circles around everyone when I know I’ll always win! Everybody else—my classmates, my sorority sisters, my friends, even my professors—they all just…think I’m annoying, or too intense, so they’ll eventually give up and say they agree with me even when I know they really don’t, just to get me to be quiet."

Juliana smiled at her sympathetically. I really ought to introduce her to Nemona, she thought.

Lacey quit trying to untangle her line from her lure and just held it, tracing over the shackled pink plastic heart with her thumb. 

“But Drayton doesn’t do that. Not ever. He’s not a pushover, and even though we almost never agree on anything, he…he cares what I have to say. He’ll keep sparring with me until we’re both blue in the face and half-asleep."

Lacey shut her eyes tightly. Her voice quivered with emotion.

"And he has no idea what that means to me, or how much I...admire that about him. He acts like he has no principles, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Arguing with him feels like finally crossing blades with an equal. Dancing with a partner who can keep me on my toes." She dabbed at the corner of her eye with her fuzzy pink sweater sleeve.

“He thinks he gets on my nerves, and believe me, he does. But there is so much goodness in Drayton’s heart, too,” Lacey added wistfully. “I just wish he was a man of action who would actually use it sometime.”

”The goodness, or the heart?”

Lacey kicked her in the shin. ”Juli!”

“Hey, you’re the one who called his smirk sexy, not me!” Juliana snickered as she finally reeled in a small, but ferociously wiggling orange Tatsugiri.

”Tai-taaaaan!” it squeaked.

"It really is amazing, though. How he helped you figure out you wanted to change your major, and gave you the courage to do it."

Lacey nodded, but said nothing. She returned to picking at the knots in her fishing line, frustration mounting as she tried to free her sparkly lure. Juliana gently removed the Pokémon from her hook and struggled to hold onto it as it thrashed.

"Was your Dad really okay with it, though? You made it seem like he would’ve had a Miltank about it."

Pale as the snow-capped peaks of Mt. Glaseado, Lacey gulped.

"It sure is a lovely day, isn't it?" she said, clearing her throat. "The sky is just the color of a cute little Chatot egg. I’ve always had a special fondness for Sundays in autumn. And...with that adorable catch of yours, our team is up to ten whole Pokémon! At this rate, we'll beat those Valor boys for sure! Um, let me get a photo of you with Mr. Tatsugiri so we can throw him back in. I bet he misses his friends. Do you suppose Tatsugiri have friends?” 

Juliana knit her brow.

“…Lacey? When you told your father, did it go…badly?"

The witness exercised her right to remain silent. 

Juliana flung the squeaking Tatsugiri back into the water, un-photographed. It squealed “Taitaaaaaan!” as it flew.

She locked eyes with Lacey.

"Why've you got that look on your..."

A weight like a lead bobber settled in the pit of Juliana’s stomach.

“Oh, Arceus.”

Lacey’s rod clattered onto the pier, the fishing line hopelessly tangled up around the heart-shaped lure, and she buried her face in her immaculately manicured hands.

“Lacey. You told your Dad you changed your major to pre-law, right? Tell me you did.”

“Daddy…hasn’t asked," she finally squeaked, sounding on the verge of tears. "So it’s...not a lie!"

Juliana grabbed Lacey by the shoulder. “Even if he hasn’t directly asked you whether you changed it, you still need to tell him! Do you seriously see your relationship with your own father as some sort of...cross-examination?! What’s your plan if he does ask you point-blank?!”

“Well, if you think about it—I didn’t,” Lacey whispered, shrinking in on herself even more. “Change my major.”

Juliana's own fishing pole fell from her fingertips. Her jaw hung open in dismay.

“No. You’re pulling my leg right now. Right?"

“I’m—not—the one who clicked the button on the registrar’s office portal!” Lacey's face contorted as the waterworks came on. 

“Oh, Lacey.” Juliana pulled her friend into her arms as she sobbed like a child. "You know that's not—"

“—I d-didn’t tell Drayton to click it for m-m-me! S-sure, he d-d-drew that conclusion after watching me stare at it for a while…and c-cry about it…and talk about it for weeks…b-but—that’s not something you can b-blame me for!”

She pulled back and forced Lacey to look her in the eye.

"You said yourself how badly you wanted to change your major. And you just got done telling me how much you admire Drayton. You can't sit here and implicate him in your lie!"

“It’s—not—a lie!" she blubbered. "It’s just…not the whole t-t-truth.”

“Lacey, I’m…”

Juliana struggled to find her words. Disappointed in you made her own skin itch. 

“I understand…why you’d do it," was what she settled for instead. "You don’t want your Dad to be disappointed in you. And it feels simpler this way. Right?”

Lacey nodded. 

“But this is still a lie by omission. He foots the bill for your classes. It's wrong to let him believe he’s still paying for you to get a business degree."

“I know, I know. B-but..."

"And he's your Dad, and you love him, right? Doesn't he deserve your honesty?"

"Of course I do! Of course he does," Lacey wailed. "I’m the worst kind of hypocrite, but…I’m in too deep! How can I come clean now? It’s been a year…”

“He’s gonna find out at some point," Juliana whispered, wiping her friend's tears away with her thumbs. "Lies are like fish. They don't improve with age. Unless they're fermented, I guess—did you know the risk of getting botulism from homemade fermented fish has gone up in the last few decades? Arven was telling me how people have gotten away from the old method of fermenting fish in a hole in the ground lined with grass and started using plastic containers instead, and the conditions that creates are actually worse for—"

Lacey stopped crying and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Juliana grimaced. "—Never mind. You’re vegan, and botulism is gross. Sorry. My point is, are you really gonna wait for your Dad to see the truth printed on your diploma at graduation?”

“I know. I know it’s not right. Believe me, the guilt has been eating me alive. My hair’s been falling out—I’ve got a bald patch the size of one of Slugger’s toe beans and it is not cute!” Lacey hung her head, her features twisted with regret. “I need to confess. But…he’ll think less of me..."

“Didn’t you say yesterday that your Dad adores you? Sure, he’ll probably be mad at first, but…he’ll get over it!"

“I know. Telling Daddy isn’t what scares me the most,” Lacey groaned, propping her cheek on her hand. “How can I tell my Drayton that I lied to him? That I…used him as a patsy to placate my own guilty conscience?”

Juliana sighed and rubbed her temples. At least where the dishonesty is concerned, I think he would cry tears of relief...

“He might be more understanding than you’d think. You know him, he’s great at seeing the nuance in stuff.”

“I don’t know,” Lacey said, sniffling and hiccuping. “This is…what he admires about me, right? That I had the courage to forge my own path in life and tell Daddy the truth. If he knew I really didn't…”

Juliana narrowed her eyes at her. “You’re really more afraid to lose Dray’s good opinion of you than your Dad’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

"B-because..."

"Say it."

"I..."

"Say it."

“Because…ugh! Fine!" Lacey brought the snarled knot of fishing line up to her mouth and used her teeth to break it, finally freeing the lure from the tangle.

"Because it's more than just a platonic, intellectual admiration! Because he's so cute it makes me want to squish him to death sometimes! Because I have adorable, heart-eyes, big feelings for him! Because I'm...in love with that blockhead! There, are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yeah! Don’t you feel a little better now that you said it out loud?”

Lacey sighed heavily, then giggled. “Yes. I suppose I do.”

“Then yell it from the rooftops! Go and tell him! Run, don’t walk!”

“I can’t!”

”Why not?!” 

“Because you can’t run on the pier! It’s against the rules! Someone might slip!"

Juliana was stonefaced. “Lacey.”

Her friend pouted and flopped backward to lay on the dock. She brought her hand up to her chest, still toying with the lure.

“…He won’t feel the same way. And he’d never let me live it down.”

“You sure about that?”

“Drayton is so utterly devoid of passion that I doubt he’s even capable of intense feelings like love. He doesn’t care about anything that much! Me included.”

Damn, Juliana thought. Arven hit the nail on the head. She wants a grand gesture and doesn’t know Dray already gave her a whole roller derby team…

“You might be right, or you might be wrong. But in any case…you can’t really know for sure unless you tell him. Shouldn’t you? Isn’t not telling him how you feel also a lie by omission, of sorts?”

Lacey had fallen into despondent silence again. Juliana scratched at an insatiable itch on her bottom lip so hard that it split and bled onto her thumb. 

“Ouch. Hang on, I gotta go grab my lip balm from Carm,” she said, getting up.

Juliana sauntered down to the edge of the pier, footfalls deliberately heavy.

Carmine didn’t turn around. Her combat boots were planted firmly on the knotty planks. She was leaning backward, straining, white knuckling her fishing pole, locked in a fierce battle of wills against some massively strong Pokémon on her line.

“Hello!” Juliana boomed, theatrical. “My name is Juliana Vega! You stole my lip balm! Prepare to—“

Carmine’s tug-of-war opponent suddenly heaved hard enough to yank her right off the edge of the pier, head first.

The water seemed to belch as it swallowed her up. She sank like a stone.

Juliana laughed at her. Stubborn idiot—why didn’t she just let go of the damn pole?

Then she waited. For the splash of Carmine resurfacing. For that priceless, pissed-off expression on her face when she realized Juliana saw her beef it like that.

She waited.

And…waited. 

The hair stood up on the back of Juliana’s neck.

Does Carmine know how to swim?

Without sparing so much as a thought to remove her boots, she Swanna-dove in after her. 

The water whooshing into her ears was like death.

This was a temperature far outside the narrow spectrum of thermal readings that can be perceived and felt and described by humans using words like hot and cool. A sudden plunge into an alien world that her body could only speak to her about in the ancient language of pain and reflex and instinct. 

But speak it did. With the primordial voice of thousands of years of natural selection, her body spoke. And it was saying GET OUT OR DIE.

Juliana—a former community pool lifeguard with two high school summers’ tenure—found this pronouncement annoying. She had far more important things to worry about right now, thank you very much. 

Her head popped above the water just in time to beat the first involuntary gasp that the cold shock forced her to take. Everywhere was pain—bright, flashing red lights and shrieking alarm bells of pain. She sucked in a noisy gulp of air and kicked back under the surface, eyes open.

The water was murky with sediment kicked up from the lake bed by both of their dives. Juliana frantically whirled around in search of her, bewildered that she hadn’t run straight into her when she dove in at precisely the same spot Carmine had fallen. 

At last, a few yards ahead and below, a flash of scarlet caught her eye. The fire-engine red streaks in Carmine’s long dark braids danced like a fishing lure in the sunlight that filtered down through the silty water.

Carmine was slowly sinking toward the bottom, arms out, mouth and eyes frozen wide open in a silent scream of horror.

Her bright yellow fishing rod lay discarded on the lake bed below, and a tiny orange Tatsugiri was nibbling on the bait. Whatever giant monster had pulled her in was nowhere to be seen.

Juliana swam down toward her, arms reaching, slashing, clawing, like she was trying to dig her out from the rubble of a collapsed building. She grabbed onto Carmine by the collar of her black leather jacket and kicked back toward the light shining on the surface with that superhuman strength unlocked only by the god that anabolic steroids pray to: The life-or-death adrenaline rush.

Their faces broke above the waves and they were born again. That first gasp of air in her lungs was a dizzying high like nothing she’d ever experienced. But now she had a new problem: Carmine was awake, choking, gasping, and violently thrashing.

Juliana tightened her grip on Carmine’s jacket, scruffing her like a Litten, treading water as she struggled to reorient herself—where was the pier?

Oh, no. How did we get so far out so quickly?

It dawned on her at last that she was in a mortal fight with the frigid October water, and it had her in a chokehold. Carmine had seemingly taken the foe’s side, trying to give her a black eye with her manic flailing or push her under, as though sacrificing Juliana to the dark water would appease its hunger and convince it to spare her. Rescuing freaked out kids in the deep end at the pool was a cakewalk compared to this. 

“Stop!” she gurgled, shaking Carmine by the shoulders. Wild-eyed and struggling to climb Juliana like a ladder to escape the water’s grasp, Carmine didn’t even seem to see her. “I’m trying to—stop it!”

Keeping one hand on her, Juliana started to breaststroke toward the jetty. The way out. The exit. The base of her skull tingled for it, even as every nerve in her skin cried out and numbed away in the cold. Juliana could see the way out, could always see the way out, just had to get them there. 

She thought she could see someone up there, jumping up and down. Mingled with the ringing in her ears, she heard their garbled screams in the moments between when her head went under the water.

Waterlogged boots turned her feet into concrete blocks. Her arms, likewise, were weighted down by her hoodie, so slow-moving when she most needed them to be sharp and swift as propellor blades. She had no lifeguard rescue tube or ring to lean on. And Carmine, a foot taller and a good deal heavier than her, was too far gone in her own shock and panic to be anything more than a useless anchor dragging them down to the lake bed at best, or a dangerous saboteur at worst. 

Even so, Juliana was not letting go of her until they were both back on the shore—dead or alive.

She managed to grab hold of Carmine’s arm and drag her over her own shoulder and back. At least like this, she wouldn’t have to worry about Carmine hitting her in the face, and she could much more easily keep the other girl’s head above water. But this position made it too hard for Juliana to hold her own head up and breaststroke, so she had no choice but to let her face sink beneath the waves and keep pushing in a one-armed freestyle.

One more kick, she thought. One more push.

Juliana’s pulse was a runaway train. She kept sucking in lake water when she couldn’t turn her head and get her face above the water in time for the involuntary gasps. Sediment gritted between her teeth. As her nose burned with the water she’d inhaled, she hallucinated the acrid, suffocating stench of smoke. 

One more. One more. 

Carmine was so heavy across her back, and still thrashing as though she were trying to drown them both. Juliana’s grip on her wrist was bruising. Ash coated her tongue, fell around them like snow.

One more.

Her head had slipped fully under the water now, as had Carmine’s—but she couldn’t give up, wouldn’t give up, the pier was just so close, wasn’t it? She could do this. Had to do this. Had to. 

One more. One more. 

I did my best, right? Speedrunning the process of making peace with the inescapable, even as she still fought against it tooth and nail. Tried to protect the ones who needed it. Tried to be strong. Was it enough? Would he be proud?

One more. 

So exhausted. Her lungs were burning, screaming to be fed. She just needed to stop for a moment and close her tired eyes down on the lake bed. After all, why else would it be called a bed if it wasn’t a place to rest?

One more. 

Ablaze from the inside out, Juliana crawled toward her escape, dragging her friend behind her. Was it kind of like this for him that day, but the opposite? If I don’t make it either, will Mom be okay?

One…more…

She had tried so hard. Fought for so long. Couldn’t she just let the sweet, black waves of smoke and flames carry her for a moment? It looked so peaceful down there below. So quiet. 

Her vision started to sparkle and go dark at the edges. More smoke, stinging her eyes now.

Ha ha! Doesn’t quite fit you yet, kiddo, said a warm voice that she hadn’t heard in eleven years. But this is Dad’s, see? When I go to work, I put on this helmet and I save people. 

She just needed one more big breath. Then she could do this, she could save him, could get them both out of the lake of fire. Had to do it.

I’m Zoruva, damn it! I save people!

One more, Juliana thought. She inhaled a lungful of icy black fire and the shadowy vignette of smoke and ash consumed her vision from the outside in. 

Chapter Text

The side of the bed dipped. A warm, calloused hand swept her bangs away from her eyes. By the rosy gold glow of the streetlights peeking in through the blinds on her window, Juliana knew it was still dark outside.

“Time for me to go, kiddo,” he whispered. 

She sat up and threw her arms around him, squeezing as hard as she could. Like she thought that if she held onto him tight enough, then maybe, just maybe, he’d stay. 

“You really gotta?”

“Yeah. I know, I’m gonna miss you too.” Strong arms hugged her back. “But Dad's gotta go save the world.”

“Again?" she whined. "You just saved it last week…”

He chuckled. “You’re right, I did. But they need me again. I have to.”

She buried her face in his broad shoulder, clutching at his windbreaker.

“What if I need you more?”

He sighed. She thought she heard him sniffle, but decided it must have just been her imagination.

"Then I guess we'll both have to be really tough," he said. “Know something? I love you more than the whole world put together. But I know you're strong enough to get by without me."

She nodded feebly, but her eyes and throat burned.

"And I’ll be home before you know it, I promise. If the pumpkin patch is still open when I get home next weekend, we can go back again. Now, you be good and take care of Mom, okay? That's your job while I’m gone.”

He raised her chin up to gently scold her.

“You know she’s gonna worry about me, so don’t you go making her worry about you, too. No tears, alright? Be strong."

I’ll be strong, she wanted to say, but the lump in her throat was choking her. She swallowed it and nodded again.

“That’s my girl.” He smiled and kissed her on the top of her head. “Love you, Jules.”

Those feather-light, trembling fingers stroked her forehead, brushing her wet hair out of her face just as two traitorous tears escaped the outer corners of her eyes and rolled toward the earth. The late morning sun kissed her cheeks.

Must’ve fallen back asleep, she thought. I’m glad he woke me up before he…

Her old bed felt hard and uncomfortable beneath her. Almost like it was made of wooden planks. 

Wait. He's…

…Then…who…?

Juliana slowly blinked her heavy, gritty eyelids open. Arven was kneeling next to her, green eyes wild and rimmed with red, looking every bit as panic-stricken and haunted as the day she snatched that forbidden cookie. 

Oh, no— Did something happen to Mabosstiff?

She tried to speak. There were a thousand tiny knives in the way. 

“You—” she started, but instantly fell into a ferocious, convulsive fit of coughing. “—okay?”

Disbelief, anger, a dash of intense relief, and more anger flickered across the beautiful stage of his features in quick succession. His lower lip quivered. Concern and confusion deepening, Juliana tried to push herself up with her hands and found them numb. All the muscles in her upper body were weak and wobbly as a newborn Deerling’s.  

Arven gathered her into his arms and just held her there, not squeezing at all, like he feared the slightest pressure might crush her. His shaking fingers gripped the back of her coat just as tightly as she’d gripped her Dad’s in her dream.

Looking down, she noticed that her coat was, in fact, Arven’s coat. The sleeves of the quilted dark green bomber had been carefully rolled up to fit her arms. Lacey’s fluffy pink sweater and Drayton’s purple jacket were draped over her legs and feet like blankets. Someone had stripped off her boots and hoodie and laid them in a pile a couple of yards away.

Hugging Arven felt so nice, so comforting, just as it had yesterday. But the infusion of warmth also triggered violent, involuntary shudders. 

Why am I…laid out on the fishing pier? Did I fall asleep…?

“How could you be so stupid?” he whispered furiously beside her ear. “Such a reckless little fool?! Don’t you have a brain in your head at all?! I thought…you…”

“She’s awake?” Drayton came sprinting up the dock toward them, out of breath. There was an urgency in his tone that she had never heard before. He skidded to a stop, hands on his knees. His Dragonite zoomed up behind him and came to rest with a flutter of its wings. “Haaah, thank…”

Hang on. Drayton? Out of breath?

Lacey was right on his heels, wiping at her tearstained face. She dropped to her knees and flung herself into Juliana and Arven’s hug. He flinched and stiffened, but relaxed once Juliana started gingerly patting Lacey’s shoulder.

“You scared the daylights out of us, Splits,” Drayton groaned. “Never do that again.”

“Wha—are you gu—?” Juliana was wracked with shivers and coughs again, cutting herself off.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lacey spat. “Did you forget what happened? How your stubbornness nearly got you killed?”

Juliana’s sharp intake of breath flipped the thousand knives around like weathervanes, pointing them inward to viciously stab at her as it all came rushing back. The desperate struggle. Nightmares weaving and braiding their smoky tendrils together with the icy clarity of reality. The foggy, frayed edges of how she got from there to here…of how that ended…

“Carm!” she gasped, wild-eyed and struggling to clamber to her feet.“Where’s—“

Arven’s embrace transformed from wool to iron in an instant, imprisoning her. “Stop. Don’t try to move. You’re not out of the woods yet.”

Who is he to order me around? I can bench this guy! I could pick him up and throw him!

“Don’t—tell me what to—!“ Coughing hurt, drove the knives in further. But even more painful was the humiliating frustration of being unable to tell him where to shove it. 

“Carmine’s fine.” Arven gently rubbed her back as she wheezed. “In fact, she’s a lot better than you are right now, at least physically. Juliana, what were you thinking?” 

His sharp tone clashed with the soft touches like a snare drum banging out a duet with a twinkling music box. The dissonance put her on edge. 

She tried once more to shove him away and get up, but that physical strength she had drooled over yesterday was more than sufficient to overpower her in her weakened state. With escape blocked, like a wounded, caged Pyroar, Juliana could only gnash her teeth and snarl.

“She was drowning!” she croaked. “I didn’t think, you don’t—you don’t think when that’s happening! I did what I had to do!”

“What you had to do?" Lacey's eyes flashed with rage of her own. "What about your own safety?"

“I was a lifeguard! You’re saying I should’ve just stood there and let her die?!"

Lacey grabbed her by the shoulders. Her eyes welled with tears. 

“No! I’m saying I was thirty feet away and you didn’t say anything!”

Juliana squinted and blinked, baffled. 

“We were all so close by,” Arven whispered. “Why didn’t you call out to us? In water that cold—do you even realize what could've happened? What almost happened?!”

The nuclear fury within went prompt critical. She rattled the cage, snapped at the chains.

“YOU THINK I’M NOT STRONG ENOUGH?!” she shouted, despite the way it set her throat on fire. “That I couldn’t handle it myself? I don’t want a damn parade, but why are you guys getting MAD at me right now?! I SAVED her!”

“Dragonite saved her, and you. And not a moment too soon.” Drayton was uncharacteristically stern, steely and cold as the mirror-finish body of his Archaludon. This, she realized, was what the sleeping dragon sounded like awake. “And if you’d just shouted to us for help instead of trying to be some Palafin-type hero, she only would’ve needed to drag one of you out.”

“Shut up. All of you,” Carmine commanded, sounding as rough as Juliana felt. 

Wearing Amarys’s coat and a pair of sporty sunglasses, she stomped over in sock feet and dragged Lacey and Arven off of Juliana by their ears. Amarys and Crispin flanked her, looking like they feared she might collapse at any moment. Amarys anxiously chewed on her fingernails. Only a sunglasses-shaped patch around Crispin’s eyes and upper cheeks was spared from his bright pink sunburn. 

“Splits and I need to talk,” Carmine declared. Then, when no one moved, she forcefully added, “Alone.”

Drayton, Lacey, and Crispin exchanged nervous looks and slowly backed away, retreating up the long pier toward the shore with Drayton’s Dragonite in tow. But Amarys still hovered near Carmine, and Arven immediately clawed back over in front of Juliana again. The water hadn’t managed to drown Carmine, but if looks could kill, the glare Arven leveled at her would've finished the job. 

“You heard her,” Juliana mumbled. “Give us some air.”

Amarys eyed Carmine with concern, then squeezed her arm and reluctantly shuffled after the others. Arven finally stood and stepped away from Juliana, only to move closer to Carmine, jabbing a trembling finger at her. “If you so much as look at her funny, I swear—“

“I said give us some air!” Juliana snarled, chest heaving.

Arven finally stormed off, but not without a wounded, worried glance over his shoulder. 

Despite having cleared the way by force to talk to her, Carmine now seemed strangely timid and unsure of what to say. 

The two of them sat cross-legged and shoulder to shoulder on the pier, looking everywhere except the watery grave they had very nearly shared. Considering that they were surrounded on three sides by the ruthless blue of Casseroya Lake, this didn’t leave them many options. 

Her nose was a red beacon in the middle of her wan, colorless face. Those utterly ridiculous traffic-cone orange mirrored wraparound shades—which Juliana surmised she had either borrowed or outright stolen from Crispin—concealed her eyes and cut as stark a contrast with the cobalt water around them as they did with Carmine’s typical all-black style. And Amarys’s shiny silver puffer coat hung comically too small on her lanky frame, its sleeves reaching only to three-quarter length. 

Her twin braids remained mostly intact, though disheveled and wet, and the kohl-black eyeliner and mascara she always wore was so badly smudged and melted that streaks of it ran far enough down her face to escape the broad cover provided by the sunglasses.

Chewing her cheek, it was Carmine who finally tore the thick-skinned silence.

“You…look like hell.”

Juliana burst into laughter and instantly launched herself into another fit of choking and coughing. 

“Thanks,” she wheezed, red-faced. “I just got back.”

Carmine sneered, but her brow was furrowed. ”Lace said they somehow didn’t have to give you CPR, but you threw up, like, a disgusting amount of lake water. Then you just knocked out cold for a while. I…she was worried. And I thought that Arven clown was gonna have a heart attack or something.”

”Ugh!” Juliana groaned, dropping her head into her hands. “They’re overreacting. I’m fine!”

“No. They’re right,” Carmine mumbled. “That little stunt was unbelievably stupid and reckless. I expected better from you.”

“Arceus, what is with everyone?! Even you think I should’ve just let you drown?“

“No.” Carmine picked at a hangnail. “I understand it. Perfectly. If it was Kiki that had fallen in, or my grandparents, or…I would’ve…done exactly the same thing you did.”

“Then…why are you pissed?”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” Carmine grabbed her by the collar of her coat and shook her. Juliana’s own startled face stared back at her in the reflection of the garish sunglasses. “Everyone here LOVES you, you idiot, and you put yourself in danger for no reason! Just ‘cause I’D do something doesn’t mean it’s not STUPID!”

Carmine let go of her. Juliana was too rattled to respond. She craned her neck to the side and shook her head around more, dislodging a few hot drops of lake water from her ear, then repeated the operation on the other side.

“...Why’d you do it?” Carmine asked after a long silence, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“How come everyone always asks that?” Juliana muttered. “You were in trouble, so I saved you. That’s what I do. What more do you want?”

The glasses slipped a few millimeters down Carmine’s nose.

“When I fell in, I didn’t…” She sighed. “I just accepted that I was finished, immediately. Never even crossed my mind that someone might save me. I’ve never been…the one who gets saved.”

“Too busy bossing people around to be a damsel in distress? Well, never too late to start—it’s a real growth industry these days.”

Carmine gritted her teeth. “I’m trying to be nice. Quit making it harder than it has to be!”

“Aw, first time? I’m proud of you.”

Glaring daggers at her, Carmine spat off the side of the dock.

“Look. For what you did...thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Good. I won’t. Better not expect any special treatment from me after this. I’d rather throw myself back in that water right now than owe you some kinda life debt.”

“Ha! Don’t worry. Nothing would weird me out more than fake niceties from you,” Juliana snarked. “In fact, I’ve always appreciated your unprovoked hostility. I know exactly how you feel about me, Punchy. You’re a grade-A bully and a piece of work, but at least you’re the genuine article. So please, don’t work on your attitude—you can repay your life debt by promising me you’ll learn how to swim.”

Carmine was quiet for a very long moment. She reached up and removed the sunglasses, folding one of the arms in, then the other, before slipping them into the zippered front pocket of Amarys’s jacket. Juliana now saw that her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, as red as her nose. 

When Carmine finally spoke again, it was with a fragile, hollow voice Juliana had never heard before.

“They were giving a ride to some stupid tourists from the mainland,” she whispered. “Small boat. Weather turned outta nowhere. Never came back."

Juliana held her breath and studied Carmine out of the corner of her eye, afraid to even look directly at her for fear that she might shatter. Her forceful refusal to come along for the rowboat race yesterday took on a whole new meaning. 

“I was five, Kiki was three. Grandparents raised us after that. That’s…why I never learned to swim.”

Juliana nodded grimly. Her chest hurt, and she couldn’t blame it all on the water she’d inhaled. 

“Dad. Firefighter. I was seven.”

It was the same five-word, no frills business card Juliana usually offered to other members of this exclusive, awful club when they revealed themselves to her. “No siblings, though,” she added. “Just me and my mom.”

“…Thanks.”

Juliana raised an eyebrow. ”Why?”

”For not just saying, ‘Sorry for your loss.’”

Juliana huffed. ”We both know people only say that to make themselves less uncomfortable.”

Their shoulders brushed. They both just gazed out at the water for a while, finding it somehow easier to look at now.

“You're like...his protector, then. Aren't you?” Juliana eventually asked.

Carmine nodded. 

“Kids used to pick on Kiki,” she said, fists clenching. “Sometimes for being a scrawny crybaby with asthma, sometimes for being an orphan, depending on how much they knew and how cruel they were. Either way, I made sure they only ever tried it once.”

Carmine ground her teeth and continued.

“Taught myself how to skate because he thought it was cool, and I didn’t want him breaking his neck. Figured if he could just watch me do it, that’d be enough. Same thing with derby.” Carmine laughed without humor. “He’s even the reason I’m here.”

“…What?”

“I was the class valedictorian, but I stayed in my hometown and went to community college while Kiki finished up high school. And when he got his heart set on going to Uva, I transferred in a semester early so I could make sure this place would be good for him,” she spat. 

“Never mind how scary it was to leave home and become an outsider halfway around the world. Or that I had to leave behind my friends and our grandparents. Nope, that short-sighted, selfish baby didn’t think about any of that.”

There were angry tears welling in her topaz eyes.

“And now he has the nerve to resent me for it all,” Carmine seethed. “All he ever talks about is how amazing he thinks Zoruva is, or how he wants to join the Grapes as a full member and become a jammer like you. Says it doesn’t matter if he gets hurt, and I need to quit smothering him. That little brat even thinks he’s too cool to come on this trip and spend time with me!”

The fire in Carmine’s voice died down to cold, bitter embers. She hugged her knees to her chest. 

“It’s like…what did I even do it all for? I never got to be a kid. Never asked anybody for anything. And now…” she stifled a sob, dragging her sleeve over her eyes. “I don’t know what to do with myself. Or who I am. Now that he doesn’t…need me anymore.”

Juliana put an arm around her shoulders. Carmine didn’t fight it. 

“So when I say I’d dive right in just like you did, even though it’s stupid…” Carmine trailed off. “Just. Maybe don’t be like me, dummy. Okay?”

Chapter Text

Juliana’s head was pounding, and the deafening silence in the cab only seemed to make it worse. As the grassy, Sawsbuck-dotted hills of West Province Area Three zipped by, she curled her toes and grimaced at the squelch of cold water between them. 

She’d changed into a dry pair of leggings and socks, and her hair was now only slightly damp. But her boots would probably stay wet for days. Amarys, being the one closest to her shoe size, offered to swap with her—but she refused, of course. 

The near-death experience put a bit of a damper on the group mood, so despite having a few more hours of activities planned, they’d all quietly decided to just head back to the city before lunchtime. But Juliana and Arven still hadn’t said a word to each other since she ordered him to leave her and Carmine alone. He kept busy striking the campsite and packing everything out in stony silence.

Still, on the short hike back out to the watchtower where they’d all been dropped off the day before, he orbited within arm’s reach of her, eyeing her in brooding sidelong glances when he thought she couldn’t see. From the payphone at the base of the watchtower, they called for a handful of Flying Taxis to take them all back to Mesagoza. Arven approached his when it arrived and held the door, staring expectantly at Juliana until she got in.

Guess he’s planning another verbal ambush when I can’t wiggle away, she thought. Or maybe he just wants me to stew in this painful awkwardness…

“If I’d known I was gonna spend so much of this trip drenched, I would’ve packed a bikini,” she tried, desperate to break the tension.

Arven didn’t laugh. This was her third attempt at a joke to fall flat.

Juliana sighed and gave up. The exhaustion of the day’s events had seeped into her bones. Leaning her head back against the headrest, she squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples, tracing cold fingertips in little concentric circles. 

“What’s the matter?” he asked, suddenly alert.

“Nothing.”

A hand fluttered like a Butterfree wing against her forehead, checking her temperature. “Headache?”

“I’m fine.” She gently swatted his touch away and sat up too quickly, wincing as the pain in her skull snarled sharply. With wet feet and an aching head, she felt a radical new empathy for Psyducks.

She heard Arven unzip his backpack and dig around for something. A moment later, a plastic sandwich bag was deposited in her lap. 

Juliana opened her eyes, curious.

“What’s…?”

“Dark chocolate-covered espresso beans.”

She blinked, her sluggish brain struggling to connect the Dottlers between headache and candy.

“You…seem like you drink a lot of caffeine, but you’ve had none since we left yesterday,” Arven muttered to his shoelaces. “Sudden caffeine withdrawal can cause headaches. You don’t have to eat them, but…they might help.”

“Oh.” She popped one in her mouth. “Thanks, Arv.”

He looked up and raised his eyebrows at her.

”What?”

”Nothing,” he said. His gaze returned to his boots, but his mouth wore the faintest trace of a smile. “Just…please eat something when you get home? It’s almost lunchtime, and you said sweets on an empty stomach don’t agree with you.” 

“Did I say that? I can’t remember. But fine, I will.” The bittersweet crunch of the espresso beans was irresistible, and they seemed to smooth the jagged edge off Juliana’s headache almost instantly. “These are great. Lucky you packed ’em,” she added.

“Yeah…” He bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck. “Lucky.“

“I would’ve expected you to lecture me about how I brought this on myself because caffeine is unhealthy,” she said. “Not furnish my addiction.”

“Juliana…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m really…glad that you’re okay,” he muttered, sounding conflicted. “I think I forgot to say that earlier.”

“Thanks.” A tentative, lopsided grin warmed her face. “And…listen, I am sorry for how I spoke to you. But not for what I did.”

“I’d expect nothing less from someone as headstrong as you.” Arven chuckled softly. “Think I owe you half of an apology, too. I…meant everything I said, and still do. But until I talked to Drayton, I didn’t think about how it must’ve felt for you to wake up from something awful like that and have everyone ganging up on you at once.”

Juliana leaned across the middle seat and pulled him into a hug. He melted into her arms with a sigh.

”Nah, you don’t need to apologize.”

“I do. Wasn’t really in my right mind, bud,” he added, voice breaking so softly that she almost didn’t hear it. “Thought I’d lost you.” 

She huffed, grateful that the hug hid her pink cheeks from his view. “A week ago you hated me, and now you can’t imagine life without me. Are you gonna say we’re best friends next?”

“Shove off,” he whispered, rough but not angry. “Never hated you. I—“ He pulled back to look her in the eyes. “Wait, best friends? Really?”

She tensed, face going blank. “I mean…not if you don’t wanna be? Sorry, adrenaline can be a hell of a drug, I didn’t—“

”—Of course I—Yeah!” He nodded excitedly, green eyes sparkling, and hugged her tighter. 

She smiled, but guilt burned in her throat. “Sorry for making you worry, then,” she muttered. “I hate making anybody worry about me. Especially a best friend.”

“But…I can’t help that,” he said, brow knit. He cupped her cheek. “I care about you. Of course I’m going to worry about you. Don’t you worry about the people you care about?”

“Sure, but that’s…different.”

”How?”

Something—maybe the topic, maybe the way Arven’s lips were almost close enough to taste, maybe just the candied espresso beans—twisted her stomach and made her feel hot and squirmy. Juliana cleared her throat and picked some imaginary lint off her sleeve.

“Thanks for lending me your coat, by the way. I’d return it to you now, but…I’m kinda just in a bra under this. Sorry.”

He cringed out of the embrace, face reddening. “Um…n-no worries at all! Keep it as long as you want. And—uh, just—so you know—I don’t know how much you remember, ‘cause you were pretty out of it, b-but—I wasn’t the one who pulled your hoodie off and put the coat on you!” he stammered. “Lacey did that!”

Juliana laughed. “I don’t remember, but I wouldn’t have cared, you know. I’m the farthest thing from a prude, especially with my best friends, and I think safety takes precedence over modesty anyhow.”

She made a face. “Although, my sources tell me that another thing I don’t remember was you having to watch me puke up a bunch of lake water, so I’m also sorry about that. That’s super embarrassing.”

“Juliana, you almost…” Arven stopped himself. “They don’t usually give out style points for…what you went through. Believe me, I was way too scared to be grossed out. If anything, it’s…kinda endearing?”

Her nose wrinkled. “You did not just describe my puking as endearing.”

“I meant that it’s nice to see you be…human, for once, like everyone else. You’re usually so cool and untouchable.”

Juliana cackled. “Cool? Untouchable?” She wiggled her fingers at him threateningly. “Do I need to start another tickle fight to show you just how warm and touchable I can be?”

”Uh, n-no!” Arven gasped, eyes popping. “At least…not…here,” he added with a nervous giggle.

The cab driver made eye contact with her in the rear view mirror, brow raised. Juliana rolled her eyes.

It’s just a tickle fight! Why does everyone always read innuendo into it?!

“So…how’d it go with Drayton?” she asked.

“Hm?”

“Did he tell you about his grand gesture?”

“Oh, that. No,” Arven said, tapping his chin. “He was…weirdly prickly about it. I didn’t even get past my first question. I asked him if he had a thing for Lacey, but he didn’t answer—just kept asking me why I wanted to know. Then he even turned it back around and asked me if I had a thing for her,” he chuckled. “I was trying to figure out a way to rein things in and get back on topic when…everything happened.”

Juliana’s face scrunched, puzzled. “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll lean on the trust of our newly minted best-friendship and tell you myself. But you’ve gotta promise not to tell anyone else, okay?” She extended her pinky to him.

“Of course,” he said, nodding. She waggled her outstretched hand at him, and he looked confused.

"You've never made a pinky-promise before?"

Arven watched in wide-eyed fascination as she took his right hand and locked her left little finger together with his.

"There. Now you're sworn to secrecy, on pain of a broken pinky."

His spellbound wonder soured slightly with betrayal. "A broken—you didn't mention that part!”

"Relax. Nobody ever actually follows through with that,” Juliana giggled. But he didn’t let go of her finger.

“Um, usually…you don’t have to, uh…”

“Don’t have to…what?” He blinked those magnificent green eyes so innocently, and his touch felt so damn nice, that she found herself selfishly unable to tell him that a pinky promise does not require participants to continue holding hands after the initial squeeze.

“Nothing,” she said, biting her lip to keep back a wide smile. “You wanna hear about the grand gesture or not?”

”You’ve already kept me in suspense since yesterday, bud. Out with it!”

“Drayton lied to Lacey about being a lifelong roller derby fan when he offered to start the team with her. And he insisted on being the captain, even though he’s about as active as a Slaking and prefers to leave the decisions to her, because he knew she’d be too busy to want to take on another formal leadership role,” she explained.

“He did it so that he’d have a reason to keep seeing her once the class they had together ended, but also to make her happy, since she missed getting to play like she did back home.”

“Wow,” Arven said, scratching his head with the hand that wasn’t still joined at the pinky with hers. “That’s…sweet, but yikes.”

“Yikes with a capital F. Now Drayton can’t tell her how he feels because he thinks the whole foundation of their friendship was a lie, and that she’s an unbending stickler for honesty.”

He pulled a grimace. “Sheesh. I dunno if that’s something we can help with. Sounds above our paygrade. How about you, then? Any luck figuring out what Lacey’s hangup is?”

“Yeah,” Juliana said, trying to recall the details from the other side of her memory-scrambling adrenaline fog. “I reeled in a bit more than I expected. You were right, but…it’s even worse than we thought on her end, too. She’s not such an unbending stickler for honesty after all—“

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

She pulled her phone out of her backpack. The screen flashed NO CALLER ID.

Guess we made it far enough toward Mesagoza that my cell service finally came back. 

“One sec.”

She reluctantly extricated her pinky from Arven’s, tapped the Accept Call button, and brought the phone up to her ear.

“Missed me that bad, huh?” she deadpanned.

“This is SO NOT the time for your attitude!”

Juliana flinched. Her dormant headache, like a Togepi that she had just managed to get down for a nap, came roaring back with a vengeance at the robotically-toned screaming in her ear.

“Damn, Cass. What’s your problem?”

Beside her, Arven’s hands clenched into fists.

“What’s my PROBLEM?! I’ve been trying to call you since last night!”

“Clingy much? I told you I was gonna be out of town and off the grid this weekend.”

“Yeah! You DID say that! And I took you at your word when you said you wanted a bye week, so what the bloody hell was THAT?!”

Juliana snickered. “Far as I’m concerned, every week is bi week.”

“You think this is a joke?! Just…where do you get off, going ROGUE like this?!”

She rolled her eyes and yawned. “Do enlighten me as to how a camping trip is ‘going rogue’. Or better yet, you wanna quit beating around the Burmy and just tell me what’s got you so worked up?”

“Caph Squad?! A certain jammer named The Princess Brawl?! Hello, does THAT ring any bells?!”

“…No?”

“Well, SOMEBODY calling themselves Zoruva, wearing the Zoroark mask and the all-black kit, challenged the Caph Squad’s boss last night without so much as a word to me! I watched the bout on the Star Crossers’ livestream with my own eyes, and they sure as hell looked and sounded like you. You expect me to believe there’s TWO of you?!”

Juliana's Rotom-Phone tumbled into her lap. 

The ringing in her ears was too loud to think around. She was dimly aware of Arven asking her if she was alright. After about twenty nauseating seconds of shock, her clammy, shaking hand slowly raised the phone back to her ear.

“Cass,” she whispered. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Chapter Text

As her foot tapped out an anxious tempo, the guy in the seat next to Juliana shot her the stink eye. She stuck her acid green tongue out at him, but extended her other leg into the aisle to her right, toward the fire exit, and switched to bouncing that one instead. 

Caffeine usually had the counterintuitive effect of making her feel more relaxed and level, but evidently chugging two cans of Sour Applin-flavored PokéMonster on an empty stomach at eight in the morning was enough to give even her the jitters. 

At least I wasn’t late today, she thought. That’s a first, especially for a Monday. Wish I could congratulate myself on finally getting it together, but I know it’s only because I was tossing and turning the whole night…

Professor Tyme finished scrawling a cresting tsunami of functions across the massive whiteboard. Juliana rushed to capture it all in her notebook before it could swallow her up, getting a queasy feeling of vertigo every time she made eye contact with the towering wall of letters and exponents written in deep blue dry-erase marker.

“Good morning, class,” Professor Tyme said, quieting the chatter in the lecture hall. “Our topic today is the Chain Rule. I trust you have all completed the assigned reading on Faà de Brionne’s formula? Excellent. Now, as you no doubt already know, the Chain Rule expresses the derivative of…”

Before she knew it, Juliana's thoughts had careened back to that revelatory phone call with Cass yesterday. 

The initial tidal wave of shock dragged her under. But now that it had broken over her and swept back out to sea, it was as though the chains that bound her to the myth of Zoruva had been cracked open and washed away, leaving behind a feeling of lightness that approached delirium. Juliana didn’t even notice how heavy a burden those chains were until they were stripped off.

“So there’s someone out there, your height and build, who can skate like you, talk like you, and beat Eri in PokéDerby with no practice? Bugger, this is bad, this is really, really—“

“—Is it?” she asked, cutting Cass off.

“What do you mean?! Of course it’s bad!"

The base of her skull tingled. It felt like Arceus itself was extending an escape rope to her. She seized it with both hands.

“I mean…” Juliana breathed. “What if this is really a blessing in disguise?”

“Huh?!”

“Well, it sounds to me like you’ve found a perfectly willing and capable volunteer to replace me!”

For a moment, both the phone line and the interior of the Flying Taxi were so quiet that Juliana swore she could hear her own blood moving through her body.

“Are you saying you…want this imposter to replace you as Zoruva?!”

Arven shifted in the seat to her left. Her eyes widened with the abrupt awareness that her side of this conversation was anything but private.

“Actually, I think we should talk about this later, Cass,” she whispered. “Now…really isn’t a good time.”

“You got more pressing issues than a clone of you running around, doing Arceus knows what? No! We’ve already lost sixteen bloody hours! We’re talking about it now!”

“Fine, then.” Juliana set her mouth in a hard line. Looking from the corner of her eye, Arven seemed to be staring very intently at his phone. With him right next to her, this conversation would require creeping her way through a verbal minefield, but Cass gave her no choice. “This weekend, I’ve been thinking, and…I don’t know if I can keep...doing this.”

“Keep…being Zoruva? Juliana, that’s crazy! We—we were just planning out the rest of Operation Starfall together on Friday!”

You’ve been living a double life...It’s just not right to keep such a big secret from your dearest friends!

How could you ever trust somebody after they lied and played you for a fool like that?

Maybe don’t be like me, dummy. Okay?

“Yeah, well, what a difference a near-death experience makes,” she grumbled. “I don’t know if I want…this anymore. Or if I ever really wanted it to begin with!”

“But—but—you’re the one who declared war on the Star Crossers! I didn’t make you become Zoruva, you did that yourself! If you didn't want this, why'd you start in the first place?!"

"I never meant to!” Juliana whispered. “It…the whole thing started…by accident. I didn't even realize what I was...I was trying to save—" 

Remembering who could overhear, she bit down on her tongue and winced at the taste of blood. 

"What do you mean? You're not making any sense!" Cass snapped. 

She sighed heavily, trapped on both sides. 

"I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand."

“I see some of you are looking a smidgen confused,” Professor Tyme said, jerking Juliana out of her thoughts like a sailor who had been thrown overboard. She landed hard back on the deck of reality with a startled gasp, disoriented. 

Damn it. Damn it! How long was I zoned out for—where did all that new stuff on the board come from?!

“But because these two functions are equal, we know that their derivatives must be equal, too. And we can determine the derivative of f(g(x)) using the Chain Rule..."

Struggling to balance her flimsy spiral-bound notebook on the napkin-sized excuse for a desk that folded out from the right side of her lecture hall chair, Juliana scrambled to scribble it all down. All the lefty desks were on the other side of the room, so she had to turn almost sideways in the seat and hunch over to write with her left hand.

Focus. Focus…the Chain Rule…

As she fought to to catch up, she was missing what the professor was saying right now. She began to alternate between frantically jotting down a shorthand version of what was being said and, in the pauses, copying the new hieroglyphics on the board. 

The letters crashed into each other and went flying in her haste to get them on the page. She fleetingly wondered if any of them got hurt. 

“See? One moment you think you're in over your head, and the next it all makes perfect sense!" Professor Tyme exclaimed.

“…I only got in over my head so fast because you dragged me into it!" Juliana added. "And I still don’t know why you did it! Or why I let you. Or…what do you actually want?"

“I suppose...there's some stuff I still need to explain,” Cass said slowly. “See, the Star Crossers…they weren’t always like they are now. In the beginning, they were just Uva University’s intramural roller derby team.”

Juliana gasped. 

“Wait…what?!”

“About two and a half years ago, things went bad. See…one of them dreamed up the idea for PokéDerby. Someone with a lot of terrible ideas.” The voice changer they were using failed to conceal their contempt.

“Pretty soon, the whole team started playing it. But…they didn’t think it through. Someone got hurt. Really badly. Like...hospital, surgeries, rehab…might-never-walk-again…badly…” Cass trailed off.

“Uh, or—that’s what I heard, at least. And then that player’s parents got super, ultra-mega pissed. They hired a bunch of lawyers and threatened to sue the snot out of the school, and the other players. But they—the injured player, I mean—refused to tell who they were playing against when they got hurt. They…knew it wasn’t anyone else’s fault.”

Cass seemed lost in their thoughts for a moment. 

“And?” Juliana prodded.

They yelped. “Um…so Uva’s administration forced the team to dissolve, and banned all students from ever playing PokéDerby. That…and a couple of other…concessions…seemed to satisfy the angry parents. And for a while, things were quiet.”

“But then, before the start of this semester, something changed. I still don’t know what. The original Star Crossers, minus the one who got hurt, reunited and started practicing in the warehouses off campus, and bullying other students into joining the team. With all the noise they’re making, it really almost seems like they’re trying to get caught…”

“Okay, but…none of that…means anything to me!” Juliana whined. “Why do you care so much? And why should I?”

“Because…” Cass sighed. “It’s me. I’m the one with the terrible ideas. I invented PokéDerby.”

“What?! That means…you were…”

“Yes. I was a Star Crosser.“

“We can think of the two functions as an outer function and an inner function, much like how our rock star Crustle here has a rocky outer shell and a vulnerable inner body that it mostly keeps hidden,” Professor Tyme said, gesturing to the Pokémon beside her.

The ever-expanding sequence of symbols on the board now seemed almost to reach out and tangle itself around Juliana's neck. Lightheaded, her eyes darted around the large lecture hall to the faces of the other students.

Her judgmental seat-neighbor was calmly nodding along, watching as the professor's Crustle turned in a circle and lifted off its shell like a top hat to illustrate her point. 

Am I…the only one who can’t keep up? Why does this make perfect sense to everyone else?! I have to try harder…

Juliana heard a muffled snap. Looking down, she realized she had gripped her pencil so tightly that it had broken in two. 

No, no, no! Focus!

Panicking, she threw the eraser half into her bag and continued to write with the remaining nub. Her hand cramped.

Outer function…and an inner function…

”Splendid! Thank you, Crustle. You’re a first-rate teaching assistant and a Calculus professor’s best friend!”

“The squad bosses…they’re my best friends. Or they were.”

“So you lied to me!” Juliana whispered. 

I should’ve known when Cass said they just ‘hacked around’ to get all that insider info on the Star Crossers…

“I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I didn’t know if I could trust you yet! I do now—but I don’t trust this imposter Zoruva. I don’t know what their intentions are…”

“You didn’t know what my intentions were, either!”

“I knew that you came up out of nowhere with the perfect skillset and cover for what I needed to do! And what you did was so high-risk, with no clear reward, that you had to be either a brave, selfless hero, or…”

Her nostrils flared. “Or what?”

“…Or…dumb and easy to manipulate?” Cass admitted, voice so tiny and soft that it almost didn’t come through.

Juliana laughed bitterly.

“You sure know just what a girl longs to hear,” she snapped in a furious whisper, rattling the chains that Cass used to control her. “That’s all this ever was to you, wasn’t it? You don't care about me. I was never anything more than a tool for you to use to get what you want!”

Arven coughed. 

“That’s not true!” Cass cried, and the voice modulator shut off. For the first time, Juliana heard their voice as it truly was. Or at least, as she thought it truly was. For all she knew, this was simply a different modifier that made them sound as small and timid and squeaky as a Tandemaus in order to manipulate her.

“I mean…m-maybe it might've been in the beginning,” they whispered. “But not anymore. Juliana, I don’t…want there to be another Zoruva! I want it to be you who helps me fix this and save the Star Crossers from themselves!”

“What does it matter if it’s me or someone else?!”

“I—I don’t…what do you want me to say?!” Cass whimpered. “I’m not…good at this kind of thing…”

“Cass, what about me, as a person, matters to you? Not the things I do, not the ways I’m useful. Not the role you made me play.”

“You’re…special to me! You’re my friend, my only friend at this point! You’re…all I’ve got, okay?! What am I supposed to do without you?!”

“I don’t know! Go ask the other me!”

”Usually, the Chain Rule is the only way we can differentiate a composite function,” Professor Tyme explained. “Can anyone tell me what would happen if we were to apply the Chain Rule to a function that is not a composite?”

To her horror, the professor began scanning her section of the auditorium. 

Juliana shrank herself down until only her eyes were peeking over the top of the seat in front of her, praying she would call on one of the tall people around her instead.

Someone…my height and build...who can skate as well as I can…

In the margin of her notes, she began to jot down everything she knew about the imposter Zoruva.

Knows roller derby (+ PokéDerby?)

Is Zoruva fan (or Star Crossers’ enemy??)

Experienced skater

Really short

Access to Zoroark mask?

Not any of the Grapes (all have alibis)

“Wait a minute. If you…if it was you who came up with…" Juliana groaned in frustration. This conversation would've been taxing even if she could speak freely, but trying to adequately express her feelings when she couldn't even say the words Zoruva or Star Crossers or PokéDerby was downright impossible. "...Why can’t you just…do it yourself? Why even involve me?”

“…I can’t tell you that.”

Her face flushed with rage. “You can’t, or you don’t want to?!”

“I just need you to trust me.”

“You say I’m special to you. You want me to trust you. And yet you refuse to open up and let me in, even a milimeter!”

“I’m—trying—!”

“—Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?!” she continued, cutting them off. “I can’t stand two-faced people!”

“Says the one who wears a mask!"

Juliana was stunned into open-mouthed silence.

"You, of all people…don’t you understand what that’s like?" Cass whispered. "Why someone might have things they want to hide, even from the people they care about the most? Especially from them?”

Juliana had fallen so far behind that she gave up on the lecture altogether. She hid low in her seat to avoid being called on and grimly resigned herself to spending hours on her own later trying to understand this material, ruining her overpriced textbook with her pathetic tears. 

Hearing only every fourth word or so of what Professor Tyme was saying, she glared at her deranged scribblings in the margins as if she could frighten the true identity of the imposter Zoruva out of them.

“One last thing before we wrap up: Don’t neglect the extra credit opportunity on your upcoming exam,” Professor Tyme said. “It’s a free response. If you can tell me one thing you learned in this unit that the exam didn’t ask about, and one thing you’d like to know more about, you’ll earn an extra five points. So start thinking about a question you could keep in your back pocket!”

“I’m using my second question, Cass—the one I saved from last week,” Juliana mumbled, robotic. “Tell me why you need me. Why you can't just deal with this on your own.”

“I’ve…already told you. Think about it. You’ve got all the pieces.”

“You’re not allowed to answer me with a riddle! That’s not fair!”

“Life isn’t fair,” Cass barked, then sighed heavily. “Look, I…I'm sorry. I’ll call you as soon as I figure out who the imposter is, and then together we’ll decide what to do about it. Alright?”

“Fine,” Juliana muttered. She rubbed at her wrists as if she could feel the chafing chains being clapped back on. “Figures. Not like you ever call me just to ask how I’m doing.”

Hanging up the call and dropping her face into her hands, she felt Arven’s eyes drilling a hole in her head.

“…Juliana, are you—?“

“—I’m fine.”

With a hand that quivered ever so slightly, he reached out and gently pried one of hers away from her face to hold it, warm and reassuring in a way she found absolutely unbearable right now.

"You'd say that even with your last breath, wouldn’t you?"

Arven had stepped over the velvet rope in the art gallery again to ghost his fingertips over the thickly textured paint on her forged masterpiece.

Juliana dropped his hand like it had singed her and turned to stare out the window, silently pleading for him to stop looking so keenly at the common root of the words art and artificial, the connection between impasto and imposter, the weakness and fragility she worked so hard to hide beneath an impenetrable varnish of impassive strength.

“…Cass doesn't deserve you."

Juliana didn’t look away from the Mesagozan skyline coming into view. She spoke through her teeth.

“Yeah. Don’t I know it.”

Everyone stood and began filing out of the lecture hall. The sudden flurry of movement and noise rattled Juliana back into the present. 

She groaned and unfolded her notebook to close it. But as she did, her eyes fell upon the page at just the right angle to make her pulse stutter with staccato dread. 

No. That…doesn’t…

Tracing the tip of her index finger down the margin, an iron chain sprouted up out of her back like some awful marionette string, far heavier than any Cass had ever shackled her with. 

There’s…no way...right?

She had willed an answer to rise up from the page. Now that it had, she would give anything to unsee it.

Chapter Text

Juliana raised an unsteady fist to a familiar-looking door.

Indeed, she could easily have mistaken it for the entry to her own dorm room. This was no intricately carved, solid oak affair. Not a look-at-me door.

Composed of thin sheets of cheap wood veneer sheathed like a wheat husk around a core of metal, Juliana walked past and through dozens of doors exactly like this one each day without ever sparing them a second, or even first, thought. But she knew that such a door in such a place was required to be deceptively tough. Reinforced to handle a decade or two’s worth of dings, dents, slams, pranks, and whatever other punishment a rotating cast of unsupervised eighteen-year-olds could put it through.

Most importantly of all, Juliana knew it was tested and rated to withstand anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes of direct blasting with a Charizard's Flamethrower in a lab—for student housing, the Inter-Regional Fire Code demanded nothing less. A door that wouldn't immediately fail in a fire was a door that could buy firefighters time and save lives.

And yet, like a little Togedemaru, this door boasted no outward trace of its hidden Sturdy ability. It appeared entirely plain, unassuming, unremarkable. The only distinguishing features were the tiny metal room number placard and the door decoration issued by the floor’s residential advisor—a construction paper Applin bearing the name of the room’s occupant in goofy Cosmog Sans font.

Juliana rested her knuckles against the name on that door decoration now. 

Please, she thought. Let me be wrong. Let it be anyone else but you...

She knocked.

Once.

Then twice.

“Uh, heyo, Lickity Splits!”

The top half of Kieran's messy, chin-length black hair was pulled out of his face and secured with what looked to be a chip clip. A blue-black ink smudge marked his forehead, just above his right brow, with more staining his hands. He looked confused by her grim expression, as if this master of deception had no idea why she would have bolted straight here from her calculus class fast enough to roast her sneaker-skates' wheels.

Suddenly, the door jerked open wider and Carmine appeared behind Kieran, towering over his left shoulder as she crunched on Flamin’ Hot Chimchars from the bag in her hand. 

It was at precisely this moment that Juliana realized she had no plan whatsoever. 

“Splits?” Carmine’s voice was muffled, crumbs flying from her full mouth. “What’re you doing here?”

Was I seriously about to just barge in and accuse Kieran of being the imposter Zoruva based on nothing more than a damn hunch?! There’s only three people in the entire world who even know that there is an imposter: Me, Cass, and the imposter themselves. As far as everyone else is concerned, the Caph Squad’s boss was defeated by Zoruva, full stop.

Which means if I point a finger of suspicion at anyone, I’ll be pointing three more back at myself…!

Feeling like a cartoon Doduo that had just run right off a cliff and now found itself hovering over a vertical mile of empty air, Juliana desperately groped around for a lie to save her. 

“Hi! I was just…looking for you, actually, Punchy. Thought I might find you here!”

“Looking for me? Why?”

“I…wanted to check on you! After what happened yesterday!“

Behind Kieran’s back, Carmine shot her a death glare. She dragged her cheese-dusted index finger across her own throat like a blade, leaving behind a blood-like trail of powdered red food coloring, then stabbed the same finger in his direction. 

Juliana raised an eyebrow. 

Did she not tell Kieran about how she almost drowned? Guess that makes sense…she wouldn’t want him to freak out or be worried about her, especially considering what happened to their parents…

Juliana had barely managed to cover her ass with a one-ply lie. Now it required two, and fast.

Think, think! Why would I be checking on Carmine?!

“Y’know, because—you had—really, really bad period cramps!” Juliana blurted. “I was just wondering if you needed, like, more ibuprofen or a heating pad or anything!”

Carmine and Kieran looked ready to die of first- and second-hand mortification, respectively.

Amarys, ever the queen of timing, chose this moment to poke her head around the other side of the doorframe, teary-eyed with the effort of holding back laughter.

“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” Carmine hissed through bared teeth, eye twitching. “Now…if you insist on coming in, quit just standing there and come in already!” 

She grabbed Juliana by the front of her crewneck sweatshirt and yanked her inside with the confidence of someone who owned the place.

Being a few floors up in the same building, the floor plan of Kieran’s dorm room was identical to Juliana’s, consisting of a small private bedroom and a bathroom shared with a roommate next door. But it was far less messy, and the included furniture, personal touches, and smell were different. A smell which distinctly called to mind the art room at her high school—a little musty, like wet clay and drying racks, with that inky-petroleum-lampblack odor of tempera paint biting at the edges. No bed of roses, but not unpleasant, either.

The standard wooden desk had been pushed underneath a lofted twin bed. Its work surface was partly taken up by a removable angled drafting table. Multiple computer monitors gave it the feel of a spaceship command center, and pens and paints lay open on the work surface, probably the source of the smell. The shelf built into the back of the desk held volumes and volumes of neatly-stacked graphic novels. Across from the bed, against the left wall, stood a heavy-looking particleboard dresser with an old TV and gaming console on top. Marowak Kart was paused on the screen.

Carmine and Amarys climbed up the ladder built into the bed frame to sit on the bed like a couch, picked up their controllers, and resumed their game. 

“You guys are playing Marowak Kart at…eleven A.M. on a Monday?” Juliana asked.

“I do not recall soliciting feedback from you regarding how I choose to spend my time,” Amarys replied coolly, never taking her eyes off the screen. "In any case, we are not merely playing. You have stumbled upon a very serious tournament."

Carmine's nostrils flared. "Tch! How's it a serious tournament when you always beat both of us so quickly?!"

"I suppose that is true." Amarys pushed her glasses up, and the light caught them just right to reflect a glare that fully obscured her intense green eyes. Humor fizzed in her voice. "Morale is an important aspect of crew resource management, so perhaps I should let you win sometime."

"Let me win?! Rrrghhh, you've just been getting lucky! I'm gonna get you this time!"

"Luck is for those who lack skill. I suggest you get good, dear Carmine."

While Carmine ranted and shrieked, Juliana noticed the art plastered all over the room. The whitewashed cinderblock walls were practically wallpapered with dramatic, high contrast black-and-white ink drawings. 

“Whoa,” she gasped. “Kieran, did you…draw all of these?”

“Y-yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “I know, it’s like, way too much, and not very good. Kinda ruins the vibe.”

"You're joking, right? These are amazing!” Juliana flitted around the room, open-mouthed gawking at each piece. “I had no idea you were an artist…or that you were so talented!”

“Aw, man, they’re really nothing special. Mostly just school projects and stuff. I’m nowhere near as good as I wanna be. At least…not yet.”

One drawing in particular caught her eye: The work in progress on the drafting table. A dark-haired boy on rollerskates glided like a comet through the inky darkness of space, leaving flurries of glittering stars in his wake. His expression was plucky, determined, joyful. 

The drawing felt so vibrantly alive that even in its unfinished state, the boy seemed to pop right off of the page. As her eyes flickered between this one and the others hanging up, Juliana realized that the same skater was featured in many of the other drawings, too. 

“Is this…supposed to be you, Kieran?"

“Oh, that? Nah, I wish! That one’s fanart for my favorite manga, Wheels of Destiny.”

”Do not get him started on Wheels of Destiny!” Carmine called out from above them. “He’ll never shut up!”

"Aw, c'mon, Sis, don't be so mean..."

“Yeah,” Juliana warned, glaring up at her. “What’s it about? I’m guessing the wheels in Wheels of Destiny aren’t, like, cheese wheels?"

Cheese wheels?! I spent so much time with Arven this weekend that I'm turning into him, she thought. But while the involuntary pun made her cringe, it also made her wonder what he was up to today, and wish that she had an excuse to see him.

At her prodding, Kieran brightened. “Um, it's about roller derby, actually! See, that character, Hiro, he’s the protagonist. He’s a total outcast at the start, but through a chance encounter, he joins a roller derby team. His teammates accept him—like a found family, y’know? And then Hiro ends up being the unlikely...well, hero who fills in for the team's jammer to lead them to victory in the championship at the end of the season!”

Kieran was so excited that he was out of breath. “I read the Wheels of Destiny series when I was little, and wowzers, I got so into roller derby because of it! I’d never even heard of it before that—Mossui Town’s too small and out of the way to have its own team, and roller derby never really took off in Kitakami the way it did in a lot of other regions. But when I was a kid, I wanted to be just like Hiro!”

Face falling, he paused and cleared his throat, then sat down at his desk. “I mean…s-sorry. You were probably just being polite. I bet you didn’t want such a long-winded explanation…”

“Especially from someone who can’t even skate,” Carmine snarked.

"Especially from someone who can't even skate," Kieran mocked, in a Carmine impression so frighteningly spot-on that Juliana briefly thought she had just repeated herself.

Carmine started to retaliate, but was cut off with a yelp. “Hey! Wings, how’d you even do that?! You just clipped right through that wall and skipped, like, half of the course!”

“All in the timing,” Amarys said.

”Ugh! You always win at Marowak Kart…and Super Marowak 64…and Grand Theft Pidgeotto!" Carmine whined. "What’s your deal?!”

“Listen, I think Wheels of Destiny sounds really cool,” Juliana said to Kieran, trying to reassure him. He had resumed working on his drawing. “Wait. Is that...true? You can’t skate?!”

Kieran’s eyes widened and sharply darted up to where his sister sat. “Uh…n-no. No, I can’t.”

Come to think of it, I really haven’t ever seen Kieran skate before. I just assumed he could…

When I asked him why he didn’t join the Grapes, he said it was because Carmine wouldn’t let him, not because he didn’t know how. Maybe he was too embarrassed to admit it?

“Well, if you ever wanna learn, I showed Arven the basics a few weeks back, and he survived without any permanent damage. I’d be happy to teach you.”

They both jumped as Carmine’s furious face popped out above them like a haunted house decoration, hanging upside down from the loft bed. 

“Absolutely not!” she screeched. “He’s got asthma, and he’ll break every bone in his body! What would you do if you hurt your hand or something and couldn’t draw anymore, Kiki?”

”R-right,” Kieran mumbled, looking back down at the drawing. “Yeah.”

Well, if Kieran can’t skate…that would rule him out as the imposter. Even if he could, the more I look at him now, the less likely he seems as a suspect. Someone this timid and ordinary could never have fooled everyone into believing he’s Zoruva. But...there’s still one thing that bothers me…

“Doesn’t mean you can’t still be part of the Grapes, though,” Juliana said. “Every derby team needs volunteers behind the scenes. Just out of curiosity, what were you doing this weekend that kept you from coming on the trip with the rest of us, Kieran?”

“Oh…” Kieran didn’t look up from his drawing. “I was at Cosmog-Con. Over in Levincia.”

Juliana’s eyes narrowed just a fraction of a degree.

”How come?”

”’Cause…I mean, look around you, I’m a huge anime and manga fan! Why wouldn't I wanna go to a convention like that?” Kieran chuckled uneasily. “One of my favorite manga artists was even there to do a meet-and-greet.”

”Sounds pretty exciting.” Juliana crossed her arms over her chest, determined to catch him in a lie. “You must’ve gotten a picture with that artist, right?”

“S-sure did,” he replied, blinking at her.

"...Well? Can I see?"

Kieran fumbled with his Rotom-Phone for a moment. “Sorry, I, uh, took so many photos that it’s…taking me a second to find it. Ah, here!”

He didn’t hand her his phone, but he did hold it up for her to look.

“That’s the artist, and that’s me…hard to tell with the mask, I know, b-but…that’s cosplay for you! I went as No-Face from Spiritombed Away.”

She leaned in toward him. “And you were at the convention…all weekend?”

“J-just Saturday,” he squeaked, beginning to sound truly nervous.

He’s probably weirded out by me giving him the third degree over something so trivial…

“I didn’t get back home until super, super late on Saturday. I think it was, like, Sunday morning actually,” Kieran added.

Hmm…if he can’t skate, and he has a Rockruff-solid alibi backed up by photographic evidence, that settles it. Right?

An intense, almost nauseating waterfall of relief poured over Juliana. Whoever the imposter Zoruva was, it wasn’t her friend’s sheltered, fragile younger brother. That dreadful chain of obligation was not hers to wear after all. 

I’ll still wait for Cass to figure out who the real imposter is, but it doesn’t really matter. This whole mess won’t be my problem anymore! I’ll tell them I’m out and hang up my Zoroark mask for good.

Well, except for those Titan fights with Arven…but I’m not gonna worry about that right now. 

"Very cool, Kieran," Juliana said, smiling like she'd just matched up all five digits of her Pokémon's Trainer ID in the lottery. "We missed you, but I’m glad you had a good time!”

She climbed up the bed frame ladder and wedged herself in between Amarys and Carmine, prying the game controller out of the latter’s hands. This earned Juliana a headlock that she finally understood was the Carmine-equivalent of a hug.

“Alright, Wings—I wanna be able to kick Punchy’s ass in Marowak Kart, so teach me your ways!”

Amarys snorted. “How much time do you have?”

Chapter Text

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Juliana groaned and folded her arms around her head, eyes stubbornly shut.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Undeterred, her Rotom-Phone inched closer to her until it was bumping against her arm with persistent, increasing force, like a small child asking and then demanding to be escorted to the bathroom.

Turning her head, she half-opened one bleary eye to glare at it and fumbled blindly to accept the call. 

“…Cass?” she grumbled. 

“Uh, nope. Just...me, actually."

Eyes flying open, Juliana perked up like she’d just been doused with ice water.

“Arven! Hi!”

She sat bolt upright and heard a loud rip. 

“My bad, I was…” Trailing off, she fought to suppress a yawn. “Gotta start checking the caller ID.”

It took several seconds to process that there was a calculus textbook page stuck to the side of her face with her own drool—glued so securely, in fact, that her sudden movement had torn it right out of its binding.

“Are you…still in bed at this hour?” A note of worry had crept into Arven’s voice.

“Huh? No. ‘Course not.” Wincing, she peeled the page off her cheek. As she stretched her arms above her head, the ache in her neck and the reddish hue of the light coming in through the window told her that she must’ve been slumped over on her desk until at least six o’clock or so. 

“So, uh, to what do I owe the lovely surprise of hearing your voice?”

He chuckled warmly, a chord of music that sent Vivillons fluttering in her stomach. She could hear something sizzling in the background. “Do I have to have a reason to call my best bud?” 

“No,” she said, smiling and tucking her hair behind her ear. It was nice to know that he still wanted to talk to her even if they’d more or less given up on Operation Legal Meteor. “Just wondering.”

“Well, now that I think about it, I guess there is something. I’ve got…a favor to ask you.”

“Oh.” Her curiosity was piqued. “Sure, anything. What’s up?”

“See, I kinda screwed up. I’m cooking dinner, and when I went to make the pasta, I accidentally made way too much! So now I’m worried it’ll go to waste. Think you could…come over and gimme a hand with it?”

Those Vivillons in her stomach all used Growl at once. She wondered if he heard it. “Well, if you’re gonna twist my arm like this, how can I possibly refuse? When were you thinking?”

“Whenever you want! Now works,” Arven replied, lighting up with excitement.

“Then I’ll be there in—“ Patting the pockets of her sweatpants, she found them empty. “—Ugh!”

“In…ugh?”

“Sorry—Be there as soon as I find my keys!” She whirled around the room like an angry Tornadus. “Start eating without me, I’ll catch up!” 

Juliana hung up the call before he could make a pun about ketchup. 

By the time she located her keys (still dangling from the lock on the outside of her room door), showered with militant efficiency (scrubbing away a black twelve-point serif font temporary tattoo of the phrase “difference quotient”, which had transferred from the slobber-moistened textbook page onto the apple of her left cheek), changed into something more presentable (jeans and a cute sweater, instead of gym clothes covered in the crumbs of the only food she’d eaten today, a granola bar), and high-tailed it across campus, Juliana had managed to burn almost half an hour. 

The heavenly aroma of sautéed garlic and long-simmered tomatoes burst out from within as Arven answered the door. With a flour-marked apron slung over his broad shoulder, he looked like he’d answered a casting call for some sort of sexy chef reality show. 

He found Juliana out of breath, red in the face, clutching her longboard with one hand and leaning against his door frame with the other. 

“Hey!” she panted. “Sorry—took me—so long. Totally get it—if you’re mad—at—“

Before she could even finish, Mabosstiff bounded up from behind Arven, pushing him aside to greet Juliana with bright eyes and an exuberantly wagging tail. She scratched his fluffy ears with a breathless giggle.

Cracking a boyish half-smile, Arven just wrapped her up in a warm hug that she sank into like a feather bed.

“Mad at you? Nah,” he hummed. “Thank goodness you’re here, little bud! Who else is gonna save me from this spaghetti surplus?”

“You weren’t kidding, huh?” Juliana marveled as she sat down to the feast with eyes as big as her stomach. “How’d you manage to make so much by accident?”

Over the yellow gingham landscape of the kitchen table lay a small city of food.

Enough ribbons of pasta to fully stock a gift wrap shop through the holidays, dressed in a rich, tangy tomato-and-meat sauce. Fresh burrata cheese framed by a halo of prosciutto, calling to mind the planet Saturn and its rings in both size and presentation.

A platter of crisp green salad large enough to feed an army, studded with leaves of emerald basil straight from his windowsill herb garden, with a snowdrift of grated parmesan in a dish on the side. And a just-baked, still-hot sourdough baguette, sliced and served in a small towel-covered basket to keep it warm, with butter and olive oil standing at the ready for spreading and dipping.

Two places were set with painted Maschiff motif dishes and water-filled wine glasses. A candle stood at the center of this village like a clock tower, flickering its honeyed glow over their faces.

“Uh, you know…” Arven smiled and rubbed at his neck. “Happens all the time, when you cook a lot! It’s…a real problem.”

Settled beneath her chair, Mabosstiff made a little lilting noise that almost sounded like a question.

”Well, I meant what I said before—don’t hesitate to call me any time you have this problem.” Juliana took her first bite of the pasta and moaned, eyes rolling back in her head. It took a while to compose herself.

When she looked back up at Arven again, it was with the heartbroken expression of one who has tasted the forbidden apple and gained the tragic awareness that her next meal will come not from heaven, but the comparatively questionable offerings of the university dining hall. The fleeting nature of this pleasure made it all the sweeter and more rapturous. 

“Arceus, I love this problem. Such a good, great, amazing problem. Why can’t my problems be this delicious? I’d rather solve yours all day, any day, every day.”

Arven laughed, pink-cheeked and twinkling-eyed and illuminated by candlelight. Whether her chest was suddenly hollow or bursting at the seams, Juliana wasn’t sure, but something hurt either way.

”About that,” he said, nibbling his lip. “I don’t want to pry, but…if there’s anything bothering you, or something you’d like to vent about, I’d be happy to listen? Someone told me recently…there's no shame in sharing your problems.”

How could you ever trust somebody after they lied and played you for a fool like that?

Juliana paused in her blissful chewing. 

My problems…

Even if this imposter Zoruva is my ticket to freedom from being Cass’s puppet…what do I do about Arven?

I have to keep helping him fight the Titan Pokémon and get the Herba Mystica for Mabosstiff’s sake. There’s no question about that. That’s the one part of being Zoruva that I have no reservations about…I chose it, and I know exactly why I’m doing it. 

But…should I come clean to Arven? Can I?

If I did tell him…would he hate me for lying to him? He shared those things about his childhood with Zoruva, but he hasn’t told me, even though he calls me his best friend…

”Thank you. I guess…I…”

On the other hand…do I just go on lying to him and hope he never finds out the truth? Then, once we’ve beaten all the Titans and found the fountain of youth for Mabosstiff, Zoruva disappears for good, and I just pretend the whole thing never happened?

Could I live with myself if I did that?

What kind of best friend am I? Doesn’t Arven deserve better?

Juliana cleared her throat, gathering her courage. “Actually, I, uh…Arven, there’s…something I’ve been meaning to tell you—“

The moment was broken by the sound of a key turning in the front door and raised voices on the other side. 

It swung open, and Drayton and Lacey’s argument froze mid-sentence as they took in the state of the kitchen. Drayton whistled, sauntering over. 

“Heh heh heh!—What do we have here?” He shot a smug, knowing look at Lacey, who folded her arms and twitched her nose in disgust. “A romantic candlelit dinner at home’s a pretty bold choice for a first date, roomie! Unless…this isn’t the first one? You two haven’t been holding out on the Drayster, have you?” 

He draped his arms around both of their shoulders. Juliana flicked his forehead and rolled her eyes. “It’s not a date—“

“—The—the candle—it was Mabosstiff’s idea!” Arven sputtered.

“—Arven accidentally cooked too much for dinner,” Juliana continued. “This is just a friendly hangout to avoid food waste.“

“That so?” Drayton asked, eyes watering as he tried not to laugh. “My mistake, then. A romantic candlelit hangout to avoid food waste!”

“Oooh!” Lacey skipped over and took one of the empty seats at the table with the speed and enthusiasm of a kid playing musical chairs. “In that case, we’d love to help, too!” 

“Huh?” Arven and Drayton said in unison, jaws hitting the floor.

“Preventing food waste is a noble cause, but you’ve got way too much here for just two people to get through!” Lacey smiled cutely. “It’s just not right. We’ll join you! Teehee, I am seriously SO ready for more of your spectacular cooking, Arven!”

“Uh…b-but…it was just…supposed to…” Arven struggled. But Juliana was hugging Lacey with a squeal of excitement that prevented either of them from hearing him.

“Yeah! That sounds like a blast!” Juliana clapped her hands. “Ooooh, maybe we could do dinner and a games night? Amarys was showing me some sick new Marowak Kart strats earlier, and I—“ Her expression took a tumble as she finally caught on to Arven’s hesitation. “Or…sorry, I guess that’s pretty different from what you originally had in mind…”

His icy reticence thawed into a helpless smile on contact with the spring of her joy. “No, it’s fine. If you’re happy, that’s all I care about.”

Juliana felt her cheeks grow warm, and Arven’s eyes flashed with the realization of what he’d just said. “Er, I mean—The more the merrier! Having friends around makes everyone happier. But…most of what I made isn’t vegan, Lacey. I’m sorry. The salad is, but…”

“Not to worry!” Lacey gave a well-manicured thumbs up and pulled out her Rotom-Phone. The sparkly pink case glittered in the candlelight. “I will do my part to help us get through this beautiful salad and bread, but I can also put in an order for a vegan pizza from the place up the street. Maybe Drayton could go pick it up?”

Arven’s brow furrowed. “…Wait, where is Drayton? He was just here…”

The three of them blinked at the dotted outline of where he had been, scratching their heads in confusion.

”Dray?”

Mabosstiff softly whined when Juliana blew out the candle and rose from the table.

It felt a bit like completing a Where’s Watchog puzzle, but she soon found him in the living room. He was face-down in the giant Dragonite-shaped beanbag chair, slowly melting into the squishy abyss as though he’d fallen headfirst into a pit of quicksand. Only his feet, shod in beaten-up high top sneakers, remained visible.

Juliana pulled a limp, groaning Drayton back out onto the jute rug by his ankle, then snagged an ear to haul him fully upright. The despondent aura of self-pity clinging to him was so dark and damp that she was surprised there were no Foongus growing on him.

“Drayton and I will go together to pick up the pizza,” she growled through her teeth. “Right now.”

“Nice going, Dray. Lacey just handed you the perfect opportunity to score some brownie points with her, and you were too comatose to even notice!”

Though the sun had sunk below the horizon, the streetlights were not yet on. Perhaps they were running late, falling ever further behind schedule as autumn shrank each Paldean day a little shorter. Yet in spite of the encroaching chill and fading light, people and Pokémon were packed around the sidewalk café tables as if it were a summer evening, chattering and laughing and clinking their glasses. 

Juliana strode up the cobblestone street toward Hangry Morpeko's Pizzeria with Drayton shuffling listlessly behind her, dribbling an empty soda can between his feet like a soccer ball.

”Why should scoring brownie points matter to me?" he grumbled. "Not like I’m some baker.”

She glared at him over her shoulder while continuing her forward march.

"Because you’re never gonna get a date with her if you keep acting like you don't care about anything!” 

“Heh heh. Concerned about my love life? Why would I take advice from someone who can’t even see what’s right in front of her?”

With a yelp, she ran smack into one of the still-dark lampposts with her shoulder.  Fixing him with an expression somewhere between deadpan and murderous, she shook off the sting and kept walking. “Dude, I know what I’m talking about—I promise I have bagged more girls than you," she lied.

“Well then, enlighten me. Whaddya suggest? I learn how to bake bread?" He tapped the can with his toe. "Get myself some sweater vests and a big, fluffy, sad-eyed Pokémon?" Another kick, harder. "Is that what's irresistible to women?”

“Ugh! I suggest you learn to mind your own business! Arven has made it abundantly clear, time and time again, that he’s not interested in me like that at all! And while I may have felt some sort of…confused…hate-fueled…attraction to him at first, I’m completely over that now! Your roommate and I really are best friends, nothing more and nothing less.”

“Thanks for the update, bud, but I was minding my own business. Doesn't bother me if he's irresistible to you.”

Drayton's usually-mellow voice carried a slight undercurrent of aggression that he seemed to be taking great pains to subdue. His foot struck the can again, and this time it sailed several feet ahead of them.

“Wait." Amusement bubbled and fizzed over her features. "No. You can’t seriously think…that Lacey likes Arven?!"

“I've got eyes. So do you.”

“Oh, man—you have no clue what you’re talking about!" Juliana gasped with laughter. "You’re so off-base that it’s hysterical!"

His eyebrow twitched in annoyance. “Heh. Did I touch a nerve? Jealous?”

“Not at all. I think you’re projecting. You’re the jealous one.”

“Jealousy’s an ugly emotion." His face was a mask of calculated neutrality, but the shape of the words revealed that his teeth were gritted. "One that a stoic such as The Drayster does not experience.”

When he kicked it this time, the can went flying. With a metallic ping-pwang-pong, it ricocheted off a lamppost, then a metal trash can, and finally another lamppost.

“And yet you’re comparing yourself to him, with his baking skills and sweater vests and big fluffy Pokémon, completely unprompted? Be real with yourself, Dray. You're no stoic. You're in love with Lacey, and it bothers you that she’s giving someone else attention. That’s why you’ve been acting even more like a naughty Meowth than normal lately—when she’s yelling at you for behaving badly, at least she’s paying attention to you.”

For a long moment, there was only the clamor of the evening street and passerby.

”I’m not interested in…competing for her against someone else,” Drayton mumbled. “If there’s somebody she’d rather be with, then I want her to be happy. Simple as that.”

Drayton may think jealousy is an ugly emotion, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the only thing that could get him to pull his head out of the sand.

”You’d really just give up on her that easily?”

He visibly clenched his jaw. “Arven’s a good guy. Said so myself. He hasn’t lied to her, so he already deserves her more than I do.”

”Well, you’re right about that.”

”About what?”

“You don’t deserve her.”

”Yeesh.” He grimaced. “You gotta rub it in?”

”Not because you lied about being a roller derby fan.” Juliana punched him in the arm, harder than she needed to. “Because you’re too much of a coward to fight for her! Tell Lacey the truth. She might surprise you.”

In the square, they passed a street piano that appeared to be playing itself. However, a glance around the back at the keys revealed that the mystery busker was no poltergeist—or Polteageist—but rather a pair of Flittles. The two Pokémon leaped around like jumping beans, plunking out both halves of a harmony together, with one handling the higher register of the keyboard and the other taking the low notes.

”I just…don’t want things to change,” Drayton muttered to his sneakers.

The neon sign for Hangry Morpeko’s Pizzeria blinked up ahead.

”Things are gonna change either way, Dray. So you’re scared to lose her—I get it, believe me,” she sighed. “But…you don’t have forever. You’re both gonna graduate next year, and then she’ll go off to law school. Are you planning to let her walk right out of your life without ever telling her how you really feel?”

Drayton chewed his cheek.

“Don’t really like thinking about the future. Things…are good right now, the way they are.”

Juliana wanted to shake Drayton senseless. Or, more accurately, to his senses.

The problems that you two have are so trivial, she thought. You both love each other! And the web of lies separating you is so simple compared to…

Like a row of dominoes falling, the streetlights finally flickered on, one by one.

…Huh. What am I thinking? Compared to what?

“If you don’t get off your ass and make a move, eventually someone else will. And I get the feeling you aren’t gonna feel as peace-and-love about it as you say,” she warned. 

With one more sharp punt, the crumpled can landed at Juliana’s feet. Her eyes snapped up to Drayton’s face and found a peculiar expression there, one she had no name for.

“Heh. Could tell you the same thing.”

Chapter Text

Arven quit carving a furrow into the floor with his pacing and blew it out again.

“It’s way too forward, right?”

Mabosstiff grumbled and shook his head in exasperation.

The possible implications of this dilemma? Massive. His anxiety levels about it? Through the roof. The potential fallout, if he chose wrong? Nothing short of nuclear. 

The question?

Whether or not lighting a candle was appropriate.

This dinner was definitely, probably, maybe, most likely not a date. He certainly hadn’t had the guts to call it one—he couched the invitation in a lame lie about making too much food just so he could be sure Juliana would eat a proper meal today.

And as far as he knew, she was still technically together with that shady Cass character. He desperately hoped she might finally break things off after that awful phone call he overheard in the cab yesterday, but…the way she answered when he called suggested otherwise.

Arven couldn’t exactly be surprised when all of Juliana’s conversations with Cass seemed to be fights. At least, the ones he’d overheard. It made him hunger to put his tracking skills to good use by hunting that damned lowlife down and giving them a piece of his mind, if not far worse than that.

Mabosstiff growled, low and threatening.

“You’re right, bud. Maybe it’s not forward enough?” he muttered, jaw clenching, striking another match and re-lighting the wick. “Should I do more than one?”

He already would’ve hunted Cass down, were he any less certain it would make Juliana hate him again—if not for stepping on Cass’s toes, then for the cardinal sin of nakedly worrying about her. The very first thing he did when they met, a mistake he failed to recognize would kick off a chain reaction of mutually-assured destruction.

“But what if she doesn’t even like candles?” Arven groaned, softly banging his forehead against the tablecloth. He extinguished the ember once more. “Urk…this is stupid. Am I being stupid?”

Mabosstiff whined, fed up, and hid under the table.

Mutually-assured destruction that had felt hopeless until, in his darkest hour, she helped him.

For no reason at all, having every reason not to, without hesitation and with a kindness that washed over the cracks in his mistrusting heart like gentle rain, Juliana did what no other human soul had ever done: She stayed, and she helped him, saving that which he loved most.

For the first time, someone crossed into his solitary world and made him realize he was lonely. Nothing had been the same since.

And so, a day after she had nearly drowned saving someone else and maybe-possibly-not-quite broken up with Cass, Arven found himself with his chin resting on the edge of his kitchen table, glaring torturously at a candlestick, biting the nails of one hand down to the quick and clutching a matchbox in the shaking fingers of the other.

He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Bud, what do you think I should do?”

Mabosstiff nudged at the matches with his nose and barked.

”Alright…but if she asks, it was your idea!”

Chapter Text

Surrounded by a glittering swirl of stars, the rising half-moon watched the mist-muddled field before them like the glowing white eye of an Espeon. It spotted their target first.

“Look! There!” Arven whispered, pointing excitedly.

“…Where?”

He took her hand and pointed it for her. “Right—there! See? That shiny, metallic thing? It’s catching the moonlight!” 

Even with her hand fully covered by a skating glove, and even though he held it for barely a second before letting go, Arven’s touch warmed Juliana’s cold-numbed skin underneath, leaving behind a staticky pins-and-needles sensation that she unconsciously flexed her fingers to dispel. ¹

“Whew, I’m glad we found one! I was starting to worry that this stakeout was gonna be all for nada!” He chuckled. “Get it?

She did, but didn’t dare laugh, fearing she couldn’t maintain the dusky disguise of her false alto quite as easily as she could hide her grin behind the mask.

A mask that had her on edge as she and Arven crouched in between a row of hedges and the outer city wall of Alfornada. Few people ventured out in this sleepy town of ceramic artisans at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday, and Zoruva luckily was not a household name beyond the Uva University campus and the surrounding city of Mesagoza. But since she was too far from home to get back without a cab, and lacked the familiarity with the area to know which dark corners she could duck into to slip off her mask and hoodie without being seen, she still needed to stay on her guard and avoid attracting attention.

“Okay,” she whispered, rising and drawing her Pokéball. “You stay back here while I—“

“Wait! Hold on. I wanna catch it myself.”

She raised an eyebrow that he couldn’t see. “Then…why’d you say you needed my help?”

When they met up at their rendezvous point earlier, Arven pleaded to postpone their regularly scheduled Tuesday night Titan tango in favor of a different kind of hunt. Though she was surprised that he would ask to delay the Herba Mystica mission, she agreed. After all, Mabosstiff did seem to be doing quite well at the moment—and she found it virtually impossible to say no to his trainer any time he deployed the puppy-dog eyes. 

Are they still puppy-dog eyes if they’re green? And why does that work so well on me, anyway? It’s only when he does it…

Bluish-green, she thought, staring at him now, framed by the eyeholes of the mask on her face. Like aquamarine, or sea glass, or tropical waves…

“Because…well, because I’ve never actually….caught a Pokémon before.” Arven grimaced, digging the toe of his hiking boot into the reddish dirt.

”Never caught a…how?” 

In Unova, nobody even got past middle school without demonstrating that they could catch at least a low-level wild Pokémon. It was viewed as a vital skill for navigating the world safely and independently, like being able to read or tell the time. Parents would usually teach their children the basics long before it was ever covered in the curriculum…and suddenly, the disconnect became clear even before Arven answered her thoughtless question. 

“Nobody ever…taught me,” he admitted quietly. “So I was hoping maybe you could coach me through it? Gimme some pointers? This is really, really important, and I don’t wanna screw it up—“

“—I’d be happy to teach you,” she blurted, wanting to kick herself for her earlier remark. “But if it’s catching practice you’re after, this isn’t what I’d recommend for a beginner.”

Taking Arven’s Rotom-Phone, she reviewed the entry in the Pokédex app again.

“I know it looks cute and tiny, but that thing’s got a nightmare type combo—only two weaknesses, plus a laundry list of resistances and immunities,” she explained, grateful Nemona had just happened to go off on an excited tangent about this exact species earlier in the week. “Let’s start with something easier. Maybe one of the weaker wild Pokémon around Los Platos?”

“No!” Arven shook his head, a troubled frown clouding his expression. He tapped the screen. “It’s…it’s gotta be one of these little guys. And I really think I can catch it if you’ll help me. Please, Zoruva?”

That tenacious sparkle was back in his aquamarine-sea-glass-tropical-waves-puppy-dog eyes. Arven had so little faith in his own abilities, yet so much stubborn drive to see things through. She wondered if he had been born that way, or if it was the hard-won product of years of having no one else to rely on. Regardless, she admired him for it.

Sighing, she once again gave in.

“Well, as I’ve said before, I know better than to try and stop you once you’ve made up your mind. Get ready, then we’ll move in on it together. But…stay close to me. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Arven nodded, cheeks pinkening. “Okay.”

He pulled out Nacli’s blue-and-yellow Quick Ball. She clicked her tongue and held up her hand.

“Nope. Stop.”

”Wha—?” He clutched at his hair. “But I didn’t even…did I get the type matchup wrong?”

”No. I mean, it’s not great defensively, but Nacli will do better than Shellder on offense,” she mused, quickly running the numbers in her head. “I stopped you because you’re holding your Pokéball upside down, like you always do.”

His brows drew together. “Holding it—oh!” Eyes widening, Arven flipped the ball upright in his palm.

“Yeesh. No wonder she…” he mumbled, trailing off. 

“It’s alright. Harder to tell with Quick Balls, so that’s not entirely on you. But form is important to make sure you don’t miss. With a regular Pokéball, you’ll want to throw it with the red half facing up. Red to your head, white out of sight.“

Arven closed his eyes. “Red to my head, white out of sight,” he repeated. “Got it.”

With a nod of approval from her on his corrected grip, the pair carefully crept through the misty grass toward the levitating wild Pokémon. The pint-sized creature quickly spun toward the sound of their soft footfalls. Jingling and clinking like a little wind chime, it seemed curious about the approaching humans, but fortunately, not aggressive.

Still, she stayed a step or two ahead of Arven and kept her own Pokéball at the ready, just in case. 

“This should be close enough. Now send out Nacli. You’ll wanna weaken it first.”

Nodding, he tossed out the little Rock-type. But before he could give a command for the first strike, the wild Pokémon seized the moment with stunning speed.

A bright spark of light exploded in front of them like a falling star. They both flinched, and she shielded Arven with her body, yet no harm came to them apart from being momentarily blinded. When they reopened their dazzled eyes, they were surrounded by a strange, light pink forcefield. The walls of this incorporeal dome were transparent, twinkly, and faintly iridescent, as though the two of them were trapped inside of a giant soap bubble.

“Haven’t seen that one before,” she muttered, clambering back to her feet before offering him a hand up. “Looks like we’re locked in now.”

”Locked in?”

“We won’t be able to flee until we catch it or make it faint. So be careful.”

Arven gulped, but he clenched his fists and set his jaw in determination. “That’s…fine! We might be in a pickle, but we can pick-le this lock together!”

Her ribs hurt.

He really just can’t resist a pun, can he?  Not that I want him to…

When did I start to find that so…so…?

Arven was looking over at her. It took a moment too long for her to realize he was waiting for her guidance. She cleared her throat.

“Your turn now,” she said, stating the obvious. “I’d go for a Mud Shot. Ground is one of its weaknesses, plus it’ll lower its speed.”

Nacli obediently splattered the Steel-type with mud, tarnishing its sparkle. The following turn, still moving first, their foe produced a Substitute. But a few more Mud Shots did away with this decoy, and after the HP it had sacrificed for the trick, the wild Pokémon was soon cut down into the red. 

“Now’s your chance! Got a ball ready?”

“Yep—this one!” From his unwieldy backpack, Arven fetched an unusual shamrock-green ball with red and yellow markings. 

He took a steadying breath, checked that he was holding it green-side up, and brought it to his lips, giving it a quick kiss for luck.

Never knew he was superstitious, she thought. But it makes sense. Arven’s Mr. Sunshine, but he always thinks it’s gonna rain…

Smiling fondly behind the plastic with her head way up in the bespangled clouds, she almost missed the moment when Arven actually wound up his arm and forcefully, if clumsily, threw the ball. It nearly overshot its target, but still managed to capture the wild Pokémon inside.

Both humans held their breath when it rattled once. 

She crossed her fingers behind her. 

A second rattle.

Arven wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

Finally, a third rattle…and then perfect stillness. The soap-bubble forcefield around them silently popped, leaving only a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it precipitate of pixie dust that the breeze carried away.

“Is that…good?” he breathed.

“It’s good.” The smile he couldn’t see nevertheless infected this voice that wasn’t hers. “Good and caught. All yours.”

Arven leaped in the air and cheered. “WOOO! We did it! Let’s GOOOO!”

She couldn’t help the little giggle that escaped. His untainted, unrestrained joy was a rare and precious thing. 

“You did it,” she corrected. “I didn’t do anything. You really oughta trust yourself more, Arv. You’re more capable than you give yourself credit for.”

His mouth fell open, awed. “You really mean that? Thank you. But…you really did help me. You gave me the courage to try.”

Arven bent down to Nacli and gave it an affectionate pat. “And you—you did great, bud! Here, lemme fix you up with a Potion.”

While he took care of Nacli, she stepped forward to lift the ball containing his newest teammate out of the dew-damp grass, turning it over in her grasp.

“What kind of Pokéball is this? I’ve never seen one like it before.”

”Oh, yeah—it’s a special one! Got it in an auction at the Porto Marinada Market. The guy said it was imported all the way from Johto, handmade by an artisan in a place called Azalea Town. Supposedly it makes wild Pokémon grow friendly faster.”

”Wow.” She tossed it to him, warmed once more by the way he grinned and stroked his thumb over it. “Must’ve cost a pretty penny. I gotta ask, what’s so special about Klefki that you’d go to all this trouble for one?”

“Uh…hm.” Arven’s gaze shifted away from her. “I just…really wanted one, that’s all! L-like you said, the type combo is good.”

Why do I feel like he’s lying?

“That reminds me. I’ve got…sort of a weird question for you,” he continued, kicking at the grass nervously. “I saw on the Grapevine Student News that the Star Crossers were challenged and defeated again on Saturday. So I was just wondering…there’s not, like…more than one of you. I mean, more than one Zoruva. Is there?” 

The Zoroark mask, which she had almost forgotten she was wearing, concealed the terrified shock on Juliana’s face.

Oh no. Nononono.

Does he know?!

He couldn’t know. There’s no way! Nobody else knows about the imposter! Right?!

“Why…do you ask?”

Oh, nononono! If he does know, how much does he know?!

If he already knew who I really am, he wouldn’t bother with this charade, right? He’d just call me out. He’d hate me!

“Just…wondering, I guess! Between helping me out with the Titan Pokémon during the week, challenging the Star Crossers every weekend, and then whatever your regular life is like…I figure you’ve gotta be pretty busy, right? Unless you had some way you could be in two places at once…like a Substitute or something…”

His questions felt as dangerously pointed as the tip of a Bisharp’s blade. And those eyes piercing her were no less sharp. One false move and they’d cut the mask away, reveal the truth—and probably ruin her life.

I can’t tell him. At least, not like this. If I do, I have to wait for the right moment—which was yesterday at dinner, but then I never got the chance...

At the same time, I really don’t want to outright lie to him anymore…

“Ugh, this is just like in You’ve Got Marill…” Juliana mumbled miserably to herself.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“It is busy.” She crossed her arms. Her deep voice hardened, turning steely and cold. “Juggling everything. Believe me, no one else besides me could handle it all without cracking under the pressure.”

I do mean that. It’s not a lie.

Juliana chose to ignore how much this reminded her of Lacey’s not-the-whole-truth excuse.

Arven shook his head, looking down. Disappointment drained his features of color.

“Yeah…you’re right, I don’t know why I asked that. Sorry. Here you are, taking time out of your busy schedule to help me, and I’m repaying your kindness by practically calling you a fraud! I didn’t mean to offend you…Zoruva. And thanks again for your help tonight.”

She just nodded, not trusting her voice to come out with its properly fake tone and Paldean accent right now.

Whether even I can handle it all without cracking under the pressure remains to be seen…

Chapter Text

Only the occasional lonesome Kricketot chirp or the rustle of dry leaves in the bracing wind dappled the velvet-black soundscape with color—not that she could hear any of it over the music pulsing through her headphones.

On nights like this, chasing sleep was pointless, even for a pursuer as fleet-footed and persistent as Juliana. The troupe of wild, restless Mankeys in her brain needed to be kept occupied, lest they start playing with matches and tearing their habitat to bits. So over the deserted brick and cobblestone paths of the campus, Juliana skated. Hard and fast and low to the ground. Carving hairpin turns at random. Leaping up onto stairway railings to grind on down them, generating a shower of sparks sufficient to power a first kiss. All the Tony Hawlucha’s Pro Skater tricks she knew better than to pull by daylight.

Where the rush of the cold wind against her unmasked cheeks met the breathless high of a little light delinquency, she achieved a familiar brand of sweaty zen. For a moment, dancing on air, Juliana could be free. ¹

She kept at it until she was good and lost. Panting and parched, she kicked the wheels back into the soles of her sneakers and followed the desert mirage of a neon sign into a twenty-four hour convenience store in search of something to drink, music still blasting in her ears.

Every bodega was an unofficial Unovan embassy for Juliana. Comforting, familiar. No two were the same, and yet they all were, wrapping her up in a homesickness-banishing electric blanket of fluorescent lights that buzzed just the right shade of overstimulating. Neat rows of brightly-colored cans of lemonade and soda and water, bottles of Berry Juice and tea and fruit punch, colorful cartons of ApriJuice and Moomoo Milk, regular and chocolate and even strawberry. And of course, there was PokéMonster, and ExpLOUD Zero, and Red Tauros—but caffeine was the last thing she needed right now.

It was the business end of two in the morning, no longer technically Tuesday, but too early for Wednesday to all but the most pedantic of know-it-alls. Her itchy eyes were sliding out of focus at the thought of having to be up for class in just a few hours when someone touched her shoulder. 

Reflex took over. She grabbed the strange hand. Twisted the arm it was attached to—not hard, but hard enough.

The lingering fumes of adrenaline in her system from the skating had the shocked stranger in a headlock before her brain even processed what was happening. Juliana didn’t instantly pick up on the comforting rosemary-shampoo scent of her assailant because the borrowed coat she wore had already been flooding her head with it for the better part of an hour—but the head of sandy blond hair pressed against her cheek was unmistakeable. After all, she’d seen him only a few hours earlier, even if he hadn’t seen her. With a mortified gasp and a string of curses, she released him and yanked out her earbuds. 

“Arven! I’m so sorry! I didn’t—are you okay?!”

“Yeesh, little bud,” Arven nervously chuckled, wide-eyed, red-faced, rubbing at the wrist she’d nearly bruised. “On top of everything else, are you a black belt too?”

Ten minutes later, she was standing in his room.

Instead of accusing her of stalking when her wandering feet just happened to take her to the corner store on his block at two in the morning, Arven invited her up to his place with promises of letting her in on the midnight snack he'd been buying ingredients to prepare. Her growling stomach answered for her, but she began to fear that he might perhaps be too trusting for his own good. To avoid waking Drayton up with noisy conversation in the kitchen, Arven parked Juliana in his bedroom down the hall, then went back to make the food.

While she waited, she explored the uncharted territory. Ironically, this most intimate of spaces felt somewhat less imbued with Arven’s magical personal essence than the kitchen, but it was still far cozier and homier than the average student bedroom. 

The double bed—which, like a lot of the furniture in the apartment, seemed to have come with the unit—was neatly made with an eclectic quilt in shades of gold and green with pops of indigo throughout. A little ramp of carpeted stairs led up to the foot of the bed, and Mabosstiff lay curled up by the pillows. The old hound was snoring like a freight train, blissfully unaware of her presence. 

An orangey-red, tomato-shaped glass lamp on the nightstand provided most of the room’s soft light. Its neighbors were an eye mask, a couple of books, a small notebook and pen, and a bottle of melatonin supplements. On the other side of the room, Arven’s desk was neat and tidy. To the right of his laptop, she found a well-worn tome bound in pansy purple leather, all crinkled and patinated by age in a manner seldom seen outside of a library’s rare books room. It strangely lacked a printed title or author name. Little sticky note flags protruded from the pages throughout like mushrooms on an old log.

To the left sat a small daily calendar. The entry for Tuesday, October 20th featured a cartoon drawing of a smiling head of lettuce and the phrase “Romaine calm and carry on.” Thumbing through a few more of the pages, Juliana smiled.

All food puns. Of course they are.

A shelf housed more of his cookbooks—overflow storage for the kitchen, she realized—and a number of volumes on nutrition for both people and Pokémon, with a particular focus on elderly ones. The whole collection was alphabetized by last name. The deep windowsill boasted another garden of small, yet healthy and robust-looking plants in repurposed containers. Beside these sat four balls in an orderly line: Mabosstiff’s Pokéball, Shellder and Nacli’s blue and yellow Quick Balls, and Klefki’s shiny emerald green ball. 

Everything in the room was fastidiously organized, clean, and faintly scented with lemon furniture polish. She’d be annoyed if it were any less charming. As it was, Juliana still felt echoes of embarrassment and shame about the state he’d seen her room in, now that she could see how he lived.

Something sticking halfway out of the closet caught her eye. Closer inspection revealed it to be a large corkboard, cluttered up with printed pieces of paper and notecards all connected to each other with strings of red yarn.

At the center, carefully secured with four pushpins, was a scrap of black cotton fabric stained with blood. The very same one she’d torn from the back of her own shirt for his bloody nose on a night that felt like a lifetime ago.

Juliana reached out to touch it now, her fingertips trembling with dread.

Just how close was he to figuring me out before the imposter came along and gave me an ironclad alibi…?

The soft creak of the bedroom door opening behind her startled her so badly that she dove to the floor as if under fire. 

“Uh, you alright there, bud?”

“Yeah!” she squeaked. “Just—looking for a hairpin I dropped!”

Arven apologized for “the mess” and discreetly wheeled his conspiracy theorist corkboard the rest of the way into the walk-in closet, then grabbed a picnic blanket from within and spread it across the floor for them to sit on. 

“Instant noodles?” she asked as he handed her a steaming bowl. 

“Yeah—do you not like them?”

“I’m a first-year college student. I survive on them. Just surprises me that Mr. Nutritional Science would choose the same thing for a midnight snack as me. Aren’t they unhealthy?”

Arven shrugged. “They’re cheap, shelf-stable, and easy to prepare. For some people, dinner might be instant noodles or nothing. And they don’t have to be unhealthy. Sure, they don’t have a ton of nutritional value as is, but you can add things to them to improve that,” he explained. “Try it.”

She greedily slurped up her first bite and nearly keeled over. “Sweet Arceus,” she whispered. “How?”

He grinned. “For vegetables and protein, I added carrots, mushrooms, green onions, bok choy, and a boiled egg. And instead of the seasoning packet, I cook them in the homemade stock I keep in the freezer, so it’s lower in sodium and a lot more flavorful.” 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d still want the seasoning anyway, so I brought it,” he said, handing her a small foil packet. “You can add it if you want, I won’t be offended. But be warned, it’s the crazy spicy kind.”

“I can handle spice just fine.” Juliana stuck her chin out stubbornly, knowing damn well that just because she could do it didn’t mean she would enjoy it. 

”That wasn’t a challenge, bud,” he chuckled. “I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into. I don’t think I’d wanna eat more than a few bites if I dumped all of that in.”

She contemplated this as she sipped the soul-warming broth. ”If you can’t handle spice, then why buy the crazy-spicy kind?”

“Never said I couldn’t handle it. I like spice. Especially when it’s balanced with something sweet. Like habañero honey…” His eyes quickly flicked away from her. “But I like the texture of the noodles in this brand the best. And I never use the seasoning packet anyway, ‘cause it’s mostly just salt and food coloring, so…”

She snatched the packet back up, grinning wickedly. “Hang on. I just had a bad idea.”

Arven raised an eyebrow.

“Truth or spice,” she whispered.

“Truth or spice?”

“Like…didn’t you ever play truth or dare when you were a kid?”

“Not really,” he admitted. 

“Maybe that’s just a Unovan thing?” She scratched her head. “You ask me a question, and I can either answer it truthfully, or pollute this beautiful bowl of nourishing goodness with a little bit of—“ she squinted to read the label on the tiny sachet, “—Head-Exploding Evil Scovillain Peppers. And then I get to ask you something. Whaddya say?”

Arven chewed his noodles for a moment. “Uh…well…”

“We don’t have to.” She shrugged. “Was just an idea, and a bad one at that.”

He leaned closer to her and gently traced a vertical line through her left eyebrow with the tip of his thumb. She suddenly found it hard to breathe. 

“This scar,” he mumbled. “How’d you get it? I’ve wondered for a while.”

“Oh!” Her nervous exhale turned into a laugh.

He gets a chance to ask me anything, and goes right for a blemish, she thought. Classic Arv.

“I’ve had it so long that I forget it’s there.”

“Is it from skating?”

”Well, that’s what I told my mom, but that was a lie. It was actually a fight at school.”

Chopsticks clattered into his bowl. “You got in fights?” 

“Only when I had to! I didn’t go looking for trouble, but when you’re always the new kid and smaller than everyone else, it puts a target on your back. I didn’t let anyone mess with me, and they’d learn to leave me alone.”

”But…why didn’t you just tell the teacher you were getting bullied?”

“‘Cause then they would’ve told my mom?” She raised her eyebrows, unsure why he’d even ask. “And it’s not like it was a big deal. I had it handled. In this particular instance—“ she pointed at the scar, “—they weren’t even bullying me.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a new new kid in school, and apparently the bullies thought I’d just look the other way while they ganged up on him like they did to me.” Juliana’s lip curled with anger about it even now, rubbing at the little raised line of scar tissue.

“I got hit, and I think the blood freaked them out. So I clocked the biggest one twice as hard in the gut, and they ran off. The new kid and I were good friends after that. At least until I had to move again.”

Arven was softly shaking his head, a baffled smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. 

“What?” she asked, elbowing him. 

”Nothing,” he said. “You’ve always been so…you, I guess.”

Just a flash of those piercing eyes that always seemed to see her too clearly, then he blinked them back to normal. Even so, it made her nervous enough to change the subject.

“My turn to ask a question. Riddle me this, Pretty Boy: Why’d you hate me so much when we first met, and what made you change your mind?”

“I didn’t hate you,” he whispered, fond exasperation painting his cheeks pink in the soft lamp light. “I never did.”

“What? But—“

“I acted like a jerk because I just…didn’t understand you yet. And I was wo—“ He clapped a hand over his mouth. 

Her head cocked to one side. “You were what?”

“No. You won’t like it.”

“Try me,” she dared.

He held out his little finger. “Promise me you won’t get mad?”

Juliana set down her chopsticks and locked her pinky with his. “Promise.”

“…I was worried about you.”

She raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Worried about me? After I knocked you on your ass and destroyed your beloved maple bacon breakfast sandwich?”

“You seriously remember that it was maple bacon?” He laughed, then shook it off. “But—yes! Here’s this girl, no helmet, bleeding in three places, clearly in need of some help, but as soon as I tried, you got so mad and stubbornly insisted you were fine!”

“I was—!” Juliana started to raise her voice, then cut herself off. She had promised.

“That!” Arven pointed at her. “More than the skinned knees and no helmet, that right there is what worried me the most. I couldn’t stop thinking about you for the rest of the day!”

A wide smirk broke across her face. “You couldn’t stop thinking about me? Aww,” she teased. 

Arven sputtered. “I was afraid! What if you got, like, tetanus or an infection or something and you were too stubborn to get it treated?”

Her nose wrinkled as even the sarcastic flirtatious implication blew away. “Gross. All I had to do to live rent-free in your head was bleed on your shirt, huh?”

“Honestly, I was relieved when you showed up in my kitchen the next day and started yelling at me, because at least I knew you were okay!”

“I’m…sorry,” she sighed. “About all of it. I wish I’d never run into you. We could’ve just met normally the day after and been friends from the start.”

“No.” He shook his head, eyes softening. “I wouldn’t change it, not one bit. I think…I never would’ve even let you get close if you hadn’t crashed right into me and gotten under my skin. In fact, I’m sure of it, little bud. And so much good came out of that. You really don’t know the half of it.”

Feeling a bit lightheaded, she cleared her throat. “Your turn.”

“Why couldn’t you sleep tonight?”

Juliana stuck out her tongue, pinched up the spice packet, tore open the corner, and tipped some of the alarmingly red powder into her noodles. 

Stirring it in, she asked, “Why can’t you sleep most nights?”

“How’d you—I’ve never told you about that,” Arven said, shocked. 

”Didn’t need to.” She traced the dark circle under his eye with the tip of her index finger. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you. If it’s because of Mabosstiff’s snoring—” she gestured at the bed behind them, “—I’d be happy to get you some earplugs.”

Arven’s face darkened. He seemed to briefly war with himself, picking up the opened spice packet, then setting it back down between them, then picking it up again. 

“Hey, if that’s not—I’ll pick a different—“

“No. I can,” he said, resolute. “I’m…trying to get better about this. Talking about stuff.”

Without knowing why, Juliana set her bowl down and took his hand.

“It’s not…Mabosstiff’s snoring.” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “It’s the opposite of that.”

“You mean…you need noise to fall asleep?”

Arven’s voice cracked, jagged as broken glass. “I’m afraid…that he’ll stop snoring.” 

“Oh,” she whispered. It was as if a new piece of the Arven puzzle had fallen out of the sky and slotted perfectly into place, recontextualizing the whole area of the picture around it in the same moment. “Oh, Arv.”

She wrapped him in her arms.

“No earplugs. I need to hear him. That—“ he rasped against her shoulder, pointing to the fluffy gray mass on the bed, who was currently snoring violently enough to cause one of his jowls to jiggle and flap around with each breath, “—is sweet music to my ears.” 

Unsure of how to respond, she stroked his hair and nodded. 

Arven took a deep breath, collecting himself. “My turn again. Um…how come you’re wearing my coat?”

She looked down and remembered that she was, indeed, wearing the dark green bomber she’d borrowed from him after the incident on Sunday.

“Sorry! Here, you can have it back now, I—“

“Hey, hey,” he said, steadying her by her shoulders. “You don’t need to return it right now. I’m happy that it’s keeping you warm. I was just wondering why you wore it tonight, that’s all.”

“It’s a lot warmer than my hoodies are. Didn’t know how long I’d be out.”

I grabbed it because it smelled like you, she didn’t say. She barely even dared to think it. 

Pointing at a framed photo of him and Mabosstiff that hung above his desk, she asked, “You used to have super long hair. When did you cut it short?”

“About a year ago.”

“Why?”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. Only Mabosstiff’s snores rattled the air between them. 

“…Made it harder to see clearly. And they say hair holds memories. I had things I wanted to forget.”

“What kind of things?”

He reached for the spice packet, but she stopped him.

“Sorry. That was a three-parter. Not exactly fair.”

“Tell me…about your family,” he said. “You’ve mentioned your mom. What’s your dad like?”

The delicious, slightly spicy broth turned to ash in her mouth. Wincing, she swallowed it anyway.

“Strong as an Ursaring and about as tall as one, too—not that you’d ever know by looking at me. I got Mom’s height genes,” she huffed. 

“Heroic. Fearless. Kindhearted. A firefighter. So calm and cool in a crisis, always the first one in and the last one out. Never hesitating to help someone, person or Pokémon, friend or foe or stranger, no matter the danger. And he was always able to find his way back out.”

Arven’s breath hitched. “…Was?”

Despite her best efforts, she slipped up, and he caught it.

“One night…there was this dilapidated old building, not up to code…and a lot quicker than it ever should have, the roof failed and caved in. He’d…gone back in to rescue a friend…”

Her words abruptly stopped obeying her, so she left the story there. 

“Oh—Juliana, I didn’t—I never would’ve asked if I’d—“ 

“—No, it’s fine,” she said, recovering, though her own voice sounded strangely far away. “You couldn’t have known. Not like I go around advertising it. And it was years and years ago.”

“Still, I…never meant to ask you about something so painful.”

“If I couldn’t handle talking about him, I would’ve just taken the spice hit,” she said stubbornly.

Why does he think I’m all broken up about this? Clearly, I’m over it!

“After he died, I never brought him up with my mom, because I could tell it just made her sadder.  But that just meant I never talked about him at all, ever. It’s…kinda nice to do it now. Keeps him alive, in a way…”

She noticed the burning in her throat far too late. Her eyes were already welling up. Horrified, she tried to backpedal. 

“Uh, haha! There I go again, rambling on about all this ancient history. You really gotta cut me off more when I—“

Arven pulled her against his chest just before the tears spilled over. Maybe he knew she would’ve sooner jumped out the window than let him see her cry.

“You know, I think…you must be a lot like he was. You’re so strong, Juliana. I’m glad I understand why now.”

I’m not! I’m not strong! I want to be…I want to be tough and fearless and heroic like he was…

She fought a losing battle to steady her voice. “I—I, uh, think I got some…Head-Exploding Evil Scovillain Pepper. In my eye,” she sobbed. “I’m not—I’m not—!”

He nodded, gently rocking them from side to side, acting like he didn’t notice the growing wet spot on his shirt and couldn’t read her mind. 

“I know you’re not. I know,” he whispered. She felt the ghost of a kiss against her hair. “It’s okay, bud. I…know you.”

Chapter Text

A typical morning for Juliana started with being shaken awake by the first of a long and boisterous receiving line of Rotom-Phone alarms—the one optimistically named “Rise and shine!”

She would ruthlessly snuff out the life of this naïve idealist via the snooze button without so much as opening her eyes. Its brothers-in-arms, labeled in ascending order of urgency, would then assail her, one after the other, in a futile battle to avenge their leader’s noble sacrifice. Only when the one called “CLASS IN FIVE MINUTES” blared its war bugle would her panic reach the threshold necessary to catapult her over the inertial threshold and out of bed.

But Wednesday morning was anything but typical. A sound like a fuzzy, wool-tipped mallet softly yet repeatedly striking a gong lifted her out of a sweet dream—long before “Rise and shine!” ever considered rising or shining.

Juliana resisted raising her heavy eyelids or stirring from the blissful warmth she was cocooned in. It took far worse to rouse her even from her board-stiff dorm bed—tail tapping be damned, she would soak up this perfect comfort until Team Magma boiled the oceans. But soon, the snuffling of a large, wet nose against her hair joined in the percussion, and when a sandpapery tongue began licking her ear, her ticklishness forced her to give up on playing dead.

She opened her eyes. As expected, the herald of dawn slobbering upon her head was Mabosstiff, looking down from atop the bed behind her. The noise that awoke her was the drumming of his tail against the wooden headboard. 

What she did not expect was for the blissful cocoon of warmth wrapped around her to be the arms and torso of a still-sleeping Arven.

She’d never intended to inconvenience him by sleeping over—let alone pass out on him and force him to spend the night on the floor, propped up against the side of his bed. But in spite of Mabosstiff’s efforts to wake them and what appeared to be a highly uncomfortable position, the easy rise and fall of his breathing showed him to be sound asleep. With his long eyelashes kissing his cheeks, this was the most peaceful she’d ever seen Arven. She was so captivated that she could hardly tear her eyes away.

Their half-eaten bowls of gourmet instant noodles sat abandoned a few feet away on the gingham picnic blanket, hers tinged red with sadistic heat, but both long cold. Dawn’s first touches of lilac light were just beginning to color the pale sky outside the window.

Mabosstiff nudged at her hair again, increasingly insistent about something.

Juliana reluctantly tried to pull away from Arven to see what he wanted. She got no more than an inch or two of cold morning air between their bodies before Arven scowled, mumbled something in his sleep, and possessively tightened the already secure perimeter of his arms around her. Mabosstiff whined and delivered a lick to the side of his face, but this produced the same effect.

Juliana felt like a toy in the jealous grip of a little kid refusing to share—and found that she didn’t mind at all. Unable to help herself, she giggled.

Arven blinked.

Through half-shut eyes, more blue than green in the gray light, he saw her. A soft, sleepy little smile spread over his face as he registered hers.

A smile can be a dangerous thing, especially one as powerfully tender and revealing as this. It threatened to unravel Juliana’s closest and hardest-won friendship by compelling her to do something very, very stupid. But before she could obey it, Arven let his eyelids fall shut again. He made a noise somewhere in between a sigh and a contended hum. Then he whispered something she couldn’t quite catch, his jaw went slack, and he drifted off again.

“G’morning, Sleeping Beauty,” she whispered back, adoration turning to amusement.

He blinked at her again, then yelped and released her, scooching across the floor and straightening up.

“Uh…hi!” He cleared his throat. “Guess I must’ve…”

Her silent chuckling gained a bar or two of volume.

“Huh? W-what’s so funny? Wait—did I do something embarrassing in my sleep?” Arven hid his face in his hands. “Did I drool on you? Did I say something? Oh man, please tell me I didn’t!”

She ruffled his hair affectionately and shook her head. “Nah. Mabosstiff drooled on me, not you. I didn’t mean to wake you. Or to fall asleep on you? But I guess it’s a bit late to apologize for that,” she said. “I’ve been zonked out on your chest like a Jigglypuff victim for who knows how long, and I bet your neck’s killing you for it now—sorry! You totally could’ve woken me up and kicked me out—“

“—No, no, it’s fine!” he blurted. “I slept great, fantastic actually—you can sleep with me anytime!”

She smirked at him, incredulous, and waited for his brain to catch up to his mouth. As soon as it did, he leaped back on heels and palms with a mortified yell, landing halfway across the room.

Juliana fell forward, howling and pounding her fists into the floor.

If he were into me like that, I wonder which would be better: His accidental double entendres, or his intentional ones?

“Not—not like—I didn’t—!” he choked, perhaps the reddest she’d ever seen him.

“Relax, I know what you meant,” she managed to wheeze, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Look, Arv, I know you’re not into me like that. No need to worry yourself sick over every slip of the tongue between best friends—honestly, it’s way weirder to make a big deal out of it.”

Face unreadable, he shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. “Right.”

Mabosstiff grumbled at him.

“Right!” He clapped his hands together. “Breakfast time, isn’t it, ol’ bud?”

Cupping a warm mug of dark roast coffee, Juliana stood on her tiptoes to peek over his shoulder and watch him work. “Is it Mabosstiff’s birthday or something?”

Arven used a set of tongs to flip over the lean cut of steak sizzling away in one of the cast-iron skillets on the stovetop, revealing a beautiful brown crust underneath. “Hm? No, why?”

“You cook him breakfast from scratch like this every day?”

“Yep!” He grinned with pride. “My bud’s always had discerning taste, so I used to just make homemade treats for him, but a while back he got so picky he wouldn’t touch the store-bought Pokémon food at all anymore.”

His expression clouded, but Arven continued.

“I took him to the Pokémon Center, and they said…considering his age, the most important thing is just to make sure he eats something. So I did loads of research—being a Nutritional Science major helps—and started cooking both of his meals every day. I do my best to make it as balanced and healthy as possible within the limits of what I know he’ll actually eat.”

“Those sandwiches you gave him on the camping trip…I thought those were just extras of what the rest of us had. You actually made him his own?” Juliana shook her head in disbelief.

Mabosstiff nudged his way in between them and nuzzled up against the side of her leg. She stroked the top of his silky head. “You really are devoted to him, aren’t you? Getting up early every day to do this…”

Arven took a sip of his own coffee and scratched Mabosstiff behind the ears. “It’s the least I can do,” he said. “I love him. He’s always been there for me.”

With a deft flick of his wrist, he tossed the contents of the other pan into the air. Brussels sprouts and bite-sized pieces of sweet potato sailed up, then landed elegantly back in the pan with a sound like applause.

Absentmindedly hopping up to sit on the counter, Juliana suddenly recalled his pointed anxiety about injuries when she was teaching him how to skate.

“Oh,” she breathed, horrified. “‘I can’t afford to break my wrists.’ You weren’t worried about the pain or the cost if you fractured something. You were worried…that you wouldn’t be able to take care of him!”

He gave her a wry half-smile. “I’m surprised you remember that. I think you called me ‘princess’?”

“I’m so sorry!” Head in her hands, she squirmed with shame. “I made fun of you for that—what’s wrong with me? Of course you were worried! You have no idea how much I hate myself for the way I treated you before I knew you.”

“Hey,” he said softly, prying her hands away from her eyes. “Apologies are one thing—even though it was at least half my fault and I’ve already forgiven you for all of it. But if you hate on my best bud, we’re gonna have a problem. Plus, you were the one who told me ‘there’s no “sorry” in roller derby.’”

He took advantage of having both of her hands in one of his to deliver a tickle-jab to her ribs, stealing a laugh out of her that echoed in a breathtaking grin on his face.

“Now, how ‘bout I dish this up for him, then throw something together for the two of us?”

As it turned out, Arven’s idea of throwing something together was perfectly poached eggs by the half-dozen, sliced fresh fruit, and a hearty stack of the best, fluffiest, custard-iest Kalosian toast she’d ever had in her life.

“You’d better be careful, feeding me this well,” Juliana warned.

“Why’s that?”

Because I keep having to stop myself from proposing marriage? she thought, then scolded her own ridiculousness. 

“I’m like a wild Pokémon you made the mistake of feeding once that just keeps crawling back to whine at you for more!”

“Was it a mistake? What if that’s exactly what I want?”

She froze mid-bite. Even though she knew better than to hope, her cheeks warmed.

“What if I’m slathering honey on a tree, or throwing bait at you, because I want you to keep coming back? Betcha didn’t think about that,” he teased, mischief sparkling in his eyes. “You keep thinking you’re bothering me, or taking advantage of me somehow—but all the while, I’ve got you eating right out of my hands.”

And what beautiful hands they are. She swallowed, heat creeping up her neck.

Then a creak like a violin in a horror movie made her blood run cold.

A door down the hallway swung open. Footsteps shuffled toward them.

In that instant, it dawned on Juliana that she was sitting in Arven’s kitchen at seven in the morning, eating an elaborate breakfast he’d cooked for her, still wearing his jacket, mildly disheveled, with her face in high color. Even to a totally neutral third party, the optics would be suggestive, to say the least.

But to a certain roommate who was already practically foaming at the mouth for even the tiniest whiff of attraction between the two of them?

The unadulterated panic in Juliana’s face was met with initial confusion in Arven’s before he did the math and arrived at the same conclusion—but with Drayton now rounding the corner, it was too late to do anything.

The team captain trudged into view, yawning loudly, in dragon-scale patterned joggers and the same purple zip-up hoodie that he either never took off or owned multiples of. Juliana held perfectly still, not chancing so much as a blink or a breath, like a Buneary hiding behind a tree from a prowling, hungry Lycanroc.

By the grace of Arceus, Drayton was either too tired to notice her or so secure in his expectation that she could never be dumb enough to get herself into this very situation that he simply refused to accept even the most glaring evidence to the contrary, dismissing the testimony of his own eyes as unreliable.

What do we—? Arven mouthed to her as Drayton lazily opened the fridge door and bent to fumble around for something.

Juliana dove under the kitchen table. The tablecloth didn’t reach the floor, so she would still be totally visible if Drayton looked low. He found the orange juice he’d been digging for and stood back up, gulping straight from the carton. But something made him pause.

Slowly turning his head toward Arven, his bleary eyes sharpened and zeroed in on the chair that Juliana’s ass had been warming until mere seconds ago.

“…Did…I just see—?”

Arven vigorously shook his head. “—Nuh-uh.” 

Drayton scratched his head thoughtfully, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “…Huh. Thought I saw—“

“—Nope.” Arven shrugged. “Just me.”

“…Then…who’d I hear you talking—?”

“—Mabosstiff.” Arven gestured at his Pokémon, who for his part nodded enthusiastically and woofed in agreement.

Drayton focused in on the tabletop, conspicuously laid with two full plates and sets of silverware. He stepped away from the fridge and closer to her hiding place. Juliana held her breath again, fearing an exhale might tickle his ankles.

“…How come there are two—?”

“—His,” Arven answered, firmer this time. Mabosstiff leaped up onto the empty chair and sat down so politely that Juliana half expected him to pick up the utensils and continue where she’d left off on her Kalosian toast.

Still holding her breath, she took a risk, somersaulting over her shoulder and rolling across the open floor. Arven feigned a coughing fit, drawing attention to himself to allow her to duck behind the still-ajar fridge door, ensuring Drayton wouldn’t be able to see her if he whipped back around. 

She laid her cheek to the sunflower-patterned tile and peeked through the tiny gap under the bottom of the fridge door.

“Hey, you want a plate too, roomie? I made extra,” Arven added, standing to put an arm around Drayton’s shoulders and firmly steer him over to the countertop where the food was laid out. While Drayton’s back was turned, Juliana silently scurried to snatch up her shoes, opened the front door just a crack, flattened herself into a two-dimensional concept, and slipped out like a ghost.

She would yearn for the rest of that Kalosian toast all day, but at least she’d gotten away without Drayton finding out she spent the night.

Chapter Text

“Heh heh! No, don’t tell me!” Drayton teased, delighting in the way Juliana furiously—and fruitlessly—launched herself at the object he was dangling high above her head like a gleaming silver carrot. “Lemme guess: Arv’s got some kinda top-secret breakfast club now? Or were you two having another one of your tickle fights last night?”

The shrill squeaking of her sneakers on the vinyl gymnasium floor punctuated each leap as she sprang up over and over like the world’s most vicious Spoink, snarling in Drayton’s smug face.

“Gimme—back—my—KEYS!”

Jumping and clawing for them, Juliana cursed many things.

She cursed the genes that clapped handcuffs on her middle school growth spurt mere moments after it began, sentencing her to a lifetime of too-long pants and waiters offering her the kids’ menu. Her compactness was no issue in the entirely lateral sport of roller derby. Having such a low center of gravity relative to her larger opponents was sometimes even an advantage, granting her the stability to slip right past—and through—them like a low-riding phantom. But she was certainly not built for the game of keep-away that Drayton was forcing her to play now.

She cursed the keys themselves, a disloyal gang of outlaws who had made it their mission in life to give her the slip at every last opportunity.

When Juliana reached the door of her dorm room that morning after her not-quite-walk-of-shame and discovered they were missing, she had to beg her roommate to let her in through their shared bathroom—and Nemona agreed, but insisted on a Pokémon battle at the battle court first. By the time she’d been pummeled by the second-year ace of the Uva University battle team, dashed to the Pokémon Center in the student union to heal up, and finally got back into her room to wash the failure off and grab her backpack, her early start to the day had been erased. She was just as late to her first class as usual.

Knowing the likelihood that she’d lost them somewhere during her aimless skating the night before, she had already resigned herself to coughing up enough LP for a month’s worth of ramen in exchange for a set of replacement keys at the student housing office after derby practice. So for all of five seconds, she had felt relieved to learn that her keys weren’t truly lost—but now that she knew who was sitting on them the whole time, more than anything else, Juliana was cursing a third-year student named Drayton Knight.

“Sure thing! Soon as you explain how they ended up on our kitchen floor?” He snickered. “Or what you were doing at our place at the crack of dawn? Or why you felt the need to sneak out right under the Drayster’s nose?”

From the first row of bleachers behind them, Crispin, Amarys, and even Kieran erupted in loud whistles and whoops that echoed off the high walls and ceiling. Lacey kept quiet, but couldn’t hide the shock on her face.

“Doesn’t matter what I say,” Juliana wheezed, glaring up at Drayton with her hands on her knees. “You’ll find a way to twist even the most innocent explanation to fit what you’ve already decided is going on. And why should I have to explain my personal life to you anyway?!”

“Ohoho! So you’re admitting it! You hearin’ this, Lace?”

Lacey rolled her eyes. “This is not right, Drayton. Give Juliana her keys. Nobody likes a sore winner.”

Sore winner?

“I’m not admitting anything!” Juliana stepped back, then took a running start and pounced at him again, growling ferociously.

Arven, running a few minutes late, finally walked into practice and headed for his usual spot beside Kieran in the bleachers. “Hey, what’s going on? You guys doing basketball drills or something?”

“Your roommate—won’t gimme—my keys back!”

Drayton laughed and flung the keyring up toward the rafters and ductwork, catching it in his other hand behind him before swinging it up high again where she couldn’t grab it.

“Heh heh, glad you could make it, roomie! I was just congratulating you and Splits on finally having some good ol’ rowdy—UHF!”

Flying out of nowhere like a rogue comet, Carmine leveraged her height to easily snatch the keys out of Drayton’s hand and body-checked him. He hit the floor with a thud as if he’d been run over by a stampeding Copperajah.

Before Juliana could object to the unfairness of being ganged up on by a tag team, Carmine tossed the poached prize to her and smoothly skated away.

“Sorry,” Carmine singsonged to Drayton with a pout and a sarcastic wave. She flicked her dark hair over her shoulder. “Clumsy me!”

Juliana smiled.

Guess having an overgrown goth Farigiraf for a friend comes in handy…

“Heh. That’s…classic Punchy for ya,” Drayton groaned, wincing as he peeled his face up off the floor. Worn out from tormenting Juliana, he didn’t actually bother getting all the way back up. Instead, Drayton chose to lounge with his arms folded behind his head, as though he were lying on a sun-kissed Alolan beach rather than a gritty, fluorescent-blasted gymnasium floor. “As I was saying, congrats to you and Splits on taking your relationship to the next level last night!”

“What are you—nothing happened!” Arven snapped, grabbing Drayton by the front of his jacket. “I just ran into her at the store by chance. Neither of us could sleep, so she came up with me and we played truth or spice until we both dozed off! That’s all it was.”

Drayton choked on a laugh, eyes popping out of his skull as he sat up. “Truth or WHAT?!”

“Y’know…like truth or dare?” Arven blinked innocently. “But different.”

“Heheheh! Oh man—first it was a tickle fight, now truth or spice—this is just too good! Well, Splits, care to explain what makes it different?”

Lacing up her skates over on the bleachers, Juliana clenched her jaw and said nothing.

“Finally given up on denying it, then?” Drayton gloated, though he once again seemed to be speaking more to Lacey than to her. “You and Arv are an item! Like two peas in a Wimpod!”

Juliana bit her tongue and tugged her laces tighter and tighter until the thin polyester cord dug into her fingers. She knew the modus operandi of bullies—at this point, anything else she said would just lay more ammunition in Drayton’s hands. To her relief, Arven had also fallen silent.

“There’s only one P in ‘Wimpod,’ you blockhead,” Lacey piped up.

“Ohoho, maybe so, but love is spelled with two U’s today,” Drayton said, clicking his tongue at Juliana and Arven. “And all this alphabet soup reminds me—I think I’ve got a certain W to discuss with you, Lace.”

“Are you done?”

Juliana’s voice rattled out as icy and dead as a January wind through bare, brittle branches. The cackling and tittering from beside her on the bleachers ceased at once.

Her Frost Breath had also landed a super-effective blow against her Dragon-type opponent, so she doubled down.

“Fine. You got me, Dray! I have no friends, just potential conquests. Nobody’s safe, ever, no matter how blatantly disinterested they may be,” she spat. “Sheesh—you’re so pressed about who I’m dating that if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanna be next in line!”

Juliana fastened her knee and elbow pads in satisfied silence. It felt good to hit back, even though she knew he’d make her regret taking the bait. What she didn’t yet know was how much she would regret it.

“What if you didn’t know better?” 

She froze. “…Huh?”

“What are you—?” Arven tried.

Drayton’s smirk widened. “Maybe I do wanna be next in line!”

Lacey quietly gasped.

“Sorry, I think I just...” Juliana shook her head around violently, as if some brain-eating amoeba in a residual drop of lake water in her ears might be to blame for this auditory hallucination. “What?”

Drayton knelt down in front of her, suavely slicked back his bleached hair, and winked a smoldering hazel eye.

“This is the Drayster asking you out on a date, Splits. Whaddya say?”

Juliana was shocked, repulsed, and utterly baffled.

The audience beside her produced a scandalized, drama-hungry cacophony as they cheered and drummed their feet on the rickety metal bleachers.

“You—you can’t do that! No way!” Arven screeched at Drayton.

Even if it was more or less exactly what she was about to say, anger flashed like heat lightning across her skin and burned up all her reasons to turn Drayton down.

Why does he think he gets to decide that? Is it really so unbelievable to him that someone would ask me out?

“And why not, roomie?” Drayton’s eyes glinted expectantly. He toyed with his fingertips like a cartoon villain. “By all means, speak now or forever hold your peace! Or peas? Heh heh.”

“Yeah. Says who?” Nostrils flaring, Juliana glared daggers at Arven over Drayton’s shoulder. “Just ‘cause I’m not your cup of tea doesn’t mean nobody else wants a sip.”

“But—but—you can’t just—you’re not single!” Arven stuttered, skin shading purple. “You already have a…boyfriend? Girlfriend? Significant other!”

For the space of five heartbeats, Juliana looked at Arven as if he had started speaking in the high-pitched squeals that Finizens use to communicate with one another.

“…No?”

All the color drained from Arven’s dumbstruck face.

“But…Cass…!”

A laugh exploded out of her.

“Did you think Cass and I were dating?”

“You’re…not?” Arven’s voice climbed another octave, edging toward the stratosphere. “What the—since WHEN?!”

“Since never!” Her chest shook with giggles at the absurdity of the idea. “Cass is my…”

Blackmailing hostage-taker with unclear demands? Accurate, but far too revealing.

Friend? Can’t say that with a straight face…

“—Group project partner from hell,” was what she ultimately settled on, rolling her eyes in disgust. “But definitely not anything more than that. Ha! What gave you that idea?”

Arven’s brain blew a fuse. The air seemed to rush out of him like he’d been gut-punched. His gorgeous green eyes were both faraway and flashing wildly, as if he were caught in the four-way collision of an epiphany, a prophetic vision, déjà vu, and some sort of acid trip.

“Well—I—you—you still can’t just—!”

He sputtered like a Revavroom in dire need of an oil change, but Juliana was the one left fuming. She rose and elbowed Drayton out of her way to get in Arven’s space, jabbing a finger into his chest.

“—Lemme make one thing crystal clear. Me and my awful taste in men can do whatever I want,” she hissed, throwing his own weeks-old words back in his face. “So get off your high Horsea—“

“—Ohoho-kay!” Drayton squeaked, stepping in between them with a look of perplexed alarm at the whiplash-inducing turn the conversation had taken. He draped an arm around Juliana’s shoulders, and she stiffened and fought the urge to wrinkle her nose. Arven, meanwhile, murderously glared at Drayton and twitched. 

“Now that we’ve established how very single and ready to mingle you are, how ‘bout it, Splits? Can I swing a dinner date with you, say, Friday? Just you and The Drayster, mono e mono. Or…mono e woman-o.”

What came out of her mouth was, “…Why?”

She could at least be certain that this wasn’t coming from any genuine attraction on Drayton’s part. As of two days ago, he was still head-over-Heliolisks in love with someone else. Which meant that this had to be some sort of scheme…but what could possibly be the angle? To Juliana, this seemed like the dumbest thing Drayton could possibly do for his odds with Lacey!

Unless…he’s trying to use me to make her jealous?

He’s got entirely the wrong idea about what the problem is between them, but it’s refreshing to see him trying to do something instead of just drowning in denial…

“Who wouldn’t wanna score a date with a charming catch like you? Unless…there’s some reason why you don’t want to? Somebody else already call dibs on your heart?” Drayton rocked onto his tiptoes, unsubtly waggling his eyebrows in Arven’s direction.

Now I practically have to say yes! He’s trying to force me to me admit that I…

Wait. No! I can’t say yes! My friend’s in love with him!

With the pure panic of her impossible dilemma painted all over her expression like Mr. Mime makeup, Juliana’s eyes locked onto Lacey’s.

Lacey looked like she was trying to puzzle out what Drayton was doing just as much as Juliana was. But interestingly, she didn’t look devastated about her crush asking out her friend. And when she saw Juliana’s desperate plight, her resolve seemed to firm up.

She squared her shoulders, winked pointedly at Juliana, and skated up to the trio.

“I’ve got a totes adorable idea. Why don’t we make it a double date?” Lacey lilted, hinging at the hip to demurely peek out from behind Juliana.

“Arven, darling, would you be so kind as to be my escort for an evening?”

Like a massive electrical surge fizzling its way around a circuit, lightbulbs flashed, popped and blew out in the order of Juliana, then Drayton, and finally Arven.

“Huh?”

“WHAT?!”

“Wha—me?!”

Chapter Text

“Know thy enemy as thyself, and thou need not fear the result of even a hundred battles!”¹ As Nemona’s fist audibly smacked against her palm, a familiar bloodlust glinted in her eyes. “So tell me about this guy’s weaknesses! What’s he into? What Type is he—er, I mean, what's his type?”

Lying face-down like a Staryu in the pile of clothes they’d torn from both of their closets and cast off like so many he-loves-me-not flower petals, Juliana’s tortured groan was muffled. Mimikyu nudged her with its head.

“No clue. All I know is I'm not his type.”

She pouted as Nemona pulled her by the shoulders back into a sitting position so she could finish smoothing her short hair into place.

“Then take yourself out of the equation! There’s plenty of moves you can use to take the upper hand by turning an opponent’s strengths into weaknesses—like Grass Knot, for example. You can still win this even if you don’t have a type advantage!”

Juliana grimaced at her roommate’s choice of words. Eighteen hours earlier, she had very nearly blown her cover by tying a knot.

Sitting in the dirt, Arven’s electric camp lantern burned little more than an orange hole in the blue dark, like the cooling coals of an improperly extinguished and recklessly abandoned campfire pit. Still, it was a chilly, clear night, and with the aid of the moon and stars overhead, they could see well enough to work.

The Lurking Steel Titan turned out to be a king-sized Orthworm capable of moving like a quicksilver river. On asphalt, the legendarily light-footed Zoruva’s speed was unmatched, but in the middle of an East Province quarry, skate wheels were a non-starter. In the end, the two of them snared the giant monster using a massive version of one of Arven’s famous rope net traps before defeating it in battle.

Due to the large scale, the trap required a number of knots to be tied into stakes around the perimeter of the site, which she took care of herself while he handled the more complicated trigger mechanism. Her mind had been so preoccupied with this double date debacle—and the grudge she was nursing against Arven about it—that she hadn’t given her handiwork much thought, even as her finger began to ache from looping the thick polyester cable around and around.

But now, as they took down the trap together and Arven tugged at one of those knots, the realization hit with a force that knocked the wind out of her.

Two loops and a swoop, and Bob’s your uncle—you’ve got a taut-line hitch.

Knot after knot she had tied in precisely the way he taught her six days earlier, as if her subconscious mind was scrawling her signature in lurid red ink all over the sky. It would be less obvious of a confession if she just yanked the damn Zoroark mask off and handed him her photo ID!

She held her breath and waited for the accusations to fly, feeling as if she now stood with her back pressed against Arven’s Zoruva conspiracy theory corkboard while he threw knives at it blindfolded. Biting her tongue so as not to make a sound, her heart pounded in anticipation of the snick each knife would make as it pinned the hem of her sleeve or the hairs on her arms, until he could trace an outline, in blades or blood, that was undeniably Juliana-shaped.

But none ever came. Arven’s eyes, normally sharp as daggers, always so frighteningly attuned even to mistakes half as glaring as this one, were a thousand miles away as he picked and pulled at the knotted section of rope.

She wasn’t the only one distracted tonight. After trying unsuccessfully to talk herself out of it, her concern for him got the better of her.

“You’re awfully quiet,” she said, testing the waters while carefully maintaining the dusky Zoruva voice and accent.

“Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Lot on my mind.”

Her brow furrowed with worry under the mask. “…Mabosstiff?”

“No…I’ve got a date tomorrow. Today, I guess.”

“Oh.” Dread spiked through her, but she also felt like she would explode if he didn’t tell her more. “And you’re…nervous?”

He dropped the rope and rocked back on his heels. She studied his profile, tired and drawn and far older than his years and so achingly, guttingly beautiful.

“Am I supposed to bring flowers, or is that just a movie thing? Do I hold the door, or is that antiquated? And man, what do I do about—this was never supposed to—ugh!” Arven’s head fell into his hands. “I don’t know how to feel, or what to expect, but…let’s just say, the whole thing really doesn’t feel like I always imagined it would.”

Knowing the answer, she asked the question anyway. “You’ve never been on a date before?”

Arven rolled his eyes and kicked at a pebble in the dirt. “Go ahead, laugh it up. I’m twenty years old. I know, it’s pathetic.”

“I’m not laughing.” Sitting just a few feet from him, she spoke as softly as she could. “And I don’t think it’s pathetic. But…for a first date, you don’t seem all that excited? If you wanna talk about it…”

He took a quiet breath, features twisting into a sardonic sneer, picking again at the knot that held her leaking vessel of secrets together. Her mind raced.

If he finds out who Zoruva is, then I’ll have to explain why I came to his rescue that night, and why I kept helping him after that, and why I didn’t tell him the truth even after we became friends, and why the thought of him going on a date with someone else makes me want to curl up and die, and why I’m pretty sure all of those questions have the same answer…

“I got an email from my father today.” Arven enunciated each word, short and choppy.

She waited a moment for him to say more. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat. “…Um…what did it—”

“—And see, the problem with that is, he died a year ago.”

The mask hid her face, but not her gasp.

You used to have super long hair. When did you cut it short?

About a year ago.

Why?

They say hair holds memories. I had things I wanted to forget.

“He…? Arven, I’m so—“

“—Or, I should say, that’s when I found out he was dead.” He was glaring up at the sky now.

“They could only estimate when it actually happened, because of how long it took for anybody to actually stumble upon what was left of him down in that…pit,” he spat. A shiver ran through him. “Last time I saw him was right before my sixteenth birthday, so there’s just this…question mark that’s three years wide. Could’ve happened anytime in there. I’ll never know.”

About a year ago, I decided to start looking for ways to keep Mabosstiff healthy for…as long as I can.

Arven’s obsession with Mabosstiff’s mortality was triggered by the sudden death of the father who gave the Pokémon to him in the first place. Of course it was.

Juliana felt sick. It was right in front of her the whole time. Why hadn’t she figured it out sooner?

He’s literally trying to keep alive the last link he has to his dad, she thought. All that grief…he’s redirecting it…

“That’s—that’s—oh—” she stammered. Keeping up the fake accent took almost more concentration than she had available right now. “But—you said—what about—?”

“—The Professor—Dad,” Arven spat, correcting himself as if he were talking about two different people. He angrily pushed his hair out of his face and away from his eyes.

“—He had programmed this AI chatbot thing to send emails out to me at regular intervals, because his research was just so damn important that he couldn’t even spare five minutes every few weeks to write a sentence or two to his own son.” Arven clenched his jaw. The words came out sharp, staccato. “I didn’t find out they were fake until the investigation, so it’s not like I had any way of knowing he’d died. And I still get ‘em sometimes, whenever I least expect it. Like today.” He laughed darkly. “It’s disgusting. This…cruel joke. He’s dead and he can’t even be bothered to haunt me properly.”

Her voice was dangerously brittle as his broke. “…I can’t even imagine—”

“—But you wanna know what the worst part is? The most pathetic part? I still wish Dad was here, so I could ask him to tell me what to do about this stuff!” Now that the floodgates were open, he seemed incapable of stopping the truth, and the tears, from spilling out in a rush of emotion. “Even though he was the furthest thing from a loving parent. Even though he’s probably the last person anyone should ever take relationship advice from. Even though I constantly worry I’ve inherited too much of him not to turn into him anyway!”

It was only the seismic degree of shock still reverberating within that kept her from pulling Arven into her arms and holding him there for a century.

That, and the awareness that her plastic mask would brush cold and impersonal against his tearstained cheek. He deserved better right now than a hug from a two-faced liar, even as she felt the sting of knowing he had once again chosen not to tell Juliana about any of this when he had the perfect opportunity two nights earlier.

“That isn’t pathetic. You know, Arven, it’s…good to talk about it. And it’s incredibly brave of you to talk about it.”

Another bitter laugh erupted from him, followed by sniffling. “No. It’s not.”

“It’s…not?”

“You’re Zoruva,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “You're a hero who casts no shadow, 'cause you are a shadow. I have nothing to lose when I talk to you. It’s no different than if I put on that mask myself and poured my heart out to a stranger. Or put it all in a reply to that damn Professor Chatbot’s email."

Maybe...that mask of yours is a knife that cuts both ways.

It was funny how Juliana had never felt closer to him, yet in the same moment, the distance between them seemed oceans wider and deeper than it had ever been. Something about Arven just seemed to attract paradoxes.

His misty eyes took on that faraway look again. “But opening up to someone you actually know? Someone who’s got enough of you to hurt you, who could leave? That’s hard. I’ve seen it.” He let out a heavy, ragged sigh. “That’s the bravery I lack.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

“I understand. I’m…” Unable to reveal just how much she understood, she had to stop herself from going for the sorry for your loss cop-out.

“Look, I’ve never been haunted by the chatbot ghost of my father. But I did break my right pointer finger when I was thirteen.”

“And you think that’s the SAME?!” Arven shrieked a hysterical laugh, eyes flashing with rage in the dark. “You’ve got some nerve—!”

“—I didn’t get it splinted,” she continued calmly.

She was intentionally leaving out the potentially incriminating details, like how she sustained the injury by falling off a stepladder while she was doing her monthly inspection of the smoke detector, or how she didn’t tell her mom so she wouldn’t worry.

“I just quit using it. Taught myself to write with my left hand. Eventually it healed, but it was never the same—I still can’t curl it into itself all the way like I can with the other. See?”

She tried to demonstrate, wincing a little at the pain, but the bulk added by her skating gloves obscured the difference. “Huh, I guess you kinda can’t see—”

“—If you have a point, make it! Otherwise, shove off!”

“My point is usually it’s fine, but then I try to do something weird, like tying a bunch of knots in a giant Orthworm trap, and boom, suddenly it hurts almost as bad as it did the day I broke it!”

Arven threw his hands up, about to blow right through that notoriously short fuse, and Arceus, when did she start to love even that?

“And?!”

“And—that’s grief!”

Blinking, he swallowed whatever insult he was about to lob at her.

“…Oh. Huh. That’s…sorry.”

“S’okay,” she said. “Your fingers are gonna hurt enough as it is from undoing all these knots. Least you can do is quit beating yourself up for how you feel.”

He nodded and returned to loosening the ties.

“Y’know, I don’t think it would even make any difference if he were still alive,” Arven muttered. “We never had the kind of relationship where I could’ve talked to him about what to do on a first date.” Another sigh, this one drearier than the others. “Or how you’re supposed to fix it when you get everything all wrong...”

“That’s grief, too. The wishing that things had been different, even before they died.”

“Knowing what to call it doesn’t change it, though,” he said. “What do I do, Zoruva? Usually I can ask Mabosstiff for advice, but on this? I’ve got no one.”

“Just…be yourself!” Giving him tips for how to flirt with her friend made her want to throw herself into the Orthworm’s tunnel and shovel dirt into her mouth like candy, but seeing him with no self-confidence was somehow even worse than that.

“Trust yourself, Arven. I mean, come on—who could help falling in love with you?”

She hated lying to him. She hated the truth even more. The words scared her as they fell from her own lips, not least for how easy they were to say. How hard it was becoming to hold them back.

Arven laughed weakly. “It’s not that simple. All I seem to be able to do is screw things up.”

“That’s not true!” she cried. 

With the expectation that she would regret it terribly, she asked him one more question.

“Listen, this person. The one you’re going on the date with. I mean, you…you must like them, right? You wouldn’t be going out with them if you didn’t. So just…say what comes naturally, do what your heart tells you to do.“

That piercing, searching look found her, saw her, and all at once, she felt far too exposed.

Juliana wasn’t sure if he was seeing her through the holes in the mask, or the other way around, or if the façade it offered had fallen away from both of them. All she knew was that her skin itched where her mascara and eyeliner ran in the tracks of her tears, trapped between flushed cheek and hot plastic.

“To be honest,” he whispered, “I wish it was you instead.”

Juliana was squeezing her eyeliner pencil so tightly between her right index finger and thumb that the wood began to creak. Clicking her tongue, Nemona lightly slapped her wrist and brought her back into the present.

“Nuh-uh, Juice, put that down—we’re doing a bold lip, not a bold eye.”

“But…I always—!”

“—You told me you wanna look like a legit snack, but also like you didn’t try at all. You know what eyeliner says?”

“Nothing, because pencils can’t talk?” Nevertheless, Juliana dropped it and rubbed at her finger, which ached in complaint.

“Eyeliner says ‘I tried so hard that I was willing to stab myself in the eye a few times.’” Nemona took her hand and swatched a few subtly different shades of blood-red lipstick onto the back of it. Mimikyu tittered with interest. 

“On the other hand, if you show up with your hair still wet and no makeup other than some slightly smudged lipstick, that says, ‘I just stepped out of the shower, I got ready in the cab on the way here, and I’m still a one-hit KO.’ Very Kalosian, and everyone knows that’s sexy. And sexy is how you win. Now hold still,” she ordered, and began to artfully apply the winner of the swatch-off onto Juliana’s lips with her fingertip.

“This isn’t a battle, Nemona,” she replied, forcing her roommate to immediately pause her finger-painting. “And even if it was, I’m not trying to win him. He’s my friend. I just need to…prove a point. I wanna rub in his face how wrong he was about the whole thing.”

“By…showing him how hot you are?”

“...Yeah.”

Nemona smiled and nodded. “Makes perfect sense.”

“Really?”

“No, I don’t get it at all. But I’m asexual, so what else is new?” Nemona resumed her lipstick masterpiece. “If nothing else, this warpaint is kinda like Poison Point. Discourages your actual date from going in for a kiss.”

Juliana gagged and recoiled, nudging Nemona’s fingertip over the border of her lower lip. Nemona groaned at her.

“I just told you to hold still!”

Juliana chuckled. “Thought you said you wanted it smudged?”

“Strategically smudged. Not…that smudged.” Fed up with her wiggling, Nemona handed her a makeup remover wipe and the tube of lipstick to fix it herself as she rose from the rejects pile. Mimikyu bounced up and down until Juliana gave in and pretended to apply some of the lipstick to its doodled-on mouth. 

“Plan B,” she announced. “How about we pivot to a Copycat strat? You know he’s attracted to the girl he’s going on this date with. Try dressing like her.”

Juliana cringed.

“That’ll never work.”

“Why not?”

Because apparently, his list is Zoruva, possibly followed by Lacey, then followed by any other person on the planet, then seventy feet of garbage, and I’m somewhere way below that, she didn’t say.

“Because I don’t own frilly bobby socks or anything pastel! It’s a wonder I even own a skirt. Plus, as we’ve established, the last thing I wanna do is become Drayton’s type.”

Behind Juliana, hangers screeched as they slid along the closet rail and clacked into each other.

“Hm…okay. Plan Triple-S. Where are you guys going for this date?”

“The olive harvest festival in Cortondo. And what’s Plan Triple-S?”

“Show some skin.”

Juliana squeaked. “Nemo!”

“Guys are simple creatures! High slit, critical hit. Or so I’m told.”

The hanger collisions increased to a fever pitch before they abruptly stopped. The silence was unnerving.

“Why did I ask you for date outfit advice?” Juliana sighed.

“You didn’t—I just heard you groaning miserably in our bathroom and figured a man had to be responsible somehow. But if you’re asking why you should listen to me: The friend you’d usually go to is the one taking your crush on this double date!”

“I do not have a—”

Nemona was dangling a dress in front of her face.

“This should fit you. Plus, it’s perfect for the olive harvest festival! You’ll look literally hot!”

Juliana ghosted her fingertips over the ivory silk, patterned all over with hand-painted, cherry-red chili peppers. Considering the spaghetti straps and the lace trim at the hem and neckline, it was little more than a backless slip. Intimidatingly short—then again, so was she.

Juliana hummed with intrigue. Then her eye snagged on the price tag still attached to it, studded with so many digits that she initially mistook it for the boutique’s phone number. A record scratched in her mind.

“Oh no, no way, NO! Nemo, this is—!”

“—Just taking up space in my closet!” She gleefully tore the tag away and put a finger over Juliana’s lips to shush her.

“I’ve tried telling my big sister that this stuff isn’t my style—and that I’ve gone up like, at least two dress sizes since I started weightlifting and hitting the rowing machine—but she keeps sending me care packages anyway, like she thinks she can shrink me down into a girly-girl if she just tries hard enough. It’s no use to me, so please, do me a favor and take it off my hands!”

“But—I can’t possibly—!”

“Yes, you can!" Nemona grinned broadly at her. "Now put on your armor, and go win this battle!”

Chapter Text

The fiery beacon of the laser sight speared the target. A warning shot in itself, but like the first turn of Solar Beam, that little pinprick of scalding red light only heralded greater carnage to come.

Juliana took a deep breath and held it. Squeezed the trigger.

And…squeezed it again.

Then...smacked the gun. A few times. 

For once in her life, she had arrived on time for something—and just to ensure she’d never make that mistake again, her reward was a few spare minutes to get ripped off at the Cortondo Olive Harvest Festival’s carnival-style shooting gallery game while she waited for everyone else to show up and take her mood from sour to rancid.

Cursing under her breath, she inspected the blue plastic toy pistol in her left hand. The cylinder was fully loaded with foam bullets, and the barrel was free of obvious obstructions, but the trigger was stuck like glue.

The attendant running the stall, an Arboliva, blinked at her with that look of ambivalent confusion you can only get from a Pokémon without a mouth. The army of Smoliv plushies hanging from hooks around the top and sides of the stall were similarly mum about her predicament. 

An arch woven from olive branches crowned the entrance to the festival like a giant half-wreath. The carnival games were set up just beyond it, all along the main street in Cortondo, a brick promenade framed by stucco-walled buildings the color of a ripe lemon rind.

They couldn't possibly miss her on the way in. But as the amber light of the golden hour poured sweet and thick over the bustling crowd and melted long shadows in the surrounding valley’s olive groves at fifteen minutes past seven, there was still no sign of the others. Juliana was beginning to question whether her Flying Taxi had somehow dropped her at the wrong Cortondo.

At last, an excited squeal split the air and ended her wondering. 

“Juliana, my darling, I am so sorry we’re a teensy bit late!” Chattering breathlessly, Lacey skipped up the centuries-old brick street and offered her usual double-cheek kiss in greeting. “Our cab driver had to land for a minute so I could have a nice little chat with him about why the posted speed limit is most certainly not just a suggestion—”

“—Hey, hold on, Lace.” Seizing this moment while Lacey was alone, Juliana leaned in and kept her voice low. “Are you and I…cool?”

“Personally, I’d say we’re cute—I love this dress on you, by the way! You look adorable! Twinsies!"

Lacey had chosen a peach-pink, midi-length wrap dress with a lemon print and a belt that tied into a large bow at the back. Nemona was definitely onto something with the food theme. 

"But of course we’re cool," Lacey added. "Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Well, ‘cause of—”

“Darling, I know Drayton put you in a position where your only options were to say yes to this or perjure yourself. That’s exactly why I stepped in!”

“…Perjure myself?”

“He was trying to make you admit to having feelings for Arven that you’ve made it quite clear you don’t have. And no matter what justification Drayton tries to claim for it, that’s just not right!” Lacey’s forearms snapped into the shape of an X. 

She coughed. “Right…but, see, Lace, about those…feelings—”

“—Don’t be silly! I know you’re a girls’ girl. I trust you completely!" Lacey wrapped her up in another hug. "In fact, if my Drayton doesn’t show you a nice time this evening, mark my words, I have every intention of—”

She paused, eyes narrowing as her gaze flicked around behind Juliana. “Wait just a cute little second. Is Drayton not here yet?”

Juliana shook her head.

“I kinda thought he was coming with you? Guess that doesn’t make much sense in hindsight…”

A strange shift rippled through Lacey’s expression. She was still smiling, but there was something feral twitching underneath that impeccable lace doily.

“I see! Would you please excuse me for a moment? I need to make a quick phone call.”

Lacey pulled out her Rotom-Phone. As she moved out of the way, Juliana noticed Arven awkwardly standing about twenty feet behind her. Lacey looked back and winked at him, jerked her head in Juliana’s direction, then stepped around the corner and down the side street.

Juliana pretended not to have seen him and immediately turned back to the game, giving her best impression of nonchalance while she tried to steady her suddenly erratic pulse and breathing.

What was that wink about? Since when are Arven and Lacey so chummy? she thought bitterly, still wrestling with the toy gun in a long-shot effort to un-jam it. Then again, since when is Lacey his type? Since when is Zoruva his type? Since when does Arven even have a type?!

Arven crept closer in her peripheral vision until he was barely an arm’s length away. For a moment he just hovered there, then cleared his throat.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Her echo was as frosty as the unseasonably warm October evening was not. The cardigan she’d brought in case of a chill was melting out of the top of her purse.

Fearing that he'd melt her into a puddle if she looked directly at him, Juliana didn’t allow herself so much as a glance away from the array of varying-sized targets dangling from the two-dimensional tree in front of her. Each one was painted to look like an olive.

“Isn’t it a little ironic to have a shooting game at an olive festival?” he mused.

Her brows drew together, but she stayed quiet.

“That’s fine, I can talk enough for the both of us.” Arven leaned his shoulder against the stall while he prattled. “Let’s see…a lot of times, I start off our conversations by making some sort of a joke or pun. Something like, ‘Why did the olive cross the road?’”

Juliana wondered how fast an olive would need to be traveling across that road to do serious damage to a human skull on the other side.

“To attend to pressing matters.” Arven punctuated the joke by ad-libbing a cheesy drum kit sound effect.

To stop a smile from blooming over her face, Juliana bit down on her tongue so hard that her eyes watered.

“And you’ll laugh hysterically at that, because my puns are great and you love them. But the thing is, you’re funnier than I am, so you’ll come up with something even better, and I’ll kick myself for not thinking of it.”

She wasn’t falling for such obvious bait, but it took a great deal of effort for Juliana not to offer, “To make a pit stop.”

“Then I’ll ask you what you’ve eaten today, and your answer will probably scare me to death, so I’ll try to feed you something,” he continued, only slightly disheartened by the ongoing silent treatment. “And depending on how much you like whatever I offer you, you’ll either argue with me about how I must be trying to kill you or lick the plate clean and tell me I’m the best thing to happen to cuisine since sliced bread."

His cocked eyebrow was an engraved invitation for dispute that she once again managed to resist. 

"And then...I suppose we’ll just talk about everything and nothing until one of us has to go. Am I leaving anything out?”

Juliana impatiently clicked the useless gun some more.

“Listen, I’m gonna go out on a limb here—maybe an olive tree limb?—and ask: Is there any chance you’re mad at me right now?”

Finally pivoting to face him, she trained the toy pistol’s red laser pointer right over his heart.

“What gave you that impression?”

He met her deadpan threat with that boyish half-smile that was entirely too potent under normal circumstances and just shy of devastating right now. His date night outfit was a blue-green flannel that almost perfectly matched his eyes, worn open over a charcoal-gray T-shirt, jeans, and cognac leather boots. Perfectly casual—a good deal more casual, in fact, than what she wore—and yet she felt underdressed next to him, wishing she’d chosen something nicer than beaten-up high-top sneakers. Unfortunately, Nemona’s feet were about three sizes larger than Juliana’s, so her shoe collection was of much less help than her closet. 

“Okay. Follow up: Is there any chance that if I win you this little guy as an olive branch—” he said, a large hand spanning one of the Smoliv plushie prizes and giving it a squish, “—we could just skip right to the part where you tell me how I messed up, and I apologize for it?”

“I can win my own stuffed Smoliv, thank you very much.” She whacked the side of the plastic gun again. “Or I could, if this stupid thing actually worked. Game’s rigged.”

His tone brightened with mischief.

“Want me to show you how it’s done?”

“What, how you manage to piss me off more than anybody else?”

Arven slipped a game token to the Arboliva attendant with a sly grin.

“You’re saying I’m special?”

“I’m saying you have a real gift for pushing buttons,” she muttered. “Mine specifically.”

“Just raw talent, I suppose.” He winked at her and accepted a second plastic gun from the Pokémon. “You know, at first, it was an accident.”

“At first?”

Gripping the toy blaster with both hands, Arven fired off all ten foam rounds. Juliana counted them by the cartoonish explosion noises produced by a grainy speaker on the side of the gun. When the chamber was empty, he had knocked down six of the ten targets. He dusted off his hands and tossed her a cocky smirk—and his Smoliv prize—as the Arboliva reset the game.

Annoyed, Juliana rolled her eyes, stuffed the plushie into her bag, and snatched up the same pistol he’d just set down. Once she reloaded it, she pointed it at the targets with her left hand.

“Show-off,” she huffed. “You got lucky. This must be the functional gun.”

However, the trigger on this one wouldn’t cooperate for her, either. 

Her heart stuttered as Arven stepped behind her. His right hand wrapped around hers and guided it up to join the left around the trigger, warm and steady.

“Darn thing's sticky, see?” he said, his cheek brushing against hers. “You’ve really gotta use both hands.”

That voice, so close beside her ear, tinted with an audible smile—and was there a hint of a shake to it, too?—sent a hot chill prickling across her skin. Her imagination ran wild. Juliana didn't even notice he was squeezing her fingers to pull the trigger until the throb in her right index finger made her flinch just as the foam bullet found its target with a crunchy kaboom.

“You okay?” He released her hand, then took it again, gently examining her fingers. “Sorry, did I—?”

“I didn’t need help,” she seethed. “I was doing it one-handed on purpose.”

She willed her cheeks not to color, knowing it was a losing battle as long as he had her boxed in like this, with his free hand propped on the counter beside her. If she gave in to the urge to lean back right now, would he wrap his arms around her waist? Would those lips kiss her cheek, her neck, her bare shoulder? 

His concern had dried up into dubious amusement.

“On purpose?"

“Yes!” Banishing the fantasy, Juliana straightened out her left arm and gritted her teeth with the effort of trying to pull a two-handed trigger with only one. “For the—added—challenge!”

Arven chuckled, still cradling her right hand. She turned over her shoulder to glare at him.

“Something funny?”

Leaning over her, mere inches from her face, his eyes were soft in the rosy blush of the light. 

“You are, without a doubt, the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, Jules.”

“And?”

“And you look beautiful tonight.”

Her cherry-stained lips parted, cheeks shading to match like the diffusion of red watercolor paint. 

At first, it was an accident.

He'd said precisely what she most wanted to hear. And for that reason, it ignited the kindling of an indignant, humiliated rage that burned fever-hot to the tips of her ears, made her hands tremble, threatened the sting of tears in her throat like a rumble of distant thunder before the first drop of rain. 

Is he…doing this on purpose?

Teasing me with what I want, but can’t have? Embarrassing me for laughs?

She spun back to the targets and tried to shoot at them, tightening her jaw. The anger bestowed a burst of strength that now enabled her to pull the blaster’s trigger even with only her left hand, but it came at the cost of her aim.

How dare he have so much power over me? How did I let this happen in the first place? 

“Well, guess I must polish up real nice, then!” she snapped. Three foam bullets ricocheted off the back wall of the gallery. “Two days ago, you thought I was so ugly you wouldn’t even entertain the idea of letting me go on a date with your roommate!”

“Is that what you—?" The joy in his face and voice went flat as day-old champagne. "Jules, I never said anything like that!”

“You may as well have—and since when do you call me Jules?”

Two more shots rang out and missed.

“You...don’t like it?” 

“I didn’t say I don’t like it, I said since when do you call me that?”

With another crackling kaboom, she finally managed to hit a target, though not the one she was aiming at.

“I was hoping since now, maybe, if it’s okay with you? And I swear to you, Jules, it’s not a matter of polishing up. If you...if you had any idea…” He trailed off, a growing uncertainty in his voice. “I mean...I don’t know where you even got that idea! Look, I do not think you’re ugly.“

You don’t think I’m good enough for you. But you’ll say yes to the first other person who asks? You’ll hit on someone whose face you’ve never even seen?

In one last burst of vigor, she emptied the clip indiscriminately. None of the olive targets were hit, but a poor little stuffed Smoliv got caught in the crossfire and fell from its hook, the stitched prophecy of its shocked grimace coming true. 

Breathless, Juliana slammed the laser gun down on the counter and turned to face Arven square on.

“Then what is your problem with me, exactly?”

Before he could answer, both their heads snapped in the direction of Lacey’s raised voice.

“—You are not going to stand up my friend, mister!”

She threatened Drayton with the saccharine, authoritarian pep of a kindergarten teacher who moonlights as an assassin with a very particular set of skills.

“You made your bed! And I imagine that’s a first for you. So what you’re going to do right now is call a cab, get your caboose over here, and lie in it. Do we understand each other?”

Without Drayton’s end of the conversation, in the pause that followed Juliana could only imagine he must’ve been whimpering in terror, arousal, or both.

“Wonderful!” Lacey giggled brightly. “See you soon! Very soon.”

Juliana guiltily jumped away from Arven as Lacey sashayed back around the corner.

“Thank you for waiting! That was Drayton, he’s terribly sorry for being late and he’s on his way right this minute. I’m glad to see you two had a nice chat! Oooh, I wanna give this a try!”

Bracing herself, Juliana considered just fleeing now so she wouldn't have to endure the nausea of watching Arven correct Lacey’s shooting form.

But as Lacey handed over a festival game token and brandished the toy pistol, a sepia-toned filter seemed to fall over everything. Silhouetted against the setting sun and the dry, dusty hills of the valley, she turned her body perpendicular to the targets, held her right arm out ramrod-straight, and hooked her free left hand into the tulle sash of her dress. ¹

A wild Brambleghast tumbling through completed the Pokéstar Studios gunslinger film scene. As Lacey squeezed one eye shut and leaned back slightly, Juliana could practically hear the iconic spaghetti western wah-wah-waaah whistling. 

She methodically fired off one shot for each target, every one of them a perfect bullseye.

“Yay!” she giggled, clapping excitedly as the starstruck Arboliva presented her with the jumbo-sized, grand prize stuffed Smoliv from the back wall. She hugged it eagerly. “I won! Yippee! Thank you! Oh my goodness, aren’t you just adorable!”

Applause went up from the small crowd of onlookers that had stopped in their tracks. Among them, a pale Arven and Juliana picked their jaws up off the street.

“What?”

“…You’re...a vegan,” Juliana breathed, shaking her head in disbelief. She wondered whether her assassin thought had been that far off after all.

“I sure am!" Lacey spun the toy gun around her index finger by the trigger guard, blew some imaginary dust off the orange-tipped barrel, and good-naturedly rolled her eyes. "But Daddy’s a big believer in the right to bear arms!"

Chapter Text

Mockingly mirroring its dead-eyed grimace, Juliana squished the little green Smoliv plushie Arven gave her as if it were a stress ball—or, perhaps, a voodoo doll.

“—And get this: Almost half of the world’s olive oil is produced right here in Paldea!” he gushed.

Arven at a farmer’s market was an off-leash kid in a candy store. The boundless baskets of fresh-picked lemons and rainbow chard, carrots and butternut squash, indigo eggplant and ruby-red bell peppers and every imaginable creed of potato overflowed from each table and stall like a Dragon-Type Pokémon's hoard of colorful treasure.

The problem was that there was no dragon—or Drayton—to be found here.

“Really?” Lacey replied. “That’s fascinating!”

Arven was making a laudable effort to crane his neck and include Juliana in the conversation as they perused the portion of the festival further down Cortondo’s main street, where local farmers and artisans showcased their wares. But with the way she trailed listlessly behind them, she wasn’t doing him any favors.

“I know, right?” He flitted like a Mothim to a table set up in someone’s front yard, where an old man with a gaggle of Sunflora and an impressively bushy mustache offered samples of olive oil and bread for dipping. “And it all comes from more than two hundred and fifty different varieties of olives!”

“I thought the only varieties were black and green?” Lacey remarked.

Juliana considered asking Lacey how much longer she needed to wait for Drayton to show up before Paldean law gave her the legal right to hunt him for sport. In light of the present circumstances, what jury would convict her for poaching him early anyway?

“That’s a common misconception!” Arven exclaimed, covering his full mouth as he crunched on the crusty bread. “Man, that’s good—bright and grassy, with just a little hit of spice at the finish." He looked to Juliana. "Do you want some? Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine.”

“Have you eaten—“

“—I said I’m fine.”

He looked at her just a moment too long, started to reach for an argument, then backed out of it.

“As I was saying, black olives and green olives are actually exactly the same—the green ones are just harvested earlier."

“Gosh, Arven, you’re one smart cookie!” Finishing off her own sample, Lacey fished a monogrammed pink handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed daintily at her mouth. “I’ve learned so much today!”

“Would you say you...branched out?” Arven offered, resuming their stroll.

Lacey giggled and glanced at Juliana over her shoulder.

“Smart, and funny to boot!”

Arven rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Thank you, Lacey! Anyway, did you know that olive oil has a ton of health benefits for people and Pokémon? It’s packed with antioxidants, which help lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, and…”

Feeling her own blood pressure spiking, Juliana squeezed her thumbs into the plushie’s stitched eyes as if she was trying to gouge them out.

“Aww, for me?” Falling into step beside her, Drayton snatched the Smoliv out of her grasp with a wink. “You sure do know how to charm a fella, Splits!”

Arven narrowly avoided falling face-first into the street as he stumbled over a mislaid brick.

Juliana smiled and cutely wrinkled her nose at Drayton, just as she’d seen Lacey do.

Drayton offered her his arm. Up ahead, the way Lacey held onto Arven’s was friendly and innocent enough—of the four people involved in this mess, Lacey was the only one she wasn't mad at—but Juliana still knew exactly how swoon-worthy those arms felt. And she hated that Lacey now knew it, too.

She reluctantly looped her arm through Drayton’s.

“Did it hurt?” Juliana asked, keeping her voice low and sweet. “When Giratina personally spat you out of hell, that is.”

"—Heh, is that—"

“—Shut up," she muttered. "Smile and laugh like I just said something funny.” 

“Why?”

“Because they’re far enough ahead that they can’t really hear what we’re saying, but they can see us,” she hissed through her teeth as she beamed at him like she’d just won some sort of toothpaste-sponsored scholarship contest. “And you’ve embarrassed me more than enough for a lifetime today, Mr. Opelucid Legends.”

“Heh heh heh!” Drayton guffawed loudly, a spark of fear in his eyes. “Doesn’t that mean you care what he thinks?” he tacked on in a whisper.

The pageant-queen smile twitched.

“I hate you. So much.”

Drayton clicked his tongue and waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Ohoho, but that’s exactly how it starts for you, eh, babe?” His voice boomed confidently.

Arven suddenly spun around and went back for something, marching right past them so fast that a gust of wind followed in his wake.

“Nice dress, by the way!” Drayton loudly continued. His own outfit consisted of a plain white tee, low-top sneakers, and khakis that were, of course, glorified joggers. At least he'd left off that purple zip-up jacket he lived in like a second skin, but if Lacey got close enough to see the wrinkle patterns that suggested he'd slept in these clothes, she would probably find a way to kill him with that toy gun from the shooting gallery game. Or five ways. 

“Chili peppers? This your way of inviting me to play a little truth or spice later? Gotta say, that’s pretty forward of y—”

Drayton was cut off with a yelp as Arven stomped up from behind them and shoved a piece of olive-oil dipped bread into his mouth.

“Glad you could finally make it,” Arven said with all the brightness and warmth of a bluish fluorescent spotlight hitting a steel autopsy table.

“You know, it’s amazing that it took you so much longer to get here when we came from exactly the same place! You must’ve walked from Mesagoza. I bet you’re just starving! But don’t worry,” he threatened, low and rumbling. “A good olive oil has plenty of spice.”

Drayton tried to retort, but the big hunk of bread he was still struggling to chew foiled him. Crumbs flew from his mouth. Juliana choked back an absurd laugh.

“What?” Arven snapped, eyes darting between both of them.

Drayton swallowed and caught his breath.

“I said, thanks for your concern about my appetites, roomie. But shouldn’t you be worried about your own needs?”

Smirking, he threw a punch at Arven’s gut that was more than playful but still a country mile shy of real—not that this mattered to Arven.

“Why, you little—!”

“—Arven, darling!” Lacey called out, waving through the throng from one of the olive oil sellers up ahead. “Won’t you lend me a smidgen of your endless culinary wisdom and help me pick out a bottle to send home to Daddy?”

Arven squinted murderously at Drayton, clenching his fists. But his eyes flicked to Juliana, then he turned on his heel and marched back to Lacey. The crowd warily parted for him.

As the dust settled, Juliana felt more confused than ever—yet the question that had been at the top of her mind for two days remained unchanged.

“Drayton, why am I here?”

A shrill whistle sent the players hustling out onto the rope-fenced field. 

In search of cover to talk more privately, Juliana and Drayton had slipped off past the edge of the market and joined the crowd gathered to watch the festival’s most famous—and most photographed—tradition: The Olive Roll.

While the obstacle course and its enormous, olive-shaped oblong ball saw regular action from solo trainers as part of Cortondo's Pokémon Gym Challenge, the Olive Roll of the Olive Harvest Festival was a different beast. Two teams of school-age kids in numbered jerseys took the field, vying for hometown glory.

“You aren’t actually into me, right?” Juliana asked warily.

“Gross,” Drayton winced. “Nah. Not in a million years.”

Scoffing, she swiftly elbowed him in the ribs.

“Well, good, the feeling’s mutual, but you don’t have to be such a jerk about it!”

Drayton whistled, leaning his elbows on the webbed rope fence.

“Heh heh, someone’s sensitive today!”

“And whose fault is that?” she growled. “Just where do you get the nerve to pull an idiotic stunt like this and then not show up for it?! Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? Having him make fun of me for getting stood up?”

She felt her face heating up at the memory. Another puff of the whistle and the second of three rounds was underway. This time, the team in the green jerseys would work together to push, bounce, and yes, roll the awkwardly-shaped ball into the giant red basket at the end of the course, while the black team played defense. 

“Look, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with you, Splits. You just remind me way too much of my kid sister.” Drayton pursed his lips. “As for my fashionably late arrival, I’ll have you know the Drayster was hard at work on a matter of utmost importance.”

“Which is?”

“I was lying in bed, flipping a coin, and it came up heads sixteen times in a row. Ain’t that wild?”

The crowd around them erupted into raucous cheers as the green team found an opening and managed to get the ball up the first level of the ramp.

“Seriously, Dray, why did you do this?” she demanded. “What were you thinking?!”

“What was I thinking?” He snorted. “You gave me the idea!”

“…What are you talking about?”

“On Monday! Your little get-off-your-ass-and-make-a-move-before-somebody-else-does speech really got through to me!”

Her jaw dropped in disbelief.

“And this was your move?”

"Yeah!" Drayton’s eyes flashed with an anger he didn't allow himself room to express. “I had the perfect plan until you completely ruined it!”

“I ruined it? Drayton Knight,” she warned, allowing her voice to rise a few decibels and raise the eyebrows of a few other spectators. “You asked me on this date!”

“Yeah! And you weren’t supposed to say yes!” he hissed.

An old woman near them in the crowd piped up.

“Excuse me! I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but—did you say Drayden Knight?” she asked. Her voice bore distant traces of a Unovan accent. “As in, head of the Knight family of Opelucid City?”

Drayton tensed, unconsciously straightening every vertebra in his spine. Seeing him at his true height felt wrong, like the moon rising at midday.

“Sorta. Yeah. That’s…my dear old Gramps,” he haltingly admitted.

Juliana’s brain bluescreened. She had never thought about how similar the name sounded…or the coincidence of Drayton being from Opelucid City.

“…Huh?”

“Oh my goodness!” the woman cried, paying Juliana no mind. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but—see, my granddaughter, Sofía, number five on the black team—she’s Champion Iris’s biggest fan!”

Drayton let out the breath he was holding and relaxed his posture. The color returned to his face.

“Ohoho! Well, I’m sorry to say, Sofía’s gonna have to settle for being her second biggest fan! As Iris’s big brother, I’ll always take the number one spot. Got the giant foam finger at home to prove it.”

“Really? I never even knew Iris had a brother!” The old woman studied Drayton, rubbing at her chin. “And you two don’t look the least bit alike—then again, Iris doesn’t look anything like old man Drayden, either, while you’re his spitting image…”

Going pale again, Drayton shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Whoops, here I go, yapping your ears off when you just wanted to watch the Olive Roll!” the woman said apologetically. “But could I just ask you one question on my granddaughter’s behalf? It would mean the world to her.”

“Uh…sure?”

“Sofía wants to be just like Iris when she grows up, so she’s been dying to know what kind of Pokéballs she uses. But that darn National Gymquirer rag only ever seems to report on who they think she’s dating!”

Drayton chuckled, but his eyes narrowed.

“She better not be dating anybody,” he warned, wagging a finger. “Kid’s only got one more year until college—she needs to keep her head in the books! But between you, me, and Sofía: Iris uses Dream Balls. She’s real big on color coordination.”

The Olive Roll timer buzzed and the whistle blew, signaling the end of the round. The kids on the field jogged back toward the sidelines like a cluster of Hoppips carried on the breeze.

“Thank you so much!” the woman called out as she scurried off to greet her granddaughter.

Juliana’s brain was still catching up.

“So…you’re—“

“—Yep,” Drayton said, popping the P sound.

“’Drayton’…like ‘Drayden’—?!”

“—Yeah.”

“How did I not…” She shook her head in disbelief. “And the kid sister I remind you of is—?”

“—Bingo,” he yawned.

“But…I thought I read somewhere that Iris was an orphan?”

“She was. And then, when she was ten, my parents adopted her, at Gramps’s urging,” Drayton sighed, grimacing. “But that doesn’t make her any less my sister. Iris is more family to me than all the rest of ‘em put together.”

Juliana frowned.

“But you're also…upset that they adopted her?”

“I’m glad they adopted her! I love Iris!” He stuck his hands back in his pockets. “Just wish they’d done it for the right reasons.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you were supposed to be Mr. Ends-Justify-The-Means?”

Drayton fixed her with a deadpan look.

“Trust me on this.”

“You have never, for even a second, given me a reason to do that."

He slicked his hair back.

“You really want the whole Drayster double feature, eh? I usually save that for the second date."

"Between how pissed I am at you, and Lacey's frightening precision with a handgun, believe me—there's not gonna be a second date. Out with it, now."

“Fine,” Drayton said. “But let’s sit. Standing’s a waste of energy.”

The whistle blew sharply, and the final round kicked off. With the score sitting at zero all, the whole match would come down to the black team making a goal, or the green team stealing possession of the ball. 

“Growing up, Gramps never passed up a chance to drill into me that giving a hundred-and-ten percent all the damn time is the only way to be a good person. Put me in ice hockey even though I can't stand the cold, and wouldn't let me quit. Made me get up every day at dawn to train with him. Never let me win when we battled, not even when I was little—just knocked me on my face, and gave me notes on what I did wrong before I could even pick myself back up.”

”Poor little rich boy,” Juliana snarked. 

Drayton picked at the grass, staring at the game through the fence without truly seeing it. 

“No matter how hard I tried, it was never good enough for him. Caused a lot of conflict with him and my parents. So by the time I turned fourteen, he’s looking at yours truly as the scion and heir of the great Knight dynasty, and not liking what he sees.” He rolled his eyes.

“Then Gramps is out traveling on Gym-Leadery business and finds this orphaned Dragon-type battling prodigy, and he gets the bright idea that if I had a younger sibling who could wipe the floor with me, it'd light a fire under my ass and get me to ‘reach my potential,’” Drayton said, adding sarcastic air quotes with his fingers.

“So my parents adopt her. Then before the kid's even unpacked her suitcase, Gramps sits us both down and says that until I turn twenty-five, we’ll compete with each other. Winner gets to be his successor. Loser inherits nothing.”

“Damn,” Juliana breathed. “That’s…”

“Messed up? Yeah. I wanted to hate Iris at first. But…I realized it wasn’t so black and white. She was just as much a victim of the situation as I was. Only she had way more to lose.”

The crowd launched into cheers again as the green team intercepted the ball. A complicated smile tugged at Drayton’s mouth.

“Plus, I’d always wanted a younger sibling. And she’s the only one in my family who always treated me like I’m…enough. All I ever had to do to get Iris to love me was teach her curse words and let her kick my ass in a battle every once in a while.”

As the kids on the field were locked in an epic struggle to ascend the mountain of a ramp with the unwieldy ball, Juliana found herself struggling with a supremely uncomfortable and unfamiliar emotion toward Drayton: Sympathy. 

“It must’ve really sucked," she said. "Having to compete against her.”

“It would've.” He hugged his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them. “If I’d done it.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “You mean…?”

“I stopped trying,” Drayton admitted.

“Sometimes, when I felt like being a teenage dirtbag, I’d fail a class on purpose or get in trouble so they’d notice me—but for the most part, I did just enough to fly under the radar and disappear. Became as invisible as possible to keep the peace. Like part of the wallpaper. And it worked. Once they ran out of ways to call me a disappointment, they gave up and quit bothering me.”

Juliana chewed her cheek, deep in thought and troubled by her growing admiration for Drayton's secret selflessness.

“Then...doesn’t it hurt when Lacey calls you a lazy blockhead or says you don’t care about anything?”

“Nah. What you said on Monday, you were right—as long as she’s arguing with me, at least I know she sees me.” He chuckled, his face lighting up with genuine warmth. “Lace was the first person who saw me even when I was trying to vanish.”

Juliana closed her eyes and shook her head around, trying to gather her thoughts and get back on track.

“Okay. So you’re the son of one of Unova’s most powerful families and the brother of its current Pokémon League Champion. Putting a pin in that…quite frankly, insane piece of information, why is it that you have a problem with your sister dating anybody, yet no problem making it your personal mission to shove me toward a relationship with your roommate even though you say I remind you of her?”

“That’s totally different,” he grumbled unconvincingly.

“How?”

“Y'know I got no problem lying to you, right?” Smirking, Drayton reclined back on his elbows. “I’m not Lace.”

Juliana's expression sharpened. She set her jaw and folded her arms.

“You know I know how little problem you have lying, right? I’m not Lace.”

He abruptly changed his tune, nervously grinding his shoe into the dirt.

“It’s different, ‘cause…Iris deserves the best!”

She squeaked in offense.

“And I deserve to be used by a lowlife like you to make Lacey jealous? Not that it worked, by the way—I think she hates you more than ever right now!”

“Psh! You think I did this to make Lacey jealous?” Drayton sneered. “That’d never work. And I told you, I’m not trying to compete for her.”

”Then…why—?”

“Splits, I asked you out to make Arven jealous!”

Juliana blinked at him for about ten seconds. This whole situation was a cluster-Flittle of crossed wires, but she honestly couldn’t remember the part where Drayton had confessed to being in love with Arven.

“…Okay, now you’ve really lost me.”

“He was supposed to see me ask you out and confess that he has feelings for you! Or you were supposed to say no to me and admit you like him!” Drayton ranted, waving his hands around. “And then the two of you were supposed to go off and play truth or spice together for the rest of your airheaded lives! But instead, he got pissed at me, and then you got pissed at him, and then neither of you would shut up about someone named…Daz? And now I have to watch Lacey drool all over him!”

“UGH!" Juliana groaned, not knowing whether to tear out Drayton's bleached hair or her own. She abruptly stood. “You know, I haven't been happy with any of your answers to any of my questions!"

"Well, you've done a pretty good job of concealing your dissatisfaction."

"Why do you care more than I do about Arven and I hooking up? It’s never gonna happen! Drop it! You and Lacey would be planning your wedding by now if you put even half as much effort into your own love life as you’ve been putting into mine!”

“I am!” he shouted, nostrils flaring as he jumped to his feet. “What do you think all of this is!? Just—tell Arven the truth, damn it, and get him away from Lace! I’m running out of time to win the—!”

Drayton slammed the brakes on his own sentence. But it was too late.

“…What?”

Chapter Text

“…What?”

Drayton’s eyes were enormous as the air audibly hissed out of him. A carnivorous smile, broad as the rift down the middle of the mystery she’d just cracked wide open and sharp enough to draw blood, cleaved Juliana’s face in two.

“What did you just—?”

“—Nothing!”

“Oh, no, no, no!”  Juliana chuckled, toying with him like a Lycanroc dangling the last surviving member of a Maushold by its tail. “Finish the sentence! You have. To win. The WHAT?”

“I have to win…uh…another one of these Smoliv plushies!” He held the one he’d stolen from her earlier in front of his face as though it were a living hostage she’d take pity on. With Ninjask-like reflexes, she tore it right out of his hands and sank into derby stance, jockeying to strike.

Drayton faked left, then pivoted right and ran for his life back toward the farmers’ market, having evidently decided he’d rather endure Lacey and Arven’s budding romance up close than take his chances with Juliana. In just a handful of adrenaline-fueled strides she caught him by the ear. He went limp instantly, playing dead, and she dragged him inside of the nearest market stall.

The farmers’ market portion of the festival was due to close with the fast-approaching dusk, but the hot sauce merchant had gone on break early, leaving only their loyal Crocalor behind to tend the business. The Pokémon growled curiously at the two humans, so invested in having a front-row seat for this real-life telenovela drama that it took no issue with the sudden intrusion upon the shop space. 

“The plushie—heh, it’ll look good with the Dragonite beanbag chair! In the living room! But if there’s only one, Lace’ll say that’s inhumane, ’c-cause it needs a friend!” Drayton’s rambling took the tone of a last-ditch plea for a stay of execution, whites of his eyes flashing. “Heh heh! Really shoulda given a little more thought to plushie welfare when you gave—!”

“—Lacey said something to me earlier," Juliana calmly began, cutting him off without hearing a word he’d said. "That she knew you were trying to force me to admit my feelings for Arven, and she stepped in because your justification for it wasn’t right."

His careless little slip of the tongue had kickstarted the gears in her brain into a deafening, high-pitched mechanical whir. The sort of ominous hum that served as a natural warning of steel machinery moving at speeds that could easily take someone’s finger off—and Juliana would want both of her middle ones for this conversation.

“So tell me: How did she know exactly what you were trying to do, right down to your justification for doing it? And what did she mean by stepping in?”

Drayton tried once more to proffer some plushie pretext. 

”The…Smolivs—“

“Dray,” Juliana barked. She wasn't trying to knock him over, but one light shove and he dropped to the hay-strewn floor like a wet mop. So she grabbed the collar of his t-shirt, backed him into one of the stall’s support posts, got in his face, and lowered her voice, readying the critical hit that would knock him out. 

“Do you, or do you not, have some kind of wager going with Lacey that involves me and Arven getting together?”

Avoiding her eyes even as she loomed over him on one knee, Drayton hollowed his cheeks and pinched his lips together, looking an awful lot like a Feebas on a hook. Stinking of straw and guilt, his words came out in a choked whisper.

“…Y’know, calling it a wager makes it sound so dirty. It’s not like we’ve got money on it.”

Juliana planted her foot and yanked Drayton forward by his shirt a few inches to slam his back into the post. Not as hard as she could, or as hard as he deserved, or even hard enough to leave a mark—but hard enough to telegraph how microscopically thin he’d worn her patience. 

“Ow! Okay! Okay!” he confessed. “Yeah, there’s…there’s a bet.”

“I cannot believe you!” she shrieked, then laughed darkly in his face, dropping to a whisper. “Know what? No. I could believe anything about you. I can’t believe she would do something like this to me!”

“Hey, hate me all you want, Splits, but leave Lace out of it,” he whispered back. “The Bet was all my idea, and she…refused to participate, per se.”

“HEY!” 

They both stiffened. Arven had found them. And from the purplish tone of his skin and the boom of his voice, this was not Sunny Day Arven, but Raging Annihilape Arven. 

“WHAT is going ON here?!”

“Nothing,” they both answered too quickly. The table where the Crocalor sat along the front side of the stall obscured his view of Juliana from the shoulders down and of Drayton entirely, until the latter popped his disheveled white hair above the checkered tablecloth and wiggled his fingers in a smug wave. 

”NOTHING?” Arven roared, chest heaving.

Juliana flinched. She hadn’t seen Arven this livid since she stole the best cookie of her life. 

“Why, you…you snuck off with him like a couple of criminals, and I’ve been looking everywhere for you, and I find you like THIS—“ he gestured furiously at the way Juliana was still ruining the collar of Drayton’s t-shirt and leaning over him, “—and you call that NOTHING?!”

Nostrils flaring, Arven vaulted over the table like a fare-evader at a Battle Subway turnstile and lifted her, kicking and throwing elbows, off of Drayton. The dazzled Crocalor clapped—their telenovela had found its stuntman.

For his part, Drayton did nothing but smirk and dust himself off as he rose from the floor. 

“I call it none of your damn business!” Juliana snarled.

“None of my damn business?” Arven repeated, sarcastically mocking her voice and Unovan accent. “Just—come on, Lacey got us a table and she’s waiting on YOU TWO!”

The candy-colored paper lanterns that dangled like Tarountulas from the wooden archway had been swapped out for ones painted to resemble green olives. Passing underneath and up the creaky plank steps revealed that the handful of lights at the entrance were only a taste of the splendor waiting upstairs.

The treehouse-like platform above Gym Leader Katy’s world-renowned Patisserie Soapberry was festooned with dozens and dozens more of these olive lanterns, all suspended at varying heights from an intricate rope web fashioned into a tall pavilion. Katy, as co-chair of the festival, had clearly gone all out—and drawn inspiration from the gossamer arts of her own Bug-type Pokémon. Umbrellas were removed from the dining tables that formed a ring around the rustic wooden railing, ensuring unobstructed views as nightfall sombered the proud bronze hillsides of the valley into shades of blue and indigo.

In the center of the large circular platform, a small stage hosted a Kricketune string quartet in formal waistcoats and ties. Their handlebar mustaches had never looked so dapper. When the group's leader, the largest Kricketune, elegantly dragged one bow-like arm over the other, the warm night air swirled with the mellow, dulcet tones of a cello, quickly joined by the other three on viola and violins. Two couples strayed out into the big open space between the stage and tables to dance.

“The Bet was that the two of you will mutually fess up—or hook up—by midnight on Halloween," Drayton explained to Juliana as they glided around the floor in a waltz as skillful, precise, and utterly joyless as the twentieth consecutive let's take it from the top and five-six-seven-eight during dress rehearsal for her high school dance team's senior showcase. 

"I win if it happens, she wins if it doesn’t. It started after Lace’s trial in the kitchen. I could smell from a mile away that you and Arv had it bad for each other, but were too stubborn to admit it. Lace insisted we should just take both of you at your word when you said it was nothing, but I told her that all you two needed to get over yourselves was a little…nudging.”

“—Nudging?” Juliana scoffed.

Her initial anger at Drayton had been blunted by the two-and-a-half olive-packed dirty martinis she threw back during a nuclear-tense dinner that necessitated setting aside their differences, forming an unlikely alliance of lukewarm flirtation out of a mutual desire to see just how many different colors they could turn Arven's face.

Though every hair tuck and shared ice cream spoon she accepted made her skin crawl, each new shade of mauve and maroon was a welcome—if, to Juliana, still utterly baffling—distraction from the agony of having to watch Lacey relentlessly talk up, fawn over, and bat her eyelashes about Arven’s accomplishments and good qualities as though she thought he’d hung the moon and stars.

But Juliana’s frustrations with Drayton flared up anew now that the two of them could once again talk privately. In explaining The Bet, she could already feel him trying to minimize and spin his own involvement.

“You’d call what you’ve been doing nudging—?”

“—And I argued that the worst thing that might happen as a result of my nudging was that two people who already hated each other would go on hating each other,” Drayton continued, yawning and twirling her under his arm. “But if you did get together, which I can’t force you to do—”

“—Not for lack of trying!”

“—Then that would ultimately be a good, cute thing for both of you! Increase the sum total of love in the world, or whatever! The ends justify the means!” 

“Damn it. She would agree to that, wouldn’t she…” Juliana shook her head and sighed. “Back in the beginning, I felt like no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from him. But it turns out that was your fault. You think you can just…run plays and score points using other people’s lives? That’s kinda messed up.”

“Gotta admit, I’m surprised,” Drayton said, not answering her question. “Initial attempt to ice me aside, I expected you to be, like, way madder about this than you are.”

It’s not like I didn’t try to do the same thing to you, she thought.

She carefully changed the subject as he threw her into another boredly elegant spin. “I’m surprised that you can waltz. Why are you, of all people, a decent dancer?”

Drayton shrugged. “Part of the rich kid curriculum. Gramps insisted we learn the hoity-toity high society stuff.”

“See, this is the kind of thing you really oughta show off to Lacey. She thinks you’re an uncivilized ogre who doesn’t care about anything.”

And for some reason, she still finds you irresistible…

“I don’t care about dancing. Only bothered paying attention to Fantina’s lessons so I could imitate the moves behind her back and make Iris laugh.”

“You learned to dance this well sarcastically?” Juliana grimaced. Somehow, that made perfect sense.“I was wondering how a guy who eats peanut butter and jelly straight from the jar with a butter knife would even know the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork—let alone how you knew it well enough to correct Arven at dinner.”

“Heh heh. He looked ready to put my eye out with either one of ‘em. The finest etiquette training money can buy finally pays off. Lace still took his side, though,” Drayton added, face darkening. “And she’s the one who’s such a stickler about that stuff!”

“I still can’t believe she would lie to me…” Juliana sighed.

Then again, she’s told much bigger lies…

“That’s just it—she didn’t lie to you, ever. Lace said it was wrong to have a hidden agenda, so she wouldn’t help me with the nudging. She just agreed not to interfere, or tell you unless you directly asked her.”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say she’s interfering now!”

“Guess she thinks I took things too far,” Drayton grumbled, upper lip curling. “Or she just…actually wanted to take Arven on a date and jumped at the chance.”

Following his miserable gaze over her shoulder, Juliana saw Lacey holding Arven’s hands and patiently demonstrating the one-two-three one-two-three of the waltz, much further back from the stage than she and Drayton were. 

“Why’d you go in on this awful bet anyway?” Juliana asked. “You signed up to do all the legwork knowing she could win by doing nothing!”

“I was sure I had it in the bag.” A rare blush colored Drayton’s cheeks. “And we agreed…the winner gets to make the loser do anything they want.”

“Ew!” Juliana’s face twisted with the force of her revulsion. She kicked him in the shin, disguising it with fancy double-time footwork.

“How dare you?” He winced, shaking off the hit as he slicked his hair back indignantly. “The Drayster’s nothing short of a bonafide gentleman.”

”Well, forgive me, Machiavelli, for my newfound inability to put anything past you!” she hissed. “You and I both know Lacey would move heaven and earth to keep a promise. So if you even think about exploiting that to coerce her into anything like what just went through my head, mark my words: I’ll put a damn salad fork through yours.”

“Good! I'd sooner do it myself!” His voice shook a little, but it was earnest. “You love her, Splits, and I’m glad she has a friend like you. I love her, too. I know my word doesn’t mean much, but I swear, it’s nothing like that.”

Drayton turned sheepish, shy. It was an odd look on someone like him.

“I was just gonna make her go on one little date with me, finally tell her the truth about how I knew nothing about roller derby when we met, and try my best to charm the snot outta her anyway. That’s all. I wouldn’t even make her hold my hand if she didn’t want to—let alone anything more.”

“You…idiot!” Juliana sighed. “You don’t need to win a bet to do any of that!”

This would be so much easier if I could just tell him what I know…

“Yeah, I do, Splits!”

“Why?”

“So that when it doesn’t work out, I can just play the whole thing off as a joke! 'Ha, you had to go on a lousy date with your ol’ pal the Drayster, ain't that a kick in the head?' She’ll make me swear never to bring it up again, we’ll pretend it didn’t happen, and nothing has to change between us!”

Drayton raised his arm to send her for another twirl, but the song ended. As they applauded for the band in front of them, Juliana’s ears perked up at the approach of Lacey’s dainty high-heeled footsteps across the planks of the dance floor.

“Time to switch!” Lacey singsonged, stealing the hand of a surprised—and pleased—Drayton as the Kricketune band struck up a faster, sultrier tune. “It’s just not right to dance with the same partner all night!”

Juliana laughed, nodded and exchanged a wink with Lacey, the full meaning of which only became clear when she turned around to walk back to their table and bumped straight into Arven’s chest.

He wordlessly offered her his hand, wearing a cold mask of stone that twitched ever so slightly above the turmoil underneath. Dinner cooled her temper. It had only stoked his. 

Fed up with this bizarre attitude he’d taken with her ever since Drayton arrived, Juliana arched an eyebrow at him and sneered. “Guess I’d better go find myself somebody to dance with, then!”

Arven bared his teeth. “You think I can’t dance better than him?”

She snorted. “Drayton’s dance teacher was Fantina,” she boasted, theatrically dousing the three-syllable name in Kalosian-accented relish. “I know you can’t.”

“Why, you—I totally can—!”

Rolling her eyes as she stepped close to him, she clasped his hand up and out and seized the other to plant it on the bare skin of her shoulder blade with such swift boldness that he jumped.

“—Save it, Pretty Boy.” Her tone was terse, taut, tense as the music and short as her stature. “I can tango better than both of you put together. Follow my lead.”

Even dancing on her tiptoes, the height difference between them would make this difficult. She once again regretted not wearing heels tonight.

He shot a glance over his shoulder at the stage. “Yeah, w-well—how hard could it possibly be? Drayton’s got two left feet and no natural grace at all!”

In his anxious haste to move forward, Arven’s clumsy first step landed squarely on the toes of her right foot.

“Ow!” she yelped, doing a mental one-eighty on her footwear wishes to question whether steel-toed boots would’ve been more appropriate. “I told you to follow my lead! You step back, I step forwards!”

His eyes darted behind him again. “But—!”

“—What is your problem?!”

“I’m—sorry!” he sputtered. “It was an accident!”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she hissed through her teeth, assertively guiding him into the first step. “Backwards with your right, then your left. Slow-slow-quick-quick-slow. I meant tonight, Arv. Since all of this started at practice on Wednesday!”

Juliana drove them across the floor and up to the stage, indifferent to whether Arven was moving with her because he understood her instructions or just feared she’d run him over. The closer they drew to the sound of the music, the more his muscles tensed up. 

“L-listen—”

“—No! You listen,” she ordered, clicking her tongue. “Bend your knees and loosen up—you’re way too stiff for someone who isn’t dead yet. Good, that’s better. Now, care to explain why you’ve been such an insufferable Annihilape tonight?”

He grumbled something under his breath. 

“Ah-ah,” she scolded. “Back straight. Shoulders up.” Now she was using her hands to correct him, too, running a flattened palm along the slopes of his well-muscled back like she could reshape the clay of him into proper tango form, being both rougher and grabbier than she needed to be and enjoying it a lot more than she had any right to. “Much better. Maybe there’s hope for you after all. Now, you see my arms? And how yours look like undercooked spaghetti noodles?”

“Over-cooked,” he corrected. “And didn’t you just tell me to loosen up?!”

“Yeah, your knees, bud—not your arms!” Juliana had to stifle a smile. She wasn’t done holding his feet to the fire about his attitude, but the rush of teasing him was more intoxicating than the music and the martinis combined. “Look at me. The basic tango step is slow-slow-quick-quick-slow.” Briefly dropping his hands, she demonstrated alone, leading with her hips through a sequence of steps at once smooth and staccato, melodic and percussive. “See? C’mon, Arv, you can do this. I know you’re not a quitter.”

He kept turning his head to look back over his shoulder as the two of them moved together. Lips moving ever so slightly, she could almost hear him counting out the steps in his head, but it was little help when he couldn’t even see her. 

“Stop looking over there!” Juliana snapped her fingers. “Look at me. Don’t you want me to make you look good in front of your date?” she asked, going for a lighthearted tone but sinking too much venom into the last word.

“I don’t care!” he snapped, scowling. His cheeks, burning up a fiery scarlet like the pimento center of each olive lantern dangling overhead, seemed to contradict him.

“Fine.” She dropped his hand and turned to saunter away. “You’re the one who asked me to dance. Nobody forced you, you jerk.”

“No! Please wait, I—” Arven blurted, grabbing for her wrist. His eyes darted wildly over his shoulder again as the music crescendoed, and it finally clicked.

The stage, she realized. Arv’s afraid of Bug-types.

Juliana took his hand again, this time tenderly, and raised her eyebrows in the Kricketunes’ direction.

“Hey,” she said, gentle, all anger on hold. “Let’s get you outta here.”

Arven’s wild eyes softened. He frowned and shook his head.

“I’ll be fine.”

Recalling what he’d said about needing to hear Mabosstiff’s snoring to fall asleep, she tested a theory by swapping their positions on the dance floor so that the stage was behind her, while he faced it.

“Better, or worse?”

A fragile little smile, small and yet so raw and real that it took her breath away, tugged at one corner of his mouth.

“Better,” he said. “Thank you.”

”You know I’d never let ‘em get you, right?” she murmured. “No matter how big of a jerk you are. They’d have to go through me.”

“I know,” he replied, finally relaxing his posture and clumsily assuming the dancing position again, though you could’ve driven an adult Cyclizar through the gap he left between their bodies. “I really do wanna dance with you, Jules. Teach me?”

Juliana led them once more into the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow, keeping them away from the stage and taking care never to put his back to it.

“Then quit leaning so far away from me—you think I bite or something?”

“Do you?” he muttered, stealing a laugh from her that flew like a rock to shatter the glass of his own lingering tension.

“Tell you what, I will if you make fun of my accent again! I don’t do that to you even though yours is way sillier!”

“Hey!” Arven feigned offense as a bigger smile brightened his face. “My accent’s not silly. You’re the one who sounds like a character straight out of Munnastruck!”

The more he disarmed her with that artless charm, the more desperate Juliana grew for an answer to her question so that they could just move on.

“Know what I hate even more than when you worry about me?”

”How much olive puns?” he tried. 

“When I can’t work you out. So tell me why you’ve been so pissed at me. Owe me that much for screaming at me earlier.”

“Look, I’m…I’m protective of the people I care about!” Arven wouldn’t look her in the eye. “You know that. I’ve told you before.”

That sent her blood boiling like quicksilver as she led him around the floor, hips twisting left to right through each grapevining step as if she had them on a swivel.

“Seriously? We’re doing this again? Buddy, I’m witty,” she spat. With one arm, she sent him vigorously spinning outward. “I am charming, damn it.”

“I know you are!”

She twirled him back in. 

“I’ve got a sexy Unovan accent and legs that go all the way to the floor.”

“I know you do,” he gasped, wide-eyed and dizzy.

For an emphatic flourish, she swung one leg up and hooked her calf around his thigh. The move unexpectedly buckled Arven’s knees under him. She only saved him from falling by turning it into a dramatic dip.

This still looked like dancing from the outside, and quite captivating dancing at that. But to Juliana, their exchange had rapidly intensified into something between sparring and what Unovan intelligence officials euphemistically referred to as enhanced interrogation.

And she was winning. Nemona would be proud. 

“Then how come I’m not good enough to go out with your stupid roommate?!” she demanded, supporting the weight of both of them on one powerful leg while bringing herself nose-to-nose with him in the dip. “You think I’m some greedy bisexual stereotype? A mustache-twirling villain plotting to steal his virtue?”

“I don’t—don’t—give a damn about him, it’s—“ he gasped, sweat breaking out at his hairline, and Juliana wondered where he found the nerve to be so out of breath while she was the one doing all the work. He licked his lips and cursed. “Are you—? Out to steal his—?”

“—Ha! Please!” She threw her head back to laugh and pulled him onto his feet again. “I doubt Drayton’s got any virtue to begin with. But even if he did, why would I want it?”

“Wait. Really? You…don’t?”

Juliana snickered. “’Course not! Are you nuts? This is Drayton we’re talking about. I tolerate him, but I wouldn’t take him out if I was a riptide.”

Arven eased back into the tango step sequence with a sharp, lithe new grace that took her by surprise. “Then why the hell did you let him take you out?”

“Two reasons,” she said. “One, because I needed to get him to shut up about…you know. Truth or spice,” Juliana cringed and rolled her eyes. “It was either this or killing him, and I’ve yet to find a free weekend to scout out places in Paldea where I could hide a five-foot-ten body.”

A laugh burst out of him. Strong arms pulled her in closer, suddenly having no trouble matching her steps without counting. When he spoke again, his lips weren’t far from her ear. 

“There’s this swamp in the South Province that would work well. Real remote, far from prying eyes. But you’d have to weigh the bastard down. Otherwise, that stupid…toothpaste bleached hair of his would stick up out of the mud like a sore thumb.”

“Oh, you’ve thought about this, haven’t you?” A wicked grin stole over Juliana’s face. “Is there trouble in Casa Drayster? He steal your takeout from the fridge or something?”

The warm hand on her shoulder blade chased a magnetic pull to the small of her back as Arven drew her body flush against him. 

“People die over less." 

Neither of them heard—they’d been moving in a sort of folie á deux trance for several minutes now—but a few appreciative whistles broke the mesmerized hush of the crowd around them. 

Dancing with Drayton had been a technically perfect, but unfascinating and passionless exercise. A figure skating routine designed to rack up points by landing difficult jumps, without a drop of effort paid to the artistry and emotion. Impressive on paper. Totally unsatisfying to watch. 

This was a different story. 

What Arven lacked in skill and experience was compensated tenfold by something Juliana couldn’t put her finger on. He understood and took the wordless direction she gave, yet wasn’t afraid to add twists of his own, transforming a monologue into the sort of absorbing conversation that makes one lose all track of time. He took to the flow of it with a reverent enthusiasm, chased and mirrored each step and breath in perfect sync with Juliana while still managing to surprise her.

They moved together as if bound, ribs to ribs, hips to hips, by a string winding itself ever tighter and shorter. Everything between them, even the inconvenient height gap, seemed to vanish as they tore up the empty floor with a simmering heat that threatened to burn holes in the wood. If they had, they wouldn’t have even smelled the smoke. 

The warm glow of the whole situation—the lanterns, the music, the stars—was enchantingly, absurdly romantic. Or it would’ve been, if the whole date had been like this. 

I wish it was you instead…

The tug of that string ripped something loose in her chest as she replayed Arven saying precisely the same thing to Zoruva the night before. Sighing at the throbbing ache as she pressed on it, like the bleeding socket left behind by a yanked tooth, she stumbled over her own feet. 

I wish you could want the real me like that.

"Hey," he breathed, catching her, his fingertips trailing tingles from her shoulder to her wrist as his brow furrowed with concern. "What was the second reason?"

"Hm?"

"The other reason you said yes."

“The other reason is ’cause I’m not stupid, Arv! I thought he was using me to make Lacey jealous, and as a hail-Mareep effort to save Operation Just-Hit-Me-With-A-Giant-Flaming-Meteor-Already, I wanted to see if it could actually work.”

Green eyes tightening, he lifted her into the air as they spun, to the delight of the crowd. “And you’re just...fine with that? Someone using you?! Jules, why—?”

“—Yeah! I am! So will you relax?" she laughed. "I’ll be a perfect gentlewoman and have your precious Drayton home by eleven. Sooner, if I can get rid of him quicker.”

“You can’t seriously believe it’s him that I care about," he snapped, pausing to gently cup her cheek.

It was her turn to be out of breath despite her stillness. 

“Really?" The solemn intensity in his face didn't scare her—but the things it threatened to make her say, and do, did. She laughed again, nervously this time. "Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell him you were plotting his murder.”

“Jules, the only reason I accepted Lacey’s invite was so I could come along and keep an eye on you!”

Her gaze snapped down to their feet. At some point, when she wasn't paying attention, Arven had taken the lead. Now on the back foot, both literally and figuratively, Juliana struggled to understand how it happened. Had she gotten careless? Lazy? Did he think she, with years of dance callouses on her feet to his mere minutes of experience, wasn't up to the task?

Was he right?

“Keep an eye on me?” Juliana scoffed in disgusted disbelief. “What, you think I need a babysitter?”

“That clown’s not fit to shine your shoes! He has the audacity to show up late for his first date with you, and—and he doesn’t even know the first thing about you!”

“And you think you do?”

“Yes!”

“If you really did, you’d know better than to do exactly what you’re trying to do right now.”

She pressed forward, trying to reclaim the upper hand. But he fought her for it.

“You deserve so much better than him, and I—!”

His face twisted. She feared she might've stepped on his foot, but while he kept leading, that easy suavity he'd danced with before evaporated. 

“What I mean is, um…I think…until…that person comes along…you shouldn’t be going out with anybody! Focus on yourself! Keep your head in the books!”

He dipped her low. Her head spun. 

Where have I heard that before?

She went limp. 

“Oh. Okay. I get it.”

Arven was a Deerling in her headlights. Through her slackened grip on his sweaty hand, Juliana felt his pulse ratchet into third gear.

“…You…get it?”

“Oh, yeah,” she snarked, nodding as she glared daggers up at him. “I understand exactly how you feel about me now.”

The spell broke even before the music stopped, replaced by wild applause. They had evidently given the crowd quite a show.

Juliana’s face flamed as she pulled herself back onto her feet and marched off the floor.

“‘Cause…that’s…Jules, I…and, and it’s okay if—!” Chasing after her, Arven groaned. “This was not how I wanted—I wasn’t—I was gonna wait for the right—“

“—I’m your kid sister, aren’t I?”

Chapter Text

The plank stairs creaked and groaned for mercy as Juliana violently stomped down them two at a time, trailed by a slack-jawed Arven.

“Kid…sister?” he repeated like a Chatot.

She halted on the steps and spun around so fast that Arven had to catch himself on the railing to keep from barreling straight into her, accidentally knocking loose one of the paper olive lanterns and sending it flying. Luckily, the lanterns were LED-powered, and thus not nearly as much of a fire hazard as her red-hot temper. 

“—And having appointed yourself to be my overprotective, overbearing big brother, you’ve decided it’s your right to make my choices for me, ruin my fun, and scare away anyone who dares to even blink lustfully in my direction. Is that it?! Huh?!”

Pressing on down the stairs without waiting for his answer, she hooked a right at the landing for the lower, smaller of the two platforms in the bakery’s treehouse structure, where a two-stool bar was set up. Large-bulb string lights wrapped around the little slanted roof of the bar, casting an orangey glow in the dark. Thanks to the captivating performance they’d just wrapped up on the upper level, the bar was deserted save for the bartender.

Arven was still lagging about six sentences behind her. “Kid…sister…” he mumbled thoughtfully.

“Yeah!” she shouted. “Am I on the money? That’s why you flip on a Deino and act like a jerk? Why you kept blowing up at me for going on a date with Drayton, and about Cass? Why you screamed at me about having awful taste in men?”

“…Yes?” His eyes lit up as he pointed at her. “Yeah! That would explain it. Exactly!”

Juliana laughed in his face. “Go to hell! Remember earlier, when I said there was anything in the world I hated more than this? I take it back!”

“Have I ever told you how much I like that brassy Unovan accent of yours?” he chuckled, leaning an elbow on the bar. “It’s one of my favorite things about you. And it really comes out when you get mad at me. It’s cute.”

At first, it was an accident.

“Why, you son of a—I swear to—!” she sputtered. “I hear there’s a real nice swamp in the South Province where nobody would ever find your body!”

“Wouldn’t work. I’m taller than Drayton.”

“The NERVE of—piss off! I hate every single stupid word outta your mouth more than the last!”

Arven looked at her from the corner of his eye with a dimpled, mischievous grin, unable to resist the temptation to poke the Ursaring one more time.

“…You are still talking to me, though.”

Seething with rage, she hopped onto one of the barstools and insistently rapped her knuckles on the knotted pine bar to get the attention of the bartender, whose back was turned.

“Hey! ’Scuse me!” She kept knocking. “I’m a mature, grown-ass adult woman, and I don’t need a brother! I need a martini!"

The man behind the counter was a profoundly unamused forty-something with salt-and-pepper hair, the hefty eye bags of a new parent offset by none of the joy, brows like Mabosstiff’s, and LARRY on the green oval nametag pinned to his starched white button-down shirt. The keen-eyed Staraptor perched on his shoulder lent him the air of some sort of businesswear-loving pirate.

“—And one water for me, please,” Arven added politely.

Larry didn’t even bother to look up from the highball glass he was drying with a dish towel. “ID,” he grunted, fingers curling toward him in a give-it-here motion.

It took a bit of the bluster out of Juliana’s proud sails to have to fish her purple Uva University student ID card out of her bag, but at least he didn’t accuse her of having a fake when he glanced at her birth date. He poured up the water for Arven and pushed it toward him with a bar napkin.

“You want that martini dirty?”

It might have been the wording of the question, or her two-and-a-half earlier drinks properly kicking in, or how Arven’s kitchen-scarred hand wrapped around his sweating water glass made her thoughts and pulse race. But something gave her an idea.

Smirking, she relentlessly stared Arven down as she answered.

“Nasty. Obscene. Unspeakably filthy,” she taunted. “I want it sucking on my teeth.”

“J-Juliana!” Arven squeaked, nearly falling off his barstool. “STOP that! Right now!”

“Sorry, was I talking to you? I thought we weren’t speaking.”

“You’re being so—so—!” Flushing scarlet down to his shirt collar, he fumbled for his words. “—Obnoxious!”

“Ha! Yeah! I sure am!” she snapped. “Must be a family trait, brother dearest.”

Juliana made a show of pinching his bar napkin between her thumb and forefinger, unfolding it, and giving it a kiss. His knuckles went white as she pushed her cherry lipstick print across the counter toward Larry, running her tongue along her top teeth.

“You could make a good dog break her leash, Captain,” Juliana purred. “What time do you get off?”

“JULIANA VEGA!” Arven roared. “What is the matter with you?!”

Larry crumpled the napkin into a ball the size of a walnut and chucked it over his shoulder. His Staraptor snatched it out of the air and swallowed it, mirroring Larry’s look of exasperated disgust.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth, kid?”

“Why? You want a turn when I’m done?”

“Up to her, I guess? But this is a weird way to recruit a stepdad.”

It was the most horrifyingly blunt rejection of her young life. Wheezing, Arven leaned across the bar and firmly shook Larry’s hand.

But despite getting knocked flat on her face, Juliana was just stubborn—or angry, or stupid, or drunk, or all of the above—enough to climb right back up on the Horsea.

“I meant—I’m very mature for my age!”

“I don’t look twice ‘til they’re double your age, kid. And you act even younger than you are.”

“…Yeah…well…!”

Failing to find a comeback, she just stuck her tongue out and blew a fat raspberry at him.

Arven fully lost it. Whooping and honking and cackling like a Poochyena, he alternated between slapping the bar and clutching his sides, tears sparkling in the crinkling corners of his eyes.

Her head whipped to the side to glare at him. “What?!”

“That was—oh, man—!” Struggling to catch his breath, he gave her a sarcastic thumbs up. “—Real mature!”

“Know what? Forget the martini,” she said. Her red face burned even hotter with his green eyes on it. “Just make it six shots of the cheapest gin you have, please.”

“One shot,” Arven countered, “And two waters. You’re already three drinks in and you barely ate dinner. Are you trying to end up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning?”

“Six shots for me and one more water for my darling big brother.”

Arven huffed, but the agitation in his face stood no chance against the fondness fast outstripping it. “Two shots and two waters, you little nightmare.”

“Boss doesn’t pay me nearly enough to get involved in whatever you two have going on,” Larry groaned, slouching over the bar and looking between both of them like an exhausted auctioneer. “Speak my language. Who’s buying?”

Juliana lunged for her purse on the counter beside her. But Arven simply snaked an arm around her waist and picked her up, using his other to dig his wallet out of his pocket. Despite her profanity-studded, flailing efforts to knock the trifold from his grasp, he managed to get the corner of it between his teeth, tug his card loose with his free hand, and shove it into Larry’s palm.

“Two shots and two waters. Sold, to the darling big brother of the nightmare.”

“But—no fair! He cheated!” Juliana screeched in complaint. “And you forgot to check his ID!”

Larry shook his head. Even his Staraptor rolled its beady little eyes.

“If you’re old enough to drink legally, I’m not the least bit worried about him.”

Stifling another laugh, Arven put her back down on the cracked leather stool, and Juliana aimed her anaphylactic fury back toward the allergen that originally triggered it. 

“So you pity me, huh? You think I’m some poor little angel who needs a big brother to protect me ‘cause I’m in the Dead Dad Club?”

“No.” The amusement fizzled out of Arven’s face. He shook his head and reached over to tuck her hair behind her ear. “No, Jules. And I’m sorry…I didn’t think about that. But—“

“—But nothing!” She smacked his hand away from her. “I’ve done a fine job protecting myself! You may be my best friend, Arv, and you may be older and wiser than me,” she hissed, tone dripping with sarcasm. “But guess what? I’m an adult. I can do whatever—and whoever—I want.”

Arven’s features darkened, fists clenching. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Well, there’s the door, bud!” she taunted. “Need me to get it for you?”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jules.”

“Bartender!” Juliana snapped her fingers. “This guy’s botherin’ me! Says he won’t leave me alone!”

“You’re bothering me, kid,” Larry grumbled, filling two more glasses of water and setting them down in front of them. “If he’s willing to put up with you, he stays. You can leave.”

“Then you better believe I’m gonna make you hate every second of this.” She grinned wickedly at Arven, licking her lips.

If she couldn’t be an adult in his eyes, then she knew exactly how to be a problem. 

”You thought Drayton was bad? You wanna know what my type really is?”

Arven winced. “You have a type?”

“Oh, sure!” Her eyes gleamed as she spun around on her stool, away from the bar, and leaned conspiratorially into his shoulder.

“They gotta be at least fifteen years older than me. The more face tattoos, the better. And nothing, and I mean nothing, gets me all hot and bothered like a nice, long, violent criminal history,” she moaned, rolling her eyes back in her head and fanning herself.

“…Seriously?”

Juliana erupted into side-splitting belly laughter. “You should see your FACE right now!”

As she laid her head back on the bar counter, arms spread out, her laughing melted into a dramatic sigh. “Ahhh…it’s just so hard being the new girl in town! You know anybody in a Paldean biker gang who’s single?”

Tensing his jaw, Arven’s expression went as deadpan as Larry’s. “Remember earlier, when I called you funnier than I am? I take it back. You scare me to death.”

Maybe I don’t wanna be funny anymore. Maybe I’m sick and tired of always feeling like the joke is on me.

At last, Larry got around to filling two shot glasses with gin, setting them down with a clink. To Juliana’s surprise, Arven reached for one of them. Elbowing him out of the way, she snatched them both up, sloshing a little over her hand.

“Hey—what are you doing? I thought you don’t drink?”

“I don’t! It’s poison. But you've made me want a drink more than I ever have in my life. And if it keeps it out of your mouth—”

“—Then you’ll just have to come take it out of my mouth!"

Juliana quickly tipped one glass past her lips and chased it with the other. Then she held the blue-fire juniper burn of both shots in her cheeks like a Skwovet, just to show off her tolerance for pain.

The ice in Arven’s water glass tinkled as his hand shook.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

Juliana swallowed the liquor, coughing on the astringent sting. For a final theatrical touch, she cocked her head to the side and slowly licked the gin she’d spilled on the side of her hand, bottom to top.

“Why not?”

He glowered at her, dark brows furious and brooding above wild eyes. Yet he brushed his fingertips along her jaw and chin with a tenderness that wouldn’t have woken a sleeping Litten.

“’Cause not everybody’s like me,” he growled, gaze fixed on her lips.

“—Well, thank Arceus! I don’t want ‘em to be!” She slammed both the empty shot glasses down on the bar. “I’ve had it up to here with you! You think you get to tell me what to do? It’s my mouth! I’ll put it around bottles and words and whatever else I damn well want!”

She was too far gone in her drunken tantrum to see the defeated, tortured longing looking back at her.

“Is there someone you want?”

Like a game of Rustboro roulette, the exact nature of the hysterical noise about to erupt from Juliana’s heaving chest was just as much of a dangerous mystery to her as it was to Arven. This wretched, freakish, jagged-edged cry she had locked and loaded could’ve been a wordless scream, or a wail of tearful rage, or an impassioned confession.

What came out was a terrible shriek of a laugh. And a terrible mistake of a joke.

The practiced ease with which she could slip, Kecleon-like, into this particular vocal disguise should have tripped several layers of alarms in her mind before she even spoke. But the same four-and-a-half drinks that disinhibited her enough to flash him a flirtatious smile, beckon him closer with a fingertip, and bring her lips just beside the reddening shell of his ear also silenced her better judgment.

Juliana used a deep, dusky, Paldean-accented alto to mockingly imitate his voice.

“None of your damn business.”

Arven’s astonished gasp was drowned out by her squealing peals of laughter. His perspiring water glass slipped from his fingers and shattered into a million pieces on the wooden plank floor.

Chapter Text

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Taking a clumsy swing at her nightstand to silence the assault on her ears, her arm struck an object that crashed to the floor and shattered like glass.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Juliana groaned. She felt like her skull was being split open by a Kleavor’s axe.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Except if that were actually happening, she’d already be dead. And then, mercy of all mercies, she wouldn’t have to hear the incessant ringing of her Rotom-Phone.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

Some lowly intern of a braincell, relegated to a desk in a cobweb-covered corner of her brain under strict orders not to touch anything, timidly raised a hand. It cleared its throat and asked, in a small, squeaky voice, what it was that Juliana’s arm had just knocked off the nightstand and onto the floor.

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

A floor…that should be covered in that ugly gray high-traffic dorm carpet. Which, while certainly not luxurious or plush enough to prevent the shattering of whatever it was, should at least dampen the sound, rather than echoing it through the room...

Ro-to-to-to…Ro-to-to-to…

…And a nightstand…that shouldn’t have anything so breakable on it to begin with, knowing her own tendency to resort to fisticuffs whenever her alarm dared to wake her on the wrong side of the bed…

…A bed…which felt…roomier than usual…?

She tensed, eyelids flying open.

The gold-and-green cotton quilt she clutched up under her chin. The dim light peeking in through the drawn curtains on the window opposite her. The little ramp of carpeted stairs at the foot of the bed. The faint scent of lemon furniture polish in the air. The tomato-shaped glass lamp she had just tipped off the nightstand and smashed on the wooden floor.

Juliana was in Arven’s room. In Arven’s bed.

One enormous, potentially life-altering question was burning a hole in her brain as she held her breath, heart hammering with anticipation, and slowly, slowly, slowly turned over. But even before she saw the other side of the bed, that biggest of unknowns was vaporized by a gentle knock on the other side of the bedroom door.

“Jules?” Arven asked in a whisper. “Are you okay in there?”

Of course, she thought, kicking herself as her soaring pulse came back down. Why did I even think…?

“Yeah,” she tried to say, but her voice came out as a croak.

“—Can I come in?”

Juliana raised an eyebrow. “…Arv, this is your room.”

“…Right, but…”

Standing up made her wince and sway as her vicious headache rattled its chains. She staggered to her feet anyway, noting that she was still in Nemona’s dress and her socks from the night before, but with the addition of the cardigan she could remember bringing, if not putting on.

Carefully sidestepping the scarlet remains of the lamp on the floor and her purse and shoes beside the bed, she stumbled over to the door and pulled it open.

“Hey,” he breathed, brow furrowed. Mabosstiff stuck his nose in the door and forced it open wider, tail wagging. 

“Hey.”

Arven's hair was sticking up funny on one side. Juliana weakly snorted, reaching up to fix it.

“Getting so long,” she whispered. “Cute.”

In the dark, she couldn’t see the blood rushing into his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Is everything okay? I heard a loud noise.”

“Mmm…right,” Juliana nodded, groggily rubbing at her eyes with her fists. “Sorry…broke your tomato.”

His hands found her shoulders. Mabosstiff sniffed at her. “Are you hurt?”

“’M fine." Without thinking, she vigorously shook her head, triggering an explosion of fresh pain behind her temples. Squeezing her eyes shut, she swayed and fell face-first into Arven’s shirt, drawing deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth as she leaned against him.

He chuckled and wrapped her up in a hug that she gratefully melted into.

“Fine, huh?”

“…Did I do shots last night?”

“Yeah, you little nightmare,” he chuckled warmly. “You did shots.”

Juliana seldom felt more excruciatingly, wretchedly vulnerable than when trying to figure out how to work an unfamiliar shower.

For starters, it was a process undertaken naked, which—in addition to the embarrassment and the cold—tended to preclude asking the host for pointers. Wrapping a towel around her body at least took care of the chill, but the things working in her favor ended there.

In between the shower head and the tub faucet lived a bewildering switchboard of no less than six different metal knobs. She stared them down until she was cross-eyed and nauseous from her sensitivity to the bright bathroom light, then gripped and twisted the leftmost knob on the top row. Water burbled and sputtered out from the shower head.

While waiting for it to get hot, she sat on the edge of the tub, checked her phone, and hit redial on the missed call that woke her. After one ring, her screen filled with the Rotom-Phone’s default avatar, a generic, featureless head and shoulders that stood in for video callers who kept their cameras off.

“What is it, Cass?”

“Hello, Juliana. Um, how are you?”

“Hungover,” she answered flatly. “But thanks for asking.”

“Get proper pissed at a rager last night?”

Cass spoke without their robotic voice modulator, as they had last time. But they were now putting on a prominent, posh Galarian accent—or perhaps this was their real one, and they’d just taken great pains to conceal it before.

“…Can you translate that into…a dialect I can understand?”

“Hang on. Are you in the loo right now—and are you starkers?!”

Juliana reached her hand into the stream of shower water to check the temperature. “No, you’re getting colder. That was worse.”

“Naked, you bloody wanker!” Cass’s whisper was scandalized. “Are you naked right now?!”

“Huh? No.” Realizing she was bare from the shoulders up, Juliana nudged her hovering Rotom-Phone further away to widen the camera’s angle. “I’ve got a towel on, relax. I’m waiting for the shower to heat up.”

“Okay...? Listen, I’m sorry for not giving you a bell sooner, but I didn’t want to bother you again until I knew something.”

“…About…?”

“Who the imposter Zoruva is. Since we last spoke, I’ve been working day and night trying to sort it out.”

“Oh, right. That. Uh, same. I’ve…thought of nothing else, all week.” Cracking open Arven’s rosemary-scented shampoo—she deduced that the lone bulk-sized bottle of six-in-one body wash, shampoo, conditioner, face wash, shaving cream, and toothpaste on the other side of the tub could only belong to Drayton—Juliana gave it a sniff that did pathetic, disgusting things to her heart. “Number-one concern, for sure.”

“Mine, too. But I’ve hit a dead end everywhere I look.”

“Yeah?” Juliana yawned. “How do I know the imposter isn’t just you?”

“…What?”

“Think about it,” she said, closing her eyes and resting her pounding head against the cool, sunflower-patterned tile on the wall. “Ever seen you and I both in the same room?”

“…Are you alright? You look bloody knackered and sound like you’ve lost the plot.”

“…Cass, you’re gonna have to start using the robot voice again.”

They huffed. “You look tired,” Cass said, slow and clear and a little patronizing, as if they were teaching a new command to a dimwitted Pokémon. “And you’re not making any sense.”

“Like I said, I am violently hungover. Or possibly still a little drunk? What time is it, anyway?”

“Where you are, or where I am?” Cass asked.

“Hm? What d’you mean?”

“Uh…I mean….” The sound of furious typing on a keyboard came through the Rotom-Phone’s speaker. “It’s…ten-thirty in the morning.”

“Just hungover, then. And I’m making perfect sense. You used to skate. You invented this stupid sport. I have no idea how tall you are, but if you’re close to my height, all you’d really need is the mask and you could pull it off."

“But why would I do that?!”

“I dunno, Cass. Why are you doing any of this to begin with?” Juliana grumbled, scowling.

Cass sighed. “We already talked about that. I have to get my old mates to quit playing PokéDerby before they get themselves hurt or expelled, and the only way they’ll stop is if someone outside the Star Crossers challenges and defeats them.”

“But there’s nothing stopping you from being the imposter.”

“There’s some bloody huge things stopping me!” Cass cried, pronouncing the H like a Y. “If I could do it myself, I would never have involved you!”

“Then why can’t you?”

The line was quiet for a few seconds. Juliana noted a suspicious lack of steam in the air for how long the water had been running.

“Well, for one, I’m not even in the right region to do it myself.”

“…Huh? But you’re a student here at Uva?”

“I’m an online student now,” Cass said. “Here, I’ll prove it.”

A text message pinged in: A photo of Wyndon’s iconic Rose Tower against a gray sky, framed through a tall, fancy-looking arched window.

“Take a gander. That look like anywhere in Paldea to you?”

“You got that off the internet,” Juliana accused.

Cass growled in frustration.

Shortly thereafter, a second photo pinged in. This one was of a fluffy, well-groomed Eevee posing cutely in front of the same view. It held a copy of the front page of the Saturday, October 24th edition of the Galar Gazette in its mouth.

“What does that tell you?”

Juliana re-closed the one eye she’d opened to squint at the photo. “That your photoshop skills are mid.”

Cass sighed heavily.

“...Believe me now?”

Opening her eyes, Juliana found that the default Rotom-Phone caller icon had vanished from the screen. For the first time, Cass had turned on the camera.

In front of the same scenic window from the two photos, a pale, delicate, and remarkably nonthreatening face was peeking at her shyly. Gray eyes were fringed with dainty lashes, blinking from beneath round wire-framed glasses. A shaggy, sideswept bowl cut dyed in contrasting shades of red and blue completed the picture.

Juliana cocked her head to the side. “…You’re a girl?”

“Of course I’m a—what’s that supposed to mean?” Cass replied, sounding miffed.

Truthfully, until this moment, she’d never even really thought of Cass as a person.

“Sorry. I meant…you look like this girl I knew in middle school. A friend of mine. She used to get her lunch money stolen a lot, 'til I found out and put a stop to it…”

Juliana pinched the bridge of her nose hard enough that her nails left dents in the skin, troubled by the feeling of protectiveness that she felt taking root. “—Doesn’t matter. Fine, Dubwool-Oh Seven. You’re not the imposter.”

You don’t look like much of a criminal mastermind, either, she thought.

Cass laughed—another first.

“No. Told you. Problem is, of the people who actually could be the imposter, none of them are the right height and weight. Our lineup consists of a burly bloke, a tall girl who could be a bloody supermodel—seriously, I’m looking at her student ID photo, this bird’s so fit that I’m drooling—and an even burlier bloke.”

Juliana stuck her hand into the water again. Still ice-cold. She glared at the knob she'd turned.

“What d'you mean by ‘lineup’?”

“I’ve been digging into the other people who bought a Zoroark mask like yours when they had a chance.”

“When they had a chance?”

“The costume masks were a new item at the school store this semester,” Cass explained. “There were a few different ones—Pikachu, Eevee, the usual. But they quit selling all of them the day after the Zoruva story vent viral, on orders from the university brass. Only four of the Zoroark masks were ever sold: Yours, Burly Bloke Number One’s, Supermodel’s, and Burly Bloke Number Two’s. That’s our lineup.”

“Couldn’t the imposter have bought a Zoroark mask somewhere else? Or online?”

Next, Juliana tried the knob in the middle of the top row. Turning that one made the entire bathtub faucet mysteriously fall out of the wall, landing in the tub with a heavy clunk. Panicking, she picked the faucet up and stuffed it back into the cutout in the tile, only half-listening as Cass answered.

“No. All the masks sold at the school store had minor printing defects. That’s how the store was able to sell ‘em so cheap—the manufacturer took all their factory seconds for the year and put the whole dodgy lot up for auction at the market over in Porto Marinada. The school store’s manager was there stocking up on bits n’ bobs, and nobody wanted the masks, so she nicked them for next to nothing.”

Juliana turned the rightmost shower knob in the top row and watched, dumbstruck, as the first two knobs reset themselves, twisting all the way back to the left like some infuriating Pokémon Gym puzzle. Most bizarrely of all, the flow of cold water out of the shower head didn’t stop.

“There were ten Zoroark masks,” Cass continued. “All from the same printing run, and all with the same distinct flaw: Some tiny piece of rubbish got into the printing machine and transferred a little spot of red paint from the forelock of the mane onto the right side of the snout. It’s kinda heart-shaped, I guess? But it’s puny. No bigger than the eraser on a pencil.”

“Hmph. Never noticed.” Juliana shrugged. “But who cares? It’s not like I want my money back.”

“Would you reboot your brain, you twit?!"

"Shhh. Use your inside voice. I am so, so hungover."

"It matters because it proves the imposter’s mask was sold at the school store! It’s as good as a bloody serial number!”

That caught Juliana’s attention. “…Their mask had the paint spot, too?”

“I took the videos of the imposter from last week’s bout, ran them through some image enhancing software, and combed through them frame-by-frame. The mark is there, I’m certain.”

Juliana chewed her cheek, deep in thought. “What if they just took some red paint and added the mark to a Zoroark mask they bought elsewhere?”

“Why would they? Who’s gotten a close enough look at Zoruva’s mask for long enough to notice it?”

I can think of one person, Juliana thought queasily.

“The school store didn’t advertise that the masks were defective. And even you didn’t realize the mark was there,” Cass added.

Changing the subject, Juliana asked, “How do you know about all of this?”

She twisted the bottom-left shower knob and jumped at a sudden noise behind her: The toilet flushing. Juliana didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Four knobs in and the only steam in this bathroom was coming out of her ears.

“I…might have…nicked a bit more data from the university servers. Specifically, I had a nosy around in some email chains from the top brass,” Cass replied.

“You what?!” Juliana whispered. “You’re worried about your friends getting expelled, but I’m pretty sure this is the kind of thing that could land you in jail!”

“Psh, I’m not gonna get caught.”

“Unlike all the other criminals, who do plan on getting caught?”

“There’s an administrative investigation into Zoruva, and I can't keep you safe unless I know what they know!"

Juliana snorted. "Keep me safe?"

"The good news is I’m about five steps ahead of them," Cass continued. "They still have no idea there’s two Zoruvas. They were just starting to hone in on the four people who bought the masks, but now, even if they question you, you’ve got a smashing alibi for the night of the 17th. And…heheh. Their hands'll be too full to question you anyway.”

“Cass,” she warned. “What did you do?”

“I sent them on a wild Zangoose chase with some anonymous tips. Bogus ones, but they'll look just credible enough for them to sink considerable resources into following up."

Juliana didn’t know what to say to that, so she bent and reached for the knob in the center of the bottom row. When she twisted it just a few degrees to the right, a powerful jet of water shot out from the tub faucet with enough force to powerwash Binacles off the side of a ship. With a startled yelp, she leaped back, barely dodging the loose faucet as the deluge blew it clean off. The metal fixture loudly clattered into the tub for the second time in as many minutes.

Cursing under her breath, Juliana hung up the call, threw her Rotom-Phone on the floor and yanked the bathroom door open—where she found Arven already on the other side, looking equal parts concerned and conflicted.

As soon as he saw her, his eyes went wide with fright and he spun on his heel to face away from her.

“Sorry! Sorry! I was in the kitchen and I heard you scream—I didn’t see anything, I swear!”

“What are you—?“ Juliana groaned, rolling her eyes. “I’m not naked, Arv! I’m in a towel!”

“You’re naked under the towel!”

“Yeah, well, when I wear clothes, I’m naked under those too! Does that bother you? Huh?”

“I—try not to think about that!"

Her nostrils flared. The man had every right not to find her attractive, but she’d never known anyone so petrified of the mere suggestion that she even had a body.

“You’re being weirdly juvenile about this. Do you think I have cooties?”

“…No?”

Juliana’s head was still throbbing, the shower was still going haywire, and Arven was getting on her last nerve.

She crept up close behind him, grabbed the back of his shirt, and stood on tiptoe to whisper a threat in his ear.

“Turn around and look me in the eye or mark my words, the towel’s coming off,” she growled.

After a two-second hesitation, he obeyed. His Tamato-berry face was as red as she’d ever seen it.

“Why is your shower…?” she tried, then gave up, pulling the door open wider and letting the horizontal geyser ricocheting off the shower wall speak for her.

“Oh!” He stepped past her and twisted all the shower knobs back to the left, which finally quelled the rogue Hydro Pump shooting out of the wall. “You hit the middle one on the bottom row?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s the pressure control. Can’t use it unless the hot and the cold are both on. Otherwise…” he grimaced, replacing the faucet fixture back into its fitting once again. “Well, you saw why.”

“The hot and the cold! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?” Juliana snarked, using her palm to give her forehead a duh smack that didn’t help the pain. “You lied, Arv. You don’t have a shower, you have an escape room! I was trying to find the hot water when this happened!”

“Yeesh, I know you’re you, Jules, but why didn’t you just ask me?” Arven smiled and tapped on the first and last knobs. “Top-left is the cold water. Bottom-right is hot.”

“If I had asked, you wouldn’t have shown me. You’d have been too busy flipping out about what a freak I am for showering naked,” Juliana grumbled. “But…thanks.”

She shooed him out, shut the bathroom door, and redialed Cass.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered, switching the top-left and bottom-right on together.

“—What the bloody hell was—?”

“—Don’t ask. Where were we? We know the imposter has to be one of the other three that bought a Zoroark mask, but we also know that none of them could pass for me even with it on?”

“That’s why I called,” Cass said. “Listen, I know you said you wanted out of Operation Starfall…and I respect that. I won't force you, or blackmail you. But I was thinking...as a favor to me, even though you don't owe me one—”

“—You want me to go to tonight’s bout and see if our incredible shrinking ghost shows up?”

“…Yeah. Please?”

Juliana sighed heavily, gripping both sides of the sink as she leaned over it. At least the water flowing out of the shower was finally hot enough to steam up the mirror.

“As promised, here you go: The best hangover cure known to man."

Her eyes narrowed on the massive glass in front of her, not getting the joke. “…But…this is just—”

“—Water, yes.” Arven smirked at her over his shoulder as he flipped some bacon in a skillet on the stove. “Finish that and I’ll let you have some coffee.”

“The best hangover cure known to man comes out of the tap for free?"

“Alcohol dehydrates you. That's what causes most hangover symptoms. Between the water, the ibuprofen, and some food, you should be feeling human again soon. And to let you in on a highly classified nutritional science secret: Drinking the water with the alcohol can prevent the hangover altogether.”

Juliana took a sip with a wry smile. Sitting at Arven’s table in the morning light, soaking up the aroma of breakfast cooking and the easy flow of conversation between them—against her better judgment, this was starting to feel like a cherished habit. “Is that why you start pelting me with water balloons every time I open a drink menu?”

“Water balloons?” He laughed. “That’s a good idea. I could hydrate you and get revenge at the same time.”

“Revenge? For what?”

“Insulting my taste in home décor.”

“Hm? When did I—?”

“—What else could my poor tomato lamp have done to incur your wrath?” Arven teased.

Juliana gasped. Between her battle royale with the shower and her phone call with Cass, she had forgotten all about the property damage.

“No, no—you’ve got it all wrong! I love your place!” she gushed. “I never told you, Arv, but I’ve loved this kitchen from the moment I first stepped into it. Annoyed me at first, ’cause I didn’t want to like you, but I just couldn’t help it! It feels like a piece of your soul. Like home. I could sit here forever. Any time I’m not here, I wish I was!”

Mabosstiff had risen from under her chair to sit and rest his head on her knee, gazing up at her with adoring cataract-clouded eyes.

Arven was frozen in front of the stove. Juliana couldn’t see his expression.

The pause stretched uncomfortably too long.

She had just said way, way, way too much, and not one word of it was an apology!

“Um, w-what I mean is…it was an accident! See, I was asleep, and my phone started ringing, and I didn’t know where it was. Or where I was? The lamp got caught in the crossfire, and I’m really, really sorry,” she pleaded. “That reminds me…how’d I end up here?”

He remained silent and still as a statue. The smell of burning bacon made both her and Mabosstiff's noses twitch.

Now Juliana was really getting nervous. Was that lamp special to him?

“…Arv?”

Arven flinched and hurriedly flipped over the bacon in the skillet. “Yeah! Sorry, I was, uh…thinking about…tomatoes. Don’t worry about the lamp. It’s fine.”

Down the hall, the door to Drayton’s room opened. Juliana dove underneath the kitchen table, bracing herself for a beat-for-beat repeat of the truth or spice fiasco.

Nonono! It’ll be even worse this time—I can already hear the jokes. ‘Ohoho, you went out for a date with me, but just couldn’t resist the temptation to go home with Arven instead?’

I’m still wearing last night’s dress. I slept in Arven’s bed, for crying out loud! Drayton tried to frame me for murder when he had a tenth of this evidence!

But before she could enter a plea of just kill me, the universe delivered a stay of execution. Drayton just crept into the bathroom and shut the door, never coming far enough down the hall to see into the kitchen.

Mabosstiff, sitting with her under the table, gave her face a confused lick. “Should I leave?” Juliana whispered.

Arven offered her a hand up. “Drayton takes forever in the shower. I think he falls asleep in there. I’d say you’ve got at least an hour. Definitely enough time for breakfast. Please, stay."

Juliana nodded and returned to her seat, but kept her voice low.

“You never answered my question—why am I here and not at my place?”

“You don’t remember? Can’t say I’m surprised.” Arven set a plate in front of her: A mouthwateringly hearty bacon-and-egg sandwich on whole wheat toast, and a side of sliced fresh fruit. “You went downhill fast after the shots. I got you back to your room, but you couldn’t find your keys in your bag, and neither could I. So I tried knocking on your roommate’s door, but she wasn’t home.”

“Okay…but why bring me back here?”

“You’re right,” he said, winking as he sat down across from her and started eating. “I should’ve stayed there next to you in your dorm hallway and slept sitting up against the cinderblock wall, but I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is. I was feeling selfish.”

"That's not what I..."

Looking to the left, she noticed that the picnic blanket from Wednesday’s truth-or-spice game was draped over the sofa with one corner folded back, like an unmade bed.

Juliana groaned and lay her head down beside her plate on the table.

“Jules? What’s the matter?”

“I don’t remember all the details, but…was I kind of a jerk to you last night?”

“You said some…colorful things,” he answered, a half-smile playing on his face. “But I was a bigger jerk to you first. I deserved it. Most of it, at least.”

She folded her arms around her head. “You put up with me while I was drunk, gave up your bed for me, slept on the couch, and now you’re too good-natured to even gripe at me about it! Seriously, you should’ve just left me in Cortondo to rot!”

He laid his chin on his own forearms so his smiling eyes were level with hers across the table. “You’ll find it in your heart to forgive me somehow.”

“I caused you so much trouble!” she whispered. “I ruined your date and I wasn’t even your date!”

“Jules, I had fun last night. Not in spite of you, but because of you.”

“Wait a minute.” Juliana’s eyes were the size of their breakfast plates. “I wasn’t your date. What happened to—?”

They both leaped out of their chairs at an explosion of noise from the bathroom: A full-throttle firehose aimed point-blank at a wall, the clang of metal hitting the bathtub, and a terrified, high-pitched shriek.

“The pressure control,” Juliana said. “But—why would Drayton—?”

The pair of pedicured feet that fled blindly from the bathroom and into the kitchen answered her question. Their owner ran in, ducking and clutching her head as if under a hail of enemy fire. Then she saw Juliana and Arven, let out an even more bloodcurdling scream, and ran back down the hall, slamming the door behind her.

Arven's jaw was on the floor. Juliana jabbed a finger at the spot where the apparition had just stood, unable to believe her own eyes.

Lacey. Wearing Drayton’s purple zip-up hoodie. And Drayton’s dragon-scale patterned joggers.

Lacey had just run back into Drayton’s room.

When his door opened again a moment later, two sets of feet meekly shuffled through the hall and into view.

Drayton was, at least, wearing pants. But in his panicked haste, he forgot to throw on a shirt—leaving the heart-shaped pair of love bites painted on his collarbone in plain sight.

Juliana may have gone home with someone else’s date. But so had everyone else.

The four people in this kitchen were armed to the teeth with each other’s secrets and locked in a cold war standoff that could, at any moment, with a single false move or crossed wire or itchy trigger finger, explode in all of their faces.

Drayton’s lies to, and love for, Lacey. Lacey’s lies to, and love for, Drayton. Juliana’s awareness of The Bet, which her own embarrassment compelled her to keep from Arven. Why she was too embarrassed to tell him, and the miles and miles of other secrets from him—and from the world—which tugging on that particular thread would force her to reveal, like a magician’s never-ending handkerchief trick.

All of this and plenty more hung in the balance. Relationships destroyed. Lives ruined.

In such a situation, there are infinite permutations of ways for everyone to lose everything. But there is exactly one strategy that allows everyone to win—and it just happened to be right in Drayton’s wheelhouse.

“I’ve got an idea,” he offered. His voice was casual, but he held his arms out in a nobody-move stance like a hostage negotiator. “What if this never happened? Nobody saw anything, no teasing, nothing changes—and we all just agree never to bring this up again?”

“Deal.”

“I accept.”

“Breakfast, anyone?”

Chapter Text

Down a crumbling set of concrete steps at the corner of 3rd Street and Uva Plaza stood a hatch-like door outfitted with a sign that had once read NO TRESPASSING.

However, in the proud tradition of students the world over, the first five and final three bold red letters of the last word were cheekily covered over with graffiti. Perhaps the university’s maintenance staff made an effort to remove this rude blackout poetry in the past, but layer upon layer of spray paint told the story of a battle forfeited long ago.

In Juliana’s earpiece, Cass was occupied with a different variety of wordplay.

“Hmm…the clue is 'it wears your face.' All I can think of is that it's some kind of pun where the punchline is 'mask,' but the real answer's twelve letters and should start with a D. Any ideas?”

“Are you seriously doing a crossword puzzle right now?” Juliana hissed.

“It took you ages to skate over here! I got bored. Can’t let you have all the fun.”

Juliana shivered in the cold night air. Last night’s balmy weather had evidently been the very last desperate gasp of summer.

“Well, I’m glad you’re keeping yourself entertained, seeing as I’m about to commit a crime as one last favor to you!”

They had agreed that Juliana would attempt to ambush the imposter before they could start tonight’s bout, connect them to Cass, then quit Operation Starfall for good. 
She didn’t have to do this. After all, Cass had promised not to retaliate if she wanted out. But now that she’d actually seen Cass’s face, the face of a normal, kind-of-pathetic-looking Galarian girl just trying to stop her old friends from pointlessly risking their lives and futures in a literal blood sport, Juliana felt a sense of responsibility to at least leave her in the hands of someone else who could help.

Of course, that plan assumed their impossible imposter would actually be there tonight. The two of them hadn’t discussed what they’d do if they were a no-show. Juliana would deal with that if it came to pass. 

“Relax,” Cass chuckled. “I’m only taking the piss.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Nasty. Next time, hang up first!”

“That’s not what that…never mind. Brush up on your Galarianisms. But I wanted to say, um...I really do appreciate you doing this. And everything else you already did. And I was wondering, even though you won’t be Zoruva anymore…d’you think…maybe…we could still be—?”

The loud voices of a group of drunk students stumbling their way up the sidewalk reminded Juliana that she must look awfully suspicious loitering at the bottom of these steps. She tugged on the door handle and cursed.

“—It’s locked,” she whispered, cutting Cass off. “Quick, gimme the code!”

“The…code? Uh, right! Um…try…one-six-one-eight?”

Juliana frantically punched the numbers into the keypad, fumbling the combination once, then twice due to the bulk added by her skating gloves. As the voices drew nearer, she yanked off her left glove, stuffed it into her pocket, and tried again. A little green light flashed on the lock: Salvation.

She pulled the heavy door shut behind her with a clunk and heaved a sigh of relief, nostrils filling up with warm, dank air that triggered a funny pang of homesickness for the Battle Subway. The subterranean twang of damp concrete was the common thread, but this place’s scent cocktail was more subdued, leaning more into the musty notes of an abandoned structure than the stink of one that saw a few million commuters and their Pokémon every day.

Juliana couldn’t believe she was getting sentimental over the smell of hot garbage. Or rather, the absence of the smell of hot garbage.

“So, where’d you hack the door code from?” she whispered, filling the silence while she waited at the top of another set of stairs for her vision to adjust to the dark. Though it was after nightfall, her eyes keenly felt the contrast between the artificial dayglow of Mesagoza’s streetlights and this stygian concrete catacomb.

“Nowhere. Back in the day, Atti—I mean, Smackbeth was in the work-study program. His job was with the campus maintenance team, so at night, he’d use his door access code to throw these Roaring Twenties-themed speakeasy ragers down in the tunnels with the other art students. Those bashes were bloody legendary. Can’t remember why I never went. Now…I kinda wish I had…” she trailed off wistfully.

The tunnel below was little more than a narrow hallway with an eighteen-inch-wide steam pipe hugging the left wall, dotted with sloppily welded joints and rusty handwheels. Various cables and dirty orange tubing were affixed to the right side of the passage with brackets.

“You’re pulling my leg,” Juliana scoffed as she peered down over the railing. “A party down here? It can’t be more than six feet across!”

“There’s a couple of bigger rooms off the main drag for the boilers and electrical stuff—I think they’d usually post up in there. Anyway, I was tutoring him in maths when he had to set up his PIN for door access, so I suggested that he use the golden ratio. All I had to do just now was run the numbers in my head. Works out to one-point-six-one-eight and change.”

“You can divide an irrational number to four decimal places in your head?”

“Not like it’s hard,” Cass mumbled. “Any dolt could’ve figured that out.”

“Not as fast as you just did! Sheesh, Cass, you’re an evil genius!” 

“Thanks. Um, that…means a lot, actually.”

“Me calling you evil?”

“No, getting something right. It’s nice…feeling smart for once.” Cass cleared her throat. “Um, it’s pretty much a straight shot from here to the warehouse. About a kilometer. And you can’t miss it—knowing Smackbeth, it’s bound to have ‘Navi’ painted on the door, if not a bloody theater marquee. Once we get there, I’ve got a hiding spot in mind that should give you a perfect vantage point to wait for the imposter to show up. So, um…you ready?”

“Just a sec,” Juliana whispered. “Gotta suit up first.”

She lifted up the back of her black hoodie and took the Zoroark mask out of the waistband of her shorts, tying the laces around the back of her head before pulling the hood over the top.

“Why bother?” Cass asked. “The only ones with access to the tunnels are the maintenance blokes, and they never work Saturday nights. No cameras, either. Nobody’s gonna see you.”

Despite Cass’s reassurances and the stale-yet-subtropical air of the tunnel, Juliana decided to keep the mask and hoodie on anyway, if only for the extra guts the Zoruva façade always gave her.

The fluorescent light nearest her flickered like a Volbeat’s Tail Glow as she slowly descended the rickety metal spiral staircase—not up to code, she noted with disdain. Watching her step, she gripped the railing and wished one of her Pokémon knew Flash. When she reached the bottom and entered the tunnel itself, the low ceiling showed her a new upside to her short stature.

If Arv came through here, he’d have to duck to keep the cobwebs out of his hair, she thought, smiling fondly to herself despite the gloom. 

The tunnel stretched on and on in a straight line to a vanishing point in the murky darkness ahead. Every fifty feet or so, a dim, greenish fluorescent bulb in a torch-like wall sconce tried and failed to push back the shadows. Some were burned out entirely. But Juliana could make out just enough of the concrete walls to detect a big problem with what Cass just said.

“How do you explain all the graffiti, then?” she whispered, pulling her Rotom-Phone out of her pocket and flipping the back camera on to show Cass.

In addition to the standard tags and curse words, a couple of more abstract patterns were repeated over and over along the walls, floor, and even the cobweb-covered ceiling: Circular targets and patches of stripes, all in a technicolor neon rainbow.

“Think the maintenance blokes did all that? Didn’t you just tell me Smackbeth parties down here with the art students?”

“He used to. But he’d be daft to try it now. Hard for him to explain to the maintenance team why his old PIN would still be popping up regularly in the access logs when he left the work-study program last semester.” Cass snorted. “Lucky they didn’t bother deactivating it when he quit. Uva’s cybersecurity is so dodgy that it almost makes this too easy.”

“How’d you know he quit? More hacking?” Juliana asked as she started off down the tunnel.

“No...I just…faff around on the Star Crossers’ Igglystagram pages from time to time. It’s all public info!”

Juliana snickered. “You expect me to believe that Smackbeth posted about quitting his work-study gig on Igglystagram?”

There was a guilty pause.

“…I check KlinkedIn, too.”

“Cass, explain this to me: These people used to be your best friends. Why are you stalking them from a distance? If you wanna get them to quit playing PokéDerby for their own safety, why don’t you just talk to them instead of sending a stranger to beat them into retirement? Isn’t that dangerous in itself?”

“…It’s…complicated. But…the Star Crossers’ bylaws say that nobody gets to force anybody else to do something. If there’s a row or a disagreement, it gets sorted out on the track. End of story.”

“These intramural teams and their damn bylaws,” Juliana scoffed, thinking of the Grapes of Wrath’s all-activities-must-start-within-fifteen-minutes-of-their-scheduled-time rule. “Where was that little bylaw when you were hacking my phone to blackmail me into helping you?”

She expected Cass to parry this with some snark about how she wasn’t bound by the Star Crossers’ rules anymore.

“…You’re right,” Cass said. “I never properly apologized to you for that. I did it because I was desperate to save my best mates from a monster I created. But no matter how you slice it, the way I treated you was wrong. I really am sorry.”

The sincerity of this self-reflection struck Juliana over the head. It was a moment before she could reply.

“It was wrong. But…I accept your apology.” Juliana sighed, a half-smile tugging at her mouth. “You know, it was never Operation Starfall that I had a problem with—it was feeling like I was just a Pawniard in your chess game. If you’d just been honest with me from the beginning, explained it all, and asked me to help you, I probably would have.”

“But…why? You had no reason to help me—you didn’t even know me!”

“’Cause if there’s one thing I get, it’s wanting to protect someone. But why do you need this whole diabolical plan to do that? What if you just went to each of them as a friend, explained that they shouldn’t write off the dangers of PokéDerby so easily, and asked them to stop?”

Cass’s voice shrank down until it was the size of a Tandemaus.

“…They’d never listen to me now. I was such a bloody good player before. That was why they liked me!” she squeaked. “But I’m not anymore…and I never will be again. I doubt they’d even recognize me. And it’s all my fault…”

Cass’s sniffles stopped Juliana in her tracks. Her mouth fell open.

I...used to.

They didn’t think it through. Someone got hurt. Really badly. Like...hospital, surgeries, rehab, might-never-walk-again badly.

If I could do it myself, I would never have involved you!

The injured player refused to tell who they were playing against when they got hurt. They knew it wasn’t anyone else’s fault.

“Two and a half years ago, when the Star Crossers were forced to dissolve—You were the one who got hurt, weren’t you?”

“…It was all my fault,” Cass repeated in a broken whisper. “All my own stupid, idiotic fault.”

“Oh, Cass…” Tears pricked Juliana’s eyes. “You can’t blame yourself for getting injured! It was an accid—“

“—Look, it—it doesn’t matter! I don’t want to talk about it. Just…keep calm and carry on.”

For several minutes, neither of them said anything. There was only the echoing drip-drip-drip of water leaking from the ductwork here and there to puddle up on the concrete, and an occasional rustle or knock that made the hairs stand up on Juliana’s arms.

She dismissed these sounds as nothing more than steam moving through the giant pipe. But she found it harder to shake the uneasy sensation that she was being watched by something—or someone.

Just when she felt like she couldn’t handle Cass’s silence anymore, she walked right into a dusty cobweb that inspired her to try a joke, though she still kept her voice to a bare whisper.

“Why didn’t you mention these tunnels before? All this time I was ducking behind dumpsters to slip the mask on and breaking windows to sneak in, when I could’ve just been taking the express lane and popping up out of the Star Crossers’ shower drains like a Tarountula?”

“Bloody hell, thank you for reminding me of the one thing I don’t miss about Paldea!” Cass groaned. To Juliana’s relief, she sounded like herself again. “My first day at uni, one of those buggers really did crawl out of the drain while I was showering. Didn’t even have my glasses on. I nearly pissed myself!”

They both laughed.

“But I promise, I haven’t been holding out on you—this just wasn’t an option for the others. The Navi Squad’s warehouse is the only one connected to the campus steam tunnel system. Probably why Smackbeth chose it for his base.”

A muffled skittering noise made Juliana look back over her shoulder. She saw nothing there but more of the same view that lay ahead. “I thought the Star Crossers’ bases were all off campus?”

“Sorry, what? Lost you for — sec there.”

“I said, aren’t the Star Crossers’ bases supposed to be off campus? You told me that’s why the administration can’t do anything to stop them other than threaten to expel students who get caught violating the PokéDerby ban.”

“They are off—ampus. This ware — was part — campus, right on the — until the —sold the property about—years ago. And the — unnel system — way older — that," Cass explained, the sound of her voice growing steadily more garbled. 

"What?" Juliana said. "You’re breaking up a little.”

"Oh, wait — just remembered why — never went — flapper parties!” Cass exclaimed. “There’s no WiFi down — and the cell service is—”

Two quick beeps in Juliana’s earpiece announced that the call had dropped. Cursing under her breath, she considered turning back to redial the call, but it seemed pointless if the service was doomed to fail again in the same spot.

Cass said it was a straight shot ahead, she thought. I’ve already been walking for a while, so it can’t be that much further. I’ll just call her back when I get up to the warehouse door.

Without Cass’s voice in her ear to keep her company, the dark, narrow, echoey tunnel once again put Juliana on edge.

Intersecting hallways began to pop up on either side as she continued on, other arteries of the labyrinthine tunnel network that connected to classroom buildings and residence halls. She often needed to duck underneath the steam pipe where it branched off perpendicular to its original line and into these abysses. 

While these additional escape routes let Juliana breathe a little easier, in each murky passage she stared down, the shadows were playing more and more tricks on her, cutting threatening shapes and looming figures and illusions of movement out of the Reaper Cloth darkness. Even as the stifling heat emanating from the steam pipe left her sweating beneath the mask and hoodie, she shuddered.

I need to get a grip, she thought. I’m Zoruva, damn it! Maybe other people get to be afraid of the dark, or claustrophobic—but I can’t afford to be.

About thirty feet ahead, a rogue shadow darted across the darkened path from left to right, vanishing just as swiftly as it appeared. Her heart skipped a beat. 

Was that…? 

The sweat on her neck went cold in the deafening silence. Juliana reached for Mimikyu’s PokéBall and held her breath.

Swallowing the bitter taste of adrenaline, she crept toward where the apparition had appeared. Her outward calm belied the pounding of her pulse beneath her skin.

She focused on utilizing her strong calves to set one sneaker-skate-shod foot in front of the other as softly as possible, taking exquisite care not to let one leg brush against the other and make a sound. First, light as a Cutiefly landing on a flower, came the tip of the toe. Then the ball of her foot would follow, and finally her heel—and only once the entire sneaker sole had embraced the concrete did she silently shift her weight forward onto that foot. 

She inched up the passage, counting her steps, until she reached the spot. On the left, where the shadow had emerged, was an open doorway leading into a large room. The walls were lined with electrical equipment that produced a barely-audible hum, its little red and green indicator lights weakly flashing in the dark.

As Juliana’s head turned to the right, tracking the path the shadow had taken in search of where it could have disappeared, she received the shock of her life from what she least expected to see: Herself. A dirty old square mirror was mounted into the wall just in front of another dark doorway leading into the boiler room. 

First I'm tiptoeing around because of some shadow boogeyman my brain made up, and now I'm frightened by my own reflection? Seriously, what’s wrong with me?

She brought her breathing under control and chided herself for being so easily rattled, but the sight of the Zoroark mask looking back at her still gave her the creeps. The flickering light and shadows played with its sharp features and twisted them into something unsettling. Uncanny. A prickle of irrational terror at the base of her skull made her feet itch to run.

With a stubborn, swaggering determination, she defiantly stuffed a rag into the mouth of that soft-bellied fear to hush it, stepping nearer to the mirror and leaning in close to her own shoulders-up reflection. For the first time, she took a moment to really study this bad luck charm of a last-minute purchase that had so profoundly altered the course of her life.  ¹

The sly, expressive eyes were lined with paint in the same shade of red Nemona had applied to Juliana’s lips on Saturday, slicing upward at the outer corners in an exaggerated curve that pointed like an arrow to the even sharper blood-tipped ears. A thin screen of teal mesh covered each of the eye holes from the inside, veiling the wearer’s eyes within from prying eyes without.

The lack of a mouth gave the mask an untouchable and yet endlessly malleable expression. A perfect void for the viewer to project whatever they expected or wished to see—a predator’s razor-edged glare or a martyr’s stoic impassivity, the wholesome smile of a hero or the taunting sneer of a villain. It fixed the world at arm’s length, promising everything while revealing nothing.

A crimson forelock of molded plastic cut the charcoal face in two, settling into a point over one side of the long snout. And here, just as Cass said, lay that little splotch of mislaid red paint, vaguely heart-shaped and no larger than a beauty mark. Like a sculptor’s thumbprint left behind in the clay, it was a defect, yet undeniably authentic. The most human part of a face that was inhuman in every way but one.

But didn’t Cass say the mark was on the other side? she thought.

Out of the corner of her eye, the shadowy specter shot out from the boiler room and blew past her like a Froslass’s Ominous Wind, startling her so severely that she doubled over and gasped with fright.

When she pried her eyelids back open, a wide-eyed Grafaiai was blinking up at her from the floor. It sheepishly raised and waved its little hand, as if in apology.

“Are you kidding me?” Juliana whispered, slowly exhaling a massive sigh of relief as the adrenaline spike throbbing in her jaw ebbed away. “You’re the shadow? I bet you made the noises, too. Were you following me?”

The Grafaiai cocked its head to the side and chittered at her curiously.

“Sheesh, little guy. You scared the daylights out of—“

A piercing scream—her own—tore open the silence like a dagger plunged into a canvas, filling and echoing through the tunnels for miles. 

She screamed not because of what she saw when she stood back up and looked over her shoulder, but what she didn’t see.

Juliana’s reflection was gone. It was never there to begin with.

The mirror was a small, dingy window into the boiler room.

She had just come mask-to-mask with the solution to Cass’s crossword puzzle. Twelve letters and it wore her face: Doppelgänger.

Chapter Text

Juliana's sneaker-skates were slicing the hot, heavy darkness into ribbons before the echo of her shriek could return to her.

She did not flee back the way she came. Alight with adrenaline and a vengeful thirst to confront the apparition that had dared to frighten her with such a cheap trick, she chased its trail of sound deeper into the labyrinth.

Like two tap dancers in a synchronized duet, the echoing rhythm of the imposter’s wheels was almost impossible to isolate from her own. Each stroke was light. Powerful. Deadly quick. Their weight distribution and style such a chilling carbon-copy of hers. But through some small difference in their skates—perhaps soles, perhaps soul—there arose a hair's breadth of syncopation, a slight step out of line that betrayed the sound of her shadow.

It was this sound that she hunted like a Sharpedo tracking blood in the water. Her speed was checked only by the conditions of the tunnel: Tight spaces, sharp corners, ducts to duck under and fly over in the flickering greenish dark. The faster she skated, the more she pushed the limit of human reaction time.

A dull thud and an oof from ahead announced the moment the other Zoruva hit that limit. Tearing around the corner, Juliana spied her double sprawled face-down on the filthy concrete about fifty feet up the passage. 

Now was her chance to close the gap. She shot forward like a rocket as the imposter scrambled to their feet and fought to regain momentum.

With so little lateral space in the narrow tunnel, she couldn’t rely on pushing out harder from side to side to build speed. Instead, she was forced to pick up each leg and foot faster to propel herself linearly, an inelegant stride that shared far more DNA with sprinting than skating.

Juliana was used to moving like this in order to take off and build her explosive initial speed during a jam. But due to the inherent inefficiency and instability of her wheels spending so much time in the air (to say nothing of the clumsy clack-clack-clack each time they struck the ground), she never did it longer than necessary.

She was so agonizingly close to grabbing the hood of the imposter’s black sweatshirt when her brain finally caught up to her feet.

Why did they fall?

Juliana’s eyes snagged on the obstacle—an offshoot of the steam pipe installed across the path at a height that seemed specifically chosen to leave no passing shin unbruised—before her skates did. But it was far too late to stop.

Reflex took over. In one fluid snap, she deepened the bend in her knees, sprang up, and sailed over the pipe. Despite her unstable takeoff, she managed to land right in the center of one of the colorful target-shaped graffiti tags, though not without a hair-raising wobble.

This evasive maneuver ate up precious seconds just as the imposter was accelerating away. Juliana was not used to being left in the dust. 

Whoever they are, she thought as she leaned low into one turn, then another and another, They’re fast. Almost nobody can match my speed...

Was it possible that this other Zoruva really was her doppelgänger? And if not, what was their motive for doing this? She’d been so focused on who the imposter was that she never bothered to ask the equally important question of why. 

Juliana had simply stumbled into the identity of Zoruva. It was an accident that she impulsively spun into a stupid joke—until fate flipped the table, and the joke was on her.

Heavy was the head that wore the mask. It offered no fame or fortune. This piece of plastic printed under a bad star had brought her nothing but physical and academic peril, the painful knowledge that her best friend trusted her less than a perfect stranger, and a hauntingly persistent, desolate feeling that she was lying to everyone at all times, even when she took it off.

Who would ever choose this?

“Who are you?” Juliana shouted. “Get back here!”

Chancing a look back over their shoulder, the imposter snickered. Then, in an imitation of the Zoruva voice and accent so uncannily close to hers that she initially mistook it for a delayed echo, they repeated those same six words back to her.

Either the imposter had engaged in many hours of close study and practice to perfect their impression of this vocal disguise she invented on a whim and used in public only a handful of times—or they possessed a Chatot-like natural gift for on-the-spot mimicry. She wasn’t sure which possibility was more alarming.

Distracted, Juliana failed to notice a rapidly approaching hurdle: That very same low-lying pipe she’d narrowly avoided a few minutes earlier.

The wheels of her right skate abruptly stopped when they collided with the rusty metal, but the rest of her missed the memo. Inertia swung Juliana's body into the graffiti target on the ground as if she were a giant hammer in a test-of-strength arcade game.

Though her knee pads took most of the punishment, her face still hit the concrete with a sickening crunch.

The good news was that her skull and all of her bones were intact. The bad news was that her mask was not so lucky: A small, Spidops-web-like crack sprouted from the point of impact.

Not good, she thought, wincing at the splintered plastic digging into her eyebrow. Her ears rang, and a dull ache was clouding up her head.

The imposter Zoruva had led her in a circle, and she literally fell for it, hook, line, and Shellder. Lying there on the bullseye with her busted disguise, Juliana could only sweat and pant and curse and watch as her real target got away.

Except…they didn’t.

When her double reached the next corner, where they ought to have peeled off and made their escape, they just…stopped. And looked back over their shoulder, as if taunting her to get back up and continue their game of shadow tag.

Are they…playing with me?!

Hissing with white-hot fury, Juliana pushed up off the gritty floor with her fists so hard that she cut a knuckle on her left hand, still bare from when she removed her skating glove to punch in the door code. She barely noticed the sting as she dashed after the imposter.

Without slowing their breakneck speed, the other Zoruva spun around to face her, skating backward through the tunnel with their hands coyly folded behind their back, making zigzags and bubbles with their feet.

Cockily showing off. Just as Juliana had the night she skated circles around those Star Crosser bullies and saved Arven.

She’d had enough. It was time to end this.

Up ahead, she spotted one of the corroded handwheels sticking out of the side of the steam pipe, right next to what looked to be some sort of emergency release valve.

The imposter nonchalantly rounded one sharp corner, then another. Juliana deliberately slowed until she was just out of her doppelgänger’s sight and reached for the handwheel with both hands to yank herself to a stop.

Then she violently recoiled as a handwheel-shaped arc of bright pain lit up the exposed fingers of her left hand. It was like she’d grabbed hold of a hot stove.

She reflexively tried to shove her fingers in her mouth to soothe the throb and stifle her cry, but of course, they just bumped her mask and sparked with a fresh flash of pain. Heaving deep breaths, she bit her tongue, tugged her hoodie sleeve over her bare hand, clutched the handwheel again, and wrenched it sharply to the left.

A geyser of scalding steam about a foot wide hissed out of the valve just behind her. Panting raggedly from the exertion and the throbbing of her burned hand, she once again raced after the imposter.

When they completed the circuit and whipped around the first corner again, the other Zoruva skated straight into Juliana’s trap. The unexpected chest-height hazard blocking the path ahead, too high to jump over but too low to duck, forced them to pivot into a hundred-and-eighty degree turn.

She would never know whether this was a desperate bid to reverse course or stop. The imposter lost their balance and fell flat on their back. Juliana's wheels screeched into a powerslide as she drew near, finally able to get a closer look.

Though it was too dark to see the detail of their skates, her double's featureless black hoodie, shorts, tights, and of course, mask were all totally indistinguishable from Juliana's own. It made for a bizarre, almost out-of-body experience as she pinned their wheezing chest beneath her skate. 

“Who…the hell...are you?” Juliana panted, tearing the imposter’s hood down and ripping their mask away.

A cold dread started in the pit of her stomach and spread through her body like death seeping out of a stab wound. 

“No,” she whispered.

Disbelief lurched into denial with an irrational urge to shove the mask back in place and try again, as if re-rolling the encounter would force some other foe to appear.

Those eyes peering up at her through a curtain of messy hair were playful and starstruck until they took on the tarnish of hurt. Worst of all, they were familiar.

“W-whuh—whaddya mean, ‘no’?”

“No. No! NO! NO! Why did it have to be you?! It was NOT supposed to be YOU!”

The devil you don’t know can set the building on fire. But only the devil you know can take himself hostage inside.

The imposter paled as she grabbed his sweatshirt collar with one hand and shook his mask in his face with the other.

“How did you get this?! There was no way—!”

Our lineup consists of a burly bloke, a tall girl who could be a bloody supermodel—seriously, I’m looking at her student ID photo, this bird’s so fit that I’m drooling—and an even burlier bloke.

Juliana and Cass both made the same fatal error in logic: Assuming that the imposter, like her, must have purchased the mask from the school store themselves.

Tall girl, she thought. The fabric of his hoodie slipped through her fingers. Mean-girl pretty.

“I k-kinda...took it. From my Sis. Right when school started. And I threw it away, b-but…then I took it back out of the bin and hung onto it. See, I’m...I'm a b-b-big fan of yours!”

Juliana half-sat, half-collapsed on the floor, clutching her masked, aching head between her knees. Blood roared in her ears. A wave of nausea crept up her throat and drenched the back of her neck in sweat.

“…You should’ve left it in the trash,” she croaked.

“Z-Zoruva, I really, really look up to you—”

“—Go home. You shouldn’t be here.”

“…B-b-but…I…I was thinking—!”

“—I said GO HOME, Kieran!”

“H-how...how d'you know my…?”

“GET! LOST!”

“I-I wanna help you!” Kieran pleaded, his voice shaking. “You and I—we could be a team! Playing PokéDerby together, both as jammers! Just like on a real derby team! Th-that way, we could take turns, and I could give you a break someti—!”

“—You’re gonna give your neck a break! Do you have any idea how dangerous PokéDerby is?! If you think I’d let you have a turn, you’re out of your mind!”

Kieran’s expression settled into a pained, persecuted betrayal that seemed to effortlessly mold itself to his face—a mask as familiar to him as I’m fine was to her, though in his case, the feeling was totally authentic. He hauled himself to his feet.

“You think I can’t handle it? I—I know I’m small, and weak, but my Pokémon are strong enough to make up for it! I was Zoruva last week when you couldn’t be bothered to show up! Why weren't you there?!"

“Why were you at the Caph Squad's warehouse?! You were supposed to be at Cosmog-Con!”

“You think I’d pass up a chance to see my hero in action? I left early, and when I got there, the Star Crossers were ready to declare that you forfeited! You're lucky I didn't have time to change out of my cosplay before I left the convention, 'cause that's the only reason I was able to jump in with my team and beat Princess Brawl to keep you undefeated!”

“…Cosplay?” Juliana scoffed, unable to believe what she was hearing. “You were cosplaying as Zoruva?! You said you went as—!”

“—Hang on…go back,” Kieran said slowly. “How'd you even know I went to Cosmog-Con?”

Juliana ripped away her own mask and dropped the accented alto.

“How do you think I know?!” she snarled.

Kieran’s defiant braggadocio shattered into shards of shock.

“…Wowzers,” he breathed. “All this time…Zoruva…was you, Juliana? Right under his nose…?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Under whose nose?”

“Uh, I m-mean...my nose! Like, I c-can't believe my hero is one of my friends! Ehehe..."

Juliana could smell dishonesty, and right now, she had less than zero patience for it.

“You said you went to the convention as No-Face from Spiritombed Away!” she accused, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You showed me a photo!”

Kieran chuckled.

“I was afraid you were onto me, so I just showed you a picture I took at Cosmog-Con of someone else in a No-Face costume! Way cool, huh?"

“Son of a…how dare you?! You lied to me!”

“A mask can have anyone underneath it! Can’t get mad at me for beating you at your own game!" His nose twitched mischievously as he grinned, and his voice grew more animated. "That just proves we should team up! Just think how fun it could be—they’d never expect two Zoruvas! And I already have the costume!"

“You think this is a GAME?” Juliana shouted. “While you've been PLAYING DRESS-UP, I was only doing all this to stop anyone else from getting HURT!”

Kieran flinched. Tears welled up in his eyes.

“…You’re such a hypocrite,” he whispered. “I was doing what you told me to do!”

“What are you even talking about?! I never told you to—!”

“—‘Fake it ‘til you make it!’” Kieran snapped, using a perfect mockery of her voice to hurl her own words back at her.

Juliana felt like she might hurl, too.

Oh, Cass… she thought. I’m sorry. I understand it now. I created a monster, too.

“…What’s the matter with you? I didn’t mean this!” she squeaked. “You’re lucky you didn’t get yourself killed! Don't you realize you're all Carmine has?! If anything happened to you, she—!”

“—Aaaagh! You sound just like her! All my life, she’s been smothering me and telling me what to do, and I hate it!”

Upper lip curling, Kieran put on a cold caricature of Carmine’s voice.

“’Kiki, you can’t watch that scary movie, you’re too much of a crybaby!’ ‘Kiki, you can’t learn to skate! It’s too dangerous with your asthma!’” He rolled his eyes.

“‘Kiki, I’ll make sure those bullies leave you alone!’ Great job, Sis—now everybody in our hometown knows how weak I am, and even the nice kids are too scared of you to talk to me! It's her fault that the only real friends I ever had were my Pokémon!”

Juliana’s face flushed with anger of her own. “She was trying to protect you!”

“I don’t wanna be protected!” Kieran spat. “I wanna start living my own life! That’s what Uva was supposed to be—Professor Hassel personally invited me to apply for the visual arts program here after my high school art teacher sent him some of my drawings. I didn’t even tell Sis I was applying. She must’ve snooped through my email to find out.”

“When I held that acceptance letter in my hands, I was so happy that I cried,” he whispered, his bottom lip quivering. “I was finally gonna get to break free, make my own choices, find some friends who might actually understand me. I was finally gonna get to see what I'm really capable of..."

Kieran dragged his sleeve over his face, wiping away tears of bitter anger.

“But I should’ve known the first words out of her mouth would be ‘Kiki, you’re too sheltered to go off all alone and be an outsider in Paldea! I already applied to Uva’s anthropology program and got in, so I’m gonna ruin everything by transferring there first!’” he sobbed.

"She joined the Grapes of Wrath last spring just to make it so I couldn't. I tried to go to that interest meeting...costume party...thing on the first day anyway, but she wouldn't even let me in the door, and we got in this huge, nasty fight about it...so I stole the Zoroark mask from her and left. Went to meet some of my art classmates down here to paint some graffiti, just to stick it to her."

“And then...bam, Zoruva pops up outta nowhere—an underdog like me, but so strong and cool and brave! Someone who stands up to bullies! Somebody people can count on, just like Hiro in Wheels of Destiny! Zoruva is everything I’m not! When I put on that mask…I stand different, walk different, think different!” he cried, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I feel it!”

“I know,” Juliana whispered. Her own tears were burning a hole in her throat, but she beat the embers down until they died away. “Believe me, I know what this mask gives you. But you wouldn’t want it if you knew what it takes.”

Kieran angrily yanked his dark hair up out of his face and secured it with a yellow clip. Just one unruly piece of it, too short to properly secure, managed to break loose and fall beside his right eye.

This gesture seemed to transform him into a different person—like the difference between a softly-glowing lantern and a deadly inferno, now that his eyes weren’t peeking meekly from beneath his hair, their light blazed sinister, fearsome, unrelenting.

“I told you, I have what it takes!” He clawed for his mask in her hand. Her block shoved him to the floor, snarling and baring his teeth. Only that lone rebellious lock of hair and the thumbprint of deep blue ink smudged just above his right eyebrow still tethered him to the shy, mild-mannered Kieran that Juliana knew. 

“No, you DON’T!" she said. "I’M the only one who does! You want your bossy big sister to leave you alone? Great! Go home, where you’ll be safe, and tell her to shove it! But either way, you're never getting this mask back!”

“You don't get it. You don't UNDERSTAND! I felt more free pretending to be you for one night than I did in a whole lifetime of being me, and now you’re telling me to just go back to the way things were?” More of those bitter tears overflowed freely down his cheeks. Kieran held her gaze and made no effort to hide them, to Juliana’s visceral discomfort.

“You just don’t wanna share the Zoruva identity with a weakling like me, do you? You can’t stand the thought that I could be as good at this as you are! It’s an ego thing for you!”

“Of course it’s not!” Juliana snapped, sounding far more sure of it than she felt.

“If you wanna go challenge the Navi Squad and keep the glory all to yourself,” Kieran threatened, sniffling as he drew a PokéBall, “—then you’re gonna have to battle me for it first. Right here, right now. If I win, you give me back my mask, and we’ll go and play the bout as a team. I lose, I’ll go home and never bother you about it again.”

Juliana smirked. She and Mimikyu had taken down three Star Crosser grunts at once without breaking a sweat. Kieran the sniveling crybaby didn’t scare her at all.

“Deal.”

One turn later, her smirk was gone. 

Kieran’s ferociously over-leveled Incineroar knocked out her Mimikyu with a single blistering Flare Blitz that sent Juliana diving to the ground with a yelp. Panic seized her. The air down here was too hot, too close. Darkness choked her like soot. She wanted to run, but had lost track of which way was out.

Even with a type disadvantage, the beast was likewise able to faint her Frogadier before she’d even managed to give a command, let alone land a hit. The flash of flames seemed to singe the skin on her unmasked cheeks.

This was not like the Star Crosser grunt battle. It wasn’t even like the PokéDerby bouts with the squad leaders. This was a nightmare. 

"How do you like that?” Kieran taunted as she withdrew Frogadier and sent out Honedge. “See how hard we’ve trained?”

His arrogance infuriated her enough to rattle her out of her startle response. “This isn’t over!” she grunted through her teeth.

“It was over before it started! You don’t trust your team! You never put in the work to build a bond with them and train, and it shows!”

“I never had to!” she spat. “I’m strong enough on my own!”

“That’s the difference between me and you. You fight all your battles all by yourself. Man, I wish I could be like that!” Kieran sneered.

“Me? I’m weak. I’m a short, scrawny crybaby with asthma, and I can’t stand up to my sister. Nobody understands me. But my Pokémon do! They always do! And I trust them to make up for the things I lack!”

Kieran admitted and identified with his own weakness so readily that Juliana didn’t know whether to be repulsed or awed.

If she was a master forger secretly passing off her counterfeit paintings as legitimate, Kieran was the host of an exhibition of his own original artwork, displaying not just the final masterpiece, but every failed prototype and tearstained draft and smudged, wastebin-destined sketch that led to it. He didn't fear the scrutiny of his shortcomings—he invited it, facilitated it. His flaws held no power over him. 

It was as if Kieran was Juliana turned inside out. All the disgustingly soft, vulnerable bits that she hid under layer upon layer of lead and iron spikes, he wore proudly on the surface. His abandonment of the outer projection of strength, even as he dared the world to hit him anyway, paradoxically revealed an unconquerable inner strength.

Kieran didn’t need the mask, but he wanted it. Juliana didn’t want it, but she needed it.