"Yes!  I won!"

I look on, trying desperately not to bite my lip in anxiety as I observe Satoshi's antics as he celebrates his victory.

He's won.

I've lost.

I could kick myself for being so stupid as to suggest a battle in the first place: Satoshi is the Pokemon League Master.  When we were younger we were close rivals - closer than I'd really cared to admit to, back then.  I was the always the one in front, always a step ahead of him - yet somewhere along the road he'd gained an edge over me.  I don't know how or why or when, but the results are clear enough.

I've only actually fought him once before in my life.  I lost then, too.  Why, then, did I propose we battle with the stakes set so high?

I finger my pendant, my eyes dropping to the ground as I shove the insidious little voice in my mind that suggests that I wanted to lose aside and listen to Satoshi thank and congratulate his pokemon.  I might as well be a lump of rock for all the attention he pays me.  He probably wouldn't notice if I slipped out right now...

No.  I couldn't do that.  I don't really want to do that - but I don't particularly want to stay and face him either.

Damn it!  I should have just written him a stupid letter!

Too late now, though, as the group before me settles down, drawing my gaze once more.  His pokemon are once more in their pokeballs, bar his pikachuu who stands beside him as he turns his gaze towards me.  His dark eyes pierce me through, pinning me in place - he won't let me get away this time, not without an answer he can accept.

He didn't really care for the last answer I gave him, his eyes narrowing into a glare.  I couldn't really blame him; I wouldn't have believed me either, but it was the first thought that had stirred in my dumbstruck mind.  I simply didn't think before those hateful words slipped off my tongue so easily.  I'd become too accustomed to them, too ready to spout them off without the need for conscious thought.

It seemed that Satoshi had also grown used to them also.  I saw the look in his eyes before I turned my back on him, and knew that this time he wouldn't leave it alone.

He wanted to know why.

He wants to know why.

I won't be leaving this time without giving him what he wants.  Unfortunately, I can only give him what he asks for, which most likely isn't what he wants to hear.  But I don't intend to lie anymore.  No matter what the truth costs.  The price can't be worse than it is for lying.

"Shigeru."

My name falls softly from his lips, his expression becoming serious.  I close my eyes, taking one steadying breath before opening them again.

"Satoshi."

He's waiting for me to speak, but the words are caught in my throat.  I just can't say what needs to be said - and Satoshi's demanding eyes are not helping any.

He's changed.  He's no longer quite the Satoshi I knew when we were children.  How different is this person who stands before me from my former childhood friend?  How much responsibility do I bear for this alteration?

We've always seemed to gravitate around one another, our paths crossing, parting, crossing once more like a pair of comets whose orbits overlap - but comets can't meet without violence.  So much for my dream of stars.

"Shigeru," he repeats, his voice and eyes intense with jumbled emotions.  I can see anger there, sorrow, and pain that I've inflicted over the last several years - yet I can also see hope.  That spark of brightness has dimmed gradually over the years, and now flickers like a dying hitokage's tail.

I can't let that glimmer fade without telling him the truth.  It's my last chance.

Our last chance.

"You still don't remember?" I ask him quietly.  He scowls at this, his anger deepening at my question.  Obviously not, I see.

"What is it I'm supposed to remember, Shigeru?" he demands to know, folding his arms across his chest.  By his feet, his pikachuu mimics his actions  "I asked you for an answer - I won't let you leave me with another question this time!"

I close my eyes and bow my head, recalling our last encounter.

"You started it, Shigeru!" he'd accused, and given his ultimatum.  I'd escaped that time by asking him if he remembered just how it had all begun.

"How am I supposed to know?!" he'd cried out.  "You just pushed me away for no reason!"

I'd laughed at that, hysterical laughter that I couldn't suppress, and asked him again to remember because I simply couldn't say the words.  I couldn't remind him of what had happened between us in mere speech.  I still can't, but...

There is another way.

I walk across the grass towards him in slow, steady paces.  He doesn't alter his stance, but his eyes follow my movements with increasing suspicion.

"What are you doing?" he queries tensely as I stop right in front of him, bare centimetres between us.  I can feel the build up of charge from pikachuu as it prepares to defend its master.  I can only hope it doesn't make this experience any more shocking than I already know it will be.

"Reminding you," I whisper as I reach one hand up around his neck to pull his face towards mine, capturing his warm lips with my own.

He freezes motionless, shock permitting me to do what I will with him while his muscles tighten beneath my fingers.  I know the moment can't last, and savour the taste of his mouth, as sweet as I remember from the first kiss I'd stolen when we were both children.  I feel his arms start to move and release him before he can push me away as he did that first time - but I wait patiently, my eyes closed, for the main thrust of his reaction.

It doesn't come.

I grow tired of counting the seconds in increasingly nervous expectation.  The delay gives me hope, and courage enough to open my eyes -

I feel like dying, my hope scattered to the ends of the earth as I see Satoshi, his eyes shut tight against the sight of me, straining to hold back the strike his fist is well-prepared to deliver.

"I see part of you remembers," I hear myself saying in a roughened voice.  His eyes snap open as I speak, fixing me with their wildly emotional stare.  My traitorous mouth never knows when to stop.  "Go right ahead," I tell him, smiling mirthlessly.  A narrowing of his eyes is all the warning I receive as he takes me up on my offer.

"You idiot!" he yells at me as I push myself up from the ground, rubbing at my jaw briefly.  Pikachuu darts uneasy glances between us.  "We were nine years old then!  Nine year old boys don't go around kissing each other!"

I shrug, not daring to look him in the eyes again.  I don't think I could ever have such courage again.  I turn away from him and start to walk, not really caring where I'm heading.  A hand on my shoulder brings me up short.

"But then," he says softly, his breath brushing the nape of my neck, "you always were one step ahead of me in everything."

I want to turn around and ask him what he means, but my body won't obey, my muscles locked by uncertainty and fear.  He takes the matter further out of my control by twisting me around with his hands on my shoulders.

I'm facing him - and he's smiling.

"Satoshi?" I breathe, barely able to speak.

"You should know by now," he tells me with a quirk of his brow, "I always catch you up in the end."

I blink widened eyes, unable to believe what I think I'm hearing -

His lips are far more convincing, I find.
 
 

* hitokage = charmander