AN: DAMN it's been a while. Sorry about that. I didn't lose interest, just a lot of shit came up. College, work, then I was in the hospital, then even more work—okay, I'm done rambling now. Sorry.

…

"I'm…a little shy." I whispered in the dark with my hands covering my half-naked body.

It was so embarrassing to expose my imperfect skin, even in the almost-pure darkness of my bedroom. Distant rumbles of thunder sang along with the nervous quivers that shot up and down my spine as Knox, kneeling a foot across from me, carefully petted my left knee with his four calloused fingers. Never had I felt so exposed, as though every flaw of my frame was magnified and examined a thousand times over. Knox could read my anxiety in the bright red flush of my cheeks and the way my leg twitched against his touch. With a fond smile, his cheek rubbed against the calf of my leg as to say, "you are perfect to me," just as a flash of distant lightning lit up the roughened, bare flesh of his shoulders for a brief instant.

I was hesitant to remove my arms from around my waist. Yet, as Knox crept closer to me, the urge to touch him grew. I wanted to feel his warm skin and to press my soft frame against his hardened, muscular flesh like cotton against steel. His natural, earthy scent was so inviting, not like the artificial smell of cologne and aftershave every other man carried. Knox, and everything about him, was beautiful to me.

He grabbed my hands in his and pulled them away from my body with a gentle force. As he drew me quietly towards him, I was levitated to my shaking knees and held stable by Knox's firm but loving grip. I could outline every crevice and cleft of his chest with my fingers, like memorizing a map for the blind. The steep hills of his collarbone led my fingers to his neck, which I brushed tenderly while placing a wet kiss on his thin bottom lip. We held one another close, skin against skin, as the chaotic thunderstorm grew stronger on the other side of the window glass.

XxxX

My feet were growing incredibly tired. The hours passed slowly by, obvious only by the sun's journey across the open sky above me. As I endured this monotonous cycle that never seemed to end, the only things keeping me company were the wild Pokémon scattering about the forest and the thoughts in my head. With the new night approaching, I could see a faint shimmer on the horizon ahead. Below the hills, beyond these trees, Neon City was only a few miles away.

Heh. Miles. I talk as though they're just inches.

As the city grew nearer, my anxiety was growing ever stronger. How long would it be before Knox and I found each other again? What if he wasn't there? What if he didn't want me anymore? These were only three of the countless thoughts running a marathon in my head. They were like triathlons, pushing each other around and trying to make it to first place in a never-ending competition. None of these thoughts stayed on the foreground of my mind for more than a minute, but they all pushed to the front every chance they had.

In short, my brain was full of chaos.

XxxX

"Please," I whispered in Knox's ear timidly. "Be gentle with me."

He lifted a hand to my face and gave my cheek the lightest pinch, grinning with both understanding and sweetness. Behind the confident guise, I could tell he was just as nervous as I was. His hands trembled against my skin and I could see a shimmering bead of sweat falling down the side of his face. Even in a kiss, his lips were quivering.

That chilly night in October was tricky, to say the least. In every movement we made and every touch, we sported the graceless inexperience that most young lovers do. With every bit of clothing stripped, there was hesitance, and with every embrace we were shaking with a cold sweat of fear. This was no so much an act of lust as it was a right of passage—the first step, on to the next. A hurtle had to be left behind. I held Knox close around the shoulders while his hands fumbled behind my back, inexpertly loosening the clasp of my bra with anxious fingers. Even after the garment lay limp over my chest, I was too embarrassed to let it slide away. It was irrational, I know that much now. There was nothing to hide that he hadn't seen, either by accident or a tempted glimpse into the half-cracked shower door. But this time, it was different.

With blushing cheeks, Knox comforted my terrified heart with a tender kiss to the lips. His tongue mingled with mine, pulling us ever closer together as my hesitant arms relaxed and found themselves wrapped around his neck. I could feel his hand slowly creeping up my side, over my stomach, and pausing beneath my breast with a twitch of unease.

"It's okay," I whispered, my hot breath in his ear canal, before kissing his cheek softly.

"I'm yours…"

All at once, we lost ourselves, like standing at the edge of a cliff and finally making the long plummet down. We had driven ourselves mad with anticipation to the point when it hardly mattered anymore if we turned back or kept going. But somewhere between those two extremes, the option for failure was eliminated the second Knox penetrated my virgin flesh. I closed my eyes tightly and gripped his shoulders, trying in vain to disguise the initial displeasure it caused me. I felt myself tear, fragile as paper, like a rubber band twisted too many times. It was a slow and painful process, one that Knox was terrified to make as the concerned expression on his moonlit face unveiled.

A slight crinkle of the forehead; 'do you want me to stop?'

I shook my head no, biting my bottom lip to suppress the stinging pain this physical invasion had caused me. As a gentle nod of assurance, I wrapped my legs around Knox's waist and squeezed him softly inwards. With that, and a tiny kiss between the eyes, my oldest friend became my first and only lover in one brief night of clumsy, inexperienced lovemaking that ended in self-realizing making up for empty satisfaction.

And when it was over and done, we lie silently beside one another overcome with a sad case of virgin guilt. We looked not at each other, but at nothing in particular; dark shapes in the corners, colorless forms on the ceilings, planes like moving stars outside the window curtains. Knox would break the awkward silence with a warm, trembling hand to the side of my sweat-sticky face and an unnatural, inept whisper of "love you".

I gave him a weary smile and touched my hand to his. "I love you too," I told him in a cracking voice not quite strong enough to form a real sound. I meant what I said, and I would vouch for it a thousand times over. Human, Pokémon; it didn't matter.

I was hopelessly in love with my one and only friend.