Born in Spring

I hated spring. Ever since I was little, I hated it. It was too wet, the melting snow tinged black and leaving leftover sand all over the roads. Even the air was saturated, thick with humidity, which made it too hard to breathe. Even the summer was more tolerable because at least I could lay out in a bathing suit then. It wasn't quite warm enough in spring. I even hated the flowers.

But I did have one reason—and only one reason—to like spring.

Even though I didn't like spring, he kind of reminded me of it. Maybe it was his ginger hair or the innocence of his smile or the way he would laugh when I said something he thought comical. He was the type of person who would wish on a shooting star, but if anyone saw, he would laugh about it and deny its ability to actually make dreams come true.

He was the only reason I could ever like spring.

I fell in love with him on a rainy day in April when we were still young. April showers bring May flowers, so they said. I wasn't sure how I knew, but I did. I had been his friend for several years at that point, but it was the first time that I looked up and saw him as someone I loved.

"I hate spring," I told him that day, kicking a rock into one of the many puddles forming by my feet. I sat down on one of the swings, despite the fact that it was soaked—but I already was, anyway—and pumped my legs back and forth. He stood and watched, one of those perfectly innocuous smiles on his lips.

"Really?" he asked, and I nodded, sliding to a stop.

I glanced down at my hands, which were already a little pruney, and squeezed them into fists. "There's not really anything to like about it, is there? Comparably, Fall is a better season."

"I love spring," he said quietly. "It's all about rebirth. Look at the trees—just a month ago, they still didn't have any leaves. Now the blossoms have started blooming. And if you look at the ground, flowers have started sprouting. If all of nature gets a chance to start over, then I ought to get a chance, too, don't you think?"

It was then that I looked up at him. His head was tilted a little, his eyes squeezed shut as he grinned at me. My heart skipped a beat, and my cheeks began to burn as I blushed. This had never happened before, but all of a sudden, it was like he really was a different person. Had he been born again in the spring that I told myself I hated?

All I knew was that it was those words—that smile—that made all the difference. So, when spring rolled around next time, I couldn't help but feel my heart beat a little bit harder for him.

We made a pact to see each other every year on the first day of spring. Our lives took us in different directions, as it often happened. I ended up as a gym leader once my reign as Champion was over, and he became an assistant to Professor Sycamore like Dexio and Sina. I was busy, and so was he. But we made the pact nonetheless.

At first, it was all five of us in the pact: the five of us who started their adventures at the same time and became best friends. We all decided to see each other on the first day of spring, the one day during the year that—as he put it—signaled our rebirth. It was a new day, a new life, but we wouldn't forget the friendships we had made.

Eventually, though, the rest of them left. But he stayed, and I stayed. He was in Lumiose, and I was in Coumarine. We weren't far, so we always met up on those swings in Route 14.

"You came!" he exclaimed with a smile when I showed up on the first day of spring in that first year that it was just the two of us. "I guess the rest of them aren't coming, huh? But, you know, at least it's the two of us. It's nice that we could both get a day off just to be together. Professor Sycamore says hello, too."

I nodded, giggling at the mere thought of Professor Sycamore. "Tell him I say hi back."

"Okay." He walked over to a bench and took a seat, and I kicked my feet in the sand at the base of the slide. "It's weird to think that the last time we were all together here was three years ago. Who came last year? Just Tierno and you, right? To put it another way… we're all growing up. Slowly but surely. It's spring."

His last sentence was added as if an afterthought, but for some reason, I thought it made all the difference. It explained everything. Spring did this to us.

"I still hate it."

He laughed, standing up and running towards the play-set. He had always been the most serious of all of us—or, at least, the most concerned about actually helping Professor Sycamore—so seeing him climb up to the top of the slide was a little much for me. And when he slid down the slide, waiting at the bottom with his hands on his knees, I couldn't help but laugh, too.

"It's been a long time since I've done that."

"My turn!" I announced, running up into the play-set and dropping down the slide. When I reached the bottom, he held a hand out towards me and helped me stand. "How come these are for kids? They need playgrounds for us adults, too."

We ran around all afternoon, swinging on the swing set and sliding down the slide, hanging on the monkey bars and jumping from colored tile to colored tile. It wasn't long before the sun set, and we were lying on the ground in the darkness. For some reason, I couldn't imagine doing any of that with him when we were younger. It was only now, only between us, that he could.

Maybe he was right. Maybe he was born again in spring.

"Will you come next year, too?" he asked suddenly.

I looked over at him, that now-familiar pang in my heart sending chills up my spine. His face was serious again, his orange bangs falling over his eyes. I couldn't help but think his eyes looked a little glossier than usual, as though tears were beginning to form, but he wouldn't blink. I couldn't tell what I was seeing.

"Every year," I promised, and I grabbed his hand to hold us to it.

We both kept that promise for a few years. We met up at Route 14 like always, talking and hanging out on the swings and occasionally heading into Lumiose to grab a bite to eat. One year he actually brought me back to the lab, where Professor Sycamore talked my head off for a couple of hours, and I had no choice but to humor him.

Nothing even needed to be said. We both just showed up on the first day of spring. Sometimes there was a layer of snow on the ground, and sometimes the flowers were already blooming. Sometimes it was raining, and sometimes the sun shone brighter than usual. But no matter what, we were always there.

Until one year when I showed up and he didn't. I waited and waited and waited. I walked into Lumiose and up to Professor Sycamore and asked where he was—oh, he just left… he said he was going home—and then gave up. Maybe he had just forgotten, and maybe he thought that the first day of spring was tomorrow. I didn't want to make him worry by going to his house, so I went home, too.

I closed my gym and went back to the swings the next day and waited. But the hours kept ticking by, tick, tock, tick, tock, and I returned home again.

The pang I felt in my heart this time wasn't pleasant. It wasn't the pang that reminded me of all the pleasantness of spring; it wasn't the pang that made me remember how I loved his smile or the way his hair curled around his ears; it wasn't even the pang that made me blush. It hurt, and I could feel a crack begin to form.

A whole year went by without a word from him. And then another year. And another.

I hated spring.

For some reason, I couldn't stop going to Route 14 on the first day of spring even though everyone else had stopped coming. I would take that day off at the gym, shut it down much to the chagrin of the newbie challengers who didn't know this was an annual thing, and head down through the badlands and north Lumiose, straight up to the playground.

Most of the time I just sat on the swings and rocked back and forth, letting my Pokémon run around the empty space and play. Sometimes I would go down the slide, trying to remember—or maybe forget—what it was like to be born again. And sometimes I would picture a redhead at the bottom of the slide holding a hand out to me.

He came once. It was a few years after he stopped coming, and I was sure that it was merely coincidence that he showed up. If the surprise on his face was any indication, he didn't expect me to be there anymore than I expected him to be. But, I knew, I always hoped. My heart skipped a beat the same way it always had.

"You're here," he whispered.

"You're here," I whispered back.

"I didn't mean to stop coming. My sister had an emergency at the house, and I know I should have contacted you. But none of my calls would go through on the Holo Caster, so I…" He paused, his hand instinctively reaching for the lanyard around his neck. "I assumed that you didn't want to talk to me anymore. And then the next year, Professor Sycamore sent me out to Kanto for something. I figured you'd stopped."

I shook my head, wrapping my fingers against the metal chain holding the swing seat. "I came back every year."

He didn't say anything. His bright red face was enough of an answer for me.

With a sigh, he sat down on the swing next to me and looked up towards the sky. A couple of drops had already spilled from the threatening clouds, and I held my hand out in front of me. Just like that, as if I caused the rain, the drops fell in quick succession. I let a little puddle form in my hand before I wrapped my fingers around the chain again.

"Serena."

I looked at him, and he grabbed the chain of my swing right about my hand and pulled it towards him. I couldn't remember the lines on his face exactly—I had fallen in love with him years ago, anyway. Somehow, he had become a tired young adult, with tired eyes and a tired face, and I couldn't help but think I looked the same.

"Trevor."

He let go of my swing, and I wobbled awkwardly until it stopped moving. "I'm sorry," he said, putting his face in his hands. "If I knew that you kept coming, I wouldn't have stopped. I thought about you every day." He lifted his head from his hands, his cheeks bright red. "Well, what I mean to say is—"

"I thought about you every day, too. And every day I thought, 'It's another day closer to spring.' I always looked forward to it." I smiled sadly at him, the rain still falling between us. "The flowers are going to be beautiful this year."

"You hate spring."

It was true: I hated spring. I hated how wet it was. I hated the melting snow tinged black that left sand all over the roads. I hated the saturated air, thick with humidity, that made it too hard to breathe. I hated that it wasn't quite warm enough yet. I even hated the flowers. I hated everything about spring.

But there was one reason I could ever like it.

"I always wanted spring to come," I told him, "because I wanted to see you."

He grabbed the chain of my swing again, pulling me back towards him. And when I leaned in towards him, pressing my lips against the smile of the boy I always loved, I remembered exactly why spring was my favorite season. And even as the water dripped down our faces, I kept kissing him, wishing that spring would never end.

Author's Note: Just a short little one-shot this time. I was just thinking the other day how all of my one-shots have been pretty long and was like, "I don't think I could ever go back to writing something just over 2,000 words!" And look what happens.

Anyway, apparently there is a severe shortage of fanfiction of this pairing, so I'm trying to help the cause, haha.

See you soon.