the what-if

"Have you ever met someone, and thought: if I hadn't met them here and now, in these circumstances and at this time, I most certainly would have fallen in love with them? You don't love them, you just couldn't, but you knew that there was always that potential. That 'what-if'."

A broken quirk of his lips – an expression so sad and embittered that she wondered if it could even be categorized as something so cheerful as a 'smile'.

No, a distant part of Touko decided. She had seen this man smile before – truly smile - colored by the blazing lights reflecting off the Ferris wheel's metal and illuminated by the amalgamation of hues the fireworks painted upon the sky.

But this….this was unmitigated, unrestrained pain.

Hours before, storming unrepentantly through the elaborate castle with the single-minded determination to defeat N and, subsequently, thoroughly squash his ill-intentioned plans, she had witnessed the façade he crafted about him so excellently: that of a confident, infallible leader of both Pokémon and humans alike.

And now she was privy to what lurked behind that mask he had clung to so desperately:

A lonely, adrift boy whose ideals had met with ruination at the hands of a crazed father; whose very memories of a happy past had been methodically decimated and savaged by the revelation of manipulation where love had thought to have existed, of lies where truth had been naively been believed cultivated.

She watched as N took a stumbling half-step towards her, almost as though harboring the weary intention of collapsing to his knees before her bedraggled but blazing form. Touko couldn't deny the surging sensation of relief when he seemed to bridle that impulse, his hands clenching tightly against his sides, for she herself dreaded what her body would instinctively have responded with – either ruthlessly shove him away, thus cementing his despair in his newfound solitude and erroneous ways, or allow her arms to encircle his fragmented figure tightly, cradling him in a gentle mimicry of how her mother had held her countless times.

Pride stilled her feet from moving towards him. Compassion urged her fingers to brush against his damp eyes.

As a result, Touko was unable to do anything but numbly watch the unraveling of a man she barely knew and yet understood so well, her heart crumbling into forlorn pieces in tandem with his own.

"Hellooooooo. Touko? Touko! Beep, beep, beep – the satellite's calling Miss Touko, urging her imminent return to the world of the living – beeeeeeeep—aah!"

Bianca recoiled as Touko's hand swiftly whipped out and delivered a sound thump on the crown of her head – mindfully light, but still hard enough to communicate the intended message of stop being a pest.

It was sort of creepy how even Touko's smacks were the epitome of the girl's very personality: playful, but with a dangerously rough edge.

Touko sighed, eying a dramatically wailing Bianca with latent amusement. "You didn't have to invade my personal space, Bianca. I was paying attention just fine."

Apparently realizing that no pity was to be wrangled from her stodgily deadpan friend, Bianca abandoned the woe-is-me performance. With a fluidity a seasoned actress would have envied, Bianca's unfailingly upbeat disposition returned.

She wagged her finger reprovingly before a blankly staring Touko, her eyes alight with concern. "No, you weren't paying attention Touko – your head was a millllllllion miles away, just like it always is these days. Jeez, you save the entire continent from crazy megalomaniacs bent on severing the human-Pokémon bond and taking over the world, become a household name known for your daring heroics, and have a bunch of cute guys lining up to woo you as a result. Ya'd think you would wanna reap the joys of life after all that hardship, ya know!"

This eloquent rant was punctuated by a not-so-eloquent stamp of the foot…both of which had about as much effect on Touko as meager waves lapping vainly at the base of a hulking cliff in the hopes of eroding it into a disintegrating pile of dust.

In other words, blue eyes blinked dispassionately at the indignant Bianca, chocolate whorls of hair tumbled forwards as her head tilted in brief consideration….and then Touko nonchalantly turned around and began inspecting displays of canned foods that were purported by the shop signs to Result In A 500% Increase In Your Pokémon's Vitality!

After all, a long period of friendship with Bianca had taught her the important lesson of essentially ignoring her until she ceased the endless stream of chatter.

Mouth agape, Bianca flung herself forwards and latched onto Touko's arm. Touko thought it was rather reminiscent of the way Mankeys clung greedily to whatever tree branch they could find, being rather territorial creatures.

"Toukoooooo," was the plaintive whine, made all the louder by Bianca's irritating proximity. It was like a foghorn, intrusive and bellowing, being blown directly into her ear. "Didn't you hear anything I said?"

"Uh-huh." Slim fingers, accentuated by red fingerless gloves, absentmindedly lifted a neighboring PokéFigurine for nearer inspection. "But whether I cared to respond is another matter entirely, Bia."

"How mean!"

Touko squinted at the PokéFigurine. Bianca's rambling faded to little more than a distant hum in the background, becoming the comforting lull of buzzing white noise that bounced harmlessly off her senses.

But that transitory serenity was immediately dispelled by an unsettling realization of what, precisely, the figurine in her hands was.

A snowy, feathered body, aesthetics accentuated by piercing aqua eyes and a sloping neck, and beset with an aura of deadliness by the hint of talons that peeked menacingly from arched feet.

Bile rose in her throat, a curious lurch stirred within her stomach. Within the haze of shock that surrounded her mind, she thought she imagined a tall, lithe figure astride the miniature Reshiram's back, viridian hair cascading playfully from beneath a black and white brim.

Her imagination conjured a smile to his lips – a real one, a replica of the last time she had witnessed true contentment from him. It was incongruently innocent with the subversive person she had once thought him to be, shyly beaming from that devastatingly beautiful face of his.

With an abrupt jolt, Touko's dreamy reverie was shattered.

Inwardly she scolded herself for allowing her brain to be occupied with memories that bore absolutely no impact on the current her, that no longer had any relevance to her peaceful life. Six months had flitted by since that time, and the world had moved on in the meanwhile, blissfully unaware that a lonesome person named N had ever once graced its lands.

Yes, the world had moved on. Perhaps she should endeavor to do the same?

The model was hastily shoved back, and Touko pivoted, striding away.

She was very successful in convincing herself that she wasn't fleeing as fast as she could from an inanimate object.

However, she had forgotten Bianca in her eagerness to pursue escape. The blonde human attachment on her arm was, as befitting her persona as the seeker and speaker of truth, not remiss in voicing her displeasure.

"Hey! Touko, where are you going now?" The automatic doors of the unremarkable little store opened obligingly for the bizarre duo, now a mismatched tangle of limbs and blonde and brown hair, and they emerged into the sunlight outside. "Ugh, you weren't listening again!"

"Sure I was."

"You're lying." This was followed by a pout.

"I never lie," Touko lied.

"Then what do you think about what I said? Ya know – moving on, letting your figurative hair loose, enjoying your frivolous teenage years before the wrinkles set in." The blonde's hands fluttered over her unblemished cheeks, as though worried the latter prediction were already coming true.

"Fine," Touko replied blithely with a shrug, entertained by the suspicious look Bianca was favoring her with at the aberrantly easy acquiescence. "I'll start right away. The next guy I catch sight of – I'll ask him out. Impulsive, reckless, and teenage girl enough for you?"

Hands clapped together exuberantly, bubblegum pink nails sparkling vividly in the sunlight. "You promise? And on an actual date? Not one of your weird courting rituals where you decide that beating the hell out of another guy's Pokémon with yours constitutes a romantic evening out?"

She had the niggling feeling that she should feel insulted at that – after all, could she help it if she was more impressed by someone's aptitude for raising and bonding with their Pokémon, rather than by a handsome face and winning smile? Beauty was mercilessly subjected to the plundering whims of time, but intellect and passion were indefatigable.

And so what if she found battles and Pokémon more exciting than two hours of insufferably awkward chitchat over dinner with a dimwit boy? To each her own.

"Ooooh, there's a bunch approaching now!" Bianca crowed excitedly, sounding for all the world as though she had spotted a herd of every Legendary Pokémon ever to exist heading into her eager clutches. "Maybe one of them will…." she abruptly trailed off into appalled silence.

Bianca and Touko watched, with stricken horror and utter indifference, respectively, as a gaggle of greasy-haired teen boys, all sporting rather thick corkscrew glasses, bad haircuts, and bellicosely bickering over the merits of Cut versus Slash, waddled past.

"Oh look," Touko said drolly, leveling one finger at the group. "One of them must be my true love."

It was probably about then that Bianca arrived at the despairing conclusion that her best friend was a lost cause, if the way she tossed her hands up in exasperated surrender and was any indication.

A pale hand reached out, the thin fingers brushing regretfully against the jagged cut that marred her cheek with crimson – a result of her battle with Ghetsis, who, in his unadulterated madness, cared little whether his attacks were aimed at the Trainer or at their Pokémon.

"He hurt you." The words sounded peculiarly detached, as though he were a bewildered observer who cringed away from the reality presented to him.

She regarded him stonily, careful (always, always so very careful) to remain impassive at his feathery touch. "I obviously knew that was a risk when I entered into battle with him," Touko returned dryly.

A harsh laugh echoed throughout the decimated room. It sounded...wrong, emitting from the normally lighthearted, cordial man she knew as N.

"I should have killed him. Before he ever had the chance."

Whether N was referring to the chance of Ghetsis harming her or the chance to enact his insane plan of becoming the sole ruler of a new world, she didn't know.

But Touko did have to snort at that. "You didn't have the heart to inflict mortal damage to me or my Pokémon, even when I was your self-designated enemy. I've seen you risk yourself in battle merely to grant a few nameless underlings of your organization time to escape. You centered your entire existence around an attempt to liberate Pokémon from entities you thought were responsible for their hurt. Somehow, I think you would have struggled with the decision to end the life of a man you once called 'Father'. And I.…I don't blame you for that."

With his brows furrowed together and gaze rapt upon her, N appeared just as bemused at her ardent tirade as Touko felt. Never having thought herself to be particularly articulate before, she could only wonder where those words had spawned from.

Under that steadfast stare of his, Touko's confidence began to revert from fearless-kickass-Pokémon-Trainer to 15-year-old-girl-who-had-the-unfortunate-habit-of-hiccuping-or-blushing-like-a-tomato-when-flustered. She fidgeted at his pensive silence.

N's lips parted slightly – she heard a quick, soft inhale – but whatever it was he wished to say was interrupted by a cacophony of raucous clangs and shouts from the lower levels.

Shouts that were coming ever closer, and likely heralded the arrival of the Gym leaders and the authorities.

He gave a rough shake of his head and dragged his contemplative gaze from her, before briskly heading towards his magnificent Reshiram. "It is time for me to depart."

"What?" The surprised outburst rolled from her tongue before she could check it, but a dangerously drained Touko could barely summon enough energy to care. N's shoulders tensed visibly at the serrating shout that dragged heedlessly through the silence, his hands slowly stilling where they smoothed down Reshiram's neck comfortingly.

"I'm leaving," was his taciturn reiteration. Still, he did not face her. "I have much I need to resolve, both in regards to the mistaken ideals I was reared upon and what I've so foolishly done to Unova." A pause. "And to you as well."

Her fingers dug into the flesh of her palm as they curled into fists. Impulsivity dominated sensible rationale.

"Then stay. Make amends for what you've done," she choked out furiously, stumbling over the words in that strange blend of anger and sadness that besieged her. "You won't solve anything, won't fix anything, by taking the coward's path out and running."

N wanted to leave. She should have been performing a triumphant victory dance around the room, having finally conquered her enemy. She should have been rejoining the Gym Leaders and Cheren, exulting over the arrest of Ghetsis and preparing to track down any straggling members of the Seven Sages and Team Plasma.

Instead, she was essentially pleading for N to stay. Instead, the stoically tough girl who had barely shed tears over her own father's abandonment felt like inexplicably collapsing to the ground in a boneless heap of sobs.

She was no math genius, but something in that equation really didn't belong there.

Touko hoped it was just the strenuous toll of battle after battle that was squeezing her lungs in such a way, constricting her heart until she felt lightheaded. That is was the strain of capturing and fighting beside a Legendary Pokémon that made her knees wobble dangerously and her breath catch raggedly within her throat.

In such an aggravated state, she only noticed N standing almost intrusively close to her when a gentle puff of his breath ruffled her bangs.

She barely had the chance to organize her jumbled mind into cognitive thoughts before N leaned over her comparatively smaller form. She had the fleeting impression of stormy grey eyes and a grim-set mouth, and then felt her hat – pink and torn and certainly having once seen better days – being smoothly lifted from her frazzled hair.

She blinked in confusion as N swiftly removed his own hat, as ambiguously black and white as he himself was, and plunged her world into darkness as he gently deposited it on her head and pulled the large brim teasingly low over her eyes.

"Touko….thank you."

"Togekiss, I just can't find the blasted thing!" Touko looked despairingly at her little fairy, who chirruped sympathetically in response. "I don't suppose you would have any idea about where it was, huh?"

A negative trill this time.

She sighed and heaved her nest of blankets aside, making an indistinct grunt of frustration when that too yielded absolutely nothing. Touko slammed her pillow down, as though exacting revenge on her extremely unhelpful bed.

Another frantic visual sweep of her haphazardly arranged room, and she still couldn't catch even the barest hint of it anywhere.

"Mom!" she called. "Mom, are you sure you haven't seen my hat?"

The woman in question bustled into the room, tossing her an exasperated look that only a mother could possibly muster. "Dear, I already told you before – I really haven't."

Aware that she was only one or two words away from transcending the realm of nagging worry and into the unsavory realm of out and out whining, Touko said, "But it's important! I can't just lose it."

"Apparently you can, especially when one lives as messily as you do." Her mother good-naturedly toed a towering pile of laundry that was threatening to consume the whole bedroom. "Really, Touko, you're sixteen now. If you can take on the entire Pokémon League and emerge victorious, I would certainly expect you to be able to clean up after yourself more."

Ah, the inevitable motherly guilt. Touko wilted slightly under the tone, because no matter her battle prowess among the trainers of the world, she was still a teenager capable of being berated by her Mom.

At least it kept her humble.

Also, Touko was suspicious of the little chuckling noises that Togekiss was burbling from where she was perched upon her shoulder. Apparently even her own Pokémon gained some entertainment from Touko's hopeless domestic shortcomings.

God help the man who married her and expected a perfect housewife in the bargain.

"And what is so very significant about that precise hat, anyways?" her Mom queried, looking a little mystified. One hip jutted out, a hand resting distractedly upon it. "As I recall, you had a lovely pink one as well….oh my, whatever happened to that one? It was your childhood favorite, wasn't it?"

A guilty conscience lurked darkly at the back of Touko's mind. Snatches of a large, pale hand, running gently through strands of hair and mischievously stealing away her hat in the process, loomed before her eyes. She uneasily scuffed her foot on the floor, muttering lowly, "I don't know. I think I lost it….somewhere."

"Hmm. What a shame." Her mother shook her head. "It was so much more feminine than that horribly monotonous one you insist on wearing all the time now."

Blue eyes, so similar to Touko's own sea foam ones, thoughtfully scrutinized the tomboyish figure of her daughter, from the torn jeans that hung loosely from her hips to the standard black vest that had practically become a uniform.

An ominous feeling bubbled up within Touko's gut as her mother's face became fairly illuminated with delight. "Darling, why don't we consider this a fresh start? Fix you up with a nicer selection of things to wear – shoes, dresses, makeup, and the like. I know you insist on practicality for your journeys, but they won't last forever, and you really ought to begin learning how to be more ladylike."

The way you are now….I really like that. You're so unafraid of throwing yourself into the unknown, so unapologetic about the bold person you choose to be, the goals you aspire towards. I wish….you could always remain so untouched by a world that fears the unique.

"I…"

I think….I've always wished that I could be like you.

Touko swallowed. Smiled weakly. "I don't think so, Mom. I'm fine as I am now. Maybe one day I'll want to change, but….not now."

The discomfort of denying her mother such a simple pleasure was alleviated when she only appeared slightly crestfallen. And it was forgotten altogether when her Mom clasped her hands to her mouth and let out a loud "Oh!"

The sudden exclamation made her jump, eliciting a dismayed chirp from her Togekiss who had been similarly jostled. "What? What is it?"

A sheepish grin crept across the elder female's face. "I finally remembered what happened to your hat."

–

–

"Give it back." The demand was childish in its short, staccato quality, but Touko was in no mood for pleasant negotiations. As it was, only a longstanding friendship with this boy prevented her from wrestling him to the ground and forcibly removing her property from where it rested in his languid hands.

Cheren briefly glanced up from his computer, and offered her an acerbic smile. "Hello to you as well, Touko. And to what do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion?"

Her eyes narrowed into twin slits of anger, an expression that often had the unfortunate recipients striving to place as much distance as was humanely possible between them and it. "Seriously, Cheren? Seriously? You go to my house, steal my hat –"

"Requested to borrow, actually. Your mother was most accommodating."

"– and then have the gall to act like nothing's wrong? And why the hell would you take a hat anyways?"

If there was one thing that infuriated her about Cheren, it was that age had done a great deal to moderate his formerly impatient personality into one that was rarely ruffled and enviably cool under duress. It was quite contrary to the endurance of Touko's spitfire tendencies or Bianca's continuing moments of airheaded bubbliness.

Cheren dragged one hand through the pitch black of his hair, raising an eyebrow at her. "I think we both know it's far more than just a hat, Touko. Hence my, and I directly quote, stealing of it."

Her teeth sank harshly into her lip, and she tried to calm the anger-fueled shaking of her body. Cheren's assumed air of lofty superiority was beginning to grate upon her nerves. "I don't know what you mean. But I do know I don't appreciate – "

"It's been nearly two years." His interjection was cold and stabbed straight through Touko's chest, but her gaze stayed attached to the black and white hat Cheren adroitly spun upon his finger. "It's been nearly two years, and I don't think it's healthy for you to be haunted like this."

Touko tensed. "Unless you've suddenly seen a Ghost-type Pokémon hovering at my shoulder," she said, "I don't think I'm being haunted by anything."

As though they were conversing about nothing more complicated than the weather, Cheren leaned leisurely back in his chair. His dangerously discerning eyes continued to drill into her own.

"Don't take me for a fool, please. You and I both know who the owner of this," he lifted one finger, dangling the hat, "is. Or was, given that nobody's seen hide nor hair of him for a few years now. I suppose the most telling question, in the interest of expedience, was why you've been hanging onto it."

Why she was hanging onto it?

Touko wanted to allow a derisive, sardonic laugh past her lips, if only to relieve some of that terrible pain in her heart.

Because how could she possibly enlighten Cheren as to why she had kept such a thing for years now….when she herself wasn't sure of the answer?

Really, what was she to say?

That for the first time in her life, she had encountered someone who appreciated her frankness, admired her brashness, encouraged her in her bold pursuits without judgment? Who looked at her with alien emotions she'd never been beheld with – adulation and reverence and something she'd never dare put a name to?

That for the first time in her life, she had found someone lost and desolate, someone who had needed her desperately?

There was only one thing she could tell Cheren without it being tainted with halfhearted uncertainty, or an outright lie.

"I don't know." The answer tumbled from her barely moving lips, falling flat between the two friends. "I don't know why I kept it at all."

And although Touko had replied with as much honesty as she was capable of mustering in her beleaguered voice, Cheren regarded her incredulously. "You don't know," he repeated. One corner of his mouth twitched downwards, the beginnings of a frown. "Is it, perhaps, that you lo –"

"No." It was a concise but emphatic interruption. Touko raised her eyes bleakly to meet her interrogator's. The anger that had rightfully coursed through her veins had faded into the paler, weedier imitative emotions of weariness and regret. "No, it wasn't that."

Within Cheren's pointed silence, she could sense him awaiting elaboration.

Slowly, muddling through emotions and thoughts that seemed to be incompliant with being translated into verbal words, she clarified, "I think….I think it was because of the what-ifs."

Cheren's befuddlement mirrored her own, and she twisted frustrated hands into her loose brown hair as she struggled to explain.

"Have you….have you ever met someone, and thought: if I hadn't met them here and now, in these circumstances and at this time, I most certainly would have fallen in love with them? You don't love them, you just couldn't, but you knew that there was always that potential. And you would always mourn for that lost potential – that what-if." Touko faltered, before daring to dart a glance at a curiously laconic Cheren.

"Cheren, I understand that you're worried. Believe me, I get it. But I'm not pining, and I'm not heartbroken." Touko allowed one of her rare, genuine smiles to peek through. "That hat….it wasn't a promise between us to meet again. That wouldn't be fair, and I don't think he would have been so selfish as to want it to mean that. I think….I think N was just acknowledging that what-if existed. And I cherished that."

–

–

Later that evening, her mother watched as her abnormally subdued daughter walked through the front door, went to her room, and placed her strange hat on the same dusty shelf where all of her other old toys lay abandoned.

"I won't see you again….will I?"

His silence was confirmation enough.

Touko's mouth twisted into a miniscule, rueful smile. Her hands unthinkingly reached up to touch the black and white cap adorning her head.

"Touko."

He wanted her to look at him. As though childishly bent on petulant disobedience, her gaze fell stubbornly to the ground instead. Rubble scattered around her feet; a hint of gleaming talons and pristine white fur lay at the edge of her peripheral vision. Her vision blurred when she tried to focus on it.

"I'm so glad to have met you."

Her throat tightened at the unreserved honesty of his voice. For once, there were no ulterior motivations shadowing his words, no dubious intentions woven beneath their interaction. She didn't recall ever hearing him speak so freely.

"When I first found you in Accumula Town, I was shocked when I heard what your Pokémon was saying. I was shocked….because that Pokémon said it liked you. It said it wanted to be with you, and I couldn't understand it." N's tone denigrated his own folly, his own ironic deafness. "I could listen, I could hear the words, but I couldn't understand. And in that way, I could never measure up to you. You, who were wholly beloved by your human and Pokémon friends alike."

"Touko." Her name was a mantra, falling from his lips. She impulsively wanted to seal her hand against his mouth, to stop him saying it. It did terrible things to her shaky knees.

And then N soundly thwarted her determination to avert her eyes from him, slanting low upon Reshiram's back to reach her downturned chin. To tilt it upward, until sea foam melded with grey and she didn't know what she wanted.

"Goodbye."

"Ohhh, I just can't believe that no-one's managed to kick your arse yet, Touko!" Bianca's mock pique wrenched a smirk from Touko.

"So supportive. I do believe I'll stop recommending to the Trainers who challenge me that they should take their most interesting Pokémon to you and Professor Juniper for your research analyses." Touko ignored Cheren's snicker and Bianca's exaggerated wail, preferring to expend her attentions on the large dish of ice cream before her.

Bianca grasped at Touko's hands, bringing forth the puppy dog eyes that had persuaded many. "Aw, c'mon, Miss Champion, you wouldn't do that to your best friend ever!"

"I believe I am her best friend, by merit of knowing her four years longer than you," Cheren corrected mildly. "Who knows what Touko is capable of doing to people in the category of second best friend?"

"Hm. You really think I'm that ruthless?"

"You muscled your way up through the Pokémon League at fifteen. I think you're diabolical."

"Good point."

Bianca huffed at their banter, secreting away a small grin as she affected a put-upon expression. "Geez, you two. We all barely get together once a month, thanks to Touko's position as Champion of the League and Cheren's Gym Leader duties in Aspertia, and all you guys can do is tease me to death."

"Sorry," Touko dutifully chorused in unison with Cheren, sounding completely unrepentant all the while.

Bianca rolled her eyes with amusement. "Whatever. I'm just putting it out there that we shouldn't be such workaholics at our age. We're missing the best parts of our youth!"

"Says the girl slaving away day and night to get those additional protected Pokémon reserves created?" was Cheren's unimpressed response. "Oh, the hypocrisy."

Seeking to stymie the argument that would inevitably erupt if she allowed those two to continue, Touko hastily inserted, "How's that going anyways, Bianca? I remember you calling me literally every other minute for advice when you first started – especially that one time when you woke me up at four in the morning to ask me what types of grasses Pikachus preferred to nest in. But you haven't so much as mentioned it in the past few weeks whenever we've talked."

Touko's brows scrunched up in confusion as Bianca suddenly turned a shade paler, the rosiness shrinking from her cheeks with an alarming rabidity.

A squeaky rasp came from Bianca. "Oh, that. Yes. Well, we brought in other advisors for the project, given that it's being implemented on such a large scale, all over the Unova region. And possibly to the other regions as well. So, I, um, didn't want to keep badgering you about it. Or get you involved overly, since I know you're so busy. Yeah."

First suspicious point: Bianca's voice had begun to resemble a mouse sucking on helium, meaning she was either lying or omitting something.

Second suspicious point: Bianca had begun to unintelligibly ramble. Ditto for what it meant.

Touko opened her mouth to start prodding Bianca into confessing whatever it was that had disgruntled her so, but Cheren smoothly steamrolled over her efforts.

"There's been rumors, you know, Bianca," Cheren stated evenly, before taken an equally composed sip of his tea. "About who, exactly, is playing the indispensable advisor to your project."

A heavy, meaningful stare in Touko's direction, accompanied by a guilty side look from Bianca, told Touko exactly what it was Bianca had been too frightened to share with her.

It told her exactly who this 'indispensable advisor' probably was.

Touko suddenly felt restricted in that little café, the world shrinking to half its size as she struggled to draw breath.

Aside from the initial shock, she should have guessed as much. After all, who else was half so knowledgeable about all things Pokémon as that man, and a flawless negotiator to boot? Why else would Bianca have stopped consulting her, who had practical knowledge about Pokémon that rivaled even the most bookish experts, unless someone better had arrived?

Touko flinched at the unexpected realization, her nails biting into the smooth wood of the table they were seated at. Cheren's blue eyes bored doggedly into her, as though gallingly aware of the conflicting emotions such a seemingly innocuous statement had brought forth.

"Rumors?" This time, it was Touko's turn to adopt the voice of a mouse sucking down liberal amounts of helium. As it was wont to do when she was embroiled in an emotional state, her voice climbed a few octaves.

But maybe she was entirely wrong about this. Maybe it wasn't N at all. Maybe Bianca had an advisor that was a different mysterious man from Touko's past that had the annoying tendency of rousing long-suppressed emotions.

Ah, denial. Such a wonderful thing.

"Bianca? These rumors aren't true, right? And if you're working with who I think you're working with, they better be doubly untrue." Touko hoped that made more sense to the others than it did to her.

Dammit. Touko cringed again, irritably noting the smugness of Cheren's face as he detected her distress, and Bianca's worried glance in her direction.

Did she really have to be so transparent? Why, oh why, did the cool nonchalance she exhibited during her League battles with ambitious Trainers, earning her the infamous nickname of 'Frost Queen', have to be so effortlessly dismantled in the presence of her friends?

"Touko," Bianca whispered, shamefaced and sporting an expression that indicated she was prepared to sprint for her very life should she activate Touko's impressive temper. "Touko, I'm sorry. He made me promise not to tell you. That was the only condition for his help with the reserve project, which was all mostly his idea anyways. Over and over, he made us all swear you wouldn't know he was back in Unova."

Cheren muttered something angrily under his breath; probably something suitably derogatory about N's character. Touko pettily but wholeheartedly approved.

She swallowed harshly, feeling as though she were teetering on the edge of a cliff – one further piece of information would either be her salvation or be the hand that shoved her gleefully to her death.

"How long?" she gritted out between clenched teeth. "How long has he been here?"

Bianca was now fairly hidden behind Cheren, peering out from around his shoulder. "U-um," she stammered. "A-about the time we began the plans for the reserves, so about, um, e-eight months?"

Eight months.

Eight months.

Suddenly Touko smiled serenely, much to the perplexity of her friends. She scooped another glob of half-melted ice cream into her mouth, daintily licking the remnants from the spoon. She returned the utensil to the bowl before steepling her fingers together, looking for all the world to be the very paradigm of tranquility.

"I," Touko began thoughtfully. "Am going to punch his bloody lights out when I next see him."

"Wow!" Touko indulged in an uncharacteristically girlish twirl, chocolate curls fanning out prettily behind her. Bathed in the gleaming lights of the amusement park, she felt as though she'd somehow found her way amongst the very stars themselves. "This is amazing, huh, Oshawott? I've never seen anything like this!"

The miniature otter-like Pokémon accompanied her own exuberance with a lively shriek of his own, tottering about in an impromptu dance on the well-tread pavement.

It was moments like these, and sights as breathtaking as this one, that made Touko endlessly grateful for the opportunity to traverse the world beyond the rurally sleepy borders of Nuvema Town. Not that she didn't love her home, and appreciate having somewhere to return to, but….

"Eh?" Touko suddenly noticed the conspicuous absence of one very cute Oshawott.

Paying the price for her inattention, she frantically swiveled around in an attempt to locate him – only to catch a wagging flat tail disappearing into the throng of amusement park attendees.

Her heart shot up to her throat, images of him being trampled by careless people or stolen by wicked thieves. There had been rumors of the infamous Team Rocket making their way around Unova, and there was still the unsettling matter of Team Plasma and their determination to separate all Pokémon from their Trainers.

She hurtled into the crowd, skirting nimbly around lovey-dovey couples, shouting children, and tired-looking parents.

A familiar crooning noise that belonged to her Oshawott and a flash of its aqua coloring caused her to immediately charge in that direction – only to stop short at what she discovered as she emerged into a relatively deserted area by the picket fence that circled the Ferris wheel.

Cuddled in the arms of a very recognizable man (who in the world could forget someone with green hair, after all?) was her Oshawott.

She skidded to a halt, feet prickling painfully as they slammed against the ground."Y-you!" Touko floundered for a moment, struggling to remember his name amidst her concern for her Pokémon and the blood pounding deafeningly in her head after her vigorous sprint through the crowd. "You're the one I met in Accumula!"

Grey eyes flickered at the brash greeting, roiling with amusement and charm. "Indeed. Hello again, Touko."

The casual employ of her name gave her pause. Her cheeks began to burn a vicious red, feeling distinctively at a loss when no amount of scouring her brain would bring forth his name.

The man – although up close he seemed much younger, more boyish – seemed to sense exactly what was the problem. Deviously, he cocked his head, staring at her.

"You don't remember my name, do you?"

Her prompt response was blustery protestation. "I do too!"

Okay, so that was a lie. Still, she recalled it was something absolutely strange. Like a number, or a single letter? Touko had an excellent eye for faces, and never forgot a Pokémon, but when it came to human names….well, let it be said that this exact type of awkward situation was not one Touko was foreign to.

"Then what was it?"

Touko gnawed at her lip for a moment, wincing when she bit too hard. "Um….X?" That was a decently mysterious single-letter name, right?

One corner of his mouth quirked upwards in an appreciative grin. "Close. It's N."

Her eyes narrowed, bristling at being patronized like a silly child. "Well, I – look, your name's not the issue here!" She pointed sharply at N. "Let him go right now, you filthy kidnapper!"

"Kidnapper?" N scoffed, although he infuriatingly appeared to be more entertained than offended. "I'm not exactly holding your Oshawott against his will, if you'd bothered to notice."

Touko's first impulse was to snap impatiently back at him, but her traitorous gaze obligingly strayed down to the Oshawott he cradled. Her eyes nearly bugged out as she witnessed her normally tempestuous little Pokémon burrow contentedly against him with a dimly snug squeak.

She only barely kept her jaw from crashing to the ground. "Huh? Hey!" she demanded. "What did you do to him?"

Insultingly enough, the green-haired man barely spared a glance at the belligerent Touko. "I didn't do anything," he intoned calmly. Her Oshawott made a vague giggling sound as he tangled his fingers playfully in its aqua fur, ruffling it.

Her arms crossed, sullen at the elusive answer. "Well, you must have," she retorted. "Osha usually tries to bite other people when they handle him."

"I see." He shrugged, inclining his head until the black brim of his cap entirely shadowed his upper face. "Call it my natural affinity with Pokémon then."

Touko remained unimpressed, a sly smirk unfurling on her visage. "Oh? Well, Mister Natural Affinity, gloat all you like, but I can do something you can't."

"And that would be?" He sounded politely incredulous.

"This." With a small twinge of vindication at his wide eyes she threw her arms open, channeling all of the love and enthusiasm for Pokémon she'd possessed since childhood into her voice. "Osha! Let's go explore the fair like we planned, right? More than anything, I want us to keep having fun together!"

Had N not chosen that exact moment to loosen his grasp, he might have received a hard smack to the face by the tail of an eagerly wriggling Oshawott trying to escape his hold.

Touko curled her arms tight about the Pokémon clambering into her arms, giggling at the wet nose pushing insistently against her cheek. "You're good, N, but mere affinity can't make up for true friendship."

N was quiet, and when she finally deigned to look up at him, she nearly recoiled at the bewilderment flickering within his intense eyes, the surprise slackening a mouth usually slanted in a confident grin. Green strands of hair spilled loosely over his shoulder as he tilted his head again, as though listening attentively to something.

She was already nervously preparing to shuffle away when his expression cleared, that ambiguous mask of pleasantry falling upon his handsome features again.

"Don't go."

There was a tint of desperation to the soft request, and perhaps N belatedly realized it, for when he spoke again his voice was seamlessly smooth. His eyes indolently traveled from the shadow of the Ferris wheel beside them to Touko's wary face, a wry grin curling upon his fair lips.

"Touko," he said. "Would you care to ride the Ferris wheel with me?"

The spinning of the Ferris wheel had an oddly soothing effect on her frayed nerves. Like the slow swing of a pendulum, Touko enjoyed watching the groaning wheel turn a steady path, the individual booths swaying with the motion. A collection of elegant formulas, N had once enthused to her.

And indeed, it was sort of awe-inspiring to observe such fluidity in the form of rough gears and sleek wheels and polished metal.

Touko propped her elbow on the weather-worn fence, markedly less pristine than when she had last been here, and furtively watched the diversity of the people going on and off the ride.

Although touted as a family ride, it was amusing to bear witness to the near-aphrodisiac effect it had on couples, magnetically attracting giggling girls and their indulgent boyfriends to it efficiently.

Not that Touko could blame them – for hadn't she also been caught under the strange thrall of the Ferris wheel, flustered by a man she'd found herself being steadily charmed by, only to discover that he was the king of an evil organization?

Though really, she had to wonder at N's method of revealing his true persona to his enemy. Did he honestly believe the best way to go about that was taking her on some weird facsimile of a date, complete with fireworks, a cozy space for two, and some pretty obvious entendres?

Sometimes she questioned the way his mind worked. He was lucky she'd been so naïve when he'd pulled that on her. Had it been the current her, N might have been pitched right out of that Ferris wheel the instant the words "I am the king of Team Plasma" had slid from his mouth.

Eventually Touko wandered away from the Ferris wheel, for as much as she'd been at peace merely gazing at the circular motion, she was beginning to draw some strange looks. Whether people thought her creepy, lonely, or desperate for a date, she supposed it was wise to move on before she was politely asked to leave.

A lonesome figure amidst cheerful families and gushing lovers, she made her way to the food stalls, guided by the enticing path of their smells.

Absently picking apart pink cotton candy fluff she purchased provided a suitably distracting pastime for her anxious hands. It also provided her much needed solace in the form of delicious sugar.

With Bianca's sheepish reveal of N's return, Touko had frantically fled – and had ironically ended up at the one place where her memories of the man she was trying to avoid were the strongest. She hadn't returned even once in the past three years, half-afraid of what the Rondez-View Ferris wheel and the amusement park would evoke in her, and yet here she was.

She'd probably regret this later. After all, she was much more comfortable with beating uppity brats in battles than she was rehashing memories of a conflicted past.

And apparently, so was N.

What was it that Bianca had sympathetically confided to her, days ago at the café? That N had been reluctant to intrude upon the life she'd built for herself, that he didn't think it was fair to impose himself on her after such a long time? That he had asked after her, but never once requested to see her?

Touko glowered at nothing in particular, riled at the sheer audacity of his words. What if she damn well wanted to be imposed upon?

Fine. She'd show him. She'd return to the Unova League, maybe capitulate to Grimsley's repeated requests for a date for the sake of moving on, and forget that a man named N had ever even existed.

Touko slumped. At least it sounded partially plausible in her head.

A small ruckus by one of the stalls drew her attention, providing a welcome distraction from idle musings that were causing a headache to blossom. In a scene of absolute misery, a young child sniffled and wailed, hugging a Pokémon against him.

"Hey there." Touko brushed her hair from her eyes as she crouched before the distressed little boy and equally upset Pokémon. "Is everything okay?

The boy, probably no older than five from the way his face was sweetly round with baby chubbiness, turned a teary gaze towards her. "It's Tepig. I keep trying to share my ice cream with him," he demonstrated by helpfully waving the ice cream cone clutched in his stubby fingers before her, "But he won't eat any! I don't know what's wrong with him…."

She grinned comfortingly, reaching out to lightheartedly poke the boy's forehead with a reproving finger. "That's because your Tepig is a fire type Pokémon, kiddo."

"Huh?"

Touko scratched behind the Tepig's black ears, provoking a squeal of happiness (although whether that was from the affectionate gesture or the fact that he was no longer being force-fed ice cream was anyone's guess). "Most fire types, especially when they're very young, don't favor cold things like ice. As he gets older he'll probably lose the fear of most things cold, but for now no more ice cream for him, okay?"

"Oh! I get it!" A smile, resplendent in its childish absence of a few baby teeth, was bestowed upon her. "Thanks, old lady!"

Old lady? Touko's mouth dropped open, aghast. Her eye gave a noticeable twitch, all kind-hearted feelings towards this cherubic child shriveling up in a flash.

Unaware of the early mid-life crisis he'd innocently sent her way, the child graced her with another beam and happily skipped off, Tepig in tow. "Thanks again! I won't forget!"

Touko, still despondent over apparently being deemed an old lady at her tender age of eighteen, contemplated curling up on the pavement and withering away. Then other people could parade by the pile of Touko-dust, parents warning their children about what happened to respectable Pokémon Champions who mooned over enigmatic men that soared away into the skies.

She groaned.

This day just wasn't proceeding in any manner one could consider pleasant, was it?

A lilting laugh sounded behind her – almost ethereal in its warmth and undisguised joy. The aching familiarity of it caused Touko to freeze in place, staring unseeingly down at her folded knees.

"The perception of children really is such a unique one, isn't it? One little boy looks at you and sees an old, wrinkled lady. But another lost boy gazes upon you and finds a goddess. How very intriguing."

–

–

Her heart thrummed so loudly she was paranoid he would hear it.

N.

–

–

As it turns out, Touko did punch him.

Soundly. Along with a few imaginative swears. Because despite her personal feelings, no-one stood up the Champion of Unova for three years and escaped retribution.

But N, for his part, was entirely unconcerned by what he suspected was a broken nose.

Because her lips, warm and rough with a sprinkle of cotton candy sugar, pressed against his and Natural Harmonia Gropius tasted delight for the first time in twenty-two years.

fin

This is my sheepish admission: I've never actually played Pokémon Black and White! But I recently became a hopeless N x Touko shipper after finding some fanart of them, becoming fangirly over how adorable N and Touko are together, and setting out to find out all I could about them.

And then I found out about their Ferris wheel date and I immediately wanted to write a story about it. You know, because all pseudo-villains take the heroines out on amusement park dates….oh wait, only N is cutely dorky enough to do that.

Forgive me for any inconsistencies you find in the story – I researched as much as I could (Bulbapedia is my best frieeeeend, haha) and tried to incorporate canon mentions of the actual plot in the story. I may have blatantly distorted actual events for my own purposes, but oh well….that's the glory of fanfiction, right?

Also having never played the games I might have twisted some of the personalities around for my own uses, but I at least tried to get N's right. I got the impression that he was really somewhat lost and clueless about the way the world really works. Also, some stories I've seen seem to portray him as being some crazed, lusty bastard (um, what?), so I tried to capture the inherent innocence and sweetness of his personality (you know, behind the initial plotting to upset the balance of the Trainer-Pokémon relationship). Also, I freely admit to using a portion of N's final game speech, when he talks about the moment he met Touko. I changed it up a little, but I loved his parting words so much I had to incorporate them into the story.

Okay, I'm going to be quiet now. But given that it's my first Pokémon story I'd love to hear people's feedback :)