This world is inhabited by creatures that we call pokemon. People and pokemon live together by supporting each other, but now the scourge threatens the safety of the entire region. Kohaku has become a dangerous place, where children stay at home and only brave souls go adventuring.
Welcome to KOHAKU. Come for the nightmares. Stay for the tea and crumpets.
The season is SUMMER. It is easy for survivors to forage for food from the land, as there are entire abandoned farms ready for harvest. On the downside, you can smell the corpses.
swarms
GRAND OPENING !
Welcome to KOHAKU REGION's grand opening! If you're interested in joining, come check out our grand opening giveaway!
They told him that he needed to start at the beginning, so he did. They also told him that he needed to go to some bumbling professor to get a partner to start things off, and that was just tedious work, so he'd gone through a certain number of negotiations - using certain business skills he'd acquired before - and gotten one of his own beforehand. Of course, now that everything he needed to do was out of the way it left a rare feeling of boredom, something that was made all the more irritating because he'd set out on this journey to quell that feeling.
They - the ones he'd 'negotiated' with - told him that he needed to look at the lab, at least, before doing anything else, because there was supposed to be some paper taped with expectations on how he was supposed to contribute to the Eos. And he'd done just that, read through a bunch of boring rules and tucked that information away in the depths of his mind before settling a few blocks away, kicking a stone on the ground and asking "Well, what next?" to no one in particular.
No, no it couldn't be. Could it? Were her eyes fooling her? She had Oliver following her closely, actually, the fighting Pokemon was attached to her hip practically and it struggled to keep up with Heal's strides. Her heart felt as though it had sunk into her stomach. Part of her didn't want to see him, but the other part did. She wanted to turn tails and run, she knew that she had a chance of seeing him because she left Cura Village but she didn't think it'd be this soon.
There was no more hiding, she had to face this. "J-Jayden." As much as she wanted to come off as strong, her voice betrayed her - it sounded weak and surprised.
That voice was unmistakable. After all, who else could make his emotions twist in two opposing directions with just one word (and his name, at that?). Still, part of him must've managed to convince the other half that he was making a mistake, because the surprise still rang strong when he looked up to see her, distaste quickly masking it over. "Heal." He spat it out, the name rolling off his tongue like he'd eaten something terribly bitter.
She'd said it so plaintively, too. If she'd said it in any other way, any way that even hinted that she was as irritated to see him as he was, her, he'd have just left her there and moved on to wherever it was he needed to go (and he repeated it again, to himself, to make sure he believed it). But now he was stuck between leaving her hanging or saying something so that he didn't seem like a complete ass, and the smart thing to do was obviously go for the latter. "And what are you doing here?"
The way he said her name could have caused her to break down into tears. She hated this, she hated how he treated her, she hated how she'd spit back venomous words that she would never mean in a life time. Why couldn't things go back to the way they used to be - why couldn't they reverse the past and make everything go back to normal? A time when they were both happy, and together. She cleared her throat, and attempted to actually say something instead of standing there, mouth gaping. "I'm a trainer for the Eos program." She tried to say as unemotionally as she could. She had rehearsed and rehearsed in the mirror for the past year if she were to ever see him again.
"What a-are you doing here?" She edged closer to him, though Oliver ran a head of her - he inspected Jayden, and watched him closely. "W-We've all been, you know, worried about you, you left so suddenly without any goodbyes."
He almost laughed at her words - a bitter, grating laugh that in the end, was expressed with a simple, twisting smile that was anything but pleasant. "Funny." Funny, really, how fate worked. Not because it'd answered the deep, buried motivation he'd had for going on this journey in the first place, but because now that he'd been given what he wanted he didn't feel what he'd expected to feel.
"I'm a trainer for the eos program too. A much better one than you'll ever be." Instead of swatting at the pokemon that walked up to him like he'd initially planned to do, giving it a nasty face to boot, just to rub it in, he ignored it, letting it do whatever it wanted while he focused his gaze on heal, narrowing his eyes. No, he didn't believe what she said, didn't believe it even if she said it in a way that made him want to believe it was true, scowling as she got closer but not pulling away like he wanted to. "Oh, please. You know that's not the truth and so do I." After everything said and done, all the effort he'd put into making him hate her she still acted like she cared, and it frustrated him. "Does it matter? I'm here now, aren't I?" Wasn't that all that mattered? (and he stared at her, with something in the depths of his eyes that demanded she say something hurtful back, just so maybe his stomach could twist less when he said what he said.)
His words hurt, but she'd be damned if she let them reflect on her person. No she'd lay cold. "Really now?" She asked, her arms folded in front of her chest. Why did he have to be so difficult? Why did he have to make things so difficult? After everything he put her through, after everything he had put her father through, and after that long disappearance this is how he acted? She didn't understand, but than again she supposed it wasn't her place to try and dive deep into his mind - as much as she'd love to find out as to what was going on in that brain of his. She hated this. As much as she wanted to, as much as it'd make her life easier, she couldn't bring herself to hate him no matter how much he hated her. No matter what he said to her, it was okay, she'd take it because he was still her best friend. Perhaps she was just delusional.
"How would you know Jayden? You were gone.You have no idea just how much my parents care for you." Her emotions seeped into her voice again. The hurt, the anger,, the sorrow, and most of all how much she cared for the boy in front of her - he was like her brother, and a bit more. "At least you aren't dead. It'd break everyone's hearts." Part of her wanted to cause him pain, and Heal was impulsive. She took in a deep breath, how the hell was she supposed to succeed when she couldn't even keep her emotions in check.
There they were. The words he'd been expecting her to say, the words that part of him vigorously denied until his mind accepted it as the truth. Caught him off guard because he'd been just about ready to crack a smile and offer another remark about how easy she was to read, especially when she was mad. And he was so shocked by that one remark that his first instinct had been to scowl at her, snapping in that way he was so used to since that day all those years before. But somehow that turned into a small, half-smile that faded into something neutral as he stuffed both hands into his pockets. "You're wrong." Because he knew, knew how much they cared about him because the feelings he felt towards them were no different. But in the end, they were still no more his parents than she was his sister - even if he wanted to call them that and she accepted, it still wasn't the truth.
"On both accounts, too. Guess I should've expected that from you." He ran a hand through his hair and hesitated, disliking how the volume of his voice had managed to diminish from what it had been to an almost pondering, flat tone. "They're closer to me than my own parents. But I don't deserve them. Figured that out the day daddy dearest passed his torch to you." And because he didn't deserve them, it also meant that he didn't deserve her. Yet somehow, she kept coming back, ignoring his attempts to isolate himself from her, refusing to hate him. Was she trying to tempt him? Break him? He averted his eyes away, sighing through his teeth.
"And what if," He swallowed. "I was dead? Would our game end there?" She'd said that it'd break everybody's heart if he was dead. So why, then, was part of him wondering if he'd just broken hers?
She wanted to scream, she really did - but for some reason, she was blessed and it turned into a heavy disappointed sigh. How would he know? How could even dream that he knew what he had put her parents through and most of all put her through. If she voiced it, would it crush him? Would he lose that disgusting smile? As much as part of her wanted to saw something that would make him feel as though someone reached into his gut and started moving his organs around - she couldn't. She wanted to slap him, she just wanted to do anything to make him stop, make him know that she still cared - that she wanted him home. Heal wanted him out of harm's way, she wanted him to be safe - she wanted to protect him. "Believe what you want, Jayden." But none of that came out, perhaps it was blocked by her own anger.
He didn't deserve them? How could he say such a thing? Jayden was practically her brother, and their son. She was sure that they would die for him in an instant, just like they would for her - just like she'd do for him and her parents. "Father picked me because-" She didn't have an answer, she cut herself off. She changed the subject, she had no idea why her father picked her, why he challenged tradition like he did. "You deserve them as much as I do. It doesn't matter if, i-if you look nothinglike them." He was part of her family. He was part of her life, something that no matter how much a part of her wanted to change she couldn't. He was her closest friend, even if he hated her. Jayden held a special place in Heal's heart that she couldn't get rid of.
The next part left her without words for a good few moments, before her hand raised but something inside her stopped her from slapping the shit out of Jayden for saying something so stupid and hurtful. Those stupid bitter tears started to slide down her face, she hated those. Her heart sunk into the bottom of her chest. "I-I won't let you."
He wondered now, now that he was exchanging words with her for the first time in years, how he'd known she would set out on this pointless excursion just like he had, hoping they would meet. Was it, perhaps, that it was just the kind of thing a person like her would do? Or maybe it was just wistful thinking on his part, and some greater force had sent her as an act of karma. Either way, it was frustrating, the way she got mad at him like he'd always wanted her to, yet still acted like she cared about him (and he knew it was sincere too, which somehow made matters even worse). "I think I will, thanks." This, he snapped, like he'd wanted to from the very beginning, leaving a brief feeling of satisfaction in his gut before she spoke again and immediately hollowed it out.
Go on, his eyes screamed, pleaded her to continue with that sentence because it was an answer he'd been searching for since the day that he'd left. Not the answer of why her father gave her what was his to begin with - he already knew the answer to that one - but the question of whether he assumed right or not, even what he expected for an answer tearing from two opposing ends. "Your father, - not his, never his - "chose you because you're his daughter. Because he doesn't view me like you claim he does. We might've tried to play happy family back then, but none of this changes the fact that I don't share blood with them, and I certainly don't share blood with you." Wouldn't she be angry if he took them away from her? Wouldn't she be upset to share her kin with this outsider? "And if he doesn't accept me, there's nothing I can do. I can't be a part of that life, Heal. Even if I wanted to be." Which he did, but he hoped she'd take it the wrong way, even past the betrayal of which I do that was written, somewhere, on his face.
He took two strides forward. "Hey." Face to face now, a few inches apart because the distance between them had somehow closed while he was talking, without him consciously being aware of it. "Don't break. The you I knew back then never broke." He raised up a finger, swiping at the tears with the fat of his thumb and letting contact linger there for a moment before dropping a hand back down. Hating her came so easily to him, but he found himself faltering now. Why?
Perhaps she should just let things go, if the two kept this up their stubbornness would leave them going for days. Instead of replying to him and his foolish nonsense, she gave him a disappointed sigh. Why couldn't he seem to understand just how much he meant to the village, to her parents, and must of all to her? If she was some sort of fabric, then he was the needle and thread that formed the very fiber of her being. Jayden was a part of Heal, he had helped form her into the person that she was today. Whether good or bad, she didn't really know - she couldn't change something that never really happened, now could she? Why would she even dream of removing Jayden from her life? Sure he caused her pain, some feelings were hurt here and there, but most of her memories were lined with him. He was a part of her life as much as she was. She used to think that she knew Jayden more than she knew herself, but it seemed as though she was wrong. The current state he was in was unreadable to her, and it pained her.
"So is that what his acceptance means to you, Jayden? A title and a chance to spend the rest of your life in a dojo?" She asked, her voice still emotional - a bit riled up from the idea that Jayden would end his life, purposefully or even accidentally. - "Does family really mean blood ties?" She asked, though she didn't really expect Jayden to answer. She felt like she knew what he was going to say - how he was going to disregard the points she made.- She just wanted things to go back to the way that they were. She'd give up anything to do so, even something as specially stupid as the title that her father gave her. As much as she felt honored to have it - it seemed to have ruined her relationship with Jayden, something that she never ever wanted to do. Why was Jayden so blind? Why couldn't he just see that he was surrounded by family - people and pokemon - that loved him back home. Blood ties didn't mean anything to Heal.
Heal was surprised as Jayden moved closer, his hand wiping away something pathetic that fell from her eye. How could he say that after saying such things? She didn't even want to imagine Jayden dead. She just wanted him to go home, where it was safe. He didn't need to be here. She leaned into his touch, just a little. "Don't say such things. Do you have any idea how much they hurt?" She asked him - her eyes still a bit teary eyed as she stared right at him.
When he'd first seen her, standing there, he'd smiled, a cold smile that held no emotion other than the satisfaction from making her angry because he had confidence that he knew how to and past experiences on his side. That smile hadn't exactly disappeared, not quite - his guard was still up and there was no dropping smiles under these circumstances - but it'd dwindled down to something pensive and thoughtful, the slightest upwards curve of his lips that strained to maintain this facade. "It's not like that." Now it was his turn to be angry and he showed it, snapping his head back in an instant and glaring at the clouds in the sky like they were some sort of injustice. And maybe she could get the wrong idea and think that he was angry, because she was being obnoxious about this and not because of the fact that the emotion dripping from her voice made his stomach twist and squirm.
"I've said it already: weren't you listening? Family means acceptance." Acceptance meant that neither side was hurt. It wasn't about a family business or a title and it certainly wasn't about the money involved - if he wasn't accepted as part of the family and continued to stick around, the only person he'd end up hurting in the end was her, and he didn't want that. "If I'd stuck around, it would've caused nothing but trouble." It was what he said, but part of him was glad that they didn't share blood ties because if they did, he wouldn't have the right to feel these feelings he felt in the first place.
Too close, now. He could feel her breathing, taste the salt from the tears and he took a step back, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable and, somehow, vulnerable. "Do you..." Paused, hesitated, but not for very long. "Do you remember the promise we made? Back then?" Being alive wasn't about the veins in his body and the heart that pumped blood rapidly through those veins with a faint, steady rhythm. It was about motivation, purpose. He had other things going for him and also that false attitude of vengeance, but it was also about that promise, a promise he couldn't afford to break, not now.
Jayden seemed to distract her at every turn. She wasn't here in this city for amusement, or even finding him - though she wished she were - she was here to protect people. But every time she had seemed to spot black hair every the time that he was gone, she stopped dead in her tracks. This time, she had actually found him. She knew she needed to get out of Juno soon. She couldn't stay in the safety of this city forever. She needed to get out and fight, she needed to stop those creatures at any and all cost. "No it seems to be exactly like that, Jayden." The acceptance that he sought seemed to have disappeared with the whole idea that Heal was taking over for her father's place. When her father made that announcement, Heal didn't think much of it. Heal actually thought that Jayden would be happy for her, boy was she wrong. She patted Oliver's head, she could tell that he wasn't enjoying the closeness that she shared, physically, with Jayden.
Heal's stomach was in knots, and they felt as though they were constantly tying and retying every time he opened his mouth - it was nearly painful. Why did he have to say such things? Her eyes trailed down to the human-like pokemon beneath her. Nothing she seemed to say would get through to him, it was so god damn frustrating. "Why would you cause trouble? You're loved and wanted, even if you don't seem to care, Jayden." Who on earth would he even cause trouble for? Her parents? The village? She couldn't see any of them as having an issue with Jayden, or him even causing trouble for them. Why couldn't things just revert? Why? Why? Why?
Everything started to feel as though it was slowing down, her heart sank, and her body started to heat up. How could he bring this up right now? The whole realization of their promise weighed heavily on her shoulders as she began to understand just what marriage entitled. Though a part of her never thought it would be fulfilled, it'd be something forever forgotten in the waves of childhood innocence or that Jayden would never come back to fulfill it. "The vow?"
He should've expected this, the inevitable clash. She perceived that he didn't understand her - and perhaps he didn't, but some things about her never seemed to change - but it was equally true the other way around, that she couldn't understand his actions, motives behind his actions and that much was confirmed each time she spoke, going against his words, forcing them to argue like this. And part of him supposed that perhaps this deserved some congratulations on his own part, because she was easy to read and looked upset - yet every time he thought he had what he wanted she had to refute it, leaving him back at square one. She cared when he wanted her hate, pulled him close even as he tried to claw her away. And he had to always ask: why?
"You're right. I don't care." But he did, and the thudding of his heart as the blood rushed to his head repeated that with each beat, chanting it in the form of a tiny mantra that grew with speed and intensity until such thoughts were painful, and he hit it with a quick rub of his temple. "They're like family, and I hurt them." Her father, her inheritance, her. "I loved them, at one point." Love, loved them at that point, loved her. And they'd said that points in the past couldn't be revisited, but there was a fine line presented to him now, in the fashion that he wasn't sure if they'd physically crossed or not.
Under normal circumstances he would've argued that no, it was more than a vow, it was a promise and a way to tie them together, a way for her to never be able to get rid of him and, in a way, a method in which he could never forget her, even if he tried. Instead, he took a deep breath, then took a step back. "I don't break promises, Heal." Quietly, he said it quietly, stepping back and leaning so that his head was resting gently on bricks of the building's foundation.
Could she even compete with him anymore? He turned this into far more than just a simple game. It was a battle, this conversation -this argument- was all about who could land the first blow. It was all about who could risk their necks out the farthest without fear of the butcher's knife cutting their head straight off. Perhaps Jayden had more guts than she did, he was willing to stick his head out much farther than she was. He was willing to attempt to hurt her at every blow - at every word that left his mouth. It wasn't fair, she had enough intelligence to admit that he had far more intelligence than she did. She was racked with emotions - the first one to answer a battle cry. She would probably be the first person from Cura to die in this all out terror war. Jayden though, Jayden was smart, reserved, and everything seemed to have turned cold and calculating to him. Maybe if she bothered to touch him, he would feel like ice. Was his heart cold too?
His words crushed her. It's not as though she expected him to bawl and run into her arms and beg for her to bring him so he could see all the people that cared for him, no she wasn't that stupid. She expected something more emotional, some kind of reaction that she could recognize that belonged to the boy that she once knew. Perhaps he changed much more than she did over the years. Heal yearned for the past, a time in which the two could just run in the grass, or fight each other until one of their baby teeth would fall out then laugh. She yearned for things like that, but now she was older, and he changed."You're such an idiot, Jayden. You only hurt us when you left!" He only hurt her when he left. He only scarred her when he left. She wanted to reach out to him right now, he was so close yet he was so so far away. She reached out to touch him but she feared his rejection, so she pulled it away violently, as if her hand had touched a hot plate. "Well," I "We still love you. Even if you can't find room in your heart for us anymore."'Because your my best friend.' Though somehow those words wouldn't come out.
"Wait-Wait," She needed a moment just a moment to wrap her little mind around this. "Please don't be joking with me. How could you want to spend the rest of your life with someone you can't stand?"How could he want her?
Had she always been an enigma? Even as the thought crossed his mind - only a brief flash, he wouldn't(couldn't) allow himself more - he shook his head, cross with the stupidity of what he'd allowed himself to ponder, if even for a second. From the moment they'd become closer than strangers he tried to understand, only to be confused by her, how she treated him and the feelings that he'd come to tolerate, but never accept. So he ran, the coward that he was, ran until the emotions turned to ice and crumbled to dust at his feet. Tried to forget her, knowing that she'd already moved on from him, but some traitorous part hoping that she'd only forgotten. She hadn't changed one bit - still the girl that made some part of him curl and tie into unbreakable knots, still the one that made insults feel sour on his tongue, like bile. And instead of running like a coward this time he confronted her, bared his neck and dared her to strike. Yet she didn't, and he found himself back at square one, struggling to understand.
"Don't lie to me, Heal!" And suddenly he was angry, so angry. Angry at her words, angry at her, angry at himself for letting that brief spark of hope flare within him like a firework, only to die out again. It hurt, he'd learned from experience, and it hurt more with each added day of crushing hope, only to have it rear its ugly head back with a single sentence containing a few, choice words. Jayden clenched his fist against the wall(when had it slammed there, he wondered?) and it dropped back to his side, deadweight. "I'm not so stupid as to not know my place in that house. I didn't belong there." There was a fine line he was skirting around, he realized, and in the midst of everything it became difficult to distinguish whether he was most angry at her, or himself, for not being able to understand her. "I stole half of what was rightfully yours by living in that house, took it for granted because I was selfish." Dangerous, now, he was skating on the thin glass of his exterior that threatened to break and drown him in what he refused to say out loud: why don't you hate me?
Silence after that. Then, he quirked up a corner of his lip that'd slipped down and let loose a laugh that grated and hurt even his own ears, echoing hollow in his head. "You know, you're kind of stupid sometimes." Really stupid, but he chose to leave that part out. "Let me ask you something of my own, then." Stepped closer to her, and the air around him burned, as if reacting to the mere space she had touched. "How can you still stand someone like me?" Part of him didn't know what he wanted. Closure, perhaps. The other part of him was content to just stare at her, wondering why she hadn't just given up, forgotten, moved on.
(i finally posted!! really sorry it took me this long, posts will probably be really sporadic after this as well, sorry! ty for being so patient with me, gmot ilu. ;u;) GMOT ?
No, no it couldn't be. Could it? Were her eyes fooling her? She had Oliver following her closely, actually, the fighting Pokemon was attached to her hip practically and it struggled to keep up with Heal's strides. Her heart felt as though it had sunk into her stomach. Part of her didn't want to see him, but the other part did. She wanted to turn tails and run, she knew that she had a chance of seeing him because she left Cura Village but she didn't think it'd be this soon. 
