bienvenue à une nouvelle édition!

Sitting on one of many benches in the busy city of Nimbassa, Touko swings her legs and listens as laughter and jest from the nearby amusement park fill her ears. It's so easy to get lost in thought like this, surrounded by easy happiness, but she keeps her eyes wide open as she scans the people and pokémon who pass her by. She is waiting for someone. Twenty extra minutes have already passed, but she is willing to give him all the time in the world.

At last, as if summoned by her embarrassing, flitting thought, a familiar head of wild hair finally emerges from the tunnel of Route 4.

"Touya," she calls, and the hair whips towards her with a massive grin.

"Hey!" he says loudly, enthusiastically, and props one foot up on the bench next to her. "You ready to go?"

At about 6 that morning — which is about three hours before Touya usually deigns to pull himself from sleep — her pokégear rang with Touya and an offer for an afternoon trip. She hadn't even needed to consider the question; it's been a while since she has left the Studios, and she misses adventuring like little else. So she had eagerly acquiesced with her toothbrush in her mouth, and now, here she is.

Here they are.

"I'm ready," she says confidently, standing up and tightening her ponytail. (Her wrist, nowadays, is always lined with hair ties, because they just keep snapping in the thick mass of curls.) "Where to?" Without answering, Touya grabs her wrist and starts tugging. Arches and doorways zip past, and then comes the cool, immediate shade of the Battle Subway station center.

"Hope you've got your running shoes on," he jokes, knowing very well that she doesn't even bother nowadays — not when she's learned to bike so well she could probably do it with her eyes closed.

"Hang on!" she laughs, twisting her hand as he yanks them both down the long staircase. But he doesn't let go, only twists his hand so that hers is locked with his. Warmth flushes through Touko's face, spiraling into her cheeks and ears and neck until she's certain that it burns in those fingertips.

Finally, they bustle down to a train Touko's only taken a couple times. Still, she knows Unova like the back of her hand.

"Anville?" she says, bewildered.

"Two tickets," he requests, his voice actually reaching the conductor, who hands one to each. The two trainers climb aboard a pleasantly empty cabin, and she turns to him as he shrugs off his bag and sets it in his lap before sitting down.

"You were late," she informs him. He runs a hand through his hair and, if possible, it spikes higher.

"Yep." Touko blinks, waiting, but no new info comes.

"Where've you been?" He shrugs, knee jostling.

"Around."

Alright, this is not normal. Worried now, she looks him full-on.

"Touya, what's going on? Where are we going?"

"Anville Town," he grins, like that's helpful. Which it isn't. But Touko gives up trying to get anything even close to resembling an answer out of him. She's spent her whole week — week, month, season — yelling herself hoarse. If she isn't calling out directory instructions to her people, she's busy flaying someone else's.

So she contents herself to following him into the train without needing to have everything all figured out. With this new frame of mind, the rest of the trip passes by nearly as fast as Flying.

(For Touya, though, time flies for another reason entirely. His nerves are piloting this plane. Hyperaware, he carefully pats his bag, checking that its contents are all still bundled up. He's finally summoned the courage to go through with this plan of his a whole week ago. But then had come so many days of waiting that he started to doubt whether or not he's ready for it. Here's here now, though, and so is Touko, and that's what matters most.

It didn't stop him from practically vibrating his way through that phone call before launching off to Castelia and Undella and even farther.)

The sun is setting when they make it out of the underground, casting a painting of roses, lilacs, and oranges against blue clouds. Farther down the bridge, someone is playing a flute.

The Unova region is gorgeous.

"It's so pretty," she breathes.

Then she hears a rustle and a thump and a curse and a sigh, and she stifles a snicker before looking over her shoulder.

Touya's bag is on the floor, all spilled open, and she can see all sorts of stuff sliding out. There goes a couple data discs on TMs like a tipped stack of dominos.

And then she gasps and wonders when her observational skills got so slow: Touya is standing still (a miracle) and in his hand is a dozen thornless roses. As she stares at him — at this wonderful, clumsy boy backlit against an Anville sunset and armed with the Kalosian regional flower — she thinks to herself that there is nothing so handsome as that goofy, silly grin.

(His courage, always so much more dull without his team alongside him, falls out of his hat when he drops his bag to save the flowers. The remains of said courage decide to Dig even deeper when she just gapes at him. His hand shakes a bit, but he's got to save the last dredges of his dignity for just a few more words.

"Touko," he begins, and promptly forgets how to speak.)

"Yes?" she says back, the word forming on its own and floating free without her say-so. The roses are very, very red, and very, very clear, and very, very shiny — which is an awful lot of shiny for a bunch of petals, but she is too in awe.

She's flashbacking now to the summer ere last, vivid memories of the last time she was in Undella Beach — the last time she had anything amounting to real, true free time. She's flashbacking to warm skin and cold ocean froth and that press of her mouth against the side of his cheek and the way he looked at her afterwards and said Wow.

"Touko," he says again, louder this time. "I don't think you'd believe me if I told you I loved you." Her eyes go big, and he hastens, "And neither would anybody else. Not now. Not yet. But– But your smile is beautiful. You are, too. I mean. You know. So I want to know that I like you. A lot. Like, so much, Touko, I like you. More than anyone else I've ever met, and more than anyone else I'll ever meet. And respect, too. For sure, I've never respected anybody so much." He breathes in so deep she can see his chest rising beneath the sweatshirt, and her heart stutters, overwhelmed and adoring all at once. "If that's what love looks like, then yeah. I love you, Touko Blanche, and I'll figure out how to make you believe that until the last rose dies."

Touko pauses, her elation hovering, unsure if it should pop or leap up, sky-bound, like one of Skyla's pals. Her practicality kicks in ahead of the romance.

"Until when?" she asks, a bit sardonic. He pushes them out towards her.

"Until the last rose dies. Falls. Browns. Wilts," he offers cheerfully.

"That's not a very long time," she points out, but she takes the roses anyway. Touya is a sweetheart and always has been, and even if it's not the most overdramatic, moviestar confession she's ever heard, there is still a sense of giddiness running through her. So she looks down at the bouquet with admiration and appreciation because–

Oh.

"Oh," she says dumbly. "Oh," she says, in awe yet again, only more so than earlier because finally, finally, she understands his rather harsh time limit. "Oh," she says, because, oh, Touya.

Touko moves towards him then, fast, and wraps one arm around him in the mightiest hug.

In the center of eleven fresh, newly-cut garden glories is a single glass rose.

"That's more like it," she whispers into his shoulder, and she feels his laugh rumbling as much as she hears it.

i hope you enjoyed some canon-happy fluff!