notes: A request for Ibuberu. Became a bit long, so I posted it in this account. Hope you like it!
Beware of drama because this ship is totally begging for it. :D

teacher of the game
by fugthimble

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It starts with a look, and then he knows he's never going to get the girl.

He's eleven and his hand is on her shoulder, assuring and tangible and warm—and he can't help but to feel that it isn't enough; not for them, not for him, but then Platina steps away with a absent look in her face and Diamond can only sigh tiredly and assume he isn't enough of a boy to protect or help her.

He's eleven when he first crumbles apart, and from then on, it's easier to pretend she isn't someone totally out of his reach.

He's twelve when they reach Mt. Coronet's top (and it all goes downhill from there).

Suddenly he's alone and worried and there are mysterious men working their way down to hell, and his biggest resent is that his blond friend is with her, like always.

While he's alone. It's a bit ironic that it's always like this, he thinks, because Pearl can't understand, Pearl can't ever understand what's going on beneath dark eyes and careful gestures. And while Diamond can see whenever she's perfectly broken on the inside, Pearl doesn't notice the flutter of eyes nor he notices the slightest quiver of the lips when she's distraught. Maybe they're both injured, or maybe they're alive and well and happy with each other (he doesn't know which fortune he prefers, because they both sting).

He stares at the rest of the cave, and leans against the pile of rocks, calling out to Pearl and Platina. When he gets no answer, he decides maybe he'll meet them in the summit. And if he doesn't, he'll just search again through the mountain.

Diamond is twelve when he's faced with the decision to go on without her.

He's sixteen when Platina defeats Cynthia.

She looks absolutely radiant, with sparkling skin and beaming smile, and she hugs Pearl first. Diamond likes to think she did so because he was closer, but Diamond both hopes it was and that it wasn't—friendship is a bit screwed up like that, and he know he'll be happy no matter what happens between them. Still, when she leans in to him, arms closing against his neck and a sigh in his ear, he can't help but to feel absolutely delighted.

Pearl sends him a subtle look, and Diamond doesn't know why he feels guilty all of a sudden, but the fact is that his arms are no longer around her waist and his smile is blurry (his eyes are blurry too). When they take the customary Hall of Fame picture, he's looking at her—but she's looking at the camera. It isn't only until a few moments later that he realizes the blond's looking at her too, with the exact same type of glance plastered on his own face.

Diamond's sixteen when he realizes that maybe he wouldn't like to share some things with Pearl, after all.

He's eighteen when she's finished with the Battle Frontier.

Platina is going abroad, like all the heirs of the Berlitz house do when they reach maturity, and both of them know what's going to happen then—Pearl doesn't. The blond's convinced that they're tagging along—but Diamond knows better than that (and hasn't he always?). Platina is nothing but a friend, and after all, they've got their own lives to follow, too—even if it doesn't look like it; they've been living in her shadow for seven years now. And strangely enough, he doesn't mind, even if Pearl complains quite a lot sometimes.

"You're going to Hoenn?" he asks absently, when Pearl is shouting something at the judges (they're having a last contest just before she leaves). "I'd like to wish you luck."

"Thank you, Diamond." Her tone is soft, and he thinks that perhaps it's best Pearl won't hear it. He hasn't realized it yet, thankfully, but when he does, it'll be heartbreaking. "I hope to excel."

"I love you, you know. I've loved you for seven years now," he says, and the blond suddenly widens his eyes. Platina looks up to him, dark eyes meeting his own, and she smiles softly before holding his hand. Diamond doesn't smile, because he knows she won't love him back—not now, not ever.

Diamond's eighteen when she moves away to pursue her family dreams—he's eighteen when she doesn't look back.

He's twenty-five when she gets back, badge case filled with every badge.

Her eyes are pink around the edge, but he presumes it's from the wind blown on her face—her cheeks are pink, too, so maybe it's a good thing. For once, it's Pearl who assumes the worst thing, ever-cheerful Pearl knows she's been crying the way back here, and even if Diamond knows the same, too, it's a bit hard to admit it. Maybe it's because of him, maybe it's because of Pearl. Maybe it's because she's Platina and he's Diamond and she can't have it all.

"It's nice to see you," he says, running a hand through his short blue hair. "Pearl says he's sorry he can't be here, but—"

"I've heard," she cuts him off with a soft-spoken phrase, waving her hand carelessly. "I wish him the best on his—marriage. Dawn, was it?"

Diamond wants to shout at her—I'm still here, I'm still waiting!—but he loves her too much, so he just nods. They walk side by side, and her nose is red too (it's the cold, he tells himself, it's just that it's cold); when they reach the Pokécenter, they haven't said much to each other. She's gotten taller, but so has he, and it's a significant change, he hopes she can tell he's not a little kid anymore. She's gotten even prettier than before, maybe, if it's possible.

"Tell me everything," Diamond says slowly, when they sit down and she has her hands above the heater.

Well, she starts and doesn't stop talking for a few hours. Diamond is attached to her every word, listening and trying to figure her out in the breaks, when she slurps coffee not as elegantly as she would have, and he realizes she's changed.

He's twenty-five when Platina returns with a badge cage filled and an empty spirit, and he doesn't know how to fix her anymore.

He's twenty-seven when she gets married.

Her husband is someone important, some heir to the Pokétch company (he doesn't know, and tells himself he doesn't care all that much). It's Pearl who tells him first, before the papers start printing and the invitations start flying and before he shows up to the marriage with a scruffy suit and bags under his eyes.

"It's just so you know," he says, and his voice sounds oddly distant on the phone. He can hear his wife nagging him in the background, and the blond whispers something. "Go away, I don't want him to cry—Diamond?"

So Diamond hangs up with a sigh, and blinks when his eyes start stinging. Pearl calls back again, many times, but he doesn't answer any, so after a few hours, the blond stops trying.

Diamond sits very, very still all day, staring into the Hall of Fame photo, and wonders if Pearl's stopped looking at her that much time ago—because maybe he's the only one left now. Because maybe now that he's a properly grown man, he realizes that he's wasted his life away with her—and it hurts that he doesn't regret it.

Diamond is twenty-eight when he gets the invitation to the marriage, in June, with cursive gold letters and soft paper. Diamond is twenty-eight when he walks her to the altar along with Pearl (and both of them absolutely don't think about the reason to why her father doesn't), and her butler is crying softly in the first bench. When he gives her away, her eyes are as calm as when he met her.

"I love you," he says, and pecks her on the cheek. Her cheeks don't turn red like he hoped they would, but she smiles softly at him and links her arm with her husband.

When leaving the chapel, she does something she's never done before—she looks back at him. It's a fleeting look, fast and he doubts anyone would've seen, but he did and it's all it matters. She steps out and gets in the limousine, and he grips the bouquet harder—Pearl teases him slightly (you do know it's supposed to be the bride-to-be the one who picks it up, eh?) but then stops because Diamond isn't very happy today.

It ends with a look, and then he knows he's never going to get the girl.