Pairing: Implied N/Touya

Warnings: Slash, plus very minor cursing.

Spoilers: Extremely minor spoilers for Mistralton City.

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.

The Toll of Thought

It was raining, and normally N wouldn't have minded except for the fact that it was summer. The rain was hot and sticky instead of being cool and refreshing, causing his clothes to cling unpleasantly to his skin. Tired of standing, he slid down the gym's front wall and sunk to the concrete, puddles be damned. After a rain drop somehow managed to slip across the brim of his hat and drip directly into his eye, he began to seriously rethink his plan.

Up until now he'd been extremely successful in intercepting Touya in a timely manner, inferring the other boy's destination and planning accordingly. He often took shortcuts, yet still usually arrived just mere minutes before Touya did so as to avoid the situation he was in now. His path was a line set to intersect with Touya's as much as possible.

The thought made N smile, though the gesture confused him more than anything - he didn't just randomly smile, so doing it for no apparent reason warranted further investigation.

Never an expert on dealing with his emotions or the strangely perplexing human things he was wont to do, N preferred to trace an emotion back to its cause and tackle it that way.

So. He'd been thinking about Touya. And then he'd smiled.

... This time, identifying the cause wasn't helping.

Just when he was about to analyze this further, the sound of rain droplets softly pattering to the concrete was pierced by a low, deep chime. For six seconds, time seemed to stop as the ancient bell rung, sounding twice before fading away.

N blinked, attempting to place the bell's chime. He was certain he'd never heard it before, yet he had the strangest feeling that he had. He tried running the bell's frequency through his mind, but came up frustratingly short. To make things more aggravating, his brain seemed to want to associate the chime with Touya.

Then again, considering the fact that nowadays his brain seemed to loop back to Touya at most nearly every opportunity it got, he had to admit that he wasn't actually that surprised.

Now that he thought about it, though, the association made an oddly large amount of sense. The sound had been strong and confident, but gentle at the same time - strong enough to travel all the way from Celestial Tower to the air field. Strong enough to reach him, almost as if it had been meant for him to hear. N suddenly very much wanted the bell's mysterious ringer to be Touya, and he almost smacked himself for thinking two highly irrational thoughts in a row.

Then N realized that he'd been camping out in front of the gym for close to two hours, was thoroughly drenched, and was now blushing, all of which were ridiculous and needed to stop right now.

Standing up, N silenced the part of himself that wanted to stay and wait for Touya, instead opting to take shelter in Mistralton's cargo service building. He'd be able to dry off, and, if Touya should come by after all, N would be able to spot him.

Though he was expecting the wait to be boring, N soon found he had a great deal to think about.

A/N: I'd had this idea floating around for while before I actually got around to writing it. My main motivation for writing it was a crushing sense of boredom I had one night, which was pretty much the best motivator I could've asked for.

I don't actually know how long the bell rings for, so I just took my best guess.

Writing from N's POV was really fun and easier than I thought it'd be.