l'heure du printemps

01

They stand facing each other, ready to strike.

"I'm Salamence," X calls.

"Okay. Then I'm Flygon," Y replies.

"One, two, three four, I declare a pokémon war. I beat you, you pay me, loser owes galettes times three!" they chant in unison.

Then they charge.

X tackles Y to the ground. He sits on her, locking her arms behind her back. Y struggles against him, punching, kicking, scratching, but X keeps his grip. He counts, "One krookodile, two krookodile, three krookodile..." all the way to ten.

"I win!" he yells. Y stops struggling and lets out a cry of frustration.

Then the two of them start laughing. He rolls off of her. They lay there on the grass together, underneath the shade of a blooming cheri berry tree. They are dirty, dusty, and panting from exhaustion.

"Why do you always win?" Y pouts.

"I am the winner of the Junior League," he reminds her. He grins in her direction.

She sniffs, looking up at the leaves and flowers above then, fluttering in the sunlight. The blossoms are especially vibrant this year, petals so luscious they felt like silk.

"What's gonna happen when you become the Champion?" she asks.

"What do you mean?"

"You're gonna... You're gonna leave me behind," she whines. She blushes because her mother always told her not to complain, but she can't help herself. "I'm gonna be lonely. And so are Tierno and Trevor and Shauna..."

She trails off, noticing his scandalized look. "I'm not gonna leave you behind!" he shouts, indignant that she would even think they'd be separated in the future. He turns over on his side to face her. "We're gonna all go together to the Pokémon League. You and me and Tierno and Trevor and Shauna. Don't you remember? Ensemble toujours."

02

But then it happens. And he doesn't want to fight her as Salamence anymore.

He locks himself up inside all day, leaving Y to wander the fields of Vaniville all by herself.

She tries to get the others to play pokémon war with her, but she beats them every time.

03

It's no use. No one can make him leave his room. He plays video games and reads novels all day, barely eating, barely sleeping.

Tierno, Trevor, and Shauna have all given up. His heart sinks when be realizes this, but he know he deserves it.

But Y has stayed. She is persistent. And very noisy. But the fact is that she stays, visiting him outside his door everyday.

She's picked up a lot of curses as of late. When he's being especially stubborn, she'll let slip the f-bomb or even worse.

"That's not very ladylike," he tells her through the keywhole.

"I don't give a crap!" she snaps. "Get your ass out here right this second!"

Needless to say, the farthest he's budged is to the kitchen.

But even though she yells and curses, she also has those gentle, girlish moments; the ones where she talks about going shopping in Lumiose, or playing with Fletchy, or finding new poképuffs, or the things she's learning in school.

And oftentimes, she'll bring him little presents. Things like a new pair of socks, or a PokéPuff, or a flyer for a new training event. Sometimes she even brings him fancy books: Fairytales From Kanto, or The Litleo That Could.

It's little things like this that keep him from diving off the edge.

Y is kind of like his anchor.

04

She's no longer interested in playing fighting games anymore either. Instead, she's gone on to Sky Training School.

Of course, it's against her mother's wishes, and he wonders how she even affords the tuition if that's the case. But whatever she does, she always makes time to visit X.

One day after school she knocks on his door and tells him that from now on, she will fly to his window instead of knocking on his door.

He glares at her through the keyhole. "Don't you dare."

She doesn't listen, obviously, and from then on he has to deal with her swooping in from the middle of nowhere and almost breaking the window with her vigorous knocking.

05

He sits there on the ground, away from the safety of his room, pinned against the wall by malicious pokémon, and frozen in fear at the adults dressed in red in front of him.

They're going to kill him, he thinks, and squeezes his bracelet.

But in that instant someone swoops from above and gives a shout.

"I won't let you touch X!"

It's Y. She's clothed in her tight-skinned Sky Suit and her hair is frizzy from the flight.

A brief thought passes his mind. He looks at the silhouette of her figure and thinks that she's changed. Changed from a girl into something different. She stands there tall and proud and confident, towering over him on the ground, so much more different from back then.

For a minute he can't place his finger on what exactly it all is, but it hits him that Y has become beautiful in those years.

06

The name of the place is Café Soleil.

She tries not to think about it too much, but she feels almost self-conscious for no apparent reason. Is it because she's alone with X?

Well, whatever it is, he's certainly worse off than she is. His head is lowered, his shoulders are hunched, and he's tugging at the tablecloth, ignoring the coffee in front of him.

Since when did she ever decide it would be a good idea to like him? she wonders.

Then she jolts.

Wait a minute, like him? Since when has she liked X?

She starts fidgeting with the tableoth too. Of course she likes X. They're best friends. She protects him. She's always been by his side. Yes, of course she likes him. But does she like him like a friend or like-

"You're going to knock everything off," X warns.

She shrieks in surprise and their drinks almost come flying off when she pulls at the tablecloth.

007

She smiles at him. He wonders if it's normal, that sort of acidic, warm pulsation he gets in his gut when she does that.

She and Fletchy swoop into the sky, off to fight the girl challenging her.

"There goes your girlfriend," says Cassius, who is still traveling with them despite X's obvious discomfort.

Calem gives him a dead-eyed stare, trying to hide his embarrassment while simultaneously conveying his dislike of adults. "How many times do I have to tell you she's not my girlfriend?"

No, she isn't. But he's trying to figure out what she is, then, because her smile shouldn't make him feel the way he does. It shouldn't make his neck so hot and his heart beat a little faster than usual.

008

"You know what?" she spits in frustration.

He thinks she's going to kill him right then and there if he doesn't move. But he can't. He doesn't want to go back to those adults.

But then she takes him by surprise. "One, two, three, four, I declare a Pokémon war. I beat you, you pay me, loser owes galettes times three!"

He rolls his eyes. "No."

"Yes, X. You have to."

"Don't wanna."

"Too bad. And really, now, think of the Lumiose Galettes!"

He scowls. "Don't wanna. I have to buy them at that stand and then those people..." He trails off.

She, of course, isn't going to buy it. But instead of going the aggressive route, she smirks. "What's that? Are you implying you're going to lose?"

He jolts at that remark. She's challenging him, her eyes flared. That's unfair because she knows he can't resist a challenge...

"I'm Salamence. You're Flygon," he mumbles.

A wide grin spreads across her face. He stands there, unsure, until suddenly she knocks him to the ground.

She starts tickling him and they both start laughing, X struggling against her. But she keeps a steady count until "Ten krookodile! I won!"

They both start laughing all over again. But X stops when he realizes the way they're situated: Y on top of him, her body warm and soft, and her face so close her breath mists over his face. He turns red.

She doesn't notice. "Wow, that's the first time I won!" She laughs again, but then notices his face, staring at her own with something like embarrassment and wonder mixed together. She lifts herself off of him, her heart quickening. "Sorry," she says and rolls over to lay next to him on the grass.

They stay there like that for a minute, underneath the shade of a cheri tree. The berries are ripe and red and gleaming in the sunshine. A nostalgia settles over X for those times, the days when they were kids, before he became an introvert, a shut-in, before Y surpassed him. He realizes he misses those times too.

She suddenly rises up and turns to him. "Well?"

He sits up. "What?"

"Hurry up! We have to go meet the others. And you owe me three Lumiose Galettes!" She adjusts her hat as she says his and begins walking.

"Wait. Don't leave me behind," he says.

"I won't," she replies, and pauses for a minute before adding, "Ensemble toujours, right?"

00

What they have was always special, but now they both see that it's also something more. It's friendship, it's camaraderie, it's an understanding, it's everything of that sort.

But it's slowly bloomed into something more, like the flowers of that tree they used to play under in Vaniville. It's the thing that makes your heart beat quickly, that makes you have that incessant acidic ache in your chest, that makes you want to be with that other person all the time, for you to go the journey with them always by your side.

Both of them are too scared to put an exact name on it yet, but both of them know it's there.