Questioning at Full Volume!

Serena had felt out of place at first; when Jimmy had first arrived—Jimmy the Pikachu Trainer, she reminded herself—the rattle of his guitar echoing across the fields and mountains, his overexcited pikachu frantic and erratic, she had taken it upon herself to dress in Ash's clothes in order that he might rest, knowing that, despite his illness, he would insist on attempting to battle Jimmy. Not that he could have course; despite everything she admired in Ash, he was nothing if not ignorant of his own health when it came to his ambition.

Dressed as the boy she had grown to care so deeply for, her long auburn hair tucked beneath the baseball cap, Ash's heavy trowsers and shapeless jacket hanging from her slender frame, Serena had found herself considering things that had been with her for some time, perhaps since childhood, things she had never cared to admit.

When first she had met Ash, it had been when she had been a child, her ambition greater than her ability. She had been frustrated then, dressed in straw hat and pinafore, angry at herself for not being more capable, for not being stronger, angry at those around her for insisting she was a certain type of person, a certain type of girl.

Standing before Jimmy, obnoxious as he was, obnoxious as the entire situation was, raised questions that made her uncomfortable despite herself. And yet seeing herself in Ash's clothes, being mistaken for a boy by Jimmy gave her butterfrees; it felt right being mistaken for a boy, it felt natural.

Not, of course, that she considered herself a boy, she knew she wasn't like Ash or Clemont, but she knew she also wasn't like Bonnie or Miette. Thinking about Miette came with its own complications as well. Perhaps it was the boyish way in which the other presented, her short hair, her knotted necktie, that inspired in her the same feelings she felt when she thought about Ash.

She looked at herself in the mirror, her hair pushed up beneath a hat of her own, dressed once in loose fitting trowsers, a simple t shirt, and she wondered what it might be like to be that close to Miette, to feel her breath close to her lips, to have Miette think of her as her boyfriend.

Serena blushed and laughed at the absurdity of her imaginings. What did this make her, someone who was not quite a boy but not exactly a girl either; what would the future bring her?

She smiled boyishly, adjusting her cap. It was enough for now just to be herself, everything else could be decided later. She was still Serena, she still had the same ambitions, the same cares, the same heart—everything that followed next would just be another exciting adventure!