Chapter Three

The words came spilling out of my mouth like a Waterfall before I could stop them, tumbling over the cuts and dry ridges of my mouth as if of their own accord.

"Blue, I was going to tell you, I'm sorry, I was really going to, I promise…"

Blue just stared back at me, one eyebrow arched in a smooth curve above his cool brown eyes. The words instantly died in my throat, snuffed out like a flame. Too late, the dread crashed into the pit of my stomach. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Maybe he had only been bluffing, and really had no idea what was going on. Maybe I had just blown my own cover, when there had never been any real danger in the first place.

I fell silent and waited for whatever he was going to throw my way.

When Blue got angry, I never knew how he was going to react. Sometimes, he only shrugged and cleared his throat in that intimidating way of his, the way that reminded me so much of Professor Oak, shaping his face into an icy glare. He was good at that kind of anger, cold anger; he wore it like a sharp, razor-pleated tuxedo draped over his shoulders, all angles and points and edges. But other times, he threw a royal tantrum, stomping around the room and yelling and throwing things off the table like he owned the place. Which, knowing him, there was a good chance he did.

I realized my heart was still hammering hard against my ribs, and took a deep breath, through my nose so that he couldn't hear me struggling to calm down. It felt stupid, now, that we were here at all. I remembered, like a distant recollection, my resolve, only hours earlier, bent over the bathroom sink and vowing to my own reflection that I wouldn't tell him. It didn't make sense anymore. Nothing made sense. Why hadn't I told him? The morning's events swam in muddled circles through my head, until I didn't know what I was thinking, like peering through a haze of cold, unforgiving snow. How were we going to work through this now, now that even I didn't believe my own reasons?

When he finally spoke, his voice was slow and steady.

"Leaf," he said calmly. There was an edge to his voice, as if he was biting back dry laughter, which was probably as far from the truth as you could get at this point. "Calm down. I'm not angry at you."

Sure you aren't, I thought bitterly, and then realized I had spoken out loud.

He blinked in surprise and drew back, studying me as if from another angle, almost amused. "Why? Is there a reason I should be?"

Why did he always have to act this way, making you squirm, making you come to him like a trap? He was good at it, I had to admit. It was the way he flirted with girls, the way he made them flock around him without ever having to lift a finger. He was like a damn Persian sometimes, dangling a Rattata between its paws by its scrawny purple tail, toying with it as it hung, completely at his mercy. I hated it. It reminded me of the way I used to hate him, before, when both of us—all three of us—used to journey.

I cleared my throat. "You tell me, Blue."

"Well, I'm not the one who's been keeping secrets, Leaf," he said in that wise-ass way of his, crossing his arms.

For a moment, I let myself breathe, at the same time that anger bubbled in my stomach. Who was he, to be handling things like this? "Blue, is this all some kind of joke to you?"

He flicked his head around. "I'd kind of like to ask you the same thing," he snapped angrily, and I swallowed. Right. I wasn't exactly in a position to criticize him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I bit back my answer, wrapping my teeth around it. I had a feeling he wouldn't have been happy if I shot back with a snappy Tell you what?, but what else could I say? I had nothing, no words to offer him. How could I explain to him that with the way things were now, now that we had learned to live again, the way we had patched over the gaping hole in our lives—there was no breaking it? I stared at the floor, at the Band-Aids double-crossed across my ankles. How could I explain to him that even if I had, there was no way he would have let me?

"Why didn't you?" Blue repeated when I didn't answer, but softer. Without even looking up, I felt him calm down, his shoulders settling back against the table. "You know what, never mind. I have no idea what's going on here." His words were almost nonchalant, ringing through the too-silent room. "All I want to know is if you would do me a favor and explain, before I can make any assumptions."

Ugh. I hated his mood whiplash. This was almost worse than the Blue who shouted and slammed his hand against the table, tugging at his own hair, his eyes blazing and mouth twisted. Cold anger was good, too, even better; I had gotten pretty good at sarcasm myself, throughout the years of having to deal with him. But this Blue, furious one moment, calm and reasonable the next—I didn't know what to say to him.

"Like what?" I muttered. "Explain what?"

He let out something that sounded like a cross between a snort and a sigh. "Okay, then, we can take this from the beginning, if that's what you want." That sly edge to his voice again; those Persian eyes fixed on their prey, slowly advancing. "That's fine. We can start with those cuts." He pointed at my bandaged ankles, and I crossed them defensively, to no avail. It didn't hide the bandages or the skin that suddenly burned underneath it. "Do they have anything to do with this? Because I have a feeling that they do."

I shifted my weight between my feet. "Why, what do you think they are?"

"I don't know, maybe you—no." His eyes widened as he came to a halt, and I ground my heels into the floor, furious at myself and at him, for figuring out the things I thought I had concealed so well. "You didn't…you didn't try to go up there, did you, Leaf?"

"And so what if I did?" I blurted. "Wouldn't you have done the same?"

Too late, I realized what I had set him up for. The furious shock in his eyes as they met mine made my cheeks burn.

"Yes, I would have," he snapped. "Which is why I would have appreciated if, oh, I dunno, you actually let me know he was up there?"

"I didn't know if it was true!" I flung my hands in the air. "I didn't want—I didn't want to bring it up and get your hopes up only for it to be a false alarm! Blue, we haven't talked about him in forever! And the last time I mentioned him…"

"So you thought you would just go find out yourself, go sneak up there and see him yourself and never let me know?"

"I was going to—"

"Because that was totally the best way to go about it, wasn't it?"

"Blue, are you even listening to me? I said I was going to tell you! And I was! I just needed a while to...to think about it myself, because it was kind of a big deal!"

"Yeah, but obviously not big enough to let me process it, or even know what was—" Blue stopped, then, catching on to what I had said. "Wait. What do you mean the last time you mentioned him?"

"You don't remember?" I glared up at him, blood roaring in my ears. Now this just wasn't fair. Blue might have had more of a right to be angry than I did, but not by much. As if he could act like he had been any kind of shoulder to lean on at all; as if he had even tried to reach out once to comfort me. As if. We hadn't spoken Red's name, hadn't even dared to think it, since the news of his disappearance had stopped showing up on TV. We had walked around and pretended it had never happened—and whose fault was that?

"Last time, when we were battling. I said that you were starting to battle like Red, and you just got pissed at me and walked out. That doesn't seem like you were encouraging me to have long heart-to-heart talks about him, does it?"

Blue glowered at me, his eyes cold and stony. "I don't know why you're bringing that up. That's different. At least I wasn't—"

"Well, you weren't exactly warm and fuzzy about it, either. Whenever anything we said got a little too close to talking about Red, you would shut down or stop talking or—oh no, don't you even try to deny it!" I shook my head as he opened his mouth. "That's what you did, and that's what I started doing eventually, too. Even if I wanted to talk about him, sometimes—but I knew you didn't, and I tried to respect that." I rolled my hands into fists, angry now. "And I thought we had finally moved on at this point, and I thought that was what you wanted. We finally went back to normal, you know? No more false leads, no more searching, just…accepting it." I let out a heavy breath and unclenched my fists. "That he's gone."

Blue stared at me for a long moment, his eyes hollow and angry, the dark spheres of his pupils burning against fading brown. The hum of the lights in the kitchen droned into my head, like a drill cutting through skin and bone. "Except he's not," he murmured, dangerously quiet. "Except he might not be."

"I-I know, Blue..." I lay my head on the table, my forehead sinking into my arms. It was tiring to remember all of this, to haul so much baggage up from the things that neither of us wanted to think about, to wade through dark pits of memories that neither of us wanted to crawl into. Why had Red, stupid, silent Red, left in the first place? Why had he torn this hole in the perfect triangle of our relationship, leaving the two of us to live in the mess he had created?

"I didn't want him to be gone, Leaf." Blue's voice was low, hollow, when he spoke again. "Yeah, I hated Red sometimes. Sure. I admit it. I hated him. We were rivals, and no matter what I did, he always won. He took my Champion title away from me, and yeah, part of me never really forgave him for that. And yeah, maybe I didn't know how to talk about him after he was gone. But…"

And then his next sentence shocked me like a Thunderbolt splintering through my entire body. Or maybe an Earthquake that shook the ground beneath my feet. Because I had never, ever thought I would hear Blue Oak say those words, and it was only too bad that in that moment, I could hardly bring myself to relish them.

"But this isn't about me," he said grimly. "Because, not once—not ever—I never wanted him gone. He was my friend. My best friend. Ours."

I raised my head, stands of my own hair tickling my arm as I moved, and looked up at him. Blue was no longer leaning languidly against the table, but hunching over it, his fingers tense against its wooden surface. His eyes were fixed on his fingernails, and I could see his shoulders squared and tightened against the muscles of his neck.

For some reason, I noticed right then that he really could have been gorgeous-okay, fine, was gorgeous anyway-if he wasn't always so damn stubborn all the time, save for moments like this one.

I cleared my throat, the sound grating against the silence like the rough crunch of pebbles underfoot. Where did I even start, responding to his confession?

"I know, Blue," I said. "Look, I know...I know that you and Red's friendship, it...it was complicated." A tiny flicker of a grimace tugged at the corner of Blue's mouth, and I winced at the sound of the words. Geez, from the way I had put it, it sounded as if the two of them had been in a relationship or something. I brushed it aside awkwardly and kept going. "But believe me, I didn't not tell you on purpose because I thought you didn't care about him or anything like that. I know you do-even if you're a stupid idiot who would never, ever admit it in a million years."

Like a reflex, Blue's head snapped up indignantly at the word idiot, and I bit back a smile. It was good, at least, to see that he was still his annoying self.

I let out a sigh, resigned. "Honestly, Blue, I'm sorry for not telling you. But you know me-the sad thing is, even if it weren't for the news, I probably couldn't hold it back for the rest of the day, anyway." Even though he tried to hide it, I saw Blue's face crack into a reluctant smirk, and the sight of it brought a smile to my face. "Really, Blue, what I mean to say is that...I'm sorry. I just...I didn't know how you would react. I really thought you wanted us to move on with our lives, to accept that Red-"

"Leaf," Blue interrupted me, holding up a hand. "I know. I...I can understand why you didn't tell me, as much as I resent it and think it was a stupid decision on your part. I know that I..." He winced, and I could practically see him wrestling with the bitter taste of the apology in his mouth. "I could probably have been more supportive, too, when Red disappeared, yeah. But-honestly, once I get over the fact that you purposely hid this from me...I'm glad to hear that he might be back."

I looked up, hopeful. "You are?"

"Yeah, as annoying as Red is...who wouldn't be?" Blue rolled his eyes, but he stared back at me all the same. "And I want you to know that...I would be willing to go look for him with you."

"You what?" I gaped at him. "Are you serious?"

A glint of smugness flickered through his eyes as he grinned, flashing his spotless white teeth. "Well, Arceus knows you might need my help. Just so, you know, you don't end up cutting yourself to pieces again the next time you try to climb Mt. Silver."

"Oh, shut up, you jerk." I swung playfully at him, but from across the table, my punch didn't land anywhere even close to his shoulder. I rested my head on my shoulder again and gazed solemnly back at him. "But Blue...you have to understand that it's only a rumor. He might not be there at all."

And marching all the way up there only to find an empty peak might hurt even more than never knowing, I added silently.

Blue raised an eyebrow. "Well, better to find out ourselves than to give some random idiot from Johto all the credit for locating the glorious Champion Red, hero of our people, before his roommates do."

His voice dripped with sarcasm, but still, his eyes were fixed on me, completely serious. I stared back at him, an entire pact unraveling in the space between our eyes. A challenge.

"Well, do you really want to take that chance, Blue?"

A smirk uncoiled across his mouth, and his hair rippled against his forehead again in a mess of brown as he raked his fingers through it, striking a battle pose.

"Seriously, do you even know me, Leaf? A challenge-that's what I do best."

Author's Note:

Hi everyone, sorry for the super long wait! I've been really busy recently with college apps, and also National Novel Writing Month, which I'm trying out this year! (And failing miserably at at the moment...D:) Not to mention other stories on here that I updated a few months ago, though that doesn't really count so much. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'm sorry for not updating often at all recently. I will try harder! (And I might even make this my NaNoWriMo project, actually, in a quasi-legal move...in which case I'll hopefully be updating quite a lot!)

In other notes, sorry for the cheesy ending, hehe. :3 And also, sorry for some minor formatting issues, like the dashes turning into hyphens...I'm super picky about that stuff. I got a new computer, and I'm using a different word processing program at the moment that apparently doesn't do dashes, so that would be why.

Hope you liked the chapter, and I'll try to update soon!