the ocean around them is a yawning abyss of blue, stretching into the far horizon. the air is still; the sea breeze clings like viscous liquid, stagnant and sluggish despite the speed at which they are cutting across the waves. [break][break]

arms wrapped in a chokehold around a knob on the lapras’ shell and trying to look nonchalant about it, nagi attempts a shrug and gives up when he realises he has loosen his grip to do so. [break][break]

“no,” he answers. short. sweet. a half-truth. [break][break]

he chances a glance upwards. there is nothing up there but sky — no sign of where the barrier starts or ends, or of the meteorite arcing its blazing trail towards them. the heavenly firmament: home to hoenn’s invisible, intractable miseries. [break][break]

even if he had answered with the whole truth — what could anyone outside do about this?[break][break]

he lets his gaze drop back down to his boss, as penelope's leans back into the lapras’ neck, in an almost-languid pose a polar opposite to his own. [break][break]

“do you have anyone outside of hoenn?”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

His answer brought about a breath of relief she hadn't realized she was holding in.
[break][break]
"Not really, no."
[break][break]
If she did, their connection would've been a hazy memory better left swallowed down and forgotten. There was already plenty of hurt to be felt, she didn't need to continue adding to it.
[break][break]
"I do have a few friends still living in Kalos, though." Another memory better left forgotten. Kalos -- the region that still twisted her heart with that familiar bittersweet emotion. It was the same feeling that plagued her whenever ollie morales came to mind, or Jessica, or any other ghoul of her past. "I wonder how they're doing."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-lapras"]

“kalos?”[break][break]

there is something to be said about coincidence and circumstance. he falls quiet for a moment, contemplating: how near their orbits could have drawn to each other back there; what fork in his path led to them sitting here; and how close their paths could have come to diverging without meeting. [break][break]

all roads lead to hoenn. somehow, theirs had crossed on the way here. [break][break]

(though, really, it felt a bit more like penelope swerving into his lane with a pickup truck.)[break][break]

“if you’d ever been to lumiose — ” kalosian syllables blend with his father’s kantonian accent, that he’d never managed to unlearn; foreign there, and foreign here. “ — we might have walked right by each other.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

"Yeah." She nodded. Just thinking of that far away region sent butterflies up her stomach. "Pretty stereotypical of me, isn't it?"
[break][break]
The amount of journalistic-minded people that flooded from Kalos was astounding. It was, at the very least, enough to warrant it being a cliché within her field.
[break][break]
Penelope's fingers twitched against the lapras' slick skin as nagi miwa 's unmistakably kalosian accent bled out. As much she wanted to question his answer from earlier, she knew better than to pry, especially with their relationship toeing the line between casual and business. If he wanted to speak of it, then he would, and if he didn't, well, she would just wait to pry it out of him on a later date.
[break][break]
"Maybe," The reporter mused, lips quirking up into a thoughtful smile, "I was over there for four years. Would've stayed longer if their university offered a better graduate program."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

“four years,” he repeats, turning the words over in his head; resigns himself to the fact that every flash of red hair in his recollections is going to leave him second-guessing for the next few days to come. [break][break]

“did you ever think about…” he weighs his words — the silence stews, simmering in the heat, before he continues, “... not coming back?" [break][break]

with the barrier curved around them like an invisible, inconvenient embrace, he couldn't return to kalos even if he wanted to. but home, for him, hadn't been a difficult place to leave.[break][break]

penelope had left hoenn to return. what is hoenn, to her?[break][break]

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

"I did, for a short while."
[break][break]
Images of her parents' stern expressions flashed through her mind. The restrictions they barred onto their own child were the very reason she had fled off to Kalos in the first place. To search for her true self -- that's the reason she kept telling herself, over and over again, until the idea of reinvention became a reality.
[break][break]
"But I knew I couldn't hide from Hoenn forever. As janky as it is, this place is my home. It's where I grew up. If I'm going to make some actual change, it might as well be here, no?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

nagi hums, a falling tone that is swallowed up by the dull roar of the waves around them. a pensive quiet falls — stretches, suspended in the briny air between them. questions rise on the tip of his tongue: what were you hiding from? what makes hoenn home?[break][break]

his voice, when finally it breaks the silence again, is low and inquisitive.[break][break]

"is that why you joined hbs?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

Is that why she joined HBS? The question hung over her head like a guillotine, heavy and full of unexpected pressures. Carefully, she mulled over her answer, eyes fixated on the flow of the surrounding waves, and the ripples each one created.
[break][break]

"Partly. I needed a job post-graduation, and through my program, there was a direct connection to HBS' internship program. It was almost impossible to turn down."
[break][break]

But there was also another reason that wrung her heart. For a second, she debated whether it was worth continuing, or if she'd rather save young nagi miwa from a mope session with his superior. Finally, she found resolve in a heavy sigh, and allows the severity of their impending doom to push past another barrier that sat between them.
[break][break]

"But that's not the entire reason."
[break][break]

"Back at Kalos, during my university days, I had a close friend. My best friend, actually. One day, while walking home from a party, and..."
[break][break]

Penelope's eyes darkened and her features tightened around her face.
[break][break]

"She wound up dead. Police ruled it an 'unfortunate accident.' I didn't buy it -- I still don't. But who's going to believe another grieving woman accuse the police for the 3rd time that week, right?"
[break][break]

A bitter laugh chuckled out, as crisp as the morning air. She could still hear the police sergeant offer his shitty, half-assed apology, all while the rest of the squadron was doing jack all in the back.
[break][break]

"Long story short, no one wanted to hear me out. Not the newspapers, not the stations, no one. I don't want anyone to ever feel so wronged like that. That's why I joined."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

nagi listens as penelope talks, focused and still, as she falteringly bares an old, raw hurt. he stays still, even when she finishes, the only movement the downwards shift of his eyes to his hands, clasped white-knuckled against the lapras' shell. [break][break]

“no one should have to feel like that.”[break][break]

he nods, a slow, pensive movement, as he raises his eyes back to meet penelope’s. his hands curl, the meat of his palm pressing flush against the smooth curve of the lapras’ shell. weak, bony hands — he knows what it feels like to feel powerless. he knows the power of a story, of a voice threaded even through fiction. [break][break]

“i…” ‘m glad i joined you? this isn’t an employee interview. [break][break]

but it’s true nonetheless. the strength of penelope’s resolve; the steel of her vision — nagi’s boss is a woman to watch. he’s still not sure what she saw in him, besides an attitude and persnickety way with words.[break][break]

he purses his lips, and lets another wall fall from between them. “i have a parent in kalos. we don’t talk. haven't, for a while now.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

It still hurt.
[break][break]
Like a cycle, the wound would rip and tear apart along with the seasons, only mending at times of least convenience. Now, more than before, she could feel the squish of blood that leaked through the lazy stitching.
[break][break]
"Thank you."
[break][break]
Strong breaths pushed out the only words she could think of.
[break][break]
Somehow, she wanted to seek out more to offer. Something worth more merit than a sign of mere gratitude. But just as Nagi could do more than apologize for actions unbelonging to himself, she could do more than accept them.
[break][break]
When he spoke again, it's not to repeat the apologizes, as some had done to her before (ignorant to a better way to respond with the severity of her words), but to open up a piece of himself. To exchange shattered wall for shattered wall.
[break][break]
"How come?"
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

he huffs. resigned laughter papers over an age-old ache. [break][break]

“i was one of his life’s many regrets. it was a mutual parting," he says — bland and clinical, like the words mutual parting see everyday application in the context of parent-child relationships.[break][break]

but, despite everything: he had let nagi stay long enough to reach adulthood. nagi grew up with food on his plate, a roof over his head until he came of age: his, in comparison to the world’s many hurts, is a shallow misery. [break][break]

he unhooks a hand from its death grip, waves it in air by his face as if to physically disperse the dense cloud of his self-pity.[break][break]

"i'm here now," he says. definitive. final. any lingering regret excised with deliberate precision, as he holds penelope’s gaze in his own. it is steadier than it’s ever been, despite the rocking of the ocean beneath them; he won’t be a bulletpoint another person’s list of regrets.[break][break]

blue all around them. solid land is a memory, out of sight — but he hears the sounds of waves crashing against a breakwater nearby.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

Penelope knew that expression well.
[break][break]

It was the same one she held at the mention of her own 'mutual-parting' from her parents. Though, in her case, her parents were still hellbent on biting down the truth of their behavior. 'We love you the way you are,' they'd always say, all behind disgruntled frowns and disparaging glares that questioned her every choice.
[break][break]

In a world bathed in misfortune, it was hard to feel pity for oneself. Someone always had it worse.
[break][break]

To Nagi's final, definite declaration, she smiled, a glint of pride clear in her eyes.
[break][break]

"and I'm glad for it."



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]