Junya dreams of autumn.
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There was once a boy. He was the swiftest, cleverest, quickest boy in all of Johto.
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Of the scarlet-red maples whose boughs bend low over the stillness of the pond, and the ivory-black, the vibrant mandarin of the scales that swim beneath only the faintest glazing of ice, their fins trailing like gossamer in the cold water.
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A Shioda boy, bright as starshine. And this boy? Ha. He could steal the wick from a candle and it would still burn.
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She dreams of Asahi, slumped and sodden amidst the swirling magikarp, of the pink-tinged frost in his hair and the way his dark, dark eyes stare sightlessly toward the house with the tatami floors, where all the worse things fracture the memories like a mirror, bleed along the fault lines.
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Now the boy had many friends, but his best friend was his Pokémon, loyal and brave. An Arcanine with a coat like the sunset over Ilex Forest and stripes blacker than coal, who followed him everywhere that he went.
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She dreams of Torao's ember-bright teeth, how they smouldered through her kimono to leave round weals of scar when he dragged her down, down into the cold black mud and the cold black shallows, down into the rattling reeds near the stream where they hunted for Froakie.
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The other families were jealous when they saw this, so they challenged the boy and his Arcanine many times. But the boy and his Pokemon were never afraid.
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She is terrified, numb hands white-knuckled around the tantō Asahi gave her, her heart hammering in her chest as something sleek and nine-tailed slinks along the far bank. They stay there for hours before it turns back toward the house with the tatami floors, now still and silent.
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They wrestled the great Ursaring of Arborville. They outraced a Rapidash around the base of Quena Mountain. When asked to catch lightning in a bottle, he brought them a Joltik in a jar.
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She can still find the places at her shoulder, at her collar, where his teeth broke the skin, if only she looks hard enough. They are smooth to the touch and hidden beneath bold lines of ink, but indelibly etched in her memory. She still runs cold, lingers by the hearth in the mornings to ease the stiffness from her hands.
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But their best trick, the one they became known for - was stealing the tail from the fox Pokemon: Ninetales. Another boy in the village claimed it could not be done. That Ninetales was too swift, too clever. That he, like all those that tried before him, would suffer beneath the thousand-year curse.
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She still dreams of the house with the tatami floors.
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What happened then, Asahi?
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Walk down to the river and cut me nine reeds, and I'll show you the rest of the story later, Junya.
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She still dreams of the still, dark pond and its scarlet maples.
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Asahi! I want to know now.
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If you're quick about it, we can ride down to Goldenrod and see if Amber wants to hear it too. You wouldn't want her to miss it, would you?
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She dreams of their tree, the one they climbed to see if they could reach the sun, and how her father had to climb up after them to bring them down.
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...no. Asahi?
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Yes, Junya?
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She dreams of running along the riverbank with a borrowed tantō, looking for the best reeds to cut.
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What was the boy's name?
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Shioda Yoshiro. Here. You better hurry. If you take too long, we won't be able to stop for daifuku on the way back.
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In her dreams, Junya is still hiding beneath the bank of the river in the cool, dark water. She is still waiting, waiting, waiting for the house with the tatami floors to quiet, and Torao will still not let her leave. They are alone in the dark, and something nine-tailed slinks in the reeds above them.
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And the fox-teeth strike.
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Shioda Yoshiro comes to with a sickening jolt of adrenaline, a fluid movement that has the other's wrist caught and held to the hospital bed, the knife a shimmer of watered steel beneath Amber's jaw as they look at each other in the dark. She does not remember standing.
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"I'm sorry," she whispers, straightforward and simple as anything, an easy admission.
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And in that moment, they are almost young again, play-fighting with sticks in the courtyard when she strikes Amber's knuckles by mistake. The tantō is set carefully on the bedside stand, an odd accompaniment to the small, ivory plate and its half an uneaten orange.
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She does not release her hold on the other's hand, but instead, lifts it in both of hers. Presses a light kiss to its unbruised knuckles. "I'm sorry," Yoshiro intones there a second time, and means it. This is a moment she has dreamt of a thousand, thousand times between the then and now, and it is nothing quite like she imagined, but that has never mattered, has it?
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Beneath the fire and ash, there are still magikarp.
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They are still swimming, and here?
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It is always summer.
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