A Festering Crush

Alaire was heartbroken when he had to move away.

As a six-year-old, he couldn’t possibly understand why. He would be told something about the family business and a bunch of other adult things a child wouldn’t be able to comprehend until much later, but honestly, he didn’t want to comprehend; the only thing he saw happening was that he was moving away from his best friend (and steadily blooming crush, though he didn’t understand it yet).

(‘you’ll make new friends in Galar’, his mother would say; ‘you’ll have lots of fun with new Pokémon’, his father would add; but none of that mattered, none of that could ever matter)

Alaire spent that day locked up in his room, throwing a fit whenever his parents tried to talk to him and refusing to eat. (His mother was able to coax him with Cranidos nuggets, which no six-year-old could resist, but he still put in an effort.) Though his parents were exasperated, they understood what their son was going through, and took it in stride. No kid was ever fine with going across the country and losing the comfort of their friends and home. Alaire would get over it eventually, they thought.

When Alaire broke the news to his bestie, Max, snotty and in tears, she held him for half an hour and told him it would all be okay, though there was wetness lining her eyes, too. She would send him a bunch of pictures through mail and call him on her dad’s Holocaster – she wasn’t old enough to get her own yet – and tell him about all of her adventures, and Alaire promised to do the same, as well as let her know his new address and number as soon as they got settled.

They spent the rest of the days leading up to the move together as much as possible. Max’s dad, Leith, the soft-hearted Ursaring that he was, let them hang out at Max’s place, and after talking to Alaire’s folks, they had sleepovers almost every night. They went to school in the mornings together, spent recess together (they were doing so already, but they were a lot more insistent about it), watched movies together on Max’s super large TV, ate dinner with her dad together… unless Alaire was called home to do some more packing – which he absolutely hated, and let it be known by sulking the entire time – they were joined even more at the hip.

And then the day came, and as he climbed into the plane that would take him across the world, Alaire felt like part of his heart was left behind in Hoenn.

The first few months were… rough, to say the least. For both Alaire and his parents; them trying to get everything set with the new jobs and trying to wrangle in their unruly, brooding son, and him trying to adjust to being in a new, unknown region with a new, unknown city, and new, unknown people. Alaire made sure to give Max his info like he said he would, but even with the constant HoloCaster calls and letter exchanges, it just… wasn’t the same. And it was never going to be the same until he grew up and was able to travel on his own.

…though, that was assuming Max would even still be in Hoenn. Alaire knew of her dreams about the Legendaries, and that would probably mean a lot of traveling on her end… but would she keep Sootopolis as her home? It was hard to say, considering Alaire and his family was going to be here in Hammerlocke for the foreseeable future, and that bummed him out even more.

But no matter how much he screamed, how much he cried, how much he threw things (and he did all those things; a lot), the fact of the matter is Alaire was here. And he was going to have to adapt.

Years went by. Alaire and Max kept in contact faithfully, though it grew a bit awkward for Alaire once he hit thirteen years of age and puberty struck. It wasn’t something he paid much attention to when he was a child, that gentle warmth that sat in his heart whenever he talked to his best friend; he just assumed it was the feeling you get when you have a good friend, who you wanted to be around all the time and hug a lot. But during one of their letter exchanges, Max had sent an picture of herself showing off one of her new Rayquaza posters (limited edition, only owned by a hundred people, in perfect condition) and the tha-thump his heart gave upon seeing her face – blessed with very little acne, hair a bit shorter than he remembered her having, framed with obnoxiously large glasses that were just so ridiculous and cute on her and dotted with that beauty mark – told him that it might be a bit deeper than that.

And a conversation with his mother brought alarming clarity to what he was actually feeling. To say it blew his mind was an understatement. The wriggling in his stomach he’d feel when he heard Max’s voice over the HoloCaster, clutching the device in a sweaty hand and hanging onto her every word, made a lot more sense when it was explained. Honestly, he was a bit freaked out; it was so foreign and weird to feel that he was debating on how to stop it so he could talk to her without stuttering through his sentences and embarrassing himself.

But… he couldn’t help it. Alaire loved Max, and even though it’s not as platonically as he thought, that was just a fact. She was his best friend, who stood up for him at school, who excitedly talked about Pokémon battles with him, who cared not a single whit and kept being his friend when he discovered that he wanted to be a boy. And as they continued to talk over the years, the feelings deepened.

If she felt the same way back wasn’t really a worry for him. For Alaire, loving her was enough. If he was able to keep being her friend and loving her, it was okay.

(it had to be okay; with thousands of miles separating them, trying to go for something deeper than friendship would be hard)

Somewhere around their late teens, though, communication became sparse. The final school years were upon Alaire, and between the tests and essays and projects and figuring out if he was doing college or not, things got very busy. He assumed Max was going through something similar, as every time he shot a message her way, she barely responded, but when she adopted a curt sort of tone and kept correspondence short, his ‘something deeper is going on’ senses began to tingle. Alaire’s known her for pretty much all his life by now, and he knew that when she didn’t expound upon a sentence or go off on a tangent, she was upset about something. He also knew that pushing her to talk would just make it worse, so he just gently let her know indirectly that he was there for her.

And then… nothing. For a long, long time.

Alaire graduated from school: nothing. Started college and dropped out about halfway: nothing. Got into a spat with his parents and moved out: nothing. Began working with the flying taxi service: nothing.

Then abruptly something.

He almost would have passed her right by if he paid less attention. In all of his thoughts about her over the years of a possible reunion, the grocery store was the last place on the list (it wasn’t even on the list, if Alaire were to be honest with himself; granted, all the places on the list were a lot more romantic, but still), but here he was, and there she was. Standing in Wyndon like she belonged there, like the distance between them was nothing, perfectly at ease. Like she walked right out of his memories.

Max didn’t notice him yet, so Alaire allowed himself to look over her form greedily, taking in her form; she was tall, almost as tall as he was from what he could see, which was amazing considering he had a whole head above her when they were children; her hair was extremely short, cut into a bob instead of the long flowing locks he remembered, with a streak of color; she was slender and toned around her exposed arms and midriff, and there was a nasty large scar along her right side that probably had a wild story to it…

And as she picked up a box of cereal and examined the back closely, he thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

And Alaire was utterly frozen.

It was like the feelings he harbored for her – that he pushed deep, deep down inside himself, to keep himself from hurting as the years passed and the silence stretched – just erupted, overflowing back into his heart and reminding Alaire of how bad he really had it. It almost crippled him, the force of it all, like an eighteen-wheeler slammed him against a wall of bricks, punching the wind right out of him. Alaire felt like it could drop him to his knees, and he probably would have if Max didn’t decide to turn right at that second, her gray eyes meeting his gold.

Time seemed to stop, then. The seconds bled into each other, and Alaire went through multiple thoughts at once; why is she here? Does she remember me? She hasn’t contacted me in so long; does she even like me still? Does she hate me? Does she think we’re still friends? Possibilities upon possibilities circulated in his head, and it felt like ten years have passed instead of a handful of seconds. And it distracted him enough that he didn’t notice she’d gotten closer until she was right in his personal space.

Alaire took an instinctive step back in surprise, and Max paused in her advance. Her eyes bore holes into his, searching. Alaire would have paid anything to know what she could have been thinking right in that moment.

Even with people doing their shopping around them, it was like all the sound got sucked out and left silence. A beat passed, neither of them saying anything. Then Max spoke.

“…Alaire…? Is… is that you?” she asked, quietly, tremulously. Her voice was deeper than he remembered, and a shiver went down his spine as he took it in. Alaire thought it was a valid question, as he changed just as much as she did; his hair was dyed from its natural brown, his face had a bit more freckles, he was taller, leaner… overall he looked more masculine, not as soft and rounded as he was as a kid thanks to the T. But somehow, Max recognized him.

To be fair, Max could go blond and gain 100 pounds and he’d still recognize her. It’s a special kind of intimate knowledge best friends have about each other, to be able to spot them in a crowd no matter how much they’ve changed.

Alaire – now that it didn’t feel like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, though a mysterious lump was beginning to form in his throat – shifted the basket of groceries he carried more securely in his hands (boy was it hot in here all of a sudden, his palms were sweaty). He tried for one of his characteristic charming grins, even if it felt a bit wide and awkward on his face right now.

“In the flesh,” he responded, glad his voice held steady through the onslaught of emotion he was currently fighting. His eyes were beginning to mist over, and Alaire wished they could be anywhere else instead of an incredibly public area, because he was not down with everyone seeing him blubber like a baby.

Max was silent, giving him a once-over, her gaze practically raking over his form, like she was checking and double checking if he was lying to her. Apparently, she was satisfied with what she found, because she smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through storm clouds. Alaire only had a second to bear the brunt of that gigawatt smile before she threw her arms around him and crushed him against her in a back-breaking hug.

And okay, maybe they were in a public place, and maybe people were starting to stare, and maybe his basket was being jammed uncomfortably against his gut, but you know what, if Max wasn’t going to care, than neither was Alaire, because she was his best friend and he loved her so, so much. So, he unceremoniously dropped his unpaid for groceries, threw his arms around her smaller form, and squeezed her for all it was worth. The tears he was keeping at bay now flowed freely, like a dam breaking, and he was probably getting tears and maybe snot all over the shoulder of her shirt, but he simply didn’t care.

He was just incredibly, utterly happy to be able to see her again.