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It was no exaggeration to say that a bomb had detonated inside their house, with the chaotic aftermath of clothes, furniture, and half-opened luggages strewn all around their bedroom. What was once their king-sized bed has disappeared from sight, when the expansive surface was covered by the entirety of Blue's decade-long wardrobe collection and the miniscule portion owned by Red, and it would take a genius to parse through the sea of fabric and realize that there was a certain order, for which the outfits were laid out and paired together. The floor was no better, unfortunately, as organization boxes spilled out its content onto the hardwood floor, revealing beanies, gloves, and boots that found no use in sunny Alola.
Could anyone blame them, really, for turning their home upside down? The amount of paid time-offs acquired after being the Battle Tree heads for years were absurdly large, and they were going to cash it all in one go. It would take more than just chucking three t-shirts and one pants for this trip; they had to squeeze most of their closet rotation, to make sure they were prepared to brave Kalos’ end of the year season for the duration of their working visa.
After graduating university, Lumiose City called for Blue once again among the many, bright-minded scientists that Sycamore's Pokémon Research Lab enlisted to reframe a more "humane" policy for the Wild Zones that Quasartico implemented. They have never weathered a single chapter of their lives without each other, so of course Red dropped everything to go with his husband, despite both the language barrier and its maze-like urban design that honestly terrified him.
Hence, the catastrophe descended upon them: their winter gear needed to be dug out, and there was no way a fashionista like Blue would simply settle to pack mismatched outfits for the both of them and call it a day.
"Oh, look! We brought this one to Alola, after all!" Blue shouted, emerging from a mountain-tall pile of outerwears with a puffer jacket, colored as red as Charizard's fiery flames and still retaining its fluffy Wooloo downing, even after being squeezed beneath heavier articles of clothing for more than a decade. His husband threw it at Red's general direction, and it was a testament of his physical prowess that he managed to catch it at all, with Blue's abysmal toss and the obstacles riddling the ground. "Try it on, okay? Maybe this one can still fit you!"
Sighing, Red did as asked, enduring the heat of donning several layers for a few more minutes, even when the air conditioner set on full blast was staving off the worst of Alola's rising temperatures. Half the reason why their bedroom was unrecognizable today was because he has outgrown the outfits he brought from Kanto, after hitting his last growth spurt. It, unfortunately, included the apparel needed to survive Lumiose's freezing months.
Thank Arceus that their search could come to an end, for Red was able to zip the puffer jacket up comfortably, and not one stitching ripped open when he flexed his arms.
Red took a moment to admire himself on their full-length mirror, letting his palm smoothen out the faint creases on the nylon sheet. He gained several centimeters and more muscles than his teenage-self, but not much of his face changed, other than the loss of baby fat around his cheeks.
The sight sparked a distant memory, but Red remembered turning 22-years old, painfully young but already feeling like a driftwood floating aimlessly in the ocean, as after gaining the glorious title of Kanto Champion, isolating himself on Mount Silver, and coming back home from the Pokémon World Tour as its victor, he still has no clue on what to do with his existence— like what career should he start constructing, or where would he see himself in the next decade. It was a personal crisis that debilitated him far more than becoming a child prodigy and having the world's expectations plopped on his shoulders, because everything else— the good and the bad, the thrill of fame and the fall of disgrace —were bound to fade away at some point, except for himself.
Yet, unlike everyone else his age who dedicated themselves to their studies and went on to become experts at their fields, Red came out from the other side of stardom as the cracked husk of his own shell, trying and failing to find his place in such a vast world.
Another half-century waited for him to fill its pages, but fun as it sounded in concept, no way could Red spend those decades battling for prize money as a way to live; it was simply not sustainable, even for Pokémon League workers like Lance. He has a mother who still longed to see the world, after she sacrificed her youth to grow their family's roots in peaceful, sleepy Pallet Town and raised him there as a single mom, along with his Pokémon team that deserved the best quality food and treatments; even with the help of an Amulet Coin, those expenses were not going to pay itself, if he managed to challenge 100 trainers per day.
Then, a door— one whose presence was concealed in plain sight, there but never gone —revealed itself to Red when Blue left that devastating voicemail.
Not as traumatic to hear as a dying message, or as painful as a fight with lasting damage, but instead it was a simple, genuine plea for support, tucked between a life update that went horribly wrong. It was not a request that Red could easily fulfill, when regions and seas separated Kanto and Kalos at the time the voicemail was received, thus Blue had wearily accepted that this was the best offer he could get: a hoarse-voiced confession about how equally-aimless he was, after committing so much of his youth to academia and knowing now that it was not his calling, and a prayer, maybe a message of consolation from Red, when the voicemail was listened come morning.
Red did not choose the easy way out, not when his best friend needed him.
In a burst of courage, Red had bought a ticket for the earliest flight for Lumiose, and purchased the puffer jacket with the money his mother had slipped into his grasp before he set off.
How nostalgic and symbolic, for the garment that once drowned Red because he had picked it up in a rush now fitted perfectly on his matured body.
Blue must be thinking of the same thing, for his arms has found its home around Red's waist, chin tucked on the dip of his left shoulder, reminiscing of days long gone from the view that the mirror reflected.
"I know that I married you and all, but sometimes I still can't believe that you actually chased after me all the way to Lumiose, after I left you that voicemail," Blue whispered, and Red did not need to see, to know that the sight was bringing his husband to tears, as he could feel the uneven rattle of his warm breath against his exposed neck, along with the gradual tightening of his embrace. "It meant the world for me to have you there, back then. We finally got over ourselves and found our highest calling as a bonus because of it, huh?"
They did.
Not only love was gifted to them, on that fateful day, but their current positions as the Battle Tree heads, too: an offer personally extended by Kukui himself, after Red and Blue were done making out like teenagers among their cheering colleagues. A door opened wide only for their two, lost souls, showing them a path to a fulfilling life that following their passion as competitive battlers could award them, should they give it a chance.
The puzzle pieces snapped into place, ever since then.
"You needed me, before. I would do it all over again if it's for you, Blue, and that's what I'm doing now," Red carefully signed, and as expected from the one with the bleeding heart between them, he was roughly turned around and dragged down by his jacket's lapels for a kiss; heated and deep, stealing his breath like it always did, for Blue always claimed his lips like this moment would be their last, and every precious second counted.
Red was just as eager to pour the euphoria that was threatening to overflow from his chest into the searing kiss, but just as he pressed Blue closer against his body, a sharp, crinkling noise coming from his puffer jacket froze them both.
Silvery-moon irises met sun-gold ones, their heartbeats stopping in sync.
Slowly, pushed more by curiosity than anything else, both of them reluctantly pulled apart, gazing at each other with panting breath and pupils blown wide, before their focus simultaneously shifted toward the left pocket of Red’s jacket. Smooth, lithe fingers tucked themselves into the hidden compartment, and after a few seconds of suspense, the item that Blue retrieved made them both gasp in awe, releasing the breath they both held.
It was not a crumpled receipt whose thermal ink has faded over the years, nor was it an outdated version of some Kalosian bill, but it was a more intimate, meaningful discovery, instead: a single polaroid, recovered without any discoloration or dent marring its film.
Before Blue could turn it around, Red already guessed which memory was immortalized on the thick paper.
Out of Dexio and Sina's insistence, their merry band of students had marched all the way to Prism Tower, as according to that duo, it was "tradition" for the new graduates of their university to commemorate their successful thesis defense there. Alas, many pictures had been taken with the city's romantic landmark, and while the digital archive of that joyful scene remained safely stored in their marked harddrives, one of its physical keepsakes went missing in action: this polaroid taken from Sycamore's camera, preserving a shot of Red, with one arm slung around Blue's waist, watching with a fond smile as his best friend-turned-boyfriend flashed a blinding grin to the front, and Prism Tower being the silent witness of their elation.
At some point, after hours of restaurant-hopping in the afternoon and bar-crawling at night, the polaroid vanished from their hold, reapparing more than a decade later just before their return to Lumiose.
"Was it tucked here this whole time?" Blue shrieked, and it was a valid reaction, for his sentimental husband had been hung up about the loss of this particular polaroid for a full month. They had gone so far as to retrace their steps and peek through the trash cans, only to come home to Kanto empty-handed. Red did end up printing a replacement— a different picture, of course, although using the same, blank white polaroid frame —but it distinctly lacked the value as the one they had lost. His husband had to swallow around the lump in his throat, before his trembling voice whispered, "That past versions of us did tag along on our journey here, after all. We were so young, in this picture... Do you think they'd be proud of how far we've come now, Red?"
What a silly question.
The answer was spelled right across them, in the tall mirror: a juxtaposition of their past and present, highlighting how the qualities that made their youth shine was now a burning star glowing from within each of their aged faces. Laughter lines slipped a story of joyful days in the ghost of their wrinkles, and their skins had been kissed golden by the sun from afternoons spent creating sweet memories on sandy beaches. All of those small, but loud details pointed at the same conclusion: taking that leap of faith to fly to Alola together was what made everything worthwhile.
When a particularly-sharp sunlight forced Red to squint his eyes, he swore that their mirror glitched in his vision, for their blurry reflection was suddenly displaying a shorter and younger copy of them, childlike glee oozing out of the pair in waves, as they both absorbed the older variant of themselves.
It was there and gone in a blink, but that fleeting greeting from the past was enough to put a smile on Red's face, as he signed, "They already are, just like how the versions of us today would be amazed by what our future-selves will achieve later on. In fact, why don't we make it a routine to recreate this photo every few years? That way we can get both a holiday and meaningful memorabilia for us to take home."
Once again, Red was ready when Blue closed the gap between them with another kiss, and this time, he has all the freedom in the world to cradle his husband's face and let his happiness run wild.