“Marcus didn’t look too upset did he?” Emilia said. She didn’t look at him. She hadn’t looked at him since they entered his room to talk. The giddiness from her victory had not completely died down and there was still a celebratory party to go to - the raucous kind, not the formal kind - but Cashe had asked to talk to her first and she had obliged him.
Cashe looked at his hands. “He looked upset.”
“He did just lose the tournament,” Emilia bit her lip and sat down on the small couch in the room, “I hope he doesn’t think I was making fun of him by beating him so badly.”
“Emilia, listen-”
“Did Lindon bet on me?” Emilia interrupted, “He must have, right? He wouldn’t have thrown away all those points on a bad bet.”
“He bet on you,” Cashe said, “I don’t know if he was more excited for you or for the fact that he won the betting tournament.” Cashe smiled, “I’m pretty sure he didn’t even notice I rushed the stage.”
“I can’t believe you did that,” Emilia said, glancing at Cashe for the first time since entering his room. She had a faint blush on her face, “in front of everybody.”
“About that. Emilia-”
“How’s Hatenna doing?” Emilia blurted, “All that excitement can’t be easy for her so soon. Did you remember to put her in her pokeball before you left for the stadium?”
“Yes.” Cashe waited a moment, making sure Emilia had nothing else to say, “Emilia, we have to talk-”
“Do you think they’ll give me a replacement prize for the Master Ball?”
“Emilia.” Cashe made his tone firm, “Let me talk.”
Emilia bit her lip and brought her knees to her chest, sitting on a small ball on the couch, “Do I have to? I already know what you’re going to say.” Her voice was quiet, nervous, and small.
“You kissed me.” Cashe said. He could still feel the phantom warmth from it on his lips.
“I like you. For a while now.” Emilia buried her head in her knees, “You kissed me back.”
“I did,” Cashe said with a soft sigh, “But I also stopped.”
“You don’t like me.” Emilia said. She held no accusation in her tone, only bitterness.
“Of course I do,” Cashe said.
“But not the same way I like you.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“I get it,” Emilia sniffed. She rubbed her eyes, “I’m not as hot as Selena or as pretty as Mary. Why choose me when they would be all over you in an instant.”
“That’s not it at all,” Cashe said, frustration growing in his tone.
“It’s because I am a better trainer than you, then?” Emilia snorted, “I can’t believe I thought you wouldn’t care. Men are so predictable. Touch their precious ego and-”
“Emilia!” Cashe shouted. Emilia jumped in her seat, head snapping over to look at him, shocked. “Let me finish.”
She squeezed her eyes together and wiped tears from her cheeks, “Sorry. I’ll go.”
She stood, but Cashe reached across the space and grabbed her arm, pulling her back.
“Stay,” Cashe said, letting go of her arm.
Emilia swallowed and nodded, sitting back down, “Sorry.”
“Emilia, I like you, but half the time I still think I’m married.” Cashe looked down at his hands and played with his wedding ring, pulling it off his finger. It glinted in the light of the room, golden and untarnished. “I thought I’d given up on going home, made my peace with it. But every time the possibility is mentioned I feel a surge of hope.”
“You still miss your home. You still want your wife.” Emilia said, her head dropping to her chest.
“Of course I do,” Cashe said, “And I will for the rest of my life.”
“But she’s not here. I am.” Emilia pouted. She stopped immediately, a flash of guilt and regret passing over her face, “I’m sorry. That was petty.”
“I miss her every day,” Cashe said, his voice soft, “I’m still dealing with losing her. Losing my old life.”
“So you’re telling me no.” Emilia said, her voice low, “I told you that I knew what you were going to say.”
Cashe took a deep breath, throat tightening, “When I met my wife, she was engaged to be married to her college sweetheart.”
Emilia looked at him, eyes wide, mouth open in a little pout of surprise, “She was?”
“We became friends through work,” Cashe said, a soft smile touching his lips, “I think I fell in love with her about five seconds after I heard her laugh for the first time. I was devastated when I found out she was engaged.”
“I know the feeling,” Emilia grumbled. She flinched again, “Sorry.”
“I was still around her all the time and we became very close friends. I pined after her for months, refusing to look at any other women. It was kind of pathetic, to be honest.” Cashe said.
“What happened?”
“He cheated on her,” Cashe said, “He got drunk with his friends and blacked out. He woke up in a stranger’s bed. It wasn’t malicious or planned, he was drunk and confused and did something he greatly regretted. He confessed to her as soon as he saw her again.”
“She didn’t forgive him?”
Cashe shook his head, “She told him she needed to think about it for a few days. She told me later that she did forgive him for it. But he was still drunk from the night before and he didn’t take that response well. Said some terrible things. She never forgave him for that.”
“And you got together after.” Emilia concluded.
“I asked her out two weeks later,” Cashe chuckled.
“What?” Emilia blurted out, “Are you an idiot? That’s way too soon!”
Cashe gave Emilia a significant look, “It was way too soon.”
She blushed. “Oh.”
“She told me she wasn’t ready for dating.”
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“She told you no.”
“She didn’t. She told me something else.” Cashe said. He took a moment and looked Emilia in the eyes, trying to project as much sincerity as Jen did for him. “Emilia, you are my friend. You are beautiful and kind and you bring joy to my life. I have known you for only three months, but it is hard to imagine my life without you.”
“She said this to you?” Emilia was blinking back tears.
“The details were different, but yes,” Cashe said, taking a breath and continuing, “But I can’t feel anything but loss. The person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with is gone from it. I’m not ready for a one night stand, let alone a relationship. Right now, all I want is a friend. Can you be that for me?”
“Of course.” Emilia cried. She rose from the couch and wrapped Cashe in a tight hug. He felt warm tears on his back.
“Thank you,” Cashe said, hugging her back, “I’m not saying yes, but I’m not saying no, either. Let’s just take a step back and see where things go as friends. I think we could both use that.”
“So it’s not because you prefer my sister?” Emilia whispered. Cashe laughed.
It was good to laugh.
***
Cashe avoided the evening’s party with Lindon. Emilia attended as the guest of honor, which likely meant drinking copious amounts of alcohol as a form of congratulations. Cashe was happy to miss it. He hadn’t had many good experiences with alcohol recently.
Plus, it gave him time to introduce Hatenna to Ivysaur and Mankey.
“Are you going to be alright?” Lindon said to Hatenna, looking over to where Cashe was holding Mankey’s pokeball.
“Hat!” Hatenna smiled and nodded.
“Alright,” Lindon frowned, not quite convinced.
“She’ll be fine,” Cashe said and released Mankey from her pokeball.
Mankey appeared on the bed beside Hatenna, stretching as she became substantive. Cashe kept a close eye on her. Not because he was worried about her meeting Hatenna. He was sure the little monkey could behave herself by now. He was worried about her injury. The attack she took from Gligar had been severe, and Ivysaur had been scarred from his battle with the flying scorpion.
Thankfully, Mankey seemed fine. She stretched on the bed and stomped around, making herself comfortable. Cashe didn’t see any trouble with her movements, nor any evidence of her previous wounds. It looked like he got her to the Pokemon Center in time for there to be no issues.
Mankey eventually noticed Hatenna and paused, mid stretch to examine the tiny, pink pokemon.
Hatenna waddled over to her across the bed, “Haten!”
Mankey narrowed her eyes and turned to look at Cashe.
“Mankey, this is Hatenna, my new pokemon. Be nice.” Cashe said.
“Mankey. Man-key.” Mankey sat on the bed and grabbed Hatenna.
“Mankey!” Lindon shouted.
“Hatenna!”
“Lindon, relax, you're upsetting Hatenna,” Cashe scolded, pulling Lindon away from the bed.
Lindon spun around, “But Mankey-”
“Look,” Cashe said, turning Lindon back around.
Mankey had grabbed Hatenna and plopped her down in her lap. Hatenna was leaning against Mankey’s chest, her tail sticking up into Mankey’s face. Mankey was picking through Hatenna’s droopy hair, grooming her and searching for parasites and bugs.
“Oh,” Lindon visibly relaxed, “I thought she was going to do something else.”
“Mankey is just a drama queen,” Cashe said, causing Mankey to shoot him a scowl, “See? She isn’t even upset. She just likes to pretend she is.”
“Except when she battles,” Lindon said.
“Except when she battles,” Cashe agreed. He took Ivysaur’s pokeball from his belt and let it expand in his hand, “Hatenna, are you ready to meet Ivysaur? He looks a bit scary, but he’s been with me longer than anyone and he’s really nice.”
“Hat!” Hatenna chirped happily.
“Alright, get ready,” Cashe let Ivysaur out of his pokeball. The seed pokemon appeared before them, blinking at the sudden light and taking in the cabin around him. He spotted Mankey and Hatenna and grinned.
“Ivysaur,” he croaked. He stepped over to the bed and leaned back, but was unable to get enough height to step up the bed.
“Unbelievable,” Cashe snorted, “Does that big flower make it too tough to get on your hind legs?”
“Ivy,” Ivysaur grumbled, Looking away from Cashe in embarrassment. Lindon laughed.
“Fine, I’ll help,” Cashe grinned and lay down. He placed his hands under Ivysaur’s chest and pushed up, like lifting a barbell. It took surprisingly little effort, the big pokemon was paradoxically light, still weighing less than fifty pounds, significantly less than Mankey.
Ivysaur was able to get the bed under his feet and hop up from there, hind legs kicking at the bed as he scrambled up like a dog on a ledge. Once he was up, he bounced across the bed to lie on his belly in front of Hatenna.
“Ivy. Ivysaur.”
“Hatenna.” Hatenna wriggled herself to her feet and hopped across the mattress to Ivysaur. She shook in place and with a great leap, hopped on top of Ivysaur’s head. “Hat!”
Mankey looked down at her empty lap, “Key!”
“Is Mankey jealous?” Lindon said, watching the interaction with interest. Mankey looked a little lost now that the tiny pink pokemon was sitting proudly atop Ivysaur.
“Maybe,” Cashe said, “Mankey, come.” Mankey hopped across the bed and into Cashe’s arms. He grunted at her weight and as she pulled herself onto his shoulder. Cashe scratcher her as she settled down, “There, now everyone has a partner.”
Mankey made a grumpy noise, but did not cause any trouble.
Lindon grinned, “Your pokemon are cute Apollo. They should have called you Cute Money instead of Blood Money.”
“Unfortunately, people only see them in battle,” Cashe sighed, “I wish I could be called Cute Money. Or Cute Cashe.”
“No! I was teasing you,” Lindon complained, “You’re not supposed to like it.”
Cashe shrugged, “Not my fault you don’t know how to tease.”
Lindon wrinkled his face in a frown, “I do too! Your pokemon aren’t strong at all. I bet Hatenna doesn’t even know how to battle!”
Cashe held back a laugh at the poor attempt at teasing, “You know, that’s actually a good point. I don’t know what moves Hatenna knows.”
“Oh!” Lindon said, forgetting about proving he knew how to tease, “You should check.”
Cashe did just that, taking out his pokedex and scrolling over to his pokemon.
“It doesn’t look like anything special,” Cashe said, “Just the moves she learned naturally as she grew. I’ll have to do a lot of training with her.” Cashe scrolled through the pokedex entry on Hatenna, his eyebrows raising in surprise, “She has a strong movepool. Lots of good support and offensive options.” He glanced over at Hatenna, who was rocking back and forth on top of Ivysaur’s head, not a care in the world, “She’s going to be scary one day.”
***
The awards ceremony came a day after the finals. Cashe stood in the center of the pokemon stadium on top of a small podium. To his right, Emilia stood on a slightly larger podium. To his left, Damian Dart glared at him from the corner of his eye.
Both he and Damian wore bronze medals as a strange artifact of the single elimination tournament. Technically they filled the third and fourth place positions, but since there was no battle to decide the order, the tournament gave them both third place medals.
Cashe was fine with it, but he had a suspicion that Damian didn’t like to share the spotlight.
“You’re nothing without her,” Damian hissed at him, even as he waved to the applauding audience, “You don’t deserve to travel with someone like that. You’re nobody.”
Cashe ignored him, giving a few halfhearted waves to the arena. It wasn’t nearly as full as it had been for the last few days, with the stands only partially filled. Not many people cared about seeing the winners receive their prizes after all the exciting parts were over.
He wasn’t sure what Blood Money would do in this situation, so he just did what Cashe would do: stand around and feel awkward.
All eight of the top eight finishers were lined up for the world to see, as well as the top sixteen winners of the betting tournament. Director Li walked across the stage, Machoke rolling display cases full of prizes behind him.
He signaled Emilia to step down from her podium and she did so, hopping off and moving eagerly over to have her pick of the items on display.
As she stepped down, she revealed Marcus Daye, who was standing to her right. He still looked upset with his loss, and Cashe couldn’t blame him. Losing the biggest battle of your entire life was bad enough. Losing to a perfect victory for the entire world to see was much, much worse.
She finished her selections and was moving back to the podium when Director Li stopped her. He muttered something to her and reached inside his jacket, producing an envelope and handing it to her. She thanked him, putting the envelope with her other prizes and returned to the podium.
Marcus was next, then it was Cashe’s turn. Before long all eight of them had received their prizes, even though several of them only got a handshake from the Director since the credits were deposited directly into their accounts and acceptance into the regional circuits was just an update to their Trainer ID.
Prizes were handed out to the betting tournament winners next and soon the ceremony was over. Lindon rushed to Cashe and Emilia as soon as they were dismissed, holding his Dusk Ball over his head like an offering to a god.
“Apollo! Emilia! Let’s check out my pokemon!”
*****