Impetuous as always, the man with the cross spoke up before Sabrina could, fast and desperate. The Gym arena was slowly falling into darkness.
“I’m… I’m leaving the city. Tonight.”
Sabrina let out a small sound of surprise, but she wasn’t allowed to say anything, as the man quickly followed that with:
“And I want you to come with me.”
“...You’re not gonna say it’s a joke this time, are you?”
But of course, the firmness in his eyes was all the response she needed. Sabrina bit her lower lip to keep it from shaking, a boundless, burning fury rising like bile from her stomach.
“Are you… are you out of your mind!?” she hissed at him, swiping at him with a hand. “Go with you? Where!? I have responsibilities here, stuff I need to do, I can’t just-!”
If she’d learned anything about the man, however, it was that he could match her anger beat for beat.
“You can’t stay tied to this Gym! We can’t keep doing this, every day, you… Please, please listen to me, this place is killing you!”
The girl grit her teeth hard, and he took advantage of her silence to keep pressing her.
“They’ll never find us!” he pleaded. “And even if they do… I’ll protect you, always!”
“...Protect me?” Sabrina whispered incredulously through her teeth.
“You think I don’t see it? Every day you come to sit under the tree with a different wound on your body, every day you fight these battles to the death and… what if something goes wrong one day? What if…?”
Stolen novel; please report.
With a scoff, Sabrina took a step back and swiped at the air, offended. “That’s part of the job! It’s what I signed up for!”
“It’s not just your body!” he bellowed, gripping her shoulder desperately. Then his voice softened, his dark eyes full of sadness. “How can you not see it? As long as you’re here, the trees and flowers won’t ever grow. You’ll never see that horizon, never…”
Realizing what he was saying, the man stopped talking. But it was too late. Sabrina’s eyes widened, the corner of her lips twitching.
“...You read the poem.”
“No, that-that has nothing to do with it.”
“...Ha. I was right, you are a naive, clueless idiot.” She smiled bitterly and looked him straight in the eye, as though challenging him. “Remember… when you asked me why I’m working here? Remember what I told you? That whole thing about my mom and her medical bills?”
The man tried to speak, but she didn’t let him, eyes glinting with a sharp, bitter malice.
“Well? What do you think?” she whispered. A beat of silence before thunder fell, and the dam inside her broke. “It was a lie! Do you wanna know the truth!? The truth is that my mom died years ago, less than six months after I started working here! I only used her as an excuse so I could stay here, so I wouldn’t have to think of finding another place where I could belong!”
Her hand shot forward, gripping the man by the shirt, pulling him face to face.
“And do you want to know why? Because, just as you so eloquently put it the day we met, I’m a coward. Because if I leave… Because this is… Because this is all I know how to do! I have no other skills, nothing that makes me worthwhile besides my Pokemon battling! I’m nothing without this!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, possessed by an ire that had been pressurized inside her for god knows how long. “Why don’t you get it!? No matter how much I want to chase that horizon, in the end I’m just like the man who keeps saying ‘it’s useless, it’s useless’, because I know it’s true, I know there’s walls you can’t overcome! This is my real personality, the real me, so… S-so how can you… For a piece of shit like me, how can y-!?”
She didn’t get to finish. Her vision darkened, and all of a sudden she felt her face pressed against the fabric of the man’s shirt. His arms were tight around her, shaking.
“...It’s not like you to be this chatty,” he said in a low, serene voice. “Shut up for a little bit, okay?”