Pathos「Pokemon Fanfiction」

Three

Chapter Three: If, Somehow

It was rare for him to be up so early.

Avis never functioned well in the mornings. That was the reason why he'd always preferred to take the afternoon shifts before; his mind was always groggy and he would be even grumpier when faced with human interaction.

But his head was clear for once—something about Yveltal's visit had led to that—and it was the reason why he was up, taking a quick stroll before Lillian woke and started wondering where he went.

Besides, he was pretty sure that Lillian would figure it out. He didn't need to worry too much about that.

"I would have thought that you would try and sleep in."

Speak of the devil. He tried not to let the self-satisfied smirk show on his face, and tilted his head as he turned to the younger girl. "I just decided to take a walk when you were sleeping. You know, make the most of the fresh air and all?"

"As if." She rolled her eyes at that statement before taking a closer look at him. "Oh. Your hair—"

He blinked, not knowing how to answer her question, but his memory caught up with him and he realised that he'd dyed his hair back to its original colour that morning. "I just felt like it. Besides, we're taking a break, so..."

I'm going to die in three days and I just wanted to be myself for the rest of them.

That line went unsaid, however, and he could only manage a small, awkward smile.

It was as genuine of an expression as he could make, but somewhere deep down, he knew that he was as terrible at smiling as Lillian was.

"What if we go into town, though?" The teenager's tone was neutral, refusing to give away any hint of what she was feeling, and she raised an eyebrow at his explanation. "People think you're dead. You'll be questioned, right?"

"I'll do what you did." He gestured at the white hoodie he was wearing. "It seemed to work well enough, right?"

He didn't say anything else. He wasn't about to ruin the mood by whining—yet again—about how people wouldn't know who he was either way because he'd been keeping a low profile for the longest time.

Avis hadn't said a lot of things, and he knew that it would come back to bite him one day, but all he could do was pray that he'd be dead before the girl blamed him for not having told her anything.

"Well, I like it," Lillian hummed, running an eye over him again and flashing him the same ugly grin. "I mean, you've hardly been wearing casual clothes lately. I'd kind of forgotten how you'd looked like before all this happened."

Her voice grew quiet at the last part. It was obvious that she was still trying to be cautious, and it made his lip curl—he wasn't someone who needed soft, tender words to comfort him. He needed sense to be goddamn slapped into him because according to her, he was an idiot.

"I also didn't know you owned a white hoodie," she continued. "You seemed to be like one of those wannabe emo kids, you know; the ones who wear black all the time and—"

"Arceus, no." He let out a groan. "I'm not one of them."

"Alright, alright. I was just checking." Lillian let out a small laugh as she prodded at his bad shoulder, frowning a little when he winced. "You know, you should probably put that in a sling or something."

He yawned. "My home doesn't have one, and I'm too lazy to visit a doctor."

"Whatever. I'm not helping you if anything screws up," she shot back, crossing her arms and gesturing to turn back down the path. "So what do you want to do today? We're officially on break until I decide to continue."