Is this love real? (POKEMON) Gold x Silver

Is this love real? (POKEMON) Gold x Silver - 11

Gold's P.O.V

I had a lot to get off my chest. Thankfully, Crystal was always willing to hear me out, and she listened to my story with the eagerness and wide-eyed amazement of a child hearing a bed-time story. She kept nodding and making encouraging noises as I spilled my heart out about how well things had been going, and sighed and tutted when I explained how I'd wrecked it all. By the time I had finished I was feeling much better. She, on the other hand, was wound up tighter than a spring.

"Gold!" She bounced like a spring, too... "You can't blame yourself over this! It's not your fault, it's not anyone's fault."

"Yes, it is," I said, pouting. "It's my fault. I went too far and now I've scared him. He was trying so hard to put up with me, but then I had to go and do that. I'm stupid, stupid, stupid!" I accentuated each 'stupid' with a bang of my forehead on the counter.

Crystal grabbed a handful of my hair and wrenched my head back. "Stop it," she snapped, slapping my face. "You'll hurt yourself."

I rubbed my stinging cheek. "Thanks for that," I muttered, and Crystal grinned.

"Any time, Gold."

I smiled back momentarily before sighing and brushing my hands over my head, messing up my hair thoroughly as I tried to refresh myself. I leaned forward on the counter to take the order of a middle-aged sea-dog, who spent five minutes um-ing and ah-ing and tapping his chin, trying to decide what to order. During this time, Super-Crystal managed to take six orders and deliver food to four different tables, one of which was a children's birthday party.

"What am I going to do, Crystal?" I asked wearily when she buzzed back to the counter.

"You know what I think?" she said. "I think you're trying too hard. If you're the only one making an effort, Silver's going to get used to it. If he thinks you're always going to love him, then he'll-"

"I am always going to love him," I interrupted.

"-If he thinks you're always going to love him no matter what he does, he'll never bother to show you he cares about you because he'll be accustomed to letting you do all the work." She went on despite my argument. "But if you show him that you don't want to stay in this one-sided relationship forever, he might get his act together and start showing you some love. You should try holding back, let him make the first move for once."

"But what if he doesn't make a move?" I asked.

"He will," Crystal assured. "If he truly loves you, he will."

But that was the problem. I didn't know for sure if he did truly love me. He'd never done anything to suggest that he did. He had never even told me he liked me, not even as a friend. Love seemed like a million light-years away. The closest he had come to expressing any verbal affection for me whatsoever was that he had once told me that he didn't hate me and was willing to tolerate me. And now that I thought about it, that wasn't exactly a compliment. Silver was so complex; he was too much for my simple mind to fully understand. He hated showing any emotion that could be related to weakness, especially in front of those he knew well. Sometimes he would get angry and snap at me as a mask to hide his real feelings. But I could never be completely sure what those feelings were.

Crystal saw me chewing my lip, and put her hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry," she said comfortingly. "It'll all work out all right in the end. Just give it a try for a few weeks, you'll see."

So, despite my better judgement, I decided to trust Crystal and give her plan a shot. I didn't touch Silver at all that night. I don't think it troubled him much. He was coughing a lot, and I worried he might be coming down with flu or something, so he was probably pleased that I didn't try to touch him- Silver's skin was very sensitive when he had a cold, even a slight brush of hands could hurt him.