How we meet

Chapter 13

    You know you thought that this would have been worse. Walking to work in the city and then working for how many hours and then walking back. You proved your abilities fast. Every garden that you stepped food into seemed to look better in seconds. You single-handedly took care of the main gym and greenhouses. The smaller ones that were nearly empty anyway, were turned into nurseries for seedlings. The damn nat problem had gotten better too.
You walked through the splotches of color. The smell of the flowers was sweet and refreshing. After only a few weeks you had them all back in perfect condition and in expert care. The painting students visited often. They always waved when they passed you. You once sat through their class. You gave them flowers and set up vases for them to paint.
    Sometimes people would rent a greenhouse for a party, otherwise they were mostly open to the public at their pleasure. You almost ran over a kid too many times to count. They seemed to like trying to pluck the flowers from their beds and to weave them into crowns.
But there was one greenhouse you hated. Every time you went in you ended up suffocating in your thoughts. You just couldn't do it. You couldn't even explain why you couldn't. It was the one that you struggled with taking care of. You swore you heard someone even laugh about how you refused to go in the sanctuary greenhouse. It was filled to the brim with some of the most intriguing of fauna.
    Yet you couldn't go near any of them. The pokemon inside were horrifying to you. It didn't matter how you tried to rationalize anything. They wouldn't be in a public place like this if they were violent or easy to anger. You still couldn't think straight. Your whole body would flood with adrenaline, you'd start to sweat and panic.
    Yet you had to go in today. It needed to be taken care of, and the temptation of those beautiful irises had become too much. You wanted to see it, you didn't want to risk it dying. So when you managed to slow your breathing down and the greenhouse looked empty you snuck in.
You tiptoed through the bushes and plants doing your very best to avoid any pokemon but when you backed straight into a warm body you screamed. You jumped back landing with a crash on the ground.
    N turned around with a sweet little Joltik on his hand. You froze again. You didn't cry but you just stared at the pokemon. You refused to get anywhere near the thing. Venipede in all of his helpful glory, stood back watching you freeze in panic. You didn't know that he was explaining your panic to them. Maybe you knew you would have yelled at him. It was embarrassing, to be afraid of pokemon yet you worked at a gym. You lived in the woods. It was a secret that you hated people finding out. For the most part, you were good about hiding it, you knew how to calm down and to mostly avoid contact with them.
    "Are you okay?" N asked, placing the joltik on a tree away from you.
    "I'm fine!" you yelled even though you didn't mean to. "I'm fine," again calmer you pushed yourself up off the ground wiping the dirt off your clothes.
    Oh, your face was on fire. You felt like you were about to cry. It was so humiliating, loser, idiot.
    "Ah, you cut yourself." N's fingers took your arm.
    His fingers were calloused and your skin felt like silk against them. Sure enough, bright vibrant crimson dripped from your arm. Rocks and dirt lined the cut, they stuck and mixed with blood some too deep in the cut to be ideal. You hadn't even noticed; even more humiliating.
    He took you to the fanciest most beautiful gazebo in the center of the greenhouse. Roses climbed the sides and lilacs lined the stairs. You wished to have one of those fancy tea parties kids in the movies had here. You thought it would be fun to spend the day here under the sun sharing jokes with your friends.
Perhaps someday you'd get to do that, but now you had something arguably better. Gentle fingers, ones that pulled the rocks and dirt from the cut with no more pain than a pinch. It stung sure but in mead minutes the bandage was wrapped around a freshly cleaned cut. The day felt better from there. You had to continue doing your work in the greenhouse but N sat beside you keeping you company and keeping the pokemon away from you.
    When Venipede curled up into your lap late into the afternoon and whined about being tired you said your goodbyes. You left the gym and returned home and N stayed behind saying he had something to do yet.
    N sat quietly as he flipped through a few pages of paper. On the wall was a large map marked with a blue string and pins. A few pictures of a cave and more accurately a cave in. He read through the notes and looked at the recovered items. He wasn't sure why he was the one they wanted but he supposed that it made sense to have the former champion assist with whatever problems occurred.
    He couldn't help but find himself wandering over to the clearing of your cottage. He saw you sitting outside on your bench fiddling with the phone you had gotten. Seeing you he snapped out of his thoughts and left before you noticed him. He just wasn't sure how he felt about you coming along with everyone else to the caves.