Jirachi's Twin

Memory Three: In Loving Memory of Two Years Ago

Hop walked into the train station quietly, avoiding eye contact with anyone who could've recognized him. All he wanted to do was go home and sleep. It had been a long evening for him—there was nothing he desired more. The train for Hammerlocke was leaving in five minutes. After it departed, he was supposed to take a one-way trip to Wedgehurst, and finally get back to his home.

He sat down on a metal bench near the boarding platform and watched as the snow from outside melted on the tracks. All evening, Gloria's conversation was playing out in his head like a broken record—lingering on the words "since we've got the whole gang". He couldn't stop remembering how disappointed he'd felt in that moment. It was taunting him—telling him over and over that he was nothing but a two-year-old forgotten memory.

Five minutes passed. The train still didn't leave the station.

"ALL PASSENGERS LEAVING AT TEN O'CLOCK FOR HAMMERLOCKE, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY, BUT DUE TO SNOWY CONDITIONS, THE TRAIN WILL BE POSTPONED FOR ANOTHER THIRTY MINUTES. I REPEAT, THE HAMMERLOCKE TRAIN WILL BE POSTPONED FOR ANOTHER THIRTY MINUTES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE."

Hop froze, "Are you freaking kidding me..." he placed his hands on his face in exasperation, "There's no way this could possibly get any worse..."

He sat there for a moment, cursing bitterly as he stared at the side of the train. As his eyes fixated on the windows, he suddenly caught eye with one of the passengers.

"Oh you've got to be BLOODY kidding me!" Hop's eyes widened in disgust and fear as he quickly looked away, "Oh of course he had to be on this bloody train..."

Bede stared at Hop out the window, his typical, permanently pissed look plastered on his face. Without smiling even the tiniest bit, Bede held up a hand as some sort of odd wave. Hop gave the same wave-like thing back—not really sure what else to do. Then he watched Bede stand up, grab something, and exit the train from the side doors.

"What the heck is he doing!?" Hop's heart dropped, "There's no way he's coming over here right...? Because I don't think I can handle seeing that jerk twice in once night..."

He didn't see where Bede went after coming off of the train. Somehow he'd disappeared around the bend and slinked out of sight. Apprehensive, Hop sat in silence as the few people around him shuffled around. He tried focusing on the snow on the tracks to distract his mind from thinking about Bede, but every time he calmed himself, he could see Bede's horrible smile taunting him.

Bede jeered in his mind—repeating insults that cut into him like barbed arrows. He couldn't stop remembering how angry losing to him had felt. Despite it being two years ago, something about seeing his rival up close again, all buddy-buddy with his best friend, lit a fire in his heart that traveled up through his veins and across his entire body. Hop started tapping his foot subconsciously and found his eyes start wandering from the tracks. The anticipation was killing him.

Then next to him, somebody sat down. Hop jolted, his eyes alive and lit with anger—thinking Bede had just casually taken a seat like the selfish jerk he knew him to be, and then—and then...

He stared at the lady next to him. She looked rattled by Hop's sudden movement, and was visually uncomfortable by his strange, sudden aversion.

"Ah—I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else..."

She blinked, confusion and disgruntlement creeping across her expression, and then she grabbed her things and left briskly in the opposite direction. The anger immediately drained from Hop, and was replaced with embarrassment and guilt. He'd just unintentionally scared some innocent person away by being paranoid.

"Stupid..." he placed his hands over his face.

"You can say that again."

Hop jolted back, whipped his head to his left side, and saw Bede standing nearby on his phone, eating a bag of crisps from one of the vending machines.