Chapter Text
The last twenty-four hours had been strange, to say the least. Exhilarating to say more, but no word could describe what exactly Go was feeling.
First, he had actually managed to see the legendary Pokemon Lugia, and he had actually jumped onto its back. Go had never been the athletic type, so even the mere fact that he jumped was abnormal.
Next, while on top of said Lugia, Go met,,, a character, to put it lightly. Ash Ketchum, a boy who was, evidently, very in tune with his emotions and his connection to Pokemon. Go didn't understand it at all, but it made things all the more interesting. The two of them went on an adventure without even exchanging a word until it was over. Go quickly accepted Ash as a new friend, which was yet another strange thing. Go never let himself make friends, he didn't need them!
Third, somehow he and Ash managed to become research fellows for the professor. In their first mission, things almost became normal. Go wanted to do everything his way, perfectly routine. The two had a brief argument which he had thought lead to the end of their friendship, but apparently they were still going strong.
Finally, in the middle of all of that, something had been building up inside of Go’s heart. A warm, unexplainable feeling that he had never experienced before. It felt similar to when he first saw Mew as a child. It was exciting, but terrifying, and he couldn't tell if it made his blood run hot or cold.
When he saw Ash defend the Ivysaur, ready to sacrifice his own life to keep everyone else safe, that feeling sparked to life and made itself undoubtedly present. He didn't understand. Nobody would do that. Everyone Go had ever met was ready to throw him to the side, not caring about anyone else but themselves.
Maybe he was looking too much into it, and Ash only cared about the Pokemon. But the feeling in his heart refused to cease, letting him trust the naive thoughts.
What seemed to be the common factor to all these uncommon occurrences was Ash himself. The guy leapt into his life and situated himself there, knocking over everything along the way. Go hadn't even known Ash for a full day and they were both sad that they almost lost their friendship. It was weird. Needing a second opinion, he turned to his childhood friend.
“Hey, Koharu, would you be upset if we weren't friends anymore?” Go asked out of the blue during breakfast. Ash was still sleeping, and he was fairly sure not even a hyper beam to the face would wake him up.
“What?! What are you trying to say?!” she responded accordingly. Go forgot to think about how bad that would sound out of context.
“Wait!! Oh my Arceus I don’t mean anything weird about that!” he quickly tried to explain himself. “I just mean... how do I put this… Is it normal to get attached to someone really quickly?” Once she regained her composure, Koharu stared at him, calculating.
“You're talking about Ash, right?” She finally remarked. The bluntness almost knocked Go out of his chair.
“W-what?” he stammered. “What makes you think that?”
“Well, it's not like I have a large number of people to choose from,” Koharu deadpanned. Go frowned. She wasn't wrong, but it still stung. “Sorry, I just know you prefer to stay alone, and Ash is the most recent person you've met.”
“It's fine,” Go sighed deeply. “Yeah, I'm talking about him,”
“So, what do you mean by attached?” Koharu pushed the conversation forward, moving away just a little to gather her supplies for school.
“I don't know…” Go shoved his head into his hands as his face flushed a little. “I guess it's like… I wanna be friends with him?”
“You're already friends, aren't you?” Koharu questioned, placing her bag over her shoulders. Go groaned in response.
“I know! I don't want to not be friends, though!” he said. “Which is unlike me! I don't need friends, so why would I want them? I have you, and you’re enough for me.”
“As flattering as that is,” Koharu began sarcastically as she filled Yamper’s food bowl. “It’s perfectly reasonable to want friends. Needs and wants are two separate things, you know. Plus, I feel like it'd be healthy for you to meet new people. What do you do when I'm gone?”
“...Wait for you to get back,” Go awkwardly said after a moment. “But in my defense, I'm also taking charge of my future!”
“I'm sure you are,” Koharu smiled a little as she made her way to the door. “I gotta go now, let me know if anything interesting happens while I'm gone,”
“I will,”
“See you!” With that, she was gone for the afternoon. Go quietly laid his head down and considered hitting it against the table a few times when Ash finally woke up.
The boy was in some tacky Pikachu shirt, complete with matching shorts. The pokemon sitting on his shoulder honestly made the design seem more obsessive rather than matched. He yawned, trying to stretch out the sleepiness as his body directed him to the food.
“Mornin’” he mumbled incoherently. He sat down next to Go after shoving whatever he could touch onto his plate. Pikachu was still half asleep, clinging to him.
“Morning,” Go replied as the strange feeling reared its head. It usually muted itself when Ash wasn't around, but could come back in a snap. “How'd you sleep?”
“Great! The professor was really nice to give us such comfy beds!” Ash smiled brightly. Go almost had to squint to even look at him.
“Well, I bet the bottom bunk isn't nearly as comfortable as the top one!” he decided to distract himself from his emotions with a little friendly competition.
“Oh yeah? Just because you're up there now doesn't mean I won't give up! The top bunk will be mine!”
“You wish!”
The boys laughed together for a while until the time came to actually get ready for the day. Go watched Ash’s wild routine with mild annoyance. He preferred his morning routine to be calm, or at least most of it to be. Meanwhile, Ash and Pikachu were shooting around the place like madmen. Perhaps it was a delayed electrocution on the boy’s part? Pikachu did seem to use Thunderbolt as an alarm clock.
The professor, being out on meetings for the day, had no assignment for the boys. Go had assumed that meant furthering the research they already had, or collecting data on nearby Pokemon in general. Apparently, Ash had other plans.
“Go! Do you wanna do something fun today?” he asked rather vaguely.
“What do you mean?” Go was fairly sure they had different ideas of fun. Ash just shrugged.
“I dunno, we can visit the old gym before it gets taken down and replaced with the one under construction! Or we can go to the marketplace and see all the cool stuff they have for Pokemon! Or we can find the Venusaur we met before to see how they're doing!” he continued to list a few more ideas, all of which involved having a Pokemon partner of some sort.
“I suppose we could collect more data on the Venusaur…” Go muttered, half to himself. Ash shook his head.
“We're not collecting data, we can just hang out with them.” Ash said. “I bet they miss us!”
Go didn't see why or how a Pokemon could miss them, but he figured he should just get used to his friend saying weird stuff like that. When the whole “hanging out” thing didn't work out, Go could go ahead and analyze the Pokemon anyway.
“Yeah, sounds fun. Let's go!” he smiled and let Ash lead the way. Somehow, even though the two of them never saw where the Venusaur and Ivysaur went after evolving, Ash knew exactly where to go. Did he stumble into them before? Or was this just a thing? Go knew the answer already, deep inside.
Once they reached the forest area they were looking for, the Venusaur and Ivysaur were, in fact, happy to see them. At least according to Ash. Go simply saw a bunch of wild Pokemon. If he looked really closely, he could detect a sort of smile on their faces, but he was overall pretty unsure about it.
All the Pokemon were sunbathing in the light that shone through the trees. Go had a gut feeling Ash would join them and he turned around to find out he was right. Smack in the middle of a sun beam, Ash was sprawled out with his eyes closed. He looked like he was enjoying it more than the Pokemon. Speaking of which, his Pikachu was draped over his chest, enjoying the warmth surrounding him.
‘Wow, Pikachu is so lucky’
Go started at the intrusive thought. Thankfully no one else seemed to notice. He shook it out of his head and awkwardly looked around.
“S-so what now?” he asked, willing the red on his face to fade away. Ash cracked open one eye to look at him. Go gulped as the sun turned his brown eyes into what looked like gold. His heart rate probably doubled and his stomach started to feel fluttery.
“You gotta lay down and experience everything! Remember how nice everything felt on top of that gym the other day? This is like that!”
“But… We only did that to understand the Ivysaur, right?”
“Well yeah, but it also feels good!” Ash exclaimed. The sun seemed to agree as it shined even brighter onto the grass. Go tried not to grumble to himself-- and failed-- as he reluctantly joined Ash on the ground.
How could something fun be used for analysis? Surely things would be one or the other. The Pokemon did this to store sunlight for evolution, Go discovered that by sunbathing with them. There wasn't anything particularly useful in laying around now. It was just a way to be lazy and relax.
Go closed his eyes, trying not to think too much about it. Maybe if he stopped overthinking he would discover something else. If he really let himself free of his thoughts, he could properly focus on the sun warming his skin, and the grass being a lot softer than the stone on the top of a construction site.
Some baby Bulbasaur were playing nearby. Go expected their loud play fighting to be distracting, but every time the Pokemon butt heads he found himself growing drowsier and drowsier until he fell asleep.
Go woke up some time later to Pikachu precariously holding a Chesto Berry in front of him. He shot up, the lingering sleepiness almost causing him to fall back to the ground.
“Oh, you're awake now!” Ash said with a hint of relief. “Good job, Pikachu!” the pokemon keened at the praise, even though it didn't do anything.
“What happened?” Go mumbled, rubbing at his eyes.
“Sorry, I didn't realize the Bulbasaur were using sleep powder on you,” Ash replied. “They must've accidentally used it while playing,”
Go made some sort of noise to signify he heard Ash while trying to stand up. Every time he got to his feet, his vision started swimming and he had to sit down again. Pikachu lifted a chesto berry for him to eat, and Go happily accepted. It tasted sweeter than normal.
“Are you feeling okay? I can carry you home, if you need it,” Ash asked. Go blanked for a moment as he thought about how that would end up. A blush crept up on his face at the idea and that funny feeling came with it. He coughed into his hand to regain his rational thoughts.
“I think… I'll be fine,”
“Alright, just let me know if you're falling off your balance and I'll help you,”
“Noted,”
The walk home would've been much faster had Go just agreed to be carried. He stumbled every few feet. Go had hoped the walk would help his condition, but he didn't feel much better when he plopped himself onto the couch. He wanted to pass out again, but he kept himself awake knowing it would keep him from sleeping that night.
Ash had gone somewhere while Go was scavenging the kitchen for caffeine. He found a box of energy drinks in the fridge, and quickly downed one. On the other end of the kitchen, Mr Mime took a break from cleaning to watch him with mild concern. Go looked towards it with bags under his eyes and a face that said “just don't ask.”
A few energy drinks and a bitter chesto berry later, Go felt absolutely horrible, but also like he could get stuff done. When eating the berries, a theory came to mind about the Venusaur. While he was thinking about said theory, Koharu came back from school.
“Oh, you're back,” he grumbled, forcing himself to meet his friend. Koharu huffed.
“Well you sound awfully enthusiastic,”
“Sorry, just tired. I was on the business end of a sleep powder,”
“Ah, makes sense,” Koharu remarked, bending down to greet her overly excited Yamper. “Could be worse, could've been poison or paralysis,” Go shivered at the thought.
“Yeah, guess I'm lucky,” he muttered. Koharu hummed once she saw the many energy drink cans in the trash can.
“How are you feeling?”
“I simultaneously feel like death and that I could end global warming, but I came up with a theory that Venusaur pollen makes berries taste better,”
“Hm, interesting,” she deadpanned. The girl began to take out some of her homework papers. “Where's Ash, by the way?”
“I dunno,” Go sighed, crossing his arms. “He left after he dropped me back here. Arceus knows what he's doing,"
As if on cue, the boy in question came running through the front door. Go and Koharu jumped a little at the sudden entrance.
“Go! C’mere, we have a surprise for you!” Ash exclaimed, grabbing his hand. Go tried to pull away, not appreciating the violation of personal space. The annoyance was almost enough to drown out the beating of his heart. Almost.
“Hey! Calm down, I'm coming!” Go argued, but still let Ash drag him outside. What he saw left him just about speechless.
Waiting outside was the herd of Venusaur, Ivysaur, and Bulbasaur. Each one of them had a gift-- be it a flower or a berry. In the front was the two baby Bulbasaur that accidentally put Go to sleep. They each lifted a vine that carried a huge bouquet of flowers.
Go felt his face run hotter than ever before as he awkwardly accepted the bouquets. Were the Pokemon… Apologizing? But why? How? Did Ash set this up? Did they do it on their own? What was even happening .
“They felt bad that they used Sleep Powder on you,” Ash explained. “So they set this all up to make you feel better!” So they were trying to apologize. But how would Ash know?
Go was abruptly cut from his never ending train of thought when Ash picked a flower from one of the Ivysaur and tucked it behind Go’s ear. Go froze in place as his nerves got the better of him and that feeling roared to life and shot pure adrenaline through his entire body. He may have been red before, but now he was absolutely glowing with a blush. He was too awkward and hormonal to speak at that moment. Koharu peeked her head over his shoulder to see the commotion.
“Oh boy, you've got it baaad,” she whispered. Go could only minutely nod as the realization hit like a train. That's what the feeling was.
He had a huge crush.