The preliminary rounds of the Champion Cup were proceeding rather smoothly for both boys: Piers had won his two major battles against a fellow Gym Challenger named Gordie as well as the fairy-type expert Opal while Raihan had mopped the floor with Sonia and just finished doing so with Milo as well.

Out of the two, Piers' match was next and this time he was worried for real. His opponent wasn't any common Trainer nor Gym Leader, it was Leon — the boy who even Raihan had only managed to beat in a battle once. He wasn't about to give up now that he had come so far though, both in the tournament or his journey altogether.

It was an unspoken promise, but after every battle, Piers and Raihan would meet in the reception hall and exchange feedback and words of encouragement. After the caramel-skinned male's victory against Milo, that deal wasn't broken either which led to why the two boys were two of the very few people who weren't either on the bleachers, the pitch or the changing rooms.

"I know this will sound kinda stupid coming from me, but I'm sure you can beat Leon!" Raihan insisted, referring to how he had lost many battles against his rival until this point. The shorter boy felt so treasured when he was enveloped in his boyfriend's arms and given his trademark good-luck-kiss, and that gave him a feeling of invincibility. "Get out there and show them what you're made of! That way we can have our epic battle in the finals!"

Though as strong as he and his Pokémon were, his Obstagoon simply couldn't last until the end when he was faced with Leon's Gigantamax Charizard. His loss left him with a bitter aftertaste without a doubt, but he knew better than to be disappointed in himself. He had learned how to value himself properly thanks to Raihan, and Piers felt even less bad knowing that his boyfriend still had a chance in beating Leon for the both of them.

"Piers!" The light brown-skinned male called out from the reception hall as soon as the mentioned boy had returned from the field. He looked a bit down at first, but Raihan was quick to raise his spirits by hugging his frail form tightly, bringing  a small smile to his face. "You were awesome out there!"

"I'm sure you would have won if Leon hadn't Gigantamaxed his Charizard." The ravenet added, pulling away from the shorter male just enough to see his warm expression. The two had to separate from each other entirely next though, because someone else decided to walk in on them — and that someone else was the same individual who didn't feel awkward talking to a person who was in the midst of peeing. "Raihan, I was just looking for you!"

"We're up against each other in the finals!" Leon stated excitedly as he made his way over to the two Trainers, joining them so casually that Piers was envious of his ability to mix in with others. "I know." Raihan replied bluntly, doing an acceptable job at hiding his disappointment of his rival having interrupted the moment he was having with his boyfriend.

The sight of Piers triggered something inside Leon's memory, and it wasn't the good Pokémon battle they had just left behind themselves. "Ooh which reminds me! Just earlier, were you really confessed to by that girl?" Both Raihan and Piers tensed up at the other's question, the taller male scrunching his eyebrows in unease. "...So what if I was?"

"Eh, for real?! Are you two going out now? Have you already kissed and stuff?!" Clearly, Leon had never been exposed to a boy and girl doing the things he was blurting out, so he appeared to be more excited than necessary. His enthusiasm was causing the pale boy to grow more nervous with every question that rolled off his lips. "We haven't. And we're not going out."

"What a waste! The girl seemed so cute! If you had gone out with her, she might have let you do a bunch of things! With your good looks—" Not only was Leon blabbering about things Raihan didn't deem appropriate, especially since Piers was with them, but he was also slowly but surely attracting the gazes of the few people that actually were in the reception hall. In order to silence the purple-haired male, Raihan brought his hand to the other's face and squeezed his cheeks a tad too violently. "You're being loud."

"Anyway, what got you buzzing about it so much? Did you see us or what?" With a sigh, Raihan released his friend's slightly aching face in order to first let him apologize before explaining himself. Piers wanted to shrink and crawl under a rock when he felt the enthusiastic boy's golden eyes piercing through him. "Piers and I were just coming out of the bathroom when we saw that girl confessing to you! Talk about—"

The caramel-skinned male had frozen in his position at the mention of his lover's name and was no longer even listening to what Leon was saying. When he turned around to meet Piers' gaze, all he was given was the sight of the slim boy staring at the ground with an expression that had guilt written all over it even though he had done nothing wrong. Actually, neither of the boys had done anything wrong, but another misunderstanding atop of the prior one was the last thing they needed.

"That's nice and all, but we should really be preparing for our match now." Raihan interrupted his rival, gaining a confused look at first, an understanding one following close behind. Leon had finally said goodbye to the two Trainers and run off to the locker rooms when Raihan grabbed his boyfriend's wrist. "Let's go outside for a second."

And go outside they did, away from people's unwelcome gazes and ears though they did still stand at the entrance of the stadium. "You saw it too?" Raihan finally broke the suffocating silence between them, but gained no response whatsoever — not to mention that Piers was still uncomfortably staring at the ground. "You know, you could have just said something."

"But... It's not really wrong." At last the pale boy finally spoke in a shaky voice, raising his gaze only to direct it everywhere but at Raihan. The taller male was starting to get a really bad feeling about where Piers was trying to take this conversation, especially when the flashbacks of what he had said to the shorter boy back in Hotel Ionia flooded his mind. "Wait, you've got it all wrong—!"

"It's normal. For you, normal is over on that side, right...?" Piers continued, gripping at his arm with his own had while ignoring the almost desperate explanation his lover had in store for him. "Rather than bein' with me, it's a normal thing."

What am I sayin'?

I don't want to say these things, so why?

"Surely, it's just for now. We'll finish the Gym Challenge and become adults."

I don't want this.

"Then, to still be together like this..."

Even though I don't want to say all of this...!

"That's just... There's no sense of reality in that, huh."

Piers' feelings had finally overflown, and now that he had spoken, there was no way to take back his words. The pale boy still uncomfortably stared to the side, clenching his fist so hard that his skin had started to hurt. Raihan on the other hand had the hardest of times just barely processing his lover's— Piers' words.

That one, final sentence explained it all. Why Piers hadn't answered him right away that night at Hotel Ionia, why he had been acting so strange ever since that question and why he seemed to always be dodging the matter when Raihan brought it up. All this time it wasn't Raihan who wasn't alright with a same-sex relationship, but Piers?

"So that's what you've been thinking all this time?" Raihan cursed at himself for allowing his voice to crack mid-sentence. Piers' cyan eyes instantly shot up from their resting spot and were greeted with an expression the boy wished he had never seen. He had never seen that kind of pain on Raihan's face, and he wished that he had never driven the taller boy to pull such an expression in the first place. Why did he have to let his insecurities and paranoia take over him? Why did he have to run his mouth when he had nothing to be afraid of?

It's not like that!

Even though Piers desperately wanted to call out those words to Raihan when he had started walking away from him, he couldn't. The lump in his throat and the tears that threatened to spill from the corners of his eyes prevented him from uttering any kind of apology.

The moment Raihan disappeared into the stadium was the moment Piers finally dropped to his knees, crying uncontrollably. Tears streamed down his pale cheeks like rivers as his silent sobs filled the surrounding area. No matter how many times he wiped his face with the back of his hands, it would just get stained by tears all over again.

I really just wanted to say "That's not true."

* * *

In the changing room, Raihan had smashed his clenched fist against one of the many lockers, biting down on his bottom lip so hard that it was a miracle it hadn't started bleeding. He didn't remember the last time he had cried, but he wasn't about to do that now before his final match against Leon.

And speaking of that tactless, purple-haired moron, Raihan found himself reflexively blaming him first. "If only Leon had shut up about it, none of that would have happened!" The boy muttered angrily, repeating the gesture of slamming his hand against the lockers. "No, that's not right. It's that stupid girl's fault for confessing to me in front of all those people!"

"Or maybe... Piers never took our relationship seriously in the first place." He hated thinking about that possibility, let alone admitting that it was the truth, but he had no one else to blame other than himself for this outcome. "Yeah, that's probably it. That's probably also why he was acting so strange lately."

With gritted teeth and teary eyes, Raihan forced his way through the tunnel that led him to the pitch where his rival already stood, confident and ready to begin their battle without having a single idea of what his remarks had caused. Piers had also pulled himself together by that time — or at least so much that he was no longer crying, though his eyes were still puffy — and had found a nice spot on the bleachers from which he could observe Raihan's match.

The two Trainers on the court each sent out their first Pokémon, Torkoal and Aegislash respectively, and their battle began. Their creatures took each other out reciprocally, being on par with when it was dragon-type against dragon-type. As well as Raihan was handling the negative emotions that had overwritten all the excitement he normally would have felt in the legendary match, he still lost.

When the two boys had Gigantamaxed their last two Pokémon — Duraludon and Charizard — it was the latter that came out on top, sealing its team's victory. Raihan fell to his knees and felt as if all that was binding him down had been lifted with his loss. When Chairman Rose stepped onto the pitch to approach Leon who was the happiest person in entire Galar in order to crown him as the new Champion, Raihan finally let the defensive walls around his heart crumble down, allowing all of his emotions to flood out.

He cried and cried and cried, so much that even pulling his orange hairband over his face wasn't enough to hide his tear-stained face. He figured that if he cried now, people would just think that it was because he lost against Leon — they wouldn't suspect anything else, and it was Raihan's perfect excuse. A certain boy among the spectators knew that those tears didn't represent the loss of a Pokémon battle, but the loss of a precious relationship.

Though he was aware that it was a hypocritical thought, Piers knew that if he was going to be there for Raihan, this had to be the time. No one else understood what he was going through, and the tall male was suffering because of him in the first place. The pale boy jumped out of his seat and rushed to the exit that led to the reception hall, ignoring people's groans and complaints of when his frail body bumped into them.

Raihan was no longer on the pitch when Piers had reached his first destination, and when the short boy burst into the locker rooms, he was disappointed but not surprised to find no one. Raihan was no longer there, he was completely gone. Piers didn't know at that time, but...

The two boys never saw each other again after that — for six long years.

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My note to you:
I know this wasn't happy at all, but this is probably my favorite chapter so far. I mean, up until now, most of my stories were all cheerful and rosy without any real effort of the characters, so this is a nice change of pace. ^w^ (I'm probably coming off as a secret sadist right about now xD)

Thank You for Reading!