Work Text:
It’s the clang that wakes him up, he’s pretty sure. It’s loud, and he waits a minute to see if any noise follows it. It’s probably just wild pokemon fighting on the beach, he tells himself. Steel types, or something.
He gets up anyway. Can't hurt to check, right? And besides, he has this niggling feeling that it’s something more.
As he climbs the stairs to the main part of the house, he pauses, and in the silence, he thinks he can hear breathing. Not just soft breathing from the loft, but labored. Just…it’s so quiet. So slight. But if he holds his breath, and closes his eyes, it’s there.
“Ash?” He tries, nothing but a whisper, and the breathing hitches, for a moment. There’s no response. Kukui tries to push back the mounting worry. “Ash, are you here?”
Again, there’s no response, but he sees a flash of a yellow tail on the kitchen floor and makes a beeline for it.
The tiles are cold on his bare feet. His heart is beating in his ears, blood pulsing so loud that he can barely hear anything else. As he rounds the corner, he sees a figure huddled in the corner next to the fridge, so pushed into the wall he wouldn’t have noticed unless he was looking. “Ash?” he tries again, this time more insistent. Kukui kneels down onto the floor in front of his boarder.
The thing is, Kukui’s a little at a loss. He’s had Ash here for a few weeks now, and those few weeks have been more eventful than Kukui’s life has ever been, barring his pokemon journey when he was a teenager. Ash is all smiles; boisterous and loud and quick to anger, but Kukui would be damned if he said he doesn’t enjoy having him around. But the kid’s a mystery he’s trying hard not to try to figure out. He just doesn’t get him. He doesn’t look a day over fourteen, but, according to his scattered statements Kukui’s found himself desperately piecing together, Ash has been in at least three or four leagues, and he’s got an inkling feeling that there’s more. He’s so carefree, and yet a Tapu challenged him on the first day he was here. He asks questions about things Kukui finds painfully basic, and yet he holds himself with this quiet strength. He beats Team Skull like it's nothing. He levels the ground with a Z-move he’s never been taught.
He’s a whirlwind. Kukui loves having him around. He hates feeling so in the dark.
By far the most apparent thing about Ash, though, is his unflappable enthusiasm. He’s happy all the time, except for when he gets angry, but Kukui’s learned pretty quickly it’s not real anger, just a competitive spirit.
And yet here the kid sits, hunched into himself in the middle of the night. And, it hits Kukui, among the million other things that are bothering him about this situation, he has never seen Ash so still. Even in his sleep, he moves. But here, he is just…still. Unmoving.
It’s unnerving.
“Ash?” He prompts, once again. “You doing okay there?”
Pikachu is at his side, and he is almost as still as his trainer. His tail, though, is flicking back and forth anxiously. He stares at Kukui, as though he expects something from the man. Do something, Kukui can imagine him saying.
He feels the urge to touch Ash, but he’s not sure if that’s appropriate. This is just his boarder, after all. His student, nothing more. He’d be…crossing a boundary, probably.
As Ash’s shoulders hitch, suddenly, the abrupt movement startling Kukui, he stops worrying and just acts, gingerly putting his hand on Ash’s arm. “What happened?”
“Pikachuu,” the mouse says, pleading and quiet. Finally, Ash raises his head, just a little. There’s something that crosses his face, something Kukui can’t quite read, but it’s like no expression he’s seen on Ash’s face before. But, after a quick moment, it’s morphed into a smile. “Ah, Professor,” he says, voice a little pressured. “We’re good! Just, uh, dropped a cup. Sorry about that!”
It’s such a sudden change it catches Kukui off guard. “I don’t care about a cup, Ash. I…”
“Well, it probably woke you up! Didn’t mean to do that, so I’m sorry. Come on, Pikachu,” he prompts, standing up and extending his arm in the way he always does when Pikachu climbs up to his shoulder, “let’s go to bed, yeah?”
If Kukui hadn’t seen him just a moment before, he wouldn’t believe Ash had just been hunched up against the fridge. “Wait, Ash,” he says, and Ash turns back from where he’d started to walk away. Kukui doesn’t know what to say, though, so they just stare at each other for a moment.
“Aw, Professor, you should probably go back to sleep, and all that. We’ve got school tomorrow.”
“Why were you up?”
Ash’s smile flickers just a little. “Just thirsty, you know.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem like you got the chance to have some water. Have a seat, I’ll get you some.”
Ash swallows, but his smile stays fixed. “You don’t need to do all that, Professor. Really, I’m fine.”
Kukui feels like, if he doesn’t capture this moment, he’ll never see this side of Ash again. “I insist. I’m making some tea for myself, anyway. What type do you like?”
Ash looks ready to refuse, but then he takes a breath, lets it go, and says “Chamomile, if you don’t mind.”
Ash sits down at the counter, watching Kukui’s movements very closely. His smile is still there, but it doesn’t look very natural. Kukui doesn’t comment on it.
So he makes tea. He sets the water on, waiting for it to boil, and fills up a glass for Ash while they wait. His student takes the glass, gingerly holding it with both hands. His fingers have the slightest shake.
Ash is just his boarder. Just his student. Nothing more.
And yet, before him sits a kid that he is very quickly realizing isn’t as cheerful as he might like everyone to believe.
“Here’s your chamomile,” he says, handing Ash a Pikachu-patterned mug. At the sight of it, his smile looks more real. “Yeah, I saw it at the market, and it reminded me of you, so I picked it up.”
Ash looks at him - meets his eyes for the first time, a sort of shocked gratitude crossing his face. “Thanks, Professor,” he says, his voice quiet with reverence. Like this is the nicest thing anyone has done for him, ever.
Kukui sips on his own tea. He tries to pretend he isn’t bursting with questions. He wants to ask Ash what’s wrong. What happened. Was it a nightmare? Was it a bad day? Is this what he’s really like, in the quiet where no one else can see? Is this a side of him reserved for Pikachu alone?
He doesn’t say any of those things, though, because Ash has no obligation to stick around. He could be out of here by morning. He could leave and Kukui would never see him again.
What he says instead is this: “How do you like Alola?”
Ash startles a little at the question, tilting his head. He puts his mug down, but keeps his hands around it. “I love it. It’s really cool, Professor. All the pokemon, and the school, and all my friends are so great! It’s so…different, than before.”
He doesn’t elaborate on the last point, though Kukui wonders. Ash seems to be a very League-oriented trainer. It’s a little odd, now that he thinks about it, that Ash chose to go to school in a region without a League. Hadn’t he made it to the finals of the Kalos League? Why would he settle down here?
Kukui wants to ask. He pretends he doesn’t want to ask. “It is really great, isn’t it? I’m glad you’re here.”
Ash looks at him, again, smiling softly. “It’s great to be here, Professor. Thanks for puttin’ up with me, and all that. I’d probably be camping out somewhere if you hadn’t offered me your home.”
It isn’t as surprising as Kukui would like it to be that Ash is willing to set up camp for a whole school year, just to stay here. Even though he’s only been here for a few weeks, things are starting to feel like that. He knows next to nothing about Ash, and yet things are surprising him less and less. He just has that quality about him. You shrug it off and say “That’s Ash,” even if it doesn’t make any sense. Even if it’s a god giving him a Z-crystal.
He’s trying not to worry about that one too much.
They finish their tea in comfortable silence. Kukui tries not to be too obvious about the fact that he is watching Ash very closely. It just…baffles him. He’d been so small, before. Hunched, still. Sad. And now, he isn’t quite the Ash Kukui knows. He isn’t loud, or boisterous, or brash, or any of those things right now. He is quiet. Serene. But still. How he’d been able to shake off…whatever just happened, Kukui isn’t sure. He wants to know, but he’s trying not to be like that.
Ash is just his boarder. Just his student.
“Well, I think we should get to sleep, Professor,” Ash says, finally. “If I don’t get enough sleep, I’ll be a zombie at school tomorrow! Come on, Pikachu,” and his pokemon once more clambers onto his shoulder. “Ash,” Kukui says, before he turns around. “Good night.”
Ash smiles. It feels real. “Good night, Professor.”
He disappears into the loft.
Ash is just his boarder. Just his student.
Kukui doesn’t know how much longer he can keep telling himself that.