Chapter 2:

A sour goodbye and a long walk.

 

 

 

 

In any event I, Ash, cannot look back. If I do, I know I will never leave. How nice it would be though to not confront my fears and just stay here? No. I am afraid that is not an option this time. I have to go. I have to do this.

 

Ash walked along deeply contemplating the events that have just occurred. Why did Lilly want him so bad? Had he looked so desperate when it came it Misty? Pikachu hopped down off his usual post and decided he wanted to walk as well. “It’s time for me to change the CD. What do you think Pikachu?” Pikachu nodded with eager agreement.

“What should I put in? There’s …Metallica…nooo… I’m not really in that mood right now…what about…no…not that either…hmm… I haven’t listened to that one in a while. What do you think Pikachu?”

“Pika-pika” he nodded again with approval.

Ash fidgeted with the CD case for a minute or two, put the CD in and pressed play.

In a two weeks time he hopes to be somewhere near Viridian. A place he hadn’t been in a long while.

“This is it Pikachu. I am going to get her back. We will be walking for a long while.”

Ash and pikachu walked almost silent for hours. Before they new it, darkness had begun to approach the cherry-hued sky. Ash stopped and made a place for the two to sleep. In a few hours, he and Pikachu will wake up and begin walking again. As Ash threw out the last thoughts of the day aloud, he murmured, “What could the old lady possibly know that I don’t? I expected Lilly to be that way… What else could go wrong?”

 

Naturally, nothing else went wrong; Ash and Pikachu made it to Viridian in a week and 3 days. Significantly faster than first thought. Ash stocked up on food and met up with an old friend.

 

“Hey Ash! It has been quite sometime. How have you been?” he bends over and pets pikachu affectionately on the head.

“I have had my moments. Nevertheless, nothing I have not been able to survive. How about you?” Ash asked.

They talked for a while and reminisced about old times, the orange islands and, Misty.

It was common knowledge that Tracy had a crush on her, and no one could really say what went on between him and her. Ash took this chance to hopefully dispel a lot of rumors about the two.

“Uh, Tracy, I am going to ask you something and as my find you have to answer me honestly.”

“Um, Sure thing Ash.” He responded in a very curious tone.

“Was there ever anything between you and Misty?”

“Well, being honest and all, I really wished there would have been. She just wasn’t interested in me. I tried, oh did I try, but it was all in vain. She always had her eyes set on something greater.” Tracy then looked at Ash with tears in his eyes, as though he was prompting an immediate question.

“What are you talking about, Tracy? You thought you were not good enough for her? I always thought you two hit it off great.” Ash was completely perplexed. Leave it to Ash. He never quite saw the obvious.

“No, that’s not quite is Ash. She did not want me…(he was again in tears looking at Ash, then realized he wasn’t going to understand)…She has always wanted you, Ash. Despite me trying my very heart out, she only kept her eyes one you. You are not going to sit there and tell me that you had no idea. You are not going to say you did not feel the same. I know you did. We all knew.” By this time, Tracy’s voice was already pretty loud and people were staring.

“Tracy, calm down. I am not going to say that I did not having feelings for her, but I did not really know she felt that way. If I had seen it then I swear to you, things would be much more different now. Don’t you ever think that I did not care. She is the love of my LIFE!” Ash found himself standing and yelling too.

What was going on? One of his best friends was fighting with him, about something he was trying to fix. Ash sat down and asked Tracy calmly, to do the same.

“There is not a day that I do not regret. Misty means the world to me. If you have not thought to yourself, why someone would come all the way from Johto, yet then maybe you are the unperceptive one. I plan to fix what I messed up. Letting her leave. Not saying anything. There were nights that I stayed up crying…Do NOT lecture me about love.”

Tracy had nothing else to say, he sat there in complete awe. Ash got up and walked away. Before he was completely out of sight, he turned back and yelled “Don’t tell her I’m coming, don’t tell her what I said!”

“Sure thing Ash!”