A Reunion of Sorts: Conclusion
Beep. Beep. Beep. Satoshi opened his eyes. "I’m alive!" he thought. His eyes darted about furiously, drinking in the surroundings in the darkness. A vase of various flowers, which was encircled by get-well cards, decorated the stand next to his bed. His backpack had been set against the outside of his left knee, and it felt strangely warm. What surprised him even more was Kasumi. He was very glad to see his old friend safe and secure again. Sitting on the edge of a chair, she had fallen asleep on the side of the bed. Her elbow formed a makeshift resting place for her forehead. It was clear that she had not had a shower since the attack. He reached out for a silky strand of her hair and rubbed it between his thumb and index finger. Even though she had been knocked into the dirt, it was still radiant. Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep. "Stupid heart monitor," he thought. She twitched and readjusted her head. When she did, he saw the long bandage that covered her cheek. That made him (and his heart, no doubt) jump a little. Her makeup was a mess. Her eyeliner had run because of her tears. He had so many questions to ask. The clock revealed that right now (4:34 AM) was probably not the right time for his asking, but he did anyway. He placed a hand on Kasumi’s shoulder and gently shook her. "Hey, please wake up!" he whispered. She lifted her head slowly and blinked several times before realizing where she was and what was going on. "Satoshi! You’re alright!" she said. Her face lit up and her eyes glistened. She smiled weakly. "I was so worried about you!" "Are you okay?" he asked. "Am I okay?" she replied. Her mouth remained open, and her eyebrows stayed high, expressing surprise. "You’re the one that got shot! How do you feel?" She grabbed his hand, looking hopefully into his face. "I feel like..." He was about to tell her that he felt beaten enough to be dead but her eyes told him that was not what she wanted to hear. "I feel okay, I guess. Except for this headache. Actually, I’m kind of achy all over, but I’m sure it will pass. But how did you make it out of that situation? I thought we were both toast." "Satoshi, that’s not important right now. And you had better wait, because you’re going to be hearing our story for a while. The police—media—your family, I might add—and even the leader of your old dojo wants to talk to you. But for right now, you need rest." She had a stern, unmovable, yet motherly look. "Kasumi," he said, "you don’t need to baby me. I’m fine. Just fine." He sat up to prove it. With a wince and a gasp, he fell back against the bed. "You are not to move! You’re lucky that the bullet didn’t cause any serious damage." "That’s what you think," he muttered, looking down and gently caressing the wound. He looked back up. "Where’s Mom?" he said, a touch of worry in his voice. "She’s outside the room, sleeping on a bench. We’ve been taking turns watching you. She didn’t want to leave, but I explained to her that she needed her rest." Kasumi looked down. "She loves you so much. It must have been very nice to grow up with her." Now it was her turn to look away. Satoshi was pretty sure he saw a tear forming. "My parents... after the divorce, they were so caught up in a custody battle that they forgot what they were even fighting for." She let out a long sigh. "I don’t think they even cared about me very much. My father became an alcoholic and my mother a workaholic. That’s why I went to live with my sisters. That was only a few months before you showed up." When she said that, she looked up and gave him a smile but then remembered what she was talking about. "Divorce," she said, shaking her head, "is a terrible thing. If they had only tried to work out their stupid arguments," pounding the bed with her fist, "I’m sure it could all have been different. The things I went through didn’t have to happen." She took his hand again. "I’m glad you never had to go through that." Just as she had said that, she remembered that he himself had grown up in a single-parent family, though for a different reason. She pulled her hand back. "Oh! I’m sorry, I mean, the divorce, you know..." "Kasumi, I know what you mean. Don’t worry about it." Now both were looking away from the other. He was tracing the lines on the sheets with his finger. "I know that he would have always been there for me, if not for..." He cleared his throat. "If not for... well, you know. I was so young, too." He tried to not show his feelings. "But when we were assaulted by those guys, I was afraid that I was going to lose someone else who is close to me." He took the hand that Kasumi had pulled back. His remark brought both sets of eyes together and smiles to both faces. "Oh!" she said, remembering something. "Speaking of friends..." She leaned across the bed and shook his backpack. A muffled voice came from within. She held the pack at an angle and shook it again, gently. Out tumbled Pikachu and a travel-size bottle of ketchup. In a daze he looked about. Satoshi’s eyes brightened and he grinned. Pikachu leaped into Satoshi’s arms. They embraced. "They don’t allow Pokemon in places like this, you know, but Pikachu was very worried about you." Pikachu nodded, his eyes glistening. She chuckled. "It’s kind of like a reunion. It’s a reunion of sorts. Only, this one wasn’t planned." Satoshi let out a contented sigh. Then he yawned. "In any case," she continued, noticing his weariness, "we all need rest. We’ll talk in the morning."~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Satoshi awoke, Kasumi disappeared and reappeared with a tray, which she proceeded to place across his bed. With a click, it was attached to his bed rails. He looked down at it. "Hospital food. Yummy," he said sarcastically. "Look, you need nutrients to help you heal." He just stared at the Jell-o that he balanced on his spoon. "Nutrients? You call this stuff food?" He tipped the spoon and let the Jell-o fall to the dish. Kasumi seemed to remember something that she needed to get and stood quickly, only to wince and fall back in the chair. He looked away from his nutrients-and-the-effect-of-gravity experiment and to her. "What’s wrong?" he said, genuine concern in his eyes. "Oh, nothing. It’s just this ankle. I suppose I should be easy on it. It’s strange, though..." "What?" he said. "Well," she continued, "it’s been a while since I twisted it, and it still hurts a lot. Sometimes, it hurts very badly, and I wonder if something is wrong with it. But then again, it hasn’t swollen very much at all." Satoshi had a look of contemplation on his face. "Actually, small things like twists can get all swollen, while bigger problems like fractures can go almost unnoticed—except for the pain, of course. Maybe you should have it checked out. After all, we are at a hospital." She sat for a second, surprised at his knowledge. She nodded. "I’ll do that. Maybe after that, I can pick up the Poochyena from the Pokemon center. I called Nurse Joy there, and he’s doing just fine." "Oh yeah. I almost forgot the little guy." "Girl," she corrected. "Whoever," he said. She giggled. Then, remembering more serious business, she cleared her throat. "The chief of police wants very much to talk to you, as soon as you are well enough." His heart skipped a beat. He had completely forgotten that the police might be involved in this whole mess. Actually, he had forgotten a lot of things. "Did they say what they want?" She smiled. "Don’t worry. They just want to talk to you." He tried to look bold. "Well, tell them I’m ready any time." He turned back to his meal. "Nothing here to see, anyway..." Just then, the news came on. Hello and good evening. My name is Rebecca Heilman and you are watching the Channel 03 Evening News. "Sounds German," Satoshi commented. Kasumi didn’t really care what they showed. She knew that the cameras had caught her at a bad time, before she had been able to clean herself up. She only looked down and rubbed the pendant. For the first time, she noticed the words carved into it: "Credula res amor est." They interested her, and she resolved to find the meaning—later. She wanted to see this segment. Tonight on our top story, two area teens are assaulted. However, our news tonight has a happy ending. At that moment, the screen switched to a video of the cars along the road, surrounded by yellow "DO NOT CROSS" tape, fluttering in the wind. We have an exclusive interview with both of them. Kasumi and Satoshi watched as both their interviews were played. In the interview, Kasumi had still been wearing her necklace and bandage on her cheek. All Kasumi got to say in the interview was "I was so scared." She frowned. She had said, "I was so scared for Satoshi when the weapon fired," and the news team had apparently truncated it. Satoshi got only a few more lines than she did.
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Kasumi sat. One of her shoelaces had come untied, but although she usually caught such things, she hadn’t yet noticed. She wasn’t so much worried as much as dying to know what was going on in the room. Her view through the window afforded a balding police official and a perpetually nodding Satoshi. Inside the room, Satoshi listened intently to what this man had to say. "Wow. That’s what I’ve got to say," the cop said. "I think you surprised everybody." "But... who were those guys?" The officer waved his hand, as if to dismiss them. "All locked up. Every one of them. Their leader used kids your age to do his work for him. Then, if they got caught, there was no way to trace it to him. All those guys that attacked you were just his petty thugs, working for the highest bidder, him, in this case. Thanks to you, though, we bagged them all." He nodded. "Your performance out there. It was stunning. I mean, way over the top. You know, I think we have a place for people like you. The best of the best." Satoshi blinked. "What? Me? Why?" "Because you’ve got what it takes. We need you. First of all, you’ve got true skills. You proved that by taking out all those goons. Second, you’ve sure got more than your share of courage even in the face of overwhelming danger. And third, you’ve got great instincts. And you know what?" He leaned in. "And you’re still only a kid. You’ve haven’t even been through training, which would surely increase your abilities." "Whoa. What’s it pay?" he asked. His guest simply slid him a folder. "Wow.. that’s pretty generous." The officer slapped a photo down. "For as long as you work for us, this is vehicle is yours to drive, both on the job and off. We can hire you as soon as your eighteenth birthday." Satoshi picked up the photo and stared at it. "Whoa... What are the specs on this thing?" he said, holding up the photo of the deep blue Mustang. "’96, 190 HP 3.8 liter V6. The engine features split-port induction, which helps optimize fuel use, and easy-flow cylinder heads with high-tech piston coatings, which help increase horsepower." "I must be the luckiest man on earth. I agree!" Then his smile faded. "Wait, what do I do?"
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The fading light of the sun lit his room a crimson hue as Kasumi hopped into Satoshi’s room on her crutches. Pikachu was snoring softly in his backpack tent. "Hey Satoshi. What’s going on?" He looked up from his magazine. "Kasumi! What happened?" She blushed a bit. "You were right. It was a fracture. I have to stay off it for a while. He really got on my case for walking on it for as long as I have been." She sat down in the olive-color chair, and her tear-drop pendant knocked against her chest. Satoshi was pleased that he was right, but he was also upset that she had injured herself. "So, tell me, what did your visitor have to say?" "He’s one of those recruiters. He works for the police. They want me to work for them. They need someone to work as an insider, and he says I’ve already got qualities they try to teach." "When do you begin?" she asked, a little worried that he might be taking a dangerous job. "When I turn eighteen. That’s four months, so I can take the summer off. I was thinking that as soon as I get out of here, I would go on a vacation." "A vacation?" she queried. "Yes. It’s been so long since... Well, I’ve decided to go on a Pokemon journey." "Are you serious?" she exclaimed. "Yes," he replied. "I was hoping that you’d be able to come with me, just like when we were kids." He dropped his eyes and ran them down her crutches. "Oh, it was a stupid idea anyway." She reached out her hand and placed it under his chin, lifting his eyes to hers. "Satoshi, it is not a stupid idea. As soon as I get off these," she said, gesturing to the crutches, "I’ll join you." "You mean it?" he said, hopefully. "Yes," she said, with the same determination that he had come to love. "We’ll have a Pokemon adventure. The only thing we need now is a chaperon." Satoshi nodded. "Okay, so, who?" "Oh, I have an idea who..."
Fin. Stay tuned for the next in the series!