The monotonous monotone that I’ve come to relate with diner music is not something I’ll forget very soon. I associate it with many things like of course sitting day after day in a hot eatery, greasy food and of course the first time I saw Misty after so many years.

It was strange how something can have so many flavours.

I remember the door opening accompanied with a hot gust of wind and a red headed woman. I recall returning to the dish of not Chinese chow mein without another thought and then through a mouthful of sticky noodle I looked at her again. I recall choking on the noodle.

The red head looked around. Her blue eyes touched lightly over the crowd.

I stood up. At that moment I felt ill. Was I really up to this? I felt as if I would vomit. Pikachu noted my suddenly green exterior.

“Kachu!” In short ‘she can’t see you like this!’

I realised this and began sneaking towards the door but she looked my way.

Sh-shoot.

I read her lips. As they drew back to say the dreaded word. “Ash?” She whispered.

I didn’t throw up. I smiled as hard as I good without revealing how hard my heart was beating in my chest. Or how I really wanted to kiss her. Or that I felt sorrow like I never had before. I wished I hadn’t lost those years with her. I wish I hadn’t done what I’d done.

She came up to me, a half smile becoming a full one.

“Ash. Long time no see.”

She seemed so distant. So indifferent as if we had seen each other the day before. If I wasn’t mistaken she even looked as if she had been crying. It was then that I noticed the dirt on her clothes, the raggedness of her appearance, and the almost dejectedness of her demeanour.

“What happened?” Was the first thing I said realising after I said it that it had two meanings. What happened to her and what happened to us?

She cracked another weak looking smile. “Nothing nothing. Let’s sit down.” She gestured to the table I had just vacated. I sat down just as she caught sight of Pikachu.

“Hey Pikachu! Oh I’ve missed you!” She caught him in a tight hug and before he returned it he gave me a sly almost imagined wink.

I gritted my teeth.

Misty released Pikachu and turned to look at me. “So…how have you been?”

I can only describe the next few seconds like those few minutes when you first meet somebody you haven’t seen for a long time and the conversation just doesn’t seem to come easily.

I gave her a rambled pointless sentence about how I was, about the weather I think and about the noodle I choked on when she walked in.

“Me too.” She replied and we sat quietly for a few seconds where both of us took the opportunity to look around as much as possible. I caught the waitress who had shouted at me a few days before’s eye. She smirked cruelly. As if to say serves you right.

“Ash? Why did you ask me here?” Misty asked suddenly. When I looked at her again her cheeks were slightly flushed. Perhaps she took my eye contact with the waitress as something else…

“No Misty it’s not what you think there’s nothing going on between me and her!”

She raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”

“Umm…nothing.” I slapped myself on the forehead.

Pikachu let out a cough that sounded more like a laugh.

She looked around again, and I wanted to kick myself.

Pikachu gave me a glance. “Pikachu!”

“I know.”

“Misty I’m really glad to see you again. I’ve really missed you and…I want to make things okay between us.”

Misty nodded slowly.

“First of all I’m sorry I left just like that. But I didn’t want to hurt you anymore Misty. I don’t think you deserve a guy like me. You don’t even know the whole story…”

Misty didn’t reply to this which made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what next to say.

“Ash, I want my Pokemon back, my box, I don’t have time to listen to excuses. Rapidash is out there and I don’t know if she’s okay.” Misty got up abruptly and scooped the box full of love letters and her pokeballs off the table.

“Wait what?” I said stunned. Misty was already half way out the door.

I ran and stood in front of her. She could not leave. I needed to tell her everything.

“Whatever it is Misty I’ll help you but you have to hear me out.” I said quickly.

Everything I’d imagined about this moment was gone. The romance, the excitement, the reconciliation and maybe even us getting back together. I couldn’t deny that I’d missed her. That I’d wanted to get back together for everyday that we’d been apart.

Maybe it was this desperation that she saw in me that made her stay. I wouldn’t know I’ve never been able to understand Misty. She was like the ocean a huge depthless conundrum.

She hesitated.

And I, grateful that she showed some sign of feeling towards me, grateful that she was justifying my desperation with something other than rejection, kissed her.