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Lysandre and I were close friends, at least from my perspective. We met in Shalour City when I was training at the Tower of Mastery and he was there chasing after some adventure or another. We hit it off really well. Back then he still had stars in his eyes about achieving something great and helping those in need. I admired that about him.

I, on the other hand, wasn't sure what my goal was at that point in my life. I knew that I wanted to learn more about Mega Evolution and conduct my own research into the phenomenon, but I just wasn't cut out for a hands-on approach at the Tower of Mastery. It wasn't that my bond with my pokemon was lacking; I just wasn't the battling type.

Gurkinn was kind enough to give me the Gible that was being raised there for research and used for training so that I could continue my own studies with a dedicated partner. It was the same Gible who eventually evolved into Garchomp and became my closest pokemon partner. It was a peculiar match up to be sure, but nobody could deny our synchrony when we started working together.

Lysandre and I kept in touch over the years, significantly more so when we both took up residents in Lumiose City. I can't deny that I had begun to fancy him a bit. He was so engaging to listen to, so passionate about his thoughts and feelings—it was hard not to develop something of a soft spot for a man like that. I kept those feelings to myself, though, for fear of disrupting the friendship we had forged.

That is, until a particularly frustrating night at the lab when I had hit a solid wall in my research and it seemed like I had come to a dead end altogether (which happened more often than I cared to admit; the constant sleep deprivation wasn't exactly conducive to productive study). I broke out my expensive wine, intent on drinking myself to sleep since I knew I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about my research long enough to fall asleep myself, and proceeded to send Lysandre an incredibly embarrassing Holo-clip.

Before I knew it, he showed up at the lab and all but dragged me to bed by force. Well, we almost made it to the bed, anyway. I, of course, being the drunken, lovesick, pathetic sack of crap that I was, tried to return the favour by dragging him into the bedroom with me, but I fell short of that goal when we stumbled against my desk and fuck did it hurt when I hit my elbow on that stapler. In my drunken stupor, all I could think about was wanting to make something happen, something to take my mind off of how much of a failure I felt like at the time. Whatever it was had turned out to be messy and awkward and not at all how I had fantasized making a move on Lysandre would have gone.

In spite of all my self-inflicted humiliation, though, there was still a moment in which he looked at me, his hands clasped somewhere on my body and barely holding me upright, and in that moment, I saw the want in his eyes. Not just desire, but affection, worry, conflict. Even considering how inebriated I was, that expression remains etched into my memory to this day.

Nothing came of it, of course. Lysandre, unlike myself, was a reasonable and responsible man (in most walks of life, that is) who would never allow himself to take advantage of someone like that, even if he had known of the way I felt for him at the time. Instead, he helped me to bed, sent for an assistant to check up on me in the morning, and put in a word with the barista at his cafe to give me a free cup of coffee when I inevitably stopped by the next day. He wasn't there—I wasn't expecting him to be—but the gesture settled deep within my heart as if he had done all of those things himself.

I pretended not to remember what had happened that night after the fact, much to Lysandre's apparent relief. Once he was convinced that I suspected nothing, he stopped walking on eggshells around me and we gradually returned to our usual routine. Work, meet for coffee twice a week, regular visits to the lab, repeat. Knowing what I knew then, it all felt a smidge lacking, but it was familiar and nice, so I didn't let myself dwell for too long on the unspoken truths between us.

Finding out about Lysandre's involvement in Team Flare was one truth I wished had remained unspoken. To call it a heart-wrenching discovery would be putting it lightly. "Disappointed" didn't even begin to cover the potpourri of emotions I was dealing with. The hardest truth of all was that I still loved him. Yes, I still loved him, and even now I can't bring myself to say that it was wrong of me. I was in love with the man I had met a little over a decade ago, who had shown me how bright and kind his heart could be, the man I knew to be inside him still.

Loving him didn't mean that I didn't hate what he had done and what he was going to do, though.