A Dream, A Destiny 2

What if

Ash POV

I woke up with my mom on my mind for two consecutive mornings after I told Sere about her. It was an occupational hazard, but it still made the pain of not knowing her that much deeper. Usually, I tried to pretend like she had never existed because honestly, how much does it suck to know that your own mother is out there somewhere but you can't get in touch with her and vice versa, no matter how you want to? Whenever I happened to talk about her at length I walked around in a daze for a few days after that, just thinking about her. Where she was, what she was doing, wondering if she ever thought about me at all...

Times like those, I wished grandad was still alive, just so I could ask him more about my real mom. Selfish, I know, but I didn't exactly have a choice. All dad ever said about mom was crazily cryptic and right now, I didn't have the brain power to decipher it. My grandad had been the only member of the Ketchum family who made an effort to talk to me when I was younger and went to the family summer home in Kanto with my dad.

When my grandad was confined to his bed after his first stroke, I went to visit him several times a week and he started telling me stories about his life and how forcing dad to marry my mom was the worst thing grandad Ketchum could have done.

"Your father didn't love her at all, you see," he would explain to me in his weak, reedy voice that almost sound he has a bad cough. "All he had been interested in was the sex. He didn't think he would be stuck with her after that. Your poor mother kept hope alive, but she never had a chance to make him love her."

All those thoughts started to depress me and on the second morning, Monday, I got out of my untidy bed and let out a loud yawn as I stretched my arms out in air reaching out as I high as possible, hellbent on doing something to banish the images of my mom and grandad from my mind.

After taking a long hot shower and changing, I took Leaf to the Playgarden for the whole morning and most of the afternoon. Fulfilling my brotherly duties and having fun with my awesome little sister at the same time- how cool was that?

We got home at around 3pm but dad was expecting some 'VIP' guests and Hope was flitting around the penthouse nervously, making sure everything was perfect. There was no way I was going to hang out in such a tense environment, so I decided to bring out my inner stalker and go meet up with Sere when school was out.

Hopefully, I wouldn't run into Calem. Now that was bound to be awkward.

The instant Sere was out of Lumiose grounds, she spotted me outside near the steel gates and veered in my direction with a hesitant smile on her face. Up close, she looked tired with a scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, covering up her skin which was really strange due to the warm weather tickling around my skin.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" she asked curiously as I gave her a hug, burying my face into her short hair. "Are you here to appeal?" She said near to my ear.

"What?" I asked, confused for a second as I pulled back and looked right into her face while realising on what she meant. "Oh, you mean appeal to get back in to Lumiose? No." I shook my head. "My dad already had a talk with Principal Oak. He refused to let me back in."

Sere sighed, her eyes turned worried. "I can't imagine how your dad reacted."

"Not too well," I said flippantly. Well, apart from warning Principal Oak that he would personally get him fired. But that was only to be expected.

"What are you going to do about school?" Sere asked, a note of concern in her voice.

"Nothing, right now. Even if I went to another school, I wouldn't be able to concentrate because of these damn headaches," I said, coming as close as I would ever come to admitting that sometimes I couldn't even think when my head was thumping. "But enough of that. Where are you going?" I asked, wanting to know what she does after school. Maybe we could hang out together and spend with each other more often.