Months later...

Speckles of amber dotted the pavement next to the department building from the glints of the golden star that adorned it. The newly installed border of green behind it cast a hue of emerald. It danced on the points of the shape like the gentle waves of a stream carrying a school of young Magikarp.

The low rumble of a taxi cab pulling up to the large parking lot of the facility filled the air, and the rubber tires crackled and popped against the asphalt beneath it.

"This is your stop," the driver announced to her passengers. She turned to face the man in the back seat. "Are you sure you don't need help with anything else?"

"I'm sure," he responded, placing some money into her palm. "Thank you so much." With that, he turned to face the glass pane beside him, staring out into the marvelous setting before him.

His partner, who was sitting patiently throughout the ride, trotted up to the door, placing his feet onto the edge of his matted seat. His new vest in which he wore proudly jingled with its metal hooks and cables, the Galloway words of "APF Service Pokémon" glistening with its white stitches against the sunlight.

"It's our first day," the man muttered hopefully into the window of the car. He eyes were filled with a hazed anxiousness that caused his partner to nudge him with reassurance. He returned his gesture with a small rub on the head. "You ready?"

With that, the two exited the vehicle. Steadily, the officer made his way towards the doors of the building with the Pokémon by his side, just in case if he lost his balance on the way, and pushed open the glass doors. He took a deep breath as he stepped foot onto police territory as if the finest sand were brushing up against his leather shoes. A small smile crept onto his face.

Finally. I'm here.

Instead of heading to the mission room, he found himself hurrying towards the back of the building, where the plants rustled with lush greenery and wild Pokémon.

There was a faint chattering in the courtyard, housing many of the new, inexperienced officers that had just been recruited into the police force, all eager to begin their daring assignments. In smaller clusters, some older officers stood mingling amongst themselves. Their gruff voices shared lively conversations and chuckles that danced around the area.

Taking a deep breath, the officer neared one of the groups in the hopes of getting their attention. One of the individuals, a lean young woman with piercing blue eyes and her silky blonde hair up in a sleek ponytail, stared up at him, a stunned emotion surfacing upon her collected face for only a brief moment. Her eyes drifted as if she were caught askance, thinking of how to address the situation. She then gently tapped the man next to her and pointed hastily towards the newcomer.

When the redhead turned to face the direction, his eyes widened with complete disbelief. He ceased all previous movement as his sight only rested on the man before him.

Slowly, but surely, his feet moved forward, his golden gaze still locked onto him. He could only give a short glance at the barren stump that had now replaced his left arm, draped with white bandages to cover the bareness of the lost limb.

In the blink of an eye, he launched himself into his chest, his arms wrapping tightly around his abdomen. He subconsciously began burying his flushed cheeks into the dark fabric of the other's uniform, the feeling of heat rising into his irises.

The young man looked down at him, surprised.

"What's with this? You just visited me a week ago," he remarked. It was then that soft hiccups coursed through the redhead's body, and the man could soon feel a patch of warmth growing from where his eyes were hidden on his shirt. He felt his muscles tense. "Are... you crying?"

"It's just different seeing you at the station, okay?" the muffled voice of his friend replied against him.

"That doesn't answer anything..."

"Shut up, Shin."

The male used his right hand to brush away the black strands of hair that lingered across his face, a warm smile making its way onto his pink lips. With a quiet exhale from his nose, he placed his arm around the shorter man's shoulder, holding him tightly up to his body. They stood there in silence for what seemed to be hours, refusing to let the other go in fear of losing them again, and like they always loved, they relished in the stillness that lingered around them. For the first time in a while, they felt, the thunderclouds within their minds dissipated and cleared, sending with it a wash of much-needed peacefulness

However, as if something had shocked the redhead, he jerked away, giving a light shove against Shin's collarbone to distance himself. His face melted into one of hurt callousness. "Sorry, I'm still trying to learn to be less... 'codependent.'" His eyes narrowed like he was being mocked, a dash of sarcasm tainting his forced hopeful tone. Shin could sense an uneasiness of guilt and regret sink into his aching heart: Terry still hadn't recovered from their argument.

He bit his lip, shooting his eyes away. "Terry, you know I didn't mean--"

"Stop. I don't want to talk about it right now." Terry interrupted bluntly. An awkwardness settled onto them. Neither of them had the confidence to break the atmosphere until a concerned whine filled their ears. Both men looked down at the Lycanroc at Shin's feet, staring at the two intently and studying their actions. It was then that a warm smirk crossed Terry's face. He reached down and offered the Pokémon his hand.

"Is this the Anonymous I've heard about?" he inquired as Anonymous carefully sniffed his fingers.

Shin nodded in reply. "The one and only." With that, he watched as the canine rested his muzzle onto Terry's palm and let out a sound that resembled a low purr. Terry's fingers began to move, tenderly scratching his fluffy chin without any disturbances. "I'm impressed. This is the first time he's been so welcoming to another human." Shin breathed, slightly taken aback at the interaction he was witnessing.

He probably feels how close you and I are...

Terry kept his gaze onto the Lycanroc's bright blue eyes, almost entranced by their color.

"So this is your Pokémon," his friend breathed. "It's about time you had one." Shin blinked at his reaction, not sure of what to make of it. Despite his wording, his comment wasn't as scolding as he expected it to be; it was as if Terry was finally relieved of something horrible. He straightened up after one more pet on Anonymous' ears, his mouth dry. "I heard he got to stay in your room after he recovered to wait for you to wake up."

Shin stroked the Pokémon's mane. "Sure did. Every single day after that too," he remarked, earning an encouraging smile from Anonymous. "He was by my side 'till the day they released me."

"You guys have a strong bond despite everything that happened; I respect that a lot. I know you two'll be fine together, especially with that cool morphing power of his." Terry laughed softly, sparking a flame of hope in Shin's chest.

Maybe this was his chance.

"You know, next to Anonymous, you were always visiting me at the hospital, Ter," he said nonchalantly, all the while begging for some sort of reaction from his troubled friend, but to no avail. Terry only shrugged, letting out a gentle scoff as he kept his curved lips positioned. His response was short and numb.

"Yeah, you're right."

Then, Shin found that Terry's sight had rested onto the bandaged limb on his left side. His beam subsided like an echo in a valley, and his blazing yellow eyes died as they absorbed the tragedy that afflicted his friend's well-built body. He began to reach out his hand to examine the injury, but restrained himself, using his other arm to push it back to his side. "I never asked," Terry began hesitantly. "Why did they choose to... do that?"

Shin sighed, casting a glance at his handicap. "The bite severed the brachial arteries and some broken rock shards were lodged into them. They couldn't get the debris out without hurting me, and that's when they..." He couldn't bear to continue with his explanation. Instead, he brushed his fingers against the bump that replaced his elbow with an expression of uncertainty.

It was a devastating feat having to live without his arm, but for some odd reason, it never did feel "gone." It felt a part of him in a way, like a phantom following him every pressing hour. He noticed the visitors and doctors that had passed by his room every day consciously trying to tear their looks away from his arm. Even his own mother, when she came to visit, could not fathom to turn away from his amputation. But her words of reassurance and her look of pride as she saw Anonymous at Shin's side again for the first time in years was more than enough to send a wave of peace through him.

Anonymous had been extremely cautious when around his partner, making sure not to make him feel uncomfortable in any way. While awake, he aided the man with traveling from one place to another around the rehab center, catching him if he ever stumbled off balance. At night, the Lycanroc would stand guard by the foot of his hospital bed as he healed in his sleep, secretly praying that his attack did not wind up with him dead in the morning. Everything couldn't help but remind Shin of when he had once so carefully taken Anonymous in on that fateful day to treat his injuries. That innocent little boy with only his father's equipment to help him, rushing around the house to find items of comfort, chasing wildly into the woods to make sure the Rockruff wouldn't reopen its wounds or be frightened of another harmless Pokémon.

It all seemed like a lifetime ago. Indeed, it was. But Shin had accepted that he was a new person with an open arm. Though he knew it could never truly settle within him that he was not the same individual as he was before, he rested assured that the one Pokémon he had always longed for was finally with him once again.

"Officer Harper, good to see you back on your own two feet." a masculine voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts. Shin and Terry turned to see the familiar faces of Charles and Jaderine coming their way. The two men stood poised in their presence.

"Thank you, sir," Shin replied simply. "The doctors cleared me for resuming my tasks at the APF, so I'm willing to head out whenever you need me."

"Well, with that Lycanroc by your side, I'm sure you'll do fine as usual," Charles beamed, giving a firm pat on Shin's back. The young man couldn't help but answer the call of the anxiety flowing throughout his mind. His feet shuffled.

"How are the mutated Pokémon doing?" he inquired, praying that he would get a positive answer.

To his surprise, Charles kept up his bright smile, now revealing a hint of resolution. "They're all fine. The Nurse Joys are all doing their best to heal them from their trauma, but we've had no casualties so far."

Shin exhaled with gracious amounts of relief. "I'm so glad..."

"No worries, Harper. We understand why you did it, so don't get all riled up about it anymore. All you need to worry about right now is you." he reassured with all of the acceptance in the world. "What you need is a distraction from all that. In fact, Jaderine, you have some cases, right? Why don't you give one to Shin here so he can start early?" As the man began walking away, he took the chance to stop himself, turning around to face Shin once more. He caused the younger man to cock his head, perplexed.

"Sir? Is there something wrong?" Shin asked feverishly. Charles simply chuckled under his breath, shutting his eyes as if to recall a distance memory.

"It's nothing. Looking at you a bit closer just reminded me of a kid a helped a long time ago... Ah, forget about it. Keep up the good work, Harper. You made us proud."

With a bright grin, he exited the other direction back into the building, the glass doors shutting behind him. All that they could see was his bouncy brown curls fade away into the darkness of the room.

Jaderine's glossy green eyes darted to Shin. She held her gaze before reaching into the manilla folder under her arm and pulling out a packet of papers neatly paperclipped together into a flabby brick. "We have a local theft nearby. A woman lost her purse to a man in a camo hoodie and a gray winter hat. Says that he ran north," she clarified, her tone in her usual raspy manner. "This shouldn't be too tedious. Just remember that this place is a respectable establishment. We won't tolerate any misbehaviors now that you have a partner,"

Before Shin could respond, he watched as Terry's eyes flared to life like a Litwick's ghostly ember. He pressed his leather shoe onto the crunchy grass.

"I think Shin and Anonymous are the least of your concerns," he retorted. Jaderine raised a powdered eyebrow in bewilderment.

"Excuse me?" she snapped in a ring much like a Seviper's poison, but Terry persisted.

"With the way you act towards your subordinates, I think you're considering yourself a hypocrite with your explicit 'misbehaviors.'"

Red rushed to Jaderine's facial features, all burning with embarrassment and hatred. She hissed, crossing her arms and clawing at her elbows with her long, ruby nails. "They should have never appointed someone as immature and incompetent as you as head of the fire brigade."

Terry sneered flippantly-- the kind of look, Shin knew, that only the old, normal Terry would wear. The redhead shrugged his shoulders.

"But I am now, aren't I? And as head of the fire brigade, you have no right of getting rid of me unless you want to lose contact with the fire department for the next two months," he retaliated. An exaggerated gasp soon escaped him and he brought his hands up to his cheeks in simulated mortification. "Oh! And then! What if another underground lab bursts into flames? And I'm not there to call the heroes of that unfortunate incident to save the day as I did oh so long ago? Without the backup, dear Chief Executive Jaderine, you might as well call yourself a bonafide murderer! Oh, the misery!"

Jaderine's skin was as red as a cherri berry and spiced to the core with boiling vexation. Shin never imagined someone like her could show such uncontrollable wrath. He couldn't help but wait for her to finally explode with steam and fire, yet, with a growl of unkempt rage, the older woman stormed away for the rest of the day, leaving him with a guilty feeling of disappointment in his stomach.

How he wanted to see those fireworks Terry had so fearlessly lit.

After a brief moment of recuperation, Terry faced Shin once more, his face still wild with excitement at his stunt. "Showed her!" he cried gleefully, resulting in a giggle from Shin's throat.

Then something occurred to the jet-haired man. He paused, cocking his head at his friend curiously.

"Wait, 'explicit misbehaviors?'" he repeated. "Did you mean when she...?" Terry pursed his lips, his pupils hovering to the corners of his eyes. "You... saw all that?"

"I saw a lot of things," Terry answered flatly. Shin stepped forward as the epiphany in his head began to bloom rapidly.

"Is that why you were so angry?" he asked feverishly. "Is that why you brought her up when we fought?" Terry started to fidget his fingers, yet his legs stood perfectly still. He stayed mute as if he were trying to hold back his answer, and Shin could only pull back in bafflement at his odd reaction. "Then why, Ter? I'm done with this tension between us— it's been three months... I want to know. I want to fix all this, please."

There was a solid minute of silence that parted the two like the sea. Terry's eyes blinked and darted around rapidly, his brain's gears churning within him to craft his next sentences. Shin waited patiently for an eternity.

Then the other man spoke.

"Fine. You want to know why I was pissed off?" His question came sharply like a knife, causing Shin to flinch. "Do you have any idea of what I had to go through when you left? Any idea of the consequences I imagined you'd face?!" Terry's body began to tremble. "I couldn't stop panicking about you... I called the entire emergency brigade for God's sake!"

The jet-haired man felt sticky sweat form on his nose. Tendrils of heat brushed against his forehead like a swarm of Beedrill. He couldn't find any words to argue against him— it was impossible. Never had he saw his friend angry. Not like this.

Terry squinted at him furiously, eyebrows furrowing. "The way your mind works is absolute insanity! You put yourself at risk like that just out of pure instinct...!" he resumed, his breathing shaky and intense. He found his teeth biting his lower lip until pale streaks outlined his lower mouth. "You managed to save Anonymous, but...! What the hell was that, huh? Is life something you'd just throw away?!"

Shin was forced to step back as Terry began to advance towards him with his hands waving aimlessly, his feet prowling like a predator's. The two never took their gazes off of each other, more so that they were too anxious to. The redhead's neck seemed to be veining, and Shin slowly caught on that it was in a desperate attempt to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat, as he began to choke on his next words.

"And then I got there."

His mere statement was tryingly squeezed through the tightening passages of his neck; It barely made it through as vibrations, turning into a sound of a hurt, whining Pokémon on the streets.

"...And they dragged you out of that fire... and there was blood everywhere... You weren't breathing... Your heart stopped...

They told me you would die."

Everything ripped through the flesh of Shin's heart and let it bleed its horrible, agonizing death. In front of him, his entire world was crumbling, shivering down to its knees and sobbing its boiling blood. If it weren't enough already, he could spot the glossiness of his friend's golden irises as it slowly painted his shimmering eyes.

And Shin, too, could begin to experience a faint sensation around his face.

"I couldn't think of anything else but that promise we made! The fact that you would swear something like that with someone like me... That's what kept me going every day after!"

The corners of Terry's lips trembled, and a streak of water ran down his flushing cheeks. It caressed his chin and trickled into a small transparent gem to be delivered to the ground below. His emotion was completely raw as if someone had broken his ribs and drove him to hunch forward and clutch his heaving chest.

"...And then... that?!" His voice wavered with an unending battle of rage and despair. "Did you think I'd accept that you almost left me?! Did you think I wouldn't feel anything?! Did you know how scared I was?!"

The man was wailing. His holler reverberated in his ears like a clap of thunder, such was his rage. It was a roar of pure anger.

He had no care that Shin was watching.

He had no care that anyone was watching.

He shut his eyes desperately.

"I almost lost you that night! I... I thought I was going to die too!"

Words fled from Shin's mind as soon as it entered. His insides were as numb as ghosts. He felt nothing at all when his mouth began to move. "Terry... I never thought you'd be--"

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

The male's sudden shout hushed the other into complete quiet. All that was heard were the soft chokes and hiccups that were emitted from Terry.

"The shit Jaderine did doesn't matter to me anymore!" he suddenly yowled as if he had never cried in his entire life. "What you said before you left... that was all bullshit! I'm independent! I know damn well I can handle myself without someone to babysit me!

But after what happened, I know something else pretty damn well...!"

The man's fists clenched tightly as blurt out his next words:

"...That I can't live my life without you!"

His cheeks burned as red as a ruby, and heat practically steamed from his body. He looked as if he were set on fire by a bouquet of flames that encompassed his entire face.

Flustered embarrassment blinded him, yet a defiant ring in his cry announced a determined finality that rendered the whispers of the cool air speechless.

"I need you, Shin! I need you!"