6 years later...

"And now, we would like to congratulate the three-hundred graduates for six months of hard work and dedication at our beloved police academy."

Applauds and cheers echoed through the packed auditorium. As it bounced off the walls, it seemed to amplify the sound into the graduates' poor ears, already sore from all of the constant bickering and hollering from their teachers for the past half year. Yet they all stood still, very well trained to tolerate any annoyances and pains that they had to suffer through. This was nothing; they'd been through much worse.

The announcer cleared his throat, flashing a proud smile. "As many of you know, this year, we have selected ten students out of these many fine graduates who will be serving their first years as official officers for the Alolan Police Force for a chance to rise above and beyond the ranks. These individuals had poured their heart and soul through our grueling training and were deemed some of the highest-ranked students that have passed through our school to date." The older man took a pause to adjust the papers that were placed in front of him on the mahogany podium. "Without farther adieu, let's welcome our first two graduates on the stage, Shin Harper and Terry Wolfhart!"

The two robust young men made their way towards the front of the stage towards the podium, forcing themselves to keep a straight face to not express their overflowing pride. Their name tags were splendidly presented on their right breast and shimmered with mounds of heightened experience. A woman dressed in a royal purple blouse and black bell-bottom pants walked cheerfully to the two men, handing each of them a neatly rolled diploma and carefully pinning a radiant golden badge to their chest on top of their ebony vests.

Claps filled the room once more, and a distant cheer of a tired woman in the audience resulted in a flush of pink on Shin's face. He saluted ambiguously in her direction, secretly as content as he could be. His good friend followed his lead, this time, not afraid to show his excitement to the crowd. "THAT'S MY TERRY!" a wild cry from beside the other woman rumbled from the mass of people. "I LOVE YOU!"

"Ah, Mom...!" Terry muttered quietly so that no one would hear. Shin, however, couldn't help but chuckle at his teammate's embarrassed expression.

"Mama's boy," he jeered playfully.

Terry responded with a defiant grin. "Says you, tomato berry." Shin scoffed and mirrored his smile.

Shin knew that Terry would have taken his head and ruffled his sleek black hair if they hadn't been in the formal situation they were in now. However, this was a jubilant day for the young man. As he looked on at the leviathan crowd that stood before him, the flashing lights of their phones and cameras waving in his face, he couldn't stop thinking of his times leading up to this wonderful day. How much he wanted to enroll in the police force as a child made his heart swell with bittersweet nostalgia. He soon felt another smile surface onto his lips, the sound of the announcer's voice fading into the background as he took it all in.

Finally.

He had done something right.

After another grueling half hour of student recognition, the two boys along with their peers headed down from the stage to greet their loved ones. Shin couldn't help but burst into light laughter as Terry was bombarded with his entire family. Their strawberry hair all seemed to form a distinct patch within the crowd of people. Soon, the young man had spotted his mother's silk black hair which was tied neatly in a braided ponytail for the occasion. As her eyes finally caught onto her son's, she flew over to his embrace joyfully, burying her eyes on his chest. "Oh, honey, I'm so proud of you!" she sighed contently.

Shin could feel her hot breaths on his clothes, beaming. "Thanks, Mom." The woman pulled back after a few moments with drops of tears in the corners of her eyes. She casually wiped them away with her thumb and placed her hands on his shoulders.

"What on Earth did I ever do to deserve you in my life?" she found herself whispering. The young man could distinguish the familiar solemness in her expression, even if it had begun to wane away over the years, and it pained him just as much to yearn to see her somehow smile, even if it were for a second.

He smirked, looking away. "You did everything you had to," he replied warmly, pulling her in for another hug. He felt her shake her head in his arms.

"There was much more a mother could have done." Her voice was melancholic, yet radiant in a way, which sent a pleasant feeling through Shin's body. The two stood silently together until the man heard his mother speak quietly. "I'm so sorry about back then." He found his charcoal eyes blinking monotonously at her words. "If I could give anything in the world to make that day right--"

"Mom, please..." Shin's tone relaxed as he spoke. "I've forgiven you already. I know you were just trying to protect me." His mother tightened her grip firmly and exhaled as if a weight of her life had been relieved from her existence.

"You're a good son," she murmured placidly. "Your father would have been so proud of you if he were here."

He felt a cold dagger pierce him as she said this. It shuddered all throughout his soul, and once again, he felt like the stranded child he used to be. His eyes shut, praying for the feeling to pass over like it always did when suddenly, rapid footsteps came pacing towards him.

"Hey, Shin!" Terry's voice called from behind him. The mother and son abruptly drew away from each other as the other man came bounding over to them. He ran his fingers through his short fiery locks as his eyes bristled with excitement. "My family's having a dinner party back at my place! Do you and your mom want to join us?" Shin glanced hopefully at his mother, who grinned brightly in response.

"That would be lovely, Terry," she beamed. "Thank you so much."

_______________________________

Ambient chatters mingled through the room as the two families heartily ate. Stories were thrown on each side of the table back to the other of hilarious travels and outrageous memories that were shared throughout their lives. Terry, especially, almost tore the room apart as he recounted his wild adventures with Shin at the academy. He spoke in such a tone that encaptured each person all throughout his tales, even if they were hard to believe. Even his mother laughed along with the Wolfharts as Terry stole the spotlight with their shenanigans.

"And while we were out with the others at endurance training, I never noticed that Shin unlocked the door... and then, bam! " the redhead exclaimed with gusto, pounding his fist into his other hand. "O'Malley tackled him over and almost ripped his pants open trying to find that malasada!" Energetic chuckles echoed all around, and all Shin could manage to do was nod embarrassingly with pepper-heated cheeks at the repressed recollections of his entertaining failures. The poor man wanted to knock himself unconscious.

Dammit, Terry... he found himself repeating again and again in his head.

"Shin, why didn't you tell me about this?" Shin's mother inquired, wiping a tear from her eye as she tried her best to calm down from the fit of laughter.

"Oh, Becky, leave him be!" Terry's mother teased from the other side of the table, handing her husband a spoonful of roasted pomeg berries. "Shin is a fine boy. Terry made sure to tell me so many wonderful things about him too during our calls!"

"I mean, that's all we ever heard from Terry anyway," a younger girl sharing the same peachy hair as her family snickered nonchalantly. "'Shin this, Shin that! Shin's so cool!'"

Terry revealed his gritted teeth, and Shin found his opportunity to strike.

"Oh, so you talked about me?" he mused to his friend, nearing him tauntingly. "And I was 'cool'?"

"Listen, it was out of pity," Terry argued defiantly. "When you met my family, I had to make sure you had a good impression on them at least..." With that, he shot a penetrating glare at his sister. Fiery resilience surged through his apricot eyes, which made Shin grin internally: He found it so amusing when they did that. Shin decided ultimately to let it go, ending the conflict with a knowing shrug and a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

"Hey, boys," Terry's father spoke up after the discord. "Since you two are almost full-fledged adults, why don't you both sleep over here? Live out your last days as kids again before you're thrust into the dark world of taxes and house evictions." The man earned himself a light slap from his wife, but the woman soon turned her joking frown into a bright smile.

"The sleepover part sounds wonderful! How about it, Becky?" Shin's mother, to Shin's surprise, nodded in agreement without much hesitation.

"Sure thing," she replied. "Shin, you brought your bag, right?" Her son bobbed his head and pointed at the beaten up duffle bag in the corner of the house with six months-worth of equipment. "Perfect, I trust you can drive yourself home tomorrow for lunch?"

"Of course," he responded. He looked over to Terry, who's lips curved in pure excitement.

After meals were finished and the dishes were cleaned, the two friends ambled over to Terry's bedroom to isolate themselves from the social mass of familiars. Although Terry had never bothered to clean up his strewn clothes and items (he explained that it was an "organized mess"), his festively decorated room still provided just the right amount of space for them to lay out a large fluffy blanket and some pillows on the carpeted floor. When they were changed and showered, they finally laid on the makeshift bed as they dove into an ebullient conversation of close memories.

"I hate how you're the only one who understands how I felt in these situations, yet you choose to share them with literally everyone we meet," Shin expressed flatly.

"I gotta say, it's always been a good conversation-starter," Terry almost sang in response. Shin found himself cringing at the recollections of his mother's laughter.

"Did you have to tell them the one about your Incineroar?" he questioned feverishly as he rested his head on his folded arms.

Terry grinned wildly. "Oh come on, remember how many laughs we got out of the training session that day? At this point, it's practically a Sherry classic!"

"A... what?"

"You know, Shin? Terry? Our names put together?"

"God, I wish I never met you."

Terry playfully punched Shin's shoulder and the two snickered before staring up at the pale ceiling in comfortable silence. They enjoyed these moments where neither one of them spoke. The two had become so used to each other's presence that they didn't mind, even for someone as talkative as Terry. Shin would shut his eyes and listen to the ringing ambiance of the room.

It was soothing, to say the least, that he was able to relish these times knowing someone was there with him to share it. It gave him a warm sense of reassurance. "Speaking of, it feels like yesterday that we first met each other," Terry pondered out loud, breaking the stillness.

Shin grunted in accord. "What were you even doing to end up on the ground all like that?"

The redhead sighed, stretching his milky beige arms out. "Relaxing." Shin glared at him. "...Jogging."

"That was a lot of mud on you. You were practically a Grimer." Shin swept some of the clustered of black hair out of his face to let them fall to the side of his scalp.

"I hate getting dirty, and then there you went, picking me up like you knew me already." his friend grumbled.

After a few more moments of quiet, Terry shifted uneasily. "Thanks."

"Thanks?" Shin repeated.

"For helping me back then." Shin turned his head to overlook Terry, whose face was tilted away from his to hide his expression, which he knew was trying to save his pride. "For a lot, actually." Shin patted his friend's arm encouragingly, resulting in a relieved exhale from Terry.

"Any time," Shin replied.

"...You wanna know something?" Terry's voice was filled with bursting anticipation.

"Hm?" Shin closed his eyes once more and opened his ears.

"When I started my island trials," Terry began. "I was so eager to get out there into the world and explore every nook and cranny. And everything came to me like instinct, you know?" Shin felt the boy turn over so that his back laid flat on the ground. Terry then raised his hand up, and within it sat a red pokéball nestled in between his fingers. He tilted the capsule as if he were navigating the stars to let it reflect the dim light of the lamp beside them. "I always thought it would be me and O'Malley against the world, and that we would eventually fight that champion of Alola and sit on that throne like a badass," he remarked gleefully. "But as time went on, I became scared of where I would end up. Scared of when I would end in general, and the friends I would lose along the way to get there. As a kid, you never notice these things...

And when it happens to you, it's just terrifying."

A chilled hush passed over the two.

"Well, I never thought I'd be able to end up here after all that," Terry concluded.

"I don't think anyone ever knows where they'll end up." Shin's voice was unnaturally monotoned. He felt a familiar numbness gnawing at his legs, but Terry, sensing the uneasiness flowing within Shin, suddenly flipped over to meet his face.

"Hey, at least I got to meet you! And O'Malley evolved into an Incineroar thanks to that pokédex journal you brought in." Terry's eyes brightened up once more like dry wood to a fireplace. "And now that I'm about to be in the Alolan Police Force with you like we dreamed of, honestly, I wouldn't want to trade this for anything!"

"Not even to be a badass on a stone chair?" Shin joked after a pause.

Terry tugged at his lips, beaming slyly. "I'll think about it. Maybe you're worth sacrificing for that seat." That was when Terry suddenly jerked up, his eyes widening as if he had seen a ghost. "Oh crap! I need to fill out my partner application!" He threw back the covers onto Shin's face and dashed over to his bed where a small stack of papers rested on his mattress.

Shin scoffed, hogging the rest of the sheets for his body. "You have fun with that," he mumbled.

"You're not sending in a partner application?" Terry asked as he grabbed a pen from his oak desk.

"I told you, I don't have a Pokémon." Shin shuffled his clammy feet under the heat of the blankets, and Terry took this time to look back at him concerningly.

"The station can always lend you one." he offered. "Trust me, it'll be so much easier having one around with you."

Shin found himself biting the sides of his mouth as a vexing taste entered it. "I'll be fine." Terry cocked his head.

"Have you ever even had a Pokémon before?"

Silence.

Shin felt the silence like a long lost friend had returned back from the grave. His lips began to quiver with the swarm of emotions that entered his system, and the covers on top of him seemed to be giving off lava instead of mere heat now. The shadows of his past began to lunge for his head. It hurt.

Then, he heard the frantic pattering of steps and the desperate screaming of a child echoing in his mind.

His body did its best to fight it off-- It was a bitter, boiling feeling that crossed him when he finally opened his mouth again.

"I don't want a Pokémon."

Shin's voice couldn't help but show off a hint of irritation despite him trying to mask it. Terry took this as a sign to back off, giving his focus back to his paperwork.

"Suit yourself."

_______________________________

Soon, night befell the two men. Exhausted from their celebration, they decided to sleep early. As they each attempted to shut their eyes and surrender to the dream world, they both found that they couldn't, no matter how hard they tried. They knew why too.

Shin couldn't take it any longer. He turned on his other side to Terry's back. "I'm sorry," he said, his breaths husky.

Terry mirrored his actions, his face almost panicked. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't know that would bother you so much."

The two stared at each other deeply, trying to understand one another's current feelings as best they could as to not hurt the other. It was Terry who snapped back into control and cleared his throat. "You don't have to talk about it, whatever it is. I'll try to ask when you're ready." He pulled the covers over his face and laid still.

"...You're going to suffocate."

"Shut up." Terry's muffled sound came from under the mass of fabric. Shin rolled his eyes and yanked the sheet free from his friend. He then turned over to give him the space he needed to calm down.

"I guess I was just nervous about tomorrow," he suddenly heard himself fabricating, a cloud of guilt gathering within him. "But... I know we'll get through this officer thing together."

There was a brief pause before the voice answered back to him.

"You promise?" Terry murmured.

"I promise. See you later, Ter."

"See you later, Shin."

He smiled.