Ash and I made our way to homeroom together. We walked down the cool halls quietly. The sound of our shoes click-clacking on the shining floor. I looked to my right to see Ash silently staring at my stack of books. I frowned.

"Don't judge me," I muttered spitefully. I looked away from him, instead, looking down at my books.

"I'm not, why would I?" he asked, seeming genuine.

I retort with my own question. "If you weren't, then why were you looking like that?"

"Like what?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in confusion. He tilted his head at me, waiting expectantly.

I continued to look down at my pile of books. "You were...staring. It made me uncomfortable," I muttered.

Ash still looked rather puzzled. "Uh, sorry? I was just..." he paused, jabbing a finger at the top book. "I...I don't know. It peaked my curiosity, I guess." For some reason the last sentence sounded graver. Darker.

I looked up to see him looking at the book with what, for the most part was an unreadable expression. His mouth was closed in a flat line. His eyes were wide and flooded with curiosity. And something else...

He shook his head. "Eh, sorry about that," he said in a more cheerful tone, breaking the silence. "Let's get to class, shall we?"

Before I could answer Ash was already making his way down the hall. In a moment, I was rushing after him, down the hall. The sound of our footsteps mixed with the other echoing sounds filling the halls. More people had come in from outside. Lockers slammed shut, students gossiped, and people busied themselves with their work or each other. Some ran down the halls, rushing to where they needed to be. Others leisurely strolled down the halls, chatting with friends till the warning bell for classes rang.

I felt someone shoving me forward, making me trip over myself. I heard snickering as a familiar face passed by me. A girl with a mop of blue hair walked to my left, an orange head band keeping her curls out of her eyes. An irritating smirk was plastered on her face. Miette.

"Crap," I spat.

I closed my eyes and braced for the inevitable impact. But it never came. Instead I felt myself being pulled up by my arms. I opened my eyes and was relieved to see my books came out unscathed like I had. Miette's little shove, in my opinion, was a cheap move. This wasn't some high school movie full of petty teen brats. So why did she have to act like that?

"You okay?"

I looked up and saw Ash's face as he lifted me back up onto my feet. I silently nodded.

"So...you know her?" he asked.

"Long story short, yup."

I looked over Ash's shoulder to see Miette looking at the two of us with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. Her irritating smirk had been replaced with a malicious grin. Ash turned to see what it was that I was looking at. The two of them locked eyes and Miette gave Ash a wave as she turned and left, disappearing into the sea of students. Ash frowned. He stuffed one hand in his pocket and grabbed my hand with the other and began dragging me down the hall. His stride was too big for me to keep up with by simply walking. His grip on my hand subtly tightened when I asked him to slow down. He kept muttering things to himself like "Too much crap...not even 10 yet...too tired for this." I simply kept quiet as he angrily muttered.

---

The school day dragged on. 

Ash seemed off the rest of the day. Whenever I saw him he was scowling at the ground or staring into space. He seemed rather tense. He was silent in homeroom, and I didn't see him during lunch. The next time I saw him was when school was over.

He was sitting by himself on the steps, forearms resting on his thighs. His hands were clasped together in front of him. He stared at them with mock interest.

I silently sat next to him. Like he had done the rest of the day, he said nothing, just let himself be swallowed up by his thoughts. So I didn't push him to talk. I took out one of the books I'd checked out earlier from the library, and began reading. This one, unlike most I had checked out, was fictional. Fantasy to be precise. From what the back cover had told me, it was a story about a young girl born with transformation abilities. Using these abilities, she must save the lost species of the world: elves, gnomes, etc.

I actually found myself getting wrapped up in the story. I supposed it was because I could relate to the main character so much. Someone who didn't belong but wanted to help, nevertheless. 

I turned my head to look at Ash. His eyes were closed as his head rested lazily in one hand. I smiled. Closing my book and placing it back in my bag, I gently shook his shoulder. 

"Wake up sleepyhead," I giggled.

"Five more minutes...." Ash murmured groggily.

I sighed, but a small smile spread across my face. "C'mon, it's late." I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He stood up lazily and yawned, before stretching his arms high above his head.

"Fine," he muttered, squinting his eyes, heavy with sleep. He stuffed one hand in his pocket and continued holding mine with the other. I felt my cheeks grow slightly warm.

"How late is it?" Ash asked, taking his hand out of his pocket to rub his eyes.

"Too late," I said managing tearing my eyes away from our intertwined hands. I picked up my pace. "If I don't get home soon my mom will flip!" I exclaimed worriedly.

"So then why did you stay at school?" Ash asked.

"Well I haven't really gotten to talk to you today after this morning," I reasoned.

"Speaking of," Ash responded, waking up a little more as we walked, "Who was that?"

The wind blew against us as we gradually slowed our speed walk to a more normal pace. "Just an old friend," I say straight faced.

"Didn't look like much of a friend," Ash noted quietly. 

I started speed walking again dragging Ash behind me. "Her name's Miette."

"And you know each other how?"

"We went to middle school together," I muttered hastily.

"Has she always been that much of a jerk?" Ash was now walking beside me and I could see emotions of worry and disgust worming their way into his expression.

"Eh...," I had to think for a moment. After a long period of silence I finally answered hesitantly "Not always."

I began reflecting; I thought aloud. "We were good friends for a while. We shared hopes for the future. Like what we wanted to do, what are dreams were, what our starter pokemon would be...but, when she got her's...things changed. She thought she had everything figured out before me. She thought it made her better I guess. She always had problems with self esteem. I think I'm her stepping stool to make her feel better about herself..."

I trailed off as I realized I was just rambling on, probably confusing Ash with all the emotions and comparisons and lack of context. But to my surprise he was fully awake now, nodding understandingly.

"I... I was never sure what to do about it," I continued. "It helped ruin my perspective of....relationships? Friends? People in general?" I groaned a bit as I tried to sort through the torrent of ideas and feelings that had been stirring for years buried deep in the pit of my stomach. "I felt myself growing distant from people so I wouldn't end up being used again. That never worked with Miette though. She would always reinsert herself in my life when she knew it would benefit her most. Maybe she'd get gossip from it or just a boost to her self esteem. She'd come at my lowest points just to brag about how well she was doing. She'd come at my highest points to ride off whatever success I had achieved. I just..." I sighed, not knowing how to end what I had started.

"Have you ever felt that way?" I felt the need to ask. "Like no matter what you do, everyone is going to exploit you? Make you expendable? And..."

"No one makes you expendable," Ash interjected. I looked up to see him looking at me with a frown and scrunched eyebrows. "People AREN'T expendable. People are people. With hopes and dreams to achieve. Just because someone wants to treat you like you can be used then thrown away, doesn't make that who you are. And it doesn't make it okay!" I could feel the passion radiating from Ash as he spoke, gripping my hand even more tightly. "No one on this earth can tell us who we can and can't be. And...that's the awesome thing about all of this: about being a trainer, about being a human, about being alive. You have free will. You choose what you do and what to make of yourself. NO ONE ELSE. Isn't that amazing? No one else can make you anything. No one makes you expendable. No one. Got that?"

He stared at me intensely until I managed to nod, after getting myself together. I had no idea what I expected his answer to be, but certainly not as lengthy and detailed as THAT. I didn't even realize he knew the word expendable. I had said it without thinking about that possibility.

"Good. Now to answer your question," he continued, "I definitely have. So I get it. It's hard and it really sucks. So...if you ever need someone to vent to..." His earlier frown and become a warm smile.

I smiled back, battling the negative emotions I had begun to release. "Same to you."

His grip lessened a bit and he dropped his gaze. We continued walking in silence for a bit, but got caught at a stop light. By this point we have let go of each other's hands. I could see the sun just barely peeking through the city scape. When I looked behind us the sky was already dark, and darkening.

"Dang it!" I exclaimed, stamping my foot.

Ash jumped, startled by my sudden outburst. "Geez, Serena."

"Sorry. I was just hoping to get home before it got dark."

The light changed from a glowing red hand, to the glowing white walk signal. We walked across and Ash apologized once again.

"It's fine," I said, looking for a way to change the subject to something lighter. "Are you going to Barry's party tomorrow?"

"What party?" Ash asked, genuinely confused. 

I narrowed my eyes at him in disbelief. "The party you told Barry you were going to a few days ago?"

Ash scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion and thought. His eyebrows shot up suddenly as he finally remembered. "Oh!" he chuckled. "Forgot about that."

"Obviously." I rolled my eyes.

"I said I might go though, not that I absolutely would," he noted. He turned to me and asked, "Are you?"

I didn't really want to say yes, but for some reason, I wasn't set on saying no either. "We'll see."

"If I go, would you mind coming with me."

I felt my face flush bright red, radiating with warmth. "W-what?"

"I said, would you come with me if I went? I don't know many people there, and it'd be nice to be able to see a familiar face."

I must've stayed silent for too long afterwards because he suddenly said, "You don't have to go if you don't want to."

"It's not that!" I interject. "I just need time to think about it."

"Well, okay. That's understandable," he replied, smiling at me.

The night continued in this way, we'd chat, walking up and down the city streets before I finally reached home. We said our goodbyes and goodnights, before parting ways. As expected my mother wasn't exactly pleased with me, asking where I had been and did I know how late it was. I managed to cover it up, somehow, by saying I lost track of time studying in the school library. She wasn't happy about it, her anger did lessen. I managed to eat dinner and get to bed without punishment. 

Even if  I had gotten a punishment, I would've been glad regardless to have spent time with my oldest and first real friend. Even if it's hard to know what we are now.