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Ash looks to the horizon, sitting pretty and blue, and his heart aches.
It's weird. There’s absolutely nothing going on that warrants the feeling. He’s lounged on the beach outside the professor’s house with his Pokémon, cooling down after a day’s hard training session. Alola’s weather is perfect as always. Everything is perfect, he couldn’t complain. The sky is clear, the sun’s shining, the wind is blowing,
Yet his heart aches.
It was a sort of melancholic feeling that crept up and hollowed him from the inside out. Starting from his heart and pulsating outwards, building up throughout the day till every inch of him was filled and fit to burst.
He swallows thickly at the sensation, tears building behind his eyes. A curious feeling, it always is. He doesn’t cry much—that being an action reserved for great loss, but he can't hold back a breaking dam. Tears silently fall to the sand below. He doesn’t know what’s going on.
What he does know is his heart aches— painfully so, and being surrounded by the never-ending sea and the limitless sky makes that listless something inside him grow to overwhelming unbearable proportions.
They were just so blue. His favorite color tied with yellow. The color should’ve brought comfort, the knowledge that the blue sky and sea meant the world was in order and everything was okay. No world ending threats, stable as it should be.
Yet his heart aches
He finds himself missing when the outdoors soothed his soul. When things were just too much, and he could lay in the grass and stare up at the sky, taking a moment to disconnect from it all. When everything would disappear, and he could breathe easy, remembering he was just alright. He idly wondered what changed.
Taking a shuddering breath, he swiped a hand roughly across his face, sand making its way into his eyes and forcing them closed, thankfully breaking him from his onesided staring contest. The blue that burned from behind his eyelids hurt just as much as the gritty, grainy minerals falling in. He couldn’t escape. The color was seared into his brain, cruelly submerging his mind.
Kalos flooded his vision, memories old forcing their way to the forefront.
Ash wasn’t one to ruminate—bad things tended to happen when he did. He preferred to keep his mind present, always moving forward at a speedy pace so his thoughts never could catch up to him, even if they wanted to. The past is in the past for a reason after all, the only thing he could control was the present, so it was good to focus there! He ignored the ever-persistent and annoying part of his mind that whispered he'd have to deal with it eventually
His methods never failed before though, so why change? He remembers in Unova he learned the wonderfully useful expression “If it’s not broke, don't fix it” and he had to agree. He wasn't broke, so there was nothing to fix. He was alright
Yet as he sat, tears streaming down his face, gaze locked on the blue suspended above him, surrounded by his team—his family.. He realized he’s never felt so alone. He found himself aching for that same beautiful blue in human form, the person he’d unknowingly grown to associate the color with and the familiar constant he’d gotten used to being by his side for months on end.
He misses all his friends. Everyone he’s ever traveled with left some type of lasting impression on him. He cherished them deeply; their friendship would always be a part of him, whether they realized it or not. A selfish part of him dared to hope they remembered him just as deeply too.
Clemont, though, was different; something about the boy had just clicked with Ash. Something that left his stomach swooping and his heart racing as if he were in the midst of a particularly intense battle. He hadn't even gotten the chance to try to unpack the feelings.
Everything just happened way too fast. One moment, their focus on the gym circuit shifted to stopping plans of world domination and fighting mad scientists, living in survival mode till everything settled. His feelings had to be put on pause, going ignored till eventually, he forgot entirely altogether. That was until the plane back to Kanto, where reality set in. He remembers looking out the plane window, hundreds of miles in the sky, feeling like he had somehow left an important part of himself on the ground. He chalked it up to having to leave Greninja behind, the frog’s departure cut deep and weighed heavily on his mind; attributing his low mood to it had been too easy.
He didn't suspect anything deeper till he found his thoughts constantly wandering back to the electric-type gym leader. It was like Ash was being haunted, being able to see him in everything. Sophocles with his out of this world inventions, Kiawe doting on his headstrong little sister, Rotomdex with its cute little antenna and lightning shaped appendages, and now even just the glimpse of the color blue was enough to send him spiraling. Ash felt crazy; he couldn’t ignore it any longer.
He missed Clemont,
And just that thought alone summoned a new wave of ache that brought forth more tears. Releasing a shuddering hiccup, he felt so incredibly stupid. He’s never been so broken up about any of his friends moving on and going their separate ways. He wasn’t sure why this was happening now. He’s said goodbyes countless times before, while bittersweet, it had stopped feeling so utterly devastating regions ago. He definitely hadn’t cried over a parting since early in his journey. His face burned in embarrassment, he was sure he looked positively pathetic.
His Pokémon crowded around him, cooing and chirping in bewildered concern at his sudden breakdown; all huddling in to press against his body in an attempt at comfort. He ignored them, physically not having it within himself to provide reassurance or explanations, and shifted his attention back to the out-of-reach blue above, losing himself in the wave of happy memories that everything the color was.
By the time he snapped back to himself the sky had shifted into the brilliantly fiery orange of evening. Sun just barely peeking over the horizon. His eyes stung, whether it from the tears or the strain of keeping them open for so long Ash couldn’t pinpoint, it all hurt the same. His Pokémon smushed against him in a pile, radiating a grounding heat that had been enough to lull them to sleep. Everything was perfect, he couldn’t complain,
But Ash could only feel the numbing chill of loneliness and the ever present ache in his heart that was decidedly blue.