![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[He hates this.
It's not the heat. He's been in worse, he's used to worse, and more than one rumor has gone around the office coffee pot that he's trained himself to control his own sweat glands because no one's ever seen him falter. The bank of the nearby waterway is dripping more than it'll ever see from him.
It's not the water. For how people can complain about Hoenn, Alola has the monopoly on island territory and transportation and far stricter travel safety rules. If they need to, at least one of them has Pokémon to traverse any water-only routes should it be necessary. Yet for now they're on land and following the trail to their next destination on foot.
It's not the route. As long and winding as it's been, the trainers are few and the foliage is plenty and his demeanor is always enough to ward off stragglers of squeamish people and Pokémon alike. The two of them haven't had many encounters today in particular, with this route proving to be quieter than most. Though it's still too early on in their trip to tell if that luck will hold, or if he finally snaps long before their allotted days of information reconnaissance for the girl are up.
It's not Anabel. Some part of Nanu even wants it to be Anabel; to view her not as a person but as another problem dropped in his lap at the peak of the most inopportune time. To hold resentment toward this supposed walking headache that he can use for a clean break once he waltzes back into HQ to give the most venom-filled resignation straight to the superiors in charge of everything that's happened. But he can't. She's been an attachment since she showed up and as heartless as he likes to present himself to accomplish the arm's lengths he wants, Anabel was a special case to be able to worm her way into his slim-pickings care category despite being the near-blank slate she presented herself as.
It's not any of those things, and it's not even the trip itself. It's what it has been and he now knows always will be in the weeks following the worst mission of his life, and he has nothing and no one to blame but himself.]
[His shoe kicks up an oversized leaf and another flutters down from the canopy above and catches on his rumpled dress shirt. He spares one hand to swipe it off before returning it to its place shoved deep in his trenchcoat pocket. Such a tiny thing pulls him out of his wandering mind, and the current reality comes back to him in waves. Sounds first, peripheral second, a focus on the well-traversed path before him and the proximity of the person following behind. A quick scan of the area thankfully showed no signs of trainers he might've missed while foolishly stuck in his own head, and the chirping of hidden Pokémon filled the rest of the atmosphere of their trek into Hoenn's sights and Anabel's fog.
He's just fine traveling in silence, but he knows it's only a matter of time before the girl speaks up again. He expects it, given 100kr's propensity for filling the space with chattering of the city's best eats, like every mission was his own secret recon for -
Nanu clenches his teeth.
The footsteps behind him are painfully, obviously not the ones with which he's familiar.
Abruptly, he stops. The bag slung over his shoulder is rolled off, drops into his hand, and then onto the ground. Nanu turns to Anabel for the first time in a long while on their current route and nods his chin toward her; as stonefaced as always but sunken shoulders and low voice giving no impression of the authority he actually holds.]
Take a breather.
[...It's not Anabel, but the swarming thoughts his mind conjures up when he looks at that wide-eyed, bright and determined face tell his guilty conscience otherwise.]
It's not the heat. He's been in worse, he's used to worse, and more than one rumor has gone around the office coffee pot that he's trained himself to control his own sweat glands because no one's ever seen him falter. The bank of the nearby waterway is dripping more than it'll ever see from him.
It's not the water. For how people can complain about Hoenn, Alola has the monopoly on island territory and transportation and far stricter travel safety rules. If they need to, at least one of them has Pokémon to traverse any water-only routes should it be necessary. Yet for now they're on land and following the trail to their next destination on foot.
It's not the route. As long and winding as it's been, the trainers are few and the foliage is plenty and his demeanor is always enough to ward off stragglers of squeamish people and Pokémon alike. The two of them haven't had many encounters today in particular, with this route proving to be quieter than most. Though it's still too early on in their trip to tell if that luck will hold, or if he finally snaps long before their allotted days of information reconnaissance for the girl are up.
It's not Anabel. Some part of Nanu even wants it to be Anabel; to view her not as a person but as another problem dropped in his lap at the peak of the most inopportune time. To hold resentment toward this supposed walking headache that he can use for a clean break once he waltzes back into HQ to give the most venom-filled resignation straight to the superiors in charge of everything that's happened. But he can't. She's been an attachment since she showed up and as heartless as he likes to present himself to accomplish the arm's lengths he wants, Anabel was a special case to be able to worm her way into his slim-pickings care category despite being the near-blank slate she presented herself as.
It's not any of those things, and it's not even the trip itself. It's what it has been and he now knows always will be in the weeks following the worst mission of his life, and he has nothing and no one to blame but himself.]
[His shoe kicks up an oversized leaf and another flutters down from the canopy above and catches on his rumpled dress shirt. He spares one hand to swipe it off before returning it to its place shoved deep in his trenchcoat pocket. Such a tiny thing pulls him out of his wandering mind, and the current reality comes back to him in waves. Sounds first, peripheral second, a focus on the well-traversed path before him and the proximity of the person following behind. A quick scan of the area thankfully showed no signs of trainers he might've missed while foolishly stuck in his own head, and the chirping of hidden Pokémon filled the rest of the atmosphere of their trek into Hoenn's sights and Anabel's fog.
He's just fine traveling in silence, but he knows it's only a matter of time before the girl speaks up again. He expects it, given 100kr's propensity for filling the space with chattering of the city's best eats, like every mission was his own secret recon for -
Nanu clenches his teeth.
The footsteps behind him are painfully, obviously not the ones with which he's familiar.
Abruptly, he stops. The bag slung over his shoulder is rolled off, drops into his hand, and then onto the ground. Nanu turns to Anabel for the first time in a long while on their current route and nods his chin toward her; as stonefaced as always but sunken shoulders and low voice giving no impression of the authority he actually holds.]
Take a breather.
[...It's not Anabel, but the swarming thoughts his mind conjures up when he looks at that wide-eyed, bright and determined face tell his guilty conscience otherwise.]
