Vedanturf town, Hoenn Region.
A house smelling of sugar and ash, tucked between berry trees
Master Kuroda
Stir. Stir. Click.
At a certain point, he forgets he's alone.
Stir. Stir. Click. The pestle slides along the rim of the bowl.
He doesn't count the seconds anymore—just the texture, the tone, the way the mix talks back to him. Dry paste means too much aspear. Wet gloss, too much nanab. A velvet drag, with a gentle cling to the edge of the mortar—just right.
He doesn't need to taste it. That part of him's been dull for years now. The sugar doesn't register. The bitterness is muscle memory.
Smell, though. He still has smell.
He can tell a good blend by scent: a puff of dry poffin heat, the faint tang of raw pulped watmel, the whisper of bluk skin curling at the edges.
Stir. Stir. Click.
He hears the knock, but he ignores it.
The second knock is softer.
The third isn't a knock at all—it's a voice, shy and hopeful.
"Excuse me, sir. Is this... Kuroda-san's home? The Pokéblock maker?"
He grunts without turning. "Was."
A pause. Then footsteps on the wood. Light. Careful.
"I was told you don't take students," the boy says.
He doesn't answer. That's not a question.
"I'm not asking to be one. Not really," the boy continues. "I just wanted to watch. Maybe... understand a little."
Still not a question.
Stir. Stir. Click.
He hears more than he sees: the small intake of breath, the weight shift of a nervous foot. A second pair of feet—smaller, lighter—pads in after him. A third set clicks softly across the floor—measured, graceful.
He turns, just slightly.
A boy—thin, pale, but upright with intent—holds a paper bag of berries. Behind him, a shiny Ralts with a silver-white body and a soft blue crest looks up from under a green hood, blinking. To his left, a Roselia walks in deliberate steps, twin bouquets held like folded hands, the faint scent of fresh dew following in her wake.
The old man exhales through his nose.
"You here to waste both our time, boy?"
"No, sir," the boy says, surprising him with the steadiness in his voice. "I want to learn how to feed them better. Properly. Not just throw berries at them and hope it's the right one."
He eyes the Ralts, who hides partially behind the boy's coat. Then the Roselia, who doesn't blink—just watches him with calm, focused eyes.
"Spicy and bitter are wrong for those two," the old man mutters. "Too sharp. You'll want soft—sweet, maybe—but not candy. Something with shape."
The boy nods. "I thought so. Roselia dislikes bitterness, and Ralts... she likes dry, but only in a quiet way. Pecha and figy balance her. Mago is too loud."
Kuroda raises a brow. "You've read."
"I've tasted, too," the boy says, gently. "Everything I give them, I try first."
The old man grunts. Not insult, not praise. He turns back to the bowl.
Stir. Stir. Click.
The silence stretches.
"I brought some berries," Wally says, offering the bag. "From the east grove. Outside Verdanturf."
"Mm."
"I'm not asking for you to teach me," he adds. "But I'd be grateful if you let me stay. Just to watch. I'll be quiet."
"You already broke that promise," the old man mutters.
Wally doesn't apologize. He just lowers the bag and waits.
The old man glances again at Roselia, who still hasn't moved—but whose eyes now follow the rhythm of his stirring.
He sighs.
"You clean?"
"Yes, sir."
"You spill?"
"No, sir."
"You faint?"
Wally hesitates. Then: "Not lately."
The old man grunts. There's a flicker of a smirk in it.
"Set the bag down. Don't touch the pestle."
Wally moves quietly to the bench. Ralts peeks over the edge of it with wide silver-blue eyes. Roselia finds a spot beneath the window, where the light can fall on her calmly folded flowers.
Kuroda stirs. Wally watches.
They don't speak for a long time.
Then, as the mixture begins to set, the old man speaks without turning.
"You know why I stopped taking students?"
Wally shakes his head. "No, sir."
"They all wanted shortcuts. Pretty blocks, nothing behind 'em. Shine with no soul."
He lifts a small cube from a chilled tray. It gleams faintly—rose-pink with a glint of frost. Smooth. Balanced.
"This," he says, "isn't candy. It's trust. It's how you say what you feel without words."
He tosses it gently toward Roselia. She tilts her head, catches it with one bouquet, and turns it in her petals. After a pause, she tastes it.
Her posture softens—not much, just a quiet shift. An acceptance.
The old man notices.
"Sweet block," he says. "Nanab softened with pecha. Finished with a whisper of cheri. That's what kindness tastes like."
Wally watches her, and smiles—slowly, like a bud opening to sunlight.
"I want to learn that," he says. "Not just the ingredients. I want to learn how to say something true."
The old man doesn't answer.
Then, after a moment, he slides over a second, smaller mortar. One with a faint chip on the edge.
"Show me how you'd start," he says. "And don't bruise the flesh."
Wally takes the seat. Ralts climbs quietly up beside him. Roselia turns her attention to the bowl.
Wally opens the bag, laying the berries out carefully.
Pecha. Bluk. A whisper of figy at the bottom. Fresh and bright, like an offering.
And the room smells like spring.
...
Petals in Motion
Roselia
The Geodude hit the dirt with a heavy thud, arms twitching in surrender.
Roselia exhaled in a rustling flutter, its twin blooms crackling faintly with the static of a well-placed Magical Leaf. The Hiker across the field looked stunned, then sheepish, then genuinely impressed.
"Well, that's what I get for underestimating a grass type," he chuckled, scratching his head.
Wally gave a tired but delighted laugh, one hand bracing his side as he knelt beside Roselia. "You were amazing," he whispered, breath a little thin but voice brimming with pride.
Roselia lifted its red bloom proudly, then gave a little hop as if to say, Of course I was.
It had always liked battling. Not just the thrill of it, but the rhythm—the thinking, the dancing, the bloom and burst of movement. With Wally, the rhythm felt steadier. Sweeter.
Its first days with him had felt like stepping into a dream. Quiet, green-haired, soft-spoken, with hands that trembled slightly when he reached for the Poké Ball. He wasn't what Roselia had expected. Not a commanding trainer. Not a loud one. Just… gentle.
But behind that gentleness, there was steel.
Wally had a will like a creeping vine—soft to the touch, but impossible to pull up once rooted. Roselia had watched it bloom in odd places: his stubbornness to climb routes when others would rest, his insistence on perfecting the team's Pokéblocks, even when it left him coughing for hours afterward.
Ralts had been there from the beginning, too. A pale wisp of a thing—emotionless, unreadable. But always near. Like a shadow with a purpose. Roselia couldn't decide if the little psychic type was shy or simply in a conversation too quiet for anyone else to hear. Either way, it was always watching Wally.
Just like it was now, floating by his side as he passed Roselia a water bottle and patted its head gently. The trio began walking again, toward another patch of wildflowers and winding trails.
The days since leaving Grace had been hard to name. Roselia remembered her scent, her laugh, the way she always tied its ribbon back into place after a battle. It had felt something twist, quietly, as it stepped toward Wally that day in the cave.
But it hadn't regretted it.
The days were different now. Brighter, even when Wally was pale. Busier, even when he moved slow. Full of little moments—tending to herbs outside a Poké Center, learning a new battle stance from a passing Ace Trainer, collecting odd stones just because they were pretty.
And food.
Oh, the food.
There had been an entire day devoted to Pokéblocks. Wally had brought them to a small sunlit cottage on the edge of Verdanturf, where an old man with a stained apron spoke of berries like a poet spoke of stars.
Roselia had tried spicy, bitter, sweet, and dry. Some made it twirl, some made it sneeze, and one made it so dizzy it danced straight into a fence.
But it loved them all. Not because of the taste, necessarily—but because Wally had made them. After the first batch, he'd gotten berry stains all over his shirt and tried to hide the burn on his thumb from stirring too fast. But he grinned when Roselia chirped in approval.
"I just want you and Ralts to have the very best," he said that night, holding two perfectly wrapped blocks in his hand like they were rare treasures. "You both deserve it."
Another day, he had heard a man muttering by the back of the edge of Rustboro Cave. The man had dropped something—black glasses, important ones. Most would've kept walking. But not Wally.
Roselia remembered the whole strange little search: crawling through tall grass, Ralts using Confusion to lift stones, Wally calling out "Sir? Are these them?" with a hopeful breathlessness. When they finally returned the glasses, the man had given Wally a short bow and called him "the kindest kid I've ever met."
Wally had smiled at that.
Roselia didn't say anything. It didn't need to.
It knew what kind of trainer it had chosen.
Yes, Wally's hands trembled. His chest wheezed when he pushed himself too far. Sometimes he sat down hard on a bench, pale and sweating, and muttered "Just a minute…" through gritted teeth.
But he lived.
Every day, he lived like he had something to give. And Roselia felt lucky to be near that.
There were days filled with movement—training, battling, long walks, and short naps beneath tree shade. There were quiet mornings when Ralts and Wally meditated, and Roselia just watched the clouds. There was bustle, and laughter, and the smell of crushed berries in Wally's pack.
And then one evening, sitting beneath a wide old tree, Wally had pulled out a little book from his bag.
"How about I tell you a story about the thorned princess?" he asked, settling into the grass.
Roselia looked up from nibbling a Pokéblock. Ralts floated closer.
"It's from a place far away," Wally said, brushing a leaf off the cover. "A princess, cursed to sleep. A forest that grew around her in a hundred years of thorns. But the thorns weren't just traps—they protected her. Kept her safe until she woke up."
He smiled softly. "She was called Briar Rose."
Roselia had tilted its head, intrigued. Thorny but gentle. Dangerous but soft. A protector of herself and others.
It had liked that.
That night, as they sat watching fireflies dance in the dark, Wally gently touched its ribbon and whispered, "I think I finally have a name for you."
Roselia perked up.
"Briar," he said. "You've got thorns, sure. But you're all grace and green, and you grow toward the sun no matter what."
Roselia paused.
Then it gave a pleased, twirling spin, petals flashing in the moonlight.
Briar.
Yes. It would grow toward the sun.
...
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