"My dear lady! How would I dare ignore you?" Luke pleaded with the screen. "I was on a mission in the mountains. There was zero signal—I barely made it back to the city!"
"Trekking in the mountains all day?" Aria narrowed her eyes on the video feed. "And you're only just getting back now?"
Luke had long since mastered the art of lying without a twitch of his eye. "Of course. Did you think poachers were easy to catch? I've been across every ridge and valley. I'm exhausted."
Aria didn't buy a word of it. "Cut it out. You're as lazy as a Slaking. Even if you were in the mountains, you'd be riding Arno. Your feet haven't touched the ground all day."
"Let's talk business," Aria interrupted, her tone softening. "Can you come back this month?"
"What's wrong? Did you miss me?"
"Yeah, I missed you. So, are you coming back?"
The directness of her answer caught Luke off guard. He fumbled for a response, realizing he had lost this particular round of banter.
"I'm not teasing you anymore," Aria said, her gaze drifting away from the camera. "For this year's Memorial Day... I don't want to be alone. It's too heavy."
Luke looked at her—the girl who usually stood like an icy mountain—and felt a pang of guilt. He often forgot that despite her composure, Arisutorozu Cortana was only fifteen. She was still just a kid who needed someone to lean on.
"No problem," Luke said softly. "I've finished my business in Ocre City. I'll book an airship ticket for tomorrow."
"Do you have enough money? If not, I can spare you two hundred League Coins."
"Is that from your breakfast fund again? Keep it. I don't want to worry about you starving while I'm out working."
"Well, I'm hungry now. Treat me to a late-night snack."
"It's 11:37 PM, Aria. Your school is already locked down. What are you going to eat? The northwest wind?"
"Can't you just pretend to be fooled for once? Let me win one."
"Tch. I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Luke."
"Goodnight. I'll see you the day after tomorrow."
After hanging up, Luke sat on the park bench, feeling a wave of melancholy.
Luke had transmigrated to this world ten years ago. For the first four years, his mind had been a fractured mess—a side effect of a thirty-year-old soul being shoved into a six-year-old body. In the Exeggutor Orphanage, they simply called him "Daze"—the kid who was always lost in a fog.
Being the "idiot" of the orphanage made him an easy target. But when Aria arrived at age seven, things changed. A mixed-race child of an Asgardian mountaineer and a local adventurer, she was bullied for her silver hair and foreign looks. Yet, she always stepped in to protect the silent, staring "Daze."
When Luke's memories finally solidified at age ten, he stopped being a victim. A thirty-something office worker with a lifetime of Pokémon knowledge didn't lose to ten-year-old brats. He protected her in return, eventually winning enough prize money from youth tournaments to move them both into an apartment in Riverport City.
That was why he'd declined the officer's suggestion to go to school. Their finances only allowed for one education. Luke chose to work so Aria could study. Their bond wasn't simple romance; they were two halves of a whole, supporting each other in a world that had tried to throw them away. In a very real sense, Aria was Luke, and Luke was Aria.