32. In Which There is Dinner and a Show

The Future Trio came by to pay Kip a visit. Twig gave them each a long, stern look as they all came through the door, and Kip wished he could decipher the glare’s meaning. The one person in the group she didn’t deliver a narrow glower to was Dusknoir, who gave her one of his own that she didn’t meet. That worried Kip— Twig would have stared Dusknoir down for giving her a cursory glance before, but now she was backing off when he murmured something Kip couldn’t decipher beyond it being said in a concerned tone. Something was definitely going on. Kip needed to stop doubting himself on that. 

Celebi kept eyeing Twig in that strange way she tended to whenever she felt cross with someone— a sort of vicious, wide-eyed dirty look that sent shivers down Kip’s spine. Luckily, he’d only been on the receiving end of that look once when he unknowingly ate the last slice of a dessert Celebi intended to save for herself to eat later, but the glare Twig was getting right now was so much more vicious than anything Kip had ever seen from the Legend. What happened? He needed to figure this out, and fast. 

Maybe a meal would help. 

***

Twig was going to die of a heart attack if this visit went on any longer. Tension was thick in the air, and Kip kept helplessly glancing between everyone in the room like maybe someone would explain why nobody had said anything over dinner yet if he gave them a pitiful enough look. Dusknoir had leaned down as he entered the house and whispered to her that he’d tried to convince Celebi and Grovyle to keep quiet about Darkrai, but that if she didn’t tell Kip about the situation soon, he would explain it himself, and he wouldn’t sugar coat anything in how he relayed the story. 

That was fine, Twig said. She didn’t need him to hold her idiocy over her head when she was doing that perfectly fine on her own. She knew she needed to get over herself and tell Kip, but she wasn’t sure how to explain that not only had she taken in an amnesiac Darkrai, but she had let him go once his memories returned. It would be a miracle if her friend didn’t drop dead of terror in response to that. 

Celebi was giving her death glares across the table— no doubt for having indirectly forbidden her from gossiping about the greatest drama their circle had seen in ages— but Twig didn’t pay her any attention beyond asking the Legend to pass a bowl full of spiced corn. Celebi looked like she was sorely tempted to huck the bowl at Twig’s head, but settled on sliding it over with a huff. 

Silence. The cordial chit chat had already been said. What more was there to say? Quiet reigned with a tense fist. 

Grovyle, of course, was the one to break it. “Twig got a roommate while you were gone.”

Twig sent him a look so venomous she almost thought she invented a new attack with the way Grovyle grimaced like he’d been struck. He met her eyes and gave her an encouraging, albeit absolutely unwanted, tilt of his head. 

“I heard from Team Skull of all people, actually,” Kip said. “Twig said he was a dark-type, if I remember right?”

“Yep,” she said through gritted teeth, recalling how she’d struggled to word her letters vaguely enough not to raise alarms. 

“What was his name again? I don’t remember you ever mentioning it in any letters.”

Grovyle looked directly at Twig from across the table. “He goes by Ark, but his species name is— ack!”

She pulled her foot back from where she had kicked him in the leg under the table, leveling him with a glare as he begrudgingly caught the hint. “He didn’t know his species name,” she said, the cover story flowing out of her smoothly thanks to all the times she had practiced how she’d recite it on the way to Treasure Town. “He actually had amnesia, which is why I offered him a place to stay at all. Felt bad for the guy. It doesn’t really matter now, though. He moved out.” 

“He what?” Grovyle scrutinized her, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth or adding onto her bluff. 

“I hadn’t heard that,” Dusknoir said, testing the waters in his own way. 

“Yeah. We had an argument that we couldn’t get over. I talked to Celebi about it and she thinks we were right to go our separate ways.” She popped a sweet-tasting root into her mouth and chewed, waiting for the conversation to move on. 

Kip nudged Twig. He was sitting right beside her, which set him at the perfect vantage point to bump their elbows together kindly. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out. If you want, you can move back in with me. I know you said living alone was too weird for you.” 

Twig frowned. Hadn’t he already assumed that she’d be moving back in? She thought it was obvious that she’d do that once he returned to Treasure Town. Why did it sound like he was nervous to offer her a place in his home again?

“Thanks man,” she finally said. “I appreciate it.” 

The rest of the meal was had in silence. Grovyle watched her worriedly throughout it. Twig hated every second.