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Sunlight shone in from Akari's window, snow falling at a leisurely pace outside. She shifted in bed, stretching her legs and yawning. The suns rays were pleasantly warm, and it was ever so tempting to just go back to sleep.
She heard the door to her room open, and the smell of bacon slowly wafted in. Akari sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, joints popping as she stretched again. Arceus, she sounded like her dad.
Speaking of her dad, he was standing in her doorway.
"Morning. Did you make bacon?"
He nods. "And pancakes."
"Hell yes, panned cakes!"
"I recommend coming downstairs soon, before Emmet eats all the bacon."
Akari bolts out of bed and down the hall, running to the kitchen. Emmet stares at her, in the middle of drinking his coffee.
They blink at each other for a good 5 seconds before Akari grabs herself a plate and puts an ample amount of bacon on it. She's a growing girl, after all! Emmet picks up a pancake and eats it plain. The heathen.
She pours a good amount of syrup on her pancakes and sits down, opting to start eating her bacon first. It's good as usual, she never would have guessed that her dad was a terrible cook before Hisui.
She feels her dad ruffle her hair and she squeaks in indignation. "Dad! You're gonna make my hair all messy!"
"You say that like you don't already have bedhead, dear."
Akari smacks his arm lightly. "Ingo is right. You do in fact have verrry messy bedhead."
Akari pouts exaggeratedly. "Mean to me! I didn't do anything to deserve this!"
Ingo just chuckles at her. Mean and cruel. Akari goes back to eating her pancakes, ignoring the small horde of sneasels starting to make their way into the kitchen alongside their mother. Akari can hear Lady Sneasler purring softly and the sound of her chin being scritched. It's peaceful.
"Oh by the way Akari, Elesa is coming over soon. She says she's bringing us on a shopping trip for your birthday!" Ingo says, and Emmet walks over to place a joltik on her head. "Happy birthday to my favorite niece! Get joltik'd." Akari gently takes the joltik off her head, and suppresses the urge to squeal. It's tiny, more of a ball of fluff than anything, and it's shiny too!
She looks up at Emmet. "Her name is Grape. She is yours now, yep! She also knows cross poison."
Akari cradles grape close to her chest, the furry yellow baby crawling onto her shoulder. "She's so little....Size of an actual grape.." Akari finishes her breakfast with Grape on her shoulder, and then goes upstairs to get ready. She brushes her hair, making sure to gently comb out any tangles before pinning it back into the familiar ponytail she always wore in Hisui.
She does her best to hide the majority of her silver hairs, strategically placing them where they'd be less visible, but it's still quite apparent she's greying at the age of 16. Well, maybe she can pass it off as a genetic thing.
Well, to people that didn't know Ingo before he went missing, at least.
Akari shrugs and rummages through her closet, searching for the perfect birthday outfit.
She holds two dresses up to Grape, who chitters at her and clings to the green one. Akari puts on the green dress, wearing shorts under it as usual, and she places Grape on her head. The joltik chirrs at her and nuzzles into her hair, her small claws scuttling across her scalp as she gets comfortable. Akari makes her way downstairs again just as the door opens and Elesa walks in.
"Akari, happy birthday!" Elesa scoops her into a hug, lifting her off the floor with ease.
"I see you've gotten your joltik! You know, Emmet only gives them to trainers he's really proud of."
Emmet goes over to ruffle her hair, but Akari bats his hand away. "Noo, I just did my hair!"
"Birthday noogies are a tradition, dear niece. You can't escape your fate."
Akari shoots a look to Ingo, who looks away like the traitor he is. She sees his shoulders shake as he tries to suppress his laughter. Akari can't do anything to prevent the incoming birthday noogie from both Emmet and Elesa, despite her pleas and squeals.
Grape scuttles down her arm and makes her way into the pocket of her dress to find a more peaceful place to sleep. Akari ends up having to re brush her hair.
It's a beautiful spring day outside, the breeze cooling down what would otherwise be a relatively warm day. The sun shines bright in the sky, and Akari squeezes herself between her dad and uncle as she walks, Elesa walking in front of them all due to her longer legs.
They're glad to walk to the mall, the large sprawling building relatively close to their apartment complex.
The large doors slide open with a woosh, the sound of people talking filling the mall. Akari grabbed her dad's hand and shuffled closer to him.
She was still unused to places this loud.
Ingo squeezed her hand reassuringly while Elesa and Emmet moved slightly in front of her, which made her feel less exposed.
They started walking around the mall, Akari slowly getting used to the level of noise and people when a certain store caught her eye.
Heatran Topic.
She took one look at her dads face and decided she needed to go inside. There had to be a reason why he looked so traumatized.
"Hey Ingo, wasn't this your favorite store when you were younger?" Elesa teased, a mischievous smirk on her face.
"Yes brother, wasn't it the..What did you call it? Pinnacle of fashion?"
Ingo looked like he wanted to crawl in a hole. Perfect.
"DID YOU HAVE AN EMO PHASE?!" Akari shouted, pure glee on her face as Ingo raised his hands to cover his rapidly reddening face. Right on the money!
She shrieked in laughter as Emmet continued to tease him.
"Are you gonna buy more black nail polish? Maybe some My Chemical Luvdisc shirts like old times?"
"Please..Don't expose my shame to the entire mall.."
"You can't get rid of me! We're a package deal!"
"I should've eaten you in the womb."
"But you didn't!"
Emmet playfully bats at his brother as Akari walks in the store, eyes falling on the walls of graphic tees. They're less emo than she was expecting, now mainly consisting of anime and Hello Skitty.
There is however, a grand basket full of nail polish. It's all in skull shaped bottles, which she imagines would be a nightmare to clean if someone wanted to.
But who would willingly clean out a nail polish bottle?
It's that moment when Elesa sticks her hand in the basket and picks out three bottles.
"Perfect! I don't have any of these in my collection yet!"
Akari just stares at her. Of course it would be Elesa.
Akari exits the store to see her dad standing very pointedly away from the store while Emmet continues to tease him, despite barely being able to talk due to him laughing so hard.
She drags her dad away from the store and his emo trauma.
Elesa's nail polishes clink around in her Heatran Topic bag as she walks, but eventually she shoves them in her purse to stop them from clicking together. They peruse more stores, Akari very nearly bolting into a store full of large, soft plush renditions of pokemon.
She sees one of a Tangela and comes out of the store cradling it in her arms like a baby.
"His name is Gorp."
Ingo nods. "A fitting name. Gorp."
Emmet is visibly confused, but decides not to question it. Teenagers are weird.
The rest of the mall outing is spent in various clothing stores as Emmet tries to pay attention. Akari is very quickly outgrowing her clothes from Hisui, growth spurt kicking in now that she's gotten proper nutrition.
She's going to be taller than both him and Ingo someday if she keeps growing so fast, which is something he doesn't like thinking about. She's very excited to be clothes shopping however, so he re-tunes into the current conversation.
"-And look at this sweater! You're gonna look like an old man, Dad!"
"What, like that's a bad thing?"
"Dad. People already think you're in your late forties at best."
"Maybe I'm embracing my age. You know, in Hisui I was regarded as quite an eligible bachelor!"
"That's because Calaba thought you were old and wanted you to 'settle down', dad."
"I won hottest man in Unova 3 years in a row."
Akari looks baffled.
"Emmet got 3rd place every time."
"How?! You're identical twins!"
"I wear the face be-"
Emmet walks over to smack his brother on the shoulder as he laughs.
"You're going to look like a grandpa in that sweater."
"It's soft Emmet, feel."
He does. It's one of the softest things he's ever felt in his life.
"I am Emmet. I need one. Or more. Probably more."
Akari and Elesa just shake their heads.
They go home not long after, Akari starting to get tired and Grape fast asleep in her pocket. The family walks back to the apartment in a comfortable silence, and Akari decides to take a nap.
Ingo, Emmet and Elesa take this time to bake Akari's cake and get it decorated, as well as trying to keep Lady Sneasler and her kits away from any ribbons.
Once Akari is awake again they eat dinner and bring out the cake, modeled after her very own shiny Tangrowth. Her hands flap rapidly in excitement, and one of the sneasel kits imitates her.
After the cake she opens the present from Ingo, which is a lovingly knitted scarf that she puts on right away. Elesa stays over for a few more hours before going home, and Akari goes to bed with the scarf still wrapped around her.