♡ - 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬; 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐥 (𝐨𝐛𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲), 𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐥 & 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥, 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 & 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐥.
(This is my first time posting writing on here, I'm not sure how to format it yet.)
If you decide to read, please enjoy ⋆. ୨୧˚⋆ ♡
Spinel isn't, by any means, stranger to having individuals attempt to make connections with him. He's a handsome man, after all, alongside being intelligent and owning an umbreon in tow. It's usually women who approach him, trying to strike up a conversation out of thin air, or hoping to continue a previous chat he'd had with them from a day too blurry for him to remember. But the odd few men was, whilst not high enough to mention to anybody, not exactly low enough to dismiss.
The man could be humble and claim he hasn't a clue of his own attractiveness, but his appearance has always attributed its piece to his pride. It was vain, but in equation with the rest of what made him, did that really matter?—If someone wanted to criticise him, surely there would be better things to question.
However, despite these advances, he's never found interest in anyone. It's something people that know him are always eager to poke fun of. How, at the age of thirty two, can he have only engaged in two 'relationships,' both in his late teenage years? Ones so fleeting and short that he fails to give detail to them? And a man like him, at that? He really should be more humiliated, they think, to have barely any dating portfolio to his name. However, Spinel's individuality runs deep enough for him to be completely flippant to it all.
The answer is simple—even more so when split into two. One, he's barely as charismatically personable as he makes himself seem, so anything that sprouted from interest in his public persona would crumble like a dandelion in the wind. Two, he simply didn't need pleasures like love in his life. Romantic love, at least.
He doesn't have much of an opinion regarding his aversion to it. At most, every once in a while, it'll rear its head, and he has to argue its restless form til it shrinks back. If anything, he thinks that his inability to experience it all is nothing short of a blessing.
The idea he could be so absorbed by someone that he'd dote on images of being by their side for eternity? It wasn't disdainful, but definitely an uncomfortable idea for him. If that was someone's wish in this life, he wasn't going to stop them, but for him personally, he was happy it was an option he didn't have access to.
Even if he did have the ability to fall in love, he doesn't think he'd seek it out anyway, so it wasn't the colossal change many thought it to be.
Or, more accurately, the astounding revelation that Coral thought it was.
"What do you mean 'you cant'?" The young woman pressed, sat rather abstractly on her chair as she spoke. It was one of the rare, frankly dreadful, events where they were alone in a room together. She'd strolled in to disturb his peace—and by peace, he means the quiet time he took out of his day to make a new brew of scalding hot coffee in the common room of their headquarters—and planted herself down on a chair, carelessly opening that big mouth of hers.
Spinel took a final sip of his coffee, immune to the temperature by now, before setting it down on the counter. Resigning himself to a frustrating conversation to come. "I have no interest in it, and my personal psychology doesn't seem to either. That's all."
Coral's face was close to twisting in preparation to throw some level of snark at him, but decided against it. In all honesty, she was only speaking to him because she had no one else to pester—where's sidian? Ugh, why are you asking her? She doesn't know!
'What a fast relent,' Spinel muses internally. However, he still gave her his attention, aware that she'd probably pick the pace back up soon. She likely just didn't know how to respond to something like that.
His observation was correct, unsurprisingly. She sat up straighter in her seat, putting a hand on her chin. "Haven't you been in relationships before?" Coral questioned. Yes, he briefly mentioned it to her once—as much as he disliked speaking to her, the admin was undeniably easy to have light conversation with—but he didn't expect her to remember.
The man, in turn, nodded, "I have."
"They were forced," he filled in. Coral has an odd habit of leaving sentences hanging when she has a genuine question, he's learnt, so it makes it easy to detect when she's actually curious or not. "I was just testing the waters."
Coral incredulously raised her eyebrows. Sure, she herself had no interest in dating, but that was because nobody else lacked as much sound as she did—why would she date someone who wouldn't let her be reckless, ya know?—not out of the sheer inability to. In fact, she'll toy with the rare man from time to time, much to Sidian's chagrin (but who cares about that retired street fighter? What was he gonna do, get that heap of salt on her heel? She'd like to see him try), and thought Spinel would be the similar type, but clearly not.
"So what do you do when you… you know… that," Coral began, trailing off cheekily, having already regained the signature mischief her body was moulded into. It was like she found it impossible to communicate without even an ounce of instability bleeding through.
There were a multitude of outcomes her sentence could've reached. Sex was the first that came to mind, but it was absurd. Coral could be a ditz when it benefited her, but in actuality she's more emotionally intelligent than anyone gives credit for. With that type of heightened sense, it only reasonably pushes into regular intellect. In Spinel's opinion, you'd have to be an idiot to conflate sexual desire with romantic desire. She was probably asking about the occasional flirt. From both him and recipients.
"It isn't my problem if people are fickle enough to believe sweetened words so readily," Spinel scoffed, placing a hand on his hip and finally relaxing into the conversation, leaning himself back on the counter. "Do you expect a meowth to reject cream just because it can't taste the sweetness?"
Coral deflated all over again. It was obvious to tell that she was attempting to go about this politely, and had he known what it was exactly that was bouncing around in her head, he'd have answered it. Unfortunately, he did not, as much as it bothered him.
Even more so, the conversation seemed to be coming to an end. Coral stretched dramatically and waved her hand around whilst she got up from the chair. "Okay, okay—no need to get all complicated on me. I just wanted to know," she yawned. She already thought of him to be weird enough for staying up at ungodly hours to do useless work (like, really, who the hell needed that many notes on Laquium? Definitely not the old man upstairs, she's confident) but this was just more to add to that never-ending list.
Not because she thought it was strange in its nature—Coral couldn't care less—but because she just wanted an excuse to make it look longer, and therefore more reasonable.
Spinel rolled his eyes as she made for the door, picking up his coffee and resuming drinking it. He could hear the loud thoughts resounding in that head of hers, mostly annoyance, but that was typical of her. She could handle ambiguity up to a point, and Spinel liked to push that as hard as he could for his own sake.
However, just before the young woman left, she stopped. Looking at him over her shoulder.
"What, so you're friendless and loveless?"
He took a deep exhale to stop himself from entertaining her taunts, "if that's how you want to phrase it, yes."
Then, finally, she laughed, yet sobered uncomfortably fast. Taking a step away from the door with her hands behind her back.
"Does it, uh, not bother you?" She asked awkwardly, narrowing her gaze on him in thought. Coral could never imagine how it would feel like to know you weren't guaranteed a companion at some points in your life—crushes are inevitable, and so are relationships. They're good too, she remembers Chalce telling her once. Even as non-commital the admin herself was, she still thought them to be beneficial. "Ya know… no friends, no love, means you're pretty lonely, right?"
Coral nearly laughed again, but she swallowed the bubbly breath down, "you're like a social loser outside of work! The only thing you have going for yourself is your Pokémon and that head. Lose your intelligence, and bam! Useless."
In response to the distasteful comment, Spinel felt like turning away, and yet he doesn't. He was too curious now. "And?"
"And that must mean you get some major FOMO, right?" A hand moved proudly to her chest, "being around people as amazing as me~! All whilst you spend all day-"
"Spare me your bragging," Spinel interrupted. He felt slightly foolish to have thought she were to delve into actually interesting material to prod at.
The young woman's face went blank, then her face twisted into what could only be some sort of scowl. "I am not- well… I am, but-… Fine! I'll leave, then. Be lonely."
Once the door clicked shut, Spinel sighed. What an annoying girl.
Spinel didn't expect much to arise from their momentary, nightly talk. The fact about him was mundane and would do little to knock down his reputation in the case she had any interest of using it against him, and for the most part, nothing did come from it. Knowing Coral's nature, he'd chalked it up to her simply not caring enough about the minute detail now that she'd learnt it.
It'd been… a year or two since they'd had that conversation, if she remembers correctly. She didn't really dwell on it very much, since Spinel's business had nothing to do with her; his identity drifting further and further away from the rest of the Explorers as they developed. Being the chairman of Exceed and whatnot, but also just generally seeing him less.
Coral threw her head back with a groan, body dramatically crumpled up on the concrete steps both her and Sidian were sat on.
"Ugh! Not only do I have to work with you, but that stupid stone won't activate," the young woman complained. Sidian was able to mega-evolve his aerodactyl no problem, yet she's been stuck, slaving away, trying to get her glalie to so much as twinkle with unhatched energy.
Sidian placed his hands on his knees, "that's because you keep using Self-Destruct before you get the chance to try."
Her head turned to the side to glare at the man, "what's wrong with the way I fight?"
"Figure it out yourself," he shrugged. Usually, he was more straightfoward with the older admin, but there was a sliver of victory in his system. It would arise every time she went through the frustration of him being better at something than her for once.
Coral sprung up in annoyance, leaning forward to see his face and crossing her arms. "There's nothing to figure out! You just don't see the fun in my method that I do," The young woman bit, standing up to further protest, "you're just some boring street fighter, so you can't say anything~ In fact, you could chuck laughing gas in a room and people would still look at you with a stone-cold fa-…"
Her jaw clicked shut when her gaze instinctually glided over to a nearby spectator. With the way Sidian bristled, she's preeetty sure this is another one of his weird fangirls.
(Doting fans are only bad when they aren't hers)
Sidian was ready to get up from their spot at the battle courtyard, but the fangirl was gleefully approaching him before Coral could so much as let out a teasing remark.
"Wow- Hi!" She called over, raising a hand to wave at the two admins, and… was that a-
"Great… she has a card," Sidian groaned quietly, tensing up even further as the fangirl seemed stop, stood a foot away from them.
Pensive, she looked from one admin to the other, then strutted up to… Coral.
"H… i!" Coral croaked out, awkwardly placing her hands on her hips. "Is there anything you need?"
The other woman nodded eagerly, extending the hand with a letter in it out towards her, "oh, desperately. I've been meaning to give this in for ages!"
Coral awkwardly took the letter, "is that so…—uh- what is it?"
Obviously, it was a love letter of some sorts—Coral wasn't an idiot—but that didn't mean she wanted it to be. Her eyes glanced from the card, to the weirdo in front of her, flicking between each.
"All I ask is for it to reach Spinel," the woman pleaded, putting both her hands together. Simultaneously, Sidian watched Coral freeze up in real time.
Like, actually freeze up, to the point that the next person who spoke was, much to his displeasure, him.
"We'll forward that to him," the admin took the letter from the older one's hands and took over the conversation on their side, "but we can't guarantee it'll go through. He's a very busy man." And you're a very bold woman, apparently.
The woman nodded gratefully, "thank you! I was convinced you'd both say no! You guys really are such great people."
"Mm," he acknowledged gruffly, glancing at Coral whilst pocketing the card. Not caring for whatever rumpled state it would be pulled out in later on. "Is that all?"
Nodding her head, she answered, "that was all! It was so great speaking to you guys."
Again, Sidian let a rough "thank you" leave him. It was very obvious that the person speaking to them right now didn't care about anything past the card being sent to their boss. He exchanged a couple awkward words with the woman before she eventually left. Finally giving him a moment to address the anomaly beside him.
"Hey," his finger nudges Coral's shoulder, "what's up with you? You're like a stonjourner right n-"
He was interrupted by a wheeze pushing out of her and breaking her status. Then an outbreak of laughter and fit of resultant stomach cramps taking over the older admin.
Coral took it upon herself to take out the card from his pocket, opening it up to browse through what only sent her into a deeper pit of this newfound hysteria of hers. She fell back and took a seat on the concrete steps, nearly keeling over at her own amusement the more she reread the card.
What the hell got into her?
Sidian took initiative to sit back down beside her, snatching the card from her hand and reading through it in search of enlightenment towards her cackles. Unsurprisingly, he was met with the usual admiration, and looked at her with disappointment.
"You're attracting attention," he grit out. Leaning forward to poke her forehead just hard enough to force her into looking up at him. "What're you even laughing at? You've received tons of stuff like this."
The woman came to a choking halt. Oh, uh- what was she laughing at? Funny story-
When his gaze become more scrutinising, she repeated herself, "I said nothing! None of ya business, get it? And give that back!"
She attempted to swipe the card off of him, only to stumble off the steps; just two, luckily. Then, in her embarrassment, she stood back up and took the empty milkshake cup—she got it when they first went out—from the ground. "Let's just go, 'kay? We're wasting time here. I'm getting a new drink, too."
Sidian grumbled something under his breath about her behaviour—five months older and acts like she's 7 years younger—before begrudgingly acquiescing and getting up.
He wasn't looking forward to standing about idly in some random store whilst she picked out the right drink, and undoubtedly trying to make him get one too so he could pay.
hey spinny!! yuo won't believe the time me and sidian had today. this whacko came up to use and gave me and idsian s card with you're name witren all over jt. thid sappy monolog alllllll abt how much she admired yoy. like head over heels and stuff. it was reaaaaaaally funnt. your lucky i didn't keep it (that loser did), or it would be going straihgt to you the moment ee got back. thrity four a romantic and you still get stuff like this? rarely even out tttfnnnnffm'
Whilst I'm charmed you remember that detail about me, and am pleased to know you enjoyed your recent outing, please do not email me on grounds so casual and with such little tact. I'm giving you the grace of assuming those typos would have been rectified had you not accidentally sent your email early.
If you have any concerns regarding being given letters and cards in public, please discuss that with Chalce.
Reminder: You and Sidian have an interview located in Cortondo at 2:00PM on the fifth of April.'
Authors note; if you're confused about the odd shift in writing style between Spinel's POV and Coral's POV, I wasn't sure how to personalise my writing to Coral's character. If you have any advice to give me on her characterisation (or any of theirs), I'd appreciate it! ♡
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