“Okay everyone, take your seat, we’re going to go ahead and get started.”
Misty sighed and politely wrapped up her conversation with Janine, grabbing a pastry from the snack table and taking her seat with a yawn.
The Gym Leader Conference was held at Indigo Plateau three times a year, and the mid-year meeting was always the most boring. Everyone gave their little updates and reports, gossip was either dispelled or confirmed, and Misty always left feeling just a bit more dead inside than she arrived.
Lance stood at the front of the room behind a podium, waiting patiently for all the gym leaders to settle down, an unfamiliar young man at his side. The newcomer looked intense, dark eyes under shoulder-length purple hair glaring out at the rest of them, his entire vibe giving a mixture of indifference and self-importance.
“Who’s the new guy?” Misty asked Forrest, sliding in next to him at their usual table.
Forrest shrugged. “I’m not sure, maybe the new Viridian Gym Leader? I heard from Erika that they finally found someone.”
Lance cleared his throat and a hush fell across the room and conversations faded so he could speak. “Good morning, Kanto Gym Leaders,” he welcomed them. “We have a lot to cover today, so let’s jump right in. First and foremost, it is my pleasure to introduce our new Viridian Gym Leader, Paul. Paul comes to us from Veilstone City in the Sinnoh region. He has completed in numerous regional leagues and competitions, and is quite highly regarded for his no-nonsense battling style. I hope you’ll all joining me in giving him a warm welcome.”
They all clapped politely as Paul took to the podium, his expression remaining carefully neutral. “Thank you,” he began. “I look forward to working with you all and running the prestigious Viridian Gym to the best of my ability.” He bowed, and immediately stepped down off the stage to sit at an empty table at the front of the room.
“At least we know he’s not just a personality hire,” Misty said dryly, causing Forrest to snort out a laugh.
The rest of the morning passed by uneventfully. Misty’s gym update went fine; no news was usually good news when gyms were concerned, and it was easy to feign interest in the other presentations when she had something much more interesting to focus her attention on in her RotomPhone.
Ash: Hope the conference is going well! Look at this little guy I found the other day! I thought you would like it!!
Misty smiled fondly at the text from Ash and the accompanied picture of him beaming and holding up a little blue shellos.
(She was a bit horrified to realized she actually thought Ash was cuter than the shellos. Ridiculous.)
She was back at her table, picking at her catered lunch and catching up with Ash’s texts. He was somewhere in Sinnoh, apparently. When she asked where specifically, he sent her another picture of himself and Pikachu surrounded on all sides by trees, shrugging goofily along with his “lol idk”.
He was adorable, and she wanted more than anything to be our lost in the woods with him instead of in that stuffy conference room, eating a mediocre sandwich.
She yelped, nearly falling out of her chair to spin and face the source of the unexpected question, finding herself looking up at Paul and his intense glower. “What?” she gasped.
He pointed at her phone with the hand not holding his own sandwich. His expression never changed. “Ash. You know him?”
“Oh, yeah,” she answered, still recovering from her surprise. “We’re good friends. We traveled together for a few years, through Kanto, Johto, and the Orange Islands.”
He seemed to take a moment to process that, then, after a long moment, nodded toward the phone again. “You have a thing for him or something?”
“What?!” Misty shrieked, blushing, more than a few heads turning their way curiously. “No!” she hissed, a bit quieter. “Why would you think that?!”
Paul shrugged. “I don’t know. You were just sitting there staring at his picture, so I assumed.”
Misty felt her face get impossibly redder. “I—I was looking at the shellos!” she stammered.
Paul stared at her for a long moment, then stuck his hand casually into his pocket. “Whatever,” he said, like he hadn’t just blurted out Misty’s deepest secret to all of her colleagues. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said, walking back to his own seat.
Forrest chuckled the moment he was out of earshot. “Oh man, he clocked you immediately.”
“Shut up, Forrest,” she snapped, grabbing her phone and immediately opening up her conversation with Ash, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she willed her face to cool back down.
Ash felt his phone vibrate from inside his pocket and grinned. “I wonder what Misty thought of that shellos,” he said to Pikachu with a grin.
Misty: OMG In don’t know who this Paul friend of yours is Ash, but tell Sinnoh to TAKE HIM BACK.
“I guess Misty met Paul today,” he mused with a chuckle.
“Pika…” Pikachu said with a cringe.
“Right?” Ash snorted. “Good luck to both of them.”
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