Chapter Text
Lana was walking around the city after leaving her sisters with one of their friends, it has been two weeks since she had returned from Kanto and kissed Gladion in the airport, yet she has avoided contact with anyone outside her house. Her cellphone hasn’t stopped ringing from messages of her friends, that she deactivated the sound for every message or call that wasn’t from her family. Mallow, Lillie, Kiawe and even the recently arrived Moon, had visited her house, but Araquanid always warned her to give her time to scape.
She didn’t want to see them; she knew they will try to talk with her about what happened even if some of them weren’t present. Mallow and Lillie probably told Moon about the kiss since they watched the scene, and who knows, maybe Kiawe and Sun knew too, it was hard to say at this time.
And Gladion, she was not sure why she was avoiding him, it could be that she didn’t know what to tell him? Or maybe she feared his reaction? Or both? Just thinking about the subject was making her stressed.
She was walking around one of the main streets of the city, when someone grabbed her from behind. “Finally, I found you!”
Few minutes later, she found herself in a coffee shop with the company of the person she didn’t wanted to see.
“Mmm… Can you tell me your reason for kidnapping me in a sudden way?” She asked quietly after leaving the cup of tea she had ordered.
“Kidnapping? C’mon I even invited you to drink something.”
“Taking into account that you appeared from behind without announcing and forced me to come here, I would call it kidnapping with ninja skills.”
“Maybe I have learned from you.”
An uncomfortable silence started between the two. This wasn’t looking good. “Really, why do you bring me here?” She breaks the silence, trying to look calm, but inside, she was drowning in shame.
“And you still ask? We NEED to talk!”
Obviously, it was about ‘that'. “It’s… Necessary?”
“Of course! Look, Lillie kicked me out from the foundation and …”
“Lillie?”
“Yeah!”
…
Some hours before, Gladion was watching the Porygons, that he had brought from Kanto, getting used to their new home in the Aether Foundation. The pokémon looked happy of being free. The future leader of the foundation was analyzing the interaction from the Porygons with his own Porygon Z, when the elevator behind him opened.
“GLADION!”
“Don’t scream like that!” The scream of Lillie nearly made him jump of surprise.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was demanding, and when Gladion glanced at her, he started to think she looked so much like their mother when she gets angry.
“I’m observing the new Porygons, we need to see which environments they like the most and Moo-” His explanation was stopped when Lillie started to drag him into the elevator, leaving his own Porygon Z confused. “What are you doing!?”
“Asking you to go and search for Lana!”
“What? But I already call her 4 times every day and she doesn’t answer! If she doesn’t want to see me, I’m not going to force her!”
“Then I’m forcing you to do so!” Demonstrating that she wasn’t a weak girl, Lillie opened the door of the building, and throw her brother outside. “And you can’t return until you fix your relationship with her!” After finishing talking, she closed the door, leaving a confused Gladion in the floor of the artificial isle.
…
“And seriously, I didn’t know she was that strong…” The comment made him smile, he for sure wasn’t expecting her sister to act like that, she probably got that from their mother. “So, she is not allowing me to enter any building of the foundation until I talk with you. She is probably angry because you haven’t answering her calls and messages and… Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk with me, but there is no reason to ignore your friends…”
“I wanted to be alone and think about… stuffs.”
“Hey, I said I understand, everyone gets confused sometimes and I do like to think alone about my problems too, but… Some days ago, you scolded me for avoiding all of you and now you are doing the same.”
“Maybe we have more in common of what we thought.”
“Ah yeah, the trip helped me to understand that. So hummm… Since when?”
She didn’t need an explanation; it was obvious what was he asking about. Sooner or later they would have to speak of the subject after all. “I think, since you began to avoid us.” For some reason the surface of the table was very interesting at that moment and it helped her to not look back at the boy, she was sure that if she looked up back to him, her emotions would hit like a tsunami. “When you began to avoid us, I realized it wasn’t the same without your company… And I don’t know, I missed you.” Even if she couldn’t see herself, she can feel she was blushing hard.
“Oh…”
His lack of an actual answer only made her felt worse. At least she expected for him to said something, but with his silence, the only way to know what he was thinking would be looking back at him and she was trying to avoid doing so.
“Sorry but...” When she hears his voice after some seconds of silence, she couldn’t stop herself to finally look at him. “Probably you aren’t going to like this, but… Errr… Do you know you look cute right now?”
Well! That was not what she was expecting to hear, yet the effect was the same, she now wanted to disappear. “I’m going to punch you!”
“Wait, no!” He moved quickly to stop her; her reaction was attracting a lot of attention from the other customers. “I'm sorry! Is just… Is rare to see you like this, I’m more used to see you wanting to murder someone and is an interesting change, Ok?”
“Don’t play with me.” Hiding her blushing was now impossible.
“I am not playing, really!” Now, he was sure he was going to feel as ashamed as her in any moment, trying to stay calm was a priority now. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting for you to feel like that about me. It took me by surprise and well, now I feel like an idiot for not noticing it before.”
“Moon said the same.”
“And Lillie has shouted it to me all these days, so is not a surprise. Maybe it would have been better if I said something the day we… Shared the bed.” The memory of that day made him to finally match Lana in blushing.
“You remember it?”
“Of course, you fell asleep first.”
“EH! Why you didn’t wake me up?”
“Ah I couldn’t. Errr you are probably going to laugh at me but… look, you are always like a storm but when you are sleep, is all the contrary. And made me think that your behaviors are similar to the sea, sometimes is strong enough to destroy anything but you can be calm and peaceful too and…” He stopped after hearing that Lana was laughing at him, now he was sure that a Charmeleon would look pale at his side. “Arg forget it, ignore what I said!”
“You are weird.” Her laugh stopped slowly. “But that is one of your charms”.
A light silence appeared again between the two, giving him the time to calm down; but he knew that he cannot leave the conversation end like this, they needed a conclusion. “Ummm… Now what?”
The girl looked at him with confusion about the question. “That is something you need to decide. You already know how I feel, but I can’t answer for you…”
If it wasn’t because the subject was something serious, he would have facepalmed with both hands for making a stupid question; of course, she can’t answer something that involve him.
After she kissed him in the airport, and after Lillie, Mallow and Moon scolded him for his lack of action, it was obvious that Lana has feelings for him, but the real question right now is… How did he feel about her?
“I… The truth is… I’m not… sure.” The words where spelled slowly, he needed to think very well what was going to say, if he made an error, it could ruin everything. The big problem is that the intense attention Lana was giving to him was starting to make him nervous, but he wasn’t sure of why. “I can’t deny that I like your company… Or that I felt very bad every time I ignored your invitations, but… I can’t comprehend what exactly I’m feeling. Maybe… Mmmm, maybe the only thing I can ensure, is that I would be a complete idiot if I let you go without… Err… Try it?”
The last part was said so lowly that Lana doubted to hear it. It was not a surprise he felt so confused about the whole subject. Moon and Lillie had warned her already that Gladion would be someone hard to get into a relationship, thanks to a mix of his attitude and her emotional conflicts.
But if Lillie could ensure something, was that, when his brother appreciated someone a lot, he demonstrated it very natural, his behaviors around those persons become different so slowly, that he doesn’t even realize it. And Lana already checked it thanks to the trip. Perhaps that was the reason of why the others bothered the boy a lot, he had already changed the way he treated her, and it was so different, even compared with his own sister.
Yet, even if she was able to understand what he couldn’t, it would be a bad idea to force him to acknowledge his feelings in a sudden way. Maybe the best would be to leave him go slowly, until he understands his own emotions. There was nothing to lose if she waits for him, especially if he wanted to try a relationship.
Lana moved enough to hit him in the head to call his attention since the boy was lost looking at the table surface, probably too ashamed of what he has said. “Uh, I thought you had already passed out in the chair.”
“What? No! I only… Uh… I'm sorry, I no… Errr… If you don’t want, I…”
Oh, she can’t deny how adorable the boy was when he became a mess. That perhaps was a plus to be with him.
“Hey, calm down!” She hit him again to stop his babbling. “You know, I received a letter some days ago.”
The expression of embarrassment that the boy had was priceless. His declaration and the confusion caused by the change of the conversation were making miracles in his expression. “Uh?”
“They invited me to another fishing competition, in Johto and… Do you want to accompany me?”
For some seconds the boy only looked at her without saying anything. Did the question was too out of place? It would had been better to ask it in another time? Or perhaps…
Zas!
Gladion punched the table, stopping her thoughts; making her believe that he was angry, but a quick glance at him was enough to see that he looked happy, maybe even thrilled.
“Freacking Yes!”
That was enough for her. She can’t force him to run without first teach him how to walk. They can go slow, step by a step, and then, the time will say how far they can go.
.: Fin :.
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Or maybe no?
They went out of the coffee shop to search for a more private place to talk, when the cellphone started ringing indicating the arrival of a lot of messages. Alarmed, they looked at each other and with a silent agreement, Gladion decided to look at his phone. Over 100 messages were already waiting to be read, but to his horror, the number were increasing every second.
‘Hey cousin! What is all that about Silvally being called Alolan Absol? Burnet and I keep receiving questions about it and we don’t know what is happening. Can you come to my lab for a talk?' Prof. Kukui
‘YOU BETTER SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM WITH LANA ALREADY OR YOU ARE GOING TO SLEEP OUTSIDE!' Lillie
‘Hey, have you talked with Lana already? What are you waiting for?' Mallow
‘I’m taking your stuffs out, so you better solve the problem now! ' Lillie
‘Gladion dear, what is this Alolan Absol? Kukui is confused and doesn’t know how to answer the hundreds of mails we keep receiving every day about it.' Prof. Burnet
‘HOW DARE YOU GO TO A CASINO AND NOT INVITE ME? WHAT TYPE OF FRIEND ARE YOU??' Kiawe
‘I think you already know, but Lillie wants to kick you out of Aether if you don’t fix your problem with Lana. Lillie sent me some photos of her taking out your stuffs and really, talk with Lana already, she keeps ignoring my calls and is probably your fault.' Moon
‘WHY IS THE HOTEL CHARGING ME A BED AND A BATHROOM? WHAT THE HELL DID LANA AND YOU DID IN THAT ROOM?' Stupid cat
‘IS TRUE THAT LANA AND YOU BROKE A BED? YOU BOTH ARE TOO YOUNG FOR THAT! ' Hau
‘Gladion darling, why did Hala send me a message asking me if I’m going to be a grandmother? What did you do this time?' Lusa- Mother
‘I received alarming news regarding you from my grandson, and I decided that is it the time for you and the other kids to receive… Ejem, education… according to your age. All of you are still TOO YOUNG for what you did, but maybe is better to give you all the “Talk”. Kahuna Olivia and Kahuna Nanu agreed about the idea of teaching you kids the best ways to keep your safe and Kahuna Nanu accepted to explain everything needed. That’s why I expect all of you in Tapu Koko’s Altar at 17:00 hrs for your education. Don’t miss it! ' Kahuna Hala
‘Glady, do you know why Kahuna Hala sent me this message? What is uncle Nanu going to teach us? I don’t understand' Cpt. Acerola
‘By Arceus Gladion! Is true what Hau is saying about you and Lana?' Cpt. Ilima
‘PAID ME EVERYTHING YOU BROKE IN THAT ROOM!' Stupid cat
‘GLADION WHAT DO YOU DID TO LANA? WHAT IS THAT MESSAGE FROM KAHUNA HALA? AND WHY OUR MOTHER IS SCREAMING SHE IS GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER?' Lillie
‘YOU AND LANA WHAT?' Mallow
‘BUT YOU GUYS ARE STILL TOO YOUNG! WHY YOU DIDN’T WAIT MORE TIME FOR THAT? ' Hau
‘Gladion, it looks that your secret about the bed was discovered and is spreading in a wrong way, you better be prepared for a series of uncomfortable messages from the others.' Moon
‘YOU HAD TO WAIT UNTIL MARRIAGE!' Hau
‘WE THRUSTED YOU! HOW COULD YOU DID THAT TO LANA? YOU ARE STILL TOO YOUNG!' Kiawe
‘Hey Gladion! Seriously, come quickly to explain us about Silvally and by the way… Errr… Congratulations to you and Lana? You both are still too young but, hey! Stuffs happens!' Prof. Kukui
‘GLADION I’M TOO YOUNG TO BE A GRANDMOTHER!' Lusa- Mother
The messages kept arriving. Now Lana was scared to see her cellphone and see if her mother has sent her a message asking about the misinformation.
“Errr… Maybe it would be better to disappear from this region for a while?” With an obvious embarrassed expression, Gladion looked at Lana for help. Their friends really misinterpreted what happened.
“Aren’t that going to make stuffs worse?”
“I want to think that they will forget everything if we find a good gift for them.”
“… Where do you want to go?”
“As far away as we can.”
“Galar!”
“Good. Let’s use our ‘ninja skills’ to get everything we need and met in one hour.”
“You are a good disciple; I trust your skills.”
“I learned from the best!”
The sounds from their cellphones were getting louder and louder with every new message that arrived, maybe would be better to change their numbers.
‘Since I know both of you think in a similar way, I can already see you both planning to escape from this mess. Anyway, I’m not going to stop you or anything, but you guys better don’t destroy another hotel room. And Good luck!' Moon
.: Fin! :.