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“Are you seeing anyone?”
“Pardon?”
“Have you been seeing anyone recently?”
Leon blinks. The reporter flashes him a sweet smile as if she didn’t just ask a question completely unrelated to the discussion at hand. One moment he’s recalling his latest match with a powerful trainer that’s migrated from Unova. Suddenly, she wants to know if he’s in love. It throws him off briefly, but he doesn’t let his composure falter. He shakes his head lightly in response. “No. I’m not.”
The reporter looks surprised. Leon doesn’t understand why until she opens her mouth again.
“Really? But you’re so handsome!”
He flushes, giving a sheepish laugh. He was never good at handling compliments when it came to appearance despite his confidence in everything else otherwise.
“What about that redhead girl we’ve seen you around the region with?” The reporter teases with a childish glee.
Sonia? He’s snorts, and, unable to help himself, goes into a small laughing fit startling the journalist. Seriously? But he can’t say he’s surprised. Everyone thought he and his best friend would fall victim to the Hallmark trope; that they’d fall in love and have multiple, tinier versions of themselves running around behind a classic white picket fence. That is until she came out. The paparazzi doesn’t seem to be aware though. He decides to correct them.
It takes a moment for Leon to clear his throat, and he swiftly dispels the mountain of rumors that were growing all too quickly. Rumors aren’t his thing. They don’t work with his image.
“I’m going to assume you mean Sonia.”
“Ooo. Her name’s Sonia?”
“She’s a lesbian.”
The reporter’s face falls. She looks disappointed. Leon assumes she wanted to be the first to get some non-existent scoop on his personal life. She wouldn’t be the first to try. Having reached his mid-20s it seemed as though everyone was suddenly oddly obsessed to see him ‘settle down.’ To ‘Start a family.’ He’d managed to dodge the questions at the start of his career when he was slightly younger, but it was rapidly becoming more frequent. He doesn’t get it, why everyone is so desperate to know when he’s going to get married. Leon’s got at least 50 years left. Why should he slow down now? It was annoying. Almost aggravating. But he’d never let that on. It wasn’t a part of his image and his image has fans to please.
The reporter recovers and offers another thin smile and he’s starting to feel uncomfortable. The lady is quiet for a few moments when Leon assumes the interview is over and that she’s preparing to close when she drops another question.
“Any gym leaders?”
Her question makes sense, oddly enough. Leon spends a lot of time with gym leaders. More so, he’s sure, than champions in other regions where the leagues are not based in stadiums and crafted carefully to cater to the masses. In fact, he’s pretty sure every league other than Galar only require mandatory meetings during emergencies. Galar has one once a month, in which every leader and elite four member gather. His manager says the meetings are meant to promote the “growth of the league” but it’s really about planning to gain more sponsors and viewers. The dreadful meetings have allowed him to become well acquainted with pretty much everyone but a few have struck a close chord with him.
Specifically Milo.
Milo is in every sense of the word, an angel. A farmer from a small town in Unova, his charming accent is so sickly sweet it gives moomoo ice cream a run for it’s money. He’s built like a bewear, muscles sculpted carefully from years of hauling hay and herding tauros from dawn till dusk. His soft spoken demeanor and friendly eyes are inviting. His tends to his pokémon like a mother would. The first type Leon saw Milo coo at his eldegoss Leon’s heart nearly burst from the sound. He honestly didn’t think he could appreciate Milo more than he did in that moment until he received one of his hugs. Milo’s hugs are shockingly gentle and incredibly warm; it’s like being wrapped up in a sweater stitched in a wooloo’s fur while sitting next to a fireplace. Leon has never been to Alola but be imagines the feeling he got from that embrace is what it’s like to receive a flower crown from a comfey.
‘Shit.’
Leon feels his skin heating up just thinking about the man and it’s hard to maintain eye contact with the journalist as he lies through his teeth.
“No.” He hopes that his darker complexion hides the flush in his cheeks long enough for him to escape. “We’re like a family.”
He can see it in her eyes. She doesn’t buy it, and he internally begins to panic. Leon’s not ready to confess his god forsaken feelings; admitting he likes one of his coworkers nonetheless is just too much. It would cause a social media frenzy and a new influx of paparazzi he isn’t sure he could handle this time. He’s sick of these types of reporters; ones that dig like a Durant for information without regard for anyone’s privacy. She’s about to comment again and Leon braces himself for the new set questions in which he’ll have to lie again when off to the side one of the sound crew motions to cut. She’s out of time.
“Oh alright! I’ll stop pestering you now. Good luck with your next match!”
‘Thank Zacian.’
He walks away hoping that his fib wasn’t brutally obvious on camera. That’s not the kind of attention he needs right now giving his first scheduled overseas battle around the corner. Leon decides it’s time to train for it, and pushes the thoughts of Milo out of his mind. He’s got sponsors to gain. Fans to please. A brother he can’t disappoint.
Focus on the battle. He thinks. Just focus on myself. No love. No Milo. Just focus on myself.
Everything else is just a distraction. A champion doesn’t do distractions. They aim to please, and please he will.
Leon’s got an image to maintain. Whether he wants to or not.