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After the terapagos incident in Paldea, The BB league had to clean up the mess that Kieran made during his…”Phase”, as his sister likes to call it. At first, Kieran wanted to go right back to his hometown and stay there for a good few months so he didn’t have to see his schoolmates for a good chunk of time and hopefully they would forget about the disaster he created, but seeing how hard-at-work everyone in the league was (Drayton excluded), how could he just leave them behind? Of course he had to help them out, atleast to get their footings in place. There was another reason as well, a certain someone having just a few weeks in Unova before most likely disappearing forever from his life altogether (he says that he won’t, but how likely is that?) so he had to make-do with the moment and the times before leaving even more regrets and grudges behind.
So this leads us to now, the current times, where the BB league is having one of its countless meetings about who’s gonna be the champion once Florian and Kieran leave, if Crispin has to leave the league, the budget being a constant issue for everything and whatnot. Frankly, the boy would immediately buy a ticket directly to Kitakami whenever a meeting starts, but he’d prefer not creating any additional problems for the league. C’est la vie.
(A transfer Kalos student taught that phrase to everyone in Blueberry Academy, but he never says it out loud because he can never pronounce it right) (Carmine really likes to tease him about it) (She can’t pronounce it either.)
Other than his homesickness, an issue which was pressing on everyone’s necks was rather trivial. Chairs. Those wonderful human creations that revolutionized civilization. A necessity to all. And yet, out of 6 BB league members, there were only 5 chairs left in the room. And one boy was missing in the meeting.
Carmine had earlier come in to steal a chair for her class, which apparently needed it for a whole whopping hour due to some students missing a teacher and having to spend lessons with another class, and doing all of that while standing would be dreadful for those poor lost souls. Although less dreadful than the fact that now Florian, center of the world which everything rotates for, would have nowhere to sit on.
Okay, maybe it’s not all that bad. But he is the current champion, so someone would have to hand over their place for the crowned one. Probably Kieran. After all, he’s technically only a temporary member of the league till he takes his long awaited break.
So, as Florian enters the meeting (half an hour late, what was he even doing???) and looks first at the missing seat then at the members with a puzzled look, Kieran immediately gets up only to be interrupted just as fast.
“I can just stand, don’t worry!” The great martyr speaks.
“No way, that’d make me feel bad. I’ll handle it, so don't you worry.” He kinda sounded cool there, a proud remark he keeps to himself.
“You can just sit on my lap, champ!” Drayton is ready to make everything worse for his own personal amusement, as always.
Still catchy enough to make everyone in the room turn their eyes and therefore attention towards the dragon trainer. “What? As his elder, I’m ready to sacrifice my pride for my junior’s comfort. I’m so generous.” His sleazy smile widens as Kieran looks at him, incredulous. The little shit, he’s doing it on purpose.
“Well-”
“No, I’m sure that’d just make him feel uncomfortable! He can sit on my lap instead!” Poor Florian doesn’t get to start a word as Kieran is already fighting on the frontlines for the torture of having the cutest guy in school sit on your lap (he’s the only one to think that, though). Truly the punishment of the divine. Arceus must hate him. How awful. He should spray paint a sanctuary later.
The other members now turn all their attention to the ex champion, who must either sound insane or lovestruck. Or both. Probably both. Most likely both. His cheeks are tinted red now.
“Florian should go grab a chair from an empty classroom.” Amarys, the brain of reason, one out of the two members of the league that let this place run and not flop down and blow up. Kieran appreciates her, truly, but as of the moment he’d really like her to not speak and leave this between him and Drayton who should begin readying his pokemon for the worst sweep in pokemon battle history.
“Now, isn’t that boring?” Drayton is always blunt, no surprise there. “Plus, our poor poor champion looks so tired!”
“I’m not-”
“So let’s just get this over with and let him rest, yeah? Think about the little buddy for a second, will you?” He doesn’t look tired, just a little short of breath, likely due to running around the terrarium for the meeting. Gee Drayton, don’t let him finish, will you? Kieran thinks to himself as if he didn’t do the exact same thing up to a minute ago.
Amarys simply adjusts her glasses, not seeing any further way to reason with these fools (she’s smart) and Lacey has apparently opted for the same the second Drayton began speaking (she’s used to it).
“You can sit on mine if you want, Florian!” Crispin adds himself to the conversation and to the war. Everyone knows that he’s just happy to be there and that he wants to be a good friend to Florian, but a rival is a rival. Kieran’s eyebrows furrow ever so slightly, one fist clenched on the table.
“I don’t…” Florian looks at Crispin, smiling innocently, then at Drayton, smug and tapping at his lap covered by his purple coat, and finally at Kieran who’s preoccupied with tying his left out hair strand into knots. His gaze lingers on the last boy for a little too long. “...Really mind…” He doesn’t sound too sure of himself either.
Not like The Drayster cares about that. “Great, let’s play grass water fire to decide!” Ah yes, the famous children's game that adults teach kids so they remember type matchings and advantages, only to teach them about competitiveness and luck not being on your side.
“Deal.” “Sure!” The tones of the answers are totally different.
And so, as Lacey is brushing her Whimsicott while happily humming a few cute songs around, the three gather around the Grand Table Of The Grand Blueberry Academy League to play a Legendary Game of Grass Water Fire. Florian sometimes claps at them, face unfaithful to such action, and Amarys is rubbing her temple. The real victim.
A circle of hands perfectly gathered. “Grass, water, fire!” Two waters, one fire. Crispin is out. What a predictable lad. “Aw, shucks! Oh well.” Not like he really cares, anyway. Florian still gives him a little high five for the attempt.
Kieran and Drayton exchange a deep look. Drayton is smirking, gallons of confidence and smugness gathering around that brain to function as annoyingly as possible towards the Kitakami siblings specifically. It’s about time Kieran wipes it off again. The boy, in turn, has his eyebrows furrowed all the way down, an expression he barely has these days. Yet, unlike the past, he looks confident. In his abilities of predicting the moves of the enemy, of winning, of himself.
Drayton will probably pick up what Crispin has burned and pull a fire as a way to trick the enemy, but Kieran isn’t a fool, he won’t fall for such simple tricks. He’ll have to do water again.
“Grass, water-” Drayton’s smile widens. “Fire!” And they both pull water. This is horrifying. The second time they pull out water together, wait no don’t- “Wow, we’re basically best buddies already!” darn it.
At the very least the other two spectators seem amused by this impromptu comedy skit.
Kieran has to get his head in the right mindscape now, though. He can feel himself use Calm Mind. Arise, my special attack and special defense. “Grass, water-” Drayton seems too amused by the situation, which means that his next move will be-
“Fire!”
They both pull grass at the same time.
This is the worst possible outcome.
Drayton bursts out laughing and Kieran is looking at the others, trying to figure out if he hallucinated this entire interaction. He sure hopes he did.
“Kieran.” Amarys is there to save him, though. Bless her, Arceus! “He’s cheating.”
What.
Is what crossed Kieran’s mind upon hearing such, echoing inside his mind. “H-How?!”
“You concentrate sooo much on what’s best to pick that you start showing your move when we reach Water, so I just switch it up to match, haha!” He’s so amused by what’s essentially the life changing revelation of why he had never won a match of Grass Water Fire against Carmine.
“Then why always match mine and never go against it??” That truly confuses him. He could have won the whole time, so why not just go ahead and do it?
“It was funnier that way.” Right, this is Drayton he’s talking to.
Of course, he's frustrated that he was so busy racking his brain over tactics and the such, putting way too much effort into it, while the enemy himself was playing jester. But, as much as that peeved him, all it took was a single glance at Florian and the dawn of realization upon him for his scale of happiness to rise all the way to the top.
His heart starts thumping at an irregular speed.
"Sit down already, we're having a serious meeting here." Lacey, who's Whimsicott is now back into its netball, is still great at her role of being one of the two people who keep the league going forward. Kudos to her and Amarys, truly.
And so, Crispin and Drayton go back to their respective seats.
Kieran and Florian, on the other hand, stare at each other for a prolonged amount of time. Florian is smiling innocently as usual and Kieran is confused all the way. Neither of them know how to start this, apparently.
Fortunately, Kieran’s latest experiences have helped him learn about courage and confidence and the such, so gathering up a massive ball of it all, he manages to break eye contact and walks over to his seat, glare focused ahead.
He’s going through with this, no matter what.
It’s a life and death situation, after all- Okay, maybe not, but it’s still important enough to him. He hopes it’s as important to Florian too, but the chances are mighty low.
The grand champion of the league doesn’t enjoy wasting time, apparently, as he immediately plops onto him without an ounce of hesitation.
Kieran keeps his expression firm and unflinching, even if he’s internally repeating various phrases involving the name of Arceus all mighty and his brain is becoming familiar with the constant use of the letter A. As in, AAAAAA- You get it. So, even if his expression is of a steel type, the tint on his cheeks is telling a completely different story.
The meeting goes as programmed, the new addition only making this slightly more of an enjoyable experience. Atleast, he thinks so, as his nerves are too tangled up to think of just about anything else other than his current predicament. Fortunately, the only one who seems to notice such is Drayton, occasionally sending him knowing smirks to then go back to faux listening.
Lacey turns to him. “What do you think, Kieran?” Nevermind, he’s doomed.
“Ah- uhm- yes? I agree?” He might have forgotten how to function like a normal human being for a few minutes and everyone else seems to notice such.
“...With what? We were proposing multiple options, you see.” She sounds disappointed in him, which is understandable enough.
“...” He doesn’t know either, please don’t ask him that. “Well…”
“Are you tired, Kieran?” Asks the angel slash demon in front of him, underestimating the boy’s current internal crisis regarding him.
He only really went to class today, so it’s nothing like that. However, there’s really no other way to explain his current issue with just listening to a meeting, and Florian’s question seems more of an escape rope out of Lacey’s upcoming scolding session than worry towards his current state of health. And so, he takes it. “I- Uh- Guess so? Probably. Worked a lot today, yes.” Not even a fool would be convinced.
“Feel free to rest, then!” As much as Lacey wants to disagree with it, she figures that it would only invite more wasted than gained time. Kieran sighs deeply, acknowledging that his stupid nervous feelings are getting on the way of the meeting and that he really should stop overthinking so much of unimportant things like th-
Florian grabs his hand and Kieran forgets how to breathe. The champion grabs his other hand as well and wraps it around his own frame and Kieran lets out a small, inaudible shriek. Did he want Kieran to hold him?? Why?????
His feelings for the champion were always as obvious as the fact that the sun shines on the earth, Carmine even almost straight up told the other on their second day of seeing each other ever. He believed that the whole BB league champion and area zero debacle made Florian forget about it, too unimportant to be even considered- but maybe not???
Not that he’d mind.
Suddenly, Florian leans behind, towards Kieran, whispering something only he could hear. “It’s so you can rest. Think of me as your pillow, or your Furret- As a sorry about this all?” It was just sweet mercy all along, figures.
Not like he’s letting the chance of hugging his beloved friend slip.
Even if his hands feel like they’re burning whenever they get too close to Florian’s jacket. Somewhy, even if this is a simple act of physical touch often made between friends, even more so with Florian’s weird (yet nice) bunch, it feels like too much. He shouldn’t do this.
But Florian asked! He proposed this himself! But just because he felt guilty! Is he scared of weighing too much? But he doesn’t! He’s so light and nice and he’s making HIM feel all light and nice! Does Florian feel the same?! This is so unfair! He wants to hold him! He wants to be selfish! But Florian thinks it’s a simple gesture between friends, and Kieran thinks it’s a great gesture of maybe romantic affection and he’s getting ahead of himself and it wouldn’t be fair to Florian and Florian smells so nice did he go to the flower fields? Kieran can feel his hands shake uncontrollably. Oh there’s a strand of fur on his jacke- This is awful, this is the worst, he can’t even think straight! Help him! Someone, anyone, please!
“Still on earth, ex-champ?” Anyone but him!
Out of spite, Kieran uses that last push to effectively hug Florian, perhaps a bit too strong. “Yes.” He states, matter of factly, and everyone moves on. He doesn’t. This is the best moment of his life and also one of the worst. He’s not even hugging him properly, someone might exchange him for a Bewear! He WOULD let go, but Florian is smiling as always so why would he? It’s not bothering him. He asked for it. This is FINE.
Why not enjoy the moment graced upon him?
He decides on doing the boldest action ever accomplished in all his 14 years of existence on planet earth and rests his forehead on Florian’s shoulder. The brunette shudders.
Kieran is the worst person on the entire planet. How dare he exploit Florian like this? This is the worst possible offense. He’s never going to talk to him ever again. Their friendship is over now. He’s going to die all alone-
Florian brings his arm up and ruffles Kieran’s hair- ruffles Kieran’s hair?! Does what to who where how why?????
He doesn’t deserves this! It’s so nice, the fingers brushing on his locks make him feel like he’s going to melt down onto a puddle. He could fall asleep right then and there. Why is he doing this?! Kieran leans further onto the other boy’s shoulder, tightening his grip on him. He could live like this. Does he sees him as a simple child??? He could cry from happiness! Should he ask him to get married once the meeting is over? They could buy a nice house in Kitakami or even Paldea if he wanted, maybe close to the beach- Kieran’s cheeks are flushing of a deep crimson color.
Crimson? Carmine.
Carmine enters the clubroom and all eyes turn to her and the chair she’s carrying.
Darn it all.
She, on the other hand, is preoccupied digging knives on Florian and Kieran with her bright sunny eyes.
She doesn’t says anything as she puts the chair back to its rightful place and walks back to the door, the entire time staring at the two without breaking sight.
“Have a good meeting.” And she leaves.
Now everyone else is looking at them.
Now isn’t this embarrassing.
Amarys is the first to speak. “There’s an extra seat now. You should go to your place, Florian.” And she only speaks the truth.
Kieran softens his hold on the boy, ready to let go of the moment. It was good while it lasted. Florian thinks the opposite. “Actually, I wanna stay.” What.
Crispin gasps before looking at Lacey for her own reaction, who’s frowning and pouting and seems just about ready to explode. Amarys adjusts her glasses. “And why so?”
“This is comfortable!” Kieran is astounded that his friend was also enjoying the experience, and is even defending its continuity!
“But that’s just-” Lacey does her iconic pose of crossing her arms into an x-shape. “-Not right! It’s just not right!” As patient as she seemed to be, the girl was truly bothered by what those two were doing during the entire meeting. Hugging each other, cuddling almost, in public! For everyone to see! During an important meeting concerning the entire academy! It was highly inappropriate, all of it! “Even if you want to continue doing, that- '' she can hardly explain it. “-then imagine what will happen if other students pick up on it and attempt to imitate you! Per say, imagine if I, on a whim, decided to sit on Amarys’ lap-”
“No.” The mentioned doesn’t even want to be used as an example for such inappropriate behavior.
“...” A rebuttal is quick on her tongue, but she swallows it down for sake of continuity. “Then, on Crispin’s-”
“WHAT?!?!?!” The newly mentioned springs up, immediately flushed with the deepest red, from chin to ears, shaking his arms without care for the environment. “BUT- No- I mean, if Lacey wanted, who am I to say no- I’d be too embarrassed! But I wouldn’t mind! You can, if you want! I’d let you!!! Wait, no, you’d think it’s inappropriate, right- but-” and now he’s a blubbering mess.
Lacey coughs once to recall the attention on herself and Crispin catches the often used silent message, sitting back down and squirming on his seat out of sheer embarrassment. She looks once at Drayton and her eyebrows furrow deeper, eating back her words before they even come out. So, her glare is back at the troublesome duo. “What I’m meaning to say is that we can’t just do this… Willy nilly! ” Her attempt at using modern lingo so the poor morons can understand is very adorable.
“Just this once then, please!” Wonder is how Florian has the sheer courage of going against Lacey’s glare, it has always scared everyone enough to agree with her orders the moment they were issued. An additional reason as to why Kieran admires him. And an additional question as to why he was trying so hard. Did he really care so much about this? Was Kieran such a good seat??? Carmine used to give him lap seats when he was younger, but that’s about how far the experience goes- He has none!
“No, get off this instant!” She might have gotten up to claw him off herself. Well, no one can blame her, Kieran is a pretty important component of the meeting and having him unavailable due to being too lovesick was pretty unnerving.
Florian doesn’t care. He goes as far as to wrap his arms around Kieran’s neck and pulling him closer. Huh??? “I’m fine like this, thank you very much.”
“Kieran!” A call for help.
The called for is too busy balancing himself in every possible way as he feels as if he’s about to fall down his chair and, additionally, lose his sanity. “I- uhm- Don’t mind??” He’s not even sure of himself. He does mind, but not negatively. He doesn’t want Florian to get off, but he feels like his mind has shattered completely and has become a black hole made only to create thoughts relating to Florian. Which is bad, in case you didn’t think so.
Lacey looks like she’s about to say something else, but in the end she only huffs and attempts to continue on with the meeting, only sending a few glares to the two. Kieran feels sorry for her, he should probably buy her some nice-looking ribbons for her pokemon when his monthly allowance arrives. He’ll try to coerce Florian into buying her gifts, too.
As he spends some time thinking about the best shops for cute things that Lacey often mentions, his mind goes back to planet flor- earth- when the object of his affection rests his head closer to him. At that moment, Kieran can only think about kissing him- even just his cheek would be fine! Alas, that’s too outrageous. Couples can only kiss 6 months into dating, his grandma told him when he was little. It was most likely untrue, but he wanted to follow this rule, and he and Florian weren’t even an item. He shall keepsake his sweet dreams for the unlikely future.
“Regarding the thing about champions and whatnot,” Drayton speaks and the cloud of Florian fuzzles out for a second. “Can’t we just merge those two? They’re so close, we might aswell fuse them into one champion.”
“Shut up!” The brave man hissed out, just to immediately cover himself into Florian, who laughed at the suggestion, going back to pat Kieran’s hair.
As outrageous it was, Kieran did give it an ounce of thought. What would a fusion between them be like? Would they have brown or black hair? Purple??? His yellow eyes would win out, surely. As beautiful and breathtaking as Florian’s are, yellow defeats brown. Somehow. It made sense inside his brain. They wouldn’t be meek, a very confident person surely! Is he thinking of a possible fusion or a possible child?
Kieran gasps loudly, startled by his own thoughts.
The BB league looks at him.
He murmurs an apology.
As much as the boy is complaining to himself, this is truly an enjoyable experience. Florian feels steady in his arms, and the way the other is holding him is so…Soft. Tightly enough not to fall off and to make Kieran feel warm and soft enough to make him feel precious and treasured. He can sometimes feel the other’s heartbeat, it’s collected and it helps him feel grounded. On the other hand, he can constantly feel and hear his breath. At the start, it itched like fire thrown onto him, but as he got used to it, it just made him feel fuzzy all over.
Looking at him, his brown hair seemed overly soft, as if his shampoo was made of wool. Unfortunately, his bangs were getting too long so he’d have to cut them soon. They covered too much of his gorgeous caramel eyes, long eyelashes being invisible by now- And his lips! They were of a naturally rosy color, yet they seemed more chapped than usual. He must have forgotten to drink water for the whole day again, so Kieran should buy him a bottle of water after this. He forgets himself too often for his own good, and Kieran is only happy to look out for him. His cheeks- They were so round. He wanted to kiss them at first, but perhaps his grandparents were affecting him too much as he now wanted to pinch them instead…
Similarly, his fingers are on the chubbier side. It still tingles whenever they touch him. He really wants to hold them, but he can only imagine the other’s reactions…
Admiring Florian’s self does wonders to his mental health. Enough for him to feel so fuzzy and drowsy to just- Fall asleep, right then and there. It started off slowly, closing his eyes for a little too long, and before he knew, they were closed for good.
Little did he know that the other had suffered the same fate as him.
“That’s inappropriate, Drayton!”
“Aw, come on, don’t you want to get back at them a lil bit?”
“But doing such a thing while they’re sleeping…It’s just not right!”
“It’s not that bad! Right, Crispin, my bud?”
“I just thought they’d sleep better on the couch, I didn’t have any bad intentions! Serious! I’m sorry!”
“Hey, don’t you dare throw Crispin under the bus!”
Amarys promptly leaves the league’s club room.
Kieran is laying down, resting on his side, hence his entire arm tingles.
It’s the worst kind of sleeping position, so whenever he’s trying to fall asleep, he always does his best to avoid assuming it.
And yet, here he is.
The lack of smell of chocolate (he should start throwing his tons of boxes out before someone ends up visiting) is enough to make him realize that he’s not sleeping in his room. Is it enough to make him want to get up or, at the very least, check his current location? Absolutely not. For some unknown reason, he feels like he spent too much time with his nerves at the higher end.
What would make him so nervous and flustered that it would tire him out so?
Well, usually Florian-
Florian.
Wasn’t Florian sitting on his lap during that excruciatingly long meeting? Kieran clearly remembers starting to feel snoozy, which means that he most likely fell asleep. Yet…He’s not sitting right now. His entire body is laid down somewhere…What happened?
To make matters worse, he can feel his hair down, which means that someone clearly tampered with his sleeping body. But his clothes feel the same. He even has his usual big shoes on- so what’s going on?
Finally, his curiosity gets the best of him.
Kieran opens his eyes to find-
Florian.
Eyes open, staring at him.
It was a difficult kind of stare.
The first thing he noticed were his eyebrows. Always up and about, they were now furrowed, ever so slightly. The crease in between them was easy to miss, but Kieran? He’d never.
Scared to look him in the eyes, he rushed down to his lips, which were- downturned.
Again, this is Florian. He’s always smiling and grinning and this was…Rare.
Something felt off, something was missing- and yet, it wasn’t. This felt natural. Natural, yet complicated.
Getting over his fear, he finally ends up looking at his eyes.
His look was distant. He was looking at Kieran, but it felt like he was looking at something more. As if he was pulling him in, asking him to reveal all his secrets and deepest thoughts.
Kieran wanted to hide, yet he couldn’t stop looking.
Overall, it was a weird expression to make at someone else. Kieran couldn’t read his thoughts at all.
As if remembering his current situation, an overwhelming feeling of awkwardness washes over him, realizing that he should probably speak up after staring at him for so long (even if the other had for longer).
“...How did this happen, exactly?” Not the best conversation starter out there.
Florian took a bit to answer, apparently still processing the fact that Kieran was awake and aware of him. “The others probably wanted us to rest comfortably?” His smile was now back, but it looked overly forced and awkward.
Was he embarrassed? Kieran hoped he was.
Speaking of, he’s now awake enough to look around his environment, recognising his resting place to be the big couch in the league’s club room. “Honestly, this seems more like a prank...”
“What a weird one, haha.” That’s a forced laugh if he had ever heard one.
Was he upset? Kieran didn’t want him to be.
The proximity between the two being too close for comfort (and personal sanity, even if the previous interaction had gotten him slightly more used to it), Kieran first moves a bit farther from the other, then he sits up. As he’s about to get up from the couch, he gives one final look to Florian and-
He’s blushing. It’s obvious to see, Florian is blushing from ears to cheeks and even his neck is flushed. He’s not even looking at Kieran, too concerned with studying his own fingers, a clear sign of nervousness.
Florian was flushed.
Kieran wasn’t the only one affected by the other, it seems.
Of course, it’s obviously not for the same reasons, perhaps the young champion is just embarrassed to be so close with another, or being caught staring at someone, but it was still a sign that Kieran could affect him in that way and that he wasn’t the only one who was constantly being affected by the other.
He was glad to see him blush.
So glad that he hurriedly gets up, murmurs a “see you later” and runs away, off to his room.
Kieran likes Florian. Likely much more than the other does or ever will, but perhaps, he could try to close that gap as much as possible.
After all, there might be a possibility, and Kieran is willing to take it.