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“Bro. You have to say something.”
Ethan had been trying to convince Chi to have some kind of conversation with his dream girl for almost a week now. He had known her for an embarrassingly long amount of time to not have had a decent conversation alone with her yet, but the poor kid grew red as a tomato and got the worst stutter when he was left alone anywhere near her. She was his own sister’s closest friend, and Ethan would love to say he doesn’t understand where his nervousness comes from, but he has met the demonic sister.
Chi’s sister, Chou, was a fast-paced blogger who always had a camera in her hand. Unfortunately for Chi, that meant that anything embarrassing he did or said caught on camera was instant blackmail material for her, and he always had to watch his step. She always seemed to tease him for something, but her favorite past time seemed to be teasing him about her friend Stella. Though it was all in good fun, for his sister at least, Ethan couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for him.
It was obvious to the whole group what Chiaki’s feelings were. Ethan wondered exactly how slick Chi thought he was being, but he couldn’t keep eye contact with Stella for more than five seconds in any given conversation, despite how many people were around at the moment.
He sighed again, giving off a simple, “I don’t know…”
Though he puckered his face a bit, Chiaki tried to think of how he could find some time for him to even begin a conversation. A million thoughts flashed through his head, ‘What do I talk about?’, ‘What if she finds me boring?’, ‘What if I get so nervous I barf?’ He shook his head of these terrible thoughts and sighed out loud. A buzz came from his phone and he pulled it out of his pocket, seeing it was from his sister. He was a bit hesitant to open it, since he never knew what to expect from her.
Sure enough, it ended up being a picture of Chou in the foreground pointing to a swimsuit-clad Stella in the background with the caption, “beach day! <3” Sitting up almost immediately, Chiaki seemed to somehow swallow air wrong and go on a small coughing fit, quickly turning his screen off to avoid further embarrassment.
Ethan sat up surprised at Chi’s sudden coughing fit, quickly grabbed his phone away and reopened the message. With a small whistle, he smiled and turned to Chi again.
“Dude. Come on. If you keep waiting, somebody’s going to turn around and steal her away.”
He could visibly see Chi get chills just from the idea of Stella being interested in somebody else. To lighten the mood a little, he looked back at the picture and raised his eyebrows.
“Also, your sister’s pretty hot in a two piece.”
Though he put on a sly smile, Chi quickly punched his shoulder and grabbed his phone back. With a fake gag, he closed the message once again and stuffed his phone in his pocket.
“Don’t ever say that again.”
Suddenly, Ethan got struck with a brilliant idea and grabbed Chi by the shoulders.
“Bro. They’re only in the next town over right? How about we go visit them?”
Though he was stuttering, it was really easy for Ethan to tell that he wasn’t going to refuse. Standing up and grabbing his bag, he threw Chi’s over as well and started walking towards his bike.
“W-what if she’s busy? I don’t want to bother her if she has to work… I think Chou said there was a contest tomorrow…”
Even to himself, Chiaki sounded like he was trying to make excuses, but Ethan didn’t seem to be stopping for any of them. He gave out a small whine, but he was (not so) secretly really excited to see Stella again. It really had been a while, but Chou had kept him updated on their travels and ventures.
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“Hmm.”
Staring up at the large contest building, Ethan and Chiaki seemed to feel really small in comparison. Trainers, Coordinators and Pokemon from all over were gathering for today’s event, and Ethan hadn’t exactly thought this far ahead about how he was going to find Chou and Stella. He knew that Stella worked at these events, so he figured that Chou might be able to tell them where they were.
“You should probably call your sister.”
“W-what?! Was that your plan all along??” Chiaki was a bit flustered, and he definitely hated asking his sister for favors.
“You know, even if we manage to somehow find S-stella,” he somehow had a hard time even saying her name without getting nervous, “Chou will probably be by her side. How am I supposed to talk to her?”
Ethan continued looking around the arena, and spotted something on the wall that caught his attention. There on the wall were posters of contestants of today’s upcoming contest, and one in particular that seemed to call out to him.
“Heh. Just leave everything to me, bro. Go and wait in the hall for the contest to end, after she’s all finished with her job will be the best time to talk to her. Until then, there’s something I gotta do. Catch ya later!”
Before Chi could protest, Ethan had made a mad dash off towards town and Chi was left there alone. He could feel himself getting wound up from the thought of running into Stella alone before the contest, and decided to blend into the crowd as best he could. ‘I pray he knows what he’s doing…’
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[ Once again, Nova takes first place! ]
With a thunderous applause, a small white haired girl stood next to a Glaceon on the contest floor. She had been a fairly big hit around contests, with this one marking her third ribbon and victory. Chiaki felt his phone buzz, and read a message from Ethan.
‘Come out and meet me, I have a plan!’
When he got outside, he could feel himself getting stupider just looking at his friend. Standing in front of him was a 6’2” blonde man in a white wig, wearing the same outfit Nova had been wearing but with a much scarier face than the small coordinator.
“W…what is this supposed to be…” Chi could feel his eyebrow twitching as he tried to comprehend the situation. What exactly could he be trying to accomplish dressing up like Nova?
“So you know how your sister has like, a creepy obsession with this Nova chick? I am gonna run around and get her attention away from Stella. This is your chance!”
At this point he grabbed on to Chi’s shoulders and shook him a bit.
“Bro, TALK TO HER. I’ll distract Chou.”
Chiaki still couldn’t really process what was going on at the moment, but he felt his fists clench in determination and he began to nod along with Ethan.
“Y-you’re right. I think this can work…. I-I’ll do it!”
His voice seemed to squeak a bit at the end of that sentence, but Chiaki felt a bit of courage welling up inside him. Ethan was definitely right about his sister’s obsessiveness, and even though he was almost a foot taller and had a way scarier face, as long as he ran fast and kept her attention they could possibly pull this off.
[ Hey, is that Nova? ]
[ Uh… are you sure? Is something wrong with her… everything? ]
The murmurs started growing around the two, and Ethan quickly ducked his face down. Chiaki could see a familiar face begin to come around the corner, and realized that Chou had already found him.
“Bro, you gotta get out of here. Like, now!”
His voice was in a hushed whisper, but Ethan made a mad dash around the next corner anyway. Chou finally made her way to Chiaki and surveyed the area.
“What are you doing here? BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, were you just talking to Nova?!?”
She glared at her brother, who instinctively took a step backward as he raised his hands innocently.
“N-nova? What uh…”
Chi wasn’t very good at lying, and it definitely showed on his face. However, more shouts and cheers began down the hall for Nova, and Chou’s attention was immediately diverted.
“I’ll be back for you later! Don’t go anywhere!”
With her drifloon quickly in tow, she made her way towards the commotion and Chiaki gave off a sigh of relief. As if on cue, Chi turned his head just in time to see Stella coming down the hall. He could instantly feel his face begin to burn brightly, and his heart beat increase. He tried to mentally prepare himself, though whatever progress he had made was thrown out the window when she noticed him and gave him a small smile, heading his way.
He hid his sweating palms in his pockets, hoping that she wouldn’t notice and tried to stand coolly on the wall behind him. He quietly cleared his throat, preparing to say what he’d been practicing to himself from town to town. When she finally made her way to him, he managed to stumble it out.
“Hi.”
Stella gave off a small laugh, and stopped in front of him.
“Hey! By any chance, have you seen your sister? I think she chased off after Nova again, and I’ve already tried to tell her to leave her alone….. Hopefully she doesn’t cause too much trouble though.”
Chi couldn’t find himself to respond to her properly, and instead nodded his head in the direction that Chou had run off to.
“Thanks.”
With that, Stella made her way after her trouble causing friend, and Chi stood there for a moment with a small goofy smile on his face.
‘I…I did it! I managed to actually talk to her! Wait until Ethan hears about this!’
At this thought, he really hoped that Ethan wasn’t caught by his sister. If she managed to get a picture of him in THIS outfit, he would never be able to live it down.
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Ethan cut through the crowd quickly and a bit roughly, pushing some stragglers along the way. He always threw out a small “‘Scuse me” and “sorry” for everyone, but he wasn’t sure they could even hear him. With his terrible sense of direction, Ethan found himself in a dead end hallway, and could hear Chou catching up behind him.
Cutting into the nearest dressing room, Ethan locked the door behind him. He listened at the door for a moment, listening to see if Chou had seen his location. Suddenly, small makeup objects were being thrown at him from the other side of the room, and Ethan covered his face from the barrage.
“W-who are you?!”
A small unfamiliar voice came from the girl, and Ethan finally looked up to find himself face to face with Nova.
“Nova! I’m really sorry, I needed a hiding spot and the door was open, so I figured nobody was in here!”
Ethan gave a deep bow, though it didn’t seem to take the edge off of the coordinator in front of him.
“Why are you dressed like me? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?!”
“No, no!”
Ethan tried his best to explain his situation with Chi and Chou, though at the mention of Chou’s name, Nova seemed to freeze up a bit.
“Did…. You say you lead Chou here? To my dressing room?”
Now that he thought about it, Ethan could understand his mistake. Nova had probably only wanted a bit of privacy, and now he had lead her number one pokepaparazzi member right to her dressing room. There was a banging at the door, and he could hear Chou begin calling out for her.
“Sorry…. If you can find some other way to get out, I’ll head out this front door and cut off Chou from getting to you. I didn’t mean to do all of this, it’s really all just one big headache.”
While he stood there scratching his head a bit, he heard a laugh come from Nova in front of him.
“Your friend must really mean a lot to you if you don’t mind having your picture in her hands. I hope things work out for him. Good luck!”
With that, Nova grabbed her belongings and headed for the back door. Ethan took a deep breath and turned to the door behind him. He wouldn’t be able to live this picture down, but if it gave Chi the opportunity to talk to Stella, he figures that it would have been worth it.
“ETHAN?!”
Though there was the familiar blinding light of her camera, it was doubled this time with the help of her drifloon.
“This is Nova’s dressing room! What the heck are you doing here?!”
He couldn’t exactly think of an excuse, and simply scratched his head in response.
“Where did she go? Does that mean she’s not here anymore?”
Chou’s questions almost seemed unending, but soon Ethan heard Chiaki calling for him.
“We’re over here!”
Soon Chiaki made his way to the two of them, and they sort of looked at each other when Chou bombarded them with even more questions.
“Finally! Didn’t I tell you that you weren’t allowed to be back here like this Chou?”
Stella made her way to the group and stared a bit in disbelief at the tall boy in the long wig, though she wasn’t sure whether or not she had wanted to question it.
“Come along Chou, we have to go out the other way~”
Though there was a small protest, Chou turned away in a huff at not being able to get any good scoops on Nova today.
Stella was about to turn and follow her friend, when she stopped a bit and turned once again towards the two boys. “Chiaki right? I hope Chou wasn’t too hard on you today, I often hear stories.” Chi turned a bright red and almost began stammering, though a small elbow knock from Ethan quickly snapped him out of it, earning a laugh out of Stella.
“We should chat more, I’d love to know you better. Here’s my number.”
Handing him a small paper, she turned around and followed Chou, leaving Ethan and Chiaki standing there open-mouthed in disbelief.
“I….. literally cannot believe that worked.”
Despite the craziness of the past twenty minutes, Ethan and Chiaki high fived each other and laughed almost harder than they ever had before. Ethan was glad that he had done what he did today, it had given Chi a new chance at his dream girl. That definitely made the long messy wig and awkward breeze in his short shorts worth it.