Hi. This is my Contestshipping one-shot, and I have to admit, it's not my best work. I wrote it kinda on-the-spot a while ago. Well, you may like it, but I, as the writer, am picky about it. I mean, it's a good story, I just am weird and although I ship it, Contestshipping is NOT my forte because I really like the manga better than the anime, AND I never even watched all of the Hoenn episodes. I also just made Sadie up on the spot. All you Contestshippers out there named Sadie...well...I know you wish you were dating Drew, but sorry. He's a fictional character. Just like I want to marry Red from Pokemon Adventures bu tthat sadly isn't possible, and plus, I'm an extreme Specialshipper. (and a Pokeshipper because Ash and Red are TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT PEOPLE!)
SO sorry Contestshippers if you hate me for making Ursula appear, or for making May and Drew REALLY OUT OF CHARACTER. 'Cause I might have...
Rant over. Go on. Reviewers rock!

-Silvia

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this really. I don't own Pokemon and I don't own that little plaza, much less know where the HECK it is...I wish I owned Pokemon, but sorry, I don't.

The Storm

Sometimes, lives are perfect. You see a young man walking down a street. He is a star coordinator, he has good looks, strong allies, and he is hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl who admires him and is also as perfect as the afternoon sunshine.

Little do you know, that under this boy's strong, appealing surface, a storm is brewing.

You don't know, his girlfriend doesn't know, and he certainly doesn't know.

Yet.

My best friend was that perfect guy people would see. Handsome, talented, strong, powerful. And let's not forget that he had a beautiful girlfriend.

I was the one who knew him first, though. Back when we were rivals, not well known. I was his best friend, and he was mine. Little did he know the way I really felt.

The more time I spent with him, the deeper I fell into unwilling love.

He never really seemed to notice. He just thought I was a kind, pretty, friend. That's all he thought of me. Nothing more, nothing less. A friend.

When he found a girl that went out of her way to show him she was a fan, well, he couldn't resist, and I was jealous. He spent so much time with her, I was seeing less and less of him.

Then, after a few months, he ended things with her. I started to hang out with him more again, but then he found yet another girlfriend. After he found her, I barely ever talked to him.

Sometimes I would see him in the streets too. But he never seemed to see me. He was just talking or holding hands with or kissing his girlfriend.

That was the part that bothered me.

Back when I was friends with him, I knew we both had never kissed anyone. I used to have these crazy fantasies where he would sweep me off my feet and we would both have our first kiss.

But those foolish dreams of mine were shattered. I knew he would never think of me as more than his best friend.

I started seeing less and less of him, talking with him less frequently too. I couldn't stand it anymore; him barely speaking to me, his best friend, never noticing me in the town plaza at the cafe across the street from the restaurant he sat at with his girlfriend, how he'd kiss her, not even knowing the way I wished I could share my first kiss with him.

I couldn't take it.

I went ahead, barely aware of what I was doing, and called two other close friends. They answered the phone together, thank Arceus. "Guys!" I said. "I need your help desperately!"

"What is it, May?" Misty asked me.

"I think I know," said Ash with a sly smirk. "It's boy trouble, isn't it?!" I nodded.

"And I know just who the boy is!" Misty nearly shouted.

I was blushing. "Yeah, yeah, pick on the lovesick coordinator, anyway, have either of you had any luck getting in touch with him?"

They shook their heads. "No," replied Misty, "we try to call him but he never picks up."

Ash smiled again. "So May, need some help over there in Hoenn?"

"Desperately," I pleaded.

"Okay, I guess we are coming."

Although I couldn't see it, my face must have lit up. "Really you guys?!" they nodded. "YAY! Thank you so much!"

With that the three if us began plotting out our plan, and after that we said goodbye and hung up.

Two days of pacing later, my doorbell rang. I answered it before my little brother, Max, got the chance to, and before they could ring more than once. Seeing who it was, I pulled my two friends into a hug.

"May…you're…choking…us," they squeaked out.

"Sorry!" I exclaimed, releasing them. "I just haven't seen you two in person for so long." I realized they were holding hands. "And I don't want to be pushy or rude or annoying or anything, but you two make the CUTEST couple in history!"

They smiled.

"Thanks, May," said Misty. "So, we should get going on our plan, right?"

"Right," I said.

And we set off for the plaza.

It made my heart burn with jealousy when I sat at the café and saw Drew across the street. With his girlfriend. But the plan was a go when Ash sat across from me.

We put our hands on the table and he took mine. There might have been a slightly pained look on our faces, but we were supposed to act like we were a couple, however it didn't change any fact that he was like the other annoying, weird, funny brother I never wanted. I already had Max, and he was enough of a brother for me.

"Just act natural," Ash whispered through gritted teeth. I was probably like the freakish, annoying sister he never wanted.

I soon heard the plan continue with a shout I heard from across the plaza. "Drew?! Is that you?!" I heard Misty's voice. Neither Ash nor I looked but we could hear. We pretended to talk, still listening though.

"Misty?" Drew asked.

"Who now?" a girl-Drew's girlfriend-asked.

"Oh, Sadie, this is my friend Misty. Misty, this is my girlfriend, Sadie," he said.

I heard Misty say, "Yeah, I came to Hoenn to visit May. Do you know where she is, 'cause you two always seem inseparable?!"

"Uh, right, sure, not today, but she's usually over at the…" his voice trailed off, and I knew he had to be looking.

Ash and I were smiling and holding hands. "Now laugh like I said something funny," Ash whispered and I forced laughter, but all the while I could feel Drew's eyes on me.

"What the heck?!" I heard his voice. "Misty, aren't you and Ash dating?!"

Misty, I knew from the planning, shook her head. "We were for a little while, but it didn't work out, and shortly after he started seeing May. But we weren't dating for long enough that it really hurt me, so I'm fine with them being all 'in love' like they are, and stuff. If you don't mind, I'm gonna go talk to them."

She walked towards us and whispered, "Okay so now here's the part that none of us are gonna like. I'm going to gesture to the inside like I need to use the bathroom," she pointed to the doors of the café and then squatted and bounced like she really had to use the bathroom, "and then I'm gonna gesture away to pretend like we are going to leave after," she moved both her arms off to the left, "and then after a couple of seconds of me being inside, you two get up like you're going to leave when I get back and…continue the plan!" Misty leapt inside and stayed near the door, but away from eyesight.

We waited a little, then Ash and I stood and walked a little from our table. Then we did what Misty called "continuing the plan". Ash leaned in and planted a kiss on my lips. I could practically feel Drew watching again, and heard a voice-Sadie's-say, "Drew, you okay?!" and knew the plan was working.

Even though it was my first real kiss, it didn't feel like anything special. Maybe that was because I didn't feel that way for Ash, that there was no spark between us. But it almost felt like I already had my first kiss, which was impossible.

We pulled away, and when Misty returned, we left in the direction of my house, Ash and I hand-in-hand. But when we were out of view of the plaza, I let go of Ash's hand, and he took Misty's. I'm really glad she knew it was just an act, because I'd never admit it, but give that girl a mallet and have someone else kiss her boyfriend, then she full-on scares me.

Ash remembered that he wanted to go help out Professor Birch, so he and Misty left the following day. I decided to go back to the plaza, back to the café, because even though I spent a lot of time there, the food was great and sweet and a lot of things had chocolate in them. Plus I got to see Drew, and it was a quiet place to read so Max couldn't bother me.

That day I decided to sit next to another coordinator named Ursula, who was originally from Sinnoh, but she came to for Hoenn contests. When I sat, she whispered, "Did you hear what happened to Drew yesterday?"

I was utterly confused. I had seen him yesterday, and he was as perfect as ever. "Huh? What are you talking about?!"

"Well," she said, delivering the message like juicy gossip, which it probably was, "he had a contest scheduled, but he backed out, and I know 'cause I was in the contest, and then, he dumped his girlfriend!"

"WHAT?!" I said.

Ursula nodded, smirking. "Yeah, completely out of the blue. Then he had a an argument with this other coordinator boy, who was mighty fine and perfect and nice and…what was I saying? Oh, right, well yeah everyone is saying that he's been in an awful mood since. They're saying that he's become imperfect. And that it could effect his contests."

I was gaping and surprised. He was just sitting on a bench there in the plaza, looking perfect to me, but I could still see the dark, lost, broken look on his face. He was broken. He had lost it. He was imperfect.

That storm had begun.

As if effecting the way he must have felt, and what was churning inside him, the cloudy skies turned an even darker, nearly black shade of gray. Many people, like Ursula, said goodbye to others, and swiftly left to go home.

I glanced at a news screen inside the café on the television, and saw that there was a serious, severe, fatal, critical storm warning. A warning guaranteed a storm, a watch just predicted it. Almost all people in the plaza left quickly. Even most of the shops closed, that including the café, leaving me, still in a daze, to sit on the bench.

On the farthest side I could from Drew.

He was my best friend, but the tension in the air between us was cold like a blizzard. I could tell he felt betrayed, confused, and detached from me. It suddenly hit me like softball-sized hail; the storm was all my fault.

After a long moment of silence, I broke it. "Why did you break up with Sadie?" I asked, even though it might not have been the place to.

There was a pause. "She and I didn't see eye to eye on some things. She was a bit…controlling," he said. "Since when were you and Ash an item?"

I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say the truth; that it had all been a lie. But I didn't want to continue my lie. I must have been quiet for long, because he looked over at me.

I shrugged it off and changed the subject, "Drew, why did you stop talking to me? Why did you stop spending time with me and being my best friend?"

He sighed. "May, Sadie was controlling, like I said. She didn't like the idea of me being so close to another girl."

A thought struck me like a bolt of lightning, white with anger. "What about your first girlfriend?" I asked, trying to cool down.

"I…" Drew started.

I couldn't take it any longer. It just burst out of me like a raging hurricane. "You know, Drew, if you didn't want to spend time with me, you could have just said so, instead of making me wait, hoping that you would come around. You could have just told me that you didn't want an annoying, pestering, freakish loser like me in you flawless, perfect life that you had!"

He opened his mouth to counter, but there was a crack of lightning, an explosion of thunder, and rain pelted down on us. I stood, sopping wet already, and began walking faking calmness, in the direction of my house. I knew that I would catch a cold before reaching home, but at that point I didn't even care.

I didn't hear Drew stand up, yards behind me at that point. I pretended not to hear him call my name as I looked but all the shops were closed. Over the thunder and the pieces of my broken heart thudding in my ear along with the patter of the hard rain, I didn't hear Drew any longer. So I wasn't expecting it when a hand took mine. I flinched, because I hadn't heard his footsteps yet I knew it was him.

Still holding my hand, Drew broke into a run. I was forced to follow, yet something inside of me told me it was okay to go with him. That I should.

Drew and I kept running through the rain. We ran until Drew headed inside a building. It looked abandoned, though I couldn't really tell what it was. I guessed that it was an office building. There were overturned desks and torn-cushioned swivel chairs laid about and papers were strewn out across the floor.

Without contemplating anything, I rushed into the back left corner of the office, and scrunched up in a little ball and sat there in the corner, my arms hugging my legs, and my face buried in my stomach. I hadn't noticed outside with all the rain, but I was sobbing.

I didn't want him to, that was my reason for taking the corner, but Drew sat next to me. "Please, May," he whispered, his voice soft and caring, "I'm sorry. Will you please accept my apology so things can go back the way they used to?"

In spite of the state I was in, he was my friend and I couldn't do anything about caring for him. "Yes," I had to say it a little loudly because my voice was muffled. I lifted my head a little.

"Thanks, May," he said. To my surprise, he put his arm around me. "This reminds me of something."

I lifted my head all the way up-well not all the way-so that my chin was resting on my knees. I moved my eyes to his. "Oh? What?"

He hugged me a little tighter. "Remember that time about two years ago when we were in my basement during a thunderstorm at midnight and your parents couldn't get you because Max was throwing up, your dad was out of town, my mom's car was getting repaired, and my dad didn't want to drive with his convertible out in such a storm?"

I giggled a bit, lost in memory from back when we were eleven. "Yeah, I remember it." Feeling better towards him after he brought up a good time we had together playing video games on a stormy night and telling ghost type stories, I rested my head on his shoulder.

He brought up the subject I had previously dropped. "So…you and Ash?" he asked, a little out of context.

"Oh that," I said, then I decided to tell him the truth. "Ash and I aren't actually dating." I decided not to share the whole truth about my feelings just yet. "He still is with Misty. She just dared us we couldn't pretend to be a couple for a few hours without getting agitated. She made us do the whole…kiss thing. She only made us because she had to do the same thing with Gary."

"Oh," he said. "So you didn't have trouble kissing him?"

I just realized that my first kiss was with a boy I didn't even like. I had dreamed about it for so long, that it would be perfect, and it was pointless really, because I had it with a boy I didn't even like.

"Well…I had to," I told him, "even though I didn't want to. I basically wasted my first kiss."

Drew burst into laughter like a boom of thunder.

"What?!" I asked.

He stopped laughing to speak. "May, as your best friend, I know for a fact that kiss with Ash wasn't your first."

"Huh?" I didn't believe it. "What was my first kiss then?!"

He was still smiling. "May, that night two years ago during the storm, you fell asleep quickly and I was still awake. The thunder kept going and the storm was right above us, but you were so tired you didn't even hear it.

I saw in that moment that even though you were asleep at the time, you were still getting older. I knew you'd only get more beautiful than you were then, and boys would be falling over themselves just to talk to you. I knew that someday, you would have your first kiss, and so would I, but I knew I wouldn't have the guts to say anything about the way I felt towards you. I wouldn't have the guts to kiss you. So while you were asleep, I kissed you and we both had our first kiss."

I had no idea what to say. So instead of saying anything at all, I turned and hugged him. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" I asked.

"I was worried you wouldn't feel the same, and I'd loose you as a best friend."

"Drew, you could have told me. I've always felt that way too, and I made Ash and Misty help me to get your attention so you'd finally fess up and you did."

We sat there, hugging, and we noticed something.

It was quiet.

There was no rain.

There was no thunder.

There was no lightning.

The storm was over at long last.

I remembered that storm, the way the rain slammed down, but the way that it changed my life forever. I remembered it the following month, on a sunny clear day. I sat at the café with my boyfriend, and the waitress pushed another table and chairs up to ours and another couple sat down.

"Well, this surely took a long time to get us four here," my boyfriend said.

"Indeed it has," Misty said, taking Ash's hand.

My boyfriend pointed a finger at Ash. "I haven't forgotten that last time you were here you almost took my girlfriend's first kiss."

I laughed. "Drew, that was you, two years ago."

He cracked a smile. "I know. That was during the storm."

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