Title: Vanilla Essence
Character (s): Volkner, Candice, mentions of others
Rating: K
Inspiration: Just ... relaxing songs.
Notes: I think this is what they call pointless bantering and arguing with oneself. Err, I'm sorry about their personalities, I think my view of them is a little screwed up after so long. Haven't written much fan fiction so .. just getting back into it. So yes, it's a little rough I think. And I also got caught by the virus before, so maybe you got that ...?
Summary: He never thought of her before. But something about her aura, he supposes, is just so intoxicating.
Volkner had never thought too much of Candice. She was just another gym leader, just another person to respect – to know, to remember and to sometimes collaborate with. He doesn't know when this changed.
He doesn't even know how long it's lasted.
All he knows is that she suddenly became a focus in his mind, and that was not good. After all it was not good at all, for a gym leader to be distracted by anything – anyone if you read between the lines – and certainly this feeling hadn't come in the manual.
It's a good guess that it started last time the league met up. But hey, like hell is he gonna tell anyone about this and so Volkner decides he should just leave his thoughts and assume that the electricity in his gym may just be enough to fry his memory of this feeling for a while.
It doesn't work, by the way.
And so he's back where he started, standing right outside her gym waiting and thinking about her. Sometimes he wishes he was busier; just to have no time for anything but battle, battle, and battle. But then, the work would be too tiring for one like him who does not like to exert himself and then he'd be thinking about her even in the midst of battle.
Volkner does not like to think he is as pathetic as that. He isn't, he assures himself; he's a gym leader in Sinnoh and the eighth (if that gives any more support to his claim). But Candice is the seventh and it doesn't help to ease his thoughts as everything always leads back to her.
He thinks about her home town and shivers.
He liked Sunnyshore for the weather, the solar panels that were pretty much everywhere, he liked the people (though he doesn't socialize much) and everything about it. It was his city, in a way, and so different from hers.
It almost felt like a different world the first time he went to Snowpoint. And he's perfectly fine with being blunt and telling her;
"I hate it."
But instead of getting offended, she smiles – that most absolutely cutest smile ever (he did not just think that of course) – and replies,
"You'll learn to love it one day!"
He won't, he thinks, it's freezing and everything's just white and horrendously soft and sickeningly sweet but she loves it and she never seems to be cold and she loves the soft snow and she's sweet- he realizes that perhaps he had just solved his mystery. He was a sunny guy while she loved the snow.
.
.
.
It was simple curiosity, no?
She laughs suddenly and he is broken out of his thoughts.
"Maybe you're different though," she tells him among quietened giggles, "You're from Sunnyshore after all."
"I don't think my birthplace has anything to do with it." He answers her coolly before he rethinks his words and groans, because he's just undone his last theory through instinct and she's just watching with wide, inquiring eyes and laughs again when he groans.
"You're so ... "
"Hn?"
"Ohh, I don't know!" And she falls with her back to the snow and smiles again. Her smile is somewhat secretive this time, and for the first time Volkner wonders if she has the same troubles as he does (but shrugs it off because she's too damn carefree and if she had any, she wouldn't say a word) and thinks it to be void.
.
.
.
It's night time now. Candice stands beside him and looks up at the sky and doesn't say anything. Volkner thinks her serious expression is too hard, too cold, too distant. He doesn't say anything either.
She looks back at him and smiles shyly, as if she would break if he touched her.
He doesn't like this side of her but tries to smile back.
Candice looks at her hands and sighs almost silently. He watches the wind play with her braids as she stares, and her energy seems to have depleted completely.
"How are you?"
He feels stupid for asking, he never asks and at this point it should have been obvious. He doesn't care though and so when she looked up and they made eye contact, he simply stared blankly into her eyes. Searching.
It's like that never happened because she instantly brightens and grins.
"That's the first time you've asked me that."
He thinks this is ridiculous. "You.."
"Haha, I'm perfectly fine. Thank you very much!" He watches her twirl around and it's almost like she's dancing with the falling snow, like the stars suddenly started to fall to make her just that more enchanting.
"You're such a child..." He sighs and it's followed with a smirk as she looks back at him and blinks.
After a few seconds, she just laughs.
It's childish, and somewhere nearby he could smell the faint scent of vanilla. It vaguely crosses his mind that it's her and she's probably mentioned it sometime earlier in the day but he doesn't remember. He hasn't thought of another theory about his thoughts yet.
He can admit that he's come to love the nights at Snowpoint, despite his hatred of the cold, and he understands why she loved this city. If he were one of those dreamers or some far-fetched daydreamers, he might possibly say that it was a kingdom of beauty or magic. But only at night.
She's started to sing softly and has called out her pokemon to accompany them. He watches her, and listens.
There's something about her aura, he supposes, and that he'd learn to love one day as well.