I absolutely adore MangaQuestShipping. I just reread the GSC chapter of PokéSpe, and I absolutely had to write a little piece about our extraordinary Johto heroes. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon


He was so infuriating.

Daring and disarming and enigmatic and ridiculous and infuriating.

Which, of course, did absolutely nothing to rationalize or justify the fact that I was crazy about him.

If it hadn't been for the Pokédex's resonance system, I wouldn't even know the boy, much less wage these mental wars with myself trying to reason away my attraction to him. But, like all other unexpected surprises, Gold had an ability to elbow his way into my thoughts, not entirely dissimilar to how he had elbowed his way to the frontlines of every battle I'd ever watched him partake in.

"He's so unlike you," Silver would tell me whenever he caught me staring – half-enamored, half-terrified – as I watched Gold's manic shenanigans unfold. Silver, of course, had an almost superhuman sense of perception – there were times when I wondered if he ever missed any minute details of any of our lives. I couldn't decide if his quiet analyses of my feelings had a note of condescension, or if it was simply disbelief, and so I habitually shrugged them off.

And then, of course, my mind would travel back to the onyx-haired enigma.

Rain fell in heavy streaks across the windowpane of Professor Elm's research lab, leaving behind opaque streams that one could just barely see through if you gathered enough focus to stare at the blurry water marks. Apparently, I was distracted enough to do just that, and my vision snapped back into reality after I felt the pang of dizziness surge across the bridge of my nose.

Exhaling sharply, I turned my focus back to the textbooks before me.

Minutes flew by; hours, even, until I heard the familiar "Beeeeeeeep!" Agh, my Pokégear. The number, of course, was the one that I always felt both thrilled and exhausted to see. His message was brief, written in the same flippant style that he always reflected in his tone of voice:

"Yo, Crystal! Exbo and Aibo managed to finish training extra-fast today, so we'll be in Goldenrod for the rest of the afternoon. Meet us at the Game Corner?"

Of course he wanted me to venture out in the middle of this downpour – not that it had fazed him one bit; he always trained like a true champion, no matter what conditions he had to fight through. He also had a habit of disregarding the fact that I might actually be in the middle of my research for once – not that facts or figures or statistics were of any interest to Gold.

Running my fingertips exasperatedly across my forehead, I sighed, knowing full well that I was going to venture out into the monsoon, if only to indulge his desire for a familiar face and an afternoon of mischief.

He was so infuriating.

Daring and disarming and enigmatic and ridiculous and infuriating.

And I, for one, couldn't get enough of it.