He likes me.
With a sigh and a shake of her slender head, the snow-hued dragon gently tore a pink petal off a flower she held between her sharpened ivory claws. It floated down lazily to the gilded floor of the Hall of Origin as she contemplated the rest of its kind still attached to the stem.
Reshiram had always been an early, punctual individual. Call her for a meeting at nine o'clock and she'd come half an hour prior. Tell her to get a job done and she'd have it finished in a third the time expected.
However, the world didn't exactly revolve around her. Reshiram would always have plenty of time to burn sitting here or there, waiting for others to arrive at a more normal, tolerable hour. She didn't mind this at all; anyways, the time was best used for thinking and philosophizing rather than sitting around or, Arceus forbid, sleeping. There were still a good fifteen minutes left, the first half of her time being interrupted by a quaint "Hello" and a weary "I don't get her" from Arceus.
Though, the more she thought about it, what was on her mind that morning couldn't be defended as meaningful in any possible manner. H-he doesn't like me, she thought as she detached another petal, complexion growing a feather more flustered in the process.
The oaken doors of the Hall then opened wide as an agitated dragon barreled through them. Reshiram's face fell as the snake-like Rayquaza sharply asked for Arceus. "They're going at it again," he explained hurriedly, "near Sootopolis again, the idiots!"
A quick point aft sent the sky king along with a half-roar, half-groan of anger and exasperation. Reshiram gave a quick sigh of relief; she didn't know whether Rayquaza would have spent his time lingering and lecturing her on the uselessness of flowers or attending to more serious business. He wasn't exactly one for prettiness or anything pertaining to Latias, for that matter (interesting dissonance, she thought with a brief smile).
As she began to tug at the third petal, the fire dragon noticed the doors open again. This time, a green but much stouter being walked in with a bit less clamor than the previous individual. "Hey, Reshiram," Skymin said.
The dragon puzzled over how such a small Pokemon could possibly open doors many times her height until she noticed another presence that could actually meet her eye level. Palkia held the door wide open, allowing the slowly growing amount of councilmembers to stream into the Hall. It was a kindly, selfless act, which Reshiram thought was completely uncharacteristic of him until….
"Ladies first."
The quadruped counterpart in question turned her head back and glared at him. "Oh, please," Dialga said with a scoff before marching off.
"Looks like Palkia still hasn't made much of an impression on her," Skymin commented, looking down out of embarrassment of having witnessed such a scene. "He's gonna have a hard time if he keeps up that attitude."
The dragon besides her nodded, subconsciously looking at the flower petals in her claws. Maybe I have an attitude problem too? she mused. Maybe that's why he hasn't liked me….
She then felt some slight movement on one of her wings. "Hey," her short friend asked, perched on her shoulder. "Are you playing… wait, are you really playing love me not?"
Reshiram noticed the awkward expression on Skymin's face and the way she brought a paw to her mouth, and felt blood rush to her cheeks. "Yes, I am," she said a little defensively. "Why do you ask?"
"What do you mean, 'why do you ask'?" Skymin exclaimed with a slight squeal, bobbing her furry head up and down. "So you like someone! I always thought so! Who is-"
"No!" Reshiram snorted in distaste at her reaction. She nervously looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping on them before whispering feverishly, "I'm trying to figure out if someone else likes me! The concepts are completely different."
The green-and-white Pokemon snickered at her. "Oh, uh huh, right. That's such a load of crap. You can't delude someone's who's been through this before, you know."
"Been through this before?" she asked, curiosity aroused. Of course, that was a stupid reaction considering that Shaymin was the epitome of girly gossip, surpassed by only the incredibly childish Mew, but still….
"Yeah. Hey, hold me up for a minute. I might fall." The dog reached up behind an ear and pulled out a Gracidea Flower. A brilliant light accompanied her form change, causing Reshiram to shield her eyes slightly with a claw.
The hedgehog now waved the flower up at the dragon's face. "Alright, now see," she said, "See how many petals this flower has."
The dragon regarded her oddly for a minute. "Seven. There's seven petals."
"Exactly."
Reshiram looked at her with confusion.
"See, if you have an odd number of petals, you'll always get the result you want. I don't know how it works, but just trust me. I learned a long time ago from experience, even though sometimes that doesn't always translate into real life..." she said awkwardly. Reshiram nodded, face turning soft and sympathetic… or was that empathetic? After all, they were in the same boat.
The hedgehog nestled the flower behind her ear and jumped down. "So, hopefully you won't end up not not not not not liking whoever you do,"
"Wait… what?" the snowy dragon asked, trying to diffuse the nest of not's in the sentence. She rubbed her shoulder, deadened from Skymin sitting on it from all that time.
"Well, isn't that what you're doing with the flower petals? Cancelling your previous thought? But, well, of course," she said with a healthy wink, "Sometimes some thoughts just can't be canceled, no matter how hard you try. I mean, who would have thought that the early-bird, efficient Reshiram would actually deal with something so girly, romantic, and unintellectual like love me not? Surely she's so unconfident about something to turn to some outside stimulus for reassurance."
"It's unintelligent, not unintellectual," Reshiram said weakly, deliberately skirting the topic of why exactly she was doing what she was. The effort didn't necessarily stop her face from heating substantially because of Skymin's accusations, though.
Skymin shrugged. "Same difference. And why so red, Reshiram? Did I hit a soft spot?"
Her friend tried to prepare a flustered retort, but the canine was already gone from her presence. She frowned at the flower in her claws afterwards. Well, maybe I like him… but does he like me?
She knew that the whole flower thing was simply childish. She also knew she couldn't deny that she was curious about what end result she'd reach, not to mention if Shaymin's theory was actually correct or not. As a few late legendaries continued to arrive, she pulled at the petals far more discretely than before. She looked around warily and swept the loosened petals under one of her feet as she counted.
He likes me.
At least no one was noticing so far. They were all too engrossed in other conversations, and the meeting didn't start for another five minutes, so….
He doesn't like me.
What was the use of this? It's not like whatever she pulled would influence his decisions.
He likes me.
But maybe, just maybe, it would prove to be a very good omen if the petals said he liked her!
He doesn't like me.
She didn't match his personality, though. It was doubtful that he found her his type.
He likes me.
What is type, anyways? Just another excuse of those who couldn't, or didn't, find someone to care for.
He doesn't like me.
Someone like herself, she supposed.
He likes me.
But even if she wasn't her type, they could make it work. Right? Right?
He doesn't like me.
But even if he did, legend forbids that they join in communion. The two were one of the same before, but now they were forever separated.
He likes me.
That's just legend, though! And if anything, it was metaphorical. Doesn't mean a thing.
He doesn't likes me.
Even, EVEN then, what would he think of her if he caught her toying around like this? He was serious all the time, living more the realist's life. And this was childishness at its maximum.
He likes me.
Reshiram looked up to see if he had arrived yet. She was surprised to find that he had, in fact, not been there five minutes prior. No matter, though; two more remained.
He doesn- oh….
Her claw lightly gripped one last, solitary petal. Her jaw loosened and her face fell at this result, even though she told herself so many times that it would no bearing at all on how he thought. Her dignity just felt… marred, if anything, to have her psyche so insulted by what ten-year old humans would normally play at recess. She looked down out of distraction, not wanting to make what would be an extremely awkward eye contact with any other legendary.
"Hello."
"Z-Zekrom!" his counterpart stammered, completely caught off guard. Her tail flared in shock as she scrambled to hide the flower from him, but a black arm caught her wing before she could do so. She looked up almost fearfully into his yellow pupils as he looked at – no, scrutinized – her complexion.
The black dragon chuckled at either her flustered state or her awkwardness; she wasn't so certain of which. "Now, now, Reshi, why so hurried? And what are you holding there?"
"It's nothing. Nothing!" she protested as Zekrom gently but firmly turned her claw up to face him. The stem and its single petal were bared for the world to see.
"A flower with petals torn out of it. Why did you want to hide this from me?" he asked simply, as if it was the stupidest thing in the world. His gaze hardly wavered as Reshiram quailed under the force of the question.
She took this as an opportunity to grab it back from him. "Exactly! No big reason! The meeting's now! We have to go!"
Zekrom made no attempt to resist as she snatched the flower from him, instead just smiling. "That was a test, you know. You were playing effeuiller la marguerites, 'love me not,' weren't you?"
Her breath caught in her windpipe as he correctly guessed the occasion. She coughed out blackish smoke instead of a searing flame at the flower. "What? No! Of course not- I mean… how did you know?"
She shrunk under his stern, emotionless gaze, wincing as he pointed down below her. The white dragon followed his dark claw until she saw a large array of tiny pink petals decorating her feet. Wait, wait! I thought I put them under my feet, unless…. Unless she had forgotten to do it every time because she thought too hard! And now he knew….
"Well, Reshi?"
"Yeah, okay, you caught me," she said with a nervous laugh. "I was just waiting until the meeting started, because I come here early often. Now it's about to begin, and I don't think we should be late, so can we go now? Now?"
"So now, I'm judging from the last-"
"Zekrom! Can we talk about it later? Please?" she snapped, flustered. For Arceus' sake, she just wanted this conversation to end! Reshiram was certain that more than one pair of eyes stared at her back as she tried to get him to stop talking.
His face remained unperturbed as he asked, "That last petal probably means you got stuck on a 'doesn't like me' one, huh?"
Her next retort caught in her throat as she struggled to justify or simply lie about it. However, only a mere, "W-well, yeah…" escaped her as she found none to be expressed.
"You do realize that you should have picked one with an odd permutation, right?" he said, giving her a bemused glance. "If you pick a flower with an odd permutation, you'll always pull the choice that you initially want. But there's a trick around that. There always is. Just because you get a bad petal doesn't mean he doesn't like you…."
"Zekrom! Time!" she exclaimed, normally snowy face already flushed a deep red. "Can we talk about this later? Or not at all? Preferably not at all!"
"Almost, almost done," he said, oblivious to her protests. "Now, one of those human partners – her name was White, I believe – when we were together, she was playing this, and what she did was pretty clever." Though Reshiram knew it was stupid to feel such, a small pang of jealousy coursed through her at the mention of someone else being with him.
"See, look." Zekrom reached out and tugged the last petal from the flower between Reshiram's claws. She winced at the sound of the tear, feeling as if he had pulled the remains of her hopes along with it.
"If you get stuck on a bad petal, you can just split it in half!" The dragon tugged at the center of the petal, breaking it in two. "And then, we can just throw one away and pretend that was another petal you pulled."
"Then, the other one is your last one, right?" he asked a surprised Reshiram. "So here, this is for you." He handed her the other half, a small but entirely noticeable grin on his almost mechanical face. "So, look, he likes you! Isn't that something!"
As Zekrom smiled at her, Reshiram felt something in her chest melting. Maybe it was the way her black counterpart naively made her romantic quandries seem so simple, or how he remained completely ignorant of the fact that he was in fact the target of her flowers… or did he know? Was he smarter than he let on, actually subtly telling her that he happened to actually like her?
"Hey, Reshiram," the wyvern heard dimly, "Why are you tearing up a bit? And red? Are you alright?"
It was as if she heard his voice through water as her mind reeled with the countless possibilities. So what was it? Did he actually like her, or was he just unaware of the way he said "He likes you!" Or did he know, and not want to be with her…? Or, maybe, maybe he was just indecisive, waiting to see how things turned out! That took way too long, though… she wanted to know now, considering how it was him who had escalated this dilemma to ridiculously uncomfortable levels without knowing it!
She saw the crimson eyes and black wings dance before her in a shimmer as tears began to obscure her vision. The dragon's mouth moved up and down, as if was he was saying something; she just couldn't hear him, though, nor see the slight look of concern on his face.
"Reshi? Reshiram! Are you alright?"
Now Zekrom's voice seemed to be fading back in, swirling emotions slowly coalescing into a single objective. There was no way Reshiram could resist any longer; he had to know, he needed to know! If he didn't, then… then….
On complete impulse, she surged forward, large wings snapped open to fully embrace the utterly shocked dragon. "Idiot!" she exclaimed, nearly choking on tears as Zekrom tried to raise his arms to push her off. "Don't you know that I… that game…."
"R-Reshi, what are you talking about?" he asked confusedly, feeling her head nestled fully on his torso. If she hadn't been stammering half-coherent sentences, she was certain that she would have squealed a little bit at feeling the vibration of his voice in his chest as well as the heart that suddenly seemed to beat twenty times as fast as before. "Don't you see that they're watching us…?"
"You don't get it? Gah!" She closed her eyes and rubbed her face closer into his upper body, feeling a pleasant warmth rushing to her face. It didn't occur to her that she was blushing madly as Reshiram whispered, "Zekrom, the one I like is… well, he's…."
She froze. "Wait, what?" the wyvern yelped as Zekrom's last sentence finally registered in her mind. Her eyes flew open as she rapidly detached herself from the object of her attraction. "I…."
Reshiram mouthed for words, but found herself stammering as she turned to see the entire council watching her. Their reactions were varied; some were absolutely shocked, like Shaymin. Mouth full agape and face starting to grow a reddish hue, she was only able to cover part of her features with a paw as she stared and stared. Rayquaza simply scoffed and looked away to a specific red dragon, which did not fail to catch the attention of a snickering Palkia and an incensed Latios. Arceus wore a small, knowing smile, while his counterpart Giratina snorted and rolled her eyes.
All in all, the fact that everyone was watching her hardly failed to leave her mind.
"Zekrom, you… you… you idiot!" she nearly screamed as she half-ran, half-flew out the doors of the chambers, entire body burning from absolute embarrassment. When she thought about it, she basically confessed to him in front of everybody! How could she let her emotions run so rampant? As she flew as fast as she could out of the Hall, tears clouded her eyes as her heart began to pain in her chest. How could she have done that not only to him, but in front of everybody? Now everybody knew! How could she be so stupid, so careless, so… in love?
"Wait, what?" a stunned Zekrom asked no one in particular. He stood plastered exactly where he had stepped back to take the brunt of Reshiram's hug. Unlike the other dragon, he didn't become truly conscious of many pairs of eyes watching him until he looked up at the council table. "Err… uh… hello?"
He thanked Arceus that his skin was dark enough to hide the blood in his face as he sat down next to Kyurem at the table. That was embarrassing as hell, for one, being planted on the spot like that, and being the absolute center of attention didn't help either. But as the God began to request the minutes from the last meeting, he sat there silently contemplating what Reshiram had said. Zekrom, the one I like is… well….
Well, who? Who was it that she was talking about? And why did she hug him, and call him idiot? It didn't add up at all, and the fact that the rest of the council was staring at him oddly made his deductions no easier.
"Zekrom, any reports from your sector of the region? Keep in mind that you'll also have to do Reshiram's briefing today as well," he heard a baritone voice say. He looked up to see the qilin watching him, humored smile still present on his face.
"Yes, Arceus, sir." I'll think about it later, he told himself as he cleared his throat loudly.