Ash stared at Misty blankly.
She'd just walked up to him, babbling something about how since it was valentines day she might as well go for it, then she'd stopped.
"Go for what?"
Misty had to refrain from dropping to the floor at the question. 'I didn't think even Ash would be this dense! I mean, come on! It's valentines day!' Accepting that in reality, expecting him to even know what valentines day was was probably asking a bit much, she continued. 'Got to make it obvious...'
"Okay, umm..." It was harder than expected to say, but she still managed to get the words out eventually. "I... love you."
What followed was a very tense few seconds for Misty, and slight confusion for Ash.
"Yeah, I know." Ash said, lack of understanding clearly shown in his voice, "We're best friends, right?"
Misty tensed, groaning at the denseness displayed. "No. Love as in... well... boyfriend and girlfriend!"
"But..." Ash still couldn't comprehend, "That's what I mean. You're my friend who's a girl, I'm your friend who's a boy..."
Misty didn't know whether to get angry or feel sorry for him. 'So innocent, and so, so stupid. How did I even fall for this guy?' Of course, she didn't need to remind herself that it was his selflessness and the way he always cared for Pokémon.
"Okay... how do I put this..." An attempt at rephrasing began, made difficult by the fact that you couldn't really get more obvious than Misty had been already. "Like, the kind of love where people get married."
"Married?" For a second Misty thought he didn't even know what that was, and was about to admit defeat before he spoke again. "But... people only get married when they're adults, right?"
"You know what, never mind. I'll just be going now..." Misty stood and left, Ash still behind her trying to wrap his head around the concept. 'I feel sorry for anyone else who likes him!'
"What's up Ash?" It had now been a good half hour since the conversation with Misty had ended, but Ash was still yet to understand what had happened.
"Nothing really. I just had a... strange... conversation with Misty." Brock understood immediately what must have happened, romantically inclined as he was, so he sat next to Ash.
"What did she say?" Of course, Brock knew already, but this was the best way to find out what exactly had confused Ash so much.
"She said... she loved me. Then, she wanted to marry me?"
Knowing what had happened beforehand didn't manage to stop Brock's momentary sulk, cursing his bad luck, and Ash's good luck. 'He doesn't even understand what he's throwing away!'
Getting over the anguish with practised ease, Brock offered help. "Well, if you don't want to marry her, don't worry about it." He stood up, nothing else of note to say. "Ah," a thought popped into his head just before he left earshot, "If anyone else says something like that, just... don't worry about it!"
Watching the retreating figure of his friend, Ash sighed. 'Some help he was. I still don't get it!' He too stood, walking back to Professor Oak's lab. 'I guess I'll just follow Brock's advice...'
Next to arrive was May, who seemed somewhat nervous. She reached him just as he was reaching the lab, with it now being visible a while away.
"Hey Ash," She studiously avoided making eye contact with him, "Nice day, isn't it?"
Ash nodded in agreement, hoping that May's strange behaviour didn't lead to another marriage request.
"So, do you, you know, like anyone?" May prompted. Recognising the tone used as the same as Misty's, Ash laughed nervously.
"I guess you don't mean the friend like?" He supposed it was still worth a try.
"Nuh-uh!" The confirmation made Ash sigh.
"No."
"Really?" May sounded slightly disappointed to hear this.
"Yeah. Why?" Ash wanted to check that May was doing the same thing as Misty. 'What else could she be doing?'
"Oh. I see. It's just, I know that Dawn wants to go out with you and..."
'Go out? As in outside? But we always do things outside... how strange.' As May continued talking about what a shame it was that Ash didn't 'feel the same way', he was pondering why Dawn would want to go out with him. 'Maybe she wants to go for a walk or something... yeah!'
"Okay, see ya May!" Ash yelled, interrupting May as he charged off to find Dawn.
May sighed as the boy disappeared in a cloud of dust, wondering how he managed to be so childish all the time. 'I guess that's just Ash for you.'
"Hi Dawn," Ash greeted as he walked into the lab. He'd seen her enter a few seconds before him and had been about to start talking when the door had been slammed in his face.
"Oh, hi Ash." Dawn had the same expression as Misty had, making Ash stop for a moment. 'I thought she only wanted to go for a walk?'
"What do you want?" She prompted as she received no response from him.
"Oh, yeah." Ash snapped out of the reverie, "I was talking to May before, and she said you wanted to go out with me-"
His words were cut off suddenly by a blushing Dawn, waving her arms in front of his face and laughing nervously, "Nope, no, I don't know where she got that from, I'd never want to go out with y-"
Now it was Dawn's turn to be interrupted. "What? So you don't want to go on a walk? Well, okay then..." Thoroughly confused, Ash shook his head and walked off.
"Go for a walk?" Dawn repeated Ash's words in a mutter, "Does he even know what going out means?"
Iris was walking along the road when she noticed Ash.
It was hard not to notice someone who, being energetic as ever, had ran full pelt straight into you. (To be fair, a warning had been shouted a few seconds before the collision, but Iris still decided that the whole thing was Ash's fault for not watching where he was going.)
Ash extended an arm, offering to help her up. Iris took the hand and pulled herself up, nearly pulling Ash down in the process. (Only nearly because he had enough balance not to fall, much to Iris's irritation.) She laughed at the balancing attempts, stopping only when Ash glared at her.
The prolonged eye contact with him made her blush and turn her head slightly away.
"Oh Iris, please don't say you want to marry me too!"
The statement took Iris back for a while, as she imagined someone proposing to Ash. Eventually she realised what he thought she wanted to do, and replied appropriately.
"Marry? You? Why'd I want to marry a little kid?" Iris laughed at the thought, causing Ash to frown.
"Well, when Misty said she wanted to marry me she was doing what you're doing now, so I thought..."
"Misty wants to marry you?" Iris said incredulously, "Ha! Dream on, like that'd ever happen!"
The blatant denial took Ash aback for a moment, and he explained himself slightly hesitantly. "Uhh... well, that's what Misty said being 'boyfriend and girlfriend' meant, so..."
If anything, this made Iris laugh even more. "Gosh Ash, you're such a little kid! Don't even know what that means? Really?"
"Well, if you're gonna be so rude, maybe I'll just go and play with my pokémon!" With that, Ash huffed and stormed off in the direction of the fields near Oak's lab.
Ash slammed the door behind him, sinking to the floor in relief.
The rest of the day had thankfully been devoid of any further awkward encounters, but he'd had spend lots of effort on avoiding Misty and Dawn to make that happen.
Slowly he rose, making his way over to the bed just to flop back onto it. The action jolted Pikachu out of his slumber, but luckily didn't provoke an electric shock from the mouse.
"Hey Pikachu." With just those two words it was understood what had happened in the day. Pikachu let out a 'pi', feeling sorry for his dense trainer.
"Valentines day, huh?" Though the sentence was just a mixture of various sounds within his name, Pikachu's general sympathy was communicated.
"Yeah, apparently someone thought it was a great idea to make a day just for asking people to marry them!" Pikachu laughed at Ash's misunderstanding of the purpose of the day, making the trainer frown in irritation.
A thought came to Ash, making him smirk slightly in amusement. "So Pik, who was your valentine?"
Pikachu smiled slightly as he remembered his day.
"Pika! Pika pii! Pi pikachu!" Pikachu stood excitedly in front of his one true love. Of course, his passionate declaration of affection gained no response, but it didn't matter.
It's not like a bottle of ketchup could've responded anyway.
The lid had already been taken away from the bottle by one of Ash's friends, and Pikachu had been left with the bottle under strict instructions not to 'eat too much'.
'Well,' Pikachu thought, 'No one's here to stop me now, so I can dig in!'
The rest of the day had been spent with various bottles, each opened by a different friend. 'The perfect crime...' Pikachu applauded his genius, having managed to get himself six bottles opened.
"Wait!" Ash stopped the tale Pikachu had been re-enacting, "Six? That's way too many! No more ketchup for you until next week!"
Seeing the saddened expression caused by this punishment, Ash chuckled. "Guess you really love ketchup, don't you buddy?"
Yep, a valentines fic with no actual shipping in it! (Well, there's pikachup, but...)
Sorry for anyone expecting Ash to end up with someone, but really, I think he'd just react like this if anyone ever asked...