(A/N): Chapter 2 is up! A little bit longer than Chapter 1 at least. Thanks so much for all the favorites and follows, it means a lot to me!
Dawn took her first steps outside for what seemed like eternity, all this time bottled up in her room was unhealthy and it was time to get over this whole ordeal as her mom said earlier. Dawn did feel a bit bad at brushing off her mother like that, but she decided it was best not to dwell on that and just try and enjoy herself.
Faint breezes trickle up upon her face and cause her hair to wander about in random strands. Dawn chuckled a little to herself, having her old hat on right now would probably help prevent the messiness the world likes to throw at her. She sighed and combed her hair with her fingers as she walked, not like there was anyone to impress anyways. This was Twin-leaf town, and most of the modeling and coordinator business was done in bigger cities like Jubilife.
It was a few minutes before Dawn even realized that she needed some idea of where she was going to walk to. Deciding to just relax at the lake, she begins walking left to Lake Valor.
The fresh scent of the pine trees left a small genuine smile upon Dawn's face, 'this walk was going to bring something good after all', she thought to herself.
Lake Verity was certainly brilliant at this time of day, the reflecting light twinkled off of the small rippling waves. Dawn took in the view and was appreciating it rather than reflecting on what she was thinking about earlier.
It would all seem well, until something in the trees above her began to shake. At first it didn't worry her, but then she realized, she had no Pokemon on her.
Backing up from the shaking tree slowly she hoped that she could just get away from whatever 'thing' was making that noise. The soft patter of the gravely dirt beneath her was certainly not helping her back away quietly. Despite this noise it looked like she was going to get away until she unfortunately happened to step on a small twig and snapped it in two. The sound reverberated just enough to cause the creature in the trees to emerge. It was in fact a couple of Ariados, spider-like Pokemon. After feeling a bit of deja vu from her first adventure, she began to back away at a more rapid pace, no way she was going to be dealing with a bunch of these spiders without any Pokemon.
The Ariados did not look so pleased to see this young woman in their nesting area, one of them hissed at her and shot a sticky string-shot of web at her feet.
"Eep!" Dawn squealed as she quickly lifted her feet backwards to avoid the incoming shot, her eyes dilated in terror as she darted as far away as she possibly could from that tree.
'So much for a peaceful walk…' She thought with a hint of annoyance in her mind.
Dawn kept running for what seemed like forever, although she knew these forest's well, she should have known better than to go walking around at this season with the Ariados crawling around without any Pokemon to protect her.
She was so deep in thought that she wasn't really even looking where she was going really, and before she knew it she hit something and yelped a little in response to the surprise.
Her eyes were still a bit hazy from the hit, it must have been a tree or something she thought to herself, but in fact it wasn't a tree. As her vision began to focus she noticed that it was… a person…
"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry! I was running from some Pokemon and I-I…" Dawn flustered, still not meeting the eyes of this stranger in guilt of what she just did.
"Hey now, you're fine, accidents happen." The voice replied, it was quite deep and masculine sounding and the type of voice that just melts easily on your ears and is pleasing to listen to.
Dawn couldn't help but look down at her feet in embarrassment, her hair now quite a mess from all the running was draped down over her face, so that she couldn't really get a good look at this stranger and he couldn't really look at her either.
"I-uh…Sorry again about that." Dawn stuttered as she twiddled her fingers awkwardly.
"Heh, You're fine." He repeated again, almost sounding like he was going to laugh at how awkward she was right now.
Dawn finally looked up, adjusting her silky blue hair off her face, she pushed it back and around her ears so her face was visible entirely. Her blue eyes twinkled as she looked straight into the eyes of this 'stranger', who in fact was no stranger to Dawn at all.
As she quickly scanned his face, immediately she identified him as none other than the grandson of her favorite poet in the Kanto region. The man in front of her was Gary Oak, it had been about 7 years since she had seen him last on her first journey through Sinnoh… When she was still with Brock and Ash.
Dawn didn't know what to say honestly, as she looked at him more and more she was getting lost in his face, she couldn't lie… He was certainly extremely attractive. His hair was as spiky as it was years ago, his face was defined with a chiseled jaw, and his body was quite well built which left Dawn's eyes to wander a bit. She didn't linger long though as she realized she was staring him down when he probably wouldn't even recognize her.
"H-hi… My name's-"
"Dawn." He finished before she could. Gary's eyes were fixated upon Dawn, he wasn't as subtle in the staring, he was too mesmerized by Dawn to even care at this point. It had only been seconds but the world around him seemed to blur out and fade as he just focused on Dawn's face…
'Wow… Was she always this pretty…?' Gary thought to himself, eyes finally finding their way back up to meet Dawn's gaze.
The whole scene was pretty awkward, two young adults just staring down each other after not even meeting for seven years, and even then they were more like acquaintances rather than friends. Now, nobody could deny that the attraction was there, it was written over both their faces.
"Y-you remember me?" Dawn inquired with a bit of surprise in her voice, she honestly didn't expect a guy like Gary to remember someone as 'plain and dull' as Dawn, or so she thought in her head.
"Oh crap… Er… Sorry you probably wouldn't remember me…Heh…" Gary stuttered awkwardly the confidence in his voice slowly draining rapidly.
Dawn quickly shook her hands in denial at the statement, "N-no! Of course I remember you, Gary…I just thought you wouldn't remember me is all…"
"Yeah that would be awkward if you remembered me but I didn't you." Gary said lightly hoping to lighten the mood.
"I guess it would have been…" Dawn sighed with a small smile as she rubbed her arm gently, looking towards the ground.
"N-not that I wouldn't remember you or anything! It's just I-ah… I'm sorry I can't speak properly today apparently." Gary chuckled to himself getting all tongue tied, it didn't happen often to him, in fact he could not even remember a time when he actually felt nervous about talking to a girl. He usually was so smooth and the words always came out exactly as he wanted, but in this short conversation with Dawn, he couldn't even comprehend what he was going to say for some reason.
"Erm… So uh…What brings you to Sinnoh, in the middle of the woods?" Dawn bantered lightly, somewhat curious as to what exactly he was doing here.
"Oh yeah! I uh… My gramps-I mean Professor Oak said that there was something weird going on with the Sinnoh lakes and he told me to investigate anything out of the ordinary for his studies." Gary quickly finished not wanting to embarrass himself more than he already had.
"That seems awful tedious to come all the way from Kanto just to look at some water." Dawn gave herself a pity chuckle, "Have you found anything of interest yet?" She asked seeming like she was getting more comfortable now.
'Well I found you, and that's definitely something of interest…' Gary thought to himself tempted to say it aloud but he couldn't bring himself to do it in fear of scaring Dawn off. "Eh… Not really. I kinda only agreed to do it cause Sinnoh is on the way to another region that I've been planning on checking out for some time.
Dawn wondered what region he could possibly be talking about, but she didn't want to seem nosy so she kept her mouth shut as best she could. By the way he was talking it didn't seem like he was going to stay in Sinnoh long.
"So last I remember it… You were traveling with Ashy-boy and Brock right?" Gary turned up a small grin and was also curious on how her relations with Ash were.
"Oh um…They…We haven't traveled together for some time now…I haven't really seen them for years." Dawn sighed looking back down at her feet, clearly distressed about the topic being brought up again, just when she thought she could stop thinking about Ash the idea was forcefully shoved back in her head one way or another.
Gary quickly picked up on Dawn's sudden change of mood and desperately tried to change the subject.
"Er-S-So uh…What's been up with you lately, last I remember you were a coordinator, I've seen some of your performances on TV. You're really good, my gramps thinks so too."
"Oh! Uh… Yeah I still am a coordinator, I'm just on a little break right now…" She paused for a moment before continuing, "I'm not really all that great, it's a team effort with my Pokemon and me, can't have gotten to were I am today without that, I appreciate the compliments though." She cracked a smile, looking him straight into the eyes as she tilted her head a little to the left.
Gary felt his face light up a little and a buzz shivered throughout his body, 'Arceus that was cute.'
Dawn didn't know if she upset him or not, but the fact that he was just awkwardly standing there looking right back in her eyes made her feel somewhat uneasy, did she say something wrong?
Gary didn't notice Dawn's inner turmoil as he just kept looking at her as much as time permitted, he noticed when she tilted her head back up straight and how her gorgeous blue hair seemed to flitter back elegantly back onto her perfect face… Geez, he really was a mess right now, his thoughts wouldn't even let him think of the right things to say as he normally would.
Another awkward silence ensued the forest, the only sounds heard were the faint chirps of some Starly in the distance, and the gentle bits of breeze causing a few stray leaves to gust up and about.
"So! I guess I should let you get back to your thing Gary, I don't want to hold you up or anything…Sorry about bumping into you again." Dawn cracked out a smile as she looked like she was getting ready to leave.
Gary couldn't take it anymore, her smile made his insides jittery, he wondered if it was even possible to be this physically attracted to someone. There would be no way he could go without seeing her again before he left on his trip, he had to at least try and spit out something to see her again.
"I-youwant…see again?" He murmured out pitifully and immediately felt his cheeks darken red with embarrassment at the incomprehensibility of the sentence he just uttered.
Dawn put her finger up to her mouth and popped out her hip as she started at him in confusion. "Is that some kind of code language or something, sorry to say I don't speak it."
"I-um…What I meant to say was…Erm-I-I'm gonna be in this area for a few more days and I was thinking it m-might be nice to catch up or something." Gary's face was now completely beet red and Dawn couldn't help but smile at his nervousness, what was he so nervous about anyways she wondered.
"Yeah sure! That sounds like fun, I haven't been doing anything these past few weeks anyways."
Dawn smiled back at him. 'Yeah except crying my eyes out about my failed love life with Ash.' Her mind quickly jabbed in the thought to erase that smile as best it could.
Gary's face lit up and he had this huge smile on his face when Dawn agreed, he scratched the back of his head and ruffled a bit of his messy spikes. "G-great, I guess I'll see you around then?" He was almost humming with bliss.
"Well you should probably get my number otherwise it will be difficult to find me, hehe." She chuckled as she pulled out her cell phone she carried with her.
"Oh shiiiierr-I mean yeah, yes that would probably be best." Gary chuckled as he tripped over his words once again. Quickly pulling out his phone and copying her number as thorough as possible, he would probably never forgive himself if he copied it wrong and wouldn't be able to see her again.
"Alright looks like we are all set then, I better get home before it gets too dark." Dawn said as she looked up towards the sky, the sunset already almost completely gone and the sky beggining to turn a light shade of purple.
"I-I can walk you home-If you want that is I don't want t-"
"I'd love for you to walk with me, that is if you want to." Dawn began to get a little bit more playful as she noticed Gary tended to mix up his words a lot, she was still oblivious to his obvious attraction towards her though.
Gary just nodded his head up and down several times before taking his place next to Dawn at her side. Obviously he didn't know where she lived so he would just be following her for the time being.
Dawn felt a lot safer now that Gary was by her side walking home, that Ariados attack earlier really shook her up and she would hate running into some other random Pokemon at the brink of night.
The walk began in silence which was fine with her, Gary kept looking up and down at her and Dawn couldn't help but feel like something was wrong with her.
'I wonder why he keeps looking at me…? Is there something on my head or…?'
Dawn scratched the top of her head, she didn't feel anything and it almost felt strange to her. She used to always go around with her hat everywhere so it was weird that she actually felt hair when she touched her head.
"So is Twinleaf town nice…?" Gary uttered randomly to break the silence of the walk. He instantly regretted his poor word choice and hoped Dawn would not notice.
Dawn looked at him as she continued walking and took her hand off her head as she answered, "Twinleaf town? It's kinda… boring?" She giggled softly, "I mean, it has a nice charm to it and all but after traveling around all of Sinnoh, Johto and Hoenn it really is just a small little town." She finished.
"Ha, yeah. I grew up in a small town too so I know that feeling, I just wanted to get out and explore the world as soon as I could." Gary smiled as he looked up at the sky remembering his younger days.
"Yeah…" Dawn sighed as she began looking up at the sky as well, continuing to walk.
The sky was littered with hundreds of stars which illuminated the deep purple it was beggining to turn as the sun slowly faded out of sight.
Dawn began thinking to herself, 'Maybe it is time I go on another adventure…' She smiled in hope that maybe going on another life changing journey would give her some solace in her sadness.
The walk was continued with other bits of light conversation, and for the first time in months Dawn's mind was finally off of Ash. She began to talk more and open herself as the walk progressed until finally they reached the door to Dawn's house.
Gary stood a ways from the door as Dawn began to head towards it. He watched as she grabbed the knob.
Dawn turned around before opening the door and spoke, "Thanks for walking me all the way home, I'm sorry I must have got you way off track with this little detour."
Gary shook his head and smiled, "Nah, It was my pleasure. It was pretty nice just to relax and just take a walk y'know? Don't really do it that often."
"It's nice to just enjoy the little things sometimes." Dawn continued off his thoughts.
"So uh… I guess I'll call you tomorrow or something…?" He mumbled, his hands going into his pockets as he looked towards the floor.
"Yeah, sounds good to me." Dawn replied.
"Alright, I guess I'll see ya round then, Dawn." Gary concluded as he gave her a two fingered salute as a goodbye.
Dawn cracked a genuine smile, as she waved back and opened the door to her house.
Once she stepped in, she rested her back on the door, pulling out her phone and staring at the new number she put in today. She sighed out as with a smile on her face.
A smile that felt real… A smile made by someone else that she never would have expected.
Gotta love those cheesy endings, next chapter will introduce some more characters that we all know and love. See ya soon ^u^!
