It was painful, to say the least.

Gardenia rolled over onto her stomach, chin hitting a bare arm. Concerned, she sat up straight, head aching terribly to say the least. Her eyes glazed over the white sheets and red duvet of an unfamiliar hotel room, and as her eyes darted to a shaggy head of very familiar maroon hair, she jumped, slamming her hand against the white wooden head board.

Roark Tanner was shirtless, maybe even naked, in bed with her.

She couldn't have. She couldn't possibly have. She and Roark had gotten drunk together countless of times before, but he always had a brink of common sense left to avoid sleeping with her. Gardenia glanced down at her bare body and imagined strangling herself for a moment.

"Stupid, you probably weren't even drunk and let him sleep with you wasted. Slut." That ruthless voice in Gardenia's brain echoed. "Slut… Slut… Slut…"

"No. I was wasted too. This is an honest mistake; things will go back to normal." She quietly reassured herself, taking deep yoga breaths.

In and out.

In… Out…

In.

Out.

"What the… Where the hell am I? Fuck, my head hurts… Candice? Flint? Volk? Cynthia?" Roark's exhausted brown eyes fell on Gardenia, who immediately covered herself with the blanket, "Gards? What happened?"

"Well, this is just a theory. Just a theory, but I think that we both got so wasted we slept together." Gardenia answered, and then bit her lip, preparing herself for the rock trainer's angry outburst.

"Okay, I guess. I mean, this has never happened to me before… well, of course I've hooked up, but you know, not with, like, you…" Roark mumbled. He felt his cheeks turn a bright shade of Cherubi red before scooping up his clothes and darting into the bathroom.

There, Gardenia sat covered in the white sheets feeling incredibly stupid and relieved at the same time. Roark basically just said he didn't really want to wake up in the morning and see her next to him. Gardenia drew the depressing conclusion and looked at the ceiling to fight back the tears. It was the truth. The man she had been falling deeper and deeper in love with thought of her no more as a friend.

This truly was the winter of "just being friends".

Roark ran a frustrated hand through his maroon colored hair as he unlocked his front door the following afternoon. He was livid about what he had done to his best friend, Gardenia. Sure, he'd expected to get wasted and end up passed out on the floor or in a random chick's bed, but not with Gardenia. All this time, he had been chasing down any guy who laid a finger on her, protecting her from the dangers of players, when really; he fucked her all night long yesterday, doing the opposite.

"Dad? Crasher Wake? What a, er, pleasant surprise?" Roark said, double-checking his pockets to see if he had anything… inappropriate from Veilstone yesterday.

"Roarky! I haven't seen you in a whole week! How's the gym coming along?" Byron greeted him in his usual jolly tone, "Anyways, as you heard, Wakey is traveling to Hoenn to learn more about water pokemon…"

Roark nodded, suddenly noticing a stunning blonde girl emerge from upstairs. She wore a pair of dark skinny jeans, a white ruffled tank top, and a pair of high-heeled wedges. Roark dismissed his father's speech and proceeded to staring at the mysterious girl. She noticed him, grinned, and gave a sultry wink.

If this was Crasher Wake's daughter who would be living with him for a while, Roark decided the next few months would be heaven

"Roarky? Roarky? Oh, I see you've noticed Hazelle. Hazelle, this is Roark, my son. He was appointed gym leader of Oreburgh only two months ago. So, you two will be in the, shall we say, same boat. Roark, you will show her the ropes, and introduce you to all your… young and rad friends," Roark grimaced as his father just said "rad".

"So, is she your daughter or something?" Roark asked Crasher Wake.

"Oh no no. She's just a really good trainer from Pastoria who I thought would be great as my substitute. However, she doesn't specialize in water." Crasher Wake explained.

"Hey, I'm Roark. Roark Tanner, I'm Byron's son." Roark stuck his hand out for Hazelle to shake. She twirled a wavy strand around her finger and shook his hand, giggling.

"Hazelle James. Nice to meet you." Hazelle smiled as Roark's hand grew clammy and he turned red.

"Well, I must take Wake to the seaport, since he refuses to travel via air. Roark, I expect you to be friendly with Hazelle, no funny business." Byron warned, giving Roark that knowing, stern daddy look.

"Yes, dad. You can leave now this is my house." Roark drawled as Hazelle stifled back a laugh.

"She's not living with you, by the way. You're just her- ok, I guess I'm leaving now." Byron finally heaved himself and Crasher Wake out the door, much to Roark's relief.

"So, you don't like water pokemon? That's strange, you being from Pastoria and all…" Roark said awkwardly, the two taking a seat on the couch.

"Oh, I do love water pokemon. It's just not all my pokemon are water type. I specialize in kind of… girly pokemon. You know… like Milotic and Roserade." Hazelle answered, also blushing furiously.

"Oh. My pokemon are far from beautiful. I like rock pokemon, they have good defenses and are overall really tough, I guess…" Roark trailed off, his plan to charm Hazelle into going out with him was not working, to say the least.

"Want to go do something fun? I'll call up my friends and introduce you to them? You and Candice will probably bond the most." Roark suggested, eyes brightening up.

"Sure, why not? Even though I don't live in a remote place, I don't often go out exploring and challenging gym leaders." Hazelle grinned, brushing a glistening strand of blonde hair out of her face.

"You'll love them, I promise." Roark winked before dialing up Gardenia's number, despite the fact that he had woken up in bed with her this morning.

Meanwhile in Eterna City, Gardenia was tending to her garden, her Cherubi and Roserade at her side faithfully. The roses looked beautiful so far, so beautiful that Roserade plucked one out and stuck it into her hair of petals. Gardenia chuckled and sent the two pokemon to play with Turtwig.

Suddenly, she heard the phone inside her house blast its usual, digital ringtone. She hurried inside, wondering who it might be, all thoughts of the chance it may be Roark pushed aside.

"Hey, Gards!" That unusually happy, hyper voice surprised her through the telephone. It was Roark, strange how he was acting so… normal after the morning.

"H-Hi, Roark… What's up?" She replied, faking a smile event though he wasn't really in the room right now.

"Not much, except Crasher Wake is going to be out of town so he left the gym to this new girl named Hazelle. She's really nice, you'd like her." Roark said a tone of dreaminess weaving its way through his words. Gardenia clenched her teeth. Yay, another blonde Barbie he would go crazy over.

"Oh, that's lovely." She said dryly.

"Yeah, so we can all meet at my house. I'm telling Volkner and Candice, too. Flint and Cynthia are probably busy with some complicated Elite stuff, you know? Better be there, tree trunk thighs!" Roark joked. Gardenia could picture his smile, his smirk, his hands running through his shaggy hair, and of course, that blonde slut probably running her fingers over him by now.

No. She would not lose. Not again. This year was the year Gardenia Rosewood vowed she wouldn't lose to another typical, fashion-loving, makeup-loving, low-carb-diet, Sinnoh blonde. She was going to make Roark Tanner hers.

"I'll be there." She finally answered, tone monotonous.

"Great! It'll be so fun, you and Hazelle will get along well. See you!" Roark assumed. Oh really, Gardenia thought, eyes glaring at an imaginary Hazelle.

"Wait, Roark, you aren't mad about… what we did, right?" Gardenia cautiously asked, the thought of this morning unexpectedly popping into her mind.

"Of course not. It was a mistake and we were drunk. No problem." He replied and hung up.