Ash just stood there for a minute. Stunned! 'Anabel is in love with me. ANABEL! How did I do it? And what had Serena meant when she called me dense? Sure I ate a lot but I worked it off in the end… Right? I better start watching what I eat. I don't want to come off as an overweight slob. Especially in front of Anabel!' Ash started to subconsciously suck in his gut. 'Oh, No! I been right in front of her all day! What is Anabel thinking of me now. I mean I must of done something when facing the Battle Tower that made her fall in Love with me, but I have no clue whatsoever as to what that thing was? What if she still sees the version of me that faced her all those years ago. What if she comes around and realizes she doesn't like the new me.' By this point Ash was sweating while clenching and unclenching his hands. 'What would I do? How can I find out what I did that made her fall in love with me so I can do it again?'
"MR. KETCHUM!"
"AHH! What is it?" Ash said as he was brought out of his thoughts by one of the referee, who sweat drop.
"The ceremony for the trophy is starting soon. So if you'll please come with me I'll take you to the tunnel that you'll be entering from."
Ash though back to the room where everyone was. He KNEW that he should go back and tell them, but he looked down and would swear that his gut was sticking out 6 inches from the rest of his body. 'No way am going in front of Anabel right now.' He look back at the referee. "Alright. Let's go."
They made their way down to the main tunnel entrance where they meet Rob Low, and Jack Winderson or as he was better known as Silent Jack. The referee told the Announcer that they were ready to start through his radio. Next thing anyone heard was the Announcer.
"LLLLLadies and Gentlemen. We are ready to start the awards ceremony…"
Anabel glared at Serena as she walking in the door, visibly frustrated, and sat down. They remained like this for a minute or two and then realized that Ash hadn't come back.
"Serena. Where is Ash?" Anabel said with a Steely tone.
Serena looked up and realized that Ash hadn't followed her back into the room. "I don't know. Probably still in the hallway?" and with that she went back to sulking. Anabel however just got up and started walking toward the hallway. As she left Clemont let out a breathe that he did know that he was holding. All of a sudden the door flew back open and a blur flew right towards Serena. "WHERE IS ASH!"
Serena was confused as he was in the hallway when she came in. "I don't know. Maybe he went to get something to eat."
"Really! Cause we ate less than 10 minutes ago! And he said he would talk to me! Ash would never just walk aw-" Anabel replied until she was cut off by the announcer.
"LLLLLadies and Gentlemen. We are ready to start the awards ceremony for the winners of this years Kalos league!"
"Well at least we know where he is now." Clemont thought out loud.
"Well he could have at least told us he was leaving." Anabel said angrily toward Clemont since she couldn't direct it towards Ash.
Clemont sweat dropped as she turned back towards the door and went into the hallway once again. "Guess we should go with her so she doesn't do anything stupid.
A little while later we see Ash get the trophy but he seems nervous instead of excited. He also has his chest puffed out because he's holding his gut in. After the ceremony is done Ash heads to his press conference and sits down so that the table blocks peoples view of anything below the middle of his chest. He lets out his breath and relaxes a bit and as soon as he sits the horde of 15 reporters start vomiting questions at him.
He holds his up up and when they are finally quiet he says, "Hopefully I will be able to answer all your questions but one at a time so lets start with you in the Blue shirt and Kakis."
"Thank you. My question is where did you do most of your training."
"Uhh. I really haven't done most of my training in one area to help my Pokemon do good on every type of field and to help them to build resistance to the weather and some Elemental attacks. Next question, Alexa."
"There was about a month where no one spotted you at a city or on you the way from gym to gym. So where did you go?"
"Yea Ash. Where did you go?!" Ash got chiles that ran down his spine as he heard the voice and his eyes widened in surprise as he slowly turned to see one upset girl with lilac hair standing to the side of the table with Clemont and Bonnie holding Serena back over by the doorway. He immediately sucked in his gut and started to babble while the other reporters were staring at her wondering who she was or what she was doing with Ash give some of them questions that they would ask later. "Well, uh, umm, you see, I wasn't trying, uhhhh. Can you excuse me for 5 minutes? Thanks!" He got up and grabbed Anabel's hand, dragging her to the back area behind the press conference stage. Anabel anger had visibly disappeared as soon as he had grabbed her hand, but it came back almost instantly as Ash let go of her hand and turned around to face her. He saw her expression and gulped thinking that he might be seeing the inside of the PokeCenter sooner than he thought. Then he noticed how her eyes seemed to look around and then she barley relaxed as she hadn't seen anyone with them.
'Finally some alone time.' She thought. "So, you thought you could get away with talking to Serena alone and not me, huh?!"
Ash remembered his discussion with Serena and sucked up his gut a little more hoping she wouldn't notice. Of course she did and her expression changed to anger and confusion. Ash sign inside and started wondering how she was going to take it. "Well, when me and Serena talked she gave me a few thing to thing on and it made me nervous to talk to you. So when the official came to get me for the Awards ceremony I left. So… I'm sorry." As soon as he was done he dropped his head.
He was wearing a guilty expression but Anabel couldn't let him off the hook just yet. "Then why are you trying to suck in your gut?"
"Well, uh cause when I talked with Serena she called me dense and I was afraid of what you would think when you realized that I had gotten fat." He look up a little and took a sign letting out his breath and releasing his gut to stick out what looked like half a foot to Ash.
Anabel gave up trying to be angry and was just confused until she realized that Ash was too dense to know he was dense and to even know what dense mean in the way that Serena probably used it.
Ash was waiting for her to realize that he had changed and to walk away without even another word because of how ugly and fat he was. Pretty much expecting the opposite of what was about to happen. She Laugh! Hard! Why on earth was she laughing. Something had to be wrong. "Anabel? Are you Okay?" This only made her laugh harder and dropped to the ground. His denseness was showing worse and he wasn't even noticing! He didn't know what else to do so he assumed she was thinking of ways to make them even and let her go through the fit of laughter. Finally she stopped after a few minutes and stood up still giggling.
"Ash, Serena called you dense either before or after mentioning "like" or "love" didn't she?" Ash nodded thinking back to the last words he heard Serena say. 'Anabel is crazy in love with you.' Anabel smiled as his face shown with understanding proving to her that her hunch was right. "I guess you haven't changed that much Ash. You're still the only one for me." She was expecting him to be surprised, or even grossed out. But all she got was a blank look as he hadn't understood the meaning of that phrase. Anabel sighed and then add, "That means you're the only one I love." There it was! Now that he got it his eyes popped while his mouth dropped open. You would think he that a legendary had just popped out of nowhere and asked to join him on his journey, well maybe that wouldn't surprise him, but they only got wider as Anabel gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek.
This is real. It's not from Serena or anyone else. She said it in person. AND I'M NOT FAT EITHER! This is the best day of my life!
Ash broke into a goofy smile, "I'm so glad to hear that because I love you too! Now, how about I finish this interview so we can go hang out some more. Just the two of us."
Anabel giggled, "Alright, but you better also tell them that we're dating too!"
Ash blushed a little, "I just hope my mom doesn't give me too hard of a time for not telling her first." He then let go of Anabel and walked back onstage, "I apologies for the interruption. I believe the question was about where I went for a month? I was off training but I won't tell you where as I'd like to keep it a secret to prevent it from being filled with people the next time I want to go train by myself."
"Who was that girl you were with? We know that you have been traveling with the runner-up for the Kalos Queen as well as the gym leader of Lumious City, but we have no mentions of anyone matching her description," one reporter in the back nearly shouted.
Ash blushed just a little and cleared his throat, "She is someone that I meet on my journey over two years ago while I was facing the battle frontier. She is actually the second strongest only to Brandon and sure gave me a pair of tough battles." Ash swallowed as he prepare himself for this next statement. "After seeing each other again today we have actually decided to start dating." Cameras Immediately started flashing again keeping Ash from being able to see Serena drop to her knees with a face full of fresh tears. Clemont and Bonnie tried to comfort her while Anabel just ignored it by using the mentality that it was either her or me. After a couple minutes Clemont and Bonnie were able to get Serena up and moving back toward the Pokecenter for the night.
The questions continued like this for about 30 minutes. Some were about his newly discovered love life while others were about the strategies he used for training and battling. Once everyone had been given the chance to ask at least 3 question Ash thanked them for their time and excused himself. Of course the reports didn't like this but he still had a call to make before he could relax with Anabel for the evening.
He grabbed Anabel's hand on the way, with Pikachu and Espeon in tow, and walked toward the video phone. It went about as well as he expected considering he hadn't told her first but she was excited none the less. After another 'interview' which thankfully was not only for him but Anabel as well, they were finally able to get off the phone and head back to the Pokecenter. Once they all got there he rented another room since he knew Anabel wouldn't sleep in a different room and he wasn't going to make her share a room with him and Clemont. Then they headed up to the room where they sat on the couch facing the balcony just chatting and enjoying each others company. Anabel would have preferred them and their starters to be sitting besides a fireplace, but as she looked back towards Ash she just couldn't find it in her to care. She guessed that all she really wanted was him, and maybe his Battle Frontier to be next to hers.
I hoped you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!
