Chapter 4-Flowers, Flowers, and More Flowers (and Flashbacks)
"So, I take that as a no on the Poppies." Misty said, turning her attention to a different magazine.
"Yeah…well, what about lilies?" May suggested.
"Eh, everyone always likes to have lilies or daisies, or even violets at weddings. I mean, I have nothing against them, but… it reminds me too much of my sisters, who made my life miserable, but it was because of them, in-series, that the writers created you. My sisters' attitudes may have improved, but it still put a dent in my life."
"Yeah, well, I knew that, and anyway, when you word it that way…"
They continued looking through the magazines in silence for a little while before Misty looked up and exclaimed,
"Oh my goodness! How could I have not thought about it?"
"How could you have not thought about what, Misty?" May asked, caught off-guard to some extent by her friend's sudden outburst.
"Sunflowers!" she replied. "It's so obviously got to be sunflowers-I seriously don't know why it hasn't dawned on me already."
May looked at her, still not really understanding what she was saying.
"I'm sorry, May." Misty said, smiling a little sheepishly. "I should probably explain…"
It had been a few months since Ash and Misty had shared their first kiss on New Year's Eve. They had gone out on a few dates after, although their training for their impending battles, but still took top priority most of the time. They, along with Cilan, Iris and Dawn, of course, had been heading for the next city in their journey when they came across a clearing just outside of the forest that they had been walking through.
"Do you think we should maybe stop here and rest for a while?" Misty suggested, walking over and sitting down on a tree stump.
"Rest?" Ash replied, stopping in his tracks to turn and look at her. "We just rested a few hours ago."
"Exactly." she retorted. "A few hours ago…I think we're in desperate need of a rest."
"Well, I'm not against stopping for a while." Brock said, but sighed apathetically when he realized that neither Ash, nor Misty was paying any attention to him now.
"Neither am I. Fraxure is keeping my energy going."
"Listen," Ash said, walking over to Misty. "We need to get as close to the next city as possible, so we'll have more time to train once we get there."
"Why can't we just rest here, and then train here in a little while?" she reasoned.
Ash huffed, opening his mouth to point out that it would be best overall-in his opinion, at least-if they went ahead and tried to reach the city as quickly as possible, but Misty cut him off before he could even get the words out.
"Seriously, Ash." she said. "Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise-at least not right now-my mind is made up-I'm staying right here and resting."
"Oh really?" Ash asked, his temper rising at her stubbornness. "Well, what if I told you that my mind was made up, too, and that I'm heading towards the next city whether you want to, or not."
"So what?" she replied, standing up. "You're just going to leave me behind, or something?"
Ash huffed and puffed again, turning away from her.
"You can be so obstinate sometimes, Misty." he muttered under his breath.
"Excuse me?" she exclaimed in a tone of severe incredulity. "I'm the stubborn one? Did you just actually say that?"
"Yeah." he answered, still not looking at her. "Maybe. And so what if I did?"
Misty said nothing, but turned around and marched herself back into the woods. Ash, unaware of this, simply stood, his arms crossed and his back to the forest, until Brock spoke up,
"Uh, Ash…Misty walked back into the woods, you know."
"What?" he exclaimed, turning to see that she, indeed, was no longer standing behind him. "Oh! She is so impossible! Now we're going to really be late getting to the Sinnoh Conference!"
Brock and Dawn said nothing, knowing far better than to get involved in these "ver-brawls", as they called it, by now. Dawn, when it came to Ash and Misty's relationship, took a day's worth of lessons from Brock.
"Well, fine." Ash said, sitting down on the stump where Misty had been sitting before. "Of course I'm not going to really leave her behind, but I'm not going to give in and go chasing after her, either. I didn't do anything wrong…Besides, I'm sure she'll come back in a few minutes."
"If you say so." Cilan and Dawn replied, sighing again as they sat down beneath a tree, leaning his back up against it.
And so they waited for her to return…but after thirty minutes had rolled by with no sign of her, Ash decided that he should go ahead and look for her anyway, pride lost or not. He took off back into the woods and walked for close to thirteen minutes before coming across another clearing. Ash looked around and quickly spotted Misty. She was lying on her back on the ground beside a patch of sunflowers. He walked over to her and stood over her, seeing that she had her eyes closed.
"Hey, Misty…" he said, nudging her shoe with his.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
"What do you want?" she asked, before closing her eyes again.
"I came to find you."
"And now you have found me. So what do you want now?"
Ash moved to lie down beside her on the ground. Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. Ash glanced over at Misty when he felt her take hold of his hand.
"I shouldn't have stomped off," she said. "But you shouldn't have been so stubborn, either."
Ash sat up slightly, propping himself up on his elbow as he leant over her.
"I don't like fighting with you." he said, using his free hand to sweep a stray hair from her face. "I really hate it when we do."
"I know…me, too," she answered, moving her arms to wrap them around his neck and pull him closer to her.
Ash ended up lying to some extent atop her, his chest against hers, his head coming to rest beside hers.
"Sometimes," she whispered into his ear. "I think that I fight with you because I'm too afraid that if I don't then I won't have anything to distract me from realizing the fact that I'm totally infatuated with you…and falling in love with you scares me, because if I love you, and then lose you, then I lose everything."
She then let him go, and he propped himself back up, looking down at her.
"You won't lose me." Ash said to her. "Never. No matter how many fights or arguments we have…I'm not going anywhere."
He then leaned back in and kissed her with sensitivity. When the kiss broke, he remained hovering over her.
"You really, really mean it, Ash?" Misty asked in a whisper.
"Yes, I really, really, really, really mean it…and I think that it's probably because I'm falling in love with you, too."
Misty gazed up at him with wide eyes that were now beginning to shine over with tears. Ash was troubled when she unexpectedly sat up, knocking him backwards off her. She wiped her eyes quickly on the back of her hand, laughing slightly.
"What is it?" Ash asked. "What's so darn hilarious?"
"Oh, nothing really…it's just…it's kind of cliché, almost. It's like that part in the romance movie where the girl tells the guy she thinks she loves him and the guy offers her his handkerchief, and she wipes her eyes, and then he gives her the box of chocolates and the bouquet of flowers...well, maybe I have that a little backwards, but still..."
Ash watched her, a confused expression on his face, as she continued laughing for another couple of moments. When she ended laughing, she looked over at Ash to see him smirking slightly. He walked over to the patch of sunflowers and picked four of them.
"I don't have a tissue," he said, walking over to Misty. "But you're not crying now anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter…and I don't have a box of chocolates either, but…"
He handed her the sunflowers.
"Oh, Ash…" she said, taking it and fixing it in her hair. " How do I look?"
"Beautiful," he answered. "Of course, I might be a little discriminatory, though."
"Oh my!" May said after Misty finished telling the story. "That has to be the sweetest thing I've ever heard in my entire life."
"I know…I still have no idea why I overlooked sunflowers before." Misty replied with a slight chuckle.
"Yeah…" May said. "But at least now that's solved."
"Yep, now we're moving on to the dresses!"