Sorry for the significant delay! I can't really blame my personal life for it, or a hardware problem, or anything; it just boils down to that recurring procrastination problem of mine! I'll try to get the next chapter up more promptly next time.

*Frap frap frap

"Dawn?" my voice came out weak and pathetic; I cleared my throat before continuing, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, one second," she replied after a moment, and I soon heard light footsteps on the floor. I studied the chart on the door to her room in the meantime, poring over her diagnostics and statistics until she finally gave me the all-clear to enter.

Taking a deep breathe, I entered her room to find her lying in her bed, underneath a pale green comforter, propped up against the wall by a number of white pillows. She must have noticed the confused look on my face, as the smile on her face quickly morphed into an expression of worry.

"What's wrong?" she questioned me.

"If you are lying down in bed, then…" I stopped, trying to think of a logical conclusion, but I simply couldn't, "then who else was in here with you?"

"N-No one was in here!" she blurted out quickly, and a rose tint emerged on her cheeks. "I… I wanted to make sure all my hair was in place and that I looked good before you came in." She dropped her head down, as if she was ashamed at what she had done.

"Oh," was all I could muster for a reply.

C'mon, man, no smart-ass insult or reply? What the hell's going on with you?

"Well," I began after a brief silence between us, "The doctor says there is nothing else he can do for you here. The only treatment is rest and relaxation. So I guess I can take you back to your hotel and you can sleep in a nice, comfortable bed, unlike the cot you have here."

She nodded her head in agreement with the proposition, but her stomach did not: it let out a fierce rumble, and the rose tint was replaced by a brilliant shade of red. She let out an embarrassed chuckle. "That sounds lovely, but…" she paused, "Well… I don't want to be a bother, but, um, would you mind picking me up something to eat?"

"That's no problem at all," I said, which seemed to subdue the rising colour in her cheeks. She slid out of bed and looked over at the dress that she had been wearing when she was admitted to the hospital. What is she trying to get at? I noticed that she was wearing the little gown that they made all patients wear. Oh! She needs to change. "I'll wait outside," which prompted one of those heart-warming smiles to appear on her face. I excused myself from the room and leaned up against the wall outside of her room.

I laughed lightly to myself: she would end up getting that dinner with me that she wanted last night.

"The soup was delicious," said Dawn as she let her spoon drop in her now-empty bowl. I walked by, picking it up and placing it in my similarly empty bowl and placed them in the sink.

"Um… thanks," I replied humbly, "All I had to do was put the container into the microwave, though…"

"Well, regardless, I really enjoyed it."

A pause.

"Y'know, it's already 8:30. You should probably get to bed early, rest up."

She groaned almost silently, but I managed to catch her reaction: she must've enjoyed sharing a meal with me more than I anticipated she would. "I guess you're probably right…"

"I need to get some rest, too," I said, trying to lift her spirits somewhat, "With all that happened last night, I forgot that I have a title defence battle tomorrow."

That news must have triggered something in Dawn's head, as she looked as if she suddenly remembered something she had forgotten.

"I can't believe I forgot!" she nearly shouted, "I'm meeting someone here tomorrow!"

"Oh…" I said, disappointed. "So you won't be able to come see my battle? I could get you a box seat…?"

"Ooh, that'd be…" she stopped herself, beginning to contemplate something, "No… I'm afraid I'm going to have to refuse. I don't think the person who am I meeting would appreciate me staying in your box."

Oh. It felt like all the air inside me had been released, and my shoulders slumped, defeated. Now I know why she reacted so sourly when I ditched her to go out to the club last night – it stung to be rejected. But… what's wrong with being in my box seat?

"Why wouldn't they appreciate seeing you in my box?" I questioned her, curious as to what her answer would be.

"They…" she paused; she seemed to be avoiding something, "The person I'm meeting already has tickets for the match, that's all."

"Oh," I said. It made sense that if she were meeting someone here, that she would already have tickets to see the match: title battles didn't come around very often, so they were a pretty big deal. People from all over the world flocked to Sunyshore City when the battles were officially announced. They were often announced up to two months in advance so that people could make arrangements to visit the city. It was always broadcasted on the international sports station, Pokémon Sports Network, so those who could not manage to make it to the event could watch throughout the world. But who exactly is this person?

"Who is th-?"

"Well, I guess I better hit the hay," Dawn said as she rose from her chair, stretching her arms vertically and failing to stifle a yawn. "I guess you should probably head back to your place and get ready for your big battle tomorrow."

Before I had a chance to press her further on the subject of her visitor, she approached me and wrapped me in a tight embrace, more intimate than the one we had at the hospital room. She put her head close to mine, whispering "Thanks again" before planting a small kiss on my cheek. This caused heat to spread through my body like a wildfire, and I assumed my normally pale complexion instantly changed into a deep red. She moved her head away, and looking quite pleased with herself when she noticed my obvious blush, she began to walk towards what was presumably the bedroom. She raised her hand as she walked, giving me a small wave.

"G'night, Paul…" she said with that same sultry voice she had used earlier, and it caused me to become quite dumbfounded. A long embrace… a peck on the cheek… that sexy tone… was she really falling for me?

"G-good night, Dawn…" I stuttered, still in shock from the preceding events. I stood there like an idiot as she closed the door behind her, and after a moment of just longingly staring at the door, I shook my head and walked towards the door, picking up my messenger bag and slinging it over my shoulders as I passed through the small kitchen. My hand reached out to grab the door handle but I hesitated. After what had transpired last night and today, something deep inside of me told me that I really didn't want to ever leave her side again. I checked inside my messenger bag: it did have all of the stuff I would need for tomorrow. My head swung around as I remembered seeing a sofa earlier, and slowly I began to stride towards the couch. A battle raged on in my mind: Should I stay or should I go?

With a final rinse of my hair, I turned the tap off and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a fresh towel from the rack and beginning to dry myself off. I studied my reflection in the foggy mirror for a second before I towel-dried my hair. I tossed it over the shower door before I slipped into a pair of boxers and sweats. I teased my hair a bit until it looked somewhat orderly before slipping out of the bathroom. I made myself some coffee and walked out onto the balcony to watch as the sun continued its ascent into the sky. I enjoyed the warmth of the sun as its first rays beamed down upon me, and I also revelled in the fragrance of the black coffee wafting up from the mug in my hands.

"You're up early," a voice sounded from behind me.

"You as well, Dawn," I replied, taking a sip of my coffee.

I now wished that I had put on a shirt or something before I came out of the bathroom, but I hadn't expected Dawn to wake up for a while. Last night, after contemplating where I should go for a short while, I decided I would get a change of clothes and something to wear to bed, and then I returned to sleep on the couch in her place. I was relieved to find out that she was only wearing a nightgown, and in her hands was the cup of coffee I had made for her.

"Well…" Dawn started, holding on to the 'l' for a moment, "You've certainly bulked up a lot since I've seen you last. No wonder all those girls just throw themselves at you…"

I coughed; my face flushed for the thousandth time in the past three days. I felt that if I blushed one more time that my face would permanently stay red.

"You've changed a lot as well," I replied, my voice shakier than I would've liked.

"I thought you said you were going back to your place."

"I did."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

"I… I…" I stuttered; truth be told, I didn't know the answer to that question myself. Some force not unlike gravity had prevented me from staying from her side for very long. It took a great amount of effort to pull myself away from her hotel room to go back to my place. "I wanted to make sure that you were doing okay," I lied, and I turned to give her my most convincing sheepish look. She didn't buy it for a moment.

"Right…" she said.

There's that tone of voice again! What is she implying?

"I suppose I should get ready for my big match," I said suddenly as I consumed the last remnants of coffee from my mug. "Maybe I'll see you after the match," I began to walk back into the hotel, and she followed me back indoors. "Perhaps we could go out to dinner… you, your guest, and I. How does that sound?" I slipped on the shirt I had left in the bathroom.

"Um…" Dawn started, "It would be really interesting if you two went to dinner together…"

"What does that mean?" I questioned as I slid on my shoes and tossed my bag over my shoulder.

"Oh… nothing, no need to worry," she claimed, but I knew otherwise. Her cheery face and smile persuaded me not to press the issue any further, though. "I'll see if he's interested in your proposition. G-. Um… have fun in your battle today!"

That's weird. It was as if she was about to wish me good luck but then decided against it. Why is she acting so strange?

But I instantly forgot all such trivial concerns as she wrapped her arms around me in another embrace.

"Friends again?" she asked.

At least.

"Of course," I said as calmly as possible, under the circumstances anyways.

No one likes school.

No sane person does, anyways.

Some sane people will tell you that they like school, but what they truly mean is they enjoy the more pleasant aspects of school: spending time with their friends, spending time away from their parents, and perhaps they even enjoy a certain, usually easy course. I have yet to come across a normal person who enjoyed doing homework, listening to teachers drone on about irrelevant and generally useless information, or eating the mysterious and quite disgusting cafeteria food.

School becomes even less enjoyable when you aren't exactly at the top off the food chain: you aren't a predator, but you aren't exactly a blade of grass either. I wasn't particularly smart, attractive, or athletic; I didn't have an outrageous sense of fashion nor did I blast odd music wherever I went; and, didn't have an ounce of charisma or character. I was the guy that would be invited to every party but no one would notice if I didn't go; I was the guy who sat in the middle row of the classroom, off to one side, who you'd always forget the name of on the first day until the teacher called attendance; I was the guy who you would whisper to your nearby peers, "Who is that?" as they announced my name at the graduation ceremony, and then you'd have kind of an awkward moment where you remembered who I was and you felt embarrassed that you couldn't recognize my name; I was the guy who would cause you to scratch your head in confusion as you leafed through your old school yearbook when you are cleaning out your attic, your face quickly contorting with determination as you struggle mightily to recall anything you might have once known about me, but ultimately shrugging, giving up, and then gazing longingly at a nearby photo of your old high-school flame, beginning to wonder what he or she is up to now, letting my name once again fade away into nothing, my face once again blending into the scenery.

My school was fully composed by people such as myself: failures. At least, failures at becoming a trainer. People who were in school at my age had either tried and failed at a pokémon-related career, or perhaps were more interested in a more intellectual career from the get-go. It was a boarding school, composed of boys and girls from the surrounding area, some coming in from around 100 miles away. Though it was a boarding school, it was certainly not fancy or wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. Alamos Academy, it was called. We had a good rugby team, or maybe it was our football team. I spent my formative years there, from grade 5 all the way through to grade 12.

I got decent marks, never good enough to make the honour's list, but never flirting with failure, either. I didn't have many friends, but I did make a few close friends that to the day I still go out and have a round of beers with every month or two.

I guess school wasn't all that bad: it did give me something in my life, and it opened up a path for me that I would have never been able to access if I had lived out my life in my trailer park. The marks I had gotten were decent enough to get accepted into a small community college in the area, where I enrolled in journalism, despite having never really taken any courses like it in my latter years of school and having been five years behind, in terms of reading and writing, when I went to school at the age of 10. But something about writing, especially writing about what was going on now, had some sort of appeal to me. Perhaps it was my rough upbringing that gave me the desire to write about all the injustice and the unfairness in the world.

Somehow, I walked out of Oreburgh College for the Arts with a degree, but my stall tactics had finally worn out; I would have to face the real world, the outside world, 24/7, for the first time in over a decade. I would have to get my first real job, besides the typical teenage terms as fry cooks and cashiers.

My naïve, real world experience-deficient self expected to just wave my degree at the nearest intellectual magazine's office and I would be handed a job. Of course, I was turned down at every single place I applied to, which turned my selection process into "take whatever is given to you, regardless of how insignificant or meaningless it is to you".

Which made it all the more disappointing (and somewhat ironic, I suppose) when I only found placement at a sports magazine as a new reporter on the Pokémon battling circuit.

Author's Note: Cal's story section in this story is terribly done, but I kind of need to advance his plot, and I have been putting off writing his part for so long (I had Paul's already written a long time ago), so I'm kind of just rushing it on. But I can't let another week go by, I'm already so late! Sorry again! Please feel free to leave any comments, critiques and concerns as a review!