Ah well. Skipped another day. Sorry 'bout that. Lots of homework and projects lately.


"Brock, this is stupid. Don't make me do this."

"You asked me how you could pay me back for watching over Pikachu for a night. Well, I don't want anything for it, but since you asked and I'm sick of your stupid denial you get this. Just do it."

"Brock," he whispered, "this is practically asking her…asking her…"

"On a date?" Brock finished smugly. "That's the point."

His face turned bright red and his voice leapt up in a whine. "Oh, come on, Brock! Anything else! Anything! This is so embarrassing! She's going to laugh at me and I don't even mean it. Please, please! Anything!"

"Girls really do make you nervous." He chuckled.

"No kidding."

"So, if some girl ever walked in here naked you'd-"

"Brock!" He cried, his ears bright with embarassment. "Would you stop?"

He paused. "You've never seen a girl naked?"

"I've been to the movies, gees. I try to be a nice guy and everyone calls me an idiot."

Brock smirked. "You want to see Misty naked, right?"

"No!" he shouted.

He leaned forward. "So, you've been locked up in your room with a pretty girl you probably have a crush on and you've never thought about seeing her naked?"

"Of course not!"

He stroked his chin thoughtfully, then tried, "Are you homo or asexual?"

"Neither! I like girls!"

"Then that is crap," Brock said. "If you're a heterosexual human you have to have thought about it at least once, especially since you've got a crush on her."

"No. I hope you die."

"I hope you get laid."

"Brock!"


"The dance is tomorrow," May blurted, stepping closer to him. "Are you going with anyone?"

"No."

"Me either. You want…" She dropped her eyes down and sighed. "Do you even want to go?"

"Girls like it when I go alone. It gives them all a chance to dance with me."

"Well, aren't you little mister popular?" she muttered.

"Yeah." He closed his locked. "So, good contest."

"You're such a jerk!"

"Someone hasn't been taking their bipolar meds."

She shrieked, throwing her books down on the floor and shoving her index finger a centimeter away from his noise. "Ugh! I've been trying to ask you all year to go to the dance but you're making it impossible! You always know exactly what to say to get me all nervous and freak out and I can't ask you!"

He smirked. "Yeah, I know. I did it on purpose. I'll pick you up at eight."

She blinked, gawking at him as he walked away. Then, with joy, she pumped her fist in the air and cried, "Score!"


"She's got a pretty voice," Ash defended.

"Sure, but you haven't heard it since yesterday," argued Misty, glaring at the dancing girl. "Trust me, it gets old real fast."

Ash grinned. "But, Misty, look how happy she is!"

"Hey, I had the common courtesy to be quiet when I was happy. Why can't she just sit there and sigh all dreamy like I did?"

"Because I'm going to the dance with Drew!" she squealed, spinning around. "I've been trying to ask him all year and it finally worked! Oh, this is incredible! I bet this'll be the most romantic night of my life!"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Like you've never seen the backseat of a fancy car before."

"I'm so happy I'm going to ignore you being dirty and focus on my incredibly romantic night with Drew!" she giggled and began spinning and humming again. "If you don't like it, find someone to go with and get happy like me!"

"Can't go. I'm going out with Brock and Ash to minigolf and bumpercars."

"And I'm going out with Drew!"


"Wait, Weedle," Lt. Surge said, slamming a massive paw on the sign in sheet. "You've gotten that pretty little bike of yours all paid off. Did the math last night, then double checked it. You're four cents over, if you want the change."

"What would I want with four cents?" she retorted.

"I don't know, Weedle," he snapped. "Just got out of here and go play with your little friends."

She smiled, putting her hands over his hand on the table and giving it an affectionate squeeze. "You know, Surge, I don't think I would have had this much fun this year if it wasn't for you and this bike. I really had a lot of fun on these bike rides."

He puffed out his chest with pride, drawing a hand up to cover his heart. "Well, of course. That's a Rydel bike, best in the world."

"Will you miss seeing me?" She beamed.

"Of course not, Weedle."

"Sir, Cadet Misty, sir," She said, saluting with a laugh. "Thanks for everything, Lieutenant!"

He chuckled to himself. "No problem, Cadet Misty."


Had she always been this warm when she sat next to him? She couldn't have been. No. The body heat was rolling off of her and his room was so, so cold. That's what it was. His room was colder than usual. And he was sleepy. That's why his eyes moved so slow over her, not the feeling of his mouth going dry as he did. He didn't know how to explain how his heart exploded and the fire ripped through him when she accidently set her hand on his thigh.

"Your heater's broke," she stated, looking sadly at the blanket on his bed. "If you're cold, we could move somewhere else."

"No, it's fine here," Alone. In his room. Door closed and a room cold enough to make even Misty seek heat. Except for Pikachu, he was the only source of heat, and he was warmer than Pikachu. Maybe they could cuddle or…or…

He sighed. "Can we go over that again? I don't get it."


"You need to shut up a little," she hissed at him. "You're not supposed to be in the girls' dorm anyway."

"You come to the boys' dorm all the time!" he shouted, much louder than he needed to. "What's with the double standard?"

"It's not. Girls can't be in the boys' dorms either. I have a special pass from Lorelei since I'm tutoring you. You don't. So be quiet before one of the tattletales hears you."

"It's not like I'm doing anything. I could understand if I was going through girls' underwear drawers or something weird like that, but I'm just standing here politely while you find your old book," he said, strolling around her room. It was as plain as his, surprisingly. He would have thought she would have taken the time to decorate it, though most of the personal parts came from the stuff she took home with her.

"You're so damn clingy! Couldn't you have just waited in your room?" she snapped.

"My room's cold. The heater's still broke." He jumped onto her bed, personalized with a pink cover covered in blue bubbles. "Did you bring your own mattress? This seems nicer than ours."

"I had to steal the good mattress from Betsy Miller. Don't ruin it. Get off."

"Boy in the girls' dorm, going to do something in-a-pro-priate, like sleep in your beeeh-eeehd!" he shouted as loud as he could.

She glanced at his sprawled out position and walked over, book still missing from her hands. "Come on, I've got to sleep in that. You're going to make it smell all sweaty."

"That's hot," he said sarcastically.

"You're disgusting." She jumped onto her bed and began to bounce on it. All went well for a few minutes, until she landed on his arm the wrong way and ungracefully fell on top of him. "Sorry," she giggled. 'But you have to get out."

He shifted and pushed his body into a sitting position, and she found herself in his lap. She liked his eyes, she realized. She hadn't gotten to see them this close before, not close enough to see how pure brown they were, with only a few specks of black. She'd never noticed that his br4ath was so hot, or that his body was so hot, or that his lips were so red. They moved gently, murmuring, "I love your bed."

She didn't know if he had kissed her or she him, but she didn't care, not when his lips and breath and hands were so hot she could hardly breathe from it. It was such a contrast form his cold room and nippy outdoors, that she hadn't completely warmed up from yet. She thought it wouldn't hurt just to stay this close for a while, to warm up, as long as she didn't do much more, but her mouth was already open, tangling tongues, and it still wasn't enough.

It was weird, she thought, that she wasn't stopping. She should have yanked away by now, especially since she wasn't interested at all at how his tongue did that twirling thing her mouth. What was he doing? Wouldn't hurt to kiss longer, to find out. They fell back, Ash laying on top of her while their hands wandered. Somehow, his lips had found a way to her neck, and she couldn't help to breath out, "Ash."

Which managed to break the spell. They sprang apart, faces red.

"Misty, I'm so sorry!" he cried, wishing he had something to lean against like she had her headboard. "You…you were probably-"

"The rebound," she gasped, "and I started it because I'm on the rebound. I'm sorry."

He swallowed. "It never happened, right?"

"Oh Mew no," she breathed. "And if it did on accident, we didn't like it."

"No, we didn't," he said slowly, pulling a pillow over to cover his lap.

She sighed, keeping her eyes on his lips. "Right."


"I can't believe you made out with her! It's so creepy to think of you two making out, probably because I've known her since she was four," Brock said.

"How old were you?" Ash snorted.

"I was nine."

His mouth dropped open. "How are you still in school?"

"I'm the breeding teacher's TA!" Brock shouted. "You thought I was a student?"

"How was I supposed to know?"

He sighed, rubbing his temples."How was it? I mean, how far did you get before she pushed you off?"

"This was…um, hot, I think. It was…everything blurred and there wasn't anything I could think about but kissing her, you know? I mean, if you had told me if I stopped kissing her you would make me a pokémon master? Would have kept kissing. It's really weird."

He changed modes immediately, staring up at him. "Nobody knows and it never happened. You better not tell, because I know Misty wouldn't."


"That dance was really fun," May said awkwardly, leaning against Drew's locker and trying her best to look cool. "It'd be pretty awesome to go to one of those again, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Too bad they're so far away," she said, biting her lip. "If only-"

"I don't get why you can't just ask me out," he chuckled.

She blushed. "I can too ask you out!"

"Prove it." He smirked. "Ask me out."

"I don't want to ask you out now, you self centered jerk!"

"Fine." He shrugged. "But I won't ask you out until you do."


"…and I don't know what's wrong with me! I'm level headed and smart and I think before I do!" Misty whined. "Why didn't I push him off right away? Daisy, what's wrong with me?"

"You're a nymphomaniac. It runs in the family."

"That's a real disease! It wasn't that! I…I…"

"You're a horny seventeen year old. Wow. This had never happened before. Alert the media." She rolled her eyes. "Misty, we come from a sexual family to begin with. Nobody expected you to be a prude forever.'

"I'm not a prude" she defended.

"When you came home for spring break you're bringing your new boytoy and we're going shopping for condoms. It'll be fun, really."

"Ash would never come to Cerulean and you can't take him condom shopping."

'I'll ask his mom so you can't get out of it. I'm sure she'll say yes."

"You can't tell her! It never happened! It's a secret!"

"You know what's not a secret?" Daisy asked. "AIDS. AIDS doesn't care if it's a secret, and neither does the egg in your uterus that could be fertilized into a baby of death at any moment. Still happened. You can't be in denial about a disease. Start thinking about condoms."


"I know you don't want to go, since it's so stupid, but…" She shook her head at her mirror. "No, you sound like you need cheering up and then he'll come to make you feel better. And you definitely don't want him to come, not with the sh…" She froze. "The show! Oh no! He can't see me in the show! That'd be humiliating!"

May set her head on her hand. "Misty, why can't we just see you act? I'm sure you're not bad."

"I don't want you to think of me as the stupid whore I have to play. It's just…it's embarrassing. I hate doing it, but the gym needs it and I have to take care of the gym. It'll be mine next year." She hung her head. "Just one year and I'll never have to do this again."

She spun to her friend, taking up her hands. "I feel like I'm settling down. I shouldn't be settling down at seventeen!"

"Misty, being in a gym's not the end of the world, and neither is a play." May grabbed her shoulders. "This will be good for you. It'll give you a chance to reason things out, come back to school and start over. You'll be fine. You'll be great."

She bit her lip. "May, I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I can't do this."

"You can too. After I asked Drew out to the dance? Please. This is nothing compares to that."

"Ash is coming no matter what I do, isn't he?" she complained, falling into her hug.

She sighed and rubbed her back. "You'll do okay."