"Chrysa, have you seen how many people there are here?"
Rhyhorn Races were quite famous in the Kanto Region, especially near Fuchsia City, where many specimens of the Pokémon Rhino could be found, thanks to the care of the Safari Zone.
Who had spoken was one of the participants in the Beginners category, Grace Kishu, a beautiful girl with long dark brown hair and bright blue eyes.
Next to her, her close friend and rival for their very first official race, Chrysa Shikku, who due to the short haircut looked like a boy younger than her eighteen years of age.
"Er... Y-Yes... How will we do it?"
Chrysa trembled on the back of her Rhyhorn, who on the contrary shook his bridle in a relaxed manner.
Grace then reached out and placed her hand on the shoulder of her dear friend.
"It will be all right, you arrived even before me sometimes!"
"This was during rehearsals..."
Grace chuckled.
"And you pretend it's still a rehearsal..."
They couldn't have been more different, Grace Kishu and Chrysa Shikku... They shared the same age and profession as Rhyhorn racers.
For the rest, they were very different: Grace was sporty but feminine, and exhibited a cascade of well-tied chestnut colored hair and expertly made-up blue eyes. She was cheerful, sociable, able to show off.
Instead Chrysa was pale, enough to reflect the sunlight; her hair exhibited a short masculine cut and was halfway between blue and dark purple. Her shy eyes were of a powder color tending towards indigo. She didn't like to expose herself, she didn't like to speak in public and she had few friends.
However, the two peers got along very well and were both promising in the Rhyhorn race career.
That race ended with a first place for Chrysa and a third place for Grace.
"Hell, you made it!" screamed the brunette girl, pretending to be angry, but in truth she had a huge smile on her face.
"To celebrate, let's go to the new pizzeria in Fuchsia City, what do you say?"
Chrysa smiled in turn, and her diaphanous cheeks took on color: it was nice to win, even if being interviewed at the end of the race had been an authentic torture for the eighteen year old with dark blue hair, so much so that she had to be taken out of the way by her best friend.
They ate a lot that evening, the pizza was phenomenal and their mood skyrocketing.
"Tomorrow I have to go to the Pokémon Mart to buy the polish... It is amazing how dirty the rocks that compose Rhyhorn's body can get... Would you accompany me?"
Chrysa nodded energetically, but she would have been better off expressing negation, because that decision would have led her to a future of despair and pain, would have made her discover an inner weakness that even she, shy and docile, had never been aware of.
"Perfect! Then see you tomorrow in front of my house at ten!"
After paying the bill, the two girls said goodbye and returned home happy, under a clear quilt of stars, although neither could sleep because of the thousand emotions of that day.