Knocking on your crush's hotel room door is more nerve-wracking than the telly dramas will have you believe. For a moment, Hop wonders how Leon ever managed to do this. Lee has related that story—the one about Raihan and flowers and a too-small umbrella on a particularly wet winter's night—so many times that he could probably retell it word for word by now.

It's a good thing Gloria's hotel door is indoors, at least. Hop isn't sure if he could stand being sopping wet in addition to this maddening anxiety. He cranes his head close to the door frame and strains to make out any telltale sounds from inside.

His heart leaps into his throat at the click of the lock, and he stumbles away just in time for Gloria to open the door a crack and poke her head through.

"Hop!" Her eyes light up, and she starts frantically combing down her unruly brown mop with her fingers and futilely pressing wrinkles out of her pyjamas. "What brings you here?"

"Not much, Gloria! How d'you do?" He flashes a grin he hopes doesn't look as nervous as he feels, rubbing the back of his neck. "I just have a—"

"—a problem?"

"No, no problems here! It's just—" He starts fumbling about in his pocket as he speaks.

"Does something need my attention?"

Yes, me! he thinks desperately, but miraculously keeps the words off his tongue. Finally pulling the Pokeball from his pocket, he holds it up in cupped palms. "It's a gift from yours truly—for being the best friend and the best rival!"

Gloria gasps, mouth forming an "o". As she takes it in, her shock melts into a blindingly bright smile. "Aw, for me? You're the sweetest..."

She reaches out tentatively, and Hop takes it as invitation to slap the ball into her palm—maybe a little too hard, though his enthusiasm only wins another heart-pounding laugh.

Turning the Pokeball about in her hand, she asks the inevitable question: "What Pokemon is in here?"

"It's a surprise," he says, fingers scrubbing at his nape again. "You should check when I'm gone. And speaking of being gone, I shan't be bothering you any longer, see you!"

"Wait—"

Without waiting a second more for his already-teetering composure to slip away entirely, Hop is off like a Scorbunny down the hallway, leaving Gloria gaping after him.

She remains stock-still in her doorway for several minutes, eyes pinned on the Pokeball in her palm, as if it might disappear if she looks away. Just like Hop just did, a minute ago.

Did he really just do that—show up at her hotel door at 9 o'clock in the evening just to drop off a gift?

And not just any gift, but a Pokemon . She cannot begin to imagine what prompted it. But even if this were not some wildly random gesture, he could have gone with something simple—a bag of berries, a few potions, maybe even a new stock of Pokeballs would've been enough to earn her gratitude for days.

But no, he went out and caught a whole Pokemon for her.

The thought makes her giddy, like her legs might turn to jelly, like the whole of her might melt into a puddle of jelly, really.

Slamming the door shut, Gloria launches herself onto the hotel bed and rolls to the other end, making a high pitched noise between a scream and a yell. At the end of this cacophonous gymnastic routine, she raises herself up on one elbow, and lets its resident out.

When the sparks clear, her eyes widen at the tiny Applin that now sits on the sheets before her.

She scoops it up in her cupped hands. "Aw, aren't you the adorablest little babby," she coos, tickling it under its apple-shaped head, to appreciative squirms.

It's instant: she's already utterly and irrevocably attached.

This would be Gloria's third Applin now; the other two have been chilling about in a PC box from the day she caught them. She wouldn't be able to say why Hop chose this species as a gift over any other, but she does know that this little guy will not be going anywhere near her PC boxes. That is a privilege it enjoys, as a gift from her best friend in the world.

Well, "best friend" isn't a hundred percent accurate anymore. Sure, he is her best friend. And, more pertinently since the start of their trainer journeys, he is her best rival. That's what she tells him at the end of every match he loses, to comfort his wounded pride. That's what he tells her at the end of every double battle they finish side by side. Best friend and best rival. Best rival and best friend.

Letting the Applin down in the folds of her blankets, Gloria flops down on her stomach, propping her chin up on her elbows.

What she doesn't tell Hop is that his glowing smile has been tying her head up in knots. That he radiates a unique energy—a fearless and unapologetic sincerity, a bright-golden warmth—that makes her want to keep bumping into him, all the time, forever, all across Galar.

It's that sort of rivalry. Which doesn't sound like a rivalry so much as a great, big—

Gloria groans, burying her burning face in her hands. But she doesn't need Applin to tell her what it is she feels for her to recognise it. She flips over onto her back. "How am I to be a proper rival like this?" She flips again. "Why does he have to be so darn cute? "

Applin makes a quiet mewling noise, snapping her out of her funk as quickly as she fell into it. She casts her gaze about for unseen eavesdroppers, before pointing an accusing finger at the apple-shaped worm. "Don't you tell him I said that," she says softly.

It blinks innocently back, wiggling its tail.

Gloria shakes her head. "Can't just have things be simple, can we?"