September 1st; 9:45am; Chemistry

Leaf walked in the classroom and sat down in one of the seats, placing her backpack beside her on the floor. She was the first to enter after her history class ended, which ended pretty quickly since she had missed nearly half of Mr. Harold's lecture due to a certain someone. And because she was late again, she had detention this afternoon. She groaned at the thought, and silently cursed Gary in her mind.

More students started piling in the classroom, and she was hoping that Gary would skip this class. She had bolted as soon as she was free from Gary's arms, and she was a bit embarrassed. The brunette than internally slapped herself. What was she thinking? Gary was just like any other guy out there that plays girls. He didn't truly have any sort of romantic feelings for a girl, and would never anyway. She had to make sure she wouldn't fall for his charms to get heartbroken like the other girls out there.

Dawn and May both entered the classroom. Dawn took a seat beside Leaf. "Hey my other bestie!" she grinned. Leaf smiled half-heartedly, contuining with her thoughts. Dawn gave May a look, and May shrugged not knowing the situation. "Leaf, is something wrong?"

Leaf looked at her blunette friend. "Dawn, I'm not those type of girls."

May looked at her cousin confused. "What?"

"I don't understand," Dawn added.

Before Leaf could continue, her eyes widened when she saw Gary entering the classroom, followed by Drew and Ash. The three were talking amongst themselves, and Leaf tried her best to divert her eyes somewhere else and was also praying he didn't look at her.

Dawn and May still looked confused, but they decided to talk to Leaf later when Ms Amy made an entrance. The tall blonde said nothing to the class and instead scribbled something on the white board. She turned around facing the class, and pointed at the word. "Periodicity. Can anyone tell me what this means?" she asked. As usual, there was no response. She then looked at a student. "Mr. Gary Oak," she mused. Gary looked up at her. "Answer the question."

With no hesitation, Gary explained, "It's just basically when atoms of the same group have similar electronic structures and chemical properties," he said with a bored expression. Ms Ana smiled looking satisfied.

"Good, okay class did you get that?"

Of course Gary was a smart one in science, and Leaf knew that. But she hated the way he was so arrogant about almost everything, even his answer portayed some ego in there. She remembered the day when he was assigned to be his lab partner for the entire semester. Whenever they'd work in the lab, he'd always flirt with her and tease her. The worst part is, that every time she'd blush in embarrassment, and she felt like she was succumbing to his ways.

Well, not anymore. Enough was enough.

She didn't realize that Ms Ana was talking. "Okay since I've explained in further detail and provided examples on what periodicity is, I'm going to pass these worksheets out for you guys to work on. Don't worry guys, it won't take too long. You can work with the person that's next to you."

May turned to the left, and suddenly froze when she saw the familiar chartreuse headed male beside her. Was he there the whole time? Drew let the smallest of smirks show, and brought his seat next to her. "Hey partner," he said while May rolled her eyes in response. Of course she had to get paired up with this grasshead.

Dawn looked at Leaf happily, and she slided her chair closer towards her. The blunette thought this was a perfect opportunity to find out what exactly she had meant earlier. "So...what did you mean when you said that you're not those type of girls?"

Leaf whispered, "Gary thinks I'm going to fall for his charms." Dawn raised an eyebrow. "I mean, he probably thinks that I'm going to fall in love with him just so he could play me and dump me afterwards. Well, I'm smarter than that," she crossed her arms, her eyes darting to Gary who was sitting beside Ash.

Dawn looked at the blank worksheet that needed to be filled, then looked at her friend. "You believe those rumours?"

Leaf scoffed. "They're not rumours, it's true. He's a player."

"Okay...and your proof is?"

Leaf rolled her eyes at her best friend. "Whatever, let's just finish this worksheet."

Meanwhile May was filling out the worksheet, and it was only after a few minutes that she noticed that Drew wasn't even helping. Instead he was shaking his leg and looking at his phone that was hidden under his desk cleverly. "What are you doing?" she asked.

In response, he slided the phone towards her so she could grab it. She looked at it curiously and noticed answers to the worksheet. "Are you crazy?" she whisper yelled. "We'll get caught!"

Drew rolled his eyes and touched May's free hand that was placed on the desk. "Relax, June," he said but then he noticed she flinched instantly and pulled her hand back. He raised an eyebrow.

"Y-you can cheat your way out, but don't involve me in it," she warned, sliding back his phone and contiuing to work on the worksheet. Drew smirked at the stutter.

"Never cheated before have you?" he was whispering to her, and his voice sounded very tempting.

May shook her head. "Never have, never will."

"Cute," he remarked, and he noticed her cheeks redden instantly. She was so innocent, and Drew added that to the list of things he liked about her.


11:05 am

The three girls walked out of Chemistry, and Dawn took out her schedule to look at her next class. "I have English next period." she announced. "How about you guys?" she looked at them.

"Calculus," they both replied in unison.

Dawn nodded before approaching her locker. She took out her English text, closing the locker. Suddenly, something fell out of her textbook, and she raised a curious brow and reached down to pick it up. Her breath stilled once she saw that it was a photograph. It was Dawn when she was just eight years old, sitting on her mother's lap. Her mother had let out a radiant smile embracing her daughter. This was her favorite picture of them together. It brought back memories; memories of when they were happy.

May noticed her blunette friend quiet. "Dawn, are you alright?"

Dawn's back was facing towards them. They didn't see her tears. "Yeah," she replied. "No need to worry." At this point, she knew she was lying. Even her voice betrayed her; it sounded broken.

Leaf turned her around, and her face softened to see her crying. She noticed the photograph in her hand. "Dawn..." she said before reaching out to hug her tightly. "I know it's hard. But you have to be strong."

"Yeah," May added, "It may seem tough right now, but I'm sure that everything will be fine soon. You've just gotta be patient, and wait for your mother to recover. And besides, you're living with me for the meanwhile, which by the way, is totally fun!"

Dawn smiled, letting go of Leaf to wipe her tears, and embraced the two of them. "I know. Sorry, I just saw the photo and...I got emotional."

"Totally understandable," May waved her off with a hand, "It happens."

"It's been a week since I've visited her," Dawn realized.

"You should go today," Leaf suggested.

Dawn sighed. "Yeah, but how? I have a tutoring session with Paul until around five today, and May will already be home. And the hospital's way too far from the school."

"I could wait for you," May cut in.

"No, you can't," Dawn said.

"Why not?"

"Because your mom told you this morning to pick up Max from school, since she's going to be at the airport picking up your dad. Remember?" she gave her a pointed look.

May smiled sheepishly and scratched her head. "Whoops, I forgot," she admitted, resulting in the three of them laughing.

"I have detention this afternoon for being late again, and Mr. Harold would be pissed as hell, if I skipped it. So I can't either," Leaf explained.

"I'll figure something out," Dawn said.


4:01 pm

Dawn saw him at the usual place, sitting at the back of the library, his head buried in a book. Before she walked forward, she made sure that she turned off her phone to avoid any sort of distractions. Her Math test was this Thursday, and she had only managed to study a few notes on Sunday. She had been occupied unpacking and settling in. She couldn't afford to waste any time now.

She took a seat in front of Paul, and took out her books. She didn't want any trouble this time around and got straight into working on a few problems. That lasted for about five minutes before she realized that Paul still hadn't removed the book. Did he even notice she was here? It was then she realized what book he was reading.

"You read Nicholas Sparks book?" she asked in disbelief. This time, Paul removed the book from his face, and noticed her look of shock. "I love his books, I didn't realize you were the romance type."

"I was bored," he replied dryly, and closed the book. "Did you study over the weekend?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeah, a little. It was a pretty busy weekend, and all."

Paul said nothing, and then directed her over to some problems in her textbook, instructing her to do them. Dawn only nodded in response before she began working on them. Even though she worked on it a bit slower, she still understood the concepts. After about fifteen minutes, she handed them over to the plum haired male for him to check them. Paul glanced over the paper a couple of times.

"Wow," he commented.

Dawn looked at him expectantly. "What? Did I get all of them right?" she asked hopefully.

Paul glanced at her. "Out of the ten problems, you got one right." Dawn looked at him in disbelief. "Some great studying you did over the weekend huh? I would think you'd at least make some improvement, but no, this is just proving that you're pathetic."

"Pathetic?" she exclaimed. "I'm trying!"

"Well it's not enough. The test is on Thursday, you've got only three days of practicing. I've explained the concepts to you already. Do you want to fail again?" he asked.

Dawn looked at him as if he had grown two heads. What kind of question was that? "Of course not."

"Then focus," he told her. "You're not putting your entire effort into it. You're drifting into thoughts every time you work on a problem, or you're letting that disease get into your head."

Dawn sighed. Surprisingly, he was right, and Dawn was even more surprised how he was able to figure that out so quickly. "Are you some kind of mind reader or something?"

"It's called being smart. Perhaps you should try it sometime."

Dawn rolled her eyes, ignoring the comment, and worked on the problems again.


4:58 pm

The blunette looked at Paul expectantly. She really hoped that she had gotten those problems correct this time; she needed at least a decent B on this test. "Well? Tell me!" she demanded.

Paul looked at her and said, "One."

Why he was being so vague, she'd never know. "One what?" Did she only get one right again?

"One wrong," he clarified with a small smirk.

Dawn's lips lifted into a smile. "That means I got nine out of ten right!" she squealed. They were lucky that the library was empty.

"You know your numbers, I'm surprised," he said, his tone full of sarcasm.

"Jerk," she commented. Paul said nothing, and then Dawn turned on her phone to look at the time. It was exactly five in the evening. If she walked to the hospital, it'd take at least an hour. At this point, walking sounded tiresome, especially in this heat wave that was outside. The blunette looked at Paul, wondering if she should ask him for a ride. Oh, who was she kidding? The last time she did that, she ended up alone in the school and had to walk home alone in heavy rains. She surely wasn't taking the risk again.

She checked her purse for some cash, and just decided to call for a taxi. "Hello? I'd like to call for a Poke-Uber at Lumoise High School. This is Dawn Berlitz. I'm going to Lumoise Hospital...what? I have to wait two hours? That's ridiciculous. Just forget it," she cut off the call. She hated the taxi service, what was the point of waiting two hours for a half hour drive? The service was so inefficient.

Looks like she literally had no choice. "Paul?" she looked at him, who was currently wearing headphones. He liked reading and music, it seemed.

He sensed her stare and looked at her, taking off his headphones. "What?"

"Can you please drive me to the hospital?" she asked in the most polite way as possible.

He sneered. "Why would I do that?" he placed his headphones in his backpack, and started packing up.

Dawn wasn't surprised at his reply but still protested. "Look, all I'm asking is for you to drop me to the hospital. It's really important. I would have walked, but walking takes an hour to get there, whereas by car, I can get there in under a half hour. I tried calling for a taxi, but that's useless too since I have to wait two hours for them to pick me up."

Paul sighed. What did that have to do with him? "And that's supposed to concern me?"

"You're the only one that I know that's in this school after five that can drop me there. Please, just once," she pleaded. "Then I'll get out of your hair."

"Don't you think I have places to be? Stuff that I have to do?" Paul retorted. "I have a lot of work to do, and you just expect me to take time out for you and drop you to the hospital and probably drop you back home?"

At this point, it just seemed like he was making up excuses. "Oh, I'm so sorry that you can't take at least a half hour and do something good for once in a while. I forgot that you have a heart of stone, not gold!" she yelled. "Do you know what happened the last time? I was left there in the heavy rains for hours! And it was your fault!"

Paul scoffed. "Please, just because your parents couldn't buy the princess a car doesn't mean it's my fault."

What did he think she was? A spoiled brat? "You know what? Forget it! Go to hell!" she spat in his direction. Paul watched her with a bored expression as she took her respective belongings and stormed out of the library in anger. When she was gone, he breathed a sigh of relief.


After school ended, May picked up Max from his high school so they'd both go home waiting for their father to come back from his business trip. Their father, Norman Maple, owned one of the biggest companies in Lumoise, and he was called in for a business trip in Sinnoh. Their father was busy most of the time, and was only at home sometimes, but both kids were still grateful for having a hard working father that provided for them.

Max sat down on the couch. "I can't wait 'till dad gets home."

"I know," May added, "I missed him. I wonder if mom told him Dawn moved here?"

"I heard he's bought me a new game console," Max said excitedly.

May rolled her eyes. "Are video games all you care about? Dad's going to be home soon after not seeing him for a week, and video games is what you care about?" she looked at her brother expectantly.

Max crossed his arms. "Can't I care about both my dad and the video game?"

May face-palmed. "Idiot."

Max rolled his eyes. "Very mature. Anyways, I'm hungry."

May looked at him. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well," he said, putting his legs up on the table and putting his hands at the back of his head, "you could be a great older sis and whip me up a sandwich." He grinned.

May fake smiled and dragged the table in front of her so his legs would fall back to the ground. "Nice try. There's this thing called the kitchen and food supplies, have you ever heard of it?"

Max nodded. "Yeah...it's where you'll be making my sandwich," he said in a 'duh' tone.

May scoffed. "No, its where you'll make your own sandwich," she said, clicking her tongue before walking ahead of him.

Max groaned to himself. "I have to do everything in this house," he said, muttering before going to the kitchen.


5:35 pm

Leaf exited detention, very exhausted. The brunette just spent three hours filing Mr. Harold's papers, checking students tests, and cleaning the auditorium. The only good thing she enjoyed about these tasks was marking the students tests, especially where she had to fill out the comment section. If a student had gotten nearly or all right, she'd comment, 'Nerd, you have no life' or if a student failed, she'd comment, 'Did you even study for this test? Loser, good luck in summer school'. Yes, she was fully aware that she'd probably get in more trouble for the insulting comments, but it was worth it.

The brunette stopped outside when she saw Gary talking to someone. Or more specifically, a girl. He continued talking to her for at least a minute, and even though Leaf couldn't hear the conversation, she had to admit she was curious about his new 'play-toy' for the week. The poor sucker, Leaf thought as she shook her head.

"Oh, there you are, Leafy." Leaf looked up at Gary who was a few feet away from her. What did he mean, was he waiting for her?

The girl that was with him had vanished mysteriously."What are you still doing here? It's after five."

"Well," he started, "I felt sorta bad that you got into detention because of me...so I decided I'll make it up for you by giving you a ride home," he suggested.

Leaf snorted. Was this his new game? "Thanks, I'm good. My dad's picking me up."

"Are you sure?" Gary protested.

"Yup."

Gary shook his head in disbelief, chuckling. "I waited almost three hours for this."

"I didn't ask you to," the brunette reminded him.

"True, but I wanted to," he said. His brown dark eyes pierced into her eyes, trapping her for a second, but Leaf shook her head. "What?"

"Stop," she said. "I'm not those type of girls."

What the hell did she mean by that? "What?" he said, utterly confused. "What do you mean?"

Leaf rolled her eyes not believing his innocent facade, and then saw her dad's truck. She ignored his question and skipped past him, hopping into her dad's truck. She didn't bother to look at Gary once the truck started, but there was one question constantly popping in her mind.

Who was that girl?


Dawn had been walking for at least five blocks now, and her legs were sore already. It was a rough ninety degrees outside, and her entire back was wet from all the sweating. Her throat felt dry, and before she collapsed, she decided to take a break and sit down on a bench that just happened to be sitting there coincidentally. Thank Arceus, the blunette thought as she let her feet rest. She noticed she was in an empty area, and could only see about two houses in front of her. And the houses looked like the average house, not like the house she used to live in.

The sun was beginning to set, and Dawn smiled seeing the sky's mixed colours of red, orange and yellow. It was amazing what nature could do. Dawn's eyes were beginning to droop close and soon enough, she fell asleep.

About a half hour later, her eyes momentarily opened, and she saw a figure standing in front of her. She immediately sat upright widening her eyes in realization to Paul, who was giving her a weird look. "Paul? What are you doing here?"

Paul stood there, still giving her the same look. "I live here."

Dawn blinked. "What?" She looked around, and then she noticed his vehicle parked across the street next to the average looking house. This was where he lived? "You live in that small house over there?" she asked, not noticing how insulting that might have sounded, and she wanted to bite her tongue off when she noticed Paul's angered expression. Though, now that she thought about it, she should have realized that Paul was a bit poor, especially with his rugged looking vehicle.

"You were sleeping on the bench," he pointed out, "I didn't realize the bench was the hospital."

Dawn laughed sarcastically. "Ha, ha, so funny." she sighed. "I just sat here for a couple of minutes because I was tired, and fell asleep. I didn't know this was where you lived."

Paul snorted. "Of course you can't handle a bit of walking."

"Oh, just go already! If you really have nothing nice to say to me, then please don't say anything."

Paul said nothing, smirking. Dawn scowled; she was really, really starting to get annoyed.

The two suddenly heard thunder cackle and in a split of a second, rain started pouring down without any sort of warning. Dawn gasped, getting drenched, and Paul's purple locks were on his shoulders drenched as well. "Great, how am I going to get to the hospital now?"

Paul shrugged indifferently. "Your problem, not mine," he said, turning his head and beginning to walk across the street. Dawn didn't expect anything more from him, and shivered from the cold rains.

She stood up from the cold bench, and rubbed her palms across her arms in an attempt to warm her, but it was doing no good. And the skirt that she was currently wearing made it worse as she walked forward. Her lips were quivering, and her entire body was shaking. She stopped walking and just stood still, trying to warm herself.

A car horn honked, and she suddenly turned left and widened her eyes as the car headlights were approaching her. The blunette screamed, closing her eyes before she felt someone push her violently, out of the way. Still clenching her eyes shut, her heart was beating as she held the person tighter. She was breathing heavily, and she was lucky the heavy rains were hiding her tears. She had never been so scared in her life.

Her eyes opened, and she registered hands on her waist. Dawn looked up slightly, and moved back to meet Paul's eyes. Paul's intoxicating eyes were boring into her sapphire eyes, and she suddenly realized that she had never been this close to Paul before. And more importantly, he had literally saved her life.

Rain continued to pour on the streets.

Paul's eyes wavered a bit, and then stepped back, giving them distance. "Are you out of your mind? Why would you stand in the middle of the road? Do you want to get killed?"

Dawn didn't answer; she didn't think she could. Paul growled in annoyance before he grabbed her hand forcefully, and carefully took her across the street. Dawn looked at him in surprise when he brought her over to his car. "Sit in the car," he said.

Dawn's eyes widened. "What?"

"Can't you hear? I said, sit in the car, I'm taking you home," he said before he opened the door and sat in the driver's seat.

Dawn opened the door and sat in the passenger seat. "But, I need to go to the hospital," she said.

"Don't be stupid, Dawn. It's raining, and you nearly got killed. Give me your address so I can take you home," he said, backing the vehicle out. To say Dawn was shocked was a total understatement. Not only did he save her, but he was also offering to drop her home? However, Dawn gave him May's address, and the two were off.


The car halted to a stop, and Dawn looked across the window, seeing the house across the street. They had reached in under twenty minutes. Paul looked at the house. "I'm not surprised you live here," he said.

"It's not mine," she said, not seeing any reason to give any further explanation. Paul just nodded in understanding. Dawn glanced at him, biting her lip. For the first time ever, Dawn had witnessed Paul doing something good for once. "Thanks," she said.

Paul nodded in response, and Dawn got out of the vehicle, closing the door behind her. She watched as the car started and sped away. Sighing, she walked towards the front door, completely drenched, and rang the doorbell. In seconds, the door opened, revealing a tall man. Dawn's eyes widened.

She didn't expect Norman Maple to see her like this.


Wow, I think this is the fastest I've updated in years!

This is a much longer chapter than what I gave you guys the other day, and I'm really satisfied with it, and with the entire plot. This is also one of the biggest ikarishipping moment to have ever happened since the beginning of this story, so I really hope you guys enjoyed it. And the next update won't be so soon, I have other stories as well that I have to update as well haha.

Review please! Even if it's only two to three reviews per chap, I still appreciate it.

Thanks for reading, and see you guys next time!