Part XV – Opposites React

Misty stood, unblinking for a few seconds, her hands relaxing but her chest tightening.

"You – you do know that you just –"

"Oh I know, and you didn't think I meant it," Ash smiled, quite happy with himself. He reached towards her.

"And you think you can just do that and, ah, what?"

He pulled her gently by her arm towards him, so that he could show her again.

"Will you stop kissing me already!?" she asked rather humorously,

"No," was the simple answer he had for her,

"Fine then!" she crossed her arms in defeat, as his lips softly nudged hers.

"Pikaaa . . ." a quiet droning came from the vehicle, "Pikapi, Pikachupi . . ."

Misty sighed contentedly into the night air.

"And we should at least try to get along, we're going to be the only one's we've got when we start off on our travels," Ash corrected himself when he heard the annoyed resonance from the car, "Other than our Poképals,"

"I suppose you're right, as long as you don't go trying to make me fight with you to fulfill some strange fantasy of yours," Misty voiced in slight irritatedness.

"Don't worry about that, I've got plenty of other fantasies that don't involve us fighting," he grinned impishly.

"Ash, what a thing to say," she scolded him, but couldn't make it seem like it was unadulterated. "Anyways, speaking of Pokémon, it's getting late. I'd better go pick up Togepi from Maria's. All I need is her knowing that her suspicions were true, and that I left her with a grumpy baby while I was off cavorting with you in a secluded wooded area," Misty mumbled, as she headed for the passenger side door.

"She was really that spot on?" he asked, impressed, sliding off the hood of the car.

"Yeah, and she seemed to encourage it a lot more than she should have; Togepi is a handful when it's not sleeping in its own bed. But she said that that was what she was there for, and as long as she, and I quote, 'Got her money's worth' in gossip later, she would happily do anything for me,"

"Including watch Togepi all night so that you could stay over at my place?" Ash asked, hopeful.

She was tempted to agree just to see what kind of surprised reaction he would have; but that would just be mean.

"I'm sure she'd just love that! But unfortunately for her, no such hasty circumstance is going to occur tonight," Misty smirked at his crestfallen expression, "Besides, we'll have plenty of time for sleepovers from now on. Campouts, Pokécentres, millions of strange circumstances . . ."

"Well, when you put it that way," Ash smirked in amusement.

"Hey, I have a question for you Ash,"

"Huh?"

"Back when we split up all those years ago, and you went off to become a master on your own, what was it that made you come to Cerulean and look for me that day? It always seemed so out of the blue to me, I just never questioned it because I was afraid to hear the answer," she grinned secretly, "Until now, obviously,"

"Probably for the reason that you're thinking; that's the only reason I could assume you'd ask for. You just want to hear it don't you? That I'm a complete lost cause without you, huh?" Ash mocked her.

"Don't make fun of me! It's just that, I always thought that being a pokémon master was the most important thing to you – and then you just dropped it all and it made me wonder, what ever happened?"

"It's not that I dropped it, it's just that I came to realize that being a master isn't the most important thing in the world – especially when all of your friends are gone and you have no one left to share those experiences with. So I drew straws and it turned out that you'd be the one I hung around – at least until you got annoyed at me," Ash said immaturely.

"Hey, shut up! You're lucky that I haven't, at this point!" she stuck her tongue out at him in a like gesture.

"No, but really, I guess I just realized that I could still become a master if I wanted, and that I could slow down and take my time, enjoy it, you know, with my pokémon. And it's not like I don't battle anymore, I do all the time, I may not have gone for any gym badges lately, but I train with my pokémon as regularly as I used to," he shrugged, showing that he indeed, was growing up.