The storm is coming to an end, and with it, we bring things full circle and return to Cynthia, Blake, and Ayame. What will come out of this little game of theirs? Whose secrets will be uncovered, and what will we learn from them? Will things go back to normal? The storm is coming to an end, but the drama is just beginning!
Also, there are still issues with fanfiction, so I don't know if this chapter is being read, either. As said before, if you can read this chapter, please review so I know.
KedharS: She's still both of those things. She hasn't come as far as you'd think.
Rosealine gold: Maddi vs. Sylvia… hmm… it could work, although Maddi would have to withstand Sylvia's… taunting.
Aquahaze675: They have met. They loathe each other. Because of course they do.
ThatOneUnoriginalGuy: They're just doing their jobs, nothing to see. We've been focusing on Sango a lot, need to let other characters take the stage.
Thunder Fire: I'll keep it in mind.
Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings
Chapter 363
Blake, Ayame, and Cynthia were all kneeling on Ayame's bed, shoes off. Cynthia had a bright, happy expression on her face.
Ayame… did not.
"Ha! I win again!" Cynthia boasted. She smiled smugly at Ayame, lording over her many victories in this utterly ridiculous game that she had come up with herself.
Ayame and Blake glanced at each other. Yeah, this really was ridiculous.
"Fine, fine, you win," Ayame yawned.
"Hah! Of course I do! I know Blake's habits quite a lot, after all!" Cynthia boasted. "Even better than his girlfriend! Because I'm his precious rival! Girlfriends come and go, but rivals are forever, didn't you know that?"
Ayame's eye twitched in rage. Even Blake scowled at that. Cynthia winced, looking down. She knew she had crossed a line with that one.
"Fine then, I have a question," Ayame growled, her voice taking on a particularly bitchy tone. "Tell me, Cynthia, since you know so much, let's hear this one. When did Blake have his first kiss?"
"Huh?" Cynthia blinked in confusion.
"Simple question," Ayame said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "When did Blake have his first kiss? I know the answer. Do you?"
Blake raised his eyebrow.
"Huh?! Um, that's… I don't…"
Cynthia thought back. Well, Blake and Ayame had hooked up right after he got back from that expedition, right? They must have kissed then!
"The night Blake came back from the expedition, when you two got together!" Cynthia declared. "His first kiss was with you, that's why you were so confident that you knew it! Ha! I knew that I would be able to figure it out!"
"Nope," Ayame smirked, her eyes shining victoriously. "You fucking idiot! Ha! I knew you didn't know! Blake's first kiss was with me, sure, but it wasn't that night! It was way before that, on the night we all celebrated Sango's success at passing her exam!"
"What?!" Cynthia gasped. "No, you're lying!"
"Nope," Ayame smirked, shaking her head. "I confessed my feelings to him, and I also fucking kissed him that night! He might have fucking rejected me, but even so, that was our first kiss, not the one we shared the night we got together."
Ayame licked her lips.
"In fact, that was our first kisses. Plural! We kissed several times!" Ayame bragged, Cynthia fuming in rage.
"Blake!" Cynthia exclaimed. "How could you keep that from me?! How could you just forget to tell me that you kissed Ayame months ago!"
"Why was I supposed to tell you?" Blake protested. "I didn't exactly want to share something like that with anybody, it was an incredibly intimate moment!"
Cynthia glowered at him.
"I'm your best friend, aren't I? Did you seriously not let me know when you had your first kiss? For months?"
"That wasn't my first kiss!" Blake protested.
"Wait, what?" Ayame gasped, surprised. Cynthia also looked at him with a confused, yet incredibly eager look, practically drooling over this bit of gossip.
"So you didn't kiss Ayame as your first kiss? My, how lecherous of you! I knew you were that kind of boy," Cynthia cooed.
"Oh shut up," Blake said, rolling his eyes.
"Kissing isn't such a big deal, now is it?" Cynthia giggled, as if she hadn't just been making a huge deal out of the fact that Blake had kissed Ayame without telling her. Cynthia was quite a hypocrite when it came to stuff like this. Blake didn't even want to bother pointing that out.
Ignoring Cynthia, Blake returned his attention to Ayame, whose tired face was starting to look a little troubled by this revelation.
"Aya, I told you that I'd had my first kiss with someone else, remember?" Blake said. "When we first kissed, we both said it wasn't our first, so is this really a big surprise?"
"Ooooh, right," Ayame said, remembering their conversation a little more clearly now. "Lol, yeah, I totally forgot about that, my heart was pounding way too much for the kiss."
"…Aya?" Cynthia asked, her eyes shining mischievously. Blake and Ayame flinched.
"Y-yeah, what's the big deal?" Ayame huffed, her face turning red. "It's just a pet name, what's the matter?"
"Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that," Blake said, still feeling a little embarrassed anyhow. It didn't make sense, but the nickname still felt a little private.
"Aya, Aya, Aya," Cynthia cackled, holding her sides at the utter adorableness. "You two are the most sickeningly sweet couple I've ever seen! HA!"
"What's the big fucking deal, huh?" Ayame repeated. Cynthia wiped the tears from her eyes as she rolled on the bed, having the time of her life.
"Nothing, nothing!" Cynthia assured her through giggles. "I just find it so frigging cute! You two are like the perfect little purity couple, getting all red in the face over someone hearing a pet name? And Ayame being so protective of the stuffed Wooloo that Blake gave her, like it was her most treasured thing? It's too fucking adorable!"
"That's-!" Ayame sputtered, reaching up and playing with her ribbon instinctively. "I love it of course, but it isn't my most precious possession! That's, I mean…"
Ayame glanced at Blake, seeing the look of surprise on his face. He looked… hurt. For a moment she felt guilty that she treasured her ribbon more than the stuffed Wooloo, and she tried to make Blake feel a little better.
"I love it," Ayame reassured him, placing her hand on his shoulder, giving him a beaming smile. "He's adorable, thank you."
"Yup, too fucking perfect, you guys are adorable!" Cynthia repeated. "Nothing like an adorably pure couple, of course you two haven't slept together yet!"
Blake glanced at her, frowning.
"And you're dating who, again, Cynthia?" Blake asked. He hadn't REALLY wanted to hurt her, but he wanted to get her to shut up.
Cynthia turned back to Blake, a scowl on her face. She sat back up.
"That's not the point, Blake! Don't bring that up, you jerk!" Cynthia pouted. "It's not my fault! We can't all luck into a harem like you!"
"That's-!" Blake's cheeks flushed and he glanced at Ayame's concerned expression before turning his attention back to Cynthia. "That's beside the point!"
"Oh, really?" Cynthia scowled, putting her hands on her hips and standing up shakily on the bed, looking down at him angrily. "And whose fault is it that I'm single, again?"
Blake blinked, not sure what it was that Cynthia was getting at.
"Yours?"
"No, it's YOUR fault mister funny man!" Cynthia accused, pointing her finger directly into his face. "If you had just become my boyfriend like a good little boy, then I wouldn't be single and alone, now would I? Huh? What do you say to that?"
"Wait, wait, wait," Ayame interrupted, glancing at Cynthia in confusion. "Cynthia, you like Blake? You wanted to date him?"
Cynthia blinked.
"No, I just wanted him to be my boyfriend so I wouldn't be single."
Ayame slapped herself in the face in annoyance.
"You are an idiot."
"Of all the boyfriend candidates, I decided that Blake would be the best one!" Cynthia cooed, crawling down next to him and rubbing her cheek against his, Blake shying away from her. She scowled at him, shrugging her shoulders and sitting back down.
"So you don't actually have feelings for him?" Ayame clarified, feeling a little relieved. She knew that Blake loved her, but she didn't like the idea of his friend trying to weasel her way into his pants, since she suspected Cynthia didn't have the same respect for her feelings that Sango did, and would continue to push the envelope if she DID like him. Thankfully, she looked like she didn't care that much about Blake in that way. In fact…
"Cynthia, do you know what it means to really like somebody?" Ayame asked.
Cynthia blinked.
"Of course, duh. It's when you want to do stuff with them. Like Blake!" Cynthia smirked. "Especially when you want to do a bunch of smutty stuff with them, because it feels really good, you know? Someone to spend your days with, doing all sorts of stuff, being in love!"
Ayame and Blake glanced at each other. Cynthia seemed to like a lot of erotic stuff, but when it came to actual feelings…
"So have you ever had, like, a crush on someone before?" Ayame asked.
"Well, yeah, Serefina, duh," Cynthia drooled. "That body of hers, damn, I'd like to eat that all up, you know?"
"No, that means you want to have sex with her," Blake clarified. "That… I don't think that's the same as a crush."
Cynthia blinked.
"Don't you read, like romances and stuff?"
"Yeah?" Cynthia said, confused.
"And you didn't learn anything from it?" Blake asked.
"Learn anything like… what do you mean?" Cynthia asked, confused.
"Blake, I don't think we're getting through to her," Ayame sighed. She thought of some way to get through to Cynthia.
"Look, I don't see what the big problem is," Cynthia scowled. "I love girls and boys in my own way, you two have your whole lovey-dovey thing going on, it's not a problem! And sure, maybe I liked Blake, but that just in the 'hey maybe I want to do stuff with him' sort of thing, you know? It's not like I want to get married or hold hands or go on long dates like you two!"
"…You're smiling," Ayame said suspiciously.
"Huh?" Cynthia blinked, wearing a big dopey smile on her face. She slapped her cheeks and shook her head, flustered. "N-No! I don't want that stuff, not a chance, trust me Ayame! Blake and I are just friends, okay?"
"Yeah, obviously," Blake said, nodding his head. "Besides, I would choose Ayame over you every time, dummy."
"Well, that's just because you haven't kissed me yet," Cynthia purred, running her fingers across her lips and batting her eyes flirtatiously. "Are you sure you wouldn't want to give it a shot? But be careful, you might break up with cute little Ayame, and I won't be responsible…"
"Nah, I'm good."
"…Oh," Cynthia said, scowling at him in disappointment. Ayame gave her a smug smile of victory, Cynthia glowering back at her.
Ayame's face softened, and she thought of a way to talk to Cynthia, maybe get her to figure out how she felt. There was one way that she'd figured out to do that, but she wasn't sure if it was actually going to work or not.
"Cynthia… do you love your pokemon?" Ayame asked the redhead.
Cynthia turned to look at her, an incredulous expression on her face.
"Well, duh, of course," she said. "I love my pokemon! They're the most precious sweeties in the world to me!"
"You love your baby Vulpix too, right?" Ayame asked.
"She's a sweetheart!" Cynthia agreed, nodding her head vigorously. "She's my little sweet snowflake darling!"
"Well, what if your pokemon decided that they wanted to play with another trainer?" Ayame followed up.
Cynthia considered that, and then shrugged.
"That'd be fine."
"…Well, what if they wanted to play with another trainer, so much so that they didn't want to play with you anymore?" Ayame finished. "What if they liked that other trainer so much, that they didn't consider you to be their trainer anymore?"
Cynthia blinked. Her lip began to quiver, and tears began to well up in her eyes.
"Nooo!" She wailed, grabbing her pokeballs from her belt and clutching them close to her chest, defending them as though Ayame were planning to take them away herself. "They're mine! They're my pokemon, you can't have them! Not a one! They're all amazing to me! My beloved friends, leave them alone!"
"That right there? That's your jealousy, right?" Ayame asked.
"Yeah?" She sniffed, wiping her eyes.
"Well, when you think about Serefina, you don't feel jealous over her, right?" Ayame asked. "You don't want to be the only one to have her, or prevent other people from getting close to her? You don't feel jealous about her at all, do you?"
Cynthia shook her head.
"No, you're right," Cynthia acknowledged, nodding her head. "I don't feel jealous over her, not like that, I just really want to bang her."
"Yeah, exactly," Ayame said, nodding.
"…But I did feel jealous over Blake," Cynthia added. Ayame blinked.
"Wait, what?"
Blake had similar thoughts.
"Huh? Jealous? What?" Blake asked, confused.
Cynthia thought on it again. Her feeling towards Blake. She had always joked around about them, right? She didn't really like him that way. She liked him, sure, but not… not like that, right? She wasn't jealously obsessive like Caelia was.
But did that mean she didn't like him?
Cynthia thought back on how Caelia thought about Blake. How just seeing him snuggling up to Ayame had made the normally empty, stoic girl start to cry, much to Cynthia's utter shock. Seeing those two together had crushed him…
But how had she felt about that?
She had been jealous of him choosing to team up with Elaina over her. Why had she felt that way? She'd wanted to spend time with him, right? But that was just because they were friends. It wasn't like she thought of him in any special way, right?
And it wasn't like she had gotten particularly jealous, either. She liked him, sure, but romantically? Like Caelia? No, she wasn't anything like her. She didn't like Blake at all, she'd never liked anyone like that before, it had always been a physical thing. She had people she loved because they were friends, and hot people she'd be open to having sex with.
And Blake, well…
…
He was definitely in one of those categories? Sure, she usually preferred pretty girls with banging bodies or hot guys with a lot of muscle, those were her physical tastes for sure. But when it came to friends she didn't care at all. So Blake was just a friend, right? A good friend, sure, but…
Cynthia got along with everyone. She didn't like jerks, bullies, or people who were too stuck up, but Blake…
Was he really that special? Just because he was her rival, though, right? Not because of any other deeply held feelings or anything.
Then why was she so jealous over him choosing Elaina? She hadn't felt jealous when he'd chosen Ayame, right? After all, if she'd really wanted him, if she'd actually made a move, then he would have chosen her, right?
Right?
So there wasn't any reason to be jealous. She was happy for Blake, because Blake was happy. And sure, she thought about him a lot more than her other friends, but that was just because their relationship was a little more special than the relationships she had with her other friends, right? But that didn't mean she liked him that way.
Cynthia's head was starting to hurt, like when she had to do math. And just like an algebra test, things weren't adding up right.
Do I… do I like Blake? Like… like like him? I don't… I haven't liked people like that before, so it's not like I like him, but…
Cynthia paused.
What did it mean to like someone, anyway?
"Cynthia, you're turning bright red," Ayame said, frowning. Cynthia flinched. She'd been so caught up in her own thoughts that she'd forgotten that she was in a room with not only Blake, the subject of her troubles, but Ayame as well.
"Cynthia, you don't really-"
"Uhum, um… this is gonna sound really weird, but…" Cynthia's voice was cautious, but direct. She had interrupted Blake and was now staring directly at him and Ayame.
"Can you two kiss?"
"What?!" Ayame gasped.
"Sure," Blake agreed. Ayame whirled around to stare at him, eyes wide with surprise.
"Wait, what?!" She repeated.
Blake glanced at her, and shrugged.
"What, you don't want to?"
"W-well, I mean…" Ayame couldn't fight the grin tugging at her lips. She averted her eyes shyly. "I-I didn't say I didn't want to, but I mean…"
She couldn't help glancing at Cynthia, who was watching them with an unnaturally serious look on her face.
"…You sure?" She asked.
"Usually if Cynthia asked me to kiss you, I would think it was because she wanted something to, um, 'stimulate' her imagination," Blake explained with the subtlety of a brick. Ayame rolled her eyes in response to THAT.
"See?"
"But right now, I don't know. I think it's different," Blake said, glancing at his friend. She seemed… weird. Like there was something she wasn't telling him. And indeed, Cynthia was trying to figure things out. She was trying to understand how Caelia had felt, and wondered if maybe there wasn't such a huge difference between the two of them, after all.
"Please?" Cynthia pleaded with them. Ayame glanced helplessly at Blake, and sighed.
"Just… just a peck, okay?"
"Full tongue please."
"Okay, NOW I'm pretty sure that she's just looking for some stimulation," Blake corrected himself.
"No! It's, um, important," Cynthia replied. "I need it. For… reasons."
"Are they 'pants on' reasons?"
"…Maybe."
"Cynthia!"
"Come on! Please?!" Cynthia begged. "I really, just… you guys were right. When it comes to stuff like romance, I mean… I'm really good at the whole perverted thing, I know a bunch when it comes to physical stuff, but… you were right. I don't… I really don't know what it means to like some that way, not really. Just…"
Cynthia sniffled, as the reality that she'd been ignoring this whole time began to set in. She'd always sort of imagined that love and boyfriends and girlfriends were just stuff that happened. But now that she'd seriously sat down and started thinking about it… she was a virgin in more ways than one. She'd never experienced the 'doki-doki' effects that were a supposed part of love. She hadn't felt REAL jealousy, or that purported feeling of wanting to spend the rest of your life with someone. In spite of all her boasts and come-ons (or, she ruefully admitted, maybe because of them) she had never looked in the mirror and seen the light in her eyes that Blake and Ayame had when they looked at each other.
And now that she knew it existed, she wanted it worse than anything! She'd wanted a boyfriend or girlfriend before for the status of being desired, but right now she really desired that connection that Blake and Ayame had. It was a strange sort of irony. There was a very real fear in her heart right now that Blake might actually be her first love, and the ironic thing was that if not for the two of them getting together, Cynthia could have gone her whole life without realizing how she felt. She just hoped that she was getting herself all mixed up, and she didn't REALLY think that way.
But the only way she would know for sure would be to see that passionate spark again, that connection, that kiss, right in front of her eyes. If she saw it and her heart went unmoved, then she'd know that while she liked Blake, it wasn't THAT kind of "like".
And if she did feel something, well…
Cynthia didn't want to think about what would happen then. Caelia's decision to run out into the blizzard was looking pretty good to her if that ended up being the case.
Blake and Ayame looked at the turmoil on Cynthia's face and the embers burning in her eyes. It seemed this really was something important to her. They glanced at each other, hearts pounding in their chests. They'd kissed in front of other people before, but right now, it felt… dirty. Like they were letting someone else into a private, intimate moment.
Blake and Ayame pressed their lips against one another, sinking deeply into the kiss. The minute they connected, all thoughts of Cynthia fled from their minds, and they lost themselves in each other. Ayame felt like being the forceful one this time around. Maybe because it had been a while (they hadn't kissed all day!) or maybe Cynthia's presence had sparked a desire to "mark her territory" as it were, but she was the one pushing in on him, eagerly, her tongue wrapping around his as if she was trying to remind him that he was HERS and she was his, and he shouldn't forget that. She felt Blake's fingers wrapping in her hair and she reached out to grab his head as well, pulling him even closer to her, as if that could be possible.
Cynthia watched the two of them making out in stunned silence. She'd said she wanted passionate, but, well…
Wow.
They were passionate alright.
So passionate, it almost distracted Cynthia from the pain in her chest. If not for the hotness of the scene in front of her, she would have averted her eyes. Watching them like that… it hurt. For a moment Cynthia wished it could be her Blake was kissing so intensely, and that was the moment that the world came crashing down around her.
So this is what liking someone is, she understood. She liked a boy, really liked him, not just lusted for him, for the first time ever.
And it had to be the one boy that would absolutely never turn his gaze on her in that way.
She'd met him first, but her own refusal to recognize her feelings had caused her to miss whatever chance she might have had. She knew she should be happy seeing them so happy, but right now she just wanted to cry.
So as she knelt on the bed of her crush's girlfriend and cried, she silently pleaded to whoever was listening to take it all back. Make her not feel this way, not realize it. Make it be that she could just go back to being Blake's friend and rival, and be done with it. Make it so nothing would have to change. When Blake and Ayame came back for air and turned to Cynthia, they also saw the truth that she couldn't hide anymore. It was streaming right down her face.
Blake and Ayame glanced at each other, understanding completely. The two reached out and hugged Cynthia together, letting the heartbroken girl cry as long as she needed to.
One last touch of drama before the storm clears up in the morning! What will we see the following day?