Hopefully, Blake will be able to take care of his pokemon. And hopefully, doing so doesn't ruin his date with Ayame any more than it already has.

KedharS: Oh, really? Why not?

Aquahaze675: They do make a cute couple. But I think Sylvia might be projecting just a tiny bit. Unless she knows something about Blake that we don't.

Thunder Fire: Because Blake doesn't want to reveal the truth to Ayame just yet, considering the state of how he left things off with Kate, after all. Plus she may not be ready to hear about ANOTHER girl who has feelings for him.

Rosealine gold: Yeah, hopefully we'll get there soon.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 370

"You know someone?" Ayame asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Okay, look, remember when I was engage to Alcea Vermeil for like a month?"

Ayame nodded bitterly. It was a particularly painful memory.

"Okay, so, one of the students in her club is a friend of mine," Blake explained. "I think you've met her a few times, her name's Kate. She has hair that kinda looks like a hedgehog and a personality like caustic acid."

"Kate, I think she sounds…"

Ayame paused.

"Hey, wait! I remember now! Back when we first met you called me 'Kate the Second'!" Ayame exclaimed, Blake resisting the urge to snicker. "'Caustic acid'?! Is that how you saw me?!"

"Not important," Blake said. "Anyway, she's a poison-type user. And she's in the Gardening Club, so she might know the stuff we need to make that medicine."

"Awesome! Then call her!"

"Well, see… there's a problem though," Blake said. In spite of that, he was still getting out his phone to call her.

"Problem? What kind of problem."

"Well, before you and I started dating, she, uh… kinda, sorta… ended up revealing her feelings for me," Blake said, averting his eyes from Ayame. That was the easiest way to describe the clusterfuck of emotions that had been involved in Kate's "outing" at the Galar Region.

Ayame scowled.

"And when I say 'before' I mean, like, less than a week before. And I told her I didn't think about her that way, and, well…" Blake sighed. "It reminded me of everything that had happened with you, the way I hurt you before. I felt guilty, and, well… I ended up kind of avoiding her because of that. So now we haven't even really talked, and I still… well…"

A wave of guilt washed over Blake's face. Right now, he was going to be making things worse for all parties involved by calling Kate over.

"Blake, get over it," Ayame snapped. That took him by surprise.

"Uh…"

"Look. Whatever's going on between you two, time to forget it. There's a baby pokemon here that needs that girl's help, and if you aren't going to call her and get it, then I fucking will, got it?" Ayame asked, holding the crying Skorupi up.

Blake was already dialing.

Now he just hoped Kate would pick up.

"…B-Blake?!" Kate's voice rang in his ear. "What do you want? I'm busy."

"I need your help," Blake said. "It's an emergency."

"My help? Call campo or something I ain't got shit to do for an emergency, what the-"

"Kate!" Blake interrupted her. "There is a poison pokemon in serious need of your help, okay? Get your butt over here!"

Kate was stunned into silence for a moment.

"R-roger," she replied, hanging up the phone.

"She's on her way," Blake sighed.

Ayame nodded her head. The two stood there with the wailing of the Skorupi being the only thing that would break the silence.

"Blake, that girl…" Ayame cautiously began the conversation again, not sure what exactly she was trying to get from him. "You… you said you had stopped talking to her after… after she confessed? After we got together? What… um, what happened between you two?"

Blake sighed and sat down on his bed, staring up at Ayame. He looked down shamefully.

"I… was aware about how she felt," he admitted. "For like a month. The same way I knew how you felt, and I… I led her on. Treated her nicely, but never… never talking, you know? Never bringing it up. And then it just sort of… came out. And when it did, well… there wasn't really a way to take it back, or pretend like it didn't happen. And to try would just be cruel, so I… so I let her know that it was impossible. That I didn't feel that way about her."

"…Then why did you ghost her?" Ayame asked, her solemn voice drowned out by the screeches of the pokemon in her arms. She asked again, louder this time.

"Was it… because of me?"

Blake looked up at her, his mouth falling open.

"Aya, no, it's just-"

"Then why?"

Blake winced. He lowered his head again.

"I could tell you that it was for her sake, because I wanted to give her some space, since I was afraid that being around me, talking to me, that it would hurt her," Blake said. "I could tell you that, and it would be how I feel. But… that wasn't the reason."

"Then what was the reason?" Ayame asked, walking over to him and sitting down beside him, holding the Skorupi out in front of them as she turned to look at Blake, her eyes brimming with concern. "It's okay, Blake. You can tell me."

"I want to tell you," Blake said, turning to look her in the eye. "I don't want to keep anything from you, Aya. So… I didn't want to see her again, because I felt… guilty."

"Guilty? For not loving her?" Ayame asked.

"No, not… not that. It was… it was the way I handled it, the way everything happened. I led her on, because I thought that it was more convenient than to confront the truth. Just like how I did with you. Because back then… I was only thinking about myself, and my sister. I didn't want to acknowledge her feelings, so I treated her kindly but kept her at arms' length, and that… that ended up hurting her, so, so badly." Thinking of the way that he'd hurt Kate hurt him, too. "The thought of seeing her again, knowing what I did, it just… it wasn't like with you, Aya. I can't… I… I realized how I felt about you, and thanks to that I was able to make up for the pain that I caused you. But Kate… I can't make it up to her. I broke her heart, and there's nothing I can do to make her feel better."

Ayame didn't know what to say about that. But there was a question his words had brought up that made a mixture of worry and anger well up inside of her, so she asked him that instead of trying to make him feel better.

"Are you only with me out of guilt, then?"

Blake turned to her, the horrified look on his face blowing away all her concerns.

"No, Aya, of course not!" Blake gasped.

"You didn't go out with me because you felt guilty about how you had hurt me?" Ayame clarified with stunning coldness. "Our relationship wasn't some 'bone' you were throwing me so you could feel better about yourself?"

It hurt her to ask that. She knew it wasn't the truth. But it was something that Blake needed to grapple with for himself.

"Aya, I swear, I never once thought that way about you," Blake insisted. "I didn't use you to 'assuage my guilt' or anything like that, I honestly love you!"

"Then do you feel guilty?" Ayame pointedly asked. "About what you did? 'Leading me on' I think you called it?"

"That's…"

"You said you didn't, since you 'made it up to me' by going out with me, right? You made it better?"

"That isn't what I meant."

"But it's what you said. Like dating me was a way to atone. To make me feel better."

"That's… Aya, I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't," Ayame assured him. "The problem is, you don't."

"…Huh?"

"You dating me? That isn't you 'making up for what you did'. You didn't do anything wrong, Blake. You were confused, and you didn't know what you were feeling. So you hid your feelings and tried to keep them hidden that way. And that's okay."

"It… it is?"

"You don't need to feel bad about me," Ayame said, wishing she could give him a hug. But the pokemon she was holding made that inconvenient. "I know you were going through some complicated stuff. So I understand you weren't thinking clearly, you were trying to do… other things. But… I think the situation with her is a little different. And not because you don't love her, or can't go out with her. What happened… from what you told me, there's a difference there."

"What?" Blake asked. Ayame sighed, shaking her head.

"I can't just give you the answer, Blake. But let me ask you this. How do you think she felt when you rejected her?"

"Miserable."

"Knowing you 'led her on' as you put it?"

"Even worse, probably."

"What about the fact that after her feelings came out, that you ghosted her completely and left her by herself? How do you think she felt about that one?"

Blake paused.

"Remember last week, when we figured out how Cynthia felt?" Ayame asked. "Remember how you told her that everything would go back to normal? That she didn't have to worry? Remember how happy that made her?"

Blake nodded. He understood what she meant now. Ayame glanced at him. She could tell, he understood it now.

"You really blew it, Blake," Ayame said.

"Yeah, I really did, didn't I?" Blake sighed, shaking his head. He had been so focused on how he was feeling, on his own guilt, that he had basically just abandoned Kate, telling himself that "she needed space" and that "he shouldn't be around her after what he had done."

Kate, who had grown up being bullied and isolated.

Kate, whose fear of being rejected had made her deny who she was.

Kate, who had more trust issues than anyone he'd ever met.

That was the Kate who he had completely abandoned and ghosted. He had lost himself in his new relationship, and completely forgotten about the girl who he had considered a friend, the girl who he had beaten himself up over inadvertently hurting, and he had just inadvertently hurt himself again without event thinking about it.

A knock on the door took Blake out of his haze of self-loathing.

"You get it," Ayame said, glancing at the squirming Skorupi. "My hands are kind of full."

Blake nodded and got out of bed, walking over to the door. He opened it to see Kate staring anxiously back at him, her face pale and anxious under a thick purple scarf and parka.

"Blake-"

"I'm so sorry," Blake burst out, wrapping his arms around Kate and hugging her tightly, much to the surprise of both girls, and Blake himself.

"Ueeee!" Kate screeched, flailing her arms helplessly as Blake hugged her, her face turning bright red in a mixture of shock and slightly excited joy, but mostly just shock.

Blake pulled back from her, slightly embarrassed at what had just happened, though not nearly as much so as Kate.

"Wha… ubeh…" Kate stumbled around a variety of sounds as she tried to form words, not at all sure what to make of the situation. It had been nearly a month since she'd spoken to Blake, and right now… he had just… wasn't he dating someone!?

"Kate, listen, I'm sorry for not talking to you for so long," Blake assured her. "We can talk about it later, I want to make it up to you, but right now, this is more important. One of my pokemon is sick, and we think you might be the only person who can help right now."

"Huh? O-oh, right," Kate said, regaining her composure as best as she could. "Is it your Mareanie? Did she get a fever or some-"

Kate's eyes scanned the room, and she spotted the squirming Skorupi, gasping in surprise.

"A Skorupi?" She asked, glancing at him incredulously. A look at the egg remains on the floor filled in the rest of the blanks. "So your egg hatched?"

She glanced at the Skorupi, and the girl who was holding it. Ayame opened her mouth to say something, but Kate had already put the pieces together.

"It's post-hatching self-infection," Kate deduced immediately. She walked over to the bed, kneeling in front of Ayame so that she was staring directly at the Skorupi. The poison pokemon lunged, flailing his tail stinger at her, but Kate had prepared for that. She wrapped her forefinger and thumb under the ball of the Skorupi's tail, pinching the pincer and holding it in place as the Skorupi flailed his legs helplessly.

"Just calm down," Kate said. The pokemon wasn't listening. She sighed.

"Lumia, looks like I need your help."

Kate took a pokeball off of her belt and released her Vileplume.

"Lumia, use your sleep powder," Kate urged her.

"Vileplume," Lumia nodded, shaking the large red flower on her head, green spores shooting out.

"Careful," Kate said, holding her hand over her mouth and glancing up at Ayame. "Don't inhale unless you want a real bad trip. Even getting it on your skin is a little-"

Skorupi and Ayame yawned in unison, the pokemon drifting off to sleep as Ayame blinked her eyes and struggled to stay awake. Kate took the slumbering pokemon from her hands and set him down on the ground, recalling her Vileplume.

"Blake, get my bag," Kate said, nodding to the backpack on her shoulders. She unzipped her parka and shrugged it off, setting the jacket on the ground. She picked up the Skorupi and set him down on the coat, kneeling down beside him as Blake picked up her backpack.

Ayame yawned again, sitting back up.

"He's got a fever… that's to be expected," Kate said, placing her hand on the pokemon's forehead. "The poison is really doing a number on him… the climate isn't much help, either. Skorupi prefer arid environments, and with the winter cold, his condition probably isn't much help."

She glanced at Blake.

"My bag has a really thick book with a purple leather cover. I'm gonna need it."

Blake took the book out and gave it to her. Kate flipped it open, scanning the pages. It was an index of poison type pokemon, containing data on all known variants.

"…Yeah, just as I thought. Natural mating habits of Skorupi and Drapion result in them laying eggs that hatch earlier in the year, during summer, in the desert. Even in winter, their environments don't tend to get this cold."

"Is that why he's acting like this?" Blake asked.

"Nope, that's just making it worse. It's the poison," Kate said. "When poison-type pokemon are born, they-"

"They haven't always developed the resistance to their poison, I know, Ayame told me," Blake said.

"Clever, must be that caretaking coursework," Kate nodded to the taller girl. "Thankfully, your Skorupi is big for a newborn, which means the poison has more room to spread."

"That… sounds like a bad thing, not something to be thankful for," Blake replied.

"No, it's good. Since the poison level is consistent for his age, the venom is more diluted since it's working through a larger pokemon." Kate did some quick calculations against the table of Skorupi's poison yield by age. "More importantly, we need to let it run its course."

"What?" Ayame gasped, surprised. Blake was also surprised.

"But he's in pain," Blake said, gesturing to the prone pokemon. The Skorupi wasn't wailing anymore, but his sleeping face was strained with agony.

"He's in pain because he hasn't developed a resistance to his poison yet," Kate said, taking her backpack from Blake and beginning to dig through it. "How do you think he's going to develop that? The poison is gonna run its course through his system and then he's going to be fine."

"I don't know if I'm okay with that," Blake said, taking another look at his distressed pokemon.

"Yeah, that's not-"

"I'm not suggesting we do nothing," Kate reassured them. "That's the reason the medicine exists, you know. To help moderate the pokemon's condition. But all baby Skorupi go through this in the wild, too, without any medicine. It isn't fatal. Just painful. So we need to take proper care."

Kate checked the data in the book again and took a pad of paper out of her backpack. She began scribbling some things down.

"Judging by your Skorupi's state, to synthesize the medicine we're going to need to stabilize him and let the poison run its course with only mild effects, we'll need these herbs in these quantities," Kate said, tearing the paper off. "Our stores back in the Gardening Club should have everything stocked up, so that shouldn't be an issue."

She handed the slip of paper to a confused Ayame.

"You're a fast runner, right? So you can get there a lot quicker than I can. It's not okay to move Skorupi in this weather, so we'll need you to go get the stuff for us. Her highness is in the clubroom right now, so just show her this and explain the situation and she'll help you find everything."

Ayame glanced at Blake and nodded.

"Blake, after that hug, you better not try anything funny," Ayame told him.

"I-I wouldn't-!"

"I know, I trust you," Ayame said. Her face was still cloudy. "But we're going to need to have a talk sometime about all these girls with crushes on you, got it?"

"Erm…" Blake averted his eyes and Kate turned red, keeping her head down in embarrassment.

Ayame headed out to go pick up the supplies, and that left Blake and Kate alone in the room together.

"Um!" They both started speaking at the same time, before falling silent in embarrassment.

"You first," Blake said. "I, uh… already had my chance to talk earlier, so…"

"We, um… we're going to need some baby formula," Kate said. "I didn't know we were dealing with a newborn, so I didn't pack any."

Blake frowned. He didn't know where to get baby formula. Maybe one of the Pokemon Centers had it? Or the nursery…

Wait, Cynthia had some! Her Vulpix had hatched last week!

"I think I can borrow some from Cynthia," Blake said. He headed out of the room, sighing. Not being in the same room with Kate felt like a weight off of his shoulders, as bad as that sounded to think. Right now, things were just too awkward.

Thankfully, Cynthia had given him a spare key he could use (where she got it he didn't want to know) and he used it to get into their room. He felt a little suspicious to go digging around the girls' room, but it was an emergency. Fortunately, the bottles of formula were just lined up on the shelf. He grabbed one and headed back to his room, tossing it to Kate.

"Thanks," Kate said. "Got a heater or something?"

Blake shook his head. Kate sighed.

"Well, I'm not a nurse, but I think we're supposed to, like, heat it up to body temperature or something?" She asked. Blake shrugged.

Kate let out another sigh, tucking the bottle under her shirt and trying to warm it up with her body heat. It was the best she could do right now. She glanced back at him.

"You, uh… you wanted to say something? Earlier?"

"Yeah, just… well… are you doing okay?" Blake asked.

"…Fine," Kate muttered. She was content with letting the conversation die off there.

The two continued to sit in silence. What, exactly, were they supposed to say to one another?

Nothing like an awkward silence between people who went through an awkward moment. Hopefully they'll be able to patch up their friendship somehow.