After a bunch of buildup, we finally get to the payoff of Nick, and Callie's meticulous Valentine's Day plan! What will the night look like for the two of them? Will everything go okay, or will there be drama if Callie doesn't get her way?

Also, thank you to everyone who read my story "The Heir to the Dragon". I would appreciate if you continue to read and support it in the future! You can get there through my profile! The story is finally completed! Thank you for reading!

The Semi-Final Round of the second Pokemon Academy Best Girl contest has begun! Which three of these six girls will make it to the Finals? So far we've only got a few votes in, and by that, I mean only four people have voted! We can do better than that! Show your support for your best girl and vote on the poll in my profile! We want this competition to be close, after all! Who's going to win?!

Semi-Finalists: Ayame, Sylvia, Marion, Sango, Elaina, Valerie

KedharS: Yep, and we'll definitely see more of that soon to come!

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Cynthia has a lot of good qualities, it's just that they aren't the easiest to see when compared to her bad qualities.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 685

Callie's heart was pounding in her chest. Tonight was date night. She and Nick kept changing their plans on a whim. First was the dance, but no, that fell through because Callie and Nick were worried it wouldn't be very intimate. Next was a restaurant, a nice dinner for two, but then that plan had come to an end too; Callie didn't want to eat at a restaurant.

Callie had another idea for something that they could do together, and she wasn't about to let her idea be strangled right here.

So she had invited Nick to her room, where he was currently seated, trying his best not to turn red in the face, much to Callie's amusement.

Nick couldn't help it! He was stuck in a situation where he didn't know what he was doing, facing something that he had never encountered before, at least not in this context.

He was in Callie's room! Alone! Nick had no idea how he was supposed to handle this!

It wasn't like he hadn't been alone with Callie before, obviously because the two of them had been together for months. Callie had spent a lot of time with him in his room, so he wasn't even inexperienced in that regard!

But… it was different now, for some reason. The context was completely different. For one, he had never been in her bedroom before. Nick's bedroom was a little different. Even if they were alone there, Nick had roommates that could come in at any time. Which meant that even if they were together, there wasn't a lot that they could do without the risk of someone walking in on them, which meant their time together wasn't exactly as…

Well, needless to say, the presence roommates made hanging out alone in a room significantly less romantic.

But Callie didn't have roommates. As a Junior, Callie has a private room. A private room that Nick had never entered.

And he was entering it now. On Valentine's Day. Just stepping across the threshold made his heart pound in his chest. He could barely keep himself standing he was so flustered by what he was facing right now.

Callie… he and Callie had gone from a romantic Valentine's Day dance, to an intimate restaurant dinner to… a private dinner in Callie's room, just the two of them.

Which made him start to freak out more than just a little. It wasn't like… it wasn't like they were actually going to do anything, right? After all, they weren't at that point in their relationship, they weren't even close!

But Callie had been pushing for this date for weeks, she seemed to want the two of them to go out together on Valentine's Day so badly, to have her picture of the perfect Valentine's Day date, so much so that she kept changing their date plans to better fit her image of the perfect date.

Nick definitely thought that it was sweet and adorable. But at the same time, he couldn't help but feel anxious over it.

"I'll be back in a sec!" Callie chirped, skipping out of her room. "Just relax and make yourself at home, Nicky!"

And thus, Nick was left alone in her room. He glanced around, seeing Callie's room for the first time. It was… a lot like what he pictured, actually, which was a bit of a relief, since it told him that he knew his girlfriend pretty well.

The most "Callie" part of her room was the fact that she had set up a punching bag stand in the corner of the room, and it was surrounded by a mountain of stuffed animals. The contrast of cute and tough was perfectly Callie.

There were other things, too, but more just standard stuff with large posters of pulpy martial arts and Hong Kong action movies plastered on her walls. Another thing that he noticed was a surprising lack of books or other reading material anywhere to be seen.

Yep, that was another thing that was pretty Callie about the room. At least the floor wasn't littered with dirty clothes. In fact, the whole room was surprisingly clean. Nick suspected that Callie had done some preparations in anticipation of his arrival.

There was also a notably lack of furniture. The only thing there was to sit on was her bed, which had been neatly made up, looking temptingly soft and warm.

Well, he called it a bed, but due to Callie's height she had altered how high it rose off the ground, basically being a mattress sitting on the floor.

Nick swallowed and walked over to the bed, staring down at it. It… it was okay, right? To sit on her bed? Sure it was, what was the matter with him?! Why was he making such a big deal of it? There was no point in getting all flustered and worked up over something like this, it was a bed. It's not like sitting on her bed was going to mean anything!

He sat down on the bed. For a second, he feared that he'd get even more flustered at the idea that he would be able to smell her scent on the sheets, but luckily he was quick to be proven wrong, which was good.

After all, smelling like Callie would mean smelling like sweat in no small part, and he didn't want to sit on sweat-stained sheets.

Tonight… Nick wasn't sure what tonight was going to be like. He wanted to make it a special night for Callie, because Callie deserved it. She had been waiting so long for something like this, a romantic date, with someone that she loved.

Nick loved her too, and he wanted to make tonight the best date that he could. He didn't know how he could go about doing this, because he didn't exactly have the most experience dating. Callie didn't either, but the fact that she was a few years older than him and approached this date with so much confidence made him feel relieved, like she had all this covered.

Callie did not have this covered. She absolutely DID NOT have this covered! She was standing in the kitchen of the third year dorms and trying to regroup herself, asking why she had thought to try this in the first place.

Callie had never prepared anything more complicated than cup noodles before. Her cooking skills ended at "add water and heat for a minute and a half" but she still thought that it was a great idea.

After all, Blake had seemed overjoyed last night when Ayame had made a late dinner for him (along with Cynthia) and she thought that looked adorable. She wanted to do the same thing with Nick, it would be so much more romantic than some restaurant meal!

But Callie didn't know how to cook.

Callie was a very simple person. When she didn't know what to do, she just charged forward and did her best, even though she didn't have the experience or preparation.

That was what cookbooks were for, after all. She pulled out her phone and started searching recipes, trying to find something romantic to cook with the food that she had on hand. Thankfully, she had the resources to get a few good steaks. A romantic steak dinner? That would be the best! So she looked up how to prepare a steak. It seemed simple enough. Get a few steaks, put 'em on the stove, cook for a couple minutes, and bam! Romantic dinner. Easy as pie.

…So what if the stove burst into flames because she twisted the wrong dial? She could adapt, she was Callie Callison!

Nick was feeling a mixture of hunger and anxiety, waiting for Callie to get back. He had been killing time on his phone for an hour and a half at this point, what was taking Callie so long? She had said that she would be coming back in "a sec" and that had been… many seconds ago.

He was so confused about what she was doing that he was actually startled to see her walk into her room, holding a large pizza in her hands.

"Callie?!" Nick sputtered, nearly dropping his phone. "What took you so long?"

Callie had a guilty look on her face, and she held the pizza up. "Um… I was waiting for our dinner to be delivered," she said. "Romantic pizza dinner in the room, right?"

Nick could tell that she was nervous about something. Callie was really easy to read, even by someone like Nick, who wasn't exactly the most socially perceptive guy in the world.

"Everything okay?" He asked, taking the pizza and setting it down on her desk.

She let out a long sigh, and then forced a smile onto her face. "Yep! Everything's just fine, don't worry your head!" She laughed. "I'm doing fine, just fine! Although, I guess this isn't the most romantic Valentine's Day date, is it…"

She let out a half-hearted chuckle, and then her smile slipped off. She lowered her head apologetically. "Sorry, Nicky!" She wailed, startling Nick. He didn't think that it was something to get so upset over, it was just pizza.

"Callie, what-"

Callie was full-on crying now. "I'm sorry, Nicky! I tried my best, I really really did! But I ruined the steaks, and they were all burnt and smokey, and then I had to smash the alarm, and… and… and…" She was just sobbing and sobbing, and Nick wasn't sure what to do to soothe her.

"Wait, steak?" Nick clarified. Callie sniffled, wiping her eyes, and nodded.

"Remember… remember when I-I… err, I mean, remember last night? Ayame and Cynthia cooked Blake some food, and he… and he really liked it, right?"

Last night had been a bit of a blur. Nick couldn't remember much, but that sounded like something that had happened.

Callie kept sniffling. "I tried to… I-I tried to… uhum… I thought that it would be amazing if we could have a romantic dinner together… where I cooked dinner for you, and you would like it, and we would be having so much fun…"

Nick thought that was adorably sweet. Callie was always coming up with adorable stuff like that, it was part of what he loved about her.

"…But I'm not good at cooking," Callie admitted. "So I completely messed it up."

Ah. So that's why Callie was so sad and crying. That made sense. She had worked hard to prepare a romantic dinner, and failed.

"I shouldn't have done something so stupid," Callie scowled, pushing past Nick and stomping over to her punching bag. "Stupid! Reckless! Callie!" Every word was punctuated with a strong punch that shook the mound of stuffed animals.

"Callie…"

"We could have gone out and had a nice romantic dinner," Callie wailed, hitting the bag again. "And now we're just stuck here eating a pizza! A stupid pizza! How big of a waste is that?! Why did I have to be so stupid as to think that I could do something like cook a meal?!"

Nick winced. He didn't like when Callie started berating herself like this. It wasn't frequent, but it had happened before. Callie… as upbeat and confident as she acted, Callie didn't have very high self-esteem. A lot of it was related to her femininity.

She worked hard to be strong and tough, but that meant that her body was a little more muscular than she would like. She also didn't like very many girly hobbies, and even though she was growing her hair out, it was still a lot shorter than most girls that she knew.

And the biggest chip on her shoulder was her height. It was easy to mistake her for a much younger girl, or even a child, which was something that she loathed. She wanted to look more like a pretty girl, and less like a strong tough fighter.

Nick knew all this, of course. Again, he wasn't socially perceptive, but at the same time Callie wasn't subtle.

They had talked about her issues a lot, and even when Nick reassured her that he liked her and she was cool just the way she was, tough and still sweet, Callie didn't internalize a lot of those reassuring messages.

She always acted like she had something to "prove". And even though Nick didn't know exactly why (her past was something that she didn't like talking about) he figured that she was the kind of girl who had experienced some really tough things in her past to explain that. And she was really obsessed with being a good girlfriend, and being happy with her boyfriend. They were aspects of her that Nick appreciated, and wished he could help her with, but often found it next to impossible for him to really get through to her.

As much as Callie liked him, and as much as they talked, sometimes he feared that she wasn't really listening to him, and a big part of that was his fear that he didn't have the strength of personality to convince her that he was right.

Maybe if he was more assertive or reassuring, like Blake, then he could help her. But the way he was right now, there wasn't much he could do other than be a shoulder for her to cry on and someone to give her validation when she needed it.

And then there were moments like these, where he wasn't sure how he could help her.

"Callie, it's okay," Nick tried to plead with her. "I like pizza!"

No way that one was gonna work, but what else was he gonna say?

Callie dropped her fist and turned back to look at him, a perplexed look on her face. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

"Pizza, I like it, way more than I like steak," Nick said cautiously, not entirely sure what was going on here.

"Really!?" Callie asked, her face lighting up with relief. Seeing her smile made Nick feel both relieved and confused. Relieved that she was happy again, and confused because he couldn't figure out why. What, just because he liked pizza? That was really it?

"Yeah, pizza's great," Nick said, still not believing that just being happy about pizza was enough to calm Callie down. It wasn't the most unexpected thing, of course, Callie's brash and impulsive nature making it easy for her to snap and get upset but just as easy to calm down, it was just…

Pizza? Really?

(Unrelated note this chapter is sponsored by Pizza Hut, support the revolution)

"I'm so relieved," Callie gushed. "I was so worried that you weren't going to like my date idea, that you were going to be upset that I screwed everything up and had to order in a pizza, I guess I just sort of went a little wild…"

Nick glanced at the stuffed animals, the mountain was still shaking. Just a little wild, huh?

"But it's fine!" Callie gushed, pushing past that feeling of disappointment. There was nothing to be sad about now, Nick was happy! "Because you like pizza, right?! So I didn't have a bad idea after all, I didn't mess up!"

Callie was shining with relief, but Nick was a little more wary. The way she had said that… "Hey… Callie, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what is it?" Callie asked, her bubbly voice totally at odds with the makeup strewn across her face from her recent cry.

"…Why were you so worried about this idea not working out?" Nick asked. He could understand the idea of wanting a date to go well. But Callie… Callie seemed a little obsessive about their date working out, and he wasn't sure why. He wondered if it could be related to something in her youth, one of those things she didn't like talking about, but he wasn't brave enough to ask so directly.

"Because I want our date to be a good one!" Callie said, as if that was obvious. "It was such a good idea, it just had to work! Thankfully it worked out okay, right?"

Nick realized something. With how much she had been talking about looking forward to this date, it was odd that she had immediately changed her plans several times. She had been telling him about the perfect romantic date idea for weeks, about how she'd thought of it for years, and then had changed her mind in what felt like an instant.

He had found it odd before, but right now, it was standing out to him even more since she seemed like she wasn't upset at all about her plan falling through, even after that huge outburst. As if just having him tell her he was fine with it was enough.

He was actually a little concerned now. And that concern was what gave him the strength to ask the question that had been driving him.

"Callie… why did you change your date plans so suddenly?" Nick asked. "I mean, you were looking forward to today so much, and even though so much went wrong, you know, with the Luvdisc Pond closing, the burned steaks, it seems like you're still so upbeat. I was sure that you would be upset, but… you're okay? So… I've gotta wonder what made you change so fast?"

Callie blinked, confused. Well, she… yeah, she had been planning this date for a long time, sure, but when she saw how happy Blake and Ayame had been, she…

The moment realization dawned on her, her face went pale. Nick saw the look of horror cross her face, and gasped himself. "Callie?"

"N-No," Callie said quickly, shaking her head. "No, it's nothing, just… I was just…"

Am I really that easy?

What Callie had realized was something that should have been obvious, and yet it hadn't been. It had been staring her in the face this entire time, but she hadn't noticed. For months it had been like this, the two of them.

Callie had been asking Nick to take her on dates that she thought they would both enjoy, because that's what couples did. She copied date ideas that she'd fantasized about since she was a kid, and dragged Nick along on them. And he'd been fine with it. It had been the same today. She had ordered him to do a bunch of things that, honestly, he was a wonderful saint for doing, because she thought that it was the way that couples were supposed to do things.

Seeing Blake and Ayame together had made her change her dinner plans, because the two of them were a happy couple and imitating them was certain to make her and Nick happy.

Callie had been trying to emulate good dating styles because she was so clueless about what it really was to date a boy. How had she not realized this sooner, and why now, of all times?! Because she had snapped about her plan going off track, and so easily changed her mood as soon as she saw that Nick was happy?

"I'm an idiot…" Callie sighed, the realization deflating her. "I've been trying so hard to make us into the perfect couple that I was practically following a script."

She sat down on the floor and stared up at Nick. "I'm sorry Nicky, I didn't really know what I was doing… and honestly, I still don't. But I shouldn't have pushed you to go fish up that Luvdisc for me, just to satisfy my ego. I'm sorry."

Nick had no idea what Callie was apologizing for. He had been terrified that she was just putting up with things that she didn't care about in order to make him happy. Knowing that she just wanted their dates to be good was nothing compared to that.

"Don't worry about it," Nick laughed. "I think… well…"

Come on, Nick, if you're going to say something cool, now's the time!

"I think that we don't have to try so hard for Valentine's Day," Nick managed to say. "It would be nice if we just stayed inside and watched a movie, eating some pizza. Better than you worrying about whether or not it's 'going well'."

Callie stared up at him.

"…Bet you thought that was really cool," she huffed, and Nick felt his face heat up in shame. Then her expression softened. "…It was a little. Okay, yeah. Let's do it!"

She hopped up and scooted over to her movie shelf. "All night wuxia marathon, let's go!"

Nick smiled, that sounded good to him.

Aww, nice to see another couple realizing they don't have to try so hard! Valentine's Day is just another day, not something to stress yourself out over. But now, time for the real couple we care about to take the stage! …No, not Akira and Dakota, don't be silly. Blake and Ayame.