"Here." Kotone handed Silver the mixing bowl. "I need you to smush the flour and the butter together with your fingers until it starts to feel like bread crumbs. You know what I mean, right?"

Silver grabbed the bowl carefully, before nodding to his partner. The trainer started to wonder what had happened for him to end up doing something as girly as baking. Hadn't he come here for a battle?

"You can do that, right?" Kotone gave him a smile which answered his doubts. That darn blush came rushing back to his face.

"O-of course I can!" Silver huffed, before turning away to put it back on the counter and began to concentrate on his job. That was typical of him, wasn't it? Always dignified with what he was doing, no matter what it was. Kotone giggled. Even though she was basically bossing him around and telling him what to do. The girl felt herself blush, and hoped Silver wouldn't get the wrong idea or anything.

"You know… I know you probably don't want to, but… if you ever need someone to talk to about things I'm here." Kotone noticed the boy had stopped to look at her. The girl hesitated; she was so used to Silver being a jerk and outright mean to her, why did she suddenly feel nervous? "It probably doesn't mean much to you, but I lost my father too. He's been missing for years." It wasn't a topic Kotone liked to talk about, and in truth it didn't help her nervousness to actually mention it. Although, in truth, there really wasn't much to talk about; her dad had mysteriously vanished during his own pokemon career when she was eight, the police never finding a corpse.

Great, how was he supposed to respond to that? Silver definitely could tell this was a hard subject for Kotone, he had never seen her so… vulnerable. The usually upbeat girl was looking down at her feet, quiet and pensive. The boy didn't want to sound like a complete imbecile and make things worse, but he couldn't be insensitive either. Silver went back to pressing the flour and butter together like he was instructed to do, hoping maybe he'd find the appropriate answer within it.

"Look… I'm willing to listen t-to you too. And I won't make fun of you or anything." Silver knew that it'd be unlikely Kotone would trust him as opposed to her mom or… Gold, with the past year of his behavior directed at her. Hell, it was a miracle just by itself that she was still willing to be friends with him.

"Promise?"

"P-promise."

"Thanks!" Kotone gleamed. It was amazing how quick she had been restored to her former self. "It's dumb, I know, I've had years to get over it. Hm? Let me see… oh, I think that's good enough, let me take care of things for now. Thanks for helping out." The girl grabbed the whisk she had been holding earlier in the day and started to stir the mixture in the bowl slightly, before opening the cupboard containing the sugar and ground almonds. Kotone frowned. She hadn't realized they were both so out of her reach.

"Oh, why did mom have to put them all the way up there?" Even on her tip-toes and her arm stretched towards them Kotone couldn't reach them. "Crud!"

It was a surprisingly endearing sight. Silver was pretty tall for his age and everyone else that wasn't always seemed short to him, so he never really paid attention to just how short Kotone was. Drying his hands with the towel after washing them for the second time, the redhead calmly walked over to the girl he crushed on, and grabbed the bag of ground almonds along with the bag of sugar with ease.

"Here."

Kotone blushed lightly. "Thanks again." Silver just huffed, and looked down at the shorter trainer.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, can you get me the milk and two eggs from the fridge?" The redhead nodded and did as he was told. Now that Silver had noticed it, things had gotten much quieter since Typhlosion had taken a nap and Meganium had left the room. It was odd being with Kotone and not conversing about pokemon or battling. He wondered if he should do anything to somewhat block the orders she kept throwing at him. The boy frowned; making conversation was never his strong point.

Kotone, meanwhile, poured the now mixture of various ingredients into the cake pan she had prepared earlier. "All done… well, kinda. It's still going to take a while in the oven." The girl leaned down, opened the oven door, and slid the clunky cake pan inside. She sighed, before reaching behind her to untie her apron. "Well, that's it for now, it's gonna be a while before its ready." Kotone looked over to her fellow trainer, before turning around and placing the garment on the countertop. "Now if I remember correctly, you wanted to battle, right?" She had the same determined look on her face from earlier.

"Y-yeah!"

Silver lost, obviously.

Fortunately he had several full restores ready knowing full well that New Bark Town had no pokecenter. Muttering under his breath regarding how ridiculous it was that the champion's hometown was lacking of an adequate pokemon care facility, the redhead made himself comfortable on his rival's couch, a fully healthy butterfree perched on his shoulder, which was happy to be out of his pokeball. Silver's more notable pokemon was at his feet, obviously not in the best of moods after being defeated by his own rival once again. Grumbling, Typhlosion curled up to make himself look smaller, hoping that he would disappear from everyone's line of sight. This wasn't exactly met with success for the one hundred and seventy-five pound pokemon.

Kotone grabbed for the mittens before finally opening the oven to get the cake out. A heavenly aroma filled the room and Meganium was the first one to notice it. "Mghii!" Arceus damnit give me that cake! The grass type was ready to stick his nose in when it came into contact with the hot pan. The meganium cried out, before retreating into whimpers.

"Oh, Meg! That's what you get for being so impatient! We need to wait for it to cool down, first!"

Typhlosion snickered at the seemingly cowardly opponent. Maybe he lost in a battle, but at least he could handle a little bit of heat or at least not sound like a complete imbecile. The meganium in question was too busy wallowing in his pain to come up with a retort. Kotone sighed, and placed the cake pan on the countertop before rummaging in her pocket for a rawst berry. Finding one, she presented her pokemon with it. "Here you go and quit complaining, you've handled tougher fires." Meganium just leered at his trainer and reluctantly ate the berry from her hand. Not knowing when the treat would actually be ready and the pokemon's patience already thinned, Meganium retreated until called. Hopefully the shameless bastard wouldn't eat it all until then. Meanwhile, Kotone prepared the wire cooling rack but she still had to leave the cake in the pan for another ten minutes. To make use of time, she decided to ask Silver about something she suspected from their pokemon battle earlier on.

"That butterfree… it was that caterpie in Ilex Forest, right?"

"Wh-wha?" Silver jolted upright in his seat. As far as he knew, every caterpie looked exactly the same, how was Kotone able to tell that it was that specific caterpie, even if it had evolved? He swore that every time he met up with this girl there was a new surprise in store for him. The boy groaned under his breath while his butterfree flew around him in joy that he had been recognized. There was no use hiding that yes, it was the same pokemon.

"H-hey, you have two dark pokemon… and besides, I did have an extra spot in my party. I thought it could be useful." Feeling somewhat ashamed of himself for dropping down to the point that he was training a bug pokemon – and not even an intimidating one like scizor or pinsir – the male trainer looked away from the girl he had crushed on for months now.

"Oh, that's right. What happened to your sneasel?"

Ugh. Silver really did not want to let Kotone know that Typhlosion hadn't been the only pokemon he had stolen, especially after all that had happened to get them in good… well, at least better terms. Just like he had gone back to Professor Elm's lab to return said pokemon, he had also returned to Cianwood city to return the stolen sneasel. The boy knew he probably wasn't going to be so lucky with his other victim, so he just left Sneasel's pokeball in the mailbox along with a note containing an apology. Silver mentally chastised himself for not coming up with an excuse for its absence earlier.

"I… gave it away."

Kotone grinned. Unbeknownst to her rival, the girl knew exactly where that sneasel had come from and gathered he would have gone to return it just like he had offered to do so to the professor with Typhlosion. It was a… surprisingly sweet thing of him to do, especially in comparison to his earlier behavior. Kotone looked down at the pan containing the now cooling cake as she felt herself blush. Why was she suddenly blushing so often? It was just Silver.

"That was very kind of you to do." Kotone decided to focus her thoughts on the cake to ward off her blushing. It should have been cool enough now so that it could just slide off the pan. Turning it around confirmed the girl's suspicions, as the cake easily fell off onto the metal rack with a soft clang.

"The cake still needs to cool down a bit more, but it should only take a couple of minutes."

Typhlosion's ears perked. Sure, he was never too much into sweet things, but the thought of eating Meganium's delicacy from underneath him struck him as sweet, sweet revenge, literally. And unlike flower boy, the fire pokemon could withstand the heat. Getting out of his previously curled position, the typhlosion was about to crawl under the table to prepare his move, when he spotted the cold, harsh glare of his trainer.

I swear that if you do anything to upset Kotone I will dump you in the middle of the damn ocean and let the carvanhas eat you to pieces!

Caught, confronted and definitely feeling threatened, Typhlosion had no choice but to obey his trainer and dismantle his awesome plans. The fire pokemon grunted loudly, why did he have to get stuck with the asshole trainer? Well, at least he could probably steal Meganium's share when neither trainer was looking.

"All right!" Kotone finished applying the pokemon-friendly icing on the cake before dumping the spatula in the sink. Grinning, the girl grabbed the wire rack with the cake on it and carried it onto the small dining table, joined by her meganium. Silver pushed the Typhlosion to join the duo with his foot, not bothering to get out of his comfortable seat. The pokemon was oddly willing, eagerly walking to his crush and her own pokemon, and even joined the meganium's side. He's obviously planning something. Silver made sure to keep an eye out and the pokeball ready in case the fat bastard tried anything. The meganium seemed to be sharing Silver's thoughts, and knowing full well said bastard, inched away from the fire pokemon. Not that it would really stop him.

First, Kotone made two normal sized slices on the cake. One was for her, and the other one would be for Silver. She sighed softly, hoping her rival would give it a try and not hate it. He was used to private chefs after all. The girl the proceeded to cut the remainder in three parts, Typhlosion and Meganium were large pokemon with proportionally sized stomachs and anything human sized would be comparable to only a cookie, and it would be unfair to give Butterfree, who had since then anxiously perched on the frame of the chair, a smaller size. She served the three large "slices" into two plates, and left the pokemon alone eat them, before turning to Silver with the human sized ones and walking over to him. This puzzled the redehad. Was he supposed to eat it? The boy had thought that berries were pokemon only.

"Here's yours."

"But… it's made of berries."

Kotone giggled. "Humans can eat berries too! But I think we'd only appreciate the sweet and spicy ones. It's probably nowhere near as good as a chef's though, so if you don't want to try it you don't have to…"

At the notice of the missing chipper in the latter part of Kotone's sentence, Silver quickly grabbed the fork and took a bite out of the prepared cake. The truth was that he wasn't expecting to really like it either, but he was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted.

"I-it's really good… Really."

Kotone grinned widely, before picking at her own slice of cake. "I'm glad you like it!"

Silver blushed hard, and once again looked away to hide it. In doing so he saw out the window to watch the first stars of the night twinkle in the sky. The male trainer swore under his breath. Why hadn't he noticed the time? His bag along with all his supplies were in Goldenrod city, and it would take at least a few hours to even fly there, not to mention it would be extremely cold to be at high altitudes during the dark. Silver knew he could trust his bag in the pokecenter, but it would have been extremely useful if there was one in this tiny town. The boy was not looking forward to having to trek all the way to Cherrygrove in the dark.

"Damnit, I didn't notice what time it was. I have to go."

"No way." Kotone stopped him with words before allowing him to do just that. "It's too late to be travelling at all. You're staying here."