I bet you all thought I forgot about this, didn't you? Ha, ha... Well, think again!

Was the last chapter really that bad? o_o; If so, I wish you guys would tell me about it. *sigh* Oh well... Here's the next part of the story. I think it's better than the first part, but you're just gonna have to read to find out. ;D

"Aiyeeeeeh!"

A flock of pidgeys flew from a wide range of trees. Ash chortled amongst himself when he had heard the bloodcurdling scream of Misty. He was stationed behind a tree in the nearby distance of the spa.

Drew came running when he had heard the cry. "Don't worry, May! I'm here for y-"

May was closely examining a spinarak before he had found her. She had ended her study by tilting a head at him, her expression blank, her eyes fixed. "Oh, hey, Drew." She was wearing a red and white polka dot bikini, which was the very precise reason Drew had instantly froze in his tracks. He didn't need to stare at her for too long to know that she looked darn good in that thing, and he could feel his face heating up in no time at all.

He hid, trying to mask his newfound emotion, turning away from her and crossing his arms. "If you're not hurt, then I'm going back."

"Hey, don't be like that," May said, walking up to him. "I could've been seriously hurt - then what you have done?"

"You're lucky you didn't get hurt," Drew said. "What happened, anyway? Who was screaming?"

"Misty. She-"

"Ash Ketchum! You've got some explaining to do!"

All eyes flew to Misty as she stormed her way pass the trees, stomping like a rampardos on a rampage. If she were really the size of one, she would've crushed those trees flat. She met in front of Ash, made a "well-what-do-you-have-to-say-for-yourself" kind of stance, and ceased her fury with a huff, narrowing her eyes down at him.

Ash wasn't picking up on just why Misty was responding the way that she was. He knew, of course, that she was angry at him for having put a bug-type pokemon near the spa to invade her space, letting it disrupt her peace while also scaring the hell out of her - but he wasn't quite grasping just how she knew it was him, and not somebody else. Surely, anybody else could have just as easily put that spinarak there, not just him, right?

Dwelling on that thought, Ash had allowed the question to control and conflict him, and had inevitably asked, "Huh? How'd you know it was me?"

"Oh, so it was you? I knew it! Eating the last twinkie wasn't enough, so you had to scare me half to death, too!"

Ash didn't speak, let alone budge. He kept a steady gaze on Misty, making a mental note on how she was dressed. His eyes drifted from the horsea print he found on the upper half of her bathing suit to the small, red bow that partially poked out from behind her neck. He had seen her in plenty of bathing suits before, but never like this. Although, he couldn't really say what made this one so special...

"What's the matter? Is it finally sinking in for you? Are you finally going to tell me you're sorry now?" Misty sternly put her hands to her hips.

Ash's cheeks had become a pink.

"Uh..."

Misty eyed him suspiciously. "Why... Why are you looking at me like that?" A feeling of self-consciousness had washed over her as she anxiously glanced down at herself to see just what Ash was staring at. She figured that maybe there was a piece of lint that was sticking to her, or that maybe a bit of dirt had rubbed off on her skin. When she had found nothing, her eyes met with Ash's again, as she thought for sure that Ash had gone insane.

"You're..."

"I'm... I'm what, Ash?"

"You're," Ash trailed off, the words remaining lodged in his throat.

They continued to stare at each other, not moving the slightest bit of muscle. They had fallen under some type of spell, with neither of the two able to tear their gazes apart from one another. Even May and Drew had fallen victim to this spell, staring at the two from afar.

"Ash, Misty!" Brock's sudden voice became heard.

"May, Drew!" Max's followed.

Brock had entered the scene along with Max, panting slightly from having ran so much. "What happened? We heard someone screaming."

"Yeah, and Drew just ran off ahead of us," Max explained. "Is everyone all right?"

Ash, May, Drew, and Misty turned their heads to look at them.

May held a closed fist to her chest. "Yeah, everyone's fine."

A dark-bluish figure appeared in the sky and swooped down, screeching, "Swellow!" It was Swellow, and it had landed upon Ash's shoulder, a note clasped firmly between its beak.

"Swellow, you're back!" Ash exclaimed. He then noticed the small note it was holding. "Huh? What's with this note?" He took the note and studied it.

"Ah!" Misty snatched the note away from him. "I-It's nothing! Don't read it!" She hid it behind her back.

"If it's nothing, then why are you hiding it behind your back?"

"B-Because!" Misty spat. "It's none of your business, okay, Ash!?"

"Come on, Mist - just let me read it." Ash reached out for the note, but just as he did, Misty had already avoided him, shouting, "No way!" Regardless, Ash had eventually managed to grab it anyway, claiming his victory with a "Ha!"

Misty desperately tried to retrieve the note back from him. "It's mine, Ketchum! Give it back!"

Ash started to read the line: "Dear Ash, please-"

But before he could read much further, Misty had torn the note away from him again. "Ha! Now quit fooling around and let's go catch the bus to Saffron!"

Brock put a finger up, sweat-dropping. "Actually... The bus had already departed about ten minutes ago."

May backed up, shocked. "Whaaat? Th-Then that means I missed out on my newest contest ribbon. Oh man..." She drooped over in her defeat.

"Don't flatter yourself," Drew said. "You never know if you could've won that ribbon, anyway."

"Huh? I know I would have won that ribbon, Drew! And besides, might I remind you that I have more ribbons than you'll ever have?"

Drew smiled, brushing a bit of hair from his face. "Heh. Funny how it never used to be that way."

"W-Well, it doesn't matter how it used to be! The past is in the past, and all that matters now is the present and the future!"

"Okay, okay," Brock broke up the fight. "Could we do with a little less arguing and a little more setting up camp, please?"

"Right!" May nodded eagerly. "Come on, Drew!" She grabbed Drew's hand and started to lead him to wherever, leaving behind a dazed Ash and Misty.

Incompetent Ash couldn't get his tent to stay up to save his life. So, Misty, being the amazingly kind person that she knew she was, had agreed to set up Ash's tent for him as he sat aside doing absolutely nothing. He had been watching her from time to time with his arms folded behind his head, periodically thinking of how badly he felt for her, while at other times he felt as if she had gotten just what she had deserved. He watched her rub her hands together and blow into them, as the weather had already gotten a lot chillier than it used to be, now that it was dark.

"Thanks for the help, Mist," he said, deciding to play it nice, although he had hardly meant anything by it at all. All Misty did in turn was shoot him a dark look.

'Right, of course...' he thought, his eyes rolling off of her momentarily before gluing to her again. He wished that she would wear something thicker than that usual half-shirt and shorts; she was going to freeze to death if she continued to wear such things. Although, he didn't really mind her wearing that bathing suit... Wait. Why was he thinking of that?

Coming to grips with reality, he found Misty giving him the most confounding of stares. Not knowing what further to do, he only returned her gaze, wondering just how long she had been doing that. He was almost half tempted to tell her that she had a bug-type pokemon on her arm, just because he knew that that would make her stop staring.

But the staring contest had eventually ended, anyway, when she had spoken up to at last say, "Hey, Ash?"

"Uh... Yeah?"

She stepped back awkwardly. "Uh... Nothing, never mind; forget it," she said, and that was that. She crawled back into her tent without further ado, and Ash had figured that that would probably be the last he saw of her for the night.

He then decided to crawl into his own, too, with Pikachu to follow. He laid himself down into his sleeping bag, and Pikachu curled up beside him. He closed his eyes, his mind peacefully drifting off to sleep.

"Hey... Ash?" A voice had whispered.

Ash stirred in his sleep.

"... Ash?" The voice came again.

Ash flopped over onto his side. "Don't let Spearow get away, Pikachu... Use iron tail..." he mumbled in his sleep.

"Pikachu..." Pikachu did as his trainer commanded in his dreams.

"ASH!"

Obviously awoken, Ash casually sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What's with all the screaming...?" he muttered. His eyes landed lazily upon Misty. "Oh, it's just you... What do you want?"

Misty regressed back into a skittish child. "Um... Well... I can't go to sleep."

"Yeah? What do you want me to do about it? Read you a bedtime story?" Ash nestled himself back into his sleeping bag.

Misty's typical response probably would have been something sarcastic, like "Ha, ha, Ash, very funny," but this time, however, it was different. "I-I was wondering if you could tell me what you were going to say earlier - you know, before Brock and Max interrupted us," she said. She couldn't forget about what had happened earlier, not even if she had tried - and "trying" was what she had been doing up until she came and woke Ash up.

Ash shooed her off with, "Don't wanna. Get lost."

"Arrrgh! Just tell me, please!? I promise to leave you alone after that!"

"Why should I?" Ash asked her coldly. "I 'supposedly' ate that last twinkie, didn't I?"

"Huh?" Misty stared blankly, not understanding the slightest of what he was talking about. Then she knew. "Oh, fine," she sighed, "I don't think you ate the last twinkie, okay?"

"Then who did?"

"I don't know - but it wasn't me!"

Ash said nothing.

"Okay, look," Misty said, holding her forehead up as if it were about to burst, "if I really ate the last twinkie, I would tell you about it, alright!? B-Because that's how badly I want to know right now! Now could you please tell me what you were going to say!?"

Ash seemed to have pondered the thought. He then looked Misty straight in the eye. "Only under one condition," he said. "You have to let me read that note."

"Huh?"

Note? What was Ash talking about...?

"Well, you said you 'badly' wanted to know, right?"

Oh, wait: the note that May had written about. Now Misty understood.

"R-Right, of course. Um... Let me go find it..."

All Misty had to do was tell Ash that she didn't write the note, and everything would be fine and dandy. Of course, she didn't even know what was written on the note to begin with, because she hadn't really had the time to read about it just yet. But just in case, she was going to tell him that she had nothing to do with it and that it was all thanks to May. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.

She went to go retrieve the note, and came back with it shortly afterwards. She then hesitantly held it out to him. "H-Here it is." She should have went to go read the note in her tent before she had given it to him, but it was too late to be thinking that sort of thing now. She mentally slapped herself because of it.

Ash skimmed his eyes over the note, and after a few intervals of pause, he looked deeply concerned. "Misty..." he began, slowly and carefully, "You think I'm... Hot?"

"WHAT?"

It was one of those moments that if Misty had been sipping coffee, she would have spewed her coffee out everywhere. Thankfully, she didn't have coffee, and thankfully, there was the exit right next to her so that if things got really awkward, she could easily make a run for it.

"Ack! N-No!" She ripped the note from his hands. "M-May! Sh-She wrote the note, not me!" She couldn't believe that she had forgotten to tell him that she didn't write the note. She must've been too overwhelmed just by the thought of it, which had actually caused her to forget to say something about it (somehow...)

Ash appeared dumbfounded. "Oh..."

They sat in some sort of awkward silence.

"So..." Misty started. "What were... What were you going to say earlier?"

Ash scratched at his temple as he gazed downwards. "Uh... I was just going to say that... That..." He blushed. "You're... Good-looking in your bathing suit, and... Uh..."

Misty's eyes widened.

Ash looked up at her, bright red. "Um, well, I-I don't mean it in 'that' kind of way, I just kinda meant..." Of course he meant it in "that" kind of way. "Well, you know - that... You looked sorta pretty, I guess?" He forced out a nervous laugh.

Misty was, at the very least, amazed by what she had just heard.

"Did... Did Brock tell you to say that?" she asked.

Ash shifted around uncomfortably. "Uhm, no... Why would he tell me to say that?"

"Didn't he tell you?" Misty prodded.

"Tell me what?"

Misty froze, merely staring pass Ash's shoulder and into the abyss.

Again, it grew quiet.

"So..." Ash started this time. "I guess this means we're not going to kiss?"

"What? What exactly did May write?" Misty looked down at the note that she was holding, finally beginning to read it.

"Dear Ash,

Please forgive me! I didn't mean to eat the last twinkie the other day! It was entirely my fault! I wish we could just kiss and make it up!

Love, Misty

P.S. I think you're hot."

Misty cringed, crinkling the note in her hands. She could really kill May for writing that.

"Are you sure you didn't write it?" asked Ash.

"Yes, I'm sure I didn't write it."

"Are you really, really sure?"

"Ash, the answer's not going to change no matter how many times you ask me, so quit askin'!"

Ash looked down at the ground disappointingly, acting like a dog that had just got scolded by its owner.

"Wait... Were you..." Misty began to ask out loud, but by catching herself, she stopped.

'Was he... Hoping that I wrote all that?' she wondered.

She continued on with, "Do you mind if I try something, Ash?"

Pikachu, who had just woken up not too long ago, tilted its head to the side. "Pika?"

Ash blinked. "Like... What do you mean?"

"Like, umm..." Misty blushed. "Just hold still, okay?"

"... Okay?"

Misty edged towards Ash, shortening the distance between the two. When she had drawn close enough, she had planted a kiss right on his cheek. She pulled away shortly after, watching his face light up in the matter of seconds. She let go of a soft breath she didn't even know she was holding. "Do you think, some time in the future, you would like more of... 'That?'"

Stunned, Ash answered with, "I-I think so."

"Good." Misty couldn't help but let a smile form on her face. "Then that only leaves one question..."

"Uh, what's that?"

Suspiciously, Misty glanced away from her new lover. "Who really ate the last twinkie...?"

"Pika-pii?" Pikachu perked up, twitching its ears. It went to go peek outside the tent and to then look back at both Ash and Misty as a way of signaling for them to come over. "Pika."

Ash and Misty did, and had found Brock's backpack to be out in the middle of camp, with two people madly rummaging through it in search of food. Ash and Misty exchanged all-knowing glances at one another, for they had already identified who the two were: they were none other than May and Max.

Drew seemed to come out of nowhere, looking smug with his arms crossed. "Well, it looks like we found out who our culprits are," he said.

May and Max panicked and accusingly pointed fingers at one another. "It was May's/Max's fault!"

I didn't think I'd have this done before Christmas, and now I feel so proud of myself. :D Anyway, let me know what you think.

And, oh yeah... The title of this story isn't very fitting, is it? If you can find a better title to fit this story, I'll love you forever (because, sadly, I'm not very good with story titles, as you can already tell.) :/