2. Downhearted

Candice woke up on Valentine's Day with a love song blaring in her ears and a memory of the night before that was hazy at best.

She didn't remember setting her alarm to go off this early. She didn't remember going to bed at all. That Water Pulse had hit her a lot harder than she'd thought.

But she remembered the valentines. She almost wished she didn't.

Roark was going to freak. Gardenia was going to freak at her for being so hard on Roark. Fantina had no sense of humor when it came to jokes about her age. Wake would either love or hate what she'd done with his theme song, but it was kind of embarrassing no matter what. Poor Maylene wasn't going to have any fun now that she'd be stressing over Aaron all day. Byron would not be amused, and he definitely wouldn't help her play matchmaker. And Volkner…

Candice didn't even want to think about that.

She couldn't let those valentines get out. So she ran to the gym faster than she ever had. Never mind that she was still wearing her Vanillite pajamas. Never mind that the gym was closed and she'd insisted herself that nobody (absolutely nobody) set foot in it. This was an emergency.

But they were already gone. Delibird had always been very reliable. She'd never had a reason to worry about it until now.

By the end of the day, Candice had received a number of interesting phone calls. Almost every Gym Leader around had said a few things, and some had been nicer than others. Take Fantina, for example. Who'd have thought such a seemingly elegant lady would know so many foreign curse words?

Thankfully, that had been the worst of it. At least Wake could take a joke, even if the song hadn't gone over so well. (They weren't waves of love, he'd insisted. They were unstoppable waves of awesome. Whatever that meant.)

Anyway, Maylene wasn't complaining. She'd gone through three and a half boxes of valentine cards agonizing over what to say to Aaron when her Lucario had decided enough was enough and literally dragged her to the League building. Luckily, it turned out Lucario knew best—Aaron had been downright psyched to see her.

There was still no word on whether or not Byron had a wife, but he hadn't understood why Candice was so determined to meddle in his son's affairs. To which she'd replied that if Roark hadn't acted on his not-so-secret crush by now, maybe some not-so-subtle nudging from his dear old dad would do the trick. To her surprise, Byron had seemed to agree.

But the real surprise was that Byron hadn't needed to do a thing. Roark had taken her advice without question, and he and Gardenia were now having a Valentine's Day picnic in—of all places—the Oreburgh Mines. Which was just about the least romantic spot she could imagine, but hey. She couldn't help the guy with everything.

The only person she hadn't heard from was Volkner. And all she could think about was why.

There was no forgetting a valentine like that. The others hadn't wasted any time in telling her exactly what they'd thought, that was for sure.

Well, maybe Volkner never read his mail. Maybe he thought valentines were stupid—knowing him, that wouldn't be a shocker—and threw them in the trash straight away.

Maybe his fans had sent so many valentines that hers was lost at the bottom of the pile. Or some jealous trainer girl at his gym had found it first and decided to hide it. Or burn it. Or toss it in the sea.

Maybe he'd laughed at it for hours, and then he'd called up Flint and read it over the phone so Flint could have a laugh, too. Or maybe he was out with Flint. Maybe they'd been dating in secret all this time and no one had ever caught on because their friendship was such a good cover story.

Maybe his Luxray had eaten it.

Maybe he'd run off to Johto with that Gym Leader slash Coordinator slash whatever. She and Volkner had always gotten along just a little too well.

Or maybe she hadn't written Volkner's name very clearly in her Water Pulse-induced haze. Maybe the valentine had wound up in Johto, where that guy Falkner was now wondering why this girl he'd met once at a Gym Leader conference was suddenly asking for a date.

Maybe Volkner felt the same way she did. Maybe he'd been daydreaming on the job, too. Maybe he was dying to call and tell her all about how her valentine had made his day and of course he'd love to go out, but as luck would have it, he'd been hit by a Thunder Wave and now he was too paralyzed to pick up the phone.

And maybe this whole thing was starting to drive her crazy, because that was about as likely as Volkner passing up a battle with Lucas to hang out with the Ribbon Syndicate.

Maybe he was just ignoring her.

That had to be the reason why. As much as she hated to admit it.

What had she expected him to do? Send back an embarrassing valentine of his own? Make a dramatic declaration of love on national television? Show up at her house with flowers and chocolates and a jewel-adorned locket with their gym badge designs engraved inside?

This wasn't the world's biggest romantic she was dealing with. It was Volkner, who turned down dates left and right to mess around with machinery. He probably didn't even like Valentine's Day.

He probably didn't even like her. Not in the way she wanted him to.

Her trainers would never let her live it down in a million years if they found out, but Candice had spent the better part of the day at the gym. So what if nobody (absolutely nobody) was supposed to set foot in it? She wasn't the leader there for nothing.

She'd gone home that morning and changed out of her Vanillite pajamas, just in case. After all, it would be kind of awkward to be dressed for a slumber party if a miracle happened and Volkner showed up. She'd been relatively optimistic in putting on a short blue skirt and an ultra-soft sweater—pretty, but not too much for the Battle Frontier. But now that Valentine's Day was coming to an end and all she'd done was rearrange the snowball puzzle, it just felt like a waste of an outfit.

Needless to say, the gym was not where she wanted to be. But what else could she do tonight? She didn't feel like turning on a romcom or curling up with a love story anymore. Now that she'd ruined things for herself, the idea of watching a fairytale romance unfold wasn't fun. It was heartbreaking.

And she couldn't host a girls' night in with Maylene and Gardenia now that they were out on their own Valentine's dates with the guys of their dreams—partly thanks to her, of course. It wasn't fair. Why did she have to be so good at running everyone's love lives but her own?

Not that she wasn't really, truly happy for her two best friends. She was just really, truly sad for herself at the same time.

Candice was knee-deep in snowballs when a knock startled her from her thoughts. She hadn't been expecting any challengers. Especially since she'd hung a giant "Closed for Valentine's Day" sign on the door.

"Gym's closed," she mumbled, not bothering to turn around. If they wanted a badge, they'd come on the wrong day.

"I'm not here for a battle."

Volkner was standing in the doorway. And she couldn't help but notice, with a pang of unease, that he wasn't carrying flowers. Or chocolates. Or anything that might suggest he was there to do anything but ask her what that valentine was all about.

There was no telling what he was thinking.

"That was some card you sent me this morning."