The crowd (and even Nurse Joy) were now all clapping before dispersing as they let Paul and Zoey have a little time of their own. After a while, they eventually broke apart.

"Paul…?"

"Yea, Zoey?"

Zoey was silent for a minute before she spoke again.

"Would you like to travel around Sinnoh with me?"

Paul was somewhat shocked at the question but allowed her to continue.

"You could beat your Gyms while I can participate in my contests. It could work, right?"

Paul's decision wasn't difficult; he had two options to choose from. One, he could say no to his only chance at love, or two, he could say yes and give love a chance. And of course, he went with the latter.

"There's nothing I'd want more." And with that, he embraced her in a warm, friendly hug.

. . .

"Aren't you done packing!" Paul asked in a somewhat angry tone.

"Almost!" she cried out.

Both Paul and Zoey were around 3 kilometers away from their previous Pokemon Center and were on their way to Lake Valour for Zoey's Grand Festival Competition. Although Paul had his own Pokemon Championships to enter, he decided to delay his training until Zoey was finished with her own competition.

It had been almost 5 minutes since Paul had told Zoey to start packing. He knew she didn't have much to pack and this factor was REALLY starting to piss him off.

"Damn girl… what the hell is taking her so long…"

He decided to wait another minute before storming inside her tent that they had set up from the day before and finding out what was going on.

When a minute had passed, he went in; but instantly regretted it. Zoey was in the middle of the tent, changing. It was a good thing she had her bra on, or Zoey would've never have forgiven him.

"AHH! Paul, you pervert! Get out of here!" then she threw her jacket at him as he quickly struggled to get back outside. When he got outside, he literally collapsed on the floor, his face somewhat red from the struggling or the embarrassment.

"Ah fuck… I'm such an idiot…"

He waited another minute before Zoey came out of her tent with a look of anger on her face.

"Well? Care to explain?" Zoey had asked him in an irritated tone.

"Umm… well... you see…"

"Don't bother! I know what you want! And you're not going to get it today, or any other day you pervert!" and with that, Zoey stormed away from him, walking with foots stomping.

Paul felt like such a jerk now. He never wanted to intrude her privacy but now, he deeply regretted his actions. Knowing that apologizing would be useless, he decided to let her be alone for a moment before he would try to talk to her again.

To take his mind off of things, he began repacking the tent and placed it in his bag (don't ask me how). That was when he had realized that Zoey had left her bag inside the tent.

"Great, at least now I have an excuse to go talk to her."

He picked up the bag and began walking towards the direction in which Zoey had angrily stomped off to.

Meanwhile…

"Ugh, that jerk…." Zoey said out loud to herself.

She had stomped right into the forest but she didn't care. All she wanted to do now was to be alone for a bit. To be honest, she didn't mind that Paul had looked at her. She was actually kind of aroused by it. But she had to hide those emotions from him. She knew Paul wouldn't have been interested in her in that way.

"Or would he have been…?"

Zoey felt bad for yelling at Paul now. She never would've wanted to make Paul feel like a jerk but because he was interfering with her privacy, she thought that had taught him a lesson.

"Still, I shouldn't have been so mean…"

Her thoughts had been interrupted when an Ursaring jumped out in front of her.

"URSARING!" it cried out.

As an instinct, she scram and jumped to the sides to dodge its claws. She quickly got back up.

"Alright mister, that does it." Then she began reaching inside her pockets for her pokeballs which were… gone?

"What! Oh right, I must've left them back at the tent!"

She was too caught up in thought that she didn't notice the Ursaring swinging its claws at her. Zoey was hit on the sides and was thrown up against a tree.

"UGH!" she yelled in pain. She placed her right hand against her left arm, she felt something liquidly; blood. For a moment, she panicked. She knew that she needed help right away but from who?

"Maybe Paul's on his way over right now…"

Then she began thinking to herself again.

"No, probably not. I was too mean to him. Maybe he decided that I wanted to stay alone and left?"

A tear was forming on the corner of her eye and not the tears of pain, but the tears of sorrow. She saw the Ursaring approach her slowly.

"If these are the last moments of my life, I just wanted you to know Paul,"

"I love you." she said out loud.

She closed her eyes as the Ursaring was about to strike but quickly reopened them when she heard a voice,

"Ursaring, Hammer Arm!"

Then, another Ursaring appeared out of the bushes and nailed the other one, literally blowing it away. When the wild Ursaring got up, it began running away in fear towards the opposite direction.

Zoey was relived but pain quickly overcame that relief. Her left sleeve was now drenched in blood. Then, she noticed a figure coming out of the bushes.

"Paul!" she yelled, almost joyfully.

He ran over next to her and grabbed a roll of bandages from his backpack. He gently placed it on her left arm and applied pressure. In her heart, Zoey felt relived, yet again for Paul being here for her when she had needed it.

"Are you still in pain Zoey?" he had asked.

"No, not anymore; now that you're here…" she silently said the last part. But Paul heard every word of it.

"Zoey, you don't know how worried I was when I saw your bleeding arm and the Ursaring approaching you. I never could've lived with myself if you got hurt any further."

Although to Paul, those words seemed insignificant, to Zoey, they sounded as if he was confessing to her. She was happy to know that he had cared for her, and that made her feel special.

"No, HE makes me feel special…" She took a moment to decided whether she would do it, or not.

"I hope I'm not rushing it."

"Paul, there's something I want you to know." Zoey said unexpectedly.

Paul was a little surprised at this. He had just finished wrapping the bandage around Zoey's arm and was now sitting down next to her. He was now waiting for Zoey to continue.

"Well…?" he asked.

And CUT! XD. Sorry for the cliffhanger, I never meant for this to happen! I was just having a writer's block so I'll post up the next chapter as soon as I can.

Well, I'm back! Sorry to keep you waiting but here's the next chapter!