"I heard a rumour about you," Diantha said as she pulled her shawl tighter over her shoulders. Her companion sitting across from her arched her eyebrow and asked carefully, after taking a sip of her coffee, "And what might that be?" The actress leaned in closer and whispered, as thought the news were of the scandalous sort, "That you are "friendly" with a Mr. Stone of Hoenn. The former champion Steven, to be specific."

"First off, where on earth did you hear that?" Cynthia asked, turning to look out over Veilstone City with an almost uninterested expression; only her occasional glances back at Diantha betrayed her curiosity. "Iris told me," Diantha responded, then after taking a brief sip of her own beverage, she elaborated, "I was in Unova, filming for one of the Pokéstar Studios' movies, and she was there visiting a trainer who was also working on the movie; an adorable young girl with the most charming Serperior." A cough from the Sinnoher prompted Diantha to blush and apologise, "Right, sorry."

She continued, "Anyway, I got the chance to speak with Iris after shooting was done for the day and she told me that she saw you with Steven in Kanto." Rather than question why Diantha was being so quick to trust Iris' word on what the young champion had seen (Seeing as how she was prone to exaggerating at times), the blonde instead asked, almost too casually, "Why was Iris in Kanto?"

Diantha likewise chose not to point out that Cynthia was avoiding the subject and answered, "She was visiting Lance and Clair. I think they may have been training together, she didn't really say." Both women fell silent, and the hushed murmured of the other customers in the Veilstone Department Store's Plaza floor seemed much louder until Cynthia finally said, "I don't see why you believe this rumour. And besides, so what if I'm "friendly" with Steven. He's a friend." She then added with a warning glance at the Kalosian, as she lifted her coffee cup to take another sip, "Just a friend."

"So," Diantha started slowly, pursing her lips before she went on, "there's nothing...more going on?" Cynthia rolled her eyes and muttered, "Are you really turning this into something major? This isn't like those romantic movies you always watch." She stood up and said, ignoring her friend's small pout of disappointment, "I'm gonna go get some water. Maybe a few bottles. Flint wants to have a practise battle when I get back to the League." She took a few steps away front he table before she turned back to the woman and said, "I mean it Diantha, please don't make this into a big thing. We're not like that."

Diantha then twisted around in her chair to look at the champion, wearing a sly smile. "But I'm from Kalos. And we're all hopeless romantics in Kalos, or so it's assumed," she said, fluttering her eyelashes as she alluded to the common stereotype. This made Cynthia smile, and she was chuckling as she repeated, continuing her walk away from the table to the vending machine, "I mean it Diantha."

Once Cynthia was out of earshot, Diantha sighed and finished off her coffee before tightening her shawl again and shivering. "I will forever prefer Sinnoh in the summer," she muttered, casting a glance at the open door that led out onto the extremely thin veranda. Another gust of cold air blew through the door, making the woman pull her shawl up over her head with a faint whine.

"It's too cold."

I could give many reasons as to why I haven't posted something in a week or so. All of them would be true. But for now, I will give but one reason, which I hope will suffice as an explanation; from Thursday last week to Wednesday this week, I had my prelims. Which meant hunkering down and studying. Which pretty much sapped me.

So, I would like to apologise both for the long wait and for how crap this drabble probably is. I literally hurled this out onto my document in 30 minutes. But hey, I'm still pretty proud of it because I managed to write it. I'd say why I'm proud of this but that would mean getting into the other reasons and I'd rather not do this out of fear that it would seem like I was just giving excuses. And I don't want to seem like one of those people.

Still, I do hope that this incredibly short piece was still enjoyable and before you all start asking, yes, I do ship DarkSteelShipping (I prefer this ship name to LoliShotaShipping, because that just sounds...gross). By now, I'm actually tempted to add to the summary "Other League members also included" considering there have been requests for the Elite Four and the Champ and they have been fulfilled. However the story will still be focused mainly on gym leaders.

But I will still do E4 and Champ drabbles if they're requested. ;)

For now though, I should leave here.

Thank you for reading and for being patient with me. I'm sorry again that this took so long. Please do leave a review, of any kind (Compliments, suggestions, criticisms, preferably not flames but hey, nothing I can do if I get sent one), and if you don't already, please fave and follow.

Thank you again.

Angel-chan x

Ps. If you're reading this at a later date, then you don't need to worry about the above stuff about this being late, of course. I do hope you still enjoyed. :)