Pairing: The anti-harem

Genre: Humor/friendship

Rating: T

Summary: In which Ash's sexual orientation is questioned. One-shot.

Requested by: Julie Togepi

XOXs

So, it came as a surprise to Ash.

A big surprise.

"I'm... I'm sorry Ash, I just don't...wow." Iris muttered, rubbing her upper arm. "...This is a little awkward."

AWKWARD? That wasn't even half of it. Ash's mouth hung open—he was in the back yard with Iris, ducked away from the small gathering upon his return from Alola. Most of his former companions had traveled there today, a bit older, mature.

...and ready to move forward with their lives.

So was Ash.

Well, so he thought.

"...How..." Ash started, gasping for air. "Did you get that idea?"

Iris gave a sharp shrug and rubbed the back of her neck—standing as the new champion of Unova, she twitched uncomfortably.

"Well... it's just that you've never shown any interest before, you know? Everyone else thought..." Iris added, and Ash's tanned face paled.

"Everyone else!? Other people think this!?" Ash panicked, eyes wide. Iris laughed nervously in return while her former companion spun on his heels to march back into the house. His foot steps bellowed and cracked as he stomped his way to the living room, and looked in at his friends; his face was flushed as he took a better, more understanding look at his companions.

"I'm not gay!"

Silence fell through the room as Iris emerged from the porch, walking inside to take her place beside Cilan and gesture a 'crazy' sign with he hand and hair while eyes fell on Ash.

"Ash... It's okay, we've all known for a long time." Misty smiled to him, her tone sweet.

"Misty!" Ash grunted. "Not you, too!"

"You don't have to be scared of it Ash, we will all love you anyway!" May grinned, twisting her arm around her brother Max's shoulders, and Drew's.

Still, Ash was flabbergasted and shook his head as the 'support' group started in on him. He felt so twisted up inside—just because he didn't fancy the idea of a relationship didn't make him gay. It just meant he wasn't ready for a relationship—sure, he was a little slow to the realization, but he still liked girls.

Opening and closing his mouth, Ash spun away from them all throwing up his arms. He couldn't believe this!

XOXs

Thirteen year old Gary Oak had just lost the Johto league—to Ash, goofy, untrained, Ash. Gary clearly had the better team, more evolved, stronger pokemon—or so he thought. Clearly, Ash had the luck of the gods, or some miracle. Possibly a strong shoulder angel?

But could Gary act upset? No, no. He had to be polite. People expected that from him now, as the grandson of Professor Oak, he had to at least act decent in front of thousands of people—that was new. Over the last two years, he had also grown up quite a lot, matured when he fell short, smiled when he would have frowned before; he became an accepting, caring human being.

However, Ash beat him. Again. Ash never won! Sure, Gary had been losing interest in battling—but that didn't make it okay for him to lose! He was furious.

"Hey, that was a great battle, Gary!" Ash chanted, holding his hand out to Gary. The auburn haired loser shook Ash's hand gratefully, and forced his best smile.

"It was. Good job, Ash." Gary murmured before a cheerful Ash switched from humble victory, to an expressive excitement, running laps around the room.

On the bench sat Misty, who clapped gratefully—and somewhere, inside of himself, Gary knew how to get even.

He approached the young red head, who looked up to Gary with large, cerulean-green eyes.

"What's up, Gary?" She asked, with togepi echoing her sentiments. Gary pursed his lips, took a seat beside her with his hands in his pockets while Ash ran to speak with his other rivals, talking about how he would "win, but they should all do their best!"

"Have you figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out, Gary?" Misty mused honestly, following his eyes to Ash.

"You know...how Ash is." He started, trying to keep a straight face. Misty's nose scrunched up, thinking a lot of things; he was brash, unreasonable, kind, strange, oblivious—Ash was a lot of things really.

"What do you mean?" She managed thoughtfully.

"Well, you know. His big secret." Gary gestured to him, then held his index finger to his lip. Misty's face scrunched up—there was no way Misty didn't know Ash's secrets! He was like an open book! They were best friends; what could Gary know that she didn't already? She didn't look impressed, in fact, she looked annoyed by his comment.

Gary would use that to his advantage.

"He didn't tell you?" Gary asked, covering his mouth. "Well, I don't blame him—he's never been comfortable with it." Gary mused sadly, lathering on the worry thick. Clearly, the redhead was interested while she leaned in to listen to Gary. She didn't want to admit she didn't know.

So, instead, she played along—eyes on Ash.

"Of course he told me! He tells Brock and I everything." She muttered, snapping her face away from him. Gary grinned in response—this was going to be too easy.

"...so, he told you why then?" Gary mumbled sadly, Misty fought the urge to watch him closely, believe his words, so she slowly looked back at him, trying to uphold her authority.

"...that he's...gay?" Gary whispered and Misty's arms went lax, dropping togepi into her bare lap, below her shoulders.

"What did you say?" She gasped, eyes turning back up to Ash, seeing him in a new light.

"Well, you know—you said he told you didn't he? He's really nervous about it, how uncomfortable girls make him...That's why he's so...perplexed with his rivals." Gary elaborated, unable to contain his laughter for much longer, he cleared his throat instead.

At the very moment he coughed, Ash turned back around to see that Gary had taken a seat beside Misty; who looked absolutely shell shocked—Ash inhaled, disturbed by her expression and Gary's snark one. HE turned away from Brendan and Ritchie and wandered back over to the duo.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Without thinking the words escaped Misty's lips. "Ash, is it true?" She gasped and he blinked at her.

"Is what true?"

Gary interjected quickly, not prepared to have his plans scaffold so soon. "You know, that thing you told me about when we were kids that was really personal."

Ash looked at Gary, pure confusion carved into his features when he pat his lip trying to consider—suddenly, he recalled the instance when they found the pokeball that they broke in half, and he snapped his fingers. That was a special moment! Maybe Gary was reminiscing over it because Ash finally won!

"Yes, it's true!" Ash hummed, brightly, feeling smarter than he was. Gary had to choke back his laughter once more—keeping a calm expression.

"See? I told you." Gary said, patting Misty on the shoulder comfortingly, an action that made Ash's stomach churn. He tried not to lash out, but his stoic face was all Misty needed for guidance of her own.

"It's okay, Ash. You could have told us! Brock and I will always be your friend, no matter what!" She cheered, though a deep part of her was wounded. Ash blinked at her, his happiness returning.

"Well...thanks, Mist, but what brought this-" Holding togepi once more with her left arm, she wrapped the right one around Ash and hugged him genuinely before stepping away, unsure of what else to say. He looked at her in shock and confusion with his mouth hung open. She wiped a stray tear from her eye that he didn't notice and then while sucking on her bottom lip she nodded and turned away, needing to catch some air.

"That was a weird way to react to the story about how we became rivals..." Ash hummed, feeling a bit warm from her touch still.

At that comment, Gary couldn't contain his laughter, and slapped his knee and held his stomach.

"Girls are weird sometimes!" He gasped with a belly full of laughter. Confused, Ash looked down to the clearly maniac pokemon battler, and knit his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I guess so." Ash hummed, though he was thinking that Misty wasn't the only person who was acting weird. Maybe he would talk to Brock later. Hopefully he wouldn't be as crazy!

Author's Note:

I wanted to do something that was a little more lighthearted than the last few things I've written! Besides, I couldn't think of something with this theme that wasn't lighthearted. I also didn't really know -what- to right, so maybe I'll do like a pt 2. later on or something. For now, this is it. Hope you liked that Julie Togepi!