This one was slightly shorter than I expected.

Slightly

Chapter 9: Call it what you want

"Fairly surprising…" Green pondered. He had not been around many people ever since his last family union. He used to feel bitter every time that occurred, because unlike most people's perception, his grandfather is an extremely demanding person, and would only bother him about it. It only got worse after he supposedly "lost" the champion title to Red, not that he really had not stopped caring about what the old man said or anything. Only his sister mattered now, and she had been someone who stuck by him through all the hardships. However, he knew he needed to make it on his own, or else he would just be a failure. Perhaps making it as the champion was not his destiny, and then it was merely a passing stage in his lively future.

It was a bit unexpected for his upcoming to be so heavily supported, at least to him. He would imagine at least nearly half of the votes were to be going against him, yet he got the position by a fairly large margin, with only Agatha and, astonishingly enough, Sabrina who voted him negative. The old woman's problems were quite clear, but whatever made Sabrina so unstable about this matter was beyond him. It was amazing enough that she actually went out of her way to argue for his benefits, yet voted against him in the end. It really did not affect the results in any negative way, but it was only bothering him, a lot in fact. The meeting officially ended half an hour ago, and most of everyone had already made their way away from the office. It would seem that no one would truly like to stay here if not for official business, since this was a secluded half-island that branched out from the outskirt of Viridian.

Regardless, he had a new job now, as the Gym leader of Viridian City and possessor of the Earth Badge, ironically the only badge he did not earn during his original run through of the league which took a full two years. The city was also relatively close to Pallet town, so he would have no problem with visiting his sister rather frequently. His plan for the moment includes telling his family about his new occupation and reshaping the Gym to his own likings, as well as finding out just why obtaining such a job required signing such a long contract. Of course, there was one thing he also needed to do before leaving with his leader card in hand.

Finding Sabrina was his objective.

He had this certain fascination with the woman, but it was nothing he had quite felt before. He was too young to even be remotely romantic, and in his mind there had to be a different characteristic that was drawing his subconscious attention. It was a strange vibe that the woman gave out, which positively had his mind in boggles for quite a few moments. He could also sense it somewhere else in the meeting room, but was unable to make it out. Of course, such a thing he would keep to himself to deduct with observation, not that the psychic could not suck it out with whatever her techniques were later. Right now, he was just very curious.

He almost decided to follow her path after the conference ended, but did not do it. He might be twelve, but at least he knew how to avoid being absolutely crass about a certain subject. Instead, he saw her retreating to the restroom, and turned to waiting at the exit instead. It had evidently been half an hour without her showing up though, and everyone else appeared to have already left. Unless she could turn invisible or something similar, she was still inside. Thinking that he could no longer wait things out, Green opted to go inside to find her. However, the place was big, and there was a good chance if she ever left, he would have missed her.

Taking out one of his Pokéballs, Green popped up the white eye in the front, and released his Pidgeot. The bird Pokémon flapped its wings; glad to be alive after getting knocked out quite hard in the last battle. Green had a new assignment for it, however.

"You stay here and inform me whenever someone approaches the exit, alright?"

With that settled after random sounds of bird growls that he could not fully make out, Green headed inside. He would obviously not be able to check the restroom for whatever reasons, so he just settled on working his way from the closest place to him to his furthest. The view of the HQ was exotic, but at times like this it seemed absolutely unnecessary and even hindering to one's progress, but clearly the engineers did not have that in mind while designing this place. His efficiency was less than desirable however, considering how much time he was taking just to walk from room to room. Everything was big, and that was demotivating at best.

However, an occurrence nearby got his attention. He could faintly hear sounds from the distance, echoing through the rooftops and reflecting back to him. Even though it was a lead to go on, Green knew to not get excited just yet. This entire facility was enclosed space, not to mention very quiet, thus perception of sounds in the air can be rather deceptive at times. Still, he at least had a general direction to head towards. It was a little left of his current facing, and he noticed that it was the path which leads towards the garden. He would not really think of Sabrina as someone who would enjoy a garden's beauteous prospect, but he could be very wrong. Still, there was no guarantee that it was her either, since there were still workers here whose jobs are to maintain the place.

As he arrived at the garden in question, Green realized that he had never been here before. The business side of his doings had robbed him of times to find out about the more pleasurable enjoyments of life, not that he was complaining. He was still young, and as long as he did not work his life away until he was old and grey, he was still in the clear. Even though admiring the marvelous sight before him was always an option, he knew that he could come back whenever he wanted now, and there was something more significant to his interests at the moment. The sounds had been getting clearer now that he had approached its sources rather close, and he was at least half way being able to make comprehend what those were. It seemed that there was more than one person, as it was a conversation that he was eavesdropping on. He crept closer, without even knowing why he was doing so, in order to take a better look. Surprisingly enough, Sabrina was actually there talking, but she was not alone.

"How much longer are we going to stay here Erika?" The female psychic appeared rather bored of what was happening, as she obviously was not paying as much attention to the scenery around so much as to her friend, which was obviously fascinated. However, from his observation alone, Green felt that she was not at all annoyed and actually content about her current situation, and perhaps the complaints were just out of habit. "It has been who knows how long and we have not even seen most of the garden yet."

"Just a little bit more, please." The botanist was in her element right now, and there was simply no taking that back. She wanted to do whatever possible to extend their time here as long as possible, even if it did result to using something Sabrina herself despised to see. Erika turned to her friend and after seeing the psychic's seemingly disapproval expression; she pouted. From his angle, Green could not truly see what kind of face that Erika was making, but he was able to observe Sabrina turning from surprised, to red, to a compliant stare. "It has been a long time since I was able to be here, please?"

"Fine…" Gritting her teeth, the psychic sighed slightly. She knew fairly well she could never win like this. They are like newly weds on their honeymoon, with the wife pulling the husband everywhere and he acted like he liked it, while in truth he would just follow her anywhere regardless. The fundamental difference, however, is that the two of them were not a couple, so the logic of why she was doing this escapes Sabrina. Still, it did not actually hurt. Since the League would not need another reboot for a year, her Gym work was basically non existent, and it was not like Dan could not take care of the cleaning by himself anyway. "Still, why now? You could do it any other time, just go back here without me and you can stay here as long as you would like, and would not have me to affect your excess time like this."

"But it's lonely without you." That struck a chord, in both Sabrina and Green. The female psychic could swear she did not hear it right. Surely the two of them were friends now; that much was easy to understand. However, there was no reason that their friendship should clash with their own callings or anything. Thinking back, Sabrina thought that she might had done that first when she invited Erika back to her place for that mental experiment, of which the results she had not been able to find the courage to assess just yet. Green however, felt something completely different. He felt that vibe of which Sabrina herself had given off before. He was still unable to pin point exactly what it meant. He did feel like he was onto something, but not what just yet. "Come on!"

"Yeah…" Even though she was being pulled everywhere, Sabrina had stopped resisting completely. This activity might not compare to her meditation in terms of efficiency and a general purpose, but it was certainly fun. She rethought that. The activity was not fun at all, in fact extremely boring and tedious. It was only fun because Erika was there and strangely enough; that in itself was not bothering. "Still, why did you ever grow up to like plants so much?"

"I have always liked plants, ever since I was young. It was mostly an unexplainable childhood fascination, not any kind of mental trauma or anything." Her smile warded off Sabrina's inquisitiveness, but not Green's. "Stereotypically, I liked Grass Pokémons as well." Erika temporarily let go of her friend's hand and left to take a better look at one of the flowers amongst the mist of branches. Green had not been discovered, but at this point he just felt weird watching this situation unfolded. Regardless, he continued to do so, but now with even more caution, since curiosity was something hard to resist. Erika bended down and plucked up the flower from before. It appeared to have an alluring aroma that was able to get her attention, or at least that was what the others thought. Bringing the flower back, attention was drawn to it by virtue of its numerous perennial bulbous herbs having broadly lanceolate leaves. It was definitely showy, and Sabrina was unaware of the idea behind picking one up. Of course, she really had not expected the botanist to approach her with it either. "Hold still please."

"What?" Sabrina could not really understand, but she complied. Erika was a little shorter than her, so she kneeled down a little so that the botanist could reach her hair, and presumably inserted the flower among those cyan locks. A few swipes upon the hair and Erika moved backwards, queuing Sabrina to stand up straight again. "That is simply dazzling."

"Does the flower stand out that much?" Sabrina inquired, trying her best not to compromise its settings as she reached up and touched it. It did not truly seem like it was too fitting for her hair length and color much, but she was no expert on such a thing.

"No, it is not the flower." Erika smiled radiantly as she walked away, signaling her friend to follow. She was heading for the door, and Green took that as a sign that he needed to sneak out of here before the two noticed. Luckily enough, they were both too occupied to detect his running away. Of course, that was what he thought. Erika's smile went just a little bit brighter after Green left the building. "It's you."

Sabrina was left speechless, absolutely stunned by those words. Forget the subtle hinting; that was clear enough what was going on. Standing utterly still, the psychic was waiting for something else to happen, because she simply had nothing to say at this moment that did not involves sounds of random gurgling and choking on her own words. Erika seemed to be paying no mind to her friend's lack of motion, as she simply continued to smile, as if trying to confuse Sabrina even more. Nevertheless, she had to react.

"What is wrong?" Her smile turned into an innocent neutral state, as those eyes drilled deep as a very effective interrogation tool working against the psychic. Sabrina never thought that after all these years of doing the very same thing to countless of people; karma would go back and bite her really hard. Notwithstanding, there was simply not much choices left, and she chose the most obvious one. "Sabrina?"

She ran away.

Sabrina had no idea what she was doing until her mind started working again after realizing that she had reached the cable station. She did not notice whether she had passed anything on the way to it. However, she did hear the sounds of wings flapping flying away from her. She was seriously reconsidering what she just had done, and why she did it. There was no good reason for her to left Erika there like that, but what if her worries were true? The psychic never thought of herself as someone who would shy away from even the slightest hints at a seriously relationship that might actually be compliant to her orientation like this, but it would appear as well. In a series of bad judgment, Sabrina simply decided to leave. She quickly swiped her Gym leader card onto the machine as the next cable car in line opened up, swallowing her figure whole as she stepped in.

No more than a minute after she left, Green came to the station running, but he realized he was too late. His Pidgeot was able to timely inform him of Sabrina's departure, but he was nowhere near fast enough, considering that he was a still just twelve years old. Sighing, he knew that he missed his chance. He regretted not following her when he saw the woman running away right pass him while he was sneaking back. He was in the loss to how that exactly happened, however, as the last of her conversation with the botanist he was not able to observe. He had no business with Erika however, considering everything between her and Sabrina was their relationship that he had nothing to do with.

That was exactly why he felt the need to turn back and have a look.

He was forming an artificial explanation for what just happened in his head, but still, none that made sense came to mind. He also knew not of Erika's whereabouts as well, for she might have left to some other places while he was gone. Even so, there was not much stopping him from revisiting the garden, for lack of a better plan. He did not really know what to expect, but he got it anyway.

There she was, Erika, standing perfectly still where she was when Sabrina ran out. Green was not at all bothering trying to hide himself at this point, since the botanist did not really look like she was in the position to question anyone. She was simply staring down, facing away from the door, so he could not really take a good look at her face.

"Why did you come back?" Erika spoke of a heavy voice, which startled the boy to no end. He, nor would anyone, did not expect her to be able to opine such a disheartening tone. It was both frightening and depressing, to say the least. However, what was even more surprising to him was that she said "come back", which meant that the botanist was perfectly aware of the fact that Green had been observing her and Sabrina the first time around. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Erika…" He spoke, but his thoughts cut off his own words. He was unwary of the situation that had caused this complication, so he refrained from speaking until he was sure of what was going on. He approached her, and he knew that Erika was conscious of that fact. The first thing he was aiming for was to find anything that might have been spying on him, and quickly, with decent attention, he was able to notice the spying eyes of a Tangle spying in the bushes. It had been acting as Erika's "eyes" all these times. He should have figured that out the last time, but it made no significance now. "What happened?"

"It does not concern you." She was definitely being difficult, but he could not blame her. Judging by what the magnitude of whatever event that took place must have been to cause such a reaction, he was sure it was bigger than him at the very least. Still, he could somewhat guess the general problem, but being terribly wrong was always an option.

"I…"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" That came as quite a stun. Erika was staring straight at him, screaming out her frustration along with her apparent tears. It was such an elegant melancholy that it caught him completely off guard. However, his intentions of staying disappeared. Green simply had no other choice but to turn around and comply with the botanist's request, simply because its very own prospect was heartbreaking. He quietly retreated back to the station and left the HQ with many unanswered questions.