nutella is like cocoa hazelnut spread
it's basically like chocolate and it is the best thing
421. loquacious: very talkative
Time seemed to speed back up and flutter by uneventfully when without goals, without traveling - after falling back into routine, there was few things grand enough to catch Green's attention. Afternoon soon became evening and Green walked into his apartment and was surprised to see everything clean and tidy, with a note on the table from... Yellow, of course. He dumped rice and water in the rice cooker and then settled for eating a plain meal of white rice and pickled vegetables. The refrigerator was empty and the pantry's chocolate stash had been greatly depleted; he'd have to go grocery shopping soon. He retired to his bed feeling a little aimless, but was content.
The day after, he woke up (really) late, 10:30 AM; he grabbed a piece of chocolate before running out the door to get to the gym. His loquacious younger trainers Ada and Ivan had set up a picnic celebration outside - they had formulated a whole speech which summarized to them deciding on not opening the gym until Green was there.
422. kindred: related or similar in origin or nature
Although perplexed by them waiting outside (Arabella still had a key, in fact all of them had keys), Green plopped down to join (he was a little hungry). They brought a whole box full of just sandwiches and box juices and though a little daunting in its sheer immensity, overall the picnic was charming in its own simplicity. After sitting down, Green noticed one or two challengers standing awkwardly outside the door, watching Green and his trainers eat. Sensing a kindred hunger for nutella sandwiches, Green motioned for them to come over and join the circle.
423. tenable: able to be maintained in argument; rationally defensible; able to be held against assault
They seemed- no, legitimately were pretty awkward, and even when scooting in to join the circle they stayed on the edge, making the group look more like an oval. Well, it was a tenable awkwardness - the two challengers were probably from Viridian or Pallet (trainers coming from Cinnabar and beyond generally got around to Viridian in the afternoon), and had been waiting nervously for a tough battle.
424. pedestrian: done on foot; ordinary; commonplace
To start up a conversation, Green ventured on asking the kids where they came from, their goals, and why they thought they could challenge the Viridian gym first. Both their stories were pedestrian, nothing amazingly unique - but then again, Red and Green and Leaf hadn't come from anything too unique either. It turned out that the two challengers traveled together, and wanted to eventually get to the Indigo League and become famous - cute, but not too likely. They were both from Pewter, and had been wary of heading towards Mt. Moon first.
425. pecuniary: of or involving money
After devouring three sandwiches (the little things were tiny!), Green stood up and stretched. The others got the message and started cleaning up and preparing to start work for the day. Green offered to take the sandwiches and eat them all day (he even offered money to soothe the twins' pecuniary concerns, because that really was a lot of bread and nutella), and within a few minutes everybody had reached their stations. The trainers were set up on their respective tiles, and Green had buried himself into his office with his sandwiches.
426. precipice: a cliff; the edge of a dangerous situation
The two kids didn't make it very far - they were stopped and beaten on their first battle. Green spun around in his spinny chair, delighting in his lack of stuff to do (Arabella had been amazingly thorough) and tucked his legs and arms in to spin faster and faster. He was having quite a lot of fun spinning and spinning, when he heard a loud noise outside, which startled him into leaning over and losing his rotational axis, thus causing the chair to tip over precariously. Green rolled off his chair, the world still spinning, and soothed his pounding heart; he felt as if he'd almost been thrown off a precipice. When the world stopped rotating, he carefully stood and looked out the window and saw nothing. He assumed it was just another loud trainer, and quietly sat back down in his chair. That was enough childishness for the day; time to get back to being old and boring.
427. garnish: to decorate; adorn
Green ended up munching on nutella sandwiches all day, garnishing his table and his desktop with crumbs. He was looking through interesting research projects he could work on to boost his income a little - less trainers meant less time at the gym and more time outside. He also needed to figure out a schedule for his gym trainers; he'd like to give them a chance at life beyond just battling, and most of them had reached out for the chance during Lorelei's absence. They'd all left their jobs quite suddenly, and he was thinking about scheduling his trainers so two or three could work in the morning and then two or three in the afternoon, especially since he wouldn't get too many qualifying trainers after passing the petition.
428. insight: the power to sense or understand something
During the lunch break, he walked out of his office to see his trainers snoozing again, this time in boredom. Battles were not going to be regular business; it probably would be much more secure for each of them to have a source of income outside the gym. He relayed his thoughts and insights on their futures and they seemed appreciative and supported the idea - full time trainers lived precarious lifestyles depending on how long they could battle and win. Salma and Arabella volunteered to take mornings, and Bonita and the twins decided on working in the afternoon.
429. offhand: without preparation or forethought
Salma made an offhand suggestion to keep tabs on trainers with nearly all other seven badges, and Green gave her a thumbs up. Battles were going to be rare, how rare they weren't sure, but if few enough trainers qualified, they could really just abandon the gym until trainers with seven badges appeared. They began rifling through newspapers and phones to check up on reports of successful trainers. Most trainers had only one or two, some had three, and after upping the number of Kanto badges in the search, it turned out that only three trainers had six badges - and all three were missing the Fuchsia badge and the Viridian badge. Their names were Lyra, Gold, and Silver, all trainers Green had already met. Green smacked his forehead. Coincidence was powerful.
430. nebulous: unclear; vague
Green had some nebulous memories about his journey, but he quite clearly recalled that he did not seem outstanding with his eight badges. And yet somehow, there were only three trainers in the whole region with six badges.
He could essentially shut down the gym until Janine popped up - and his trainers agreed. Strong battlers made headlines, and the news reporters could give them a heads-up whenever Janine reappeared and challengers with seven badges would appear.
The rest of the day seemed a whole lot brighter and easier, and a little sad thinking about how quickly his job as "child dream destroyer" was coming to an end. He'd have to find a more stable job ... haha, which wouldn't be too tough since his grades and internships throughout school had attracted the attentions of quite a few employers from Kanto and Johto, even Sinnoh. He'd have to dig up those invitation emails now...