781. destitution: the lack of any means of subsistence
"Hey I made it on the train! With Silver! You'd think he'd be easy to find with his hair, but Arceus, there's like a hair dyeing craze here in Saffron! Like, you hear all those campaigns about hobos and destitution in the streets and then people are like nope gotta spend this money changing my hair color!"
Green rolled over onto his back. "Mm."
"Yeah, people are staring at me so…" his voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm going to see Janine again with Silver, and then I'm going to see my grandparents before going up Mt. Silver. Silver'll probably be coming your way in a couple days. I gotta stay ahead, ya know."
782. propriety: good manners; proper behavior
"Uh-huh, playing hard to catch?" Green kept his eyes closed, too tired to even lift his lids.
"…Something of the sort. I think it's train manners or propriety to shut up and be awkwardly silent so I'll text you, ok? There's pissed old men staring at me and it's kind of creepy."
"Uh-huh." Green heard a beep, and cracked open an eyelid to make sure the call had ended. He let his arm flop to the side, and reveled in the peace and warmth and quiet.
783. implausible: difficult to believe
The reverie was broken by the vibrations signaling an incoming text. Green rolled over onto his side to read the message.
12:57 PM – Gold: yo bro
12:57 PM – Gold: how tough's Red (read)
Green looked at the message and blanked out. Very tough?
12:59 PM – Green: Red's tougher than me
1:00 PM – Green: tougher than you
Some found it hard to believe that the two rivals would split up and follow such different paths – in their competing days, Green and Red were inevitably juxtaposed, their background, attitudes and tactics compared and contrasted. It was a little implausible that Green wouldn't know the strength of his formal rival. But now, Red had reached distant heights (quite literally too), and Green had fallen far behind and had no intention to catch up.
784. conjecture: an inference or conclusion based on incomplete evidence
Gold did not respond. Green's mind wandered off back to sleep. Sometime later, another text arrived from Gold. Green groaned and looked at the message.
1:36 PM – Gold: ok
Green sighed and rubbed his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to fall asleep. He hugged his extra pillow, and texted Gold back a while later.
1:47 PM – Green: if youre going to battle
1:47 PM – Green: tell me
1:48 PM – Green: if theres a fuckin avalanche cos u don't set up a barrier
Avalanches were not part of an improbable conjecture – one of the last challengers had literally blown off a chunk of mountain with a fire blast. Luckily the snow hadn't fallen anywhere near the two since it'd only caused a little chunk to tumble off, but when Green spoke to the nervous challenger as he came down the hill, Green had never forgotten it.
785. sublime: of high spiritual or moral worth
1:49 PM – Gold: ok
1:49 PM – Gold: I'm going up next Saturday
1:50 PM – Gold: Imma spend today and tomorrow with Silver
1:50 PM – Gold: then next couple days with grandparents
1:50 PM – Gold: then on Friday im coming back to Viridian with Silver
1:50 PM – Gold: and then he'll challenge you
1:51 PM – Gold: and then next day is Saturday right so we can all go up the mountain
1:52 PM – Green: wait where dyou all sleep then
1:52 PM – Gold: your sofa?
1:52 PM – Green: wtf
1:53 PM – Green: go to the pokecenter
1:53 PM – Gold: noooooo too many stalkers
As much as Green could understand the creepiness of people staring in his window, he didn't want Gold in his home if he was with Silver. Too many hormones. His place needed to be sublime when Red came down, and he'd never be able to think properly if people had made out on his sofa.
786. composure: a calm state of mind, especially as the result of self-control
1:54 PM – Green: too bad
1:54 PM – Gold: nuuu
1:54 PM – Gold: were not on make out status yet
1:54 PM – Unknown number: This is Silver. We'll stay in the Pokecenter.
Green made Silver's number into a contact, then responded gratefully.
1:56 PM – Green: k ty man
There was no further contact from the two, and Green checked the time. It was almost exactly an hour since they'd first been texting, so they were probably just getting off the train now. Green sighed and sat up. Even though it hadn't really been a nap, it was enough relaxing and daydreaming.
He yawned and stood up, stretching out his arms, hearing a couple cracks and pops. In walking over to his desk, he hit his pinky toe. He hopped around the other foot, wincing in pain. He flopped onto his chair, trying to regain his composure and ignore the throbbing of his foot. If anything, that was a strong wake up call.
787. sediment: a residue that settles in the bottom of something
Green filled out more pdf files for applications, and the day slipped away quickly while working. Umbreon hopped onto his bed where he had been sleeping, indulging in the remaining body heat. The day flashed by in silence and purring, and soon enough the sky was fading to pink.
Umbreon got off his bed and rubbed against his legs, mewling for food. Green patted her head – he was just about to finish this page – but she rubbed her head and nibbled his pants insistently. He finished up a couple minutes later and carried her to the kitchen.
He hadn't had good plain white rice in a while, and the bag was just sitting sadly in the pantry, so he decided to dig out the rice cooker. He dumped a couple cups of rice in the pot, washed out the sediment, and then set the rice with its water in the cooker and flipped on the switch.
788. felon: one who has committed a serious crime
It was pretty easy to forget Latias was even in his place sometimes – she was so quiet, and literally did not move more than a couple feet every hour. But cooking a little more food was quite fun, since Latias never complained about his food and ate it all happily anyway. He looked up a recipe for food with zucchini (some zucchini had been sitting in his fridge for quite a while) on his phone, and then got to work grating the vegetable and chopping up onions.
Umbreon hopped away, and came back holding a clove of garlic. Green rubbed her head affectionately, amicably accused the felon of stealing from his pantry, and chopped the garlic up into the mix.
789. incipient: beginning to appear or be noticed
The mixture of grated zucchini and onion and garlic and eggs and flour was fairly unrecognizable as Green portioned it into the oiled frying pan. However, as it fried, the incipient signs of a zucchini cake appeared – the mixture turned a golden brown and solidified, somewhat similarly to a hash brown. .
790. excavate: to expose to view by digging out
Delicious aromas of fried vegetable cakes and garlic wafted throughout the house, and Latias stirred from her mound of blankets.
"Grreen? That smells good, what is it?"
Green was startled out of daze. He'd just been blankly watching bubbles of oil pop. "Oh! Um, zucchini cakes, zucchini's a vegetable grown around Kalos, I got it a while back and I thought it'd be fun to try something. He left the part about excavating the vegetable from the depths of his refrigerator.