Hi everyone and welcome back to the seventh chapter of this little story. Hope you guys enjoy!

Chapter 7: Failed Tests

May was wearing a long, beautiful white floral kimono with a cotton hat placed on her head. She was walking behind a couple of shrine priests who were playing soothing flute music as she neared the entrance of a shrine. She looked to her right side noticing a tall man wearing a black kimono and gray striped hakama (kimono pants), along with what appeared as a white pompom in front of his chest. He also carried a parasol to not only cover himself, but her as well as it was slightly drizzling.

She looked up to him again to finally recognize that messy brown hair of her neighbor Brendan. He looked significantly older than what May had seen and so did she once she saw her reflection as the pair walked by a nearby water fountain.

She was shocked to find that she looked the way she did. She noticed that she was a full fledged grown up now instead of the little girl she thought she knew. She noticed just how beautiful she looked wearing her garment. She looked absolutely stunning.

She took another glance at Brendan and this time he turned to fully face her. May had nearly lost her breath. He had matured very well and she couldn't find no other word could describe him other than handsome.

He gave her a grin noticing that this top two teeth weren't missing like she was so used to. A blush began creeping over her face before she asked, "Brendan?"

"Yeah?" he responded, his voice significantly deeper than what she remembered.

"Where are we going?" she asked uneasily.

"We're going to the shrine to get married silly," he responded cheerfully with another smile. He showed her his right hand where a silver ring was on his ring finger. She quickly looked down at her right hand noticing that a similar ring was placed on her ring finger. "We've been planning this for a while now," he added a couple moments later. "Our moms made sure everything went off without a hitch," he joked.

Ma-Ma-Married? Wait aren't we too young to get married? She asked herself still walking next him.

The sound of loud obnoxious tapping caused the scene to float away as she was slowly brought back into reality. She slowly opened her eyes, staring at the beige ceiling of her bedroom. She was still uneasy about the entire ordeal she had seen just moments ago. She was quietly panting trying to rid her mind of the scene.

Perhaps her mother's teasing had finally gotten to her.

She stared at the ceiling for another moment until another tap from her window brought her out of her thoughts.

She knew that sound all too well and when she glanced at her digital clock sitting on her small desk, she jumped out her bed and into her feet yelling, "Oh no! I'm gonna be late again!"

As if on cue she heard a loud, "May Maple you are going to be late! Brendan is already outside waiting for you!"

"Coming mom," she yelled, running towards her closet and taking out her school uniform.

Over the past two years, she and Brendan were enrolled in Petalburg's Trainer's School, which also doubled as a regular school, since Littleroot and Oldale Town didn't have their own schools.

She quickly changed into her uniform that consisted of a white button up shirt, a red bow tie, a long dark blue skirt, long blue socks and black dress shoes. She went into the restroom to fix her bed head, brush her teeth, and wash her face.

She hurried downstairs once she was fully dressed. Her mother immediately told the girl to sit down and eat as she placed a large plate of breakfast in front of her.

"May hurry up and eat or you'll be late. You don't want Brendan mad at you for being late again would you?" a teasing tone in her voice.

May was too preoccupied with her breakfast to pay her mother any mind.

When she didn't get a response, Caroline went back to kitchen to clean up the dishes. Norman had left earlier that week, so he wasn't able to take May to school today. Both families had agreed that, although Professor Birch was a fast driver, it would be best for Lisa to take the kids to school.

May ate her breakfast at a record pace, finishing the enormous serving in just under two minutes. She brushed her mouth with a handkerchief, grabbed her large lunchbox her mother had placed on the table earlier as well as her backpack and went to the door.

"Bye mommy, love you,"she said, briskly exiting the door.

"Have a great day sweetie," Caroline responded from the kitchen.

She opened to door to reveal an annoyed brown haired neighbor of hers who was tapping his foot impatiently wearing a similar uniform to hers. He wore a white long sleeved button up shirt, a dark pair of blue shorts, long blue socks, a red necktie, and black dress shoes.

"Finally!" he exclaimed sounding annoyed. "Come on let's go," he said.

Before May could respond to his statement. He grabbed her hand and guided the girl to the Birch's car.

She looked at his hand that was wrapped around her own as a blush began growing on her face. She was clearly remembering the strange dream she had last night.

He opened the door of the gray jeep, impatiently waving at her to get inside. Once she was inside, Brendan followed in and quickly shutt the door behind him. He quickly put on his seatbelt as May did the same. She knew he wouldn't be happy if she had made them arrive late again.

She heard a "good morning May, how are you today? Sleep well?"

"Yeah Mrs. Birch, I slept well-" a voice cut through her.

"Mom can we go now, we are gonna be late again because of this Komala," he boy annoyingly teased.

She stuck her tongue out at him while he ignored her. "Aye Aye Brendan," Lisa said from the front seat driving onto the dirt road at a much less frantic rate than her husband. May meanwhile looked at Brendan who had made it his mission to avoid contact with her. She knew he was irritated. She knew he was the type of person that was always on time, while she herself well… she tended to oversleep in more cases than not.

They would probably get another scolding from their teacher if they didn't arrive on time. She glanced back at the boy and thought it had been a while since she saw Brendan irritated. He seemed almost like a completely different person.

The way to Oldale town was short, but the way to Petalburg was much longer. It usually took his dad about half an hour to get to Petalburg from Oldale, but that was course with his frantic driving. It generally took Lisa about an hour to get to Petalburg from Oldale.

The school days weren't very long as May was informed by Brendan when they had first enrolled. The days only lasted from nine in the morning until one in the afternoon. Since Hoenn's trainer age was set at twelve by the league, schools could have shorter days but students would go to school for longer periods of time. In the Kanto region, the age a trainer could begin their journey was ten, so Kanto schools generally had longer school days as they had to cram the same amount of information in a shorter period of time. This of course only applied if you're planning to be a trainer as those who didn't can have different school times according to the career they wish to pursue.

"So anything exciting happening in school kids?"

"Umm," May paused for second thinking of what was going to happen today. "I don't think there's anything exciting for today," continuing her train of thought.

"We are having that big multi subject test today May," the boy responded still looking away from her. The girl honestly wanted to smack him or something as her anger was escalating due to not being given full attention by the boy.

All of these thoughts of course happened before his words dawned on her. She realized that she wasn't at all prepared to take the test. She had tried to study, tried being the keyword, but she was always getting distracted by everything going around her. The sound of her mother cleaning, the smell of her cooking, the sounds of the television playing in the background, the grumbling of her belly and an exasperated Brendan who was getting tired of having to tutor her.

He had agreed to help her study, but it soon turned out to be a harder task that he had anticipated. Since he was so used to digging his nose into books, studying came naturally to him, while in May's case he found it hard to keep her attention on the study material for even a minute. It had definitely been a long study week for the two kids.

"Well, I hope you two do great!" Lisa cheerily said from the front seat.

"Thanks ," May responded, feeling her spirits rising from the mother's enthusiasm.

Brendan merely nodded in her direction while still avoiding May's gaze.

The remaining of the trip was rather silent, besides the sound of the music playing on the radio. May and Lisa made small talk while Brendan just sat in silence, wishing that on this day his dad would have drove him to school.

Petalburg's buildings were coming into view after about an hour and with it came the large gray building of the Petalburg Trainer's School. Rustburo City also had a trainer school, but the city was too far away for the students of Oldale and Littleroot to attend.

Outside the school but inside its gates, multiple battle arenas were drawn on the dirt with a couple of students practicing mock Pokemon battles. The inside already saw students inside their classrooms being taught the basics of pokemon training and care as well as other subjects such as math and reading.

"Here we are kids, have a great day you two," Lisa said as she stopped the car in front of the building.

"Thanks mom," Brendan briskly said, grabbing his black backpack from his seat, opening the door then quickly walking out and shutting it.

May grabbed her own red backpack, opened the other before saying, "thanks ," then shutting the door.

Brendan was already on her side of the door as he grabbed her hand again and began to hurriedly drag her to the school building. He was walking rather hurriedly, almost like a half run half walk while May trailed behind almost tripping on multiple occasions due to his speed. He didn't stop to face her, and it's a good thing he didn't as the girl kept staring at their intertwined hands with a small blush on her face. The images from last night were still present in her mind. She stopped for a moment which also caused the boy to stop in his tracks.

"May come on or we are gonna be even more late." He looked back at the girl who had suddenly stopped.

"What's the the big hurry smartypants?" she countered with.

"We are already gonna get scolded by the teacher for being late again, but I don't want to miss our test."

"It's not like it's the end of the world," she sarcastically responded as they began walking again and soon entered their classroom where their teacher was already handing out test papers. At this point she wasn't even surprised that the pair had arrived late, she simply waved at them to take their seats so the scolding was out of the question. She had scolded them enough, and was honestly getting tired of doing it.

Luckily for May, Brendan's seat was right next to her, and she knew for a fact that he would ace this test, so she had decided to take a "little" peek at his paper.

Brendan knew that May would do this, so he decided to get her back for making them late.

As soon as the teacher handed everyone in the class their papers she said, "Alright everyone, you have an hour to finish this test. Eyes on your own paper, and good luck," taking a seat on her desk and beginning to surf the internet for who knows what.

Brendan meanwhile had moved his paper closer to May so she could see his answers. It was like he was tempting her.

May had made the fatal mistake of simply copying the answers without actually reading the question.

Brendan reached the last question and answered it "honestly" before May copied it. She was among the first people to get up and turn in her paper as the teacher had simply kept observing her computer screen.

Brendan had made a point in waiting for May to sit back down before a devious smirk crossed his face. This was his payback, and although some might see it as mean and unreasonable, he had let May copy his tests all year long, earning her high grades she didn't really deserve, so it was time she learned the hard truth. He grabbed his white eraser and proceeded to begin erasing his entire test paper. May who was calm after turning in her exam noticed that the boy was erasing his entire paper.

Her eyes widened in shock and anger as he finished erasing his answers. He looked at her, a devious smirk on his face before grabbing his pencil and beginning to write the correct answers.

May could only glare at him, knowing that she had been tricked. She didn't want to admit, but all year she had always sat next to him and taken peeks at his tests which always got her high grades. This was partially one of the reasons as to why she didn't study, because she knew she could count on her neighbor, until today that is.

Brendan wasn't completely evil. He had answered some of the questions right the first time around, but enough for her to not get a pat on the back from their teacher, but rather a sigh and a discussion with the teacher and perhaps her parents.

He stood up, turning in his paper, then quickly sat down where a furious May was glaring daggers at him. In her mind she thought, you are so gonna get it once we leave this class.

Brendan could only give her a cheeky smile thinking to himself, that's what you get for making us late and copying all year.

The next couple of hours after the test saw an angry May chasing after a laughing Brendan. The other students looked on as if the pair was crazy. This time it was she who was irritated while the boy seemed to have returned to his normal self.

She never did manage to give him "what's his" as she was called by the teacher on that same day to discuss her test score.

The teacher had noticed how her test score was dramatically lower than her previous ones. Perhaps she had suspected that she had copied off Brendan, but she didn't mention it.

The teacher had asked the girl as to why she thought wailord was the lava pokemon and how the girl's math was way off. Easy to say, her anger had been forgotten, being replaced with embarrassment. She knew from that point on that she would have to take studying seriously if she didn't want to make a fool of herself to all the teachers or to Brendan, or even worse her parents. How would she explain those answers, especially to her father. She couldn't just say that she got them because she looked at Brendan's paper, nor would they believe her, so she had to come with another excuse. She dreaded the moment her parents saw the scores she had gotten.

Truth be told, Brendan was feeling a bit a pity for the girl once he saw her moping face. He invited her to eat some ice cream with him once they were let out of school. May's blue gray eyes shined with bright mirth liking the idea of ice cream, especially after the embarrassment of today.

The two children were seen walking towards the Petalburg Gym in the early afternoon hours. They were each holding an ice cream cone with about ten scoops of the sweet icy treat stacked on top of each other. The way that each child managed to balance the scoops without it falling still baffles their parents to this day. They were both still laughing at the face the boy at the ice cream parlor made when they told him they wanted to eat that much ice cream.

"So Brendan will you help me study for our last test?" She asked, taking a large bite out her ice cream. A shudder ran through her spine as the icy treat entered her mouth.

"Sure, as long as you don't get distracted every five seconds like last time or we will have a repeat of today," he answered, referring to their earlier test that day.

The girl next to him grew red in embarrassment. "The teacher thought I was stupid," she mumbled.

The boy commented with, "well aren't you?"

He dodged the punch that came his way while beginning to laugh.

"I'm just kidding May," he managed through his laughter and taking a bite of his icy treat. "Just study a bit more and I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Thanks Brendan." Stopping herself from throwing another punch. "Do you think you'll come to the Harvest Festival this year?"

The boy looked thoughtful for a moment, looking up at the sky. "I think dad said something about some sort of meeting taking place during that time he wants to take me to."

"Oh," she answered back, looking down at the floor.

She felt a hand land on her shoulder, "don't feel bad May, I'm sure next year I'll go".

She managed a nod, looking into his gray eyes. The noticed that their height was almost the same. Actually now she took a closer look, she could see that she was a centimeter or two taller than he was. Perhaps she would get him back by teasing him about his height. She knew he would probably pull out a measuring tape and take their heights only to realize that she was slightly taller. She laughed internally, thinking of all the teasing she could get out of this situation.

They had been spending some time in the Petalburg Gym almost everyday after school. There Brendan was able to see Norman in action if he had any challengers while also observing the pokemon of the challengers. He found out that Norman was as tough as everyone said. He calculated that more than half of his challengers weren't able to get his badge, meaning that he would have seriously work hard if he wanted to win his badge once he became a trainer.

May spent most of her time watching the television and eating in the gym's living quarters. The space was big enough to fit a living room, kitchen, bathroom and three bedrooms.

Her dad had considered moving the family here from Littleroot before as it would be more convenient, but Caroline and May loved Littleroot so much that they hated to move away.

She would occasionally go down to see her dad battle with his mighty pokemon, but she never stayed long. She often found herself being bored of watching other pokemon battle.

She was currently watching one of her favorite movies. It featured a young studious girl being trapped in a castle with a Pangoro as he had her father trapped in his castle. Over time the love between the girl and beast grew, revealing that the Pangoro was always a handsome prince on the inside. All thoughts from last night's dream were abandoned once she concluded that it was because of her mother's teasing that she had such a dream to begin with.

As her attention was fully placed on the television, the girl failed to notice the entrance of a guest into the room.

An annoyingly familiar mud fish took her attention away from watching the movie by spraying her in the face with water gun like he always did. She had been wondering when she was gonna get sprayed today.

The school didn't permit its students to bring and use their own pokemon as they would practice mock battles using the school's pokemon, but Brendan always snuck Skipper's pokeball inside his backpack and released him once they were inside the gym or outside school grounds. Today it would seem like he had been released at the arena and he had somehow made his way to where May was like he had some sort of "brunette girl detector".

She wiped the water out of her face glaring at the water type. "Skipper I hate you."

"Mudkip kip," he responded back gleefully, walking towards the door and exiting it.

Maybe Brendan sent him here to mess with me, she thought irritably, using a towel to dry her face and hair.

She heard a loud knock, followed by a disappointed looking father and an amused brown haired boy entering the room. The father was holding a piece a paper and May knew automatically that those were her test scores from earlier that day.

"Wanna explain yourself baby girl?" he asked in a sickeningly sweet tone.

This day was just getting better and better.

AN: Poor May, it's just not her day huh. The first part of the story was actually based off a dream I had when I was much younger and since Hoenn is based of Kyushu I wanted to incorporate some Japanese vibes into the story. But was May's dream just a dream or was it a vision?

The testing part was based from one of my experiences in elementary school although I won't say if I was the one being trolled or the one doing the trolling.

Anyway hope you guys enjoy and as always look forward to the next update and leave a review if you like the story.

A new character will be introduced soon. Can anyone take a guess on who it will be?