Inside the Pokémon Center, Reiji and Cissy checked the task board but found no notice about a missing Blastoise. That meant this one was most likely wild, and Reiji could register it as his own.
With Cissy there, things were much easier. She knew Nurse Joy, and with her vouching for him, registering Blastoise went smoothly. If Reiji had walked in alone with a Blastoise and tried to explain everything himself, it might not have been that simple.
Once Blastoise's registration was done, Cissy signed on as his guarantor. Reiji brought up his Trainer rank while they were already there.
For an upgrade, he had already cleared the first three requirements.
First, he needed three Elite-tier Pokémon, each at least in its second stage.
Second, he needed 100,000 points. That meant completing missions worth one million Pokédollars, then converting the money into contribution points.
Third, he needed either two top-32 finishes in regional tournaments or one top-8 finish.
Fourth, he needed more than ten Badges.
That last requirement was the only one he hadn't cleared. He had only competed in the Indigo Plateau Conference, which meant he had eight Badges. He was still missing two, so he told Cissy about it.
"Small problem." Cissy winked at him, telling him not to worry.
In truth, Reiji had already won the Indigo Plateau Conference. Being two Badges short wasn't a big deal. The Pokémon Center could be flexible when it wanted to be. Rules weren't always as rigid as they looked.
Of course, that didn't mean anyone could exploit the system. Whether a rule could bend, whether a camera happened to be "working," whether a process suddenly became simple—all of that depended on who was handling the matter. People who understood, understood. People who didn't would learn eventually.
With Cissy's help, both matters were settled cleanly. Blastoise was registered, and Reiji was upgraded from rookie Trainer to Elite Trainer.
"I helped you twice today." Cissy held the Elite Trainer badge in front of him and gave it a playful little shake. "How are you going to thank me?"
"Milk tea?" Reiji reached for the badge.
Cissy didn't dodge. Neither of them was childish enough to start playing keep-away.
"Sure. I know a good place." Cissy smiled, looped her arm around his, and waved goodbye to Nurse Joy as they left.
Every Trainer in the Pokémon Center froze.
Nurse Joy froze too.
"Oh my god. Cissy has a boyfriend?" Nurse Joy watched the two of them leave, one hand covering her open mouth. Then she looked down at the computer screen, where Reiji's registration information was still displayed, and finally learned who he was.
"Did you see that? Was that Gym Leader Cissy?"
"I saw it. She was holding a guy's arm. Damn it, who is he?"
"I've seen him before. He's an apprentice at the Gym."
"No way. Why would Gym Leader Cissy go for an apprentice?"
"What do you mean, no way? He won the Indigo Plateau Conference a few months ago. Could you do that?"
"Champion? He doesn't look like one."
"And you do? Are you trying to kill us with that joke?"
The whole room burst into laughter.
Everyone knew the guy who had said it. He couldn't even clear Mikan Gym's challenge. The Pokémon Center was full of either visiting Trainers or local Trainers who came by often, so people knew each other well enough to tease without holding back.
Reiji and Cissy had already left, so they didn't hear the laughter behind them.
The weather was good today. The sky was clear, the air was cool, and Cissy was dressed for the heat: a white camisole, a short floral skirt, sandals, and her red hair tied high behind her head.
They walked to the milk tea shop and sat under a parasol. Cissy called the server over and ordered a pearl milk tea. Reiji only asked for lemonade.
"You don't like milk tea?".
Cissy glanced at his lemonade, surprised. Milk tea was popular here, especially iced milk tea on hot days, but Reiji never seemed drawn to the things people his age usually liked. Sometimes he felt oddly older than he looked. Her father had said something similar before.
"Not really." Reiji smiled it off and took a sip of lemonade. It was cold, lightly sour, and plain, just how he liked it. No honey.
He looked out at the street while he drank. People passed by with small Pokémon at their heels, and nobody paid them any mind. "What do you want to do after this?"
"Have you been to the water park? There's also the cinema, the hot springs, and a bunch of food places." Cissy counted them off on her fingers, already getting excited.
"The hot springs aren't natural, right?" Reiji asked, thinking of the hot spring street still under construction.
"Not yet. Once the new street is finished, they will be." Cissy shook her head. Mikan Island's volcano had been dormant for so long that no one had thought to build around hot springs before. Now that the volcano had stirred again, the development plan had been moved to the south side of the island.
"Are they mixed baths?"
Cissy had just taken a sip of milk tea. She almost choked.
"In your dreams." Her face warmed at once. Why would he ask that in public? She shot him a look, half embarrassed and half annoyed.
"I was just asking." Reiji scratched his head. He really hadn't meant much by it. He had assumed mixed bathing was just part of Japanese hot spring culture.
Cissy narrowed her eyes at his grin. "You're thinking about something dirty, aren't you?"
"Of course not."
He said it with a smile, but his back was already sweating. He absolutely had been. Mixed baths. Those two words alone were enough to send a man's imagination running.
"Really? Because your hands weren't exactly behaving last night." The moment Cissy said it, she remembered staying over at the cabin, and her blush deepened.
"I was sleepwalking. I knew nothing." Reiji's smile almost froze. The bed in the cabin was tiny. It was a single bed. Two people barely fit on it. If anything happened, that was the bed's fault. The bed had done its best.
"Come on. Movie first." Cissy stood, took his hand, and pulled him toward the only cinema in town.
She wasn't truly blaming him. Staying the night had been her choice. If she had wanted to leave, she could have left. She knew exactly what might happen and stayed anyway.
At the cinema, Cissy studied the posters, picked a romance movie, bought two tickets, and led him inside.
The moment Reiji saw what kind of movie it was, his interest died.
Anglers didn't need romance.
He had been rational from start to finish.
The movie was exactly what he expected. A sailor fell in love with a rich merchant's daughter. He saw her every time she boarded or left the ship, but he never dared to say anything. He only stayed nearby, quietly protecting her.
Then pirates attacked the passenger ship. After a whole mess of danger, the sailor saved her.
They went through more trouble together, fell for each other, and quietly decided they would be together. The sailor brought her home, and, no surprise, her father refused to accept him.
The girl wasted away from heartbreak. The sailor couldn't get near her anymore. Then her father made things worse by arranging a marriage, planning to marry her off to the son of a powerful shipowner to strengthen his business.
The girl had no way to fight back. The wedding was set on a grand cruise ship.
And of course, the sailor who loved her just happened to be working on that ship.
Then pirates attacked again.
Naturally, the sailor saved her again.
The two hid on a stalled Ferris wheel until the League rescue team arrived. Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny even showed up for a cameo. As the sun rose over the sea, the sailor and the girl watched it together, and the whole scene practically screamed new beginning.
Then they kissed.
After the rescue, the girl's father tried to cheat the pirates during the ransom exchange and got himself killed.
With him gone, the arranged marriage fell apart, and the girl finally got to be with the sailor.
Happy ending.
Compared with the romance stories from Reiji's old world, especially the Japanese ones that loved making people suffer, the Pokémon world clearly preferred cleaner endings.
But Reiji couldn't stop thinking about one thing.
Had the sailor hired the pirates?
Realistically, the guy wasn't even that strong. Yet every time pirates appeared, he escaped alive. How?
Reiji had nearly died more than once running from pirates. He had jumped into the sea, crawled out half-dead, and barely made it through. This sailor dragged a helpless girl around the entire time and still came out looking like he had just stepped off a poster.
Either the director was forcing the plot, the sailor had protagonist armor, or he was working with the pirates.
Reiji believed the third one.
It wasn't paranoia. He had never won anything good in a lottery, and reality didn't hand out miracles that easily. Pretty stories belonged in fairy tales.
In the adult world, right and wrong became blurry fast.
What remained was cruelty.
Feelings were rare, painful, and dangerous. After living once in that world, Reiji had stopped believing in love a long time ago. That was why he still couldn't fully settle into the role of someone's boyfriend.
Maybe time would fix that.
When the movie ended, Reiji took out a tissue and handed it to Cissy. "Here."
He felt nothing. Cissy, meanwhile, was crying so hard her eyes had gone red.
"Rai, it made me think of when you saved me." She wiped her tears and looked at him with shining eyes.
"Keep your voice down." Reiji gave a quiet cough. "We're not supposed to talk about that. Your dad told us to keep it secret."
He had no idea what to do with the look she was giving him. Why was she looking at him like that? How had she managed to put herself into that story?
Please don't go full romance-brain.
"Okay." Cissy sniffed, nodded, and looked around. Most people had already left, so she took his arm and walked out with him.
Outside, she noticed he still looked completely calm.
"You really didn't find it moving?" she asked. "They finally got to be together. No arranged marriage, no one standing in their way. Just the two of them, finally happy."
"Yeah. They got together." Reiji smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. "I'm jealous you can still cry over something like that."
Girls her age were too easy to fool. Out in the real world, people fought just to stay alive. Where were all these perfect, shamelessly sweet endings supposed to come from?
"You really didn't feel anything?"
"I did." Reiji decided to mess with her. "I'm just better at holding it in."
He pinched her tear-streaked cheek and ran.
"You jerk! You lied to me again!" Cissy puffed up her cheeks and chased after him.
She caught him by the seaside and started hitting him with both fists.
"Liar. Liar. Liar."
"I really didn't lie. I just…"
Reiji looked out at the sea as they walked toward the water park. His voice faded, and the rest stayed inside his chest.
I just ran out of tears a long time ago.
A wave crashed against the shore, swallowing the words.
"What did you say? I didn't hear you!" Cissy huffed behind him, still hitting his back.
"Guess." Reiji shook off the heaviness almost instantly. He turned back with a mysterious smile and walked into the water park.
"What did you say? Tell me." When pushing didn't work, Cissy grabbed his arm and switched tactics, clinging to him as they went inside.
They started with the pendulum ride. It didn't swing too hard, so it was fine. Then they rode the water coaster and came off soaked from head to toe. After that, they tried the rapids, rushing down a winding waterway that spilled straight into the sea.
Once they were tired, they boarded the Ferris wheel by the beach.
The wheel turned slowly, and their racing hearts settled with it as the cabin rose higher and higher.
From the gondola, they could see the whole city through the wide glass windows. Beyond it, the sea stretched out without end. A cool ocean breeze drifted in, and Cissy leaned against the window with a soft smile on her lips.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Reiji stood beside her.
Just as the gondola reached the top, the sun touched the sea.
"Yeah." Cissy watched the sunset. "It's beautiful."
It wasn't the sunrise from the movie, but it was close enough.
"You're thinking about something dirty, aren't you?" Reiji asked.
"No!" Cissy's face turned red again.
She absolutely had been. The movie, the Ferris wheel, the glowing sky. The only difference was that this was sunset instead of sunrise.
"We're on a date right now," Reiji said, smiling when he saw her pretend not to understand.
"A d-d-date… mmph…"
The word date made Cissy's heart jump. She had only just lifted her head when she saw Reiji leaning closer with a smile.
Whatever she had meant to say never made it out.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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