Ran hesitates for a moment, unsure how to handle the way Josie stiffened, before trying to play it off by simply continuing to speak, “I mean obviously I had classmates and stuff before leaving school, but I never traveled with any of them, you know? We didn’t really have the same goals, so it’s different. Some of them tried for the sponsorship as well, of course, and they said they wanted to be trainers when they grew up, but they weren’t serious about it. They caught a Caterpie or Weedle, if they even made it that far into the trial and then, when they lost, they just gave up. Some of the girls even released their starters because they didn’t want to be ‘stuck’ with an ‘icky’ bug-type their whole lives.”

  Josie unfreezes, her voice an octave higher for a moment before that normalizes as well, “Right! Yeah, I guess that makes sense. There’s plenty of people who see battles on tv and dream of making it to that level too, but a lot of them aren’t willing to actually put the hard work in, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Ran agrees, “That, plus there’s some amount of skill, talent and thought required, on top of being willing to work at it. Which is why I’m glad that we met, we’re both properly dedicated to our teams and our journeys.”

  Josie doesn’t immediately respond, drawing a curious look from Ran. She looks almost constipated, face pinched tight as she clearly thinks hard about something. Before he can ask her what’s on her mind, Josie lets out an explosive sigh.

  “Ah screw it,” she grumbles, before turning fiery eyes on him, “Is that the only reason you’re glad that we met? Because we’re both passionate about training?”

  Ran blinks in surprise, the air around him suddenly feeling remarkably warm, “Uh… no?” He states uncertainly, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up, an indistinct awareness of danger tingling his senses.

  “Alright, so why then?” Josie presses, oddly insistent as her eyes pin him in place, both of them drawing to a halt as she faces him fully.

  “I-” Ran hesitates, “I like spending time with you?”

  “Really? That’s all you’ve got?” Josie asks, one eyebrow lifting as she looks at him, clearly unimpressed by his floundering.

  Her grilling is enough for Ran to get frustrated in turn, arms crossing defensively as he fires back, “What’s with the questions anyways? I feel like I’m getting interrogated here.”

  “Well it shouldn’t be so hard for you to tell me why you like me!” Josie retorts heatedly, earlier inquisitiveness burned away by growing anger.

  “Why does it even matter? We were having a normal conversation five minutes ago and now you’re mad at me!” Ran snaps back, his own volume rising to match Josie’s, as they continue to progress from soft-spoken conversation through vigorous discussion and onwards towards shouting match.

  “Because I kissed you in Goldenrod and you haven’t mentioned it since, you idiot!” Josie shouts at him, the words escaping her forcefully before she immediately falls silent, her chest heaving with exertion as she takes deep breaths following the angry outburst.

  “You told me not to contact you and then when you texted me, you didn’t bring it up, what was I supposed to do?” Ran asks disbelievingly, annoyed to be called an idiot under such unfair circumstances.

  “I texted you to tell you I’d been missing you and that I wanted to meet up here in Olivine and you remember what your answer was? I do!” Josie snaps angrily, volume lowered but frustration clearly still high, before she shifts into a mocking pose that Ran supposes is meant to be a mimicry of his own regular stance.

  When she speaks, her voice is lowered and her words are emphasized differently, as if read out by an overdramatic drama student, which puzzles Ran for a second, before he offendedly realizes that she’s pretending to imitate him. Which is woefully unfair, as he doesn’t sound like that at all.

  “I’m challenging Chuck tomorrow. If I win, I’ll probably take one of the next boats to Olivine, so we’ll hopefully meet there, yeah.” She mockingly repeats, emphasizing the words Ran had used to try and manage both her and his own expectations. From Josie’s expression right now however, it’s very clear that that’s not how she read the message.

  “Nothing in there was about missing me too, or even about wanting to set up anything more solid to ensure that we’d meet up again. So you tell me what I was supposed to think about all of that? And then when you did show up here, it’s with another girl you didn’t even mention at first and you and I haven’t done anything just the two of us until tonight!” Josie continues to list out her grievances, which admittedly, now that Ran gets her perspective on things, don’t leave him feeling great about how he must have made her feel.

  His first instinct is to stay defensive, as Josie didn’t exactly leave him in an easy position, by kissing him and then refusing contact for multiple weeks. But he doesn’t voice that objection. Instead, he takes a moment to really consider things. Her reasoning for splitting up and refusing contact for a while remains valid and as for the kiss… well he’d be an idiot to take any issue with that, because he quite enjoyed it. So, when he responds, it’s with an apology.

  “I’m sorry, Josie, I didn’t know how much to read into your messages and I didn't want to seem overeager,” he explains earnestly, “Of course I missed you! And I didn’t mention Doro, because I didn’t figure it was relevant. She and I met in Cianwood and coming to Olivine together was something we settled on pretty late. Plus, we have some major differences in which badges we have already, so I figured that she and I wouldn’t be traveling together long-term.”

  Josie scoffs derisively, “You figured it wasn’t relevant? You show up with a gym babe who apparently only owns leggings that look like they’ve been painted on and you figure that’s not something you could at the very least warn me about in advance?”

  “Hey that’s unfair,” Ran objects, eyes dropping to Josie’s own outfit of choice and the cleavage she habitually sports, before realizing that he probably shouldn’t focus on countering that part of Josie’s comment, “I didn’t know how to handle texting you, okay? You, and the way you said goodbye, was on my mind a lot and I didn’t want to say or do anything to mess that up or to pressure you or anything like that.”

  “Well you sure did a great job not messing up.” Josie notes sardonically, though at least some of the tension drains out of her shoulders as she does so, giving Ran some hope that he might still be able to salvage the conversation.

  He shrugs awkwardly as he responds, trying to get across just how out of his comfort zone he is, “I’m realizing that.”

  Josie stares at him for a few long seconds, before finally letting out a loud breath through her nose, “Fine, I guess I didn’t exactly make it easy for you. I guess you not wanting to assume anything is better than the alternative.”

  Ran looks at her guilelessly, not understanding how he’s supposed to interpret that particular statement, but Josie simply carries on smoothly.

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  “So, I kissed you in Goldenrod.” Josie reiterates boldly, staring him directly in the eyes now.

  “You did.” Ran acknowledges, more comfortable now that Josie is apparently resorting to leading the conversation properly once more.

  “Did you enjoy it?” Josie asks next, her voice wavering just enough to have Ran realize that she’s not actually at all as confident about this conversation as she’d like to be.

  “I did.” He replies without hesitation, perhaps slightly overeager, judging by the way Josie perks up and by the way she starts to grin smugly.

  “Alright.” She accepts, before making a quarter turn on her heels and resuming their walk back to the pokécenter, forcing Ran to catch up.

  “Alright?” Ran objects with what is definitely not a squawk, as he has to jog for a moment to try and catch up, “What? That’s it?!”

  Josie looks over her shoulder at him, a pleased grin still firmly in place, “Sure.”

  “But- I mean-” Ran stammers, before defaulting back to confusion, “What?”

  “The moment’s ruined,” Josie replies with what isn’t in any way an explanation, “Plus, it’s only fair to let you stew on this for a while. Unless there’s something you feel like discussing?”

  Ran, finally properly catching up so that Josie doesn’t have to look back at him anymore, hesitates for a moment. There’s a lot he’d like to discuss right now, but with the way he feels like he’s been hit by a Confuse Ray, there’s no way he’s actually going to lead the conversation right now. So, he merely shakes his head to indicate that there isn’t, which Josie seems to accept.

  The remaining few minutes of their walk pass in silence, until Ran drops Josie off at her pokécenter. She merely shoots him a final pleased grin, before heading inside and disappearing out of view. Ran stands around in confused disbelief for a few seconds, before finally letting out a long breath and walking towards his own pokécenter.

  Once he arrives back in his room, he releases his team for the evening. Even with their comforting presence, he still doesn’t quite manage to forget about his conversation with Josie, thoughts of the blonde buzzing through his head like fireflies, until his pokégear buzzes with an incoming message from Doro.

  Attached is her progress report on Toff’s training for Chuck, with the not particularly academically-inclined Doro asking Ran to check it over and give it some feedback, if he’s willing. It’s precisely the distraction he needs, as he not only happily obliges Doro’s request, but also takes the opportunity to work on his own Croagunk’s progress report for Chuck. Between checking Doro’s report (mostly for grammar and spelling) and filling out his own, he also takes the opportunity to contrast the reported progress their respective Croagunk are making.

  The results aren’t particularly shocking, but they are somewhat irksome, as Toff is clearly advancing faster than Ran’s own Croagunk. Her physical parameters are increasing faster, whilst she’s already added two more fighting-type moves to her list of known moves on top of Poison Jab, which’d been one of the few legs up Ran and his Croagunk had managed to gain on their competitors. There’s still Bullet Punch of course, which his own Croagunk has finally fully mastered, but it does pale somewhat in comparison to Cross Chop and Counter. Not to mention the deeply worrying footnote Doro’s added where she mentions planning to have Toff study with Precise the Hitmonchan on learning all of the elemental punches in the near future.

  It’s not exactly a fun comparison, but it does at least successfully draw Ran’s mind away from Josie for the remainder of the evening. Or until he makes it to his bed at least. Then confused thoughts of Josie and their talk make a vengeful return which keep him from resting easily for what feels like hours. Eventually however, he manages to drift off to sleep.

  The next day, he takes his team out for their usual morning training session, but, unlike the previous days, he doesn’t go for the light training of the past days, as they continue to chip away at learning Dig without TMs or a tutor. Instead, Ran first stops by Doro, easily convincing her to let Croagunk study alongside Toff as she gets started on the elemental punches, before heading towards Grady.

  Convincing the younger trainer to have Dynamo the Jolteon tutor three quarters of Ran’s remaining team on Dig surprisingly proves a harder sell, but one he ultimately manages by sincerely telling Grady that he needs the younger trainer’s help. That proves to be the golden ticket, as Whitney’s sponsored trainer almost vibrates with excitement at the thought of being able to help a cool older trainer like Ran. Or at least that’s why Ran assumes Grady ultimately reacts as enthusiastically as he ends up doing.

  With most of his team occupied, Ran is left solely with Golbat, who sulkily takes up his position in clear preparation for another session of behavior training. Fortunately for him however, Ran has other plans for today.

  “You’ve been doing great, Golbat,” Ran tells his only flying-type, “There’s not much point in continuing as we have been, when you’re clearly capable of keeping your cool during training. We’ll have to see how you react in a more adrenaline-heavy situation, but for now, you’ve earned a break from getting pelted with stuff by me.”

  Golbat’s enthusiastic screech is cut off in short order however, as the second part of Ran’s request to Grady becomes apparent, when Bob the Voltorb comes rolling over towards them.

  “So, you’re going to play tag with Bob here. You’re not allowed to use any moves. Bob can use Screech. You score a point each time you manage to tag him. I’ll be timing you. Bob scores a point for every minute in which you fail to tag him. When you do manage to tag him, the clock is reset and he gets a five second head start. Alright?” Ran explains, drawing an unimpressed look from Golbat.

  The Bat Pokémon’s thoughts are transparent to Ran, as he clearly isn’t too impressed by the challenge posed by a flightless orb. Clearly, Golbat’s never actually encountered the Ball Pokémon before. So Ran can understand why he’d underestimate just how fast a Voltorb can be. Which doesn’t mean that he clarifies the situation for Golbat. It’ll be a frustrating discovery, which is perfect for the purposes of their exercise.

  “Remember, you’re just allowed to tag him, no attacking. Winner gets treats.” Ran lists off, his final words enough to get Golbat to drool enthusiastically.

  “Alright, begin!” Ran then hurriedly announces, clearly catching the poison-flying-type by surprise.

  Bob was clearly waiting for the proverbial bell however, as he goes tearing down the beach immediately. By the time Golbat realizes just what’s happening, Bob has won himself a substantial lead already. At the disbelieving look from his team member, Ran merely gestures unapologetically in the Voltorb’s direction, “Well, what are you waiting for? I said ‘begin’, didn’t I?”

  Golbat’s frustrated shriek as he angrily takes off and starts to give chase is music to Ran’s ears.

  What follows is a ten minute sequence that’d only be better if it was accompanied by some kind of jaunty background saxophone. Golbat, increasingly wound up by the Screeching Bob the Voltorb, who soon discovers just how close he can let Golbat get without risking a tag, manages a grand total of two tags, leaving the score at seven to two in Bob’s favor.

  By the time Bob rolls to a stop next to Ran’s side, Golbat is clearly fuming but, even as Bob draws to a halt and presents an easy and unaware target, Golbat sticks perfectly to the restrictions levied upon him by Ran, as he merely alights on his trainer’s other side, before flopping over into the sand and gasping in air melodramatically.

  “Oh don’t be a baby,” Ran huffs, even as he brings out a treat for Bob, which he offers the Voltorb before sending him back to his own trainer, who is supervising Chinchou and Guardian the Electrike whilst Dynamo the Jolteon instructs Caesar, Aria and Skorupi on the finer points of using Dig.

  Golbat merely glares at him mulishly, clearly showing his displeasure with his trainer’s newfound form of training. Ran isn’t too affected however, entirely too focused on Golbat’s obedience and restraint to let a bit of a mood of all things get to him.

  “Great job, buddy. I know that was frustrating.” Ran finally praises the beleaguered Golbat as he finally fishes out some treats for Golbat, who noticeably perks up at the sight.

  “You’ve earned these,” Ran declares, tossing the treats at Golbat, who immediately veers up, earlier ‘exhaustion’ forgotten at the sight of treats, “And with that, we’re really done with any kind of training I can comfortably subject you to. Now we’ll have to see if you actually manage to listen and keep your cool in a battle, or a real situation.”

  Golbat pauses in his enthusiastic snacking for a moment, looking up to meet his trainers’ eyes for a moment before offering a slow, affirming blink. Then he returns his attention to his food, leaving Ran free to take a look at the rest of his team. Already, he can tell just how much more progress his team is making as they work together with his friend’s pokémon, rather than simply training alongside them.

  In retrospect, it’s obvious that he should’ve made moves to let them do so far sooner, but at least it’s a lesson learned, which he can keep in mind for the future. Besides, with how well his team’s done against other trainers and gym leaders so far, it’s not as if they couldn’t afford to try things without help first.