"Jirachi, I'll give you this to eat, but you have to take a photo with me."
"Celebi, I'll quiz you on something you definitely don't know—what is Champion Walker's phone number?"
"You two snuck out, didn't you? Where's Champion Walker?"
"Champion Walker's bike got stolen—he must be walking now, hahaha!"
Just as Julian was taking photos with other cosplayers, a noisy crowd suddenly approached from a distance, surrounding two small figures in the middle.
Julian took a look—wasn't that Celebi and Jirachi, the two troublemakers?
These two had sneaked out without telling him, and they were quite popular, surrounded by so many cosplaying girls. If you didn't know better, you'd think they were the main attraction.
Watching the two happily posing for photos with the girls, Julian let out a cold laugh inwardly.
"Celebi, look over there—there's a boar-headed guy over there who looks even more like the real deal than the ones we saw earlier." Despite all the praise around them, Jirachi hadn't lost itself in the attention.
Turning around, it spotted the boar-headed cosplayer staring right back at them and immediately brightened up. This cosplay was incredibly realistic!
"Where? Let me see!"
Celebi followed Jirachi's pointing finger and sure enough, saw a boar-headed cosplayer striking a pose nearby. And honestly, with that build and those muscles, it was practically the real deal.
"He really does look like it! Jirachi, let's go take a photo with him."
Celebi pulled Jirachi along as they flew toward the cosplayer, but halfway there it suddenly felt something was off. In a moment of daze, it even mistook that boar-headed cosplayer for Julian.
That scared it into stopping immediately.
"Celebi, what's wrong?"
Seeing Celebi suddenly stop and look a bit off, Jirachi couldn't help but worry. "Did you eat something bad? Julian told us not to eat food given by strangers."
"You ate so much just now—did someone poison you? Are you going to die?"
By the time it said this, Jirachi was already on the verge of tears.
"Don't talk nonsense! I'm fine. That blockhead was just trying to scare us. Back when I was with him in Pannar, we ate street food for days, and it didn't poison me. Instead, I built up an immunity to all toxins!"
"So don't worry, Jirachi—nothing like that will happen. Even if something truly poisonous ended up in my stomach, it'd just get broken down and digested!"
Looking at Celebi's confident expression, and seeing that its face had already returned to normal, Jirachi nodded, then asked eagerly, "Celebi, is the food in Pannar really that good?"
"It was incredibly delicious!"
"One bite is like tasting the whole periodic table—red, yellow, green, all kinds of vibrant delicacies, they have everything there."
"That sounds really impressive!" Jirachi's eyes sparkled with even greater anticipation.
"Of course, there's still a higher peak in the culinary world—that is Malasiar's cuisine. The food there is even more explosive than Pannar's," Celebi said with a look of longing.
Hearing that, Jirachi said excitedly, "So when can we get Julian to take us there?"
That immediately annoyed Celebi. Grumpily, it said, "That blockhead is such a homebody. Unless he has to, he won't even step outside."
"No wonder no woman wants him—and he still has the nerve to claim he's the one not interested!"
"If I were him, I'd have raised a whole soccer team by now. My kids would already be old enough to run errands."
"That blockhead really brings shame to his family's legacy."
Jirachi cautiously looked around, then leaned in and whispered to Celebi, "Celebi, a lot of people online say that Julian likes men. Could that be true?"
"What do you think?"
Celebi gave a meaningful look.
"Ohhh!!" Jirachi suddenly inhaled sharply.
To everyone else, the two little ones' conversation was completely incomprehensible. They just seemed mysterious, like they were gossiping about something.
But Julian heard every single word without missing a thing.
'You little shits, how dare you slander me! I like women, I like women, I LIKE WOMEN!!!'
Fuming, he stabbed his sword heavily into the ground.
This wasn't a prop—it was a real blade.
"That guy seems angry. Could he understand what we were saying? And maybe he's a fan of Julian?" Jirachi said somewhat nervously.
Celebi, however, remained completely unfazed and said calmly, "No way. Besides that blockhead, only Psychic users can communicate via telepathy. As for understanding our language, only that blockhead has that ability."
"That ability of his has really caused me so much suffering. I can't say any bad things about him in front of him."
Celebi grumbled with a pained expression.
Jirachi nodded in deep agreement. "Yeah, that blockh—I mean, Julian's ability is really not friendly to you at all."
Julian: 'Jirachi, what were you just about to call me?'
'And this bas*d Celebi, who would have thought that when I wasn't around, it would actually bad-mouth me like this. Damn troublemaker—I really shouldn't have given you so much pocket money.
'Just you wait till we get back—I'll enable the Child Protection Mode on your Pokémon Glory account.'
Julian sneered inwardly, his lips even starting to curl into a sinister grin.
"Come on, Celebi, hurry up and take a photo with the boar-headed guy. I still have to go buy that Aggron merch for Julian."
Jirachi had already dragged Celebi in front of the cosplayer, holding up its phone and gesturing that it wanted to take a photo.
"Hmph! That blockhead is just exploiting our money. Buy merch? I'll buy him a ball!" Celebi protested loudly.
"Celebi, get in the shot. Smile!"
Jirachi held up the phone, positioning itself on the left side of the cosplayer while Celebi stood on the right.
Hearing Jirachi's instruction, the grumbling Celebi immediately put on a bright smile and shouted, "Blockhead!"
Julian: 'You little—who yells "blockhead" instead of "cheese" for a photo?!'
Julian, who had originally planned to teach Celebi a lesson when they got home, finally couldn't hold back any longer.
"Celebi, what did you just call me?"
A muffled voice came from within the boar-head mask.
"Blockhead, of course!"
Celebi replied matter-of-factly, still oblivious to anything being off.
Jirachi was the same—it was too busy taking selfies to pay much attention, even though it noticed the cosplayer was talking to Celebi.
"Aren't you afraid Julian will get angry if you call him that?"
"He dare? You don't know—at home, he always calls me Lord Celebi. That blockhead might seem impressive to you all, but in my eyes, when we play Pokémon Glory, he's only fit to be my support!"
Celebi declared proudly.
Since Julian's voice was filtered through the mask, it sounded slightly altered to Celebi. Combined with Celebi's carefree nature, it still hadn't realized that this guy could actually converse with it flawlessly—something only Julian could do.
"What about you, Jirachi? Does Julian have to call you Lord Jirachi at home too?"
"Of course, absolutely! Isn't that obvious?"
*****
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