Chapter 20:Lunch
A/N Ladies, gentlemen. I must address a shocking mistake on my part.
In the time I've been writing this story, there has been an unwavering source of support and constructive criticism who has helped me to make this story the best it could be. And that person is my fellow author, Psytronix. If you have not read his works, do. My own work does not compare to his talent for storytelling.
If you spot any spelling or grammar mistakes, they're mine, as well as any clichés, laboured dialogue and all around lack of talent. But thanks to Psytronix, it's more or less acceptable for the general public.
Now, with out further ado! Due to popular demand! The sequel of the Chocolate AU!
I don't own Pokemon.
WTLM
As Cynthia Shirona sat at her usual table (the one near the corner) at her usual cafe (the one next to the bookstore) she regarded her entourage with her usual look of thinly veiled contempt.
Or maybe that was just how her eyes looked, but everyone was too scared to actually ask her.
She crossed her legs and laced her fingers, settled them on the red and white gingham tablecloth and addressed the four young men that were seated across from her, her cold steel eye juxtaposed with the warm sunlight streaming in the large windows of the naturally lit cafe.
"It has come to my attention that the four of you have been trailing a boy named Ash Ketchum home from school." She started with no preamble, her words cutting through the thick tension in the air like a knife.
The four, consisting of Aaron, Riley, Lucian and Flint, Cynthia's somewhat friends/dogsbodys, gulped almost simultaneously. "Cynthia, we-" Riley attempted to say, but was silenced by Cynthia raising her hand.
"I don't care about whatever nonsensical reason the four of you have cooked up. I've called you idiots here to tell you that it stops now." With her eye flashing like a glint of sunlight off a sharpened blade, she stared at them coldly. "Am. I. Clear?"
"Yes, ma'am." They spoke, their disgustingly pitiful voices sounding to Cynthia like the whines of beaten dogs.
"The only reason I haven't told Grandpa's associates to tell you this is because for some reason, I see you four as friends. And as your friend, I'm warning you that following Ash Ketchum will result in hospital time." She said with an extremely "friendly" glare.
"But Cynthia," Aaron meekly spoke up. "It was your grandpa wh-who told us to follow him." He knew as soon as he opened his mouth that he would regret those words.
Cynthia's paralysing gaze slowly, menacingly, turned to Aaron. "And just how did Grandpa come to know about Ash Ketchum?" She asked, the room temperature dropping from the Arctic chill in her voice. "Who told him?" Her words a question and a threat all in one.
"Cynthia, please, you-" Without warning, Flint gave a frightened yelp and had his face slammed into the table, his eye dangerously close to the sharp prongs of a fork.
Nobody else in the cafe said a word or even looked over. It was run by a local family, if you catch my drift.
"You have two seconds to give me a reason why I shouldn't slice your throat open with a butter knife." Cynthia said coolly, adding more and more pressure to his squished face.
"C-Cynthia, o-one of you gr-grandpa's guys saw you with him on Valentine's day; he asked us to check him out! That's all! Please don't kill me!" Flint begged fearfully for his life, or at least, eyesight.
Cynthia sighed through her nose in irritation. "If I wanted you dead I wouldn't have missed the fork, and I certainly wouldn't have done it in plain sight." She released Flint's head. "I suppose Grandpa wants to know Ash's connection to me?" She asked, resting her elbow on the table and then resting her head on her palm, looking decidedly bored and pissed off at the same time.
"Yes, he's just concerned about you, you know how he is about some people." Riley shrugged, ignoring Cynthia's small act of violence. He was long past reacting to them, unless he was on the receiving end of course.
"And what's wrong with Ash Ketchum?" The steel returned to her eye - challenging them to answer the question - daring them to stick their barbecue sauce covered arms into the lion's mouth.
"Nothing! Nothing! We don't even know him!" Aaron told her, holding his hands up in fear and praying that she wasn't in too bad a mood.
"Good. You won't get to know him. You will stay away from him and his friends. You won't even look in his direction or I promise you that I will nail your empty skulls to the floor with a railway spike." She threatened them quietly, brandishing her butter knife like a katana.
"We get it, we swear! We'll leave him be!" Lucian quickly promised. "But we need to tell your grandpa something. What is Ketchum's connection to you?" He asked with the curiosity of a ghost wondering who killed him.
Without so much as blinking, Cynthia told them. "We're together."
On the other side of the cafe, a waiter dropped his pen. The soft noise echoed loudly in their ears.
"I'm sorry, Cynthia. I seem to have mis-"
"No, you didn't. Ash and I have been dating since Valentine's day, six days ago." She informed them, the hidden hellfire in her glare promising damnation to any foolish enough to question her. "I told you to come here because Ash and I agreed to meet for a lunch date at this cafe. Now that I've told you, get the hell out! He'll be here soon!"
All four boys stared back slack-jawed and wide-eyed. "Whaaa?" Was Aaron's half-strangled reply. "When- No, how did that-?"
"But you and Ketchum have only spoken five or six times and you certainly haven't gone on any dates. Just how have you been dating?" Riley asked with an air of scepticism.
"Yeah, Flannery hasn't said anything about it and she's one of your best friends, what gives?" Flint asked, thinking that his sister certainly would have mentioned something like this.
Coming to a realisation Aaron hesitantly asked a question he wasn't sure he wanted answered. "Cynthia... Does Ketchum know that the two of you are dating?
For once, Cynthia broke her piercing stare. As the four young men looked at their friend as she looked at the tablecloth with great interest and shyly fiddled with her knife, they swore that for a brief second she looked disturbingly human. "Well, I haven't actually asked him out yet... But I did give him chocolate on Valentine's day, we ate ice-cream together AND we almost held hands, so you could say that we're practically going out already." She reasoned, nodding imperiously.
"Huh... I guess from a certain standpoint... You could say that..." You're crazy, but there's no way in hell I'm saying that out loud, Aaron thought.
Cynthia nodded, silently happy that they had accepted her reasoning. "Precisely. That's why I'm meeting him here, so I can ask him out properly."
A flash of blue caught her eye as it passed the window. "Ash! There he is, leave!" Cynthia hissed. "Getoutgetoutgetout!"
"Okay, we're leaving! Good luck with whatever the hell this is!" Flint cheerfully gave her a thumbs up, shrugging off his near blinding.
"No, don't go out the door! He'll know something's up! Go sit somewhere, but stay out of sight!" She inwardly panicked, though she somehow retained her veneer of calm.
"Geez, fine. We'll get something to eat and head out the back, chill out!" Flint reassured her.
"Wait!" Cynthia called them back.
"What is it now?"
"This outfit, it's... It's okay, isn't it?" Cynthia asked, silently pleading for reassurance. She wasn't the type to wear anything with a skirt that wasn't her school uniform, and she looked very uncomfortable in her very casual looking light blue shirt and knee-length black skirt.
Flint threw up an a-okay with his hand. "Nah, it looks great! Knock him dead, kiddo!"
Cynthia visibly relaxed her tense body and nodded her thanks, turning to the boy who had just entered the establishment. "Ash," She raised her arm into the air to catch his attention. "I'm over here!"
The four boys took a table on the other side of the cafe and signalled for a waiter. Silence reigned for a few moments before Aaron said what was on the other's minds. "Holy crap! Cynthia's a girl!"
"Well, of course she's a girl, you idiot. Who do you think buys all her feminine necessities?" Lucian shuddered.
"No, I mean she's a girl! With feelings, a-a-and emotions! Cynthia likes a boy!" Aaron gasped with all the shock and surprise of someone who just realised that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time.
"Crap, he's right! We weren't trained for this!" Lucian panicked in fear. "Riley, what do we do?"
"Hey! Why does this fall down on me?" Riley pulled the brim of his fedora over his face as if to hide from the responsibility.
"Because there's four of us and you're wearing blue! Who else would be in charge?"
"He's right, you know." Lucian nodded sagely.
"Right, right..." Riley pondered. "Here's what we do! We flee the country, make new lives for ourselves and in twenty years time, we meet up in the Museum Cafe in Narcene City. The code-phrase is "Waiter, I didn't order this moustache.""
"Come on, guys! Isn't this kinda an over-reaction?" The ever unflappable Flint leaned back in his chair and relaxed. "So Cynthia digs the guy! I'm happy for her, our little girl's all grown up!"
"You know her grandfather's going to mutilate us, right? You do realise that?" Lucian asked. "He's going to take our thumbs!"
Flint's half-closed eyes snapped open as he nearly fell from his chair. "Screw the country, we need to flee the planet!"
"How about we just have a little conversation with Ketchum, let him know what he's getting into with Cynthia?" Aaron proposed.
"Because I would prefer an open-casket burial. If Cynthia finds out we spoke to Ketchum, then that's out of the question." Riley stated, knocking that idea out of hand.
"You have a good point there. So what? We just see how it goes and hope we don't die?"
"How is that any different from any other day with Cynthia? Maybe with Ketchum, she might be a bit less "KILL-KILL-STABBY-MURDER-DIE!""
"Yeah, right!" Flint snorted sarcastically.
WTLM
Five minutes earlier...
Ash's week had been going pretty well, he decided. In the past week, he had made a ridiculously pretty friend, his grades had started to improve, thanks to said ridiculously pretty friend's help, and he was on his way to some cafe for a study date with the very same ridiculously pretty friend.
Ash snorted shook his head at the thought of it being a study "date." It was just two friends, studying together, as friends. By themselves. Together.
Just two friends with perfectly platonic feelings of friendship and mutual respect.
Okay, so maybe he kind of wanted it to be an actual date.
Was that so wrong? Cynthia was beautiful, smart, and funny in her own quiet way.
He really didn't get why some people went out of their way to avoid her. Brock seemed to have a heart-attack when he mentioned their little study session. Cynthia was the only girl that Ash had never seen Brock hit on, and that was saying something.
So maybe that was something that Ash couldn't see, but he had always thought of himself as a good judge of character, and he didn't see anything wrong with her.
It wasn't like she was really a psychopathic enforcer for her crime boss grandfather and his underworld associates. Those were just stupid rumours!
Ash looked up at the sign above a cafe as he walked past a bookshop. This must've been the place Cynthia was talking about. He briefly wondered why she asked to meet at the cafe.
She actually gave a small squeak when he suggested meeting at his place or her place and muttered something about it being to soon to meet each other's families.
See what he meant about her sense of humour? A little weird, but funny in her own way.
As he entered the cafe, he saw Cynthia raise her arm from her table in the corner. "Ash, I'm over here!" She said, smiling at him.
Ash felt his stomach and his heart attempt to switch places inside his body. Cynthia didn't smile often, but when she did, it was certainly a sight to see.
He took the chair opposite her own and smiled back. "Hey, how are you?" He asked. "You look good, I don't think I've ever seen you out of uniform." He commented, hoping that he wasn't crossing some invisible barrier. After all, it wasn't that strange for a friend to compliment a friend, right?
"Oh, this? Please, I feel like I got dressed in the dark. How about you? How's school going?" She lied smoothly. Her choice of clothing was a lot more complicated than she made it out to be. It actually went something like this:
WTLM
Cynthia: Diantha, status report!
Diantha: Four date-ready outfits set to go!
Cynthia: Only four? It will have to do. Flannery, opinion?
Flannery: This skirt with this shirt and these shoes. Tiffany Blue is definitely your colour.
Cynthia: Good. Clair, last minute encouragement, stat!
Clair: Your hair, clothes and shoes look fantastic. Ash Ketchum should be grateful every day that he has the intelligence and self-awareness to realise how infinitely better you are than him.
Cynthia: Thank you, Clair. That was a good rehearsal. We should be fine when Thursday comes.
WTLM
"Great! I've been doing a lot better since you've been helping." Ash told her as he scanned his own menu. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Ah.. .I-I... Well, you're pretty smart yourself - you just needed a little help." She said, turning the hair-covered side of her face to him. "So, um, will we get started?"
"Sure, where do you want... to... begin?" He hesitantly asked as Cynthia moved her chair around to table and next to his.
Seeing his raised eyebrow, Cynthia explained. "I need to see what you're studying, you know?" She said, even as her shoulder pressed very closely against his.
"You're right! Of course you're right! So... Let's start with math again?"
"Sure. What are you having problems with now?"
WTLM
Over at the four's table, they looked on with a mixed sense of awe and amusement. "She's tutoring him? Didn't she say it was a date?" Lucian wondered quietly for fear of being overheard.
"Well, she's kind of crazy. Are you that surprised?" Riley asked him.
"She's just so cute, I want to die!" Aaron said cheerfully.
"Hey, quiet down! She hears you, you will!" Flint hushed him.
WTLM
Back at Ash and Cynthia's table, Cynthia's head twitched towards the other table with a glare. Why the hell hadn't they left? Couldn't they see they were going to ruin the mood?
A romantic lunch, their bodies so close to one another that they just had to turn their heads for their lips to meet... She could feel him breathing...
And those idiots were going to ruin the moment! How many bones did she have to break before they learned?
Was it so had to ask for a little privacy for a heart-felt confession of love? Clearly, the boys had decided that they no longer needed elbows.
But thoughts of maiming her close friends would have to wait. She would much rather focus on the young man by her side, she thought with a small smile.
"Cynthia?" Ash's voice quietly called out to her.
"Hmm?" She hummed dreamily, being drawn from her thoughts.
"I was wondering how to solve this problem? I always have trouble with this." He asked, his cutely confused face causing her smile to unconsciously grow a little bigger.
"Oh! Right, well you just have to take the..."
WTLM
"Hey, what's wrong with her.. Is she actually smiling? Did you know her lips twisted that way?" Aaron asked the group in surprise.
"No, this is new to me too." Riley replied. It wasn't a cruel smirk that promised pain, but the genuine, carefree smile of a teenaged girl enjoying time with a boy she liked.
Something was wrong, very wrong and Riley was very afraid. Just what was Ketchum to make someone like Cynthia act like that?
WTLM
As the next hour passed, Ash found it harder and harder to concentrate on his homework with Cynthia so close to him. Was she even aware that somebody might see and think that they looked awfully like a couple?
Her hair smelled really good...
Creepy observations aside, he just couldn't help stare at her. How could anyone be so graceful?
From the way she ate the salad she had ordered, to every distracting flick of her hair, even to how her hand would occasionally and accidentally brush against his, her every move felt perfectly choreographed.
(It was, he just had no way of knowing that.)
Another thing he noticed, was that Cynthia had a knack for storytelling. She had already told him about how she had met her four male friends: a tale of trickery and guile.
She told him about how she had visited a playground one day when she was six and how these four boys wouldn't let her play with them in the sandbox. So with swift thought and action, she called them meanie-faces - a stunning insult for a six-year-old, she assured him - and threatened to tell their mommies.
The four had folded and pledged their fealty to the new princess of the sandbox, so long as their mothers never heard word of their less than generous ways.
"And I've pretty much been in charge of them ever since." Cynthia concluded with a small laugh. It was refreshing to act like this, she couldn't remember the last time she had really relaxed and just enjoyed herself. That was one of the reason she liked Ash. He made her feel like a normal person, like a normal girl.
She liked that feeling. She liked that feeling a lot.
Ash chuckled slightly. "It's good to have friends like that. The ones who'll stick by you through thick in thin, you know?"
Cynthia gave a small smile at a joke Ash didn't get. "Yeah, I understand what you mean. They're the type of guys won't ever, ever leave." Ever. She was going to kill them, slowly and painfully.
"Yeah, you're pretty close, aren't you?" Ash asked quietly, looking down at the table.
"Ash?" Cynthia grabbed his attention by gently squeezing his forearm. "Is something wrong?"
"What? Oh, it's nothing important." Ash turned his head away to avoid her questioning gaze.
"Ash, what's wrong?" Cynthia repeated, adding a little of her familiar firmness to her question.
Ash looked down at his fidgeting hands. "I don't know, I was just wondering if you and one of those guys... You know?" He trailed off, not really wanting to say it.
It wouldn't be entirely implausible for something of a romantic nature to develop between two long-term friends, but Cynthia had never hinted that she was in some kind of relationship, and it never hurt to confirm.
Cynthia couldn't help herself. She gave a decidedly unladylike snort, which she mentally berated herself for, and laughed hard. "I'm sorry, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! I've never seen them as men! At most, they're just really ugly girl-friends!"
You could almost hear the last remnants of four young men's masculine pride being simultaneously punched in the crotch.
"Really?" He was pretty sure his relief was audible, but screw it! He was glad!
"Yeah, I've never actually had a boyfriend. I have very... precise standards, you know?" Cynthia gave what Ash assumed was a wink.
Cynthia's standards were as follows: Be Ash Ketchum. You couldn't really be more precise than that.
"Right, I just thought that a girl like you must have guys lining up all the time." He shrugged.
"I did. They learned better." She responded vaguely. "What about you? You're nice, funny and cute. Is there someone special to you?" She asked in as light a tone as she could muster.
"Not really, no. I guess I'm just not that interesting to girls." Ash said with depreciating laugh. He really didn't need a reminded that Cynthia would never be interested in him. After all, Cynthia was Cynthia and Ash was just plain ol' Ash.
Cynthia frowned slightly at the sadness beneath Ash's laugh. He couldn't honestly think of himself that way, could he?
She knew for a fact that she had to scare off at least three girls before even thinking of approaching him for the first time. Perhaps Ash was just innocent when it came to matters of the female heart?
In that case, she would need to be direct, to make sure her feelings got across with no crossed wires or misunderstandings.
And her grandma had once said that boys preferred girls who went after what they wanted...
"Ash? Can I be honest with you?" She began slowly, in what could only be described as a shy voice.
"Yeah, of course..." Ash replied. Was something the matter? Why wasn't she looking at him?
"Ash..." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Ash, I'm extremely beautiful. I'm sure you've noticed."
"Wha? Yea- What?" Ash spluttered in shock at Cynthia's surprisingly casual statement. "What are you saying?!"
"Oh, so you don't think I'm pretty?" She asked with a tilt of her head, causing her hair to cast a shadow over her visible eye.
Then, like a tidal wave of teen angst, Cynthia's mounting insecurities started to attack her thoughts.
Was she wrong? Didn't she read the signals right? Was it all just wishful thinking that made her imagine that someone like Ash Ketchum might actually see something like her in a romantic light?
Was he going to avoid her from now? Would she just be the creepy girl who tried to come on too strong? Would he hate her?
"No - I mean, yes! I mean, you are beautiful!" Ash quickly reassured her after seeing how her face dropped when he didn't give her a straight answer. He had no idea why his opinion mattered so much to her, but clearly it did.
Cynthia raised her eyes to meet Ash's. "Do you really think that I'm beautiful?" She asked. The obvious hopeful note in her voice was almost too much to bear.
"Yeah," Ash said, looking directly into her eyes. "Yeah, I really do." He nodded resolutely.
Cynthia smiled and nodded back, making his organs do that weird switch-a-roo again. "Good, that should make things go a lot smoother." She inhaled and once again summoned up her courage.
"I'm beautiful, intelligent, reasonably good company, from what I can tell." She spoke as if she was negotiating an important business deal, counting off each point on her fingers. "I make you laugh, my family is considered quite affluent and has no history of hereditary diseases, physical or mental, and my body is - well, let's be frank - amazing.
These are seven reasons - out of many - why you should consider my proposal of becoming my boyfriend." She looked at Ash to gauge his reaction.
After a moment of observing the stunned stare on his face, she poked him in the forehead. "Ash?"
WTLM
"Well... That was... Something?" Lucian managed to say.
"Yep. That certainly was... Something." Riley answered, after brief few seconds of checking his recent memory and realising no, he hadn't gone through some form of extra-dimensional portal. This was real.
Cynthia Shirona, the girl who even grown men would cringe in fear from, was blushing and giggling like any girl her age.
Ash Ketchum, this boy - no, this man, this tamer of beasts... Truly, his abilities were fearsome...
WTLM
"Ash?" Cynthia repeated. Did she break him or something? "Ash?"
A second later, Ash began to choke out words, struggling to make any sense, until he managed to stutter. "Wh-what is this? Are you joking?" He raised his voice a fraction in indignation, still aware of their surroundings.
Was this some kind of prank? Girls like Cynthia Shirona, they just didn't go for guys like him. That was the way the world worked!
All this... Her giving him chocolate on Valentine's day, the talks, the tutoring... What it all leading up to some joke?
"No!" Cynthia shouted, sounding the most emotional as she had in some time. "This isn't a joke, Ash! I like you!" She confessed. "I don't know why, but I do..." Her voice dropped as sadness took over. "And I guess I was an idiot for thinking that maybe might like me too." She whispered as she began to stand.
"I'll just go now. I won't bother you again." Her heart hurt. Her soul hurt. Her everything hurt.
Ash grabbed her forearm and dragged her back into her chair, something that surprised both of them. "Bu-bu-but, you're Cynthia Shiron and I'm just me! Wh-why me?" He asked with burning curiosity in his voice.
Cynthia smiled a soft, sad smile and cupped his face with her free arm. "Because you're you." Taking a chance, one of the biggest in her life, Cynthia leaned in and gently brushed her lip against his.
Ash inhaled sharply through his nose in surprise. On instinct, the hand clutching her arm slid up her arm and back and rested on her neck, gently holding her in place. When Cynthia didn't resist, he pushed against her lips a little harder.
In his mind, the part that wasn't mentally screaming 'Yes!' Another part was thinking, 'Looks like she was serious. Wow, so this is a kiss... Wow, just wow!'
After a solid minute of their lips slowly and hesitantly moving against the other's mouth, they pulled apart, keeping in mind that they were in a fairly crowded public place.
Cynthia bit her lower lip to stop a ridiculously giddy, girlish giggle from escaping, from the sheer happiness she felt and the silly smile on Ash's face. She brought her fingers up her lips. So that was a kiss, a real honest to goodness kiss with ASH KETCHUM.
Likewise, Ash was in a similar state. He just couldn't seem to wipe the grin off his face. He tried to speak, but could only seem to get one word out. "Wow."
Cynthia nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, that was pretty... Wow."
"So... I guess that I should take you up on your offer then..." He told her, trying and failing to be smooth about the whole thing when his voice broke slightly.
Cynthia didn't bother to hide her giggle this time. "I'm glad!" And she was. She was just so goddamn happy right now!
"Shouldn't we seal the deal with a ki- MHHPH!" He was cut off as Cynthia lips were upon him as soon as he opened his mouth.
WTLM
Three of the four young men could only stare on at the scene, while Flint was on his phone.
"Mom! Mom! Listen! Remember how we used to make fun of Uncle Jeff for building that fallout shelter in his backyard? I need you to get Flannery, get Dad, pack only the essentials and get over to Uncle Jeff's. I'll meet you there, I promise! No! There's no time to explain! I love you, Mom, I love you all so much!"
WTLM
A few minutes later, Ash and Cynthia had payed their bill and left the cafe.
"So... Are you busy Saturday?" Cynthia asked, looking slightly left of Ash's eyes, still not quite not used to the change in their relationship.
"Saturday? Nope! Saturday, I'm completely free!"
"Good! Good, because I was thinking that there's this movie opening on Saturday. You and I could go see it and we could get something to eat afterwards."
Without hesitating, Ash agreed. "That sounds great, it's a date!"
"Yeah, it is a date, isn't it?" She laughed. "So, Saturday?"
"Saturday." Ash confirmed.
"I'll pick you up Saturday, then."
"Cool. Wait, I should give you my address."
Cynthia leaned in again and give him a peck on the cheek before walking away. "Don't worry, I know where you live. See you in school tomorrow!"
"Yeah, see you in school!" Ash began to walk home and when he found himself on an empty street, he punched the air and shouted, "Yes!" In triumph.
Yep, all in all, this had been a pretty good week for Ash