Connecting Heartstrings | Gladion

>>Chapter 8<<

A couple months had passed since (Y/N) moved to Alola. She had made a couple friends like Lillie, Hau, and most recently, Ilima. Only Ilima was in her class, though. Hau and Lillie were a couple years younger than her and were therefore in another class. Gladion and her had a...bond. (Y/N) was not sure how to call it. She felt the term friendship was too weird to describe it given the fact that most of the time Gladion would either ignore her completely or be completely cold and rude towards her, or anyone for that matter. They would sometimes have moments where they could talk like they knew each other since forever, and (Y/N) treasured those moments as they were quite rare. She didn't dislike Gladion, on the contrary she truly admired him even though he could never beat her on a Pokémon battle. However, she did get pissed off at Gladion every now and then since he frequently had an attitude.

Today, (Y/N) was at school talking to Ilima and being insulted by all his fangirls, as per usual. She noticed Lillie walking towards them and stopped talking to Ilima in order to greet her.

— "Hey Lillie, what's up?"

— "Hi (Y/N) ...and Ilima." — Ilima smiled at her kindly and decided to step back for a bit, letting the two of them talk. — "So, Hau and I are gonna go to the beach today after school and I was wondering if you'd like to come along." — She said, hoping her friend would say yes.

— "Sure, I guess." — (Y/N) said, thinking about where the hell she left her bathing suit the last time she wore it.

— "Perfect! We'll meet you outside after school!" — Lillie said excited about her day with her friends.

The bell rang, signalling the end of their break. They both said their goodbyes and went back to their classrooms. Once (Y/N) was in her seat, she noticed Gladion was missing. "Is he seriously ditching class?" She thought. As much as Gladion disliked it, he had never missed a single day of school. Besides, he was here before lunch break, why would he disappear in the middle of the day?

(Y/N) was pulled out of her thoughts by her phone vibrating. It was a text from Ilima.

—Are you thinking about Gladion again? — (Y/N) furrowed her brows in confusion. How did he... Her phone vibrated again.

— You're staring at his empty seat. — Was she? (Y/N) felt her cheeks flushing after realising she was, in fact, staring. She turned to glare at Ilima who was laughing silently in his seat.

— Shut up, Ilima. — (Y/N) replied, pouting at her phone. This only made Ilima laugh even more. He had been bothering (Y/N) for weeks, saying she had a crush on Gladion. (Y/N) prayed every time he brought it up that Gladion would never hear Ilima teasing her. Mostly because he would get the wrong idea. Admiration does not mean love. And also, because Gladion takes pleasure in teasing her as well and she would never hear the end of it. Or maybe it would freak him out? (Y/N) wasn't sure how he would react, and she refused to find out.

Class went by fast, probably because (Y/N) spent the whole class texting Ilima trying to convince him she didn't have a crush on Gladion. Hell, Gladion was not even in the room and it seemed like everything revolved around him. He did not deserve that kind of protagonism in (Y/N)'s opinion.

After the bell rang freeing everyone from school's evil grasp, (Y/N) got up to leave and, ticked off by Ilima's teasing the whole day, (Y/N) said goodbye to Ilima by throwing a book at him and left to meet up with Lillie and Hau. She let Umbreon out of its pokéball while she waited. She decided to pet Umbreon for a bit and he started to wag his tail in excitement. (Y/N) had never seen him do that before when being pet. She was about to talk to her Umbreon when she heard a voice behind her back.