I like Japanese titles, because I’m running out of English ones.
Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Shogakukan Comics. This non-profit, non-copyright infringing fanfiction belongs to me under international copyright laws and taking it is plagiarism. Thank you. *Phantomness bows*
Notes: <> for telepathy, ** for thoughts, italics if a pokemon talks
Chapter 4
The next day, Red went off to the conference-slash-medal-presentation-ceremony, while Lance attempted to clean the house. She managed the kitchen, and the bathroom, and was working on the living room when Red returned.
“I’m home – Ne, what are you doing, Lance?”
“What does it look like?” Lance asked, pushing the vacuum cleaner over a particularly stubborn spot on the carpet.
“Y-You’re cleaning?”
“If I am to live here with you, I should do my share of upkeep.” Lance said.
Red blinked. “But…”
“Besides, don’t tell me you do your own housework?”
Red coughed guiltily. All she did was swipe off the counters once in a while, and that was that. “You mean you actually have to clean?”
Lance felt sweat drops beading on the back of her head. “Yes, dear…”
“Well… okay! Sure.”
“How was the ceremony?” Lance asked, as she made a few more passes, before shutting down the vacuum cleaner.
“Well, I guess it was all right.” Red said, watching as Lance moved on to vacuum the two bedrooms. “Ne, Lance, you don’t have to…”
“It’s fine. Where’s your laundry machine?”
“… We have a laundry machine?”
Lance shook her head. “How old were you when your parents passed away?”
“Well, almost ten, so I just went off journeying. Why?”
“No wonder this house is in such a state…”
“How do you know how to do all this stuff?” Red asked.
“I lived in cooperative housing for two years while I was taking classes at the college in Blackthorn. I had to learn all of this.”
“Oh!”
“I’ll whip up dinner tonight too.”
Red wondered if perhaps Lance was taking this girlfriend business a bit too seriously, but shook her head. Lance was just being nice.
Besides, Red had taken care of her while she was injured.
Maybe Lance was just trying to repay that debt?
Maybe…
Two hours later, the house literally sparkled on the inside – well, that was an exaggeration but at least it was neat and clean.
“We should wash the windows tomorrow.”
“Okay.” That Red was pretty sure she could help with.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“You can cook too?”
“I took three semesters of cooking classes.”
“Um… anything is fine, really…”
“All right. Want to come grocery shopping with me?”
“S-Sure…”
They went and Lance picked up lots of things Red had never considered buying. To be truthfully honest, she lived mostly off canned food and hot dogs and frozen foods. Lance just breezed through those aisles.
They staggered home, Gyrados laden with groceries, and Lance got to work cooking.
An hour later, there was a delicious vegetable soup simmering away on the stove, while they bit into toasted sandwiches.
“Wow!”
“It’s nothing really fancy, Red.”
“Can you teach me? I’d like to be able to cook too.”
“Of course…”
The two of them soon settled into a pretty comfortable routine. During the day, they would train, taking one-day trips to different parts of Kanto and Johto, and at night, they would return. Lance would prepare dinner while Red helped, they would eat, shower, and go to bed.
Honestly though, Red was very glad they slept in separate bedrooms, because when they had shared a bed, she had been getting weird dreams...
She supposed dreaming about Lance wasn’t that strange, but other things… eek!
What if she was falling in love?
That thought stopped her cold. But Lance was another girl… was it possible for two girls to be together?
She wasn’t too sure.
Lance woke her up the next morning with apple cinnamon oatmeal. “Red, it’s almost noon. Did you not sleep well last night?”
“My wrists.” She confessed. “They hurt…”
Lance frowned. “Lorelei’s ice cuffs, I suppose? I thought you were better.”
“So did I, but we went to Seafoam Islands yesterday. It was pretty cold there, maybe that triggered something?”
“Perhaps…” Lance frowned. “I’ll take a look.”
“But you don’t have your healing power anymore, do you?”
Lance smirked. “That does not mean I cannot heal.”
While Red blinked, Lance gripped her wrist firmly, and concentrated. A bloody glow surrounded the injured limb, and Red felt the pain fading away to nothing.
“Wow…”
“You see? I am not helpless.”
Something about that statement tickled Red’s mind, but she couldn’t figure it out, so she settled for nodding. “All right…”
“Do your wrists hurt any more?”
Red considered that as she flexed her hands and fingers. “Not at all.”
“I am glad…”
The silence that followed was growing uncomfortable, so Red excused herself and went to her room to ponder.
Why did she feel so strange?
Lance was just a friend, wasn’t she?
End Chapter
Completed 7/13/06
Red is naïve, isn’t she? ^^
And yes, I made Red’s house have only one story. Carrying things up stairs is hard (Like when one is not in superb physical condition like Phantomness or is recovering from injuries like Lance – a mop and bucket full of water can be surprisingly heavy). And as for the comment about Lance knowing how to cook and clean, well… I am currently living in cooperative housing and thus I am learning to cook and clean! ^^ And cleaning a kitchen shared by twenty people takes three hours. Admittedly though, the cleaning is a heck of a lot easier than the cooking! Cleaning’s almost easy, but cooking is awful. *Sighs morosely*