Paul and Dawn: First Light

Chapter 65: Laundry

Chapter 65: Laundry

I got back to the Pokemon Center, my new dress clothes sweaty, wrinkled, and covered in Haunter's saliva.

Formality wasn't appealing in any sense.

"Hey!" the kid who had begged to play with Salamence called from atop of my Dragon's head as I walked by. "Hi!"

I really didn't need to talk to him right now. Salamence gave me a "what happened to you?" look before grinning at my clothes, knowing I was not the type to dress up.

"I told you to say nothing," I restated for what felt like the hundredth time, walking into the Pokemon Center.

Dawn was nowhere to be seen when I got back to our room, which was a relief because I'd wanted my stupid shopping trip to be a surprise. As soon as this night was over I would have to dispose of all formal wear. I was tied between either burning the wretched clothes or sending them to Reggie, who would then ask me a dozen questions on why I had needed dress clothes in the first place and why I was keeping them.

The option involving fire seemed much more satisfying.

I decided to wash all of my clothes that Haunter had touched and headed to the wash room after changing into my spare pair of clean clothes. My jacket, shirt, and pants were comfortable and felt more like a second skin than the straitjacket I'd been forced to buy. I roughly threw everything into the washer, not bothering with dry clean or checking the labels. I was still debating letting Salamence himself decimate my clothes and following the irritating descriptive tags would be pointless.

I walked back to our room, sat myself roughly on the bed, and decided to support my head with my hands, leaning on my knees.

What a day.

I thought about how I hadn't even been awake until around noon and yet how it was still 'one of those' days.

"That's it," I said out loud to myself. "I'm not wearing the stupid tie."

And with that out of the way, the next few hours of wearing dress clothes seemed a bit more bearable to think about.

When I went to the laundry room to put my clothes in the dryer, I stopped at the door. A brown haired girl had her arms crossed and was glaring at a washer that I assumed held her own clothes. Normally, the sight of someone who seemed as angry with the world as I did would be amusing, but I knew this girl and she'd been a part of a group I'd never wanted to see again.

I counted my blessings. At least her flirty acquaintance wasn't around.

My thoughts stopped. He had to be here, I had no idea where Dawn was, and I was here in the laundry room knowing that hours' worth of nonstop interaction could have occurred since I'd gone to the store. Not to mention she'd been in her new dress when I'd left.

I was about to run out of the room and find Dawn, wondering if locking her in our room to keep her away from him was an overreaction when the girl turned around. "Oh. It's you. I'm guessing you're here to battle Anthony, the only worthy opponent, right?"

I gripped the door, wishing I could leave, but it was too late. I turned back around. "Hello."

"Hi," she said a bit sharply.

I didn't remember her being so snappy the last time I'd seen her. "Your name is Emma, right?"

"Yeah. And you're Paul, the hotshot Trainer who thinks he's too awesome to battle me. Why?"

"What in the world happened to you?"

Emma started laughing suddenly. "What happened? Oh, you don't even want to get me started on that subject."