u arn't gud 4 me.

.welcome to my new hyperfixation.

"Excuse me? Do I know you?"

The snide, condescending tone was enough to make both my heart and my words stop in their tracks. Sharp amethyst eyes glared up at me, making my extra couple inches of height feel like nothing against his belittling gaze. Leaving the gym's lobby and looking for Hop before I got torn to shreds by this guy would have been my best bet now that I knew what he was capable of. Regret for this decision was already beginning to bubble in my gut but, like the dumbass I was, I pushed on with the doomed attempt at a conversation.

"W-Well," I began, eyes darting off to the side nervously to try and lessen the impact of his leer, "no. But-"

My stammering was stopped short by a scoff. When I glanced back over at him I quickly caught his dramatic eye roll before he popped his hip out and placed a loose fist on it. "I thought so. May Galar help me if I ever become familiar with such a greasy little nobody." His jabs continued to roll off his tongue like fresh rain on down turned leaves. How could he treat a total stranger like this? I should be absolutely offended by now, but the thumping in my chest reminded me that I was anything but. "Look, do me a favor and scurry back to your rat's nest alright? As the most elite out of every self-proclaimed 'elite' here, I don't want to waste anymore of my precious breath on whatever it is that you consider yourself to be."

It was such a tiny piece of information but I still jumped at the chance to latch on to it. Anything that would get me a few extra seconds with him. "Yeah? And what makes you so elite?" I questioned, not realizing how impudent that sounded until my tongue had already gone dry in my mouth. Immediately I was slapped with another fierce look from those captivating orbs across from me.

He opened his mouth to say something, stopped himself short, then turned his head away and gave a rather derisive click of his tongue. "Gods, you're not even worth getting mad at. Of course someone so disgustingly low class wouldn't know about me. Normally I wouldn't bother with it, but if it means you'll leave me alone then I shall explain." The male stated. With that both of his arms came up with a slight flourish so he could cross them over his chest. "I am the only person in this challenge to have been endorsed by Chairman Rose himself. Do you know who that is? Or does word not make it to the rock you decided to crawl out from underneath? Either way, it doesn't matter to me. His support means that I am obviously the best of the best and therefore shall only associate myself with those equal to me. And before you ask, rodent, my standards are high. Much too high for you to ever even dream of coming close to. So don't even think about trying to flatter your way to the top through the likes of me."

That long winded spiel definitely should have taken out any of the measly courage that I had left in me and, honestly? It nearly did. But when your ego is this strong and you only have one full braincell to function off of, it's remarkably easy to brush past dangers like this. So even though my throat had reached the consistency of sandpaper and my limbs wanted to melt into a puddle of anxiety, I did my best to stand up straight and look as not-nervous as I possibly could. "Oh." I said lamely as a response once he was done. He must have been expecting a more impressed reaction because what I gave him made his thin brows furrow even further in on themselves.

"Whatever." He sneered. "I don't have time for this. Now if you'll move out of my-"

"I was endorsed by Leon!" Just like that I had blurted it out. He had been turning away from me and I was desperate to keep his attention. Even if he was looking down on me, I loved the feeling of knowing that he was at least aware of my existence. As soon as I said that, though, I became rather uncomfortable with the wide eyed expression he leveled me with. Flaunting my achievement like Hop did wasn't something I ever intended on doing. Especially not when I only accomplished said achievement by piggy backing off of my best friend and his generosity. But, again, I was willing to do anything for one more second with this guy. If that meant shoving a stick up my ass for a little while then so be it. "He um... He's the Champion."

To my surprise he whipped back around to do more than just cast me a look of disbelief over his shoulder. "I know who he is!" He snapped, stepping closer to me than before. Like a middle schooler facing his crush, I could feel my whole body beginning to liquify when the faint aroma of whatever designer scent he was wearing tickled my nose. "How dare you even attempt to insult my knowledge like that! Hmph." Something similar to a pout knitted itself on to his pursed lips. God, this dude was adorable. A complete asshole, but still one of the cutest human beings I've ever seen. A moment of silence passed between the two of us as he carefully analyzed my face. After doing so until he was satisfied he moved back and, with another mildly excessive gesture, brushed a lock of fluffy white hair from his pale face. "If you're telling the truth... then the bar for entering this challenge must be terribly low. I can hardly believe that finding talent is so hard nowadays that even the Champion himself must stoop down to inviting amateurs. How pathetic."

Without even giving me the chance to try and get a word in edgewise, the male flipped around again so that his back was to me. I half expected him to berate me with every step he took towards the door, but instead he simply left me to stand there and deal with the jolts of electricity flowing through my veins as if a Yamper had just nuzzled me. Each confident stride was characterized with a small sway that made it much harder than it should have for me to watch him leave without rearing my shitty social skills' big ugly head in the way. Hardly a few moments later he was out of the building. Two or three people who passed by shot me some sympathetic looks but I didn't need them. In fact...

I was absolutely beaming from the interaction. Hop had always called me a tail chaser with the way I bounced from person to the person whenever I found a new victim of my attention. When we see each other again at the hotel I hope he'll be happy to hear that I plan on continuing to live up to that name.

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sorry not sorry but nothing else matters anymore now that i have swsh. all yall who were expecting Other Content are gonna have to wait until this fixation phase is over bc boy am i going crazy over dis pokemon shid