Loving Him Is Pink -- Bede x Avery (A Pride Month Pokemon Short Story)

Dish Duty -- Bede

It had only been a few days since Honey decided to torture us with her cruel (and unusual) punishment, and I was already starting to hate it.

All throughout the first night, I was kicking the underside of Avery's bunk bed (I was sleeping on the bottom), and he retaliated by pouring a glass of freezing water on my head. My official first day, we were sitting next to each other at breakfast and we purposefully acted like the other didn't exist.

Then, the whole group of Gym Leaders went for a hike up Challenge Road, where Avery 'accidentally' almost pushed me off the cliffs and sent me falling to a watery death. When Honey accused him, he simply replied, "I was going to catch him...once his body hit the water." That night, I slipped a bunch of Hard Stones into his pillowcase.

The next day, breakfast was the same, except for a slight kick-boxing match under the table, egged on by Klara, the ADHD girl with the Poison types. Then, everyone was paired up to pick Max Mushrooms in the nearby woods. Surprise, surprise, I was put with the Duke of Limbs.

After we spent two hours in the humidity with no luck finding any, we ended up wandering around, looking for Pokemon. After the harsh sun faded, a chilling fog settled in and I decided to try and catch a few Pokemon. After all, Fairy types were more common during foggy weather, and there were many unique to the Isle of Armor; what better time to add on to my team?

"I hope you're not planning to force any poor sap to join your pathetic excuse for a team," Avery remarked snarkily, looking down on me with the stupidest smirk.
"Oh, get off your high Ponyta," I snapped, freezing when I spotted a wild Comfey floating around a few trees. Readying a Pokeball, I slowly crept closer to the wild Posy Picker Pokemon, and just when I was about to throw it--

"Don't miss."
Dropping my Pokeball in surprise, the Comfey noticed me and immediately floated away. Growling, I turned back to Avery with the biggest glare I could muster. "That does it," I hissed, gripping a Great Ball. He reciprocated by freezing his Pokeball's usual bobbing motion. At the same time, we both called out, "Rapidash!"

In an instant, both equine Pokemon had materialized, horns bared and ready for battle. At least, until they noticed they were battling the same species and decided to spend some quality checking each other out.

"You cannot be serious," I groaned, facepalming. Both Rapidash turned at the sound of my voice. Then, Avery's came clip-clopping over and nibbled at my hair. Shrieking, I leapt away from it, waving my arms wildly over my head to protect my platinum blonde curls.

My Rapidash came over, and chided his friend in their own language of nickers and whinnys. Then, they both turned and walked off into the fog. "Rapidash, come back here this instant! Conspiring with the enemy is mutiny," Avery shrieked, trying to get his attention as the pair trotted away.

They paid him no heed, and soon disappeared into the opaque haze. "Wow. Such an 'elegant and refined' Pokemon, isn't he?" I asked, smirking.
"Oh, shut up," he grumbled back.

**********

After we got back to the Dojo (and found our Rapidash after wandering around in the fog for three hours), nobody had gotten the mushrooms, save Raihan and Nessa. They'd encountered a bunch of them in the Warm-Up Tunnel on the way to the Potbottom Desert, where Raihan wanted to take some selfies and Nessa was too over him to talk back.

After eating some Max Soup with some questionable properties, we had dish duty after dinner. According to Klara, dish duty after Max Soup was a punishment chore worse than death. And oh, mother of Eternatus, she was right.

"Something tells me Honey did this to us on purpose," I grumbled, scrubbing the remains of the cold Max Soup out of the cooking pot with a raggedy sponge. "Goodness, what Cosmic Power told you that?" Avery asked sarcastically in response. He, while I was slaving away using my actual hands, was levitating his dirty dishes in the air and scrubbing with a handled sponge that somewhat resembled a loofa.

"You know, you could come down from your mountain on high to mingle with the commoners, and actually do your chores like the rest of us," I spat after ten minutes of watching him stay spotless while dirty dishwater soaked into my uniform. "If I have a useful tool at my disposal, it's a bit daft not to use it," he replied, purposefully dropping a dish into the water and dredging my shirt with spots.

"Ugh. Klara was right; Dish Duty is way worse than death," I grumbled as I wiped excess bubbles from my eyelashes. "Nothing is worse than dissolution," he countered, scowling as he tugged at a fork stuck in the disposal with his powers. When it finally popped free with a disgusting squelching noise, it flew back and hit him just below the eye. "Though for dish duty I may have to make an exception."

"Oh boys~," Miss Honey sang, coming softly into the kitchen. "I think you two have had enough of dish duty. We're all coming out to watch the sunset. Want to come?"
"I suppose," I admitted, secretly ecstatic to get out of the kitchen.
"A break would be quite refreshing," Avery agreed, before fleeing the scene and shouting out, "Avery, Teleport!"

"Why does he do that?" I asked Honey once he'd left.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You know...the whole 'Avery, Teleport!' thing. I've caught him doing it more than once now. Why does he do it?"
"Oh, that," she smiled at him through the window as he sprinted across the surf towards the group of gym leaders.

"See, Avery here comes from a long line of Galarian Psychic-type gym leaders," Honey explained. "They also are actual psychics. Most of them can lift things without touching them, teleport, read minds and the like. He's the only one from his generation who can't do more impressive things, like teleporting. Unfortunately, some of his family don't believe he's a real psychic because he can't do it. So, he came to the island to train harder to get stronger, and to unlock the psychic abilities he's been lacking."

"Huh," I wondered. "Who would've figured having psychic powers could be a bad thing?" I knew that if I had the ability to lift things with my mind back when I was endorsed by Chairman Rose, Oleana would have exploited that ability and used it excessively.

"Of course, not all of his family see him as a disappointment," Honey smiled. "His little sister looks up to him so much."
"He has a sister?"

"Oh, yes. Such a sweet child. She and Avery really are quite close; They're as thick as thieves. Unfortunately, his family doesn't like the idea of a 'pure-blooded' psychic mingling with a 'disappointment to their legacy'. I guess they're afraid it'll rub off, but that doesn't stop them from calling and staying in touch. Truly, he can be a sensitive person when he wants to be."

"Hmph," I scoffed. "I highly doubt that." Honey sighed, and turned to face me.
"Look, Bede, we all know Avery isn't the easiest person to get along with; I don't think anyone knows that better than the residents of this Dojo. But if you could please find it somewhere in you to try and get along, I think he'd really appreciate it."

She then turned and left the kitchen, pausing in the doorway for a moment."He's had a hard life, Bede," she said softly. "I think you of all people know what that feels like." And with that, she exited the Dojo, leaving me to ponder what she had just told me.