Bonds | Pokémon Fanfiction

Chapter 5: Civil Politeness

CHAPTER FIVE: CIVIL POLITENESS

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It was around noon by the time Alice's mother parked her car and twisted around to face Ken and Alice sitting in the backseat. Her daughter played with her sweater's sleeves while the blond next to her stared out the window. She'd questioned him earlier that morning about what had caused the bright pink mark on his forehead. He avoided answering her inquiries by stuffing his cheeks with fruit.

"While I'm running my errands you two can walk around. I'll call you when I'm done to meet up," she explained.

They chorused, "Okay."

Alice stepped out of the car first and checked her reflection in the mirror for the thirteenth time. Lumiose City was a place to dress to impress those around you. The people in her sight were business casual adults drinking coffees whilst resting at cafés.

Ken met her on the sidewalk and asked, "Where are we going?"

"We're on Vernal Avenue, so if we keep on going straight we can look at an evolutionary stone store or an herb shop," she said.

He nodded and the two walked side by side down the stone pathway. Part of Alice wanted to try to hold a light conversation with him to ease the tension, but the other half of her wanted her to stay silent until he apologized for being egocentric.

"Let's go in there," Ken suggested.

Alice looked up at the sign reading, 'Stone Emporium', and nodded. The store's atmosphere was a cross between a museum and a department store. It had snow white walls with snow-white floors vacant of distractions except for a giant poster displaying every type of evolutionary stone and Megastone known to the public.

The pride of the store was the shelves of sparkling jewels looked like pieces of glass holding particles of the rainbow. These stones ranged from being the size of a softball to a coin. Trainers gathered around the displays to gossip about their effects. Unfortunately, those said trainers had the poor luck of standing in front of a certain bitter blond who was still irritated from being attacked by a Pachirisu that morning.

"I heard that Steven Stone has every single stone known to man," a girl with pigtails who looked no older than twelve said.

Her blonde friend's eyebrows shot up and nearly hit her hairline. "No way!"

"Yup, my brother told me." Pigtails girl wiggled her eyebrows. "He also said Steven Stone is super hot in person."

"Come on, even I knew that."

The two broke into giggles before falling silent when they saw Ken glaring down at them in the display case's reflection. He said coldly, "If you're not purchasing anything, you should move out of the way of the products so others can see them."

Pigtails' face turned red. "S-sorry, sir!" she stammered and took off with her friend in tow.

"That wasn't very nice," Alice pointed out. She squirmed uncomfortably in secondhand embarrassment as the other customers stared at them.

"It's not kind to block the way of others, as well."

The brunette shook her head in disbelief. "It's still rude."

The blond thought back to his dream earlier where his mom lectured him about putting himself into other peoples' shoes. I wouldn't be standing in the way of a display. He pursed his lips. But if somehow I did, I have no idea how I would, I suppose having an older person telling me to move would be unpleasant.