“Why are you here again?” is what Green asks when Ethan enters his gym.<\/p>\n
Ethan looks nervous, maybe. Like he’s been planning this out for days, weeks, maybe even months (okay, no, don’t think something as ridiculous as this), but then suddenly he doesn’t know what to say, even though he’s rehearsed it tons of times in front of his mirror. Green can imagine it, Ethan rehearsing saying something in front of his mirror.<\/p>\n
He can’t imagine Ethan rehearsing something like, “Will you go out with me?” though, when Ethan suddenly says it and Green thinks\u00a0Oh<\/em>. Really, maybe he should’ve seen it coming, and berates himself for being slow.<\/p>\n “What? No,” says Green. And then, as an afterthought, “I’m not gay.”<\/p>\n “Oh,” says Ethan. He doesn’t look – disappointed, really. More just sad, and it makes something twinge in Green. Not his heart, though. And the twinge was definitely out of guilt.<\/p>\n “Unless you mean like,” Green says. “Just. Getting something to eat. Then. Sure.” He thinks\u00a0that’s what going out with someone means<\/em>\u00a0but promptly ignores this thought.<\/p>\n “Oh.” Ethan looks like he doesn’t know what to feel, and Green doesn’t blame him. “Um. Then. That’s okay.”<\/p>\n “There’s a good restaurant near here, want to go for lunch?” says Green.<\/p>\n “What? Now?”<\/p>\n “You didn’t expect me to go get something to eat with you later, did you? You’re here, I’m here, and it’s nearly noon.”<\/p>\n Green slips off of the chair that he always sits in when he waits for new trainers, and nudges eevee out of her pokeball – it’s about time for her stretch, anyways.<\/p>\n “C’mon, you’re the one asked who asked me out in the first place, let’s go,” he says as he walks toward his gym doors. As he hears Ethan follow behind him, he adds in a mutter, “Don’t know why you’re so slow.”<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n It turns out that Ethan has been to the restaurant Green had been referring to before, and he’s even friends with some of the waitresses – they know his name. For some reason this makes Green see, well, green, though he has no idea why.<\/p>\n “So,” says Green, after Ethan smiles and laughs a giggling waitress away. “You’re gay.”<\/p>\n Ethan falters and looks at Green, but doesn’t deny it. “I guess,” he says, half-hearted shrug and casual glance away his answer.<\/p>\n “And you have a crush on me.”<\/p>\n “It’s not a crush, I\u00a0like<\/em>\u00a0you,” says Ethan, and then looks embarrassed at admitting it. “There’s a difference, because I had a crush on Red once.”<\/p>\n “Oh.” Green is surprised, and sees green,\u00a0again<\/em>. Damn. “What makes it different?”<\/p>\n “I liked you before I had a crush on Red, and I still like you now.” Ethan picks at his macaroni. “Um. Why did you say yes?”<\/p>\n “I didn’t say yes.”<\/p>\n “Why did you say we could get lunch together?” says Ethan, though they both know it’s the same thing.<\/p>\n “I needed company, and you offered it to me,” says Green, stealing one of Ethan’s macaronis.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n “I don’t kiss on first dates. Just so you know.”<\/p>\n It’s not the first time they’re getting lunch anymore, but probably the fifth time they’re getting dinner. Not that Green has been counting, he swears.<\/p>\n “Good thing this isn’t our first date,” says Ethan, his smile brimming with happiness, and he goes up on his tiptoes to peck Green on the nose.<\/p>\n Green crinkles his nose, though he knows that Ethan can see the hint of a smile on his mouth, and Ethan’s smile goes wider.<\/p>\n “I’m just saying, because you kissed\u00a0me<\/em>\u00a0on our first date,” he says.<\/p>\n “You said the whole time that that wasn’t a date,” says Ethan. “That we weren’t going out or anything, that we were\u00a0just getting lunch<\/em>.”<\/p>\n “You and I both know I was lying,” says Green, and Ethan laughs and kisses Green on the mouth this time.<\/p>\n “True,” he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Why are you here again?” is what Green asks when Ethan enters his gym.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,170],"fandom":[503],"rating":[674],"ship":[740],"relationship":[606],"minorfandomships":[],"class_list":["post-1967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-default","tag-fluff","tag-post-canon","fandom-pokemon","rating-general","ship-gold-green","relationship-slash"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"fandom","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/fandom?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"ship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ship?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"relationship","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/relationship?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"minorfandomships","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aroceu.com\/fic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/minorfandomships?post=1967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}