Clumsy For Him
Barry goes on challenging the Veilstone gym leader who takes an instant liking to him, but, unfortunately, she starts to act a little clumsy. Clumsy, Barry/Maylene

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Thump… thump… thump—

Still heavily concentrated on meditation, the pink-haired girl opened a single eye, peering at the closed, see-through door. The silhouette of a person—possibly a challenger?—was visible. She could sense an eagerness emitting from the body, making her raise a brow. "Um, come in?"

Shuffling noises echoed throughout the vacancy of the gym. The fragile doors suddenly slid open, revealing the silhouette's true identity. The person was a boy, a tall and lanky one at that, with locks of bleached blonde hair and energetic orange eyes. A wide, confident grin was plastered on his face as he eyed the girl on the floor. "Hi, I'd like to have a gym battle," the boy stated hastily, already reaching for his back pocket. "I've been training hard for this, so—"

"Wait," the pink-haired girl exhorted, unwrapping her legs from her former crisscross position. She stared intensely into her challenger's auspicious eyes, scrutinizing the latter with an upmost interest. The challenger nudged himself backwards, uncomfortable of the girl's examination of him. Though, despite discomfort and the girl's awareness of it, she stared on, seemingly deep in thought.

He… has the same determination as a former challenger, if I recall correctly, she mused, thinking back to her battle with an astonishing black-haired boy. It was a few months ago when she's had that battle, and she hasn't had the same upbeat feeling since. It was as if depression would hit her again, though with the reason being a lack of good challengers; but, reminiscing her last mistake on that matter, she wasn't about to mourn too early.

Taking another moment to graze at the blonde's eyes, she bowed her head slightly, hiding a smile of pure content. Hopefully, this challenger will spark interest, thought she, a hint of newfound excitement in her eyes.

"Uh, so I'll take that as a yes?" the blonde asked in a demanding tone. He raised his arm and tapped his orange Pokètch with his bony index finger. "Look, I'm kinda in a hurry, so if you don't mi—"

"Wait," interrupted the girl again. By this time, her challenger was fuming with hidden annoyance, camouflaging it with a forced smile. She realized his sudden discontent but shrugged it off like fly. "Perhaps we should introduce ourselves first?"

"Well, there's no need for you to, since I already know who you are, Maylene," the blonde said, articulating her name. "But, I'm Barry."

Barry… It had an uncanny but nice ring to it. It was definitely the name of a potential winner, and she was wholly positive this battle was going to be just what she's been looking for, or at least that's what she presumed from her quick notes of the boy. She could already sense another jolt of enthusiasm rushing throughout her entire body as she made her way to the left side of the room. "Okay Barry," she said finally after the boy was seemingly about ready to run out, "I accept your challenge."

"Finally!" he said in an exasperated tone, positioning himself at the right side of the battlefield. "Whenever you're ready, but make it quick." He whispered the last half of his statement, looking off to the side subconsciously. Though, once he heard the fighting-type gym leader say "Wait!" for a third time, his head bolted up, his face scarred with an evident grimace.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, laughing softly to brighten the mood but failed in doing so. "But shouldn't we get a referee first?"

He blinked stupidly, but nodded slightly. A sigh managed to escape his lips, which he tried to keep shut, as he heard the girl's feet tapping almost inaudibly on the floor, dispersing quickly. The sound suddenly began to grow louder again as the girl made her way back to the gym, looking at him with a meek smile.

"Um, sorry for asking, but is it okay if you help me look for him?" She mentally smacked herself on her forehead, annoyed at her surprisingly aloof self. Sure, she could be clumsy at times, but not to this extent. A worried expression barred her face as she looked at the challenger, who apparently had a mix of emotions poured onto his face.

Without thinking, Barry answered her question with a "sure," which was against his very nature. Usually, he would've just politely made his way out, especially considering the fact the Veilstone gym leader munched off an ample amount of his time; but, there was something keeping him intact for that battle with her.

Eh, it was probably because it took a while for him to actually reach Veilstone. Not to mention, the local Game Corner was addicting….

He knocked some sense back to himself and started to quickly pace adjacent to Maylene, crossing his arms behind his head. Once they reached the outside of the gym, he asked bluntly, "I don't think a referee's that important."

"Well, a referee doesn't have a biased judgment," she said matter-of-factly, "but, if you really don't want one, it's okay with me."

By this time the two trainers stopped walking. Barry looked at her awkwardly, as if she had just said something of taboo. But, against the better of him, he grumbled impatiently, "Let's check this area."

The blonde started to wander off into an open path with the girl following close behind, staring at his back with the same intenseness as before. She couldn't quite understand her foolish actions as she was never like this before, and she silently cursed herself for it. He probably thinks I'm a total goof, she pondered hopelessly, oblivious to her surroundings. His impression of me already seems hor—

Thud!

At the sound of the noise, Barry swung his entire body around and looked uneasily at the girl sprawled on the floor. "And people say I need to watch where I'm going," he exclaimed in a huff, offering a hand for the girl. Maylene gladly accepted it and smiled sheepishly, mumbling a "sorry". The blonde just seemed to shrug it off and continued walking, keeping a closer eye on the young gym leader.

He thought it was weird of how clumsy she was. When he was walking around Veilstone the other day, he's heard from quite a huge number of people that their hometown's gym leader was a very focused, albeit young, girl. He tacked on a mental note of that in his head, but, now considering the circumstances he's in, he's been starting to wonder if Veilstone's citizens were either 1) liars, or 2) complete idiots. Maybe even both, he thought amusingly but angrily to himself, glancing at the young girl behind him as he slowed his pace. A face of almost pity showered his face seeing the young girl struggle around her surroundings, barely but almost tripping at numerous rocks and randomly bumped into protruding branches.

He pocketed his hands, mumbling nonsensical statements to himself. Why did he ever agree to search for this supposed referee? They would've done just fine without one; she was probably just suspicious of his integrity, wasn't she?

He growled quietly, finally losing more than enough of his patience at the sight of a familiar stony landmark. He stopped abruptly and faced the girl, slightly toning down his fuming (after all, she was superior to him by status, and getting in trouble with gym leaders were the last thing Barry wanted to deal with). "I'm tired of all this!" He felt an irate frown nudging his lips downwards.

"Ah, I'm so sorry," she said in despondence, shying away from her challenger. "I… I don't know what's with me at all. I've never lost so much focus before. It's like… It's like back then when I lost to this trainer. I… I am… a horrible gym leader!" It was bad enough for Maylene to break into a bawling fit in front of her challenger, but seeing a blurry look of sympathy on his face through her veiling tears made her cry even louder. His seeming pity for her made her heart break. She didn't want to be looked down upon in such a shameful position, especially with her status of being a gym leader. Just standing there, tears welling up in her eyes, her pathetic whimpering ambient, her legs wobbly, made her seem so vulnerable. She hated every single second of it, but yet she couldn't seem to stop, the cascading pools of her pitiful tears finally raining down on the earth.

Barry, on the other hand, could only soften his hard expression and take pity on the girl. He didn't know what else to do. Honestly, he's never seen a girl cry before, lest a gym leader of all people!

After a few more minutes of nonstop crying, panic started to register into his mind. With this loud, crying girl standing before him, someone was bound to check out the source of the crying and point fingers at him for making such a sweet, innocent, little girl cry! He would be the villain of it all. Yes, he could even see the headlines of the weekly Jubilife newsletter right now: Blonde boy makes Veilstone gym leader cry! And, for no apparent reason at all, he added subconsciously, eyeing the still crying girl.

Wait, was he this selfish? A girl was crying right in front of him, for Pete's sake! There wasn't any time to think of such plausible threats to his life.

Before he even came near the girl, he paused and blinked. What do you even do when a girl's crying? He slapped himself mentally for being so pathetic. Of course, whenever anyone is crying, the only way to stop them from it is to comfort them, right?

The only other question for Barry now was how?

C'mon, Barry, you can do it! It's only a simple matter of life or death, his inner thoughts cheered out exaggeratedly. He took in a deep breath and forced a laugh out, wrapping his arms around the young girl. "Look, how 'bout we battle right here, right now? I'll even throw in my very own handicap if you'd like."

The girl still cried, only a little quieter than before. Looks like we're making some progress. "So, how 'bout it?"

Out of the blue, Maylene's cries started to ring through his ears at full volume, louder than your usual Exploud using Hyper Voice. Panic started to taunt Barry again as he paced back and forth in front of her.

This isn't working. I need another way to get her to stop crying, but what? At this point I'll probably be willing to do anything just to make her st—

Thud!

The familiar sound made Barry grimace. The bad thing was he was at fault this time. He picked himself up and started rubbing his behind roughly, frustrated.

Until, that was, he heard a small giggling from the girl, who was damping away her tears with her arm. Barry started blushing from total embarrassment. He wasn't sure how he tripped seeing as there were no obstructions on the ground. Maybe panic had something to do with this?

Nonetheless, he kept up his scowl, trying to fight off the blush eating at his face. "Okay, okay, you've had your laughs," he tried to say calmly, trying to pierce through the girl's chortling, "so can I have that battle now?"

"S-sure," she said shakily, still laughing amiably. "It's nice to know I'm not the only one clumsy here. I appreciate you helping me feel better, though. Really, I still don't know what's with me." She beamed at him softly, mirroring the boy's flustered expression.

Barry heaved out a sigh of relief, his hands planted firmly on his hips. "Like I said before, finally!"

---

It didn't take too long before Maylene's last Pokèmon, Lucario, fell on the ground, completely KO'd by Barry's Heracross. The blonde boy was ecstatic at his victory, displaying a small victory dance that had the pink-haired girl laughing loudly.

"You crack me up, Barry," she said as she hugged her stomach. She trotted over to another room to get a badge for the blonde and returned to see him still gloating on his victory. Maylene couldn't help but smile, something inside her stomach tickling her sweetly. She was sure it wasn't the first time she's felt this before, but this was definitely the first time she's felt it towards a boy—and a challenger at that.

She trudged towards him and said, "For defeating the Veilstone gym, I, Maylene, present to you the Cobble Badge." She shoved a tray with a shiny brown badge placed accurately in the middle to him as he hastily grabbed it, raising it in the air to approve its authenticity.

Barry, phasing out of his fixation, extended a hand towards her. "Uh, thanks. Your Lucario was tough."

Maylene, again, gladly took his hand and shook it mildly, watching as they both retracted and Barry started to make his way out.

The boy named Barry was a challenger that came by only rarely—maybe even once—and she meant that in a fluffy way. She was sure that she's already been crushing on the blonde since she first inspected him, but even then, it wasn't enough to just crush on him and never see him again. She had to confess to him as it was now or never, seeing as the blonde most likely would never come back to her gym after already winning her badge.

She took in a deep breath. I'm strong, she said to herself, and brave.

"Wait, Barry!"

The blonde flung his head behind him, not even cringing at that deadly word. After all, he did win. A win at a gym would always brighten up his mood under any circumstance. "What is it?"

Maylene quickly ran up to him, eyes gleaming. "I just wanted to sa—"

Thud!

Barry's eyes widened. Maylene had tripped again, and on a smooth surface too. But, what surprised him the most was his lips being covered by another; and, surprisingly, that pair of lips on his own belonged to none other than the Veilstone gym leader.

He pushed her away slightly as she reluctantly backed off. Their faces started to glow a bright red as Barry started scratching his head awkwardly, avoiding any contact with the girl. "Uh, yeah, thanks again…" With that, he took his leave rather quickly, touching his lips unconsciously with a puzzled mind.

Back in the gym, Maylene touched her own lips, still being able to remember the short but worthwhile kiss she shared with her recent challenger. It was unlike Maylene to be clumsy as she was a very focused girl, but when it came to love, she was definitely clumsy for him—and, apparently, she didn't mind at all.

XXX

Some fluff at the end for ya. It's been a while since I wrote something remotely close to a little romance. :L

Ugh, I had a yearly physical examination today, and they took a blood sample from one of my fingers as well as giving me a shot on both arms, so it took me a while to type this up. P: Anyway…

When I saw this shipping mentioned somewhere yesterday, I was all like, "OMG IT'S TOO CUTE," and I just had to write about them… even though I only have a small glimpse of Maylene's personality (still hasn't bothered to catch up with the older episodes)! It's probably my favorite Barry/female shipping now, though, besides GalacticBomb (which I've been trying to find the name of since the Iron Island episode). :"D