My Amour

Emergency Meeting

They were all gathered at Professor Kukui's... cottage? Cabin? Shed? Lillie didn't exactly know what to call the quaint dwelling, but all her friends were gathered there, plus Kukui himself. The moment he heard from Mallow what the meeting was about, the Professor had said that he wanted to be included in the conversation.

That was the main goal of the day's meeting. Talking and sharing information. Everyone had noticed something strange going on with Ash. As the Alola league grew closer and closer, he had only gotten more and more uncharacteristically nervous. Every time one of them tried to talk to him, he ran away, claiming he had to train.

Now, training was something Ash already did pretty often, but recently it was different. Now, pretty much any spare moment Ash had was spent along the beach with his Pokémon, sparring or trying new techniques. Every day he would come to school exhausted, and pass out for at least half of that day's lecture.

Something was wrong, and today the group was going to figure it out.

"So," Mallow said, clapping her hands together to gather everyone out of their individual musings, "What do we know?"

Everyone spoke at once.

This was going to take a while.

~~~

"Alright, let's get everything straight," Mallow said, ten minutes later. "Ash is training way too much." She looked over at Kiawe, who nodded and began to speak.

"Ash has challenged me to a battle every single day." He said, grabbing a Poke ball off his belt. "Turtanator's being a good sport about it, but Ash..." He shook his head. "I tried getting him to help out on the ranch, since he's usually so good with the wild Ryhorn around, but it didn't help. Every time I try to ask him what's going on, he just runs off to go train on the beach. I know Ash is battle crazy, but even this seems like too much for him."

Lana nodded from where she sat at the kitchen table. "It is too much. Which makes me wonder, why?"

"Huh? What do you mean why?" Kiawe said, raising his eyebrows, "I thought he was training for the league?"

Lana nodded. 'Right, but it's almost desperate. Don't you guys get the feeling that Ash is almost...nervous for the league?"

Mallow rubbed her forehead before looking up at the group. "Right, but why is he nervous? I don't think I've ever seen Ash be anything but ecstatic for a battle."

"You're right," Lillie said, eyes slowly widening, "Ash has always said that you shouldn't care about winning, only about battling with your whole heart, and the strength of your Pokémon! "

Everyone around the room nodded. They'd all heard some variation of that pep talk from Ash. They were all silent for a moment, contemplative.

Kukui stood up and shrugged. "Well, it sure doesn't help that he's having trouble sleeping,"

All the students turned to him with equal looks of confusion.

"What? Did I say something?"

Kiawe was the first to speak. "No way professor, Ash can sleep anywhere." And it was true. Lillie flashed back to all the times she'd seen Ash passed out. On the floor of Kiawe's barn, on various desks, and even floating out in the ocean. It was safe to say that Ash Ketchum did not have problems sleeping.

"Well, that's news to me," Kukui said, looking around the room. "He's been up pretty late most nights. He watches TV whenever he can't sleep. Although, I wouldn't have pegged Ash to be interested in contests..."

Lillie perked up at that. "Did you say contests? Where?"

Kukui frowned. "On the TV in the living room, didn't I just say...?"