Hero of Kalos

"You say that like half the city would not immediately try to make it fashionable." His fingers curled gently around hers as his face lit up in stark amusement. "Though I admit, the mental image of you trying to glare down reporters while your hair refuses to cooperate is almost worth the risk."

The amusement in his expression deepened at her mention of headlines. Adam could practically see them splashed across magazines and gossip sites alike, exaggerated beyond all reason. His nose wrinkled faintly in mock horror.

"Please." he replied, lifting their joined hands slightly. "I am well aware how wild the speculation can be. Showing up disheveled would only encourage them.” Another quiet chuckle left him, softer this time. "And if anyone caught me in sleep clothes, every rival designer in Kalos would file a formal complaint on the spot."

For a heartbeat longer, he simply looked at her - sunlight catching at the edges of her features, laughter still lingering in the air between them. Then, with reluctant amusement, he inclined his head toward the bedroom.

He is right—she knows that. Claims of influence and mimicry that stems from existence alone, and an inability to care about making deliberate statements rooted in appearances. There would be, she argues, no better person in the region to know how one change in her style could bring about a much welcome or minorly hair-pulling shift in trends. And so she offers him a grin, a gentle squeeze of their hands. The lifting of the tops of cheeks towards warm and grey eyes that remain resting upon his features.

“It does give us time,” She says, “I think the last thing either of us need is any more stress than what is already waiting at work.”

Perhaps her unintentional shifts in fashion paradigms have not been too much of a headache, given how he looks at her. How she has remained for years a muse of his. How his store stands tall with his name in the face of boutiques full of exorbitant prices attached to lacklustre quality, rather than windows of vacant and distant memories.

“…Although, personally, I’d like to think that if you were to be caught in sleepwear, it would send all of the designers in the region into a panic. Afraid that maybe you had caught onto the start of a trend that they hadn’t noticed.”

There is a reluctance in the way that hands slip away from his, and yet no other moment seems the most opportune to—that could placate the cold that washes over fingers and palms, in the air that comes between them as Serena takes a step back. A glance tosses itself over her shoulder—to where the hallway rests, just as it had been this morning. As it had been last night, only more familiar. And with hesitance in the most minute details of movement does the heroine make her way back over to it, stopping only to look back to Adam.

sunset version <3

(sunset alt version below)

"Everyone's like 'I think Lysandre's still alive' this and 'I think I recognize the logo on the coffee truck baristas' aprons' that. Are Kalosians usually making weird conspiracy theories?"

"...It's no secret that, since the incident with Team Flare, the people of Kalos have become somewhat hypervigilant and even more distrustful of large corporations—or itching to be the next 'Hero of Kalos'—, but..."

A hand lifts to her lips, pressing against them, hiding behind fingers a line both tight and twitching.

"Well... How do I put this..."

Who is going to tell her.

Collection X Packaging (2013)

Artist: 5ban Graphics

Her comment about Armand earned a low laugh from him, his gaze flickering toward the massive Charizard in the distance before returning squarely to her.

"I will be sure to remind him of that." He murmured, amusement warming the words. "Though I think his ego would take the bruise worse than you would."

Their joined hands swayed once more before Adam stepped closer again, reluctant to allow even that small distance between them. His forehead tipped lightly against hers, eyes lowering shut for a fleeting moment as though savoring the simple nearness of her.

"You trusting us means more than you know." He admitted quietly. "And for what it’s worth, neither of us would let anything happen to you. Armand already likes you more than most people he tolerates. The pancakes probably sealed your fate."

There was fondness folded carefully into every word, into every touch he gave her. The sort that rooted deep and settled there comfortably, as natural as breathing. When he looked at her again, there was something steadier behind his expression - something warm with the thought she’d left lingering between them. Somewhere his. Somewhere theirs.

That smile so close to her lips, hearing how her trust is mirrored in kind alongside comfort and faith. Serena cannot help but to lean in— to steal a kiss, fleeting and soft and sweet.

"If you think that will make things easier," A moment for them to breathe, to process. To not stand the frame of the doorway to his bedroom or the bathroom, insisting the other go before them and that they could wait. "It would give me time to get changed."

A thumb traces itself over the back of his hand, the action slow and light, as though any less delicate and the moment might shatter— that she would find herself alone in her bed, the morning and night before the cruellest of nightmares veiled as a dream. Laughter falls from her lips, clinging to the air and vanishing into it in equal parts.

"I'm not sure about you, but I certainly wouldn't want to risk being seen soaring through the skies in my pyjamas. Worse, with bed hair."

A horrifying though, indeed. The photos, the whispers, and worse still, that it might spark some woeful trend, inexorably tied to the woman's name, her very being. One the heroine knows, for each day of its existence, would chip away at the ends of Adam's mind, and that of other designers under his employment. Silence follows— steady and warm as the sunlight filtering through the apartment windows, that spills from countertops and pools on the kitchen floor. Then, the light scrunching of her brow and nose.