A/N: Told you I was writing a smutty sequel. I can't not. Brownie points to anyone who recognizes the reference in the title!

In terms of writing, the first one was better in pretty much every way, I'm afraid. It's mostly optional reading, although the talk of the two pre-established ships and a few of the throwbacks will seem strange if you don't have that one already read. But at the very least, I like some of the dialogue in this piece, and I'm quite pleased with the peripheral progression of Bianca/Cheren in here, too. (N, why are you so difficult to write? Stop that.)

Also, I'm very sorry Rosa has vanished. I love her, I just couldn't think of a good way to include her in this one. So she's off doing movies, or something.

Also also, I'm not bullshitting at the part where men's semen can taste very different depending on individual. Apparently. I haven't tried, but you know!

"Say, why haven't you told anyone?"

"Told anyone...? About... us, you mean?"

"You didn't tell Rosa," N pointed out helpfully, "or Cheren or Bianca. Were you—"

"No, no, that's kinda normal," Hilda cut in, waving her hand. "People do that sometimes. It's not because I was embarrassed to tell them or— No, just... I wanted to talk about it a little first. How are we, um... going to do this?"

The apparent blip in her train of thought mid-sentence raised a small flag in N's mind. "Were you not?"

She snapped her mouth shut with an audible click of teeth, and then opened it to stutter, "N-No, but it's not what you're thinking. I know how to be embarrassed, and I know when it's happy embarrassment versus not-good embarrassment. Trust me."

He felt he had no choice, knowing he hadn't even realized there could be such a thing as a "happy" version of such an unpleasant emotion. "All right." Pause. "Isn't it characterized by spending a lot of time together, and doing fun things?"

"Well, yeah, that's dating. There's other—" Hilda left a sizable gap between one word and the next, "stuff people do, too. But, I mean... If you don't... um..."

"Hilda," N said when she trailed off hesitantly, nerves twisting weakly in his stomach, "is this really something you're willing to do? I know humans are a monogamous society, but I... I'm afraid the only way I'd be able to give you that normalcy is by redefining the concept. If that isn't acceptable, then please don't force yourse—"

She made a noise of vexation. "Quit being such a martyr all the time." He must have looked taken aback, because she followed up with a hasty explanation. "We both have something to lose here, you know. And we're not going to lose, I promise, so relax. Even if we turn out to be an awkward fit romantically, I don't care, I'll just work even harder." Her eyes flared as she watched him absorb what she'd just said. "I get that you like to figure numbers and be sensible about stuff like this, but I'm pretty sure sensibility has no place between us, you know?"

When she finished, N felt his expression even out despite himself. For once in his life, he prided his new-found ability to link together the concept of not being sensible with his numerically sound ideas, in turn. When he looked at her, he felt love, and that was a very simple and true idea — he didn't know if it was much different from the friendship-love he had felt for pokemon his entire life, and for her back when they were split by ideological differences.

"I won't call it dating, because it's not really dating. It's whatever the hell we decide it will be. See? We don't have to feel cramped by some silly social norms at all," Hilda reassured him.

N chuckled down at his lap, closed his eyes, and smiled, mitigated.

"Want a hug?" She grinned, and his own smile grew.

"I appreciate it, but you don't have to ask me that, Hilda."

"Well, then write something nice about me later, okay?" she said, and curled her arms around him. Feeling her shiver, just once, his nervousness seeped from his shoulders and melted in his lower stomach.

On a certain level, N knew he was not the most socially observant of people. Emotionally, he could certainly claim skill; on a practical level, he was also quite sharp. But when it came to being a social human being in a social human being environment that did not necessarily always involve pokemon, N only took any special interest in Hilda's doings, being one of only a handful of human friends. She enjoyed play with others quite a bit — N learned this when they began to play soccer together, just the two of them, plus a few members of her team and some wild pokemon friends who became curious about his doings.

"You know how to play?" she'd asked him at first.

"I liked sports as a child," he had told her with a small amount of satisfaction. "Even so, kicking a ball around is not difficult."

They could tell anyone else that the games they played were just for fun, but they knew better. N was surprisingly competitive, and didn't let up just because it was Hilda, or just because it was a silly game. Now, it was becoming a frequent engagement for them. She had only beaten him at pokemon-team soccer twice: both times, the games had been extremely close, and she had pulled off a win through mostly luck and quick thinking. She could beat absolutely anyone at a battle if she tried hard enough, he would testify to that, but when some of her pokemon were not all created equal when it came to punting a soccer ball, it could make things difficult.

"It just means we need to compensate for the lack of feet and the surplus of show-offitude," Hilda said with an expansive shrug, perhaps at her own use of such a non-word.

But today, he had a comfortable lead, and it was growing fast. He could tell it was more than Hilda being off her game; it was almost as though she were in a completely different place, and it took the fun out of playing with her. How was it a win if it wasn't even a fair competition in the first place?

Judging from the way she yawned, she hadn't slept well. But that wasn't all: when N had touched her hand while handing the ball to her during a break, she'd jumped like his fingers were soldering irons. She had never reacted that way to his touch before, and it made him worry; some sad part of him ached like a hollow tree at the thought.

He looked up at Hilda as he prepared to kick the ball out, and caught her eyes. She looked so tired, so distracted, he didn't know for sure if she was even seeing him.

"Do you want to continue this some other time?"

N was disappointed, but not surprised, when she hesitated, then nodded. She walked down the gentle curve of the hill while windblown shocks razed up and down the grass. It was easily one of the most wonderful parts of Route 12 during the summer months, but as Hilda bent to take a long swig from her water bottle, he found himself a little distracted, too.

In an uncharacteristic moment, she stumbled while heading back uphill. N reached out reflexively to catch her, pulling her away from her fall path; his hands went to her hips, her face into his neck, and her bare thighs ended up on either side of his leg, the juncture at their apex pressing into his hip.

The water bottle dropped from her hand. N might have assumed it was from the force of his pull if he hadn't spent the next moment with his head buzzing, heat spreading from the points where their bodies touched. In the next moment he could swear he heard her sigh in his ear, and felt her — faintly, indistinctly — rub herself against his hip bone.

But the moment passed, and she pulled back from him. He felt both hot and shockingly cold, suddenly, when she scooped up her bottle from the ground and smiled apologetically up at him — the deceptive sensation, he realized, that only comes from being too hot.

"Sorry," Hilda said, "if you couldn't tell, I didn't sleep well last night. My room was a sauna, and we haven't put the air conditioning in yet. I'll be better tomorrow."

N nodded, throat feeling dry. Hilda smiled, walking carefully to prevent another mishap. It was going to be a long walk home, trying to walk beside her in a way that looked completely casual. Walking was difficult when his awareness was elsewhere on his body from his feet and his center of gravity.

There was only one thing to do in a situation like this.

Hilda ran up the familiar path in Nuvema Town to Bianca's house. She fidgeted as she knocked, called out to let anyone inside know she was here, and pushed to open the front door — this was not a good day, and courtesy used between people who were not practically sisters could bite her for all she cared.

When she walked in, she heard someone in the kitchen. Bianca was making dinner from the sound of it.

"Bianca, I have had the weirdest day, you would not believe," she said, kicking her shoes on the floor mat and chucking her bag on the sofa. "Whatever you're making, I want some, too! I'm hungry. And going crazy. Ugh, I need a date with my vibrator..."

She walked into the kitchen and froze. Standing there with a half-eaten sandwich, eyes wide and in mid-chew, was Cheren. His face was turning some very complicated shades, most of them red.

"Uh. Hi, Cheren," Hilda managed dumbly.

Cheren shook his head. Then, she noticed his appearance: wrinkled clothes, no belt, and an undone tie. In the midst of their awkward staring, Bianca flitted into the kitchen.

"Oh, hi there, Hilda! I thought I heard your voice!" She had a huge smile on her face, and all suspicions of hers were confirmed: Bianca was only ever this perky after sex. Cheren blushed harder upon noticing Hilda piecing his entire afternoon together.

"No," said Hilda, casting Cheren a sideways glance, "nothing all that important."

"I'd better get going. I have a meeting to be at tonight." He rose, and every one of his movements emphasized how uncomfortable the situation was.

"Oh, really? All right." Bianca seemed to deflate a little. "I'll walk you to the door. Be right back, Hilda."

But Hilda knew why. They were teenagers, and best friends, and neither one of them had anyone else to experiment with. Except Bianca — whom Cheren neither wanted to spring such a proposition on for more personal reasons, nor wished to tempt the wrath of her father when he found out her best friend was "taking advantage of" his little girl. Hilda vividly remembered shoving him up against the wall, tugging his pants down, pulling his cock out, and palming him hard on a few occasions.

That was what it had been. Experimentation. Neither of them had told anyone, or they'd have been taken for dating each other, because that was what good little boys and girls did before attempting things like that. But now, what he was doing with Bianca was— different. It wasn't the same thing at all. Everything and nothing had changed between them.

Hilda didn't think Cheren had ever even kissed her on the mouth before, anyway. She tried not to listen as Bianca and Cheren said goodbye, and was leaning against the wall staring at the adjacent counter when Bianca walked back in.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Come on, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about." Hilda's dissatisfied expression had since become a smirk by the time she turned to face Bianca again.

"Oh! Well, you know... um... Cheren was just as surprised as you were!" Bianca dismissed the topic before Hilda could probe deeper, only turning a little pink — far less obnoxiously flushed than Cheren had been. Oh, the things the girls talked about when the boys were away. "Didn't you say something about needing to spend quality time with your vibrator, or something?"

Mortified, Hilda dragged a hand down her face. She had forgotten how good this girl's hearing was.

"Wait, wait, wait a second! Wasn't today another one of your dates with N?" From the look on her friend's face, Bianca had her answer. She giggled, starting to take out cooking utensils from the cabinets. "Hilda, were you naughty with N?!"

"No!" she snapped, feeling a hot stain of shame on her cheeks. "And it wasn't a date!"

"But aren't you guys dating? I thought—"

"We— We are, sort of, but I don't like calling it that, and it wasn't a date."

Bianca made a baffled noise with the back of her throat. Hilda just hung her head a little. "I didn't want to... You know, to seem like I was trying to fit things into a mold. So I don't like calling them dates. He was so sure he couldn't be 'normal' about the whole thing, so I felt really bad about it, and..."

"Ohhh, I get it." She set down the spoon she had pulled on the counter. "So what happened?"

Omitting most of the mundane details, Hilda relayed the events of the day in as abridged and melodramatic of a format as she could manage. "And I had to walk home with him and pretend I didn't know he had a huge hard-on. I thought I was gonna die. I think I might still die."

"Like...?" Bianca arched her eyebrows and held up her index fingers some arbitrary length apart. Hilda sighed, reaching out to pull her hands further apart to match with a touch of embarrassment. She stared at her fingers and the distance between. "Wow."

"Bianca, help, I don't know how to handle this. I mean, it's just— it's N. How do I forget all about this, preferably without laser treatments or psychic mind reorganization?"

She was still gaping at her fingers. "Woooooow."

Hilda grabbed Bianca's wrists and tugged them down, feeling herself flush again. "Focus, damn it!"

"Oh, sorry! I, um—"

"Sweetie, we're home! I'm surprised to see you here," called Bianca's mother from the front hallway. "Didn't you have a field assignment or something with Professor Juniper today? Did that fall through?"

Bianca looked pale. "Oh no! I totally forgot about that! Sorry, Hilda, we'll talk later, okay?" she said as she spun around and hurried to the door, nearly tripping over the rug in the entryway.

"Hey now, don't your parents get a kiss goodbye, at least?" asked her father, with a tinge of petulance. Hilda had always known where this girl had gotten some of her traits and habits from for her entire life, after all, but couldn't help biting her lip knowing about the places Bianca's mouth had probably been in the past hour or so.

This new level of the relationship between her best friends continued on strong throughout the week. Bianca eventually took to sleeping at Cheren's apartment in Aspertia every other night or so, and spent most of her free time there as well. Her house, it seemed, was the one unfortunate exception to the rule made when she'd insisted on bringing him home while her parents were out.

Hilda had always suspected Cheren's feelings for Bianca ran very strongly for a while, even though he'd never have admitted it two years ago, and this just sealed everything. Bianca, on the other hand, seemed no less bubbly at first glance, but Hilda had hardly ever seen her so happy — and Bianca was a happy person by nature. Being with him made her radiate, and if the way Cheren looked at her in passing moments, the way he held her when she would leap to encircle his neck with glee was any indication, he had fallen hard, too.

She was happy for her friends; she just wished sometimes that the things they did together weren't so damn obvious, between Bianca's occasional slip of the tongue and Cheren's inability to conceal juicier details effectively.

When her mind drifted during these little informative sessions with her remaining best friend, she realized that the fact she'd experimented with Cheren in the past scared her far less than the fact she was getting hormonal over N. It wasn't that simple lack of sleep due to the heat was the whole story the other day — it was that Hilda had been kept up all night having to tend to herself just to make her body wind down and cool off to the point of rest, and by then, it had been too late to get any meaningful sleep.

The air in Nimbasa City was a little humid today, too, as Hilda watched Bianca and Cheren play at the air hockey table the pizza place had dragged outside for the summer. She was supposed to be on designated watch duty, so to speak — Bianca had made the very Bianca-like mistake of bringing Cheren back to her house again, and her parents had caught them in a state of half-dress on the couch when they came home early. Now, her father was in the middle of his phase of not allowing them to be alone together anymore. Nobody, including Hilda, seemed to take the pretense seriously, though. Bianca's mother certainly didn't, either.

Now, Hilda and N, who had tentatively agreed to come along, were picking at pizza so bad that she didn't know if she could eat any more as Bianca dragged Cheren around the arcade across the street. After a few bites, she said, "I think the paper plate would taste better than this."

"Unfortunately, I have to agree," N replied with a grimace.

"Someday I'll take you to this really great pizza place in Lacunosa Town. The tiny little hole-in-the-wall places have the best stuff, not this chain crap."

"No more pepperoni, please," he said with a glimmer of shame, "I don't like how hot it is in my mouth."

She shouldn't have done it. She shouldn't have thought it. But Hilda choked on her soda, doing an admirable job of trying to keep it from spilling from her mouth. N politely handed her a wad of napkins; other than her coughing in the aftermath, they were silent after that. Hilda was sure her vision must have been reddening from the rush of blood, or something, because he looked a little flushed suddenly, and there was no way he'd know why she had—

"Heeeeey! Hilda!" called a mousy voice from across the shaded plaza. Apparently, Bianca had finally run down her money. "Can you give me a ride home? Please? I'm gonna be late for another assignment, so I have to fly it... Sorry!"

"Sure," she said, immediately knowing what the blonde meant. "Here. Just send her back to me when you get home, all right?" She dropped her swanna's poke ball into Bianca's waiting palm, flashing her a grin.

"Ooh, thank you! I'll take good care of her!"

As his girlfriend took to the skies, Cheren dropped heavily into the slender metal chair beside Hilda. "Long day?" she asked, patting his back as he folded his arms onto the table.

"I think I'm in trouble."

"Daddy doesn't approve of you with his baby girl yet?" she teased. When he didn't answer, she jabbed him lightly in the arm. "Snap out of it before I kick you in the shin. Jeez." Still met with silence, she added, "Come on, the sex can't be that great."

Much like she'd done just a few minutes ago, Cheren choked, except he hadn't the excuse of drinking something to attribute it to.

"You know, Cheren, if you're worried about that, just get it out of your system before you go to her house, or something. You're the one with better self-discipline than her, after all. I don't know, do it an extra time before you leave in the morning or something."

"That's not going to happen right now," he said carefully, in a tone Hilda would understand. "I never realized what kinds of problems came from being with your childhood friend, not until it actually happened."

Hilda giggled. "Oh, I get it. You're holding out on her, aren't you?"

"What?"

"Thought so. How does that work now? When you sleep, I mean."

"...I sleep on the floor. Why does that matter?"

Hilda paused, took a moment to register the thought, and then burst out laughing. Cheren looked positively scandalized.

"—What?!" he snapped, startled.

"It's your apartment, and on top of that, I'm pretty sure your parents wouldn't give a damn who you or Bianca were fucking, if not each other," she said. His face transitioned into red from its original pink. "And yet you sleep on the floor."

"I did it of my own volition. You think that's funny?"

"Are you kidding me? I think it's hilarious."

Cheren was about to give a mixed reply, from the looks of things, when N stood up suddenly. Hilda's heart slumped in her chest. He had been looking a little spacey just now, but...

"Sorry," he said tersely. "Excuse me."

"Did I say something?" Hilda blurted out as she watched him from behind.

"No." His reply was softer this time, and if she didn't know better, sounded amazingly troubled.

Cheren seized his chance when N was out of earshot. Some habits died hard, even when you were almost too exhausted to deadpan. "If you didn't say something, then you must have done something. Or didn't do something."

"Look who's talking. I'm not the one getting sex dangled in front of me on a super rod, only to be yanked away. Jerk."

Finally, he smiled, letting himself utter a breathy laugh. "Growing up is hard. I suppose hormones don't help that any, do they?"

Hilda raised her eyes from the table to meet his slate-gray, finding an element of pride there. She'd never seen it there before, not even when he had finally decided what strength really meant to him. "Couldn't have said it better myself."

"That bored, huh? Looking for a Ferris wheel ride?" Hilda inquired from just beyond N's shoulder. There were few other places in Nimbasa City he seemed truly interested in otherwise, after all.

"Oh, please! I love the Ferris wheel. It's much better than idling around like we were."

He probably didn't mean it that way, but she smiled at how blunt he'd sounded. "Okay, let's go! You picked a good time; the line's deserted at this hour because it's lunchtime."

Sure enough, the attendant stood alone at the front of the loading platform, and ushered them on with little trouble. Hilda looked out over the sea of trees and the eye-catching colors that swam in the city below, trying to think of a way to cheer him up.

As it turned out, N beat her to it, sensing her dilemma in her awkward silence. "It's funny... I could probably explain exactly how this Ferris wheel works based on physics, but I can't explain so many things that others find so simple."

"You don't have to explain them, N," Hilda said with a sympathetic smile, "you just have to do them, and then they find ways of making their own sense. Sometimes you can't explain things, and that's okay."

On the window's reflection, N's expression changed for just a moment, like something in his soul had budged a little. Perhaps catching the gem-like gaze following his own, he turned his face straight across to her. When their eyes finally met in the middle, tension started mounting in her stomach, the hot sensation curling in shapes that felt a lot like perpetual motion curlicues.

"However, I find it much easier to adjust when I'm with you," N said, and the spring coiled tighter in Hilda's gut. The heat spread across her skin, quick like lightning.

Well, he did tell me not to ask to do stuff like hug him, so maybe... I won't have to for this, either...

"I feel the same way," she said, and with no other preamble, leaned slowly across the Ferris wheel car to kiss him.

The gesture evolved a bit differently than she'd intended. Instead of a chaste kiss, N let Hilda push him backwards with more enthusiasm than she was expecting of herself, the car rocking in response to her sudden movement. She parted from his lips and hooked a finger into the collar of his shirt, running her finger down his breastbone while her breath ghosted across his neck. The look on his face, the gleam in his eyes, the way he swallowed hard all screamed to her that he was trying very hard not to say something.

Eventually, he succumbed to spontaneity, and leaned up to kiss her along her jaw and her neck. But Hilda felt very little lustful in those kisses — they were the work of pure, idle love. He called her name, just once, and fell back against the curved wall again, gripping her arms with a conflicted look on his face.

Suddenly, with upsetting force, she realized that she may have been barking up the wrong tree. It was all very endearing of him, but at the same time, it made her want to bury her face in her hands and cry, because she knew then that the thought couldn't have crossed his mind. Innocence was as terrifying as it was beautiful, as painful as it was blissful.

He probably didn't even know what she was doing in the first place. She should have stopped in mid-turn, should have exercised some goddamn self-restraint, should have—

"...Sorry. Let's stop."

It was too late for that now. Hilda wondered if she could really love him the way he loved her — with absolute security, with no shame at all. With innocence shining in gray eyes that shone for little else. He loved the way they did in legend, the way the compassionate king of ancient Unova might have once upon a time, when he fell for the common woman — endlessly. She didn't know if she was capable of loving like that. She was not the stuff of fairy tales. She was just a girl with human hormones and human desires and human lust, and he was not.

N mouthed a weak "okay".

"They might kick us off if we shake the car too much, anyway..."

After that, Hilda could think of nothing else to say to him for the rest of the ride.

He came calling at her house to find the front door slightly ajar on a day when the outside felt like room temperature, her frisky little whimsicott being the one to hang on the knob and welcome him in.

"Mom, I need more flour," Hilda called from the kitchen. She was wearing an apron and mixing something in a bowl. "Where do we keep— Oh, hi, I guess you're not my mom!"

"Sorry," he said with an unapologetic, if thin, smile.

"No, but you might be if this doesn't come out right. I was just experimenting. You know. Science. Edible science." She waved a mago berry at him from afar; there was also a small collection of figy and iapapa berries on the counter. He glanced at the berries, dubious knowing their peculiar flavor properties, but said nothing. "Go sit down, I'll bring you something to drink in a second. Silly question, but do you like soda at all?"

"Not especially," N answered.

"I kind of thought as much. Is water okay?"

"...That's fine." For some reason, his reply sounded raspy, but it could've easily been thirst scraping at his voice.

Hilda appeared in the doorway after a moment holding two glasses of iced water as N was examining the magazines and books scattered on the coffee table. She set them down, condensation and all, not caring much what the ultimate fate of her mother's Good Housekeeping and Pokemon Fancy issues would be when new ones were coming in a week anyway, and then sat on the couch, scooting very close to N.

"Hilda..." he said awkwardly.

"Sorry, I like this side better." The explanation sounded stupid, and she knew it, so she eased away after a moment of tense consideration, and they looked at each other — suddenly, the awkwardness was back again, muffling like burying one's head under a heavy bed comforter. She felt it start, felt the telling kick in her bloodstream slowly accelerate her pulse.

N didn't know what to say, judging by his silence. Hilda didn't, either, and she had her shoulders pointed forward in that way she did when she was trying to feign coolness. The proof was fluorescent underneath her skin.

"Hey," she blurted suddenly, "this is going to sound stupid, but come upstairs with me," and something tingly ran down her spine as the words left her mouth. It sounded less entreaty than command.

"Didn't you just put water down?" he asked, in a way she couldn't be sure wasn't suspicion.

"I want to show you my room," she lied, feeling ridiculous now. Hilda was built for many things — athletics, pokemon battling, boundless sympathy — but lying to someone's face was not one of them. "Come on," she said again.

When N hesitated for a long, long moment, Hilda made an indistinct sound that foreshadowed what she was about to do next — she scooped him up off the couch, the princess carrying the object of her quest in a role-reversal fairy tale of her very own.

"Wait!" he yelped. "I can do it myself—"

"You sure didn't seem to think so a second ago. Make up your mind!" She didn't seem very angry, though, holding back laughter the whole time. In a display of freakish upper body strength, Hilda carried N the entire way up the stairs and dumped him onto her bed. He sputtered a few incoherent syllables — N, who had never had any trouble speaking clearly and smoothly, if at a rapid-fire pace, had been reduced to this. She laughed hysterically, collapsing on the bed, and through his initial sense of humiliation, he had to laugh with her.

"N," Hilda said suddenly, when they had calmed down, "have I been making you uncomfortable?"

"I don't know what you mean," he murmured, but faltered halfway through. N wasn't built for lying, either, which made her feel a little better. Just a little.

"I mean," she starts, and pauses to sort her mind out, "what's been happening... with us... lately. I think it might be my fault."

He wound his hands into her hair, fingers trembling. "I don't think there's anything to be at fault for, but if something's bothering you, please tell me."

All the words she'd wanted to say, every excuse and apology she had rehearsed, piled up together on her tongue. Hilda decided she was losing it when she said, "I— I don't even know if you'll follow, but I'll say it anyway, because I'll feel better." She ground her teeth, continuing in only a few breaths. "I want more. I want to— ugh, I just want to screw you silly, and it's killing me! But I don't want to be a jerk about it, so I've been trying really hard not to bring it up, because I was afraid you wouldn't like it, or wouldn't know what the hell I was even talking about! Jeez, do you have any idea what I want to do to you?" A hand ran through her thick hair frustratedly. "I get kept up at night because I try to go through all of it in my head, all for things that I don't have the guts to initiate, or to even bring up! You don't even seem affected, it'd surprise me if you even knew what I meant when I said I wanted to screw you, and this sucks—"

N let out a bewildered, "I'm sorry."

"It almost makes me nervous," she said, strained, "I can't even tell what counts as an okay to hold hands or to push you into a wall and screw you, and I don't know how to deal with it!"

"I know. I'm sorry, Hilda," he repeated. Suddenly, Hilda's mouth closed, then opened, then closed again.

"—Wait, come again? You know?"

"Hilda... So many things were purposely kept from me, including the subject of sexuality. But time has been teaching me those things, slowly but surely. It's something I've only begun to learn about in the past two years." The hurt tone of N's voice made Hilda's heart ache. And her crotch, too. "I'm afraid I don't know much. I think love is very easy. It's just expressing it the way everyone else knows how to that is the hard part. I— my body knows, but it only ever wants more without allowing my mind to catch up. And," he swallowed, "that scares me, a little. I don't understand it."

"No, I'm sorry... This was terrible of me to spring on you. We don't have t—"

N grabbed her shoulders as she started to rise. "Don't," he pleaded, "I don't want you to leave. I will try, it's just— it's so hard to think, and I can't stand not being able to."

By the time his words registered, N had turned his head to the side with shame, but Hilda's worries were instantly exiled to the back corners of her mind. He was just nervous and unsure, that was all. It was like a boy hitting adolescence after he'd been told and educated in the most sterile and objective ways about what was going to happen to him, but never taught how to handle it, or why. What he thought was a unique problem to him was in fact something Hilda knew well, too. He must have always known, in his objectively-emotional way, and she felt guilty for ever thinking he didn't.

"You knew the whole time that it was sexual," she pointed out dumbly, mostly for her own benefit.

"Somehow."

Hilda found herself manifesting a full-body flush at his answer. She pinched the bridge of her nose, and when her head tilted back, she saw him looking as nervous now as the time he'd found her reading his every inner though and wish of his from the last few weeks. "Mmmm, okay. What do you want to do, N?"

"I..." he breathed, hanging on the unspoken wish, "I don't know, but today, for now, I want— I want you." He sucked in a breath, hard enough that the air whistled through his teeth, and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her body up against his to emphasize the point. She tensed with anticipation, but did not otherwise move. "I just don't trust myself. I don't trust myself to be able to verbalize it, or to do the right thing when it comes to this. It may sound pitiful to you, but please, help me figure it out, Hilda."

"I trust you, though," she whispered. In the moments she could read him like a book, it only took a little skimming to cause him to open up for deeper reading.

N's reply was slow and full of wonder. "You... trust me."

"You know, when it comes to this kind of thing, there's a secret to it—" She leaned to kiss him slowly, almost like it was the first time again, and he kissed her back; his hands were warm on her bare arms when he reached to grab them, and she wanted to feel more. Hilda pulled his hat off and tossed it aside so she could slide her fingers through his hair, loving that the length could lend itself to such romantic purposes. "—Don't think. Period. Think with your body, not your mind, and you'll figure it out. Probably."

She took the lead, kissing his lips, his cheek, his ears, and down his neck, every one making small shivers quake in N. "Probably?" he questioned, although he seemed much more pacified than before.

When Hilda reached for the hem of his shirt, straddling his thighs, a sound like a door closing caught her ear. Thinking it must have been her whimsicott downstairs, trying mischievously to open the fridge again, she ignored it in favor of the more enjoyable pursuit in front of her. "You'll just have to try it and find out," she chuckled, sliding a hand under his shirt and lifting...

Then, the door to her room opened.

"...Oh, whoopsie! I'll just leave you two alone, then."

N flinched; less because of the idea they'd been caught than the wail that left Hilda's lips immediately following.

"Mooooooooooom!"

Today had been a long day. Far longer than any day she ever remembered ever having. Not even the past few days could top this one.

Hilda was sick of personal misunderstandings, sick of being walked in on, sick of being taunted by the notion her best friends were getting some right now, somewhere in Unova, and she wasn't. So it came as no surprise that that night was a night Hilda reserved exclusively for Hilda. It seemed like ages since the last time she'd had a satisfying anything when it came to her own sexuality, and after taking a nice, warm bath early in the evening and detaching from the world around her, it was her business to do what she liked. She'd tried to track down N again later that afternoon, but he must have made himself scarce on purpose, and she figured she'd give him time to recuperate after... that.

Her bag, dropped without care at the foot of her bed, and the furniture that had been in her room since she was a baby was all that was there to keep her company. For tonight, she thought, it would be perfectly fine. Masturbation in her childhood bedroom didn't feel nearly as weird as sex with someone else in her childhood bedroom, anyway, or so she justified.

Stupid me. I should've learned from Bianca's misfortune, but noooooo, of course not...

Opening the window halfway to get some air and prevent her room from smelling like girl juices in the hours after, Hilda swiped her vibrator furiously out of her nightstand drawer and dropped onto her bed covers, letting herself relax into her pillow as she flipped the switch.

There was something there that made her skin feel hotter, made her clit feel more sensitive, made the euphoria feel more intense than usual. The sounds of N's voice, rather than the sounds of her toy buzzing and slipping up and down wet flesh, filled her hearing tonight. What they had talked about earlier that day still lingered in her mind — in retrospect, N admitting that he wanted her was one of the most erotic things she'd ever heard that gentle voice utter. On purpose, for that matter. It was gross. Gross, and really hot in retrospect.

She knew, from a second-hand perspective, what sex was like. Books said things, but people gave better accounts, and Hilda was guilty of having privately talked about her curiosities with Cynthia, one summer day at her villa — it turned out the champion of Sinnoh was surprisingly adventurous. Now, though, she didn't even need to simulate it in her head; just thinking of how things were right then, how they had been about to do it, how N wanted her, and how things might play out tomorrow. Or the next day. Hopefully no later.

Close to the end, her mind stopped thinking in words and began to function only in senses, playing ideal scenes in her head like a film she couldn't control. When Hilda came, her vision turned white, and her skin to a layer of static electricity — the sensation sparked off a second time when she found herself orgasming twice in a row, having needed that badly to find an outlet for all her excess sexual energy. It was the hardest she remembered coming in a long time, and she could feel a puddle dripping down to the sheets beneath her.

Before she could even think of changing her bedding or turning off her vibrator, she heard the sound of tremoring breaths, and then of footsteps hurrying downstairs and out the door.

When N felt himself yanked off the street of Accumula Town, practically off his feet, into the pokemon center, and up the stairs to the hostel rooms, his heart rate skyrocketed into overdrive, far ahead of his mind. All at once, he was very aware of Hilda's hand on his thigh, her breast pressed into his upper arm, and the events of yesterday putting pressure on his human instincts.

"You could have come in, you total idiot." She kissed him without waiting for an answer, standing on tiptoe so her lips could pry at his insistently.

"Wait," N protested against her mouth after she relinquished him briefly, "not like this—"

"Yes, like this." He found his answer more in her intense look than her words. "Do you trust me?"

N realized he didn't even know where to put his hands, fumbling them against Hilda's sides and letting out an almost embarrassing whimper when her hips pressed against him, encouraging an arousal from him. "I— I trust you... But can't you slow down?"

"Maybe later," she said in a conceding tone, as if she were only agreeing to calm a spoiled child. "But right now, hard, and fast, and until I see stars. A little of your way, a little of my way. Deal?"

Her short form fit the contours of his body so well, too well, as she clutched him tight Hilda had already gotten his zipper down, curling her fingers around his crotch and cupping his balls in a way that made him groan embarrassingly. N felt his eyes rolling back and nodded. "Later — later's fine," he managed, "if there is a next time."

"I think you're going to want a next time." Hilda's voice was softer this time, but in such close proximity to his earlobe that a full-body shiver assailed him. The thought of her taking him for such a rough, carnal ride was so foreign, so absurd... so...

Suddenly, N was feeling disturbingly speculative. As far as these things went, he wasn't sure yet if it was even the right thing to be doing at all. It went against everything in his being to rush, to grab, to rut, and yet Hilda was doing everything in her power to change that. She swung him around into the nearest open room and slammed him so hard that he feared the wall might give. Dimly, he reached behind them for the door, felt it clumsily, and forced it shut.

He needed to do something with his hands, that he was sure of, but they wouldn't move. He was almost afraid of the amount of pleasure touching her would incur on both of them, and it shouldn't have surprised him so much when Hilda noticed.

"Come on, N," she demanded, "remember what I told you about just doing things instead of thinking about them, and that they'd find a way to make sense anyway?"

The question pulled him from his shock. N was losing whole seconds, consciousness resurfacing periodically to allow him to assess the situation, then relapsing again when he felt that Hilda had pulled the hem of his shirt up to his navel and was twiddling with his belt, awaiting some sort of reaction. It was like drowning, fighting in and out of deep water.

His rational mind told him that this could not be happening. His rational mind was beginning to doubt his ability to tough it out through the entire process. His rational mind also reminded him, somewhere beyond himself, that Hilda had told him about how not thinking was essentially the very idea behind some things people did.

Of course, where she was concerned, his rational mind had accomplished little but overthinking everything to do with her anyway. Unlike all other humans he had ever met, he couldn't sum her up in three sentences or less.

So, for once in his life, he surrendered to the idea that sense would come later rather than sooner. In so doing, he remembered the first time he'd ever felt the slow-burn of desire like that, how it had happened long after he had begun to lose faith that their journey compasses would lead to each other again.

"Thank you," he gasped.

"What?" her voice broke raggedly.

"Finally," was what N breathed against her forehead as he started walking them both back towards the bed, like the whole world had suddenly became a little bit brighter for him, "finally, finally."

He could hear her laughing into the crook of his neck, giddy. "You've given enough. It's time to start taking where you're due." Hilda reared back, taking N by the shoulders and whirling him in a half-circle so he was facing away from her, and then leaned her weight into him, forcing him to fold halfway over the mattress. "Okay, changed my mind," she said with a devious grin in her voice that N heard more than saw, "I wanna take it slow after all."

N stiffened against her, feeling the muscles in his back freeze at having her pushed up behind him. The crush wasn't as uncomfortable as the position itself would become after too long, but it was certainly—

"Ohh," was all he could manage as her hands had found their way inside his pants and squeezed, while what had once been the ending to his previous thought fluttered out his mental window. The texture, the weight, the warmth of something so uniquely human touching him like that streaked straight to his core. Her free hand tangled thickly in his hair, brushing it away to reveal the back of his neck; when she planted a kiss there, he shuddered.

It was a type of human fulfillment, he realized as coherent thought started to get increasingly difficult, and that was not something any number of friendships with pokemon could provide him with. His heart was so full it ached a little.

...Things really did become simpler when N began answering to his body's questions rather than his mind's.

Hilda held him fast, dropping his pants to his knees, then gliding a hand up his abdomen and beneath his shirt as she started whispering in his ear. "Have you ever touched yourself... right here...?" she asked in a hushed voice, just as she rubbed quick and rough a few times to send him reeling. The small few callouses on her hand, the difference in texture and feel between one part and another, just made it better.

She probably didn't expect an answer, but she got one; N took one shaky hand and covered Hilda's with it, to respond where he didn't trust himself to verbally. He was arching under her like a bridge, and had grabbed a fistful of the bed comforter with his remaining hand to brace himself as well as he could. His knees felt unsteady; it took all of the mental and physical fortitude he had not to collapse bonelessly onto the floor with the pleasure, especially when she was not supporting the weight of both of them.

"Hil—" was the beginning syllable to what he originally hoped was going to be a complaint about the position; even N wasn't sure what would leave his mouth if he tried anymore. Fortunately, Hilda's thoughts must have fallen parallel to his at exactly the same time, because she spun him again and dropped him onto the bed, where he fell with so little resistance that the mattress bounced with him. He lay still, watching her throw a leg across his lap — at first, the flood of anticipation pooled when he thought she had had enough of taking it slow after all, but Hilda settled on his knees instead and inclined her head to say something.

"Maybe this sounds stupid, but I've always wanted to try this." With a playful, mischievous smile, she lowered her head fearlessly to his cock — and the first thing she did was a hard suck, causing him to cry out with embarrassing fervor. This turned into an unpredictable, varying pattern of fast pistoning sensations and slow little licks and touches as Hilda experimented, a girl with a new toy she just had to get the most out of on the first try.

Despite not feeling like her first experience, judging by how quickly she'd jumped him down her throat, Hilda must not have done it often, judging by the way her mouth's movements seemed chaotic, without any set rhythm to them. Or maybe that was just impatience. Yet, Hilda managed to make up for the lack of polish on her technique with sheer enthusiasm, and soon, the dual stimuli of feeling what she was doing to him and watching her face as she did it made him wonder, like watching through foggy glass, just how much longer he could hold on.

It turned out that wasn't very long at all, as N went over the edge suddenly with a broken shout, the current that had been pressing at him from the instant she'd pinned him against the wall flowing through towards something inside him and all around him at once. Hilda looked pleased, if a little startled at the sudden, violent orgasm he'd had, and let him ride out and settle down, until he had stopped shaking enough to carry a conversation.

"That didn't taste too bad," she remarked, mostly to herself. In the aftermath, N's hearing and comprehension were both still a little cottony. "Not like before..."

"What...?"

"I said," Hilda struck him with her level expression, "can you take the lead now?"

He was sure she didn't say that the first time she spoke. Throat closing with embarrassment, N still sounded hoarse when he uttered "Can I?" in return, more to question himself than anything else.

"You're patient. You're too patient. I think I might go crazy if you don't touch me already." He knew that gaze she was giving him — it was about to become a challenge. "We're a little uneven here. Can you fix that?" Hilda was encouraging him to meet her halfway, a completely reasonable request.

Fighting the iron ball of anxiety rolling around in his stomach, N sat up as Hilda helped him swap places with her, and she seemed almost proud of how fast he started to assess the situation. He was finally getting it, finally getting that she'd unbuttoned and unzipped her own shorts, that her shirt was only loosely tucked today, that she chose not to wear her hat or vest on purpose. He reached behind her to slide the elastic out of her ponytail, gratified, and she shivered delightedly.

"Oh, I think I could get used to you doing that..."

N smiled, but still didn't actually know what to expect from himself. He barely expected his own hands to move, first up her thighs and then along her stomach to nudge her shirt up, and certainly didn't expect them to help her out of her shorts, and, and— he started dropping kisses along her thigh before he reached her panties, wondering how long it was going to take for either of them to come undone first. Her from sexual tension, and him from sheer nervousness.

Despite positively radiating with want from the core outwards, Hilda remained patient, letting him muster the courage and get a feel for what he was doing. He finally pressed a kiss against the swell of her, and she made a noise that sounded close enough like pleasure to him.

As he removed her panties, making them essentially even in terms of dress, N fought the urge to tell her about everything he was feeling; but even if he were to open his mouth to speak, the words would evaporate, and he would be forced to fall back on the principle he relied on in this moment, of actions speaking louder. There was an uncomfortable pause, during which Hilda started to slowly part her lips as though to say something, but she shut it swiftly when his mouth pressed against her, and the entire range of human emotions crossed her face at once. For just that one moment, even, N felt it was a worthwhile venture.

He was careful at first, like she was going to shove him away and yell at him any time now, but as time passed and whimpers and moans were drawn from her, he grew bolder. It made her smile through the pleasurable haze, because once the cautious stage passed, he was very curious. He licked inside of her, came back out to tease along the fragile skin meeting her thigh, ran his tongue along her folds like he was playing a game.

It wasn't such a bad thing to do something like this, N thought, not when he gave Hilda's clit a little lick — not more than a flick of his tongue at best — and she bit her lip and came hard.

He must have been smirking when Hilda finally came down enough to glance at him with eyes gradually coming back into focus. "Who... Who the hell did you pick that up from...?"

N covered his mouth as though to hide his strange, almost indistinguishable brand of sarcasm. "Have you never seen your own smile before? You're quite expressive."

"What if I meant the sex?"

"It's not difficult to find resources on anatomy and the sexual response cycle," he said in a light tone most people reserved for discussing things like how the weather was that day.

"You're too smug about this," she said, rolling her eyes and pulling him up for a kiss. She tasted herself on his tongue, and he pressed against her and rubbed into the crook of her thigh, only to whimper into her mouth.

"I'm just... glad..."

They were equals on this ground now, he concluded with no small amount of pride and satisfaction. Right after the thought had lodged itself in his mind, he took her shoulders from under her and flipped them back the way they had started, with Hilda on top.

"—Jeez, you're stronger than you look," she marveled.

"So are you," N commented back, recalling the princess-carrying incident. "By the way," he added with a revealing pause, "do you suppose it's 'later' now?"

"Later? You mean— Oh." Hilda grinned, mischievous and brilliant at him. "Well, I wound up reversing the order, but I did say we could do both..."

Of all the things N didn't understand yet, he thought he had found something that he'd learned to understand now, just a little.