"Oddly enough, I'd heard of the Growlithe, but not the others."

"I guess you haven't tangled with cops much," laughs Bella.

"Were you previously getting the impression that I had?" he laughs.

"Not a bit. How'd you know about the Growlithe, do you watch those terrible Kanto procedural shows?"

"I have seen one," he says. "I gave up fairly early, but the Growlithe did make an impression."

"They're by far the most charismatic characters. Charlie doesn't watch them, but Renée likes those shows now and again and I can't see the appeal at all."

"I am in your camp on this one."

"I watch tournaments, it's more fun when you can see them instead of just hearing the play-by-play, but otherwise I'm not much of a TV person at all," says Bella. "You've got a nice library, I found it yesterday evening. Helped myself to a copy of The Whispering Trees."

"We have a very nice library," he agrees. "Whispering Trees isn't bad. Have you read it before?"

"I read about two chapters of it once, and then something distracted me, and then I forgot about it. I managed to finish the whole thing last night."

"Congratulations. I hope it was enjoyable."

"Quite. I like old books. Even the weird genre fiction with no Pokémon anywhere. It's like authors a few thousand years ago resented them or something."

"Or something."

"You have a different idea?"

"Some of the imaginary creatures from those old books are... oddly consistent."

"Some of the fictional Pokémon that appear in modern fantasy crop up in a lot of different authors' works, too," Bella points out. "If there's a way to evolve an Eevee into a Spectreon, no one's discovered it yet, but that doesn't stop every hack novelist from giving their special snowflake a way to do it."

"Never mind, then."

"I'm not saying I don't wanna hear your theory, I'm saying whatever your theory is probably isn't the only explanation."

He shrugs uncomfortably.

Aw. She didn't mean to make him uncomfortable.

Well, here they are regardless.

"Sorry," she says after a silence.

"It's fine," he says. "I am frequently reminded that I am oversensitive."

Would he appreciate shoulder-pats? Bella may have one or two or three going spare.