Footsteps. Someone approached, then knocked.

PK’s entire body tingled, and she felt numb. Her chest felt hollow. It was time to have her confrontation. She stood, heard another set of knocking, wondered if he was really so impatient, and then opened the door to find--

Mike.

Mike. Why him? Why Mike?

She went through an entire range of emotions in a split second; from tentative happiness to nervous anticipation and then to crushing disappointment, it was likely that her colors gave her mood away just as well. Or maybe not. Mike seemed overjoyed to see her. No.. that couldn’t be right. Who was ever overjoyed to see her anymore? He was probably happy about some trivial nothing.

“What, you’re not... what are you doing here? What do you want?”

Mike sighed. She knew he couldn’t be that happy to be around, and this confirmed it. “Yeah, it’s still the... same? PK, why are you still black? Are you sick??”

Sick? What a little asshole! And how he insults my looks, too? She glared at him, lip curling. “... I’m just fine, thanks. Did you have business here or not?” She hoped the latter. “There’s about a million things I could be doing--and would rather be doing--besides talking to you.”

He took a step back, holding his sack of mystery goods to his chest tighter. “H-hey, that’s not nice! And you should treat me better than that because I’m at least a customer with a lot of money right here! So let’s make a deal or two.” Mike seemed pretty confident, which was absolutely infuriating. On a whim, she felt the desire to crush that out of him. Whatever happened to Mike while he was out, he seemed to approach PK less carefully. With less reserve. Something changed, and that was unsettling. She didn’t much like it.

Staring him down until his eyes finally broke from her gaze, she allowed herself to look over his leather sack. There was a lot of something in it for sure. But, he never really had much for money. It wasn’t likely he was about to start now. “A lotta money, huh? What type of deal are you trying to pull off, then?”

He allowed his eyes to meet up with hers once more before answering. “Well... this is pretty heavy, so will you let me in your office?” At least he was asking things now, becoming a bit more polite. She decided to humor him.

“Mmmm... fine.” She took a step closer to eliminate the gap between the two. “But let me take a peek first. Gotta make sure you’re not wasting my time. Time’s money and all that jazz.”

His confidence returned. “Okay, look at this!” Mike grabbed into the bag, seemingly at random, and pulled out a large emerald. Perfectly and beautifully cut. Where in the hell did he get such a flawless specimen? It was extremely hard to not gasp at its wonder, but she hid her excitement. A good part of being a merchant was not letting the other guy know you really wanted his stuff. PK was very well practiced in this. Mike scanned her face for any sign of approval. “How’s that for money? Think I can have an audience with you now, YOUR MAJESTY?” And somehow, Mike had gotten the gall to become sarcastic toward her. This was really starting to make her angry, but she hid that, too.

“All right, looks real enough. I’ll have to check them up close for myself too. Now, what exactly are you hoping to... buy? With all those?” She turned around and walked back into her office, having mostly forgotten that she ever wished she had another visitor. It was business time.

Mike followed her in and sat down near what PK deemed the Peon’s Table, for those who were unfortunate enough to have to do business with her. It was tiny and had tiny wooden chairs so most Pokemon would be uncomfortable and want to end business as quickly as possible. Her own chair had padding and a nice backing.
Mike looked through his bag, searching out specific gems. “Okay here, look at these.” He arranged them by color and size, unknowingly just in the way that PK herself would have done it. “Sorry these are so rough, me and Opal couldn’t really cut all of these so fancily, but wait until you see her work!” What...

Who was...

“...Opal?”

“Aha... Opal...” he started, flushing. His tail got brighter as he laughed. “She... ahahaha...” Mike fondled his scarf and looked right into the gem in front of him. He seemed like he wanted to say more, but trailed off, apparently lost in some dumb goofy thought. A big grin appeared on his face as he spaced out.

And this was the tip of the iceberg, what got PK legitimately angry.

“Oh. I see.” She no longer really wanted to be a part of this exchange. “Whatever. Are you going to buy something or are you messing with me?” Best to end it as soon as possible.

“Ah!! Sorry. Okay, look. First off, I wanna say that I brought Opal with me from Gambitville to take up residence with me in Tao Village.... thing is, I know that “residence” isn’t really ours, and it’s just on loan from you. So, the first deal is this.” Mike emptied the entire bag on the table. “All of this to pay off the treehouse.”

Her eyes grew wide for a moment. What did he--

Oh.

He wasn’t around! He wasn’t around to know that she had no part in the treehouse being built! He had no idea that Anana funded it, that Fresnel managed it, that Fresnel paid the workers--

She wanted to laugh. She hoped she didn’t betray her intentions of milking this for its worth. He just made her so incredibly angry, he probably deserved to be toyed with for a while. So she wanted to see what she could do. She turned away from him, tapped her fingers on the desk in a display of mock contemplation. Ohh, this would be beautiful if she pulled it off perfectly. She couldn’t reveal the gag too early, nor too late. It wouldn’t be fun then.

=====

Part 32 of "The Dates"

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