The next day, Litten woke up to text messages, new snaps and posts. He swiped and responded to them as he ate breakfast. After he finished his Tapu Koko Puffs, he walked out the door to catch the bus.

He sat at the back of the bus with his headphones on. Swiping through his text messages, he selected "Eevee" and DM'd her. "What's up?" he wrote. No response came, so he just sat back and relaxed.

When the school bus arrived, Litten walked over to the schoolyard. Eevee was talking with some of her friends. "Hey, um, Eevee, can we talk?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure," Eevee said. "What's going on?"

"Um, why didn't you respond to my DM?" Litten asked.

"I forgot my phone at home," Eevee said. "I was rushing out the door to catch my bus and forgot it. Somehow."

"Oh... I thought you were mad at me or something."

"Why would I be mad at you?" Eevee said, smiling. "You're really nice and unlike some of the other guys doesn't act like he's better than everyone all the time."

"Aw, thanks," Litten said, blushing a little.

"Psst!" he heard from behind him. His blush faded away as he tried to ignore the sounds coming from the bush.

"So, how's AP Art?" Litten asked. "I've never really been good at it...  is it really hard?"

"Sort of," Eevee said. "It's really just about practice and having fun. I really like drawing watercolor paintings of sunsets or moonlit nights."

"That's pretty cool," Litten said.

"LITTEN!" the bush whispered urgently. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?"

"Is the bush talking to you?" Eevee asked, confused.

"Um, hold on for a sec," Litten said. He walked over to the bush. "Rowlet, what are you doing? I'm trying to talk to someone!"

"You haven't really been talking with me or Popplio lately," Rowlet said. "I thought we were a squad."

"We are," Litten said. "I just haven't had much time to talk."

"You have a lot of time to talk to Eevee, or Cyndaquil... what happened? I thought we promised not to be like those guys. To be our own team."

"Well, maybe I'd rather be with Pokémon who are actually cool, and not dweebs," Litten said. "Listen, I'm going to talk to Eevee. You can go do whatever you want somewhere else."

Litten stormed away. Rowlet is so clingy, he thought to himself. I just need some space to myself sometimes. He hurried down the courtyard to find Eevee again.