“Boss! Hey, wait up!” The words rang out as Guzma had one foot out the doorway, and he frowned down at his shoes. Now what? There was a slight chance this was actual business, but with the way the past couple weeks had been going, he doubted it. Nothing but reports of the island challenge brats thrashing his grunts, and shit from Lusamine. Hell, for all he knew one of those fucked up things she was chasing finally got her. So when that voice called out after him, suffice to say he wasn't exactly excited. The white haired man turned with a grimace, and crossed his arms firmly across his chest. “What?”

It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement. What he found behind him was a female grunt wavering back and forth. She paused for a moment before pulling her bandana down to reveal her mouth. “Uh, boss... I was wondering if you would care to join me and some of the other female grunts for dinner. And then after we could, you know, go back to your room or something...”

Guzma froze. At this distance all he could see were her eyes, blue rimmed with a thick coating of black. Mascara coated her short lashes, which fluttered twice under his gaze. For a second he imagined a circle of white around those wide eyes, and then killed the thought with a sharp shake of his head. He could practically feel his tongue stumbling over itself as he tried to process what the girl was asking, let alone respond to it. The Team Skull leader covered the waver in his voice with a low grumbling “No,” and then whether in an attempt to make her feel better or himself, he wasn't sure, gave a sort of rambling explanation. “I have better things to do... I mean, I'm busy. You can't just expect me to... Argh!”

That was going to have to do, because there was no way in hell he was going to come up with anything more coherent. In an attempt to rid himself of the creeping heat he felt rising up his neck, he stalked down the hallway, past a group of giggling grunts who had been waiting outside, and into his room. The white haired man let out a sigh of relief as the door slammed behind him, and threw himself face-first down onto the bed. What the hell was going on? He couldn't even rely on his own people anymore. This wasn't the first time one of the female grunts had approached him like this. Even though his gut response had been a sharp “No,” he had felt quite elated. After all, that was the Team Skull way. But at this point it was starting to get to him, especially some of the more daring requests.

One of the more senior grunts had cut the back of her shirt and then sliced delicate strips into the fabric. She had then walked into his room while he was counting what (measly, miserable,) amount of money they had, and asked him if he could please tie the strips together, since she couldn't reach them. The sight of her full breasts peeking from the low cut armholes, and the way she leaned back into him and winked when he begun the task all but erased the words from his mind. Guzma found himself tying soft strips of her shirts together over her bare back, cursing internally each time his clumsy fingers brushed over her warm skin. Frustrated, he pulled tight at one of the knots and she giggled and chastised him. “Not too hard, Boss!” Plumeria had teased him incessantly after that one, and he had struggled to get the sight of her breasts bouncing as she thanked him from his mind for weeks.

The beleaguered Skull boss groaned and rolled over in bed, smashing a pillow over his face. Why the fuck couldn't he just be normal? No one else had these problems...right? He thought for a moment and then reached for the cardboard box that was serving as his night stand. There were a bunch of a magazines they'd ripped off from one of the pokecenters. Surely one of them would cover his this. The white haired man flipped past Pokemon Weekly, Kanto Exports, and PokeRide Travel Destinations until finding what he was looking for. Pokemen. And there it was, on the front cover,* How to talk to women*.