One sentence from Baimu made his hair stand on end.
Soul?
What soul?
Could this guy possibly—
As his thoughts raced, he tried to say something, only to find Pheobe already leaning in. "Sorry, let me take a closer look." She rose onto her toes and examined his eyes from an extremely close distance, almost face-to-face, close enough for him to feel their breath mingling between their noses.
It lasted an incredibly short time, perhaps only two seconds.
After Baimu frowned and retreated two steps to create some distance, Pheobe lowered her heels as well. Her brows were filled with amusement and curiosity.
"Hmm~ I knew I hadn't seen wrong. Your soul—like a snow mountain, it shines with silver light while gathering a blue color like a halo around the sun. It's truly special and beautiful~ What's your name?"
Just then.
Poppy, who was standing behind her, greeted him first.
"Baimu!"
"...Elite Four Poppy."
Baimu's brows relaxed slightly. He quickly nodded to her in greeting, feeling relieved inside.
Although the two selves had long since merged into one and become indistinguishable, and although something as strange as awakened memories from a past life might have happened, hearing such a statement so suddenly had still given him quite a scare.
Fortunately, he had merely been overthinking things.
When Pheobe heard his name, the curiosity on her face quickly turned into delight. "So you're Baimu! Steven always mentions you to me~"
Steven! Just how many people have you talked to about me?
You're way too talkative!
Baimu's thoughts churned nonstop. He had never expected that Pheobe, who had the mature-woman style in Pokémon Adventures, would seem so "young" in the anime setting.
His gaze then fell on the supervisor standing at the very back.
Although what Pheobe and Poppy were doing was