>>32778649I understand your intention of trying to differentiate between the sempai and kouhai, but you can do that in a way that is a little more original. To show sempai's initial bad luck, have him barely manage to catch pawniard while it's trying to slice him to ribbons. According to canon, pokemon are only caught if they want to be, so you could easily just write this off as pawniard thinking "oh hey this brat must be some kinda tough to actually hit me with that plastic ball" and accepting it. But after it's caught, pawniard can still be disobedient and aggressive (stealing sempai's food, slicing at his ankles, refusing praise) until sempai slowly manages to prove himself as a worthy trainer, working up to being worthy of kouhai's admiration.
That was just an example I thought of on the fly, feel free to steal/adapt it or come up with your own. Either way, a murderous knife child suddenly loving this kid who saved his life is kind of unbelievable. Gratitude, however immense, still takes some time to develop into love and devotion.
Also, you should add the trainers' pokemon to the tags. More often than not, "Original Character" is code for boring as fuck, so including their teams in the tags allows people to see what the story has to offer besides you shipping your own two Mary Sues. Had I seen a tag for pawniard, I would have been much more enthusiastic heading into your fic.
Also I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd rather see sempai romancing his future bisharp (or the other way around) than that Lilycove fuccboi. It would certainly get you more views. 