Chapter 1: Fanfiction
Ash Ketchum had a secret.
The boy had taken a liking to a certain kind of literature over the last year. That alone would be enough to astound his closest friends; Ash had largely avoided reading his entire life, preferring to live in a world of action, plunging into things with a sort of reckless abandon that some called heroic and others called irresponsible. He had never found time for reading, being a person who lived in the here-and-now and not in the land of daydreams and whimsy.
That had all changed the day when Ash, who was on a hunt for the backup television remote, having misplaced the original, found an erotic novel, The Innocent Maiden on the S.S. Anne, in his mom's room.
Delia never found it necessary to explicitly talk about sex with her son and Ash was never brazen enough to question her about it, learning the rudiments of intercourse from sexual education at school and picking up the rest from his friends. However, Ash never imagined in his wildest dreams that his mom would read a book like this, wondering what secrets rested in those pages that could make a demure woman such as his mother nestle the book away like a secret treasure in her ivory dressing table, covertly hidden below perfectly normal books about gardening and cooking.
So Ash started to thumb through the book, methodically, picking out random passages that seemed interesting, initially skipping around from page to page, gradually becoming more and more captivated by the book, eventually coming across an exceptionally steamy scene, the deflowering of an innocent maiden by a cagey playboy, and reading the entire passage with unbridled enthusiasm, stopping occasionally to glance at the window, a confirmation his mom had not returned home early from the store.
That story had enthralled Ash, prompting him to download and read the entire book online, a move that Ash deemed safer- safer in the sense it minimized his chance of being discovered with the literature- than ordering a hard copy through the mail or physically buying the book at the bookstore. Ash finished the book, which almost had 500 pages, in only a couple of days, stopping only to eat and sleep, and upon completion of the story he felt absolutely mesmerized, particularly with the sweet, pure, and lovely maiden in the story. The girl, traveling alone on the S.S. Anne from Johto to Kanto, had a syrupy voice and a sweeter personality, a body composed of delectable and shapely curves that the amorous sailors never failed to look twice at, and an innocent-looking face highlighted by saucer blue eyes, naturally pouty lips and radiant peach skin. The story made Ash tingle all over and he read more of the genre, voraciously consuming every piece of romantic literature he could get his hands on, reading fan inspired works when he grew tired of the professionals and writing his own after becoming inspired by the incredible world of fanfiction.
No one knew about Ash's guilty pleasure (outside of Pikachu) and he planned to keep it that way. It was bad enough that he read romance fiction but no one could know that he wrote it. His friends had always believed he was unbelievably aloof about the subject of romance, even though he had been in a relationship for 6 months, and he planned to keep it that way, dreading the possibility of having to explain his actions to anyone, especially his adorable but puckish girlfriend who was coming over right now.
"Ash sweetie," Delia called from downstairs. "Dawn is here."
"Tell her to come on up," Ash replied, quickly finishing up a scene in his new fanfiction where a beautiful maiden was confronted by an evil pirate who was really a softie at heart.
Dawn had grown up to become the most attractive of the five girls he had traveled with. All of them were good-looking but Dawn was gorgeous: the girl had all the features of a model. She was astoundingly dazzling, incredibly cute, an advantage that she rarely exploited, probably because she was fiercely independent at heart, probably because she valued her intelligence over her looks.
"Hi Ash," Dawn said in a sweet voice. The girl was wearing tight denim jeans, a bright pink top, and a pair of white boots. She glanced at her boyfriend, who was ignoring her, fixated on a computer screen she could not see, typing quickly, as if he was frantic to finish whatever he was writing as soon as possible.
"So what are you doing?" Dawn debonairly asked. "I've never seen you type that intensely."
Ash, suddenly nervous, just became aware that his behavior was apparent to Dawn. He had been struck by inspiration, beautiful and troublesome inspiration, prompting him to write a masterful sentence. His fear was that his inspiration would be lost forever if he did capture not it immediately but now Dawn was suspicious, glaring at him with an ever so curious look on her face.
"I was playing a game, a racing game," Ash haphazardly blurted out, desperate to change the subject.
Dawn lips morphed into a wry smile. "Well I thought you were typing. Of course, I'm not very sure."
"I could understand how you might think that," Ash laughed, nervously, wishing that Dawn would change the conversation, finally deciding to modify it himself.
"I'll go get us a drink. Is Sprite okay," Ash inquired.
"Yeah, that sounds good."
Ash swiftly scrambled away to get the drinks. Dawn wondered what was wrong with her boyfriend. It was as if he did not want her to see whatever he was doing on the computer, an idea that nonplussed Dawn because she and Ash never kept secrets from each other, the dark side of Dawn wondering if Ash was flirting with another girl online. The girl decided that a quick peek on his computer wouldn't hurt.
If Dawn had any reservations about what she was doing, if she thought that her actions would hurt or offend Ash, then those thoughts were certainly subconscious, pushed down by a sudden and overwhelming curiosity.
Dawn opened the computer and started prying, looking through today's search history, finding articles about grooming and feeding electric Pokémon, nothing particularly exciting and certainly nothing that justified frantic typing.
Maybe he was writing something in Microsoft Word, Dawn thought wistfully.
Of course it was highly unlikely. It was summertime, meaning Ash would have no school work, and the boy was certainly not the type to write for leisure. The idea of Ash writing for fun was hilarious, a gag, almost as funny as a Kanto biker with a hot pink Jigglypuff tattoo on his oversized arm. However, the girl's investigation was stagnant and Ash was taking a long time with that soda…
Ash walked up the stairs, returning to his room, triumphantly holding 2 Sprites in his hands, beverages that were hiding in the back of the fridge. He hoped that Dawn would forget all about what he was typing on the computer; his inspiration betrayed him, indirectly awakening Dawn's curiosity, which was a very perilous thing to disturb. Despite that, he regularly cleared his browser's search history of all fanfiction related searches and all his fanfics were password protected, so even if she somehow found them, she would not be able to access them anyway.
The boy returned to his room to see a blue-haired girl's face turned up with a sardonic smile, apparently reading something on his computer that she found incredibly interesting.
"What are you reading?" Ash asked nervously.
Dawn laughed; she had a sweet laugh that adults associated with beautiful adjectives like warm and soft but Ash was sure he could detect the cheekiness in her voice.
"I'm just reading a story about a maiden; nothing you would find interesting."
Ash struggled to breathe, as if he had been punched in the stomach.
"How did you open those documents? I had them password protected."
"The password was Pikachu. Could you be any more obvious Ash?"
The boy scratched his head and looked at the ground, embarrassed by his careless mistake.
"So," Dawn continued, casually, as if she was talking to no one in particular. "I think Brock will be especially interested in this story."
"Please anything but that. I beg of you. Don't tell Brock. He will think I'm weird."
Dawn put her index finger to her lip and pretended to pout, an incredibly cute gesture that Ash, for a brief moment, thought of using in his next story.
"I guess I can let you off the hook," Dawn responded. "Of course, you have to do something for me."
"I'll tell Pikachu to start flirting with Buneary. He can cook a romantic dinner for her. Of course, he might use too much ketchup and spoil the whole evening."
"I never knew you were so romantic," Dawn teased. "However, I think Pikachu needs to come to terms with that himself."
Dawn paused, scheming about the various embarrassing situations she could put her boyfriend in.
"You have to be my servant for a day. That means you have to listen to whatever I say and obey all my orders. If you do so, then your secret is safe with me. If you fail, then I'll make sure to give Brock a call.
Dawn kissed her boyfriend on the cheek and left, promising to call him tomorrow with details about his indentured servitude. He had thought himself as cagey but she was cagier. He felt compelled to do what she requested because finding out his secret gave her an unspoken authority, even if she was his girlfriend.
Ash gazed outside his window, pensively, wondering what surprises tomorrow had in store for him, watching Pikachu gratuitously pour ketchup all over his Pokémon food.
He really should have picked a more secure password.
This fanfic is going to be a two-shot. The next chapter, as the story title alludes to, will be called "Cosplay". So you know the next chapter will be fun! Thanks for reading!