This story takes place after the fanfic "Like No One Ever Was". I'd recommend reading it first, but since it is 24 chapters of pure melodrama, here are the important points: Ash had a head injury while traveling in Unova, resulting in Aphasia and severe memory loss. While being treated for that, it was revealed that Pikachu's electricity had given Ash a neurological disorder, the most obvious symptom being tremors and shaking. After 23 chapters of therapy, surgery and other treatment, Ash can speak relatively well and his tremors are manageable. Pikachu went on a nice emotional roller coaster but eventually was able to forgive himself and gain greater control and understanding of his attacks. The sight of Pikachu triggered intense fear in Ash for a long time, and once Pikachu scared Ash so badly he experienced a brief psychotic episode. But the two of them were eventually able to reconcile, and Ash steadily overcame his anxiety with therapy and Pikachu's support. He is currently able to handle his fears without medication.
And now you're up to speed. Carry on!
Chapter 1: toi et moi (you and me)
~ 寂しい ストーリー 一人で 探して (I search for the lonely story by myself...) ~
Cilan once told me this saying, "When life gives you Iapapa Berries, make Berry Juice." I don't remember what we were talking about, or why he was prompted to say it, but I wrote the phrase down in my journal because I thought it was unusual. I couldn't understand what the point was, and Cilan had to remind me that I don't like Iapapa berries because they're sour, but Berry juice is sweeter.
"But if I don't like Iap'pa berries," I argued, "Why don't I just not eat them? Or give them to someone who likes sour things?" Cilan started to get a little frustrated with me, but also got really sad, and he told me that sometimes you just have to eat the Iapapa Berries.
I wish I could remember what we were talking about...
But that's my particular curse, I'm super forgetful. I always was, but then I had an accident and now it's a condition. Amnesia, just like the movies where someone wakes up in a hospital and can't remember their best friends, except my memories are probably not coming back. Which is why my best friend gets really sick sometimes.
Actually, "sick" isn't the right word. I don't remember what the right word is, words are another thing I forget a lot, but it's close enough. I learned a long time ago that feelings can get really big and if you aren't careful, they can hurt you like a fist or a disease. It took a long time for me to learn how to deal with those kinds of feelings, and even now, sometimes they can sneak up and push me down. But my best friend, Pikachu, he has a harder time with that kind of thing, and he has a lot to feel sad about. He's really happy most of the time, but sometimes his feelings can sneak through when he's not expecting it.
And when that happens, he can get really sick.
Which is why on this particular day I needed to talk to him, because something really bad happened and we were both feeling awful. Some bad guys called Team Plasma had tried to capture a Reshiram and our friend N had kind of betrayed us but then helped us, and there was a scientist with a machine that could control Pokemon. We got trapped underground and had to tunnel our way out, we fought a lot of pokemon battles, met Reshiram and there was also a lot of talking. I got to understand N a bit better, and I think he was beginning to understand me. But there was more bad stuff than good, and even though we saved the day it didn't feel like we'd won yet.
I wanted to talk to Pikachu, but we never got a chance to slow down, once the police and the Interpol guy started arresting people. Everyone wanted to talk to me, and then Cilan and my friend with the purple hair demanded I go to the hospital where dozens of doctors and nurses swarmed around me and put me through all kinds of tests. We never got a moment to breathe, and all I wanted was to tell Pikachu he was my best friend, curl up with him somewhere quiet and sleep off the migraine I had.
But that chance never came, so Pikachu and I drifted further apart and my headache grew bigger. I wanted to tell Pikachu none of this was a big deal, and I wished to high heaven that he would say the same thing to me. If anyone said that, actually, I would have felt a lot better.
There's a pattern, you see, to these disasters. Because I get into a lot of trouble, even if I don't mean to. But when bad things happen, I want to protect people, and I know I can help and make a difference. My friends are strong, too, but sometimes they need me to be the hero, so I run in and help whatever needs helping and sometimes that gets kind of dangerous. But after the fact, when no one's in danger and we're all safe, they yell at me for being reckless and stupid. It's their turn to be the hero, because I can pretend I'm not scared when the world is about to end, but after I've saved it I need them to take care of me. I need them to yell and tell me how much they'd miss me if something happened, because that's when I know it's all okay. That's when I know they love me and they're going to take care of everything and I can just sit back and let them take away the feelings of almost dying or actually dying or watching someone else die, the fear, the anger, and the betrayals. They're the heroes, and they'll protect me and yell at me and tell me in some way or another that it's all going to be okay now.
But nobody was saying any of that stuff. Nobody told me it was stupid to try and get through to Pikachu while he was being controlled by that blonde guy's machine, or that I was reckless and made them worry or that everything was going to be fine. Instead, everyone looked terrified, like the world was ending and they were helpless to stop it.
And that meant I had to be the hero for just a little longer.
So I told everyone that I was fine, everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about. Until the test results came back there was no reason to feel sad or anxious about anything. I had a headache but I wasn't hurt, and the day had been intense but I wasn't upset with anyone. This was a bit of a stretch, since my migraine was threatening to split my head apart and I was so hurt and confused about the events of the day that I was on the verge of a breakdown, but I could tell that nobody was able to handle the whole truth right then. Maybe later, when the dust settled, but right now the hurts were still too close to take on anything else.
When we got back to the Pokemon Center, Pikachu ran off. I tried to chase after him, but N told me that Pikachu didn't want to see me. "He feels bad about what happened with Colress," he explained, "He needs a little time alone."
What happened with Colress was every one of my nightmares coming true. Pikachu had turned on me with nothing but hate and rage in his eyes, a sight that resonated with some of my memories before my accident. Even though I tried to calm him down, my friendship couldn't reach him, and Pikachu kept hurting me until I was knocked unconscious. If N hadn't surrendered the light stone, Pikachu probably would have kept going until he killed me.
We beat the machine later, destroyed it once and for all, but I would never forget the feeling of Pikachu's electricity, the hate on his face or the pain that wracked my body. All the black feelings that sometimes seized my heart had suddenly risen up to conquer me again, feelings that were most predominately associated with Pikachu. I knew in my head that it shouldn't be like that, but what I felt was another story, and now, Pikachu refused to talk to me. Now that the battles were over, he wouldn't look at me, wouldn't touch me, wouldn't give me a single indication that he loved me and all of that was just a nightmare.
I knew he probably felt guilty and scared, but I did, too. As far as I knew, with my shaky grasp of science, that ugly machine increased a pokemon's aggression and attack power. It didn't create anger where there wasn't any. Pikachu was forced to follow Team Plasma's commands, but I couldn't see how he could look at me with such hate unless I'd done something to put those feelings there first...
It was probably stupid of me to think that, but it had been a horrible day and I still had the Pikachu of my nightmares haunting me. More than anything, I needed a sign of kindness from the Pikachu that was my friend, but that door was closed right now and N refused to tell me where Pikachu was hiding.
N, so loyal to pokemon, able to understand the voices of their hearts but not having a single clue how to deal with a human being right in front of him. But there was nothing I could do, and in the end I made N promise to keep an eye on Pikachu and come get me if he tried to do anything stupid.
N's two friends, the pink-haired one and the girl with the braid, hung around the sidelines and I don't think they were all that interested in me. They didn't know that Pikachu shocking me was something to worry about, or that being trapped underground was an experience that could make me cry long after I'd dug my way back to the surface. I didn't feel like telling them, or N, since it was hard enough to stay strong around Purple-hair and Cilan.
Cilan was talking in a squeaky voice and looked like he might cry any second, and the friend with all the hair was jumpy and never once called me a dumb kid. They knew what happened between me and Pikachu better than I did, and they knew exactly what it meant. Their world was in danger, and someone had to step up and try to save it.
So I put on my biggest smile and kept it there until I saw some of the sparkles come back into their eyes. I didn't want to talk to anyone, but I forced myself to make jokes and concentrated really hard on pronouncing all my words right. Even though I felt like running off into the woods and screaming until my heart forcibly exited my body, even though I had a migraine the size of Saffron City, even though my left hand wouldn't stop shaking no matter what and that's a terrible sign, I kept the atmosphere light and casual. I told them I wasn't upset or worried about anything until even I started to believe it, and it was only after sunset that I was able to get away. It had been a long day, I told them, I was exhausted, and Nurse Joy found me a quiet room in the Pokemon Center where I could shut the door against the rest of the world.
But now that I was alone, I had no reason to keep pretending everything was okay, and all the scary, ugly feelings began to creep back over me. I leaned back against the door and just tried to breathe. The wood of the door felt rough and harsh against me, but it was real. It was strong and solid, it represented structure and smelled of nature and clean and a home away from home. It was my grounding rod to reality, but it wasn't enough to keep the nightmares at bay.
Earlier that day, N, Pikachu and I had all been trapped in an underground cavern, and it had felt so familiar in all the worst ways. I didn't really remember a lot of my accident in Unova, but the pieces I did remember were vivid and frightening, and today had dredged all that back to the surface. And then Pikachu had been hit by that beam, and suddenly looked at me with the worst expression.
No matter how loud I called or how much I tried to reach him, that Pikachu wasn't my friend anymore. I had believed in him right until I passed out, but there was no sign of the Pikachu I'd grown to trust. And then there was the pain...
I slid down to the floor and began to cry. My head had been exploding ever since I woke up in the dirt with Pikachu in my arms, and I knew that there was something wrong. I knew what the doctors would find when the test results came back, and I could pretend in front of Purple-hair and Cilan but the truth would have to come out eventually. All of this had happened before, and even if I didn't have the clear memory of it, I still could sense the familiarity of it all. Pikachu was the most powerful pokemon I'd ever trained, and after the accident in Unova had sent me to the hospital it was revealed to everyone just how dangerous his electricity could be.
I, apparently, had known long before. I'd been talking to doctors and looking into treatments but I couldn't remember why I'd never told my friends or Pikachu. Even though Pikachu would never shock me like that on purpose and always felt guilty whenever accidents occurred, everyone asks me why I didn't tell him what had happened.
I couldn't remember, but sitting alone on the floor in that room, I started to get some insight into my past self's thinking. Maybe I didn't want Pikachu to feel responsible, as he did now, for something he couldn't control. Maybe I didn't want him to look at me, like everyone else did, like I was weak and broken.
But most of all, I probably thought that if I told him what he'd done to me, he'd run away and leave me alone to face the darkness, and today he proved me right.
I curled up on the floor in that darkened room and sobbed as harshly as I could while still muffling the sound with my hands. My head splintered and seared, my heart was burning with hurt, betrayal and shame, and fear was accosting me from every corner. I had been scared back there, and the thought of the future scared me even more, my best friend had hurt me and now wouldn't even let me see him. And on the other side of the door all my friends were standing on the edge of a precipice, hoping that the ground didn't give way underneath them.
Tomorrow I would wake up and keep playing hero for as long as it took for everyone to feel strong again. If the worst happened that could be a long time, but these were my friends. I didn't want them to feel hurt and scared like I was feeling, not if I could protect them. Even though I have trouble remembering things, I remember feelings really well, and I will never forget what it felt like to watch everyone else break. I remember Mom cried, I remember how dead Gary looked, I remember Max being afraid and Cilan fighting with the other friend who cooks. The friend with the purple hair disappeared for awhile because I couldn't remember her name, and it still hurts her that I need to be reminded every other day. The wine girl still goes a little crazy when she sees me.
And Pikachu... Pikachu fell apart so fantastically that I don't think he's ever going to recover completely. Some of that damage was permanent, and some of it was kind of my fault. Being around me has hurt him about as much as his electricity hurt me, and I didn't want him to experience that again. I didn't want any of them to have to go through this again.
And for their sake, I would find the strength to be a hero. Tomorrow, I would wake up and put on a smile, find the positives and bat down everyone's ugly feelings. I was good at that, and even if my world was going up in flames, I would keep fighting it for the sake of my friends, for as long as it took. I'd faced down things that would have sent most people running for the hills. I'd lived through a lot, and died through a fair amount, too. I knew how to keep it together. If my friends needed me, I could grit my teeth and keep it together like a champion.
But right at that moment, where no one could see, I wasn't a hero or a Pokemon Master or anything special. I was just a scared little kid without his best friend, and I didn't know if I could fight this.
Cilan was right, sometimes you just have to eat the stupid Iapapa Berries.
