DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pokémon.
See
The once modest gathering had not meant to develop into a full-blown party, but when Delia Ketchum invited the Oaks to join her son's little get-together, the unfailingly generous woman found she could not resist laying out an extensive buffet and handing out drinks like they were going out of fashion. It was so rare for her to have company like this, and she was almost certain that Ash would be eager to head off on another journey soon, so the 31-year-old pounced on the opportunity to make this precious night in Pallet Town a memorable one for herself and all the friends and family that surrounded her.
While most of the evening had been spent outside in the sun, the 'partygoers' had gradually filed back inside as the sky began to darken, and were now congregated in the large living room of the Ketchum residence. Ash was sitting in the middle of the floor along with his two closest friends, Misty and Brock, the long sofa across from them already having been claimed by Tracey, Gary and a drowsy-looking Professor Oak. As Delia and her faithful Mr. Mime, Mimey, skipped from one room to another with empty plates and cups in their hands, the former was able to pick up a few passing snippets of her son's tall tales from the Orange Islands:
"So then, we had to heave Snorlax all the way up the mountain with nothing but some rope and a couple of logs we found at the side of the road!" Ash exclaimed.
"Oh, man, that is priceless!" Gary sniggered into his drink, earning him a scowl from the boy at his feet.
"All that because of a broken pokéball?" Brock asked in surprise. Ash nodded.
"Hmm," Professor Oak pondered. "Perhaps I ought to go over my original designs again…"
"Well, that's nothing compared to when we met the one and only Prima!" Misty gushed, her teal eyes turning to hearts.
"Or when we saw all those pink pokémon on Pinkan Island," remarked Tracey. "I knew I should've brought something to colour in my sketches with."
"That's real interesting and all," Gary began, his voice peppered with a distinct slyness, "but I heard that's not all that went down in those islands. Something else happened while you were over there – multiple things, even! Isn't that right, Red?"
Misty was not prepared for his bizarre meandering to suddenly be directed at her, but as her eyes shot up to meet his rather unsettling gaze, the startled redhead could instantly tell what he was getting at.
"Um…" She faltered in her attempts to feign ignorance. "N-Not that I know of."
But it seemed he was not quite through with her yet. "You know what I mean, don't you, big guy?" His eyes flicked over to the perplexed young breeder on Misty's left side. "The stuff Bandana Boy here was telling us earlier today, about those two gym leaders and such?"
It took a moment for Tracey to realise Gary was referring to him, but as he, too, turned his gaze to Brock, the two older teens shared a knowing look before their expressions turned equally mischievous.
"Oh, that," Brock grinned furtively.
Ash was completely lost at this point, and he leaned over to ask Misty what was going on when his arrogant rival spoke up again.
"Any more adventures you'd like to share with us, Ashy-boy?" Gary sneered, causing the blushing Misty to dig her nails into the carpet. "No interesting developments between you and your charming bride-to-be here?"
All eyes were on the pair in question as the spiky-haired instigator finished his piece. Ash was still wrestling with the meaning of this obvious taunt, but his fiery friend was not quite so innocent, and she balled her hands up into fists as she leaned forward to glare in turn at everyone around her.
"You're all crazy!" she cried, her eyes tightly shut to avoid their intimidating stares. "Whatever you've heard, it's not true!"
"Well, let's put that to the test, shall we?" Gary immediately retorted. "Does the name Rudy ring any bells?"
Tracey visibly cringed, realising straight away that he may have said too much. Meanwhile, a much more clued-in Ash's ears pricked up at the mention of that name, and although his reaction was not quite as extreme as Misty's, the violent shiver that ran down his spine gave him more than enough incentive to join the fight.
"Everybody shut up!" he insisted. "You've got it all wrong!"
"Got what all wrong?" asked Delia as she re-entered the room. "Oh my; Ash, Misty, you're looking awfully flushed. Is it too hot in here? Well, these ought to cool everyone down!"
Mimey then appeared from behind her with a fresh tray of drinks, proceeding to dole them out to each of the guests with an unwavering smile on its face. Ash and Misty looked away from each other, their faces burning as they sheepishly accepted their glasses of chilled lemonade. To their left, Brock took a sip of the maroon liquid in his glass and smacked his lips in approval.
"Mmm, this wine is amazing, Mrs. K!" He smiled up at the auburn-haired woman.
When he turned around to see looks of bewilderment from his two friends on the floor, he simply shrugged. "Uh-uh, none for you, I'm afraid, kiddies, this is a strictly adult beverage right here."
"I'll take a sipple if you're offering," Gary chipped in.
Delia gasped. "You'll do no such thing, young man! Count yourself lucky I don't tell your mother about that!"
Gary glanced over at his grandfather, who shot him a jovial "don't look at me" kind of look, before simply grinning and flicking his hair. "Pfft, been drinking since I was nine…"
Only Tracey heard his little quip, and although a small smirk graced his features, he remained silent for fear that he would cause even more trouble.
"And, while we're on the subject, you're still underage yourself, mister," Delia scolded the pokémon breeder. "I'm only letting you have this glass as thanks for helping me with the housework these last few days. Don't make me regret that decision, now."
Brock winced, remembering that he was still a few months shy of eighteen, the legal drinking age in the Kanto region. "Yes, Mrs. Ketchum," he mumbled obediently.
It was at that moment that Pikachu and Togepi came scampering into the room through Delia's legs, the latter trilling ecstatically as it chased after the tail of its small, yellow friend. The breeze of their movement caused a thin, rectangular box resting by the doorframe to slide down to the floor, and Delia let out a small squeak of excitement when she bent down to pick it up.
"Ooh, I almost forgot!" She beamed, holding up the box. "Would anyone like to play 'Pin the Tails on the Tauros'? I found it in the attic when I was cleaning last week. It was your absolute favourite growing up, wasn't it, Ashy?"
Ash did not have to wait until everyone turned to face him before his face ignited with embarrassment.
"Mom!" he growled over to her, trying his best to block out the smirks and sniggers coming from all corners of the room.
"I hope you're going to play nicely this time, though," she chirped. "Remember the temper tantrum you had on your eighth birthday when you didn't win?"
The sniggers around him quickly turned into straight up roars of laughter at his expense, and he pulled his cap over his eyes to cover the blush of humiliation on his face.
"I do now," he hissed acerbically. Clearly, his mother had not quite got the hang of how much he had grown while on his pokémon journey, something that understandably led to him outgrowing a lot of his earlier pastimes. He would have a hard enough job convincing her of this, let alone all of the friends that currently surrounded him.
"Aww, come on, 'Ashy', it might be fun!" Brock chuckled, apparently having managed to become tipsy from just a few sips of wine.
"Yeah," sneered Gary. "After all, who are we to deprive you of your 'absolute favourite' game, eh?"
"Pikaaa!" Pikachu laughed merrily.
His mocking friends had him cornered, leaving the poor boy with no other choice than to close his eyes and let his head sink down into his folded arms. In the blackness of his huddled position, Ash was positively dying of embarrassment, and may very well have done so, had a soft, sweet giggle to his right not triggered a leap of his heart so bizarre that it forced him to look up.
"Not you, too," he whined dejectedly once he saw Misty staring at him with her big, aquamarine eyes.
"What? I like it when you're embarrassed. It's…" she held her tongue before voicing her original intended word, eventually opting instead for, "…funny."
"And besides..." She recovered almost jarringly quickly, then leaned forward to whisper in his ear. "Isn't this a good opportunity to get Gary back for the battle you had this afternoon?"
If there was one way to get Ash Ketchum to do something, it was by appealing to his competitive nature, and Misty Waterflower had had more practice at that than most.
"Fine!" He stood up and pointed straight at Gary, who just smirked again. "But know that I'm gonna beat you so bad you'll be sorry you cheated all those years ago at my birthday party!"
"Sure, sure," he smarmed. "Just don't cry when I come out on top again, okay?"
The flustered Ash was about to retaliate, but was distracted by the rustling of the box's contents being unearthed and rushed over to take a look.
The first thing to surface was the board, which was nothing more than a waist-high canvas with an exaggeratedly cartoonish print of a tailless tauros in the centre. A few more sniggers slipped out from the spectators when they noticed how Ash's eyes lit up at the sight of it.
Then came the 'tails', a set of three black felt strands a few inches in length, each with a furry tip that sported its own unique colour – one red, one blue, and one yellow – to differentiate between them. This was the children's version, of course, so no actual pins were present, each tail instead featuring an adhesive circle at the top with a peel-off tab over it to preserve its stickiness (suffice it to say that, after its many years of use, only a small amount of the glue remained).
Lastly were the three blindfolds, which flopped down to the floor as Delia tipped the box upside-down. When the last of the jeering and jesting died away, it was decided that the nine participants would be split into groups of three, with each group taking turns to place their tails onto the board.
"Okay then, who wants to go first?" Delia asked.
Ash's hand shot up, spectacularly betraying his illusion of indifference. "Me, me, I wanna go first!"
She placed her hands on her hips. "Now hold on, Ash, let's not be rude to our guests. How about the three boys? Brock, Gary, and…oh, I'm so sorry, dear, I can't quite remember your…"
"No worries, Mrs. Ketchum, it's, erm, Tracey," the pokémon watcher chuckled bashfully. "Yeah, sure, why not?"
The other two agreed, and they all propped themselves up on their knees and shuffled over to the space in front of the board, which now lay against the wall to the left of where Ash, Misty and Brock were originally seated. Delia carefully stretched the elasticated blindfolds over their heads before handing them each a tail and spinning them around on the spot a number of times.
"This brings back so many memories!" she whispered over to Professor Oak, who nodded warmly. Once she took her seat on the sofa, the excitable young woman turned back to the three sightless competitors.
"Everyone ready? On your marks, get set, go!"
The room was alive with cheers as the first round of the game commenced. The three teenagers each paused for a moment, their hands hovering in mid-air while they decided whereabouts on the board to plant their tail. Brock and Gary placed theirs down fairly quickly, confident grins showing beneath their respective masks, whereas Tracey hesitated for a long time, seemingly wracked with uncertainty.
"Come on, Trace, just put it down somewhere!" Ash called over to him. "To the left!"
"Ash, you're not supposed to be helping him!" barked Misty.
He lowered his voice to one with a slightly more solemn tone. "I just don't want Gary to win, that's all."
Eventually, the pokémon watcher picked a spot for his tail, and the three shuffled backwards, revealing the locations of the three objects on the board.
"As I thought," Gary bragged as he removed his blindfold. "Once a pro, always a pro, I guess."
To Ash's extreme chagrin, Gary's tail – the one with the blue tip – was resting in exactly the right place, against the tauros's backside, and he shot a scowl of pure hatred over at his rival before turning his attention back to the board. Brock, however, had managed to choose a very unfortunate place for his tail – right between the pokémon's hind legs.
"Oh really, Brock!" Delia huffed, a subtle pinkness in her cheeks. "I knew giving you that wine was a bad idea!"
"Stupid boys," Misty grunted to herself, her own face rapidly turning red.
As soon as the 'accident' became clear, Tracey and Gary burst into laughter, their sides aching at the increasingly embarrassed Brock's misfortune. Even Professor Oak, against his better judgement, felt a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Ash, unsurprisingly, remained in the dark on this one.
In an attempt to get the room off his back, the flustered Brock proceeded to move forward with the game.
"I don't know what you're laughing about, Sketchit," he addressed the green-haired boy to his right. "At least I got mine closer than yours."
Sure enough, this little remark redirected everybody's attention to Tracey's red tail, which was dangling down from the tauros drawing's eye.
"I…guess I overthought it." He chuckled awkwardly.
"So, who's next?" Delia chipped in.
"Toke toke," squeaked Togepi upon Misty's lap.
"Huh? You want to have your turn now, Togepi?" Misty smiled.
"Priiii!" it answered happily.
"Hey, maybe you should be on Togepi's team, too, Pikachu!" Ash suggested.
"Pika!" nodded the electric mouse as it bounded over to the board.
"We still need one more," said Brock. "How about you, Mrs. Ketchum?"
Delia looked flattered. "Me? Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any."
"But what about…" Ash started, before Brock's fatherly finger waggling cut him off.
"Now, Ash, wait your turn. You'll get your chance in a minute or two."
The young boy folded his arms childishly as Delia fastened the blindfolds onto the two excited pokémon. They were too big, of course, so Misty offered up a couple of her spare hair bobbles with which to tie the extra material up at the back. Unbeknownst to any of them, the little egg pokémon slowly began to swing its stubby arms back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…
"Okay, go!"
This group was a lot less cautious than the last, with all three participants slapping their tails down onto the board almost immediately (Pikachu had to jump to reach his desired spot). When they were satisfied, they all took a step back to admire their efforts.
"Chaa!" Pikachu squealed, apparently pleased with his yellow tail's position on the tauros's back leg. Delia laughed embarrassedly when she noticed her red tail resting on the white background around the picture.
"Oh dear," she said somewhat dizzily. "I was a lot better at this when Ash was little…"
But when they looked over at the remaining tail, then back at the one who had deposited it, everyone's jaws collectively dropped.
"H-How…how did Togepi do that?" Brock asked, his eyes locked on the immaculately placed fabric tail.
"That's even better than Gary's," Tracey spoke in awe, earning him a perturbed look from the boy in question.
"You don't suppose Togepi could have used a move that improved its accuracy, do you?" suggested Professor Oak.
Misty scooped the victorious little pokémon up in her arms. "But Togepi's just a baby! It couldn't have learned any moves yet…could it?"
"Toke prii!" the devious egg giggled.
Whatever the case, the partygoers did not dwell on this strange happenstance for much longer, as it was now time for the final group of Ash, Misty and Professor Oak to step up (or, rather, kneel up) to the board. The two young pokémon trainers did just that, but the greying Professor remained seated, suddenly looking rather ashamed.
"Aren't you playing, Professor?" Tracey asked his idol.
The 52-year-old sat up. "Oh, I would, Tracey, but I fear that if I go down there, I may not be able to get back up. My lumbago and all that."
Delia nodded in understanding. "It's okay, Samuel, we wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."
"Well, looks like this one's only going to be a two-tailed tauros," laughed Brock, giving Ash and Misty a choice of the colours. Ash picked the blue tail, while Misty decided on the yellow.
"You, er, need help, Mist?" Ash asked when he noticed his friend struggling to fit the stretchy elastic around her side ponytail.
"I'm perfectly capable of putting a blindfold on, thank you very much!" she snapped, before finally giving in and yanking out her blue bobble, letting her short orange hair fall freely down her face. Ash's eyes lingered on this rare and strangely pleasing sight for another short moment, but soon snapped out of it and moved to pull his own blindfold over his face.
"Ready, guys?" said Brock. "Go!"
With his vision removed, the environment seemed like a totally different place. Suddenly, background details such as sounds, smells and the texture of the carpet beneath him were infinitely more significant. At the moment, the thing he found himself focusing on the most, to his confusion, was the sound of Misty's breathing next to him. This was also the point at which the young boy realised he had completely lost his bearings, either from being spun around or from his uncharacteristic attention to detail. The board may as well have been in outer space for all the luck Ash was having in finding it.
Wow, this is a lot harder than I remember it, he thought as he thrust his flapping tail out in all directions, the latest of which hit Misty squarely in the arm.
"Ow!" she shouted. "Watch where you're going!"
"How am I supposed to do that?" he replied. "I'm blind!"
"Ugh…you know what I mean!"
As much as she tried to hide it, Misty was not fairing any better than her friend. Being unable to see unnerved her, and having been spun until she was dizzy certainly did not help matters. In a vain attempt to at least hit something with her tail, she knelt forward and stuck it onto the first solid thing she came across…namely, Ash's behind.
Once again, the whole room was in an uproar, with even Delia joining in the laughter this time. The sight was just too hilarious to not laugh at.
"What the…" Ash said as he peeked out of his blindfold at the dangling thread at the back of his jeans. "Hey! Now who's not watching where they're going?!"
Amongst the sound of the laughing and the sight of Ash's new body part, the blushing Misty was almost too flustered to speak. "S-Sorry," she said with her head hung low.
"Hey, lighten up, Ash," guffawed Brock. "It looks good on you!"
Gary was practically delirious with laughter. "Yeah, I mean, you do always talk a load of bull!"
"Gary Oak!" Delia lightly scolded.
Trying their best to ignore the rest of the room, Ash and Misty lowered their blindfolds again in the hope of picking up where they left off. Not ten seconds later, Ash's blue tail slipped out of his hand and curled up on the floor in front of him.
"That counts as a turn, Ashy-boy!" Gary was quick to point out.
"What? Since when?" the incensed boy spat back.
"Oh, I think we can afford to throw him a bone here, don't you?" Brock said with another grin. "Let's say you can keep going until you actually find the board, eh, guys?"
"Very funny, Brock," Misty snarled through gritted teeth.
As it turned out, though, their older friend's exaggerated comment proved to be not quite so exaggerated after all. Neither one of them had managed to come even close to the board after several minutes, and their patience was gradually wearing thinner and thinner. It did not help, either, that the two friends kept bumping into each other, grazing shoulders and the like. Misty nearly had a miniature heart attack when she felt Ash's hand on her bare leg at one point, and considered telling him off, but did not want to draw any more attention to herself than she already had (also, it was not the worst feeling in the world…).
Though the game was still very much on, Brock, Tracey and Gary had started up a conversation amongst themselves, and Professor Oak was gradually beginning to doze off. Delia watched her son and his redheaded friend intently, her hands clasping together every now and then.
"Oh, this is just too cute," she mused to herself. "I need to get a picture of this."
She then rushed up the stairs to her bedroom in search of her camera, giggling all the while. Taking this opportunity, Gary tiptoed forward towards Ash and Misty, making sure to be extra careful not to alert them, and, with one neat swooping motion, swiped the board away from them and tucked it under his arm.
"I got it!" he whispered to Brock and Tracey, who chuckled their approval before turning back to the scene in front of them. As they predicted, Ash and Misty were none the wiser.
"This is ridiculous," Ash whined. "I've played this game hundreds of times. It's never been this hard before!"
"Think yourself lucky," Misty answered. "When I played with my sisters, we didn't have the proper board or anything, so they used to make me be the tauros!"
When Ash let out a small snigger, the young girl swung her arm out to hit him, only to strike thin air.
"Let's just get this over with." She sighed irritably.
Though initially having fun, Ash could not help but feel the same way at this point. His desperation to one-up Gary aside, this aimless scrambling around was just infuriating.
In a move that would be considered reckless coming from anyone except Ash, he angrily dove forwards, hoping to detect some trace of the elusive tauros, only to slam his head straight into the wall where it used to be.
"Owww…" he groaned, his hat falling off as he turned around to sit with his back flush against the wall. Misty jumped at the startling crashing sound and attempted to move towards it.
"What was that?" she cried. "What just happened? Ash, was that y- whoooaa!"
Before she could finish, the young girl hit her knee against Ash's outstretched leg, stumbling forwards and landing on something oddly soft in her path. Ash himself felt a sudden weight upon him, but his blindfold prevented him from identifying it straight away. In his sightless state, he found himself, once again, looking for the littler details, the ones he might otherwise have ignored. Whatever it was was warm – very warm, in fact – and soft, though slightly bony in places. A faint tickly sensation radiated out from the tip of his nose to his cheekbones. Then there was that breathing again, the almost sonorous airy cadences that could only have belonged to…
As soon as the pieces began to come together, the young boy ripped off his blindfold in an instant to find himself staring straight into the wide, teal eyes of one Misty Waterflower.
"I'm back, dears, just hold still while I…oh my," Delia gasped, holding her camera close to her face.
His whole face turned scarlet in a fraction of a second. Their foreheads were practically touching, and their noses were barely a centimetre apart. Misty's hands were pressed down on his shoulders, her knuckles turning white as she struggled to keep herself from falling any further and closing that miniscule distance between them. Her silky hair brushed against Ash's cheeks, the gentle contact causing him to shiver. Neither seemed to be able to speak, much less move apart, their eyes locked together and their mouths hanging open. Ash in particular was inexplicably transfixed by the sight before him. He and Misty had never been so close; did she always have those little freckles around her nose? How come he had never noticed how shiny her eyes were before? The questions that materialised in the boy's mind both intrigued and terrified him, and just when he began to look around for a distraction, a collection of faces out of the corner of his eye instantly reminded him that he and Misty had quite an audience watching them.
"Woohoo! Way to go, guys!" Brock cheered rather drunkenly.
The two horrified preteens broke apart immediately, looking away from one another at different parts of the carpet.
"Well, Ashy-boy, looks like you finally got some tail after all!"
Ash cocked his head at Gary's peculiar comment, remaining confused until he felt a short slip of fabric dangling down from the end of his nose. With a roll of his eyes, he quickly deduced that Misty must have accidently pinned it on him when she fell.
Tracey said nothing, instead scribbling furiously away at an impromptu sketch in his sketchpad, grinning while he worked.
As her embarrassment began to subside, a perplexing thought reappeared in Misty's mind, and her head slowly rose to meet her sadistic friends.
"Wait a minute," she said. "Where did the board go? It was right here, and then-"
But then she saw it, hidden not so carefully between Gary Oak's back, and the obnoxious smirk he shot her was more than enough for everything to click into place in her head.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU GUYS!" she shrieked, a harrowing fire in her eyes as she leapt to her feet and chased her three scheming tormentors out of the front door and up the street. Ash simply sat there, dumbstruck by what had just happened. His 'peace' did not last long, however, as Pikachu soon sidled up to him wearing a smug grin not dissimilar from that of his rival.
"Chuuu," he teased, drawing out the single syllable to emphasise his point.
Naturally, Ash's blush returned with full force, and he took in a deep breath, delivering a perfectly crafted response with all the maturity and eloquence that his friends and family had come to expect from him over the years:
"Shut up."