Chapter 2
Time and effort are two valuable things in life that many of us have only a limited amount of. It can be difficult to grasp this principle when dealing with our lives on a micro level as each week and season and day and month seem to blend into a multicoloured purée resembling an alcoholic drink that is served only in a password-protected bar in the back alleys of a city three hours away by bus. The tastes meld together in confusing ways and last for a baffling ratio of moments. The days seem like forever while the months pass in an instant; weeks and years and quarters and minutes twirl with each other, their distinct flavours remaining separate and yet so inexplicably intertwined that the only thing you're left with at the end is a headache and a distinct lack of understanding as to why your wallet is currently on fire and tied to the ceiling fan by a loop of twine.
"How did I get here?" you might ask, going on to explain that you aren't entirely sure how the topic delved into strange cocktails in a back-alley bar when you had initially been reading about how time and effort are two commodities that can be hard to realize are indeed commodities. Time and effort, as stated earlier, are precious commodities that you only have so much of. And like all commodities, many people feel entitled to yours. Whether they are or are not is an entirely different debate, sensitive to issues and your personal taste as to what you serve each person clamouring for it, and what you believe they deserve. But the fact remains that everyone is dissatisfied with how much time and effort they have to do things and will, more often than not, try to save theirs by taking from the time and effort of others. The most insidious form that these endeavours take the form of is that of the obligation.
You see, with obligations, those who want your time and your effort need not even ask for it. It is expected to be delivered to them promptly and regularly, on schedule and of a particular quality. And sometimes these obligations are made mutually. Like going out with a friend every Wednesday, just as an excuse to get you out of the house. You never explicitly made a promise to them, but you've been going out for the past six Wednesdays, and if you stopped now it'd be awkward to explain why. So you keep going, doing different things around town. And as time goes by, you keep borrowing from each other's time and expect more effort to prevent things from feeling samey. Soon enough you're sitting on a bus for a three-hour ride to the west coast based on a hunch that your buddy felt. You've got a sick pit in your stomach because you have work the next day and, looking out the window, you're not exactly sure you're going to be getting back to your bed before four in the morning.
Your time is yours. Your effort is yours. But the funny thing about humans is that the less you spend these things on other people, the more depressed you become. The trick, like with everything in life, is finding a balance between devoting none of your commodities to others and devoting too much, lest you find yourself locked up in your room for the third week in a row, staring at the door from the foot of your bed, unblinking, and yet still seeing visions of a burning wallet slowly rotating, slowly spinning, slowly burning up the twine as it dangles from the ceiling fan of an unknown back-alley pub.
It's generally a good idea to carry fare for a cab in your back pocket in case something terrible happens to your wallet.
"You're going to be sleeping here tonight," Squirtle said as she led Riolu into the guest room at the back of the building. It wasn't anything fancy - she'd made it with the idea that if someone was unable to go home immediately after being helped due to the time of day, she could let them stay there for a small fee. She'd never used it once for that purpose.
"...Here?" Riolu slowed his pace once Squirtle pulled the curtain of beads away, revealing the room.
Squirtle gave him a subtle glare, though she wasn't sure he picked up on it. "Is something wrong?"
"Uh." Riolu took careful steps into the room, almost as if he were walking on hot coals. "No, it's okay, I'm just wondering..." He trailed off, looking down at the straw bed on the floor, then turned to Squirtle with a strained look. "I'm wondering what this is."
"That's a bed," Squirtle retorted flatly, her ears starting to sink against the back of her head. "You sleep on it."
"This is a -" He cut himself off with a grimace, and looked back at the bed in a public broadcast of discomfort.
Squirtle sighed irritably. "If you don't like it, you're welcome to find another place to sleep in town."
"Hey, I'm not insultin' it, I've just never seen a bed like this before." Riolu frowned. "Okay, I know I'm not exactly bein' polite here, but can you at least give me the benefit of the doubt about whether I'm rude or not? I don't know about your weird customs or whatever."
"This is a bed."
"Not where I come from."
"No, I'm telling you now, this is a bed."
"Oh." Riolu got down on his knees and patted it experimentally, looking deep in thought as he did. He hummed in a low tone, his brow furrowing.
Squirtle was just about done with this. Only just now realizing she had been grinding her front paw into the floor in vexation, she snapped, "What is it now?"
Riolu once again turned to face her with that same dumb look of surprise he had so often. "It's just, uh, softer than I thought it'd be."
That was a smack in the face. The toxic retort died in the eevee's mouth as Squirtle swallowed her words, fumbling to come up with some substitution. "Well," she said, raising her head primly. "I'm glad that it's not horrible. I'm going to bed now. Don't eat anything during the night."
"I won't," came the low reply as Squirtle let the curtain of beads drop in front of her. She was acutely aware of how hard she was driving her paws into the hardwood floor as she stormed off to her room. In god's name, why did her only hope have to be so insufferable?! Nobody she knew, not even Breloom, would be this blunt!
Riolu lost his memory, though.
The realization hit her like a truck. That was right. Riolu didn't remember a thing about where he was from. She noted in contempt that he seemed to know quite a lot about beds but quickly brushed those thoughts aside. She couldn't expect him to know anything about anything, really. That almost made her feel sick - she shouldn't be responsible for someone like that! But if she didn't do it, who would? Squirtle knew firsthand what people in Nuzlocke could be like. Pretty much everyone only looked out for themselves - that was why she made this whole help-desk thing in the first place! There's money in helping people who refuse to help themselves!
That wasn't why she made this whole help-desk thing in the first place. It was less selfish than that. She just wanted to help people.
Squirtle pushed open the door to her own room, continuing to pace after the door eased shut. She wanted to help people. She liked helping people. She always had. This had been a dream of hers since the very beginning, but with things going the way they were going she wouldn't be able to do it much longer. She needed Riolu, whether she liked it or not. And he needed Squirtle. What was his name again? Coran? She'd need to know it for the documents.
Squirtle brought her paw to her forehead and gritted her teeth, mentally swearing at herself. What was she doing?! She was falling into the exact same trap that she had seven times before! She had absolutely no obligation to help him out. He wasn't paying her, so he wasn't her problem. No matter how heartless that sounded, if she tried to care about every single hurting soul out there, she'd burn out faster than a firecracker. Her pacing began to increase in pace to match her quickened breathing and mental speed. She couldn't take him in just like that. She couldn't afford to. He'd need to be tested. A lot, Squirtle noted. If he failed, that was his problem. If he wasn't up to the job, that was his problem. This was his problem, not hers. Squirtle only found him! That didn't mean she had to help!
A sick feeling surfaced in her stomach as Squirtle slowed to a stop. She squinted her eyes shut so hard that she could see sparks. Listen to how you sound. Is that how you want to think? Could you say this to his face? The answer, Squirtle thought dejectedly, was no. She could never say any of this stuff to Riolu, especially not with his current situation. If he was just someone looking to make some quick coin things could be different, but just like how he was Squirtle's last stand, she was Riolu's last stand too. Squirtle was his de facto guardian - literally the only person he knew. And as much as she wanted to shirk that responsibility and give it to someone else, Squirtle knew that nobody around would be able to help him as much as she could.
"A week," she murmured to herself. "I'll give Riolu a week. Two weeks. If he can't prove himself by then, I'll find him another job in town for him."
And for the first time in weeks, Squirtle's room was completely silent. No maelstrom of thoughts dancing wildly in her head, no tick-tick-ticking of her claws pacing on the hardwood floor, no quiet harried mumbling under her breath. Everything was quiet.
Breathe in. Breathe out. It's settled, then.
Slowly, methodically, as if partaking in a ritual, Squirtle moved behind her desk and hopped up onto her chair, organizing the necessary documents to get things started first thing tomorrow.
"Coran the riolu," she whispered to herself, fitting her pen into the strap on her paw while staring at the blank form in front of her. She fiddled mindlessly with the fabric to secure the pen against her wrist, too caught up in her own thoughts to be deliberate with it. "...Coran the riolu."
This was going to be a long night.
o o o
The morning came faster than Squirtle would have liked. She felt the familiar aching pressure on her forehead, telling her that she'd fallen asleep at the desk again. The wisps of sunlight sneaking through the window behind her stirred Squirtle from her slumber. Squirtle lifted her head wearily from the stack of papers, noting with dissatisfaction that she'd smudged some of the ink she'd set down with her face. That meant she had ink on her face. Wonderful.
Squirtle slipped off of her chair and trudged towards the water basin near her bed, dipping her paw in and splashing upwards to get the ink off. As she did, she looked back to the closed door to her room. Was Riolu up yet? She didn't hear anything from him. It'd probably be best for him to be asleep anyway, considering she wasn't finished with the forms yet. She'd have to get some shopping done today, too-
A dull pain jabbed into Squirtle's face as she rubbed it. She jerked her paw away and squinted at it scrutinizingly, realizing that she'd dunked her only good pen in the water basin, since she'd been wearing it when she went to sleep.
"Great," she grumbled. "New pen."
She'd have to go out and buy one before she could finish the forms and actually start testing Riolu, but she couldn't just leave him here alone, either. She'd have to wait until he woke up. At least that meant she could take this morning a little slower than expected, though.
Slipping the pen strap off of her wrist, Squirtle looked up at the mirror next to her bed, using her paw through her chest ruff, straightening out her necklace as she did. Her comb had broken a week ago, so this would have to do. Squirtle was not at all satisfied with how unprofessional she looked, even this early in the morning. Her chest fur stuck out in strands in a couple of places, and her Waterstone fragment necklace refused to sit right. It kept on tilting to the left, exposing the copper back the string was attached to. Even the cord itself looked like it was fraying - she would need to replace that, too. Her sleep schedule wasn't doing the bags under her eyes any favours, but those usually only lasted for the early morning anyhow.
She wasn't presentable by a long shot, but given the circumstances, it was a couple of steps above 'drowned dedenne,' and that was probably the best she was going to get. Maybe some tea would help her perk up a little.
Trying to inject a hop into her step so that she wasn't trudging like a zombie, she pushed open the door to the main foyer, giving a quick look to the left at the bead curtain. "Riolu?" she called. "Are you up?"
The only response she heard was a quiet snore. Still asleep, then. That's alright, Squirtle thought. She'd like to look less dead-eevee-walking by the time that he saw her in the morning.
Squirtle walked to the sink and pushed the kettle beneath it, turning the water on to fill it up. She gave another furtive look to the guest room, wondering if Riolu drank tea. If not, she'd just have more chesto tea for later, so that was fine by her. Squirtle hopped up onto the steps to let her reach the higher cupboards, nudging them open to look at what she had.
A half-empty box of chesto leaves greeted Squirtle as she eased the door open, along with two containers of leftover oats from a couple of nights ago. She was a little reluctant to share the oats given that she wasn't sure if Riolu would actually be working here or not yet but figured that it'd probably look pathetic if she didn't feed him at all. She couldn't show any sort of weakness or desperation to him - that's what happened with applicant number five, and she really regretted doing that.
Squirtle needed to wake up. She dragged the box of chesto leaves out of the cupboard, catching them on the counter as she took the kettle out from under the tap, setting it on the stove. She followed up with pouring the oats into a bowl, glancing at the bead curtain to see if the sprinkling noise woke her guest. No reaction.
The oats tasted stale and dull, and while they did their job of filling her up, there wasn't really much appeal to eating them on their own like this. Her mouth felt dry from the food. Squirtle stared down at the bowl in distaste as if giving it a heated enough glare would intimidate the oats into tasting better. Her breakfast scowl was interrupted by a quiet whistling behind her. The tea was ready. Squirtle quickly got up and put the bowl away, deciding to go and wake Riolu before she made the tea.
Squirtle brushed aside the bead curtain to see Riolu sprawled out over the straw bed, fast asleep. Seems the bed suited him well, at the very least.
"Hey, Riolu," Squirtle said quietly, shaking the beads a little to create some noise. "I'm making some tea. Would you like any?"
A disgruntled noise came from the riolu as he squinted his eyes shut. "Mmh...?" With a groan befitting that of a monumental task, Riolu sat up. His fur was matted and messed up in multiple places, and his expression resembled that of the living dead. Squirtle had to hold back a surprised yell from his appearance alone. He sleepily lifted a paw to his eyes, rubbing them. "...What'd you say?" he mumbled.
It took Squirtle a second to formulate a sentence. "Uh, I'm making tea. Do you want any?"
"...Got any coffee?" came the mumbled reply.
"Not right now, no." Squirtle leaned against the doorframe. "The tea I'm brewing wakes you up just the same, though."
"Better'n nuff'n," Riolu mumbled, flopping onto his back.
"You're going to have to come out here to get it though," Squirtle said pointedly, moving into the room to poke at his leg. "I'm not going to bring it to you."
Riolu just hummed in response. Taking that as good enough, Squirtle left the room and began brewing two cups of tea.
"Keep in mind that you're going to be tested before you're allowed to officially work here, Riolu," Squirtle called as she steeped the tea. "And your test started last night."
A loud groan came from the guest room, and Squirtle couldn't help but smirk at it. Even if she didn't have much choice here, that rush of holding power over someone's head never got old.
o o o
"So here's how this is going to work." Squirtle spread the papers she'd prepared last night out on the coffee table in front of Riolu. "You're not working here yet. You're going to be on strict probation over about a month. During that time you will be performing all of the duties an employee normally would. I'll be watching you. At the end of the month, I'll decide whether you're hired or not."
Riolu looked down at some of the papers, putting down one to pick up another. "I don't understand any of this legalese."
"You don't have to," Squirtle replied quickly. "I'm summarizing all of it for you now."
Riolu put down the last form. "Okay so, am I going to be living here while this probation stuff is happening?"
Squirtle nodded. "Yeah. It'll be easier to keep tabs on you that way. And considering you woke up in a field yesterday with no memory I'm willing to bet you don't have pockets right now."
"Uh." Riolu looked down at himself. "I'm not wearing any clothes. Is that another custom here?"
Right. Memory loss. "It's an expression," Squirtle said gently. "You don't have any money, do you?"
Riolu just shook his head.
"Then you can stay here free of charge for the month. If you want to keep living here after you get hired, I'll dock the price for room and board from your paycheck, but you'll probably get better rates than you would at Nuzlocke Inn."
"What about getting a house?"
"You'd have to build one."
"By myself?" Riolu looked aghast.
Squirtle simply shrugged. "I built this place."
Riolu's mouth drew into a hard line, and he looked back at the forms. Squirtle knew desperation when she saw it. He was reading that stuff over and over, hoping that one of the times he did they'd start making sense. It wasn't like she was trying to con him though, so she wasn't too worried if that sudden bolt of inspiration did come to him.
"If you're ready to go, just sign all the forms at the bottom," Squirtle instructed, pushing an inkwell towards him. "Your pawprint will do."
"Don't you have a pencil or something?" Riolu looked down at the inkwell with a furrowed brow.
"You don't sign legal documents with pencil, Riolu," Squirtle scoffed. "And, uh, the only pen I have right now is..." She paused. "It's in my room. It's my special pen. You can't use it."
Riolu gave Squirtle a hard look. "I feel like you aren't being super honest right now."
"People say that a lot when they're signing forms. Sign at the bottom, please? Just your paw."
"Hold on, hold on, wait." Riolu lifted his hands up. "I don't even know what you do, man. You're kinda shoving me into this without telling me anything about what I'm being shoved into."
Squirtle stopped short. She'd said something, hadn't she? There was no way she could have gone this long without saying it. Except there was, and that's precisely what she'd done. "We're hands for hire," she explained. "People post their requests on the bulletin board outside or deliver them to me personally. After deciding that they're worth completing, we complete the request and take the posted reward. We do anything from shopping for people to finding lost items. Though with the way current events are looking, a good chunk of the requests we've been getting involve combat."
"What kind of combat?" Riolu asked. "Are we talking brawls in the streets, or...?"
"Uh." Squirtle drew a quick breath. "You mean to say you don't know?"
Riolu didn't even respond to that, which was fair. He just gave her an unamused glare.
Squirtle flinched. "Alright, alright...but seriously, how much do you know about combat? That's kind of an integral part of our history, so I'm going to need to know exactly what you've forgotten, so you don't get confused."
He once again didn't respond, though this time it wasn't without pause for thought. "I mean, I know you guys battle. That's like, the main thing you do, right?"
"Um..." That's a bit of a weird way of putting it. Then again, he was a fighting-type, so maybe that was just the way he thought back where he came from. "Well, not really. I feel like you're talking more about the ferals? They're outside of towns like Nuzlocke, in the wild. They aren't much for conversation, and generally speaking, they aren't very bright. Usually, though, they just stay where they live and don't bother us."
"So you're not feral?"
Ouch. "No, Riolu, I'm not feral."
"Am I feral?"
"Probably not."
"Okay, well, if these guys stay out of town, why did you say 'in current events' or whatever? Why are we going to be fighting these things?"
"That I don't really know," Squirtle said, frowning. "I don't go into town that often, and I talk with people there even less, so I'm not too informed beyond what they post on the board. But I've been getting a lot of requests about going out into the wild recently. People are going out there more often, for one reason or another."
"So, to sum all this up," Riolu said, looking back down at the forms. "You want me to join your help thingy and fight people, even though you have no idea why we're fighting them?"
"Riolu, you're missing the point," Squirtle pressed. "We help people. That's the critical part. If helping them includes laying a beatdown on a couple of feral pokémon, who are we to judge as long as we get paid?"
Riolu was silent for a long time. He just stared at the forms blankly, his eyes unmoving. That was a thinking face. Finally, he spoke. "If I sign this paper are you going to stop calling me Riolu?"
Good god, this again? "What would you prefer?" Squirtle tried to keep the dread from creeping into her voice.
"Coran, my name," he retorted. "And I don't want to go callin' you 'Eevee' either. It's awkward."
"If you start calling me by my name out in public people are going to think we're a couple. Is that what you want?"
Riolu flashed a grin. "Maybe."
"It's not too late to fire you."
He responded by dipping his paw into the inkwell and messily slapping it onto the bottom of each of the forms. "Not like I had much choice anyway."
Squirtle put a paw to the side of her head as she watched him sign the documents. "Oh, Coran, you have no idea."
