Ray I
As his hands fumbled over the lopsided bow for the third minute, the boy exuded nothing but positivity. He noticed, barely, his mother open and shut her mouth a few times and suck in air as if she had something to say but thought better of it. It was his first ever real birthday present – bought with money and wrapped in wrapping paper and given to him on the day – and the excitement was causing his already near-inept, trembling hands to struggle greatly with the act of untying the blue ribbon.
"Just let me do it, Ray."
He almost jumped when his mother's words came; he hadn't expected her to actually say anything.
He shook his head so rapidly that he could have sworn he heard his brain knocking about in his skull.
"Let's have some cake first, darling, and then we'll give it another go, alright?"
Her thin lips turned upwards at the corners. It was a strange look for her, reserved for just two days of the year. His birthday and on Christmas, that was it. Those were also the only two days that pokemon battling wasn't on the telvision. It was all she watched. Ray was lucky to get meals when the Championships were on.
Ray craned his neck backwards to steal another look at the cake that she had for him, his fingers still trembling gently against the wrapped box.
"Come on, darling," his mother coaxed, lifting up the hem of her nightgown to step across the room and pick up a knife. She muttered to herself as she let it glide downwards through the cake. "I shouldn't have wrapped your present."
A slice was placed on the table. Even on his birthday he wouldn't be allowed to eat it on the floor. Other children he knew could eat in front of the television if they wanted. His mother told him that this was their parents' decision. If they wanted to raise offspring with no manners or sense of family time then that was their business.
Ray took his present with him to the table, placing it next to him as he ate. The sugary, creamy icing spread thick across his unfamiliar palette and he felt at first as though he would be sick.
It was a Treat, though, and if he didn't enjoy it he was sure that his mother would be unhappy.
And the woman only smiled twice a year as it was.
He smiled as he ate it, and felt his cheeks aching with it. He wiped icing from his chin and licked it. Other children liked butterscotch and pure sugarcane, but he wasn't used to it. Sometimes he would get a square of dark chocolate after dinner, and he didn't mind that, really, but that was a fairly rare Treat, usually after Mr. Park had been to visit. Mr. Park liked dark chocolate and black liquorice. His mother had told him once that nobody liked black liquorice and Mr. Park was only trying to adopt a character trait because he had none of his own. Ray had nodded in understanding, but his mother had laughed and poked at his ribs, saying that of course she was only joking and why was he so serious?
He'd apologised and gone to his room to play with Sunny.
Sunny was a stuffed Minccino that his father had given him before he was born. Ray worried sometimes that he would not have been able to properly thank his father in utero, which according to his mother meant between the time you were planted and the time you were born. He wondered whether his father knew that he was grateful, wherever he was. He made it a point to play with Sunny every day to show the Universe that he was grateful.
His mother said that the Universe was very powerful. Do good things for the Universe and the Universe would make sure good things happened to you. She also talked about the Cosmos and how if you put good thoughts into the Cosmos, the Cosmos would deliver you good things. Ray asked her once how the Cosmos and the Universe were different, and his mother had thought for a while until her lips had just about disappeared, and then answered, 'I suppose they aren't really.'
Today was his tenth birthday, and his mother had fashioned a little felt number '10' and put it between Sunny's paws and put a party hat on his head and positioned him next to the cake. When he had finished his slice, his mother offered him another one that he politely refused.
"Would you like me to loosen the bow, darling?"
Her hands were clasped tightly over the off-white nightdress, but her voice was calm.
Ray wondered if it would annoy her more to have to undo the bow she'd done up by herself, or to sit and watch him struggle for however long it took.
"Please could you just loosen it a very tiny bit?" he asked her, and her eyes flicked upwards.
"Of course."
Nimbly her fingers flicked the two tails of the bow outwards. Ray pressed his finger and thumb against each other once to practice on his lap, and then on the same strings that his mother had just pulled on. Shakingly, taking great care to not let go but also to not squeeze too hard and hurt himself more than necessary, he pulled outwards, elbows creaking almost audibly to him, but probably silent to his mother.
The bow was sucked inwards into itself and then the ribbon peeled away, leaving just the box. All he had to do was curl his fingers around the lid and pull it off of the box.
"If you need any more help, darling-"
His mother didn't ever end that sentence. She didn't need to, really; she said it all the time.
But he got it right the first time and managed to push the lid off from below right away. Inside was a pretty mess of ripped moss-green tissue paper: his favourite colour ever since he discovered the talking tree. The talking tree wasn't a tree that spoke, by the way; it had inherited its name for different reasons many years ago, but that wasn't important right now.
What was important was the hard, round and very shiny red object in the box that he could immediately feel against his fingertips when he sifted through the tissue. He scooped it up with both of his palms and gaped at it for a while.
Pokeballs were heavier than he had expected.
"Do you … do I catch something in it?"
He knew the answer to that, but he had to say something about its purpose before the flood of 'thank you's spilled forth.
"No – why don't you try to open it up?"
That answer confused him momentarily. Was it a prop pokeball? Maybe it had sweets in it.
He hoped not.
But when he pressed the button and an orange blob of energy shone out and began to shape, his mouth fell open.
"You got me an actual-?"
He couldn't bring himself to say the word. Would it jinx it? His mother's smile deepened and for a moment she didn't look at all frightening or unfamiliar wearing it any more.
The energy formed into a shape that he knew better than anything else in the world.
"Cinchii-!"
Ray's eyes flicked from Sunny in its party hat holding the felt number '10' on the table to the small, expressive rodent beside it. There were a shocking number of differences between the real thing and the fluffy cotton counterpart, but in essence they were the same thing.
His mother had gone out and bought him a real life Minccino.
"Mu-" he began.
"I know, darling. Please, you don't have to say anything."
"How did you afford it?"
The rude words came out before he could stop himself. His trembling fingers were zoning in ever closer to the creature on the table, and the Minccino was noticeably frightened. Its eyes were closer together than the stuffed animal. Ray could see muscle and bone shift as it moved under the coat of short grey fur. Instead of a huge stretching grin, the real thing had a small snout with small, practical-looking fangs glinting from inside its half-open mouth. Its eyes, darker and smaller than Sunny's, were darting, uncertain.
"I don't want you to worry about that."
"It's scared."
"It's a he, and he probably wonders what you're going to name him."
"Is that something to be frightened of?" Ray wondered aloud.
His eyes shot immediately to Sunny. He couldn't have a Minccino around him that was called anything else. He'd had a Minccino named Sunny since before he was born.
"Sunny," he said finally, hoping his mother wouldn't laugh at him, and adding "…please."
"Anything you want, darling. Anything at all."
Ray didn't know if that meant that Sunny wasn't allowed. He kept quiet for a bit.
"Go play with him, darling."
The creature shook at the words, looking up at both of them in turn, its paws tucked up to its chest.
"Go on."
Ray tried to pick up the pokeball a few times, but it fell out of his grasp and clattered on the table when he finally got it. The Minccino scrambled away from the loud noise and skittered to a halt before it fell off the edge, its chest rising and falling rapidly and its head darting side to side.
"Sweetie, just use both of your hands."
His mother wiped her hands on the side of her off-white nightdress and demonstrated. Ray copied, cupping the ball and simultaneously pressing the button. The Minccino was sucked back inside with a sort of defeated look on its face.
He was barely out of the room when he heard the familiar 'zoop' noise of the TV being turned back on. His mother switched channels a few times before settling into her seat on the sofa as a referee announced a battle. Ray recognised the battle. It was a rerun. The current champion versus one of the Elite Four. It was an amazing battle to watch, so it was on very often, whenever there was nothing better to show. He estimated that his mother had seen it over forty times, at least.
"Now you have your very own pokemon, you can get training."
Ray jumped when he realised that his mother was talking to him despite the TV being on.
"You can bring me back the Championship trophy. Won't that be nice, darling?"
She didn't require an answer, he guessed. Taking great care not to drop the pokeball in his trembling hands, Ray ducked out of the room just as on-screen an Aggron and Blastoise grappled, roaring so hard the set buzzed. The crowd roared.
"Ok, mum," he said, but he was sure that she hadn't heard.