This to Chapter 5 were originally meant to be one long flashback Chapter but I love exposition too much.
I read this Chapter again recently and was surprised by how well it holds up compared to the Chapters I wrote more recently.
Erika was the only person I had ever felt remotely comfortable calling a friend. That did not mean I was confident about it... but she has been the most constant social fixture in my life for some time now.
Well... mostly. I suppose I have reasons to believe she was not my friend either.
Erika was my senpai at Trainer School, when we were younger. It was not for a very long time, but I remember it so vividly, even now.
I do not know much about the inner machinations of others, I barely understand my own thoughts. Debating my own emotional state, let alone understanding what makes other people tick, is still quite alien to me.
To put it another way, I can read people literally through my powers, but I can not read and understand what makes them that way. My powers come from calm and calculation, I was taught from a young age that factoring emotion would complicate things.
I digress. The point is that some children gathered around me like fans, while others steered clear of me like I was a monster. I am sure their parents told them things about me, or perhaps they saw me practising powers they did not understand and that I could not yet fully control.
Most people were simple and easy to read, but Erika was not. This is why I could not decide whether I hated her or not.
The first time I saw her, she radiated incandescently and the only word I could think of to describe her in my young mind was 'beautiful'. She was beautiful.
I was initially so overwhelmed by the way she seemed to carry light itself within her self that all the windows in the room I was in shattered. My fault, of course.
This was understandably enough to make students and teachers wary of me. Enough to have my family alerted.
I didn't care though. My eyes were fixed on her. From that day onward, whenever she appeared before me I would have great difficulty tearing my attention away from her visage. I tried at first, but quickly gave up and allowed myself to bask in her light.
I doubt it took her long to notice, she was an extremely intelligent and observant individual, she seemed to understand the life in everything around her. She knew what made everything tick and she found every aspect of it genuinely fascinating.
I know this because of the inspiring way her eyes lit up. They gleamed about everything. The children, the flowers, the Pokémon, she longed to know them all intimately, and I was fascinated with her and the way she saw the world. She was... my first true inspiration.
I hated it. She contrasted me in every way and I could not stop thinking about it.
The things she did to me, without even touching or talking to me, let alone any psychic power of her own. I was closed off and did not speak to people often, but this power she possessed over me far outmatched anything I had ever experienced before.
Ridiculous: she once welled up with tears upon seeing the growing bud of a newly hatched baby Bulbasaur and the image of her pure emotional expression is still burnt into my mind. I remember being so distracted about her passion for life during my own training that a spoon I was intent on bending as an exercise ended up covered in teeth marks.
Uhm.. I should note they were not physical marks from my actual teeth. My psychic powers just did that to the spoon because I was so vexed. Anyway.
Like me, Erika was popular. From her natural glow, I could hardly blame them. She was always surrounded by girls. Girls who seemed to genuinely care for her well-being and who behaved as though they would defend her good image to the grave. That much has not changed to this day, actually.
This only made me feel even more strange. Despite my own apparent 'popularity', I never got the feeling that many people cared about me or felt any strong emotion for me. This is why, having my attentions for Erika seemingly returned was so unfathomable.
I had watched Erika relatively regularly since I first laid eyes on her, just because I found it hard not to. Whenever I spotted her in lunch break or at the end of the school day, my eyes were drawn.
Then after a few months, she started to watch me back.
The first few times it happened I would quickly and awkwardly avert my gaze so as not to make her think I was staring (I mean, I was). Still, before long I noticed she would watch me even when I was not watching her.
Soon, we both shared eye-contact frequently. Sometimes for extended periods of time. She did not look at me like she looked at nature or even other people. Her eyes were boundlessly curious - and she did not falter or hesitate like I sometimes did. Her glare was steeled, confident and mesmerising. I was... jealous, of her grace and composure, when remaining calm was such a vital part of my own training.
Much to my chagrin she then began to sit near me at lunch. Initially her entourage would ask her why she did this, but quickly stopped. She would do this almost every day without fail. She started out sitting opposite me with regular eye-contact - and eventually she sat on the seat right next to me.
She did not do this to anyone else, which infuriated me too.
Was she mocking me? Attempting to scare me away from looking at her? I did not know. I still do not know. There were many times I wondered if she wished to be my friend, or if this connection between us actually made us friends, but she did not treat her other friends this way.
By this point she was increasingly taking up unsolicited space in my mind as well as the physical space near me. This is part of why it bothered me so much.
Still, I admit I became comforted with this schedule of sharing eye-contact with Erika. It became something I almost looked forward to for a time.
My soul felt warmer just to be near her. The familiarity of her presence soothed me and made me feel like I had a friend. Like someone wanted to be near me.
Before anything else could happen though, it was over.
Erika and I had scarcely even exchanged words with one another beyond pleasantries such as 'hello' or 'good bye' before we went our separate ways.
Our families are.. both quite strict. Our time at Trainer School was limited and through total coincidence we were both removed to begin home schooling during the same academic year.
My focus was worsening and my family thought I had been asking too many emotionally-charged questions. Because of this and the uh.. window incident, home schooling was seen as the best path for my career.
I never did see how Erika reacted to my leaving and I don't know why this hurt. One day she was sitting next to me at lunch and the next day I was taken from her. It was the last time I saw her for years.
The next time I met Erika, she was already Celadon City's majestic Gym Leader.