((So I was listening to pokemon music one day, and I stumble across a remastered version of Virbank City's theme, which already is one of my favorite pokemon town themes by the way, and I felt inspired to write this. No big story, no drama, no romance, just a pure slice of life short story that stems from my love of the pokemon franchise and the magic and lore of the pokemon universe. Hope you guys enjoy this little tale stemming from my desire to bring just a little of that magic to life.))
The door to the local Virbank city cafe opened up, hitting the silver bell rigged near the top of the entryway to alert the shopkeeper of a new customer. A tall man with a thin beard wearing a dark gray light nylon jacket and light blue jeans stepped out of the light rain and slightly chilly weather, folding up his dark green umbrella and shaking off the excess water as he did so, and calmly walked into the cafe and up to the counter. The cafe was a small shop close to the center of town on a normally very busy street. But there didn't seem to be many people or pokemon out and about today because of the weather.
The cafe itself was a small shop with its light tan walls, lit just well enough by multiple overhead hanging light fixtures to give the shop a warm and comforting feel even in the colder weather. There were a few darkwood tables that could sit two or four people, and the darkwood countertop and shelves themselves could be seen with all the various coffee beans, beverage ingredients, brewing equipment, and pastries. The man even spotted a stoutland sleeping on a bed towards the back of the shop.
The shopkeeper, a younger looking man who could easily still be in his late teens at a glance, wearing a dark green apron, white t shirt, and jeans, was behind the counter reading a magazine. He looked up at the man who had just entered and gave a friendly smile. "Trying to beat the weather getting off work?"
The older male shook his head and gave a friendly smile of his own. "Nah, I'm off today. I quite like this weather. Sometimes it's nice to just take a walk in weather like this and get your mind off things, you know?"
The shopkeeper gave a wistful stare out the window. "I know exactly what you mean. It's kind of a shame that it's not as busy in weather like this. "
"Their loss, I guess," the man said with a shrug.
The shopkeeper chuckled and set down the magazine he had in his hands. "Heh, true enough... so what'll it be?"
"Regular coffee, please. Black medium roast."
The shopkeeper snapped a finger and pointed at the man with a bit of flare. "Comin right up. That'll be 300 poke."
The man set the coins totaling 300 poke on the counter and walked to a nearby newspaper stand, grabbing one for himself. "This today's issue?"
The shopkeeper set a handful of coffee beans into a grinder and glanced up at the man as he was holding the newspaper. "Yup. Help yourself if you like."
The man nodded his thanks and carried the newspaper to a small table right next to the cafe window. A loud grinding noise flooded the cafe, but it quickly dissipated nearly as quickly as it came. The man opened up the newspaper and immediately his eyes fixated on a single story. "Huh, seems Roxie's concert is tomorrow night."
"Yup," the shopkeeper called out as he started the coffee maker, "sounds like she has a couple new songs she wanted to show off there. You planning on going?"
The man shook his head. "Nah, it's not my kind of scene, personally. She's a great girl and I hope it goes off without a hitch, but I'm not big into hard rock."
"That's totally fair."
The man continued reading the newspaper wordlessly, but the further down he read, the less he found himself caring what all the news stories had to say. With the light pitter patter of the raindrops hitting the window, the man was instead motivated to simply gaze out the slightly foggy window and admire the peaceful scenery. He found himself so lost in what he considered to be the beauty of the city, that he was slightly startled when he felt a warm and fuzzy nudge against his leg.
He turned his head to meet whatever was pushing up against him to find that it was the stoutland that had been sleeping mere moments ago. The canine pokemon was bumping its head against him and giving him an expectant look in what the man assumed was an attempt to get him to pet it. Naturally, the man obliged. He chuckled and started gently stroking the stoutland's head, who immediately gave a soft grateful bark and leaned into the man's hand.
"Ah, I see Grigor's taken a liking to you." The man looked up from petting the stoutland to see the shopkeeper with an amused smile, holding the cup of coffee. The shopkeeper set the coffee down in front of the man. "Here you are sir. And a bit of advice, you should be careful about petting him. Once you start, he's not gonna let you stop."
The stoutland gave another soft bark, this one sounding slightly argumentative.
The shopkeeper gave the stoutland a challenging look. "Oh hush, you. You know I'm right. It's like you have a pet addiction or something." The stoutland gave the shopkeeper a nudge with his head.
The man chuckled at the silly scene. "It's no trouble, really. I don't mind keeping some company for a bit."
The shopkeeper just shrugged and gave a friendly smile at the man. "Alright, well you enjoy," he said simply before turning around and heading back behind the counter.
The stoutland walked back over to the man, who was happy to continue petting him. The man took a careful sip of his coffee. Just right. Refreshingly bitter. The stoutland curled up on the ground next to the man, but even as he lay down, his size meant that the man could still comfortably reach down to pet the canine pokemon. And as the man continued to sip on his coffee and give attention to a gentle giant of a pokemon, he once again gazed outside of the cafe window to admire the scene before him. Some days, thought the man, it was the simple things that made life worth living.