Golden Rivals, Silver Friends
Chapter Six:
Growing Different, Growing Apart
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Every Friday, if the class had behaved during the week, the elementary teachers got together to reward us. Since there were so few kids in the school, they had us all pool together in the gym. There, we got to have every schoolkid's dream: Pokémon Lessons.
Sometimes, they were math lessons ("If three Pidgey are in a tree, and two fly away, how many are left?"). Sometimes, they were miscellaneous things, like colors ("If you take Poliwag's color and Kakuna's color and mix them together, what color do you get?"). Sometimes, they were even about science ("When handling Electric Pokémon, rubber gloves will help you out, because rubber is not a conductor of electricity").
Of course, everyone's favorite lessons were always about battling. Since this was supposed to be a reward, after all, the teachers would sometimes even get Grandpa to come down with a few Pokémon, and he would show us some rather tame mock battles.
"... so you see, Water types are strong against Fire types. That's fairly easy to remember, since you can put out a fire with water, right?" Grandpa said, pointing to the whiteboard.
"Briiing!"
"Oh my, would you look at the time?" Grandpa laughed. "Session's over, everyone!"
And with that, everyone would look forward to another happy weekend...
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I was always good at Pokémon Lessons about battling. I don't know how, and I don't really know why, but I was good at them. Besides, I was expected to be good with Pokémon... look at my grandfather. Everyone knew me as the little Ookido kid who knew everything there was to know about Pokémon.
And I was the one who everyone expected to do the impossible. Everyone expected me to someday become the best Pokémon Master in the world.
Of course, that was my dream anyway. But what fewer people knew was that there was one other boy who dreamed to be a Pokémon Master as fervently as I did...
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... I think the conversation happened when we were both in first grade, when we were about six and seven...
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"Shigeru?"
"Yeah, Satoshi?" I turned to him. We were both lying on our backs out in the field. It was fun to just lie down in that sea of grass and watch the clouds floating by...
"... I want to be a Pokémon Master when I grow up, too," he whispered.
"Cool!" I smiled.
"But, Shigeru..." he trailed off.
"What?"
"I... I want to be the best Pokémon Master ever," he said, a smile slowly growing as he finished the sentence. "The best one ever."
"That's cool. I've thought about that before," I responded.
"But, Shigeru...!"
"What?" I asked. "If we both aim for the same thing, then we can travel together when we turn ten. We can go all over the world and be the best!"
"..." But Satoshi was quiet.
"You okay?" I asked, rolling over onto my stomach. "Did you eat too much again?"
He shook his head. We both sat there in silence for a few minutes, until I spoke up, "Let's go play hide-and-seek! You're hiding." Satoshi looked up at me and smiled.
"Okay!" he replied, scrambling to his feet.
"I'm going to start counting!" I announced, covering my eyes with my hands. "One... two... three..." But the rustle of grass signaled that Satoshi was long gone, anyway. The rest of the day passed just like the last few years had; the two of us playing away into the sunset.
It wasn't until that night, just as I was getting ready to sleep, did I understand Satoshi's questions.
Didn't "the best" mean... one person?
And, of the two of us...
... I was the best.
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That was the first day that I realized it. Even though Satoshi was my best friend, even though I had always treated him like we were the same... we weren't. Nevertheless, we kept going about our lives like nothing was any different. Satoshi was still my friend...
... but we were getting closer to... whatever had happened.
After that day, though, I started to notice little things about Satoshi that I had never given much thought to before. The way he always walked next to me or behind me, never in front. The way he asked me for answers when he couldn't think of them himself. Somehow, I began to realize how dependent he was on me...
... and I liked it.
I liked the feeling of having to take care of someone else. I liked the idea of having someone look up to me.
And even though I never spoke my last thought aloud, I knew it was the most cruel of them all.
... I liked the idea of being superior to someone else.
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From a young age, I knew that it was wrong to think something like that. After all, Satoshi and I were just... different. It's what they teach you in school. Everyone's a little bit different, everyone's unique, and everyone is special. That's what makes the world interesting. I knew that. Everybody knew that. And that's what I thought...
... at least... that's what I wanted to think.
That's what I wanted to say. Satoshi was my friend. And as his friend, I couldn't let the idea enter my head that...
But I couldn't help it. Back then, I was young. Immature. Too immature, too selfish, too carried away with what made myself happy... I was sure that I knew the truth about everything. And this was no exception. It felt to me like there was a voice hovering around me, shouting it out, screaming it in my face, wanting to say it to the world...
... that I was better than Satoshi.
Better at everything. Better at school, playing games, Pokémon, everything, the whole nine yards. I was taller, stronger, more well-known. People paid more attention to me than they ever would to Satoshi.
I was the special one.
Satoshi... wasn't.
When I stood next to him, I was in a position of power. And nothing that anyone could say or do could change that. I mean, even he knew it. So why bother to deny it?
Because I didn't want things to change.
Despite what I thought, I knew that deep down, I didn't want things to be different from how they had always been. I knew that no matter what my relationship was with Satoshi, no matter what I started to think, that Satoshi's trust and friendship were the most important things in my life.
I couldn't lose that.
Because if I lost that, I lost everything.
Over the past years, he had become the center of my life. Without him, I had nothing.
No friends, no one to confide in, no one to play with...
... and no one to depend on me.
I smiled as I remembered my revelation, all those years ago... that moment of clarity when I realized it...
Without Satoshi, my life meant next to nothing. The person that I had thought I was better than was my whole reason for existing.
I knew what I loved to do. I loved, and I wanted, to protect Satoshi. At that point, I wanted nothing more than to keep him safe. Keep him safe, so that nothing could ever hurt the happiness between us. If that meant bending the rules and making it so that "the best" could be two people, then so be it.
Satoshi was my friend. And just as he depended on me, I depended on him. Wasn't that friendship in its entirety?
Just then, a near stumble on the road because of my distracted thoughts brought me back to the present. Even so, I couldn't help but keep smiling. Memories like those have a tendency to make you do that.
But now I was back to square one. I knew that I wouldn't have let go of Satoshi so easily. So what had happened?
The thought crossed my mind. A feeling of despair started to well up in me.
... had it been Satoshi?
