"How do you do it?"

The question was pointed, so Goh looked up at her as he sipped his juice box.

"How do I do what?" he asked. Getting clarification would help, since he wasn't exactly sure what she was asking about.

She frowned at him, her normally warm green eyes going cold. "You know exactly what I mean," she said, gesturing to the space around him.

He smirked at her. "Well, these clothes look really good on me," he said with a sly shrug. "The greys and reds really bring out my eyes, don't you think?"

If he was looking for amusement on his childhood friend's face, he wouldn't find it as long as he continued to tease her, but there was a part in him that got a rush from her flustered, pouting cheeks.

She shook her head, her maroon braided ponytail swaying behind her. "That's not what I meant," she said.

Goh shrugged and returned to looking at his phone, which Chloe then snatched from his hands.

"Hey!"

"I'm talking to you, so please pay attention!" Despite the forceful tone, she was still cutely pouting at him, and in her cold, emerald eyes he could see some amount of joy dancing within, giving them a sparkle.

"Fine, fine…" he said, finally sitting up at the table. "What did you want to know?"

Goh and Chloe were sitting in the kitchen in the Cerise Laboratory. Ash was off taking a nap, probably in the shade of the tallest tree in Cerise Park, so it was just the two of them.

Despite his rather calm, jovial demeanor, Goh had just returned to the lab having caught nothing but wind in his Poké Balls. There was allegedly an outbreak of Floatzel, a rare sea-dwelling Pokémon, in Vermilion Harbor, and he was keen to add one to his collection in the park. This would have been one more step on the way to his ultimate goal; filling out his Pokédex and capturing the Mythical Pokémon Mew.

However, unfortunately for both Goh as well as Ash, the research fellows were met by a rather large and bizarrely powerful female Floatzel, the matron of the group. She snarled as the two humans approached her horde and defied all their attempts at capture, defeating Cinderace, Inteleon, and Flygon. Dewgong was useless against her feminine wiles, and no amount of ball-tossing seemed to be good enough. By the time the Floatzel had been knocked out and dropped beneath the waves, all but a handful of the Floatzel were gone, and Goh gave up, letting them all leave while he came back home.

Goh's Grookey was eating, rapidly tossing bits of food from his bowl into his mouth next to the table. Chloe's Eevee was mindlessly copying the chimp's behavior. Sometimes Goh wondered if the little brown Pokémon had any thoughts of her own.

"What I want to know," Chloe said, sitting in the seat across from him, "is why you seem alright giving up like that?"

"I didn't exactly give up," he said with a shrug. "I couldn't beat that big lady Floatzel. It's more like I got defeated than I gave up."

"But you could have come up with a way where you could catch at least one," she said, drawing circles on the table with her fingers. "Or at least a little Buizel, right?"

He shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "I guess I could have been more sneaky, but you know how excited Ash can get."

She sighed, her own mouth turning up into a smile. "Yeah, he does really drop his guard when he sees a Pokémon, doesn't he?"

"So I couldn't catch one little Floatzel," he said. "Or even a Buizel. Oh well. Tomorrow's another day, right?"

Chloe went right back to frowning.

"How can you be so… so…" Her brow was wrinkled with concentration. "...blasé about it?"

"Blasé about what?" he asked.

"Getting a Floatzel would have put you one step closer to your dream, right…?" she said, finally spitting out what she had been trying to say. Her face wore a dissatisfied, childish frown. She clearly hated being forced to spell things out like that, especially to him, the one boy who should have understood.

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. "It would have. But it's not like I only have one opportunity to catch a Pokémon forever, right? Even if it was a really incredibly rare Pokémon, I'd eventually get a chance to catch it again later, right?"

She didn't move to refute his words, but the look on her face told him that she was still dissatisfied with it.

"But even so, putting forth all that effort, trying so many of your partners to weaken and catch it… that can't feel good, right?"

He felt his eyebrow twitch in annoyance. "Not really, no," he said. "But they tried their hardest and it worked out to be pretty good training for them, right?"

It felt like they were playing a game, taking turns trying to defeat the other and turn their thoughts in line with their own, but Goh knew they were both too stubborn to actually do such a thing, but he enjoyed the verbal jousting, so he made no effort to stop.

"But you could have caught something? Aren't you the least bit disappointed?"

"Again, no," came his reply. "It's not like it's even the first time I've failed to catch a certain Pokémon. I guess I'm used to it."

"But still…"

He finally turned to her, setting down his juice box. "Chloe, why are you so invested in whether or not I caught some random Pokémon?"

The question struck her across the face, and he could tell she was surprised from how many emotions flashed through the eyes that always seemed to catch his own gaze.

"It's… I mean…"

It was clear she had no response for him.

"C'mon, spill it," he said. "Why are you so invested in one Pokémon? It's not like you were so thrilled about them not that long ago, right?"

In the thoroughly blended mix of emotions already playing on her face, he saw a new one quickly added and melded in: shame.

"...I didn't get it back then," she said, embarrassed by her own past behavior. "I… I didn't get why Pokémon were so incredible before, or…" she went quiet before looking back up at him. "Or… what it was like to chase your dream with them."

Now her constant questioning made more sense. Chloe was someone who wasn't even chasing a dream. She was just trying to help Eevee discover her own dream, with Chloe acting as a guide. And from how preciously Chloe treated Eevee's search for her dream, it was obvious that she held that determination to decide on a goal in high regard.

Chloe was worried about him. Seeing that he had gone out, tried his hardest, and still failed, she was wondering if he was depressed or disappointed, probably in hopes of being able to cheer him up.

Knowing one's childhood friend for so long gave one such insight, Goh thought to himself.

"I get it now," he said, nodding. He shrugged, deciding to give her what she wanted. "I suppose I am a bit depressed that such a thing happened. I really did want to catch that Floatzel, too…"

She glowered at him, turning up her nose. "Okay, now you're just teasing me," she said, going from flustered to upset very quickly.

He waved his hands. "I'm sorry," he said, now himself in full retreat. "I just… thought you were trying to cheer me up because you thought I'd be upset."

Chloe looked away from him, but he could catch the slightest hint of red on her cheek. "Well… you're always trying to act grown up, even when we were little. You usually bottle up how you're feeling, so I thought I would be nice and come help you."

The smile that grew on his face was soft and genuine. "I know I do," he said. "I guess I can't be all that grown up if you're still fussing over me, right?"

"Right. If you still have me taking care of you, you're definitely not grown up yet."

They both shared a laugh, and Grookey and Eevee hopped onto the table. Their eyes were darting between the two of them, wondering what the joke they shared was.

Goh slid his hand across the table, brushing against Chloe's fingers. She recoiled her hand backwards shyly, though any meaning in the motion was lost as Eevee chased her hand back before she began pawing at her face.

"C'mon, Eevee, cut it out," she said, laughing.

Goh was prepared to laugh, himself, before Grookey painfully pulled on the sides of his mouth, stretching his lips and inflicting pain.

"Hey, come on!" He tried to protest, but the chimp's fingers in his mouth made his words nearly unintelligible. He lifted Grookey up and away, forcing him to let go of his face. "Don't do that, Grookey! You could get hurt if someone bites your fingers."

"Grooki," he replied with a smile, swishing his tail to and fro.

"Not to mention hurting you," Chloe added. She stood, taking Eevee into her own arms. "Honestly…" she sighed. "If it isn't this little copycat, it's Grookey causing mischief."

"If anyone needs a grown up to be watching over them, it's these two," Goh said, a wry smile on his face.

Chloe smiled, her own deadpan sarcasm rising to the surface. "Parenting is a full-time job, I guess."

"We are some unlucky parents."

Goh's joke made them both laugh again, though Goh felt his face heat up at the implication.

Chloe stepped around the table and poked Goh in the cheek. "Maybe Grookey was trying to tell you to smile more," she said.

"Maybe he was trying to show you what smiling looks like," Goh teased back.

"I do not frown all the time!" she said, frowning as she did. "I smile for Eevee all the time!"

"Eievui!" The Pokémon frowned heavily, scrunching up her face.

Goh did his best to stifle a giggle, which made Chloe look at her Pokémon.

"Hey! Cut that out! I do not frown like that!" she said to Eevee. The Pokémon only took this as even greater incentive to frown even harder until it looked like someone forced her to bite into a Persim Berry.

He laughed at the scene, which just made Chloe embarrassed again. The sight made him want to do something for her, to help her like she had approached wanting to help him. So he decided to let her in on his secret.

"You asked how I did it," he said to her.

This made Chloe pause, looking at him while she held Eevee in her arms. "What do you mean, how you did it?"

Goh placed Grookey on his shoulder. "How I was able to act so nonchalant about missing a big opportunity to catch a new Pokémon."

She narrowed her gaze at him, searching his face for the trick. "You do seem to bounce back really quickly," she said.

He smiled back at her, tenderly this time. "The reason I'm able to do that is because I know that if I ever really do feel upset, I'll always have people like you to cheer me up and help me feel better."

He could see Chloe's cheeks turn a bright pink.

"Even if I feel like a failure, I know I can always count on the people and Pokémon around me to lift my spirits, so I know that I'm never alone, no matter what happens or how badly I fail."

He uncrossed his arms over and bowed slightly to her.

"So thank you, Chloe, for always being here for me."

The smile on her face was undeniable, but he could see her wrestling with herself to keep it as small as possible.

"Maybe you're a bit more grown up than I thought," she said with a small voice.

"So you finally admit it," he tried to reply, though before he got halfway through the sentence, Grookey pulled on his hair, making him yelp in pain.

Goh pulled the chimp off his head and glowered at it. "Please behave, Grookey!" he said. "I was trying to act cool!"

He turned back to Chloe and was welcomed with a sharp flick to his forehead. He rubbed the spot in pain and looked up at her, only to see her emerald eyes glittering.

"You shouldn't try to act cool," she cautioned. "When you try to act cool, you only end up looking like a dork."

"Hey!"

She could only laugh at his protests. "I didn't say there was anything wrong with dorks! You're the one putting that meaning on it!"

He sighed. He couldn't be upset as long as those glittering emerald eyes were trained on him.

He would have to get her back some other day.


Hello! It's Purim, the Author.

This short story was inspired by a time I was playing Pokémon GO and failed to catch a Darkrai in a raid. I worked hard to get everyone together, fought my hardest, and then when the catching came... I completely blew it.

I was so heartbroken when it happened, that I knew I had to express these feelings through Goh and Chloe, so I came home and wrote this short story.

Goh expresses the reason he can keep bouncing back, and this is something we saw with his recovery during the events of "Silver Shadow". Chloe's worrying over him, and the way they argue also come from my own relationships (past and present).

Indeed, this is a story that was inspired greatly by real world events, and sometimes you just need that distance of characters dealing with their own problems to really assist you when you're struggling with your own feelings. After I wrote the ending, I felt much better about how that raid went. And I caught a Darkrai the next morning, too!