I spent many happy months with the team, learning how to battle, making friends, being thanked. I relearned the rules of mystery dungeons, found a comfortable style of battling, and slowly began to be accepted into the nearby Treasure Town.
A kind member of the team with the nickname Crescent helped me through some of my hardest times, and found me a place to live. She congratulated me on my reintroduction to society, but by the expressions on her face and on Brookie and Buddy's faces, I could tell that this meant more than just learning how to fit in again. I tried a few times to ask her what relationship they had with my past self, or what relationship she had with me, but my efforts were rebuffed.
Tensions like this remained wherever I went. Friends would stare at me with strange expressions whenever our conversations touched on certain topics, strangers would shoot apprehensive glances my way, and no one would treat me quite how they would anyone else. A young Marill and his little brother stared at me like I was a demon. Some of my teammates nearly kicked me out of spacetime before I could explain to them that I was harmless.
Brookie and Buddy had to explain to every new person we came across about how I was not an evil creature, how I was perfectly safe, how they would make sure of that. But even after they explained, I could still feel their eyes boring into my back, trying to find some speck of evil in my soul, waiting for me to explode. And for all of this time, I did not know, nor was I ever allowed to know, what I had done to deserve this treatment.
While my casual actions suggested otherwise, I was not happy for a very long time.