His father had never laid a hand on his mother. Their marriage was often rocky behind closed doors, and though they would have many loud arguments, it had never come to blows. He might scream at her or occasionally break something, but for all his bluster he could never harm her. His father came from old money and another region. His mother was an Alolan native whose family never had much. He loved her, and this love was the leverage that kept him from harming her.

But Guzma was a different story.

The first time it happens is when he's seven. His father was often away on business trips and this absence left room to grow to idolize him. Dad was still his hero back then. His father took pride in all he had built with his wealth, including the mansion and Po Town, and anyone who blemished this in anyway would find themselves at the wrong end of his quick temper.

Guzma had spent most of the day at a friends house within the town. His friend's parents had recently paid for a muralist to paint the walls of their son's room with whatever he pleased. The kid's room was covered in an epic battle between an Incineroar and a Salamence. The scene was richly painted with fire and flames and tore up earth. Guzma had never seen anything like it. He was in complete awe. It was so different from the walls of his room which were nearly entirely bland and pristine. He sat and stared at the art until he'd made up his mind that he wanted something like that for his room. It sparked something in him and it was a feeling he wanted to bring home with him.

He rushed back to his room, ignoring the voice telling him that this was not something he was allowed to do; that this was a bad idea. He got out a paint set and confronted one of the bare walls. But he needed a subject, and there would be none better than his favorite pokemon. Guzma reaches into his pocket, pulling out a pokeball and releasing his Wimpod.

It had taken nearly half a year of patience on his part to earn the trust and affection of his isopod pokemon, but now they were inseparable. The Wimpod chitters at him and then climbs up his leg to his head, where it sits on top in his hair; his usual hangout spot.

Now, with the audience of his pokemon, Guzma dips a brush into a container of black paint and puts an experimental stroke on the wall. There's something about doing what he knows he's not supposed to that sets a tingle within him. This was fun, and besides, the wall already looked better. He paints another line, and another. He keeps going, dipping the brush in whites and purples and yellows, until there is a dripping, scribbly Wimpod painted on his wall. He steps back and smiles at it. Maybe his parents would see how much better all the colors were and maybe they wouldn't be mad. Maybe.

He looks up to the pokemon on his head and points to his creation. "That's you."

The Wimpod trills happily.

There's the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. They're heavy steps that are so different from his mother's or any of the maids that worked in the mansion. He realizes with horror that it's his father. He scrambles to put the paints away, but what to do about the paint on the wall? All he can do as the door opens, is stand in front of it.

"Guzma we're going to-" He stops when he sees the paint on the wall behind his son. His face contorts into anger. "What did you do?!"

Guzma looks up at his father guiltily. "My friend had a painting on his walls and I just-"

"How old are you? Nine? You know better than this!"

Guzma was not nine. He was seven and he just wanted the walls of his room to be the way he wanted. He feels a defiance growing in him. "But it's my room!"

His dad crosses the room to him, his face almost a snarl. "I don't recall you paying for it."

The Wimpod on his head gives nervous chirps at his father's closeness. Guzma doesn't back down. "It's still my room! I'm here more than you!"

He grabs Guzma roughly by the arm and spins him around to face the paint. Wimpod flees to the ground and skitters under the bed to hide. "These are not your walls to fuck up. Do you see this mess you've made?"

"It's not a mess! I want it there."

"You're gonna clean this up!"

"I won't!"

His father shoves him into the wall, hard, so that the side of his face is pressed painfully into the wall. The paint is cold and wet against his skin. The impact with the wall is so sudden and harsh that the air is knocked from him. He stays there, smashed into the wall, eyes wide with shock. His father had been angry with him before, but he had not hurt him. Nothing cements a memory into the mind like fear, and the fear he feels in this moment stays with him. This is the instant in which his dad is no longer his hero. Tears begin to slide down his face.

"Let go of him!" His mother's voice.

His father releases his grip on him. Guzma falls to the ground.

"You see what he's done!"

His mother rushes over to him, hugging him to her. Tears and paint from his face begin to stain her blouse. "What's he's done? Look what you've done! It's just paint! We can clean it up or paint over it. It's not worth hurting him."

"I did not hurt him! He's fine."

"Don't you see him?"

"He needs to toughen up," his father says, pointing to him. "You've babied him."

His mother stands, glaring at his father with a commanding iciness. "If you ever lay a hand on him again, we will both be gone."

There's silence for a moment. Then his father waves a hand dismissively at the both of them and leaves. Guzma watches him go. Pieces of his trust and innocence walking out the door with him.

To appease his father, his Wimpod was painted over, but there hadn't been enough layers over it. When you looked closely, there was the faint impression of it still there - a reminder of this first time for all the years he called that room his. A reminder of what happens when he steps outside his father's wishes.

Any chance he gets, Guzma is at that warehouse. It's more welcoming than the mansion by far. The five of them form a group like nothing he's ever been a part of in Po Town. Liam in particular starts to become what he would call a best friend - something he's never had before. The more time he spends around them, the more he notices himself adopting things from them; certain words or phrases, his manner of dress, and he's even planning on letting Sweets dye his hair. He had indeed decided to go with white, as Liam had suggested. Much to his father's chagrin, he really was starting to take to the black and white look the others (aside from pastels Sweets favors) have.

More than anything though, he realizes he's starting to find his voice again. Liam was right: they were getting him to talk. This maybe meant that all of his smart ass remarks were now said aloud instead of silently kept, but the group didn't mind. In fact, they seemed to find it hilarious. His dad? Not so much. He was none too pleased with him at the moment. Not that he was ever pleased with Guzma, but their arguments are getting worse. His burgeoning attitude and newfound friends might make him feel a sense of belonging, but they were also in direct opposition to what his father considered "good behavior."

Liam and Plumeria even tried to convince him to move into the warehouse each time he showed up with new bruises or other evidence of a bad time with his dad. But he just couldn't. Not yet. There was still school, which was an expensive endeavour he still feels compelled to finish for now. But even more than that, is the feeling that leaving the mansion would mean leaving behind the memory of his mother - something he's just not ready to do. Someday maybe, but for now he'd lead a bit of a double life: One in which he's a wealthy son of Po Town and one in which he's a delinquent on the streets. And he'd do what he must to keep up these two lives, even if it meant things like sneaking out and deliberately disobeying his father.

For much of his life, his father had manged to show him a mixture of disinterest and fierce disappointment. It left Guzma feeling as if he wasn't worth paying attention to, and on the rare occasion that he was, he would never measure up. That kind of rejection had always been hard to ignore. But now? Now what's hard to ignore is the want to do things that would piss his father off just because. Or maybe, in spite of him being pissed off. That had become something he had to learn to decipher too: which of his actions were things he genuinely wanted to do, and which were open rebellion? At the very least, what he's about to do now he knows is for him. His father may not like it, but there's something about changing more about his appearance than just his clothes that feels right; that feels like becoming more like the person he wants to be.

So now he sits in a chair near a drain in the warehouse surrounded by buckets and containers of water. There's tables set up too, filled with all kinds of makeup, hair products, tubes, bottles, and more that he can't even begin to parse. All of it is Sweets' stash. She's busying herself with setting out bleach and toner for his hair as he glances around nervously at everything.

Changing this much about his appearance feels like a bigger step and a more noticeable rebellion. It might feel right, and it might be what he wants, but with this more drastic change he can't set aside the anxiety that comes with wondering how his father will react. He rubs at the back of his neck.

Sweets glances over at him. "What is it?" she asks. Having been through her fair share of hard times, Sweets was very adept at picking up on people's emotions. She clearly did her best to be caring and understanding. Plumeria might be the "big sister" of the group, with her no nonsense way of speaking and her protectiveness, but Sweets had her beat when it came to putting someone at ease.

"Nothin'" Guzma tells her, crossing his arms.

She gives him a warm smile. "Oh please, you think we haven't all figured out what you putting your hand behind your head means? What's up?"

Guzma gives her a sarcastic grin, trying a little too obviously to cover up his nerves. "Hey, we gonna get started on this, or what?"

"This is about your dad, isn't it?"

What, was she psychic? He drops the grin and looks away from her. "I mean, yeah, I guess."

"We don't have to do this, you know." She reassures him.

"I - I want to do this."

Sweets sets down the tools in her hands and bends down in front of him so that their eyes meet. "Are you sure? If you're worried about what your dad will do-"

"No! It's fine. Let's do this."

She's quiet for a moment, carefully watching him. "Is this worth anything that might happen?" she asks slowly.

Guzma gives her a resolute look. "Absolutely."

Sweets smiles. "Well, that's all I needed to hear!"

"Yeah, don't worry about my dad. It's fine. Won't blame you if something happens anyway," Guzma says, relaxing into the chair.

She picks up an electric razor from the table and stands behind him. "Well, here's hoping there's no price to pay simply for doing what you want with your own hair."

Guzma just grunts in agreement, wishing she would start so that there wouldn't even be any choice to consider anymore.

"Ready to become one of us?" Sweets asks, giggling.

He gives her a half smile. "Couldn't be more ready."

She flicks on the razor and begins to run it up his neck and around his head, buzzing it short, creating an undercut leaving the hair on top untouched.

Guzma watches as bits of black hair fall around him. Then his eyes come to rest on the containers of water about them that will be used later. The both of them had hauled the water back to the warehouse after filling up at a neighbors hose down the street. Due to what was probably some oversight (and a little insurance from Sweet's hacking prowess that it remain oversight) the warehouse still had electricity. They were careful when and how it was used, lest it be noticed that there's lights on in the abandoned warehouse.

They did not, however, have running water, which was what made filling the containers from a hose necessary to bleach his hair. To shower, the four of them shared a gym membership and they would go in one at a time to use the facilities. Plumeria's job had paid for this, and since her firing, they scrambled to get the money together for the monthly payment. Going to the bathroom meant running to a nearby gas station, or, if they were feeling brave enough, just taking a quick piss out back. Definitely a far cry from the mansion, but for a bunch of teenagers they did alright.

Sweets shuts off the razor as she finishes and sets it down on a table.

Guzma reaches behind his head to feel the undercut. He admits to himself that he kinda likes the bristly feeling of it, which certainly won't help his nervous habit. There's a sudden sharp smell, and he looks up to see Sweets coming toward him with a bowl of bleach and a brush, ready for the next phase of his drastic hair change. As she begins to coat the longer pieces of hair left behind on the top of his head, he asks her, "How - how are you into all this makeup and hair shit and then also the computer shit?"

Sweets huffs. "What do you mean, hmm?" She seems to know exactly what he means, and yet wants to hear him say it.

"It's just all this stuff is so girly, and the hacking kinda... isn't. Right?"

"And what makes you say that?"

"I, uh, well."

She laughs as he struggles to formulate an explanation before telling him, "These things aren't inherently 'girly' or 'manly;' they're just things. Hobbies, you know?"

"Yeah, but, I dunno. Anyone ever give you a hard time for it?"

"Sometimes," Sweets says softly, continuing to paint the bleach onto his hair. "There's definitely those in some of the groups I'm in online who might not take me seriously if they saw me all dolled up. It's happened in person." She finishes and places the bowl aside before leaning against one of the tables and setting a timer on the device strapped to her wrist for the bleach. "But you know, I think that's their problem, not mine."

"So it doesn't bother you? You don't feel like you have to hide things? Tone it down?"

She smiles at Guzma. "I like looking like this. And besides, I'm not sure that it would matter if I did. Even if I tried to be everything they wanted me to be, someone is still gonna be disappointed. And who knows what I'd sacrifice to try and reach that. If people are gonna be unhappy anyway, you might as well do what you want and try to make yourself happy."

Guzma swallows nervously. Sweets had clearly reached a point he hadn't yet. He wishes he could ignore his desperate search for his father's approval despite knowing it'll never truly come.

"Hey," she says, bringing his attention back to her and fixing him with a tenacious grin. "Fuck your dad."

He laughs. Surely Sweets must be some kinda psychic. "Yeah, fuck him."

She nods to the buckets of water and drain. "Good. Now let's get that bleach out of your hair."

They rinse the bleach, apply the toner, then rinse that too when it's time. A short blow dry later and his hair is complete.

Sweets picks up a mirror from the table, then hesitates. She sets it back down on the table, and turns to him, biting her lip. "There's just one more thing I wanna do. You trust me?"

Guzma's a bit taken aback. "Um, sure." When she begins to rummage through one of the piles of cosmetics he becomes a bit alarmed. "Makeup?"

Sweets makes her selection and comes toward him. "Just one thing." She laughs at the look on his face. "It won't kill you, I swear. Just close your eyes, ok?"

He gives her one last dubious look before relenting and shutting his eyes. There's the new sensation of something being painted over his eyelid and around his eye. He doesn't know much about makeup, but he's heard enough to know it's probably eyeshadow.

She stops and a few seconds later there's a scraping sound as she picks the mirror up off the table. "Ok," she tells him. "You can look now."

Guzma opens his eyes to see Sweets holding the mirror out in front of her so he can see himself. His hair is now two-toned, with the undercut remaining black while the longer parts on top are completely white. Then he looks to see what she's done around his eyes. There's purple over his lids and around them. He has to admit, it doesn't look bad. Looks pretty good even! The color makes his eyes look deeper and more brooding.

"So what do you think?" Sweets asks him. "I just figured purple for you. I mean," she brushes aside a piece of her pastel hair. "I'm kinda partial to purple anyway, but this one's different. Sorta like your Wimpod? And hey! You gotta have some kinda color, right?"

There's just one thing missing. Guzma takes the sunglasses he'd kept from the night they'd broke into the clothing store out of his pocket and places them up on his forehead. Now everything is as he wants it. He grins at his reflection then up at her. "Looks fuckin' awesome, Sweets. Thanks."

She gives him a wide smile. "Good! Looks like you're one of us warehouse kids now. Come on! Gotta show my work to the others."

As they leave, Guzma glances back at the black hair that's fallen to the floor - a bit of weight gone from his shoulders. Maybe it was time to not give a fuck.