Crawling on all four, heedless of the dusty ground, N touched noses with Purrloin. "I promised you," he said; "So, goodbye."
Goodbye? Drooping his ears, the cat frowned petulantly. You're leaving me?
"Yes. This way you won't get hurt anymore."
But. Purrloin flicked his tail. What if a Wailord eats me?
N sat up, confused by his friend's absurd concern and finally noticing the people stomping around him. He had plunked himself down in front of the pokecenter's doors, though, so of course they'd pass by; but he still felt irritated and displeased! How dare they brush past and almost step on him?
"Don't be silly. There's no Wailords on land," N said at last. "And even if there were, they couldn't eat you. They slurp their food. Through their teeth." He demonstrated this by interlocking his fingers. "So you'd be too big to squeeze through." After he said this, however, he got caught up in pretending that his arms were magnificent jaws; opening and closing them several times, he made deep whale sounds, attracting a dozen strange looks in the process. It didn't help that N was a grown man sitting on the ground.
Fine... I understand! Stop that weird noise and feed me! Purrlon licked his chops and stared irritatedly. He wanted just one last meal before being left to fend for himself again.
"I'll give you a treat before you go, as thanks for your service to pokemon kind, but only after you tell me one last thing... I want to know." N crouched closer. "I want to know, what's inside a pokeball."
Purrloin's tail fell to the ground like a hammer.
I'll tell you what it feels like. The cat gazed upwards, slyly locking eyes with him. But not what it looks like.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Chili demanded– urgently and without care for his projection upon the classroom's ears. Cheren flinched in the middle of his retreat.
"I was leaving," the boy responded. He definitely wished to leave. He would leave through the window just as the man had arrived, if needed.
"YES," Chili decided. "I NOTICED THAT."
"Right." Cheren resolved briskly, pushing up his glasses. "We seem to have come to an understanding. Good day, then–" But before he pull his hands away from his rims, he saw that the man's vest and shirt had fallen, discarded on the floor. The man was shamelessly exposing his doughy chest and noodle arms to the entire classroom.
Cheren's stunned face turned purple and– as air choked off from his lungs– blue.
"NO," he protested, finally grasping the reality of the situation; "JUST NO. PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON." Though he had yelled at the same exact level typically reserved for scolding White, he was hardly loud enough to overpower the students' wild squeals.
Somehow, though, Chili had noticed the boy. This was because this man was an aficionado of shouting. "LOOK," he said, flailing his arms. "THEY LOVE IT WHEN I DO THIS." When he bared his chest, he meant.
Though Cheren had read many books and articles on exhibitionism– as he did for every social behavior– he was still very unprepared for this. Is he really a teacher? he wondered, staring off into a space. Can anyone become a teacher nowadays?
Without any further elaboration, Chili reached into his waist-apron pocket and produced a fistful of berries. "TODAY, IT'S BERRIES," he decided frenetically, shoving them into Cheren's hands.
Puzzled and frightened, the boy took them, clutching them tightly. In response, the class sang the teacher's declaration, 'Today, it's berries!' as if it were the trendiest phrase around. For a moment, Cheren wondered if all this was being filmed for an infomercial.
"NOW," Chili instructed, leaning in and glaring at Cheren; "BECOME A BERRY BUSH."
Become... Cheren wondered, terrified; a berry bush?
Though there were an infinite number of things wrong with this request, Cheren contemplated it seriously. What would a berry bush be like? he pondered, thinking about the features of such an inanimate object. Would one even make sounds? ...Am I being out of character by having human thoughts? Suddenly, this was becoming a highly existential question. With a blank, tortured gaze, he positioned his arms overhead in the form of a Oran Berry bush– straight up and cone-like, with fruits hanging diagonally at impressive angles. He even became pink.
Stunned, the students fell silent and watched with glistening eyes. Though Cheren was very confused and only making crap up, he was in the process creating a masterpiece. It was performance art.
"OK, NICE JOB," Chili interrupted, grabbing Cheren's shoulders and shaking him till he dropped every berry. "THIS IS HOW ONE HARVESTS BERRIES." Cheren, still a berry bush, flopped lifelessly as Chili continued to throttle him.
Everyone clapped, and as their cheers of applause rose, Cheren increasingly realized that he needed to escape.
"THERE IS A BERRY," Chili began, whipping around and intensely chalking something up on the blackboard; "FOR EVERY TYPE." At the rate he was going– it seemed as if he was writing something very scholarly.
When he pulled away, though, he revealed that he had drawn a triangle-eared blob labeled 'Pretty Pretty Skitty.'
"THAT'S IT," Cheren snapped, grabbing Chili and wrestling him for the piece of chalk.
Purrloin sniffed the two objects before him: a poffin and a bouncy ball. Both of them, left lovingly on the ground, were final parting gifts from N.
Though the poffin was somewhat burnt, Purrloin realized that N had earnestly cooked it, and so ate it anyways. As for the bouncy ball– he disinterestedly swatted a paw at it and watched it bounce away to the stoop next door: The Trainer's School.
The ball fell in a groove and jiggled to a halt. Now abandoned, it stayed– just a little green bouncy ball with a gold crown painted on it– a fallen king among gumball prizes. In its glory days, N would take it out and polish it on his shirt, admiring the glob of rubber for 'appearing to defy gravity by merely obeying physics.'
Watching it, Purrloin couldn't remember how many times he stole that ball. Every time he did, N would get upset. Almost to the point of tears, the young man would foolishly pull his pockets inside-out, never blaming anyone but himself.
Only after awhile would Purrloin return the ball, and just so he could see N smile gently at him. He closed his wide eyes and flicked his purple tail.
"You can't tell me what it looks like?" N's parting words cycled in his mind. "That's odd... But I'll hear your explanation anyways."
Carefully, Purrloin remembered what he had told the young man. 'Inside a pokeball,' the cat had said; 'it is very warm. I can feel a clock ticking like a heartbeat and there's something high above me, but I can't tell you what. If I pay attention, I can hear and see you. However, it's very hard to... I get sleepy. Then I'm pulled into a cycle of dreams.'
'Dreams?' the young man had inquired.
'Yes. In and out I drift from them, distracted and fulfilled by so many wild sights and ideas– you wouldn't believe! I can't tell you them, though, unless you kept me longer... But I could spend forever inside and not mind it at all.'
'So a pokeball puts you to sleep?' N turned away. 'How cruel and sad. Yes. You'll return to the wild now– where you belong." He didn't care at all about the dreams. He didn't ask anything about them– he only said goodbye. There was nothing to interest him, and so he left.
Dejectedly, Purrloin pointed his tiny nose into the air and sniffed. Right when he was thinking about how no trainer would ever love him again, he caught a sudden, irresistible scent on the breeze. It was from next door.
Bounding down the street, just as quickly as the bouncy ball, Purrloin arrived at the stoop of the Trainer's School and retrieved the fallen ball. Holding it in paw, he curiously entered the building on his hind legs.
The scent was closer than ever now and the reason why became clear– in the back of the room, beyond all the desks and children, was a counter at which a shirtless man and a familiar bespectacled boy stood. These two humans, tending to a plug-in cook top, were blabbering uselessly about something or another.
"No. We will not use margarine," Cheren decreed, slapping away Chili's hand. "We will use REAL, fresh butter. That's one part butter to four parts powdered sugar, and two parts flour." Fussily, the boy stirred the ingredients into the pan, stopping only to grab some berries. "Next, we'll stir in our berries–"
The class snickered.
"–I said 'our berries'," Cheren repeated; "What's so funny about that? Nothing. You're all just being immature." Done with insulting the whole classroom, he continued on. "And keep stirring, not sloshing. It will all coagulate after awhile." Glancing up, he identified many confused faces. "I meant congeal. Solidify," he tried to answer the students' voiceless question; "Clump?"
"OOH." They finally understood.
"Whatever. Here, take this." He finished up and handed the spoon to Chili. "Now self-study and copy the board. That is all." Dusting off his hands, he turned and looked down, finally realizing that Purrloin was at his feet. "What is it?" he murmured to the pokemon.
Purring like a motor, Purrloin rubbed and butted against the boys legs, over and over in a silly display of beggary.
"Oh. You want the poffin." Cheren quickly turned and plucked it from the nearby pan. Juggling the hot pastry, he blew on it to cool it down, kneeling and offering it. "I understand. You could smell my cooking from outside." He watched the pokemon eat out of his hand. "You're very tame. But also hungry... Is your trainer nearby?"
Finishing up the poffin, Purrloin licked his chops, staring up at Cheren determinedly. This boy was not only concerned about his livelihood, but interested in his well-being. Aware that this was a lucky and rare find, Purrlon knew that there was only one thing left to do. Disregarding his dignity, he laid down and rolled onto his back, kicking up his paws and widening his already ENORMOUS green eyes until the glimmered nice and innocently. This was all that needed to be done. Without any need for words, Cheren grabbed the pokemon and squeezed him close.
"So cute," Cheren muttered, biting his lip as if he could barely stand it. Scratching between Purrloin's ears, he stayed near the blackboard, cuddling his new pokemon even after the bell rang.
Not once did they realize that they had met before.
~To be continued...~