JMJ
(4)
One on one side
Nearly overflowing,
One on other not one drop
Any resentment he felt was only for his friend, for his friend had been given that phanpy by his pokémon trainer older brother. However, Kosaburo could feel nothing else but awe in these professional pokémon thieves who had invaded this park.
It had been a festival day and a very nice and sunny day. Everyone who owned pokémon who happened to be in town (and with the annual pokémon competitions there were a lot of out of towners for that) had brought their pokémon with them. The park had been a prime spot being one of the only interesting places in town. All had been completely calm, placid even, and then they arrived.
Six of them. Kosaburo made sure to look to see how many there were. All leapt out in a cloud of smoke, and with sinister laughter they set to their work stealing every last pokémon in sight. Only very small people or people laying on the ground could see what they were up to, so even though a very young Kosaburo could only just make out the legs of the thieves most of the time, he took everything in greatly impressed.
Never had he looked up to anyone that he had not read about or seen on television before except maybe the director who ran the school plays, but that was nothing compared to this. While everyone else screamed and ran or tried to fight back, Kosaburo was still and in a fixed trance at the fear these people instilled and their complete confidence in their abilities, so that he did not even flinch when they plucked his friend's phanpy right from the other boy's hands from where he stood not but two yards away from Kosaburo.
The thought proved almost involuntary as if someone else was speaking it to him: I want to be like them.
As the youngest child of a competitive group of siblings who were constantly making his life miserable, his heart burned for recognition beyond just that of the little Kusajima boy, the son of that drunken fool Yoshiki Kusajima, or that poor, miserable woman Aoi Kusajima, and especially not the that dumb kid who tagged after his older brothers and other older cliques at school for attention. He wanted real recognition. To be a somebody. He wanted to be part of something worth being part of. He wanted Team Rocket!
And he would have it if it was the last thing he did. He would never come back to this miserable little town ever again unless it was to steal from it as a member of Team Rocket …
#
This little town in the flat land between Johto and Kanto possessed no hill or rise of any kind up which one could overlook it. There would not be much to look out over anyway, not in this little town. Not a lake or river adorned it, no pretty old fashioned building to brighten it, even trees were lacking. One might see the ugly, old factory on the far side of town, but I had no desire to see it.
I never in a million years thought I would return to this little dump of a place. As I made my way into town, I saw that despite the fact that I had always considered it the most boring place on earth, it had not been run down as some of the neighborhoods were now. That was because the factory closed for not keeping up with the times, and now most people who could have left before they got trapped here had. The people who remained were those who had been too poor to have left to begin with.
It did not surprise me when I learned that the Kusajima family lived here still.
I knocked on the door of the house, still the same house I had left, except that the door was smaller and the house itself looked more beat up. It had company now though. This neighborhood happened to be one of the ones that had been rundown. It was hardly a few blocks away from the remains of the factory. My father had worked there. Once.
We were not poor, at least not always. We lived modestly but well in a house just outside of town, but I was four when we moved. One of my earliest memories is thinking how very large our new house was, yes, large, but I had no recollection of the first house we lived in. You see my father and mother were addicted gamblers. They gambled on pokémon competitions and eventually on the leagues themselves, especially Kanto since Kanto was considered far more professional than Johto. What else do people care about in this Nation obsessed with pokémon battling anyway? My parents won just a few weeks after my fourth birthday, and they bought the biggest house that could be found in the rural area. It felt like living in a palace, that house, and encouraged by their winnings, instead of calling it good enough and living happily in our palace, they wanted to see if they could not get a private island or something.
They lost everything.
We ended up in the poorest neighborhood in town. My father took to drinking, and oh yes, of course he still worked at the factory, but almost everything he earned was spent on his drink or my mother's frantic gambles. People thought it was my father doing the gambling or at least putting my mother up to it, but my father had given up gambling in a sort of despair. It was not until my brother got old enough to work that we started living better again — that is until he caught gambling fever too.
My sister, my other brother and I hated the gambling, and although I did not get along with my siblings on most things, we made a pact together one day to never gamble our lives away, to never gamble anything ever!
All that flashed through my mind now, as pathetic as it was, that and the day I left. My second older brother just got a job at the factory, and my sister who was in between my two brothers and was about sixteen was trying to escape everything by marrying some farmer whose name escaped me at the moment, and I … well, I announced to my parents bright and early in the morning (my father was half asleep with a hangover), "I'm going out to be a pokémon trainer!"
#
"A pokémon trainer?"
Had they heard right?
His father thought he must be still dreaming, and his mother only stared in disbelief and poured herself a strong cup of coffee.
"I'm leaving today!" cried the boy brightly. "I'll write, I guess, but I'm leaving now!"
"Now?" they demanded.
"Yes, now!" laughed the boy with a shake of his head, and he adjusted his backpack over his shoulder.
"But, Kosabu-chan," said his mother. "You don't have any pokémon."
His father muttered something about going back to bed and something about Kanto winnings, and turned back through the tiny hallway to his bedroom as he clutched the side of his head with a groan.
"Yoshiki!" cried Mrs. Kusajima. "He's serious!"
She threw her face from the corridor back to her son.
"Yes, I am and yes I do!" Kosaburo said proudly
He did not tell her that he talked a friend into letting him borrow one of his pokémon to catch the pidgey or that he caught the pidgey from somebody's bird sanctuary (practice for the future), but he explained that he used his allowance money to buy the pokéball, which he now presented before his surprised mother.
"I didn't know you wanted to be a trainer," his mother protested. "You kept saying how much you wanted to be a TV actor or a travel agent or I think you've even said something about being a pilot, but this?"
Kosaburo shrugged.
"I changed my mind," he told her.
"Well, this is so sudden!" his mother said.
"Does this mean that you don't want me to go?" Kosaburo asked with a well-acted pout.
"I … I suppose you can, but shouldn't you have asked us first?" asked his mother.
"You were busy," he said simply.
"Well, I still think you better talk this over with your father and me a little when he's feeling better," said his mother.
Kosaburo sighed. "I suppose you're right, Oksasan."
Mrs. Kusajima eyed the boy suspiciously, but she said nothing more about it while she made him breakfast and he disappeared up into his room. Little did she consider that Kosaburo would sneak out the window and run for the train station. He produced his ticket and was on his way to leaving the miserable little town for good before she had finished cleaning up breakfast.
He was not eager to be a pokémon trainer, naturally. Kosaburo did not even like pokémon, but he could not have told his parents he was going to become a member of Team Rocket even if he did sneak out on them. He did not have time to wait a few days. He had secretly set up an appointment with a scout weeks ago for this very day. He had no time for discussions.
#
Even if I had thought I would ever return, I never would have imagined coming as I was. Shaggy, worn, looking past my age by maybe ten years, not to mention the remains of a beer gut that I had never wanted after seeing what had happened to my father. I suppose the phrase "like father like son" is truer than I realized. When the old woman who was my mother opened the door, she thought I was a tramp and she tried to shoo me away.
"No, wait!" I cried, holding open the door before she could slam it in my face. "It's your son!"
Through her broad rimmed glasses she squinted at me, studying my face and piercing my eyes, and then stepping back in surprise, she breathed, "Kosaburo?"
I don't know what I had expected, but not what had happened. I would have preferred outright rejection to what past that day. She tried to be polite. She offered me lunch. She talked a little, but the coolness in her manner was not lost upon me. I did not have the heart to tell her that I had not been a pokémon trainer but a Team Rocket agent all this time, so I lied about some travels and pokémon I caught, basing it loosely on what I knew about the trainers I had stalked, stole from, or kidnapped. She did not seem to care what I said or how I put it, but I did end up telling the stupid, pathetic lie that I looked the way I did because I was doing the whole wilderness living thing. She did not believe that for a second. By that point she probably discredited everything I had said so far anyway, but she said nothing about it. She remained polite, poured some tea and straightened herself upon her knees where she knelt in front of the old fashioned table.
I left that evening disappointed and feeling sick to my stomach, and I told myself I would never go back to that miserable house or that miserable town again.
#
"You?" demanded the scout. "You're Kosaburo Kusajima?"
No one had yet called him Kosanji, so the disdain with which this old scout said his name caused a rage to boil inside of him.
"You're just a stupid kid," the scout scoffed, and she laughed. "I mean we appreciate youth here at Team Rocket, but you're what? Nine? Ten? You're probably not even old enough to be a legal trainer. Not that legality matters. And what about your skills with pokémon?"
"I have skills in acting," Kosaburo said in his defense, and he kept his cool very well. "And I'm a good liar, and a thief. I'm also a very good learner."
"Hmm," the scout mused.
Kosaburo frowned as he noticed the look of humor in her eyes.
He did not realize that the scout was testing him and that she could care less how young he happened to be. Team Rocket would recruit five year-olds if it had the chance. They loved the energy and the unquestioning nature of youth. The younger they came to Team Rocket, the more loyal and better trained they would be in their prime.
"Tell you what," said the scout as if the thought just came to her. "I'll bring you to Saffron City with me, how's that sound. If you can pick enough pockets to satisfy me I'll think about giving a good word for you at Headquarters as a good go-between or agent assistant. How's that sound? 'Course if they say yes, you'll need additional training, and even between being an assistant (a very demanding job), you'll have a lot of tedious learning to do at Headquarters …"
"I'm ready for anything," promised Kosaburo, straitening himself proudly and crossing his arms over his chest with a curt nod. "I'll do better than pick pockets. I'll steal you a genuine pokémon! I promise Team Rocket won't be disappointed" And here he winked to seal the deal.
The scout looked thoughtful again, and Kosaburo watched her with suspicion, but after a moment's pause, she leaned forward with a broad smile and hands wrapped around her back with neat grace.
"Alright, little imp," said the woman. "Prove yourself."
And with a wave of her hand, she brought him to a bus station. The bus took them to Saffron City, and here Kosaburo proved himself, for you see, Kosaburo had done his research well, and following rules to a T happened to be strong point in Kosauburo's character. He knew that more than proving the fact that he could steal pokémon, the way to impress Team Rocket was with treachery. He did not steal a pokémon here, though he had taken the pidgey from a bird sanctuary. About an hour and a half after he left the scout's side trying to come up with a good enough story to make the scout believe he had stolen the pidgey just outside Saffron City, he came trouncing back with the creature. A big smile he plastered on his face.
Did she believe him? Kosaburo never knew for sure, but she was impressed, especially considering his age and experience.
"I think you've just proven all four of your claims," said the scout with a knowing smirk. "Giovanni will be lucky to have an agent like you on board the Rocket ship one day."
Where Kosaburo went wrong was that he ate up every word of this kind she told him just like every other bushy-tailed, young future agent a scout brought under the metallic Rocket wing. Such talk to such lonely hearts, lost and feeling unwanted, this is what earned the undying loyalty of the agents, that and the promise of power from the strongest Team in the Nation and possibly the whole world.
#
I wandered a while again, but only within the boundaries of Kanto. Eventually, I settled in Vermillion City, and with as much energy as I could muster in my gloom, I used a rehabilitation program to get a meager job as a sales' clerk. All those times I pretended to be selling something, I never would have imagined that I would have been in such a position honestly, yet, there I was, and there I remained for some time with no real inspiration to move up or change jobs for anything better. I lost myself in memories of the past and in the roadblocks I put against any chance of a future for me. I got up, went to work, slept. No friends, no family, nothing. I still had no life, and that was when I came to the decision that I failed at life long ago, and would never get it back, but as usual it was not my fault.
I blamed my parents. They failed at life first. Like father like son. When I visited that little shack, my mother had told me that he had died of a heart attack from drinking too much. Maybe I would die of something wretched like that too. The bottle was beginning to look appealing again, despite this new knowledge.
#
Lightning struck the sky in a dangerous display of jagged streaks near pink. A tower not far away already received the sharp attack of thunderbolt, but because of its lightning rod the tower remained for the most part unscathed. And the rain? The rain pelted like a shower of stones, so heavy and strong did it fall. Most who could, remained safely indoors both human and pokémon alike or at least in what shelter that could be had.
Humans and their pokémon hid in warm cozy bedrooms. Ratattas scurried into their holes after swiping what they could from the dumpsters. Some nyaasus and other larger street scavengers hid in dumpsters or in corners they could manage. City birds which had already been in their hidden nests watched with relief when a lightning streak flashed through the sky and had not struck their lofty homes. There were one or two humans who hurrying to their homes and some still who were unfortunate enough to be living among the wild street creatures, and one in particular a street over was huddled under an awning with a heavy, old trench coat and a rain hat to cover him.
The little nyaasu who trudged along the sides of the buildings did not know about the man otherwise he may have come to him for protection, but this nyaasu had been used to a warm pillow-laden box in his master's attic. The last koneko left after a few months of siblings going their way, when he was discovered as the last remaining, the master sent this nyaasu on a trip to a relative, but the nyaasu did not understand. He escaped the box when it opened on a bump of the vehicle. Then he slipped out when the driver opened the door for gas. When the nyaasu had tried to make it home, he eventually found himself in the predicament he lost himself in now.
Homeless. Wet. Hungry. Miserable.
After weeks, almost months now he had been wandering, and not once did he find what he sought.
Then he saw a door.
It is difficult to say why he chose this door and not any other, but he went straight up to it nonetheless. Perhaps it reminded him of the door of the house in which he had lived before, or maybe a smell lingered about that made him think of home. Whatever the reason, he perched in front of it and began to meow pitifully.
"Nya-a-a! Nya-a-a! Nya-a-a! Nya-a-a-a-ah!" he cried, but no one came to answer.
That was when the late-night bus stopped on the street corner and let someone out.
With a cock of his head, the nyaasu looked curiously at the rather intimidating umbrella, but as desperate as he was, he felt willing to see what person might be holding it. Maybe he would be lucky, and the person would at least give up a bite to eat.
"Nyah!" he gasped and bounded toward the squeaky, wet boots, and jumping on his hind legs and making himself as pleasing as possible he asked, "Nya?"
The man glanced down with a sort of disdain, but the nyaasu knew the man was just tired from a long day. He did look very tired and worn. Perhaps he would sympathize with a creature equally as tired and worn.
"Nya?" asked the nyaasu again.
With a roll of his eyes, the man simply walked right past the cat and went straight up the steps to the door next to the one the nyaasu had been trying to get into.
Losing his balance as he turned to follow the man, the nyaasu scrambled up the steps and leapt up at the man's legs in a last desperate attempt to get his attention. Rubbing against his leg did not work, giving a last pleading "nya" did not work. The man reached for his keys, unlocked the door and was just about to open it when he glanced one last time at the cat little more than a kitten.
With a loud moan, he reached into another pocket and pulled out the remains of an energy bar in a wrapper. He pulled it out, threw it down the steps, and the nyaasu, quite surprised and delighted, sprang after it. When he gobbled it up and turned to look up the steps, the man closed the door behind him, and the nyaasu felt strangely pleased with himself, though disappointed that the man had left him out in the rain.
#
The next day when I came home to the apartment from work I saw him. The stupid nyaasu had curled up and made himself at home right on the pillow. Luckily my pillow was covered with the quilt, but that still meant the cat would get his dirty hairs all over my quilt. The nyaasu meowed lazily and seemed to smile at me as I approached.
I closed my eyes, trying very hard to keep my tempter down, but when I opened them again I had to wonder how he got in. My eyes went straight for the open window. I had left it open for the heat that had been scheduled for that afternoon, but I should have known better than to open it any more than a crack. Stepping up to the window now I pushed it up to its full capacity and lifting up the cat I dropped him onto the sidewalk outside. It was not far; I lived on the first floor. Then I slammed the window shut thinking I had seen the last of him, but I was wrong …
I woke up in the morning with the sound of my alarm going off. Work did not start till the afternoon and did not end until nine pm, and my clock was set for 8:45 and nothing earlier. I used to get up at a strict 6:00 when I worked with Yamato. Switching off the alarm with a sigh and leaning upon my arm I closed my eyes a moment, letting my mind catch up with my waking body.
As I turned around I nearly let out a shriek to see the living creature sleeping on the other side of my bed.
"Ack!" I cried.
The nyaasu leapt to his feet before I could push him off, and he bounded to the end of the bed with a cry.
"What do you think you're doing in my house?" I demanded. "How did you get in here?!"
"Nya," said the nyaasu with an innocent cock of his head.
I glared at him, but the nyaasu began to purr of all things, and I digressed with a groan, slumping my shoulders and leaning my head back against the headboard.
It took a while for me to throw back my covers, and taking the cat up, I opened the window again and tossed him out onto the sidewalk outside. Slamming it shut again, I checked all the windows and found the open one, closed it, and then got dressed.
#
"Nya-a-a-ah!" the nyaasu cried again on the other side of the window. "Nya! Nya! Nya!"
The wind blew another fierce spray of rain in the direction of the windowsill upon which the nyaasu had himself perched. He lowered his head and tried to shield himself, but it did no good until the gust ceased and he was soaked.
"Nya! Nya! Nya! Nya!" he cried again.
Suddenly the light turned on inside, and the nyaasu with ears perked up looked with interest as he watched the blurry form of the man through the rain-covered window pane. He turned to the window, and after a moment he turned out the light and apparently went back to sleep.
"Nya! Nya! Nya! Nya! Nya, Nyah!"
This time the light did not turn on, and the nyaasu just caught himself from leaping right off the windowsill when he saw the man right in front of the window. He cried out with delight when he saw the man opened the window. Instantly, the cat leapt inside, and the man slammed the window shut.
"Nya," said the cat as he beamed up at the man.
The man made a face.
"I hate nyaasu," he grumbled. "And don't you dare think you can sleep on my bed, got it?"
"Nya!"
#
Sometimes that nyaasu was there when I woke up, right in front of my face, and sometimes he would be gone for weeks and I thought I was rid of him, but he always came back. Somehow he always came back, like that song. The cat always came back. The only thing was though as time wore on, I actually found pleasure in his return, not that I would admit it to myself or the nyaasu. After years of being entirely alone it felt a little nice to have something living with me even if only a pokémon, and a nyaasu …
I never fed him. I never named him. I did not even call him "Nyaasu". That name had already been claimed by that most annoying pokémon in the world that happened to be owned by Musashi and Kojiro, or who owned them. It was difficult to say with that freak, or so I thought for a while until I came to realize that all cats had that way about them whether they talked or not.
The one who roomed with me when he felt it convenient, strangely enough, paid for his stay in the weirdest way imaginable. At first he tried to lay dead ratatta in front of the door. I put a stop to that right away, but the nyaasu never gave up easily. When he realized how upset I would be to see dead rodents first thing when I opened the door or looked out a window, he took to putting trash in my windows. Shiny trash of course, but trash nonetheless. He brought wrappers, other times broken watches or half rusted tools. He sometimes found game tokens and pennies, and he often brought random chunks of metal, none too dirty not to see the shine. My windowsills began to look like sleazy pawnshop window displays.
At first I threw the stuff away, but after a while I just let it accumulate. He did mean it all as presents of some kind, for he often set them at my feet as he had with the ratatta so that eventually I accepted the pay.
One particular morning, more than a year after the first nyaasu incident, late summer was upon me again, and storms had been bad. The nyaasu for some reason was not there when I woke up. I found myself wondering if something bad had happened to the creature having not been around during such bad weather, but I told myself that that cat could more than take care of himself and was probably on the other side of town or farther. Maybe he had even found himself another place to room when he did not feel like staying with me.
When I got to work I had not been there an hour before the electricity went out. It did not come back on. They sent me home early. I was feeling sucky. The world felt so monotonous and pointless, and the grey miserable weather was not helping. I tried the nearest bus stop and found that it was not coming for quite some time, and due to the weather it would probably be later than the scheduled time anyway.
I got something to drink, but I stopped myself before getting too drunk. At least I thought I had, but after I exited I felt sourer than I had before.
With my bent umbrella I wound through alleys and byways. I should not have been surprised to find myself stopped by a gang; though it was their voltorb that really had startled me. Not because of its presence alone, but because it already sent out a few sparks at my approach. In the dampness, one electric attack from that round ball and that would have made the perfect end to my miserable day.
"Ah, lookie guys, some dude seems to have lost his way."
The first punk, maroon hair spiked straight up on his head, appeared from the shadows and the laughs from the others followed before they appeared.
The presence of the gang lessened my shock rather than propelled it, but I would be lying if I did not say that despite their idiocy I felt nervous. I said nothing and hoped they would pass by without too much trouble, but there was no hope for that. The biggest of them all and not the stupidest, unfortunately for me, stepped forward and crossing his great arms he said simply, "Wallet." He held out his hand for it.
"You gotta be—"
He turned to the pokémon and said, "Voltorb use—"
"Iya! Iya!" I cried, holding up my hands in my defense.
The voltorb had been starting to use an attack before his master had been able to call it.
With a sigh of defeat, I reached into my pocket and handed them my wallet.
The gang leader then sorted through my money. They had no interest in my ID, except to say that they found my name amusing. Kosaburo Kusajima. They even handed my wallet back to me after they had drained it of its cash. Everything would have run smoothly after that if one of them had not said, "Kinda reminds me of the name Kosanji."
Rage flared up inside, and though I made a conscious effort to keep it to myself, I finally could not take it. After a few stupid chuckles better off ignored, I spun around and with a snarl I screamed, "KOSABURO!"
The gang looked at each other and laughed. The leader, grabbed me by the scruff of my collar, and with a wide grin tossed me into the grimy puddles of the alleyway, but I was by now too angry to let that get me down. I sprang back to feet, and I screamed at them all to leave me alone and that my name was Kosaburo and that they had better get over it or I would have them all arrested for harassment and theft.
It was one of the only times since the shadow incident that I wished I had my old pokémon or even Yamato's ratticate to help me out.
"Alright, Kosanji!" they said.
"Voltorb, teach him some manners," said the leader. "Spark."
At least they had not ordered him to used thunderbolt, but maybe spark was the only offensive attack it really knew. I doubt they trained him much, but in the mist and as soaking wet it had more of an affect that it otherwise would have.
I was unconscious apparently, for when I opened my eyes after that flash of bright light, the gang could not be found, and even the sprinkling and mist had stopped for the time being. Pulling myself numb from the grime, I picked up my wallet with a shaky hand and managed to shuffle it into my pocket before I reached down for my umbrella and made my way to the edge of the city.