Author's note: I know some of our posters are on the young side, so please note that this fanfic is rated "T" for violence and language. This chapter contains verbal and familial abuse.
9/18/2016 - Couple things changed here based on reader feedback/honest contemplation. I'm concerned that this chapter is still too much of a downer, so let me know your impression by review or PM.
Chapter 1
Cruelty / Runaways / High School Does End / Regrettable Footwear Decisions / Treacherous Hopes
June 11th-13th 128 CR
Moriko's bike picked up speed as she hit the incline, the road switchbacking down toward the beaches and the boardwalks. The wind took away some of the mugginess; it was a hot, humid day, and it would only get worse.
In the harbour the big ships from Kanto and Hoenn were coming in with the tide, ready to offload finished goods like packaged food, clothes, and electronics, before being loaded back up with raw materials from Gaiien: barrels of oil, pallets of timber, ores and minerals. The water glittered in the sun, though there were clouds massing right where the sea became sky.
Moriko woke her pokédex, its interface glowing above the device strapped to her wrist. "Weather forecast, Port Littoral," she said. Thunderstorms, it said, the symbol flashing a little lightning bolt. She blew out her breath and, noting the time, pedaled faster.
The boardwalk activity was picking up as the sun grew less intense: there were beach loungers, runners and cyclists, paddleboarders in the bay, surfers at the shorebreak, trainers socializing and battling their water pokémon at the protected beach. A mystic in frayed red robes and layered prayer beads under the sprawling beach willows examined pokémon and made proclamations about their potential and need for further training while their trainers left donations of food or old clothing.
Moriko hurried to the ice cream hut, riding in balanced on one pedal and locking up quickly. She pulled on the uniform polo over her sport top and set the blue-and-yellow hat on her green hair, adjusting it briefly before joining the others behind the counter.
It was mechanical work: what order, what cone, what size, what ice cream? There were heavier Unovan-style flavors and the lighter, icier Kantoan style, and a shiny new machine dispensed soft serve. Kids often wanted the premade bars in the shape of cartoon animals or pokémon that melted grotesquely, the colors running and gumball eyes dropping out. It was busy, not too much time to socialize, which she preferred. A blur of people went by, their bright beachwear unfocused in her memory.
Eventually the crowd thinned, the sun sinking, and she and the other servers moved to tidy up, washing scoops and emptying containers. The manager, Chiyo, did inventory and sent them to bring up flavors from the deep freeze to soften for tomorrow in the regular freezer.
The beach emptied as the sky darkened and then clouded, and they closed early at the first few flashes of lightning. The thunder muttered in its wake and wind stirred the sand; the surf was heavier and lights glittered out in the waves, probably jolteel and lanturn up from the reefs.
Moriko went to unlock her bike and Tarahn was there, fawning for attention from the other servers. The raigar's bells tinkled gently as he rolled onto his back, inviting tummy rubs, and he rubbed his cheeks against their hands.
"Oh no, a fierce pokémon appears," Moriko said dryly.
"Tarahn is so cute! How often do you train with him?" one of the other girls asked.
"Supposed to be every day but you know how it is with school," Moriko said, "he gets bored and just chases pidove in the city all day."
Tarahn had a bright pink, rhinestoned collar on to make him look less wild, but he'd gotten in trouble for battling without a trainer before.
Thunder rumbled in the east and they all hurried to get on their bikes. Moriko sped off toward the slope; the incline was a workout without getting caught in the rain, and Tarahn trotted beside her, bells jangling and his yellow-and-purple motley fur glowing under streetlights.
"Sorry about the boredom," Moriko grunted. The bike was in a low gear, the pedals whirling but the bike inching along. "I should…"
"It's fine, it's fine," Tarahn said. "A few more sleeps."
"Excited?"
"Can't wait to see the prairie again, and the little streams, and the trees—and even further. There's another sea, I heard."
They reached the house as the rain came, fat warm drops bursting on the pavement and splashing Moriko's legs with road dust. Tarahn leaped onto the overhang and then the roof, little tracers of electricity glowing on him as he took power from the storm. Moriko watched from the veranda for a while as the lazy lightning bolts crackled from cloud to cloud and the rain haloed all the lights in the street.
"Are your parents okay with it?"
"They've come around." Russell chuckled through the computer speakers. "It was 'absolutely not' and then 'no, consider your education' and then 'I don't think it's a good idea' and then the dreaded 'it's your choice'. But now they're telling me horror stories about kids who have gotten hurt, and buying me equipment, and telling me about how half the stuff that the trainers do in movies is extremely illegal…"
"Oh yeah, like in Kanto Quest, they stow away on the freight train and it's wistful and adventuresome rather than an accident waiting to happen."
"Honestly I'm not even sure if I would get on a train anymore, lairon and magneton are always just straight up eating the steel rails and stuff."
"It won't interfere with going to university though?" Moriko asked, resuming their earlier topic.
"I think we can do six badges this summer with time to come back and get everything squared up at the end of August. Four for sure, six probably. The last two of the eight are up north and you want to do those at the beginning of the season anyway in late June, early July, so the window will be well past. I convinced the 'rents that it's all good practice, having a plant-type pokémon is a big deal for forestry engineering."
"Nice, there you go."
"What about you? Don't want to think about it?"
Moriko laughed, twirling her mouse cursor nervously. "I'll come back to the ice cream shop and we'll see after that, I don't know… what could I do with Rufus… or Tarahn, I guess work at a power plant or something."
"You never know, you might meet a wild pokémon looking to break into public television. We'll work out this summer, find our specialties."
"Nice. It'll be fun. It'll be hard, but fun, I hope."
"Are you going to grad?"
They were on voice so Russell didn't see the sneer, but he sure heard it. "So I can watch people who hate each other cry about how they'll miss each other and swear to be friends forever? Nah, I can see way more convincing performances on TV."
Russell laughed. "You should though, I think you'll be surprised. And I think people will be curious to see you dressed up."
Moriko restrained herself from spitting bile at that. "Can't afford the salon, I'd rather spend that yen on more pokéballs or food."
"Oh, well, if it's money, my mom might—"
"I really couldn't."
"Think about it!"
"Sure. Listen, I better make my lunch. See you tomorrow, okay?"
"No problem, see you."
Moriko went downstairs, but to her dismay her aunt and cousin were already in the kitchen.
"Oh hi, Mori," Angela said, syrupy. "I'm going out with Dave and them, do you want to come? You can't wear that though," she added.
It was Moriko's normal outfit; she folded her arms over her shirt and moved toward the fridge.
"See? She's grumpy, oh well. See you later, Mori! Bye Mom!"
"Have a good time, Ange. Moriko, don't make me tell you to do the dishes," Aunt Rachel said.
"I just got home!"
"You've been on the computer for a while, you need to pull your weight around here."
Moriko's eyes flicked over to the piled-up garbage and recycling, Angela's undone chore, and she went over to the sink to start running water. Her aunt hovered around the kitchen and then swooped in to criticize: don't use the brush like this, that plate is still dirty, don't bump the bowls against the sink, rack the dishes like this, rack the utensils like this—
"It sounds like you should probably do this yourself," Moriko said tightly, leaving the remaining dishes in the soapy water as she stripped off the rubber gloves.
"Finish that chore, and you can do Angela's as well since she's out," Rachel said primly, withdrawing to her office. "Or no money this week."
A hot prickle of anger ran up her spine at that but she needed her allowance, needed it to get out of this stifling house for a few precious months. She finished the dishes and hauled out the waste to the curb for pickup. She stood outside for a while, hearing the patter of the rain on her rain coat and on the bushes in the garden.
Tarahn appeared, soaking wet, and rubbed up against her legs, and she ran her hands through his wet fur. The raigar went in his pokéball for the night and she headed back inside.
Moriko started to pack her lunch and Rachel reappeared, pissed off about something and showing it by slamming the door to her office. She started tidying the still-wet dishes, throwing them into the cupboards with maximum clatter. Moriko hurried to finish and leave the room, but her aunt swooped over, snatching a bag of chips out of Moriko's hands.
"None of those, you're getting fat," her aunt said, and actually pinched her on the arm. "Look at you! In my house, gorging on my food, spending my money—"
Moriko fled into her room, the tirade following her up the stairs, gaining momentum; doors slammed and angry steps sounded on the stairs. Moriko put a chair under the door handle, but Rachel went by this time.
"What the fuck," she said, muffled by a pillow. "What the fuck."
Tarahn reappeared from his ball, totally dry, and she sat on the floor and hugged him, shaking. He patted her awkwardly with one paw.
"Five more sleeps," he said. He purred for a little while. "I could break something, scratch something."
"That would be satisfying," Moriko said, wiping her eyes.
She thought about taking scissors to the hated plastic-covered guest couches, but that would be too obvious, too escalating. A prank, like letting a street pokémon run around the house with muddy paws; she could give them an apple or a lemonade for it.
After a while Moriko sighed and dabbed at her face with a tissue. She took stock of her belongings: her pokémon training stuff was hidden at Russell's house after a previous blowup, but there were a few more things she should probably hide.
Moriko thought about skipping class. Their exams were over; there were a few wrap-up lectures, last-minute chances to chat with their teachers or counselors, more on the basis that someone at the school district thought they should all still be at school than for any real need for further instruction. They all had senioritis in its most vigorous form, and the school's struggling air conditioning didn't help.
Their teachers had given up lecturing by about 10 AM and they spent their classes sitting around and chatting. In Calculus, Ms. Kurogawa connected her laptop to the classroom projector and started playing a livestream of a minor summer tournament in Orre.
History was taught by Prof. Hawthorn II, a retired professor, and he gave a presentation on ancient pokémon, repeating the information they'd had drilled into their heads since kindergarten: obey pokémon rangers and police; stay with pokémon with shield techniques; keep your pokédex or phone charged.
Slides of historic photos flicked past: the ancient ho-oh torching old Saffron Town; hyper beams crisscrossing in a distant nighttime exposure as an ancient gyarados levelled Sevii 0 Island; an aerial photograph of the poison swirling in Vermillion Bay after an ancient tentacruel attack.
"An ancient pokémon destroyed the second crossing's technology and sent half of the survivors fleeing back to Terra. Only with the help of their descendants were those who made the third crossing able—" Hawthorn paused, turning toward the message his computer had projected at him and squinting at it briefly.
"Moriko," he said sharply, making her jump a little in her seat. "School counselor." He checked the clock on the computer screen. "Take your things."
A couple of people oohed half-heartedly and were immediately quelled by piercing looks from the professor.
Moriko was confused but made her way to the front office; the A/C seemed to be less labored here, which was a relief and made up for the annoyance of being singled out in class.
She was directed to the back through a series of faintly antiseptic-smelling hallways. She passed offices and desks that she knew objectively held only boring paperwork, but she couldn't help feeling an instinctive dread, Angela's fourth-grader voice coming through the years to wheedle you're in troooooouble.
Mrs. Ellis greeted her perfunctorily; she was a tall, pale woman with a collection of bracelets that jangled when she typed. Moriko vaguely remembered her from a career studies class and various club weeks.
"Your aunt gave me a call and asked me to talk to you," she said, slumping in a desk chair. "She said that you hadn't applied to any schools for next year and she wanted you to talk to someone."
Moriko shifted uncomfortably. "I applied to the Saffron Institute of Technology, but I didn't have the marks." Because Russell was going there. Stupid.
"Anywhere else?"
"No."
"What program?"
Moriko shrugged.
The counselor looked at her severely. "What's the plan for this summer?"
"I'm going to do a few gyms in the Gaiien League."
"While exciting and romantic, being a professional pokémon trainer is not a realistic career option, especially for someone who hasn't had formal training since age ten or so."
"I know, I just want to do that this summer, Russ is coming along—"
Mrs. Ellis tapped something on her tablet, her fingers flicking to call up a file. She looked impressed at what she was seeing. "He gets the luxury of a lackadaisical summer. What are you going to do in the fall?"
"I—I'll work, I work at the ice cream place on the boardwalk. Save some money."
"Are you going to do that forever? Look, I assume you have a good relationship with your pokémon? What species are they?"
"Burnox, and, uh, raigar."
She tapped the names into a search engine and looked at the results for a moment. "You kids are all wild for pokémon battling, but other jobs use pokémon, vital careers with pokémon in necessary roles, fulfilling and interesting ones. What's your email? I'm going to send you a list."
Moriko's pokédex beeped and displayed the message, which contained a map with pins floating over the Gaiien region.
"Weather stations on Sere Island, harbour traffic in Porphyry City, steelworks in Port Brac, forestry and mining in the Neck. Assuming you get that far this summer," she said, sniffing. "See these places, the people, the pokémon working there. Maybe you'll catch a water-type with more ambition than you."
Moriko studied the map. "So let's say steelworking is cool or whatever, what do you do? Is there a school for pokémon?"
"All the work I put into career week..." Mrs. Ellis muttered, pulling out a desk drawer and flipping through pamphlets, some of which she tossed at Moriko. "You're too late to apply for most of these but look at them for next year."
Moriko gathered up the pamphlets while the counselor kept talking.
"Look," Mrs. Ellis said finally, "I remember what it was like, being a teenager, being lovestruck—"
"That's not—"
"Oh of course it's not!" she threw up her hands in a cascade of bangles. "Whatever, whatever the situation is, you need some independence, and you can get that by looking realistically at your educational and financial situation, and making decisions about your, your future. You need to talk to your family and get things sorted out, your aunt was very expressive on the phone."
"My aunt—" Moriko shut her mouth, the words tangling up; there was no way to describe it, everything sounded too dramatic, too much, the truth surely not deserving those maudlin terms. "They're not… that helpful."
Mrs. Ellis watched her, her expression probing, and finally handed her another pamphlet. "It's possible for young adults to get outside support, depending on what kind of educational path they're taking," she said pointedly. "Do your pokémon journey thing and make some decisions."
"Is that everything?" Moriko said, suddenly exhausted by her questioning.
"I want to help you," Mrs. Ellis said, "and the best way to help yourself is to make a realistic plan. Just keep that in mind."
Moriko nodded and got up to leave.
"Email me if you have questions," the counselor called after her. "Talk to your pokémon professor!"
The bell was a few minutes away from ringing, so she waited outside the south exit for Russ. He came out chatting with Huynh and Sosuke, and parted with them as they headed home.
"I miss anything?"
"Some stuff from Hawthorn's life," Russell said. "He was born during the crossing war and told us about some of his memories, like the first fossil pokémon being created and the first mewtwo. He managed to participate in the Indigo League when it was basically a war between the triads and the old clan-masters. What did the counselor have to say?"
Moriko frowned. "My aunt called her, she knows about me going on a journey this summer."
Russell hissed in sympathy. "It worked while it lasted I guess." He looked at her sidelong. "Mor, maybe… don't go home. Maybe don't."
She shrugged. "Where am I gonna go?"
"My house, anytime, most of your stuff is there already. Or Prof. Willow's lab, she would let you stay no problem, there are beds for traveling trainers. The pokémon center."
"I don't wanna put you out. The pokémon center might be fine, might as well get used to that," Moriko said, considering. "She called the counselor, she wants to blow up on me again. She'll just follow me to the pokémon center or something if I don't go take it."
Russell fiddled with his bike silently, unlocking it. Finally he put his hand out and shook her a little by the shoulder. "You have Tarahn with you?"
"He's somewhere."
"Mor…"
"What, what are they going to do?"
Russell shrugged. "What are they going to do?"
They rode their bikes together in silence for a while and paused at the intersection where their paths diverged.
"I'll come with," Russ said.
Moriko shook her head. "I'll get a last couple of things and come over, alright?"
Russ looked at her, lips thin where he was biting them, and nodded.
There was an oppressive air over her aunt and uncle's house when she came up. Moriko braced herself for the fight, the last effort to stop her from leaving.
Her aunt and uncle were in the kitchen when she walked in; Kaz, ever cowardly, slunk away to sit in front of his computer with headphones on.
Rachel swooped in. "Moriko. You need a plan. No more jokes."
Moriko pressed her fingers against her eyelids; she felt herself shrinking, suddenly cowed by the attention and questioning. "Can we not—can we just—"
"What do you think you're going to do? Do you think this trainer thing is going to work out? Run the numbers!"
"I just—I want—I'm old enough for the league, so I'll do that this summer—"
"You think you can make it in this league? It's for trainers who have been working since they were ten, trainers with eight badges from a different region already. Don't waste the time."
"I've been training—"
"Two pokémon and the first gym is a ground-type gym, good luck. Get your shit together, Moriko." Her aunt sighed. "I'm sorry you're doing this. Look, just keep working for the summer, and practice with your pokémon to get into a technical school. There are plenty of jobs that need a fire- or electric-type—"
"Good, then traveling through the league will be good practice!"
"It's a totally different skill set—"
"Stop—this is—I have a plan! I have a budget! This is what I'm doing this summer! I'm taking an absence from the ice cream place—"
"You're already replaced. Idiot. I had to beg Chiyo to give you that job."
Moriko sputtered. "No—you—I got that job! You didn't even know—"
"You owe us!"
Moriko jumped as Rachel smashed a dinner plate, the ceramic shards tinkling across the countertop and falling to the floor.
"Everything we've done, everything we've put aside for you—"
A bubble of rage broke in Moriko's throat. "Why am I here then?" she yelled. "I didn't ask for this, for you to hold this over me every time I want to do the slightest thing! You want me to leave, you're always telling me to, and when I finally—"
"Ungrateful, pigheaded, wasteful, lazy—"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
"You walk out, you go—"
"You're fucking right I am!" Moriko went up the stairs, calculating what she would grab. Enough of this.
Rachel's words floated up the stairs behind her. "Don't come back here! Go out into the woods and starve in a hole in the ground! You idiot, you dumb half brat—"
"Racist now too! Classy! Classy as fuck!" Moriko yelled back.
"If only Kaz's brother had married a human being—"
The rage filling her to her fingertips, Moriko seized and hurled a chair down the stairwell to the empty landing. "Don't talk about them! Don't you fucking—"
"An animal living in my house, sneaking around with boys, useless—"
Moriko threw the last few clothes and keepsakes into her school bag, breathing hard, trying to see clearly, trying be sure that she could live without whatever was left, which would certainly be destroyed as soon as she left the house for the last time.
Seized by inspiration, she turned her desk onto its side and wedged it under the door handle, and exited her room through the window, stepping out onto the old tree and half-climbing, half-sliding to the ground.
Rachel saw her as she crossed the lawn back to her bike and came out, still hurling abuse, slurs, old-fashioned racist epithets that were more comical than stinging.
"You stupid—your parents—you're going to stay in this house and stop wasting time and money—" Rachel seized her by the arm and Moriko fought to break her surprisingly strong grip.
"Don't touch me!"
Rachel hit her in the head with the edge of her hand and Moriko sat down in the driveway heavily.
"What—what the fuck—"
"Look what you made me do, you streak of filth, you half—" Rachel screamed, jumping back as lightning cracked between them.
Tarahn was running up; he put his body between them, guarding Moriko. He snarled at her aunt, electricity crackling along his purple and yellow fur.
He wasn't a tournament pokémon whose special attacks could hurt humans, but it was the look of the thing, Moriko thought dazedly.
"I'm calling the police, I'm calling the rangers—a pokémon attacking—out-of-control—"
Tarahn growled as Moriko rose, hauled up the bike, arranged her bags. She looked past Rachel's face, spit-flecked and mottled with rage, at her uncle standing uselessly in the doorway, holding a phone in one hand.
She turned away and rode off, Tarahn loping beside her.
Russell let her in and didn't say anything.
Sylvia came to the door, claws clicking on the tiles, and licked Moriko's hand. She scratched the timbark behind the ears, digging her fingers deep into her mossy fur.
She added her bag to the pile in the guest room: secondhand hiking bag, tent, tarp, cooking supplies, freeze-dried trainer food, pokéballs, remedies.
"How bad was it?" Russell asked.
"It was really bad. Surprisingly bad," she said, bemused, floating. Her cheek hurt; her aunt had caught her along the cheekbone and eye orbit.
"Do you… do you want to tell anyone?"
Half brat, Moriko thought. Hafu kid runs away from home, distresses kind modern family who was fostering her.
"No," she said. "I'm eighteen. Let's let it be over."
Russ watched her, looked away. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
Moriko waited for the other shoe to drop and almost didn't answer when an unfamiliar number called her phone. It was from the bank.
"Ms. Sato?"
"Speaking?"
"We've detected some unusual activity on your account, did you intend to move the entire balance of your account this morning?"
Moriko went cold, her stomach dropping and turning hard and sick.
"Ms.—?"
"No. No, that wasn't me."
"I'm sorry to hear that, in the meantime we've aborted that transfer and put a hold on your account."
"So I didn't—"
"Nothing was lost."
She could breathe again. "Thank you so much…"
"You won't be able to make any transactions until you come to the bank in person, okay? I recommend going as soon as possible today."
At the bank the teller let her know that the transaction had been initiated from a familiar device and location, but the amount had been unusual and triggered their watchdog system.
From her desktop at her aunt and uncle's house? It had a password, though, and she'd backed up all her files onto a drive she'd left at Russell's house.
She thought of her uncle pecking away on his own computer.
"Sometimes malicious programs can capture computer activity and then provide passwords and such to a third party," the bank's IT girl told her.
With her help Moriko changed all her passwords and she showed her how to change the ones on her pokédex and its browser as well. The bank helped her set up a totally new account.
"The old one had a legacy connection to what looks like your aunt and uncle's joint account. They're your guardians?"
"Yes, but…" Moriko fought to keep the urgency out of her voice. "Now that I'm eighteen, I think that I should have a separate, adult account. I want to be financially independent."
"Of course. Would you like to give them access so they can deposit money when you need it?"
"No. That won't be necessary. Due to the problems I had today I want to be the only one who knows the number."
"That's a good idea, sometimes older people aren't as good with technology and they're less careful about picking up viruses and things. One thing we can do is require a password by phone if someone's calling in to make changes remotely."
"Yes," Moriko said, keeping her face still. "Definitely."
She rode back to Russ's house in a daze; eventually she had to stop and walk her bike or she was going to hit somebody. She made it back without incident, somehow.
Russ did a double-take when she came in. "Whoa. Hey. Hey. What happened?"
"They used my computer to transfer all of my money," she said.
He looked at her incredulously. "Who? All—have you been to the bank?"
"Yeah. Yeah. It's fine now. I should have—I should have…taken it? Destroyed it? I didn't think—" She slumped onto a chair in the kitchen.
"Who? Rachel? Kaz?" Russ frowned, color coming into his pale face. "Moriko—this is—Moriko, that's a crime. That's theft. Let's call—are you—are you going to make a police report?"
Russ was angry, he was actually angry, and her blankness turned into a swirl of dread and embarrassment. "No—no—it's all fixed—let's just—" Her vision went blurry, eyes leaking treacherously. "I can't—"
"Hey, no, it's cool, it's not your fault, don't feel bad," Russ said, sitting down with her, grasping her hand, and keeping up a stream of quiet reassurances until she got a hold of herself.
"I'm sorry, I just—"
"Mor, it's fine, you didn't do anything wrong."
She nodded, sniffling. "I—they always told me that they were going to send me away, and here I am going—"
"They just said that stuff to mess with you—they'll do, they'll say whatever to mess with you," he said.
Sylvia trotted in and pushed her head into Moriko's lap, and she scratched the timbark's head for a few moments.
"Mor, let's go to the police, okay?"
"No," she said. "No, I don't want—what would even happen—I just want to go on the journey, and they'll want to," she faltered, "if there's a, a trial?—I'll have to stay here, and I just cannot—"
Russ waved a hand. "Okay. We're still on. Whatever you decide to do, I'll help you."
"Thanks, Russ." She gripped his hand.
"Are you going to grad?" Russell's mom asked her, later.
She was tall, like him, and had merely titian hair where Russ's was a crimson genehan, but something about her eyes, her smile, was the same as his.
Moriko shook her head. "It's a waste of time. I don't want to be there and no one's looking to see me."
"Russ is." She pushed some paper money across the table. "A little grad present from me. You can do what you want with it; I'll make sure that you and Russ are well stocked for food and pokémon stuff before you leave, so don't worry about that."
"I… I shouldn't. You've already done—"
"It's yours. Happy graduation, Moriko."
She took the money, head spinning. Russ's mom didn't have to know what she really spent it on.
Russ wasn't—there was no reason he'd want to see her at grad. They were friends, and he'd be looking at the other guys at grad, dressed up. She racked her brain if it was something he was keeping secret from his parents and she couldn't remember, so she kept quiet.
She biked out to the trendy shops on the cliffside for something to do, and she saw some girls from school getting their makeup done, laughing together and then bundled into someone's dad's car to head home to get dressed. A frisson of something—doubt, fear, longing—ran up her arms and she found herself looking at the time on her pokédex.
Did she need a ticket? She thought it was just for the food, you could turn up at the hall for nothing.
It was going to be stupid, it wouldn't be like a real grad on TV, at the real high schools in Kalos and Hoenn, not a shitty rinkydink outregional town's community center party.
Was she actually considering this?
No. Yes. No.
Yes.
Moriko found something black at the gown rental place, a shapeless tube for a shapeless body, but it looked… okay. And she could move in it, the slashed sides letting her walk.
Heels? No. Flat dress sandals. She slapped the paper money onto the rental counter, saw pokéballs, potions, travel food dry up and blow away and she cursed herself, but she was doing this, somehow.
She managed to get a walk-in at a salon that the internet said wasn't too expensive, but it was trendy and the hairdressers had chic haircuts and outfits in a mishmash of styles, tartan and silk and denim stamped with ironic Terran logos and diluted clan-emblems.
Her assigned stylist had long hair slashed with expensive proprietary genehan colors and lilac iris implants, the kind of striking look that she assumed was fashionable.
He grasped Moriko's green hair, freed of its ponytail, as she sat in the barber's chair. "What a great color! Is it a genehan? Or are you second?"
"Half," Moriko said.
"That's good to know," the stylist said, turning a caddy of hair products around. "The hair structure accepts colors or perms differently than normal hair."
"I just want it styled," Moriko said nervously, noting the 'normal'. "No dyes. Please."
"Definitely, no problem. This is for your graduation?"
"Yeah, it's tonight, and there's a party, so…"
"Very nice, did you have a look in mind? Let's go through some magazines," he added, seeing Moriko's stricken look.
The hairdresser eventually produced a sleek and subtly curly style that framed her face well, applying an enhancer that made the forest green richer and shinier, hinting at blue and purple tones.
The makeup artist went to work with concealer and eyeliner, smoothing out an old scar and making her orange eyes seem pretty and glowing instead of the usual wolf-in-the-firelight gleam.
See? I can play too, I can look good, she thought.
She ignored the little pulse that said "fake" over and over.
Moriko set out into the evening painted and garbed for battle. No bike, because of the gown, and Russell had already left, probably joining their schoolfriends in a rented limo, so she walked.
This, regrettably, gave her time to think, and her stomach got tighter and tighter the closer she got. She made an averting gesture at a particularly ghoulish thought, and then looked around bashfully to see if anyone had seen her, as good as talking to herself.
Sunk cost, Moriko thought, checking her face in her pokédex camera to make sure the makeup was all still in place. She tucked it back into the little shoulder purse, which tapped against her leg as she walked.
She imagined striding into the hall boldly, doors crashing open and music rising in a crescendo as she appeared, everyone's attention on her.
She snuck in through the kitchen.
A couple of servers started to tell her that she wasn't supposed to be there, but turned back to their tasks when they saw her making a beeline for the hall doors anyway.
Her graduating class wasn't that big, but there was a confusion of tables and decoration to push through, and then…
She walked up to Russell and he smiled like the sun.
"Looking good," he said.
She smiled back, and her eyes dropped shyly. The tuxedo flattered his tall figure, for all that it was a generically sized rental, and he looked great with muted makeup and styled hair. She pushed away a treacherous thought, an impossible and unfair one, one that surfaced now and then at inopportune times.
No one else noticed her.
Russ was standing with their classmates: Angela, Dave, Yuki, Ahmad, all the rest—Angela flicked her eyes over Moriko and said nothing, and so no one else said anything either.
She stood around, yelling to Russell over the music occasionally when there was a break in his conversation. The music changed after Shun said something to the DJ and everyone piled closer to the stage to start dancing.
People looked at her and their eyes slid off quickly when she saw them looking.
She found herself standing alone, hovering between cheap party cutouts and whirling masses of tissue paper, hanging back with the servers clearing used plates and cups while everyone else danced and smiled and cheered.
What am I doing here? Moriko thought, and some of the numbness fell off at last, and she crushed her plastic party cup in her hands. I am trying, she thought, furious. I am trying so hard. This was supposed to be it. This was supposed to work. Why isn't it working?
You're not real, she thought. You're not real and they can smell it on you. They know. They have always known.
She slipped outside between songs.
What is real, then?
Pokémon. Battling. The road.
The night air was cool and bracing, washing away the shut-in closeness of the hall, and when she breathed it in it felt like medicine.
She started walking home. The rented sandals pinched her feet and the rented dress swished as she walked, constricting. She keyed her pokédex, the projected screen appearing in the dimness. "Taxi," she said, and she looked at the rates displayed and shook her head.
A pair of eyes appeared in the darkness and she swore quietly, but she realized it was Tarahn, and she breathed out in a rush.
Moriko bent awkwardly in the dress to scratch his cheeks, losing her fingers in his fur.
"Everything okay?" the raigar asked.
"Everything's dumb."
"Are you going home already?"
"Yeah. It was stupid."
"No one wanted to dance with you? I can, if you want," Tarahn said. "It's like this, right?" He stood up on his hind legs and put one paw on her shoulder, then swayed a little, his tail whipping around to keep his balance. "See? Human dancing."
A smile cracked onto her face, despite herself, despite everything.
"Thanks, sparky," she said, as he dropped back onto all fours. She wiped at her eyes and then swore at the smudged mascara. "Let's go. These shoes were a bad choice."
9/18/2016 - Couple things changed here based on reader feedback/honest contemplation. I'm concerned that this chapter is still too much of a downer, so let me know your impression by review or PM.
Chapter 1
Cruelty / Runaways / High School Does End / Regrettable Footwear Decisions / Treacherous Hopes
June 11th-13th 128 CR
Moriko's bike picked up speed as she hit the incline, the road switchbacking down toward the beaches and the boardwalks. The wind took away some of the mugginess; it was a hot, humid day, and it would only get worse.
In the harbour the big ships from Kanto and Hoenn were coming in with the tide, ready to offload finished goods like packaged food, clothes, and electronics, before being loaded back up with raw materials from Gaiien: barrels of oil, pallets of timber, ores and minerals. The water glittered in the sun, though there were clouds massing right where the sea became sky.
Moriko woke her pokédex, its interface glowing above the device strapped to her wrist. "Weather forecast, Port Littoral," she said. Thunderstorms, it said, the symbol flashing a little lightning bolt. She blew out her breath and, noting the time, pedaled faster.
The boardwalk activity was picking up as the sun grew less intense: there were beach loungers, runners and cyclists, paddleboarders in the bay, surfers at the shorebreak, trainers socializing and battling their water pokémon at the protected beach. A mystic in frayed red robes and layered prayer beads under the sprawling beach willows examined pokémon and made proclamations about their potential and need for further training while their trainers left donations of food or old clothing.
Moriko hurried to the ice cream hut, riding in balanced on one pedal and locking up quickly. She pulled on the uniform polo over her sport top and set the blue-and-yellow hat on her green hair, adjusting it briefly before joining the others behind the counter.
It was mechanical work: what order, what cone, what size, what ice cream? There were heavier Unovan-style flavors and the lighter, icier Kantoan style, and a shiny new machine dispensed soft serve. Kids often wanted the premade bars in the shape of cartoon animals or pokémon that melted grotesquely, the colors running and gumball eyes dropping out. It was busy, not too much time to socialize, which she preferred. A blur of people went by, their bright beachwear unfocused in her memory.
Eventually the crowd thinned, the sun sinking, and she and the other servers moved to tidy up, washing scoops and emptying containers. The manager, Chiyo, did inventory and sent them to bring up flavors from the deep freeze to soften for tomorrow in the regular freezer.
The beach emptied as the sky darkened and then clouded, and they closed early at the first few flashes of lightning. The thunder muttered in its wake and wind stirred the sand; the surf was heavier and lights glittered out in the waves, probably jolteel and lanturn up from the reefs.
Moriko went to unlock her bike and Tarahn was there, fawning for attention from the other servers. The raigar's bells tinkled gently as he rolled onto his back, inviting tummy rubs, and he rubbed his cheeks against their hands.
"Oh no, a fierce pokémon appears," Moriko said dryly.
"Tarahn is so cute! How often do you train with him?" one of the other girls asked.
"Supposed to be every day but you know how it is with school," Moriko said, "he gets bored and just chases pidove in the city all day."
Tarahn had a bright pink, rhinestoned collar on to make him look less wild, but he'd gotten in trouble for battling without a trainer before.
Thunder rumbled in the east and they all hurried to get on their bikes. Moriko sped off toward the slope; the incline was a workout without getting caught in the rain, and Tarahn trotted beside her, bells jangling and his yellow-and-purple motley fur glowing under streetlights.
"Sorry about the boredom," Moriko grunted. The bike was in a low gear, the pedals whirling but the bike inching along. "I should…"
"It's fine, it's fine," Tarahn said. "A few more sleeps."
"Excited?"
"Can't wait to see the prairie again, and the little streams, and the trees—and even further. There's another sea, I heard."
They reached the house as the rain came, fat warm drops bursting on the pavement and splashing Moriko's legs with road dust. Tarahn leaped onto the overhang and then the roof, little tracers of electricity glowing on him as he took power from the storm. Moriko watched from the veranda for a while as the lazy lightning bolts crackled from cloud to cloud and the rain haloed all the lights in the street.
***
"Are your parents okay with it?"
"They've come around." Russell chuckled through the computer speakers. "It was 'absolutely not' and then 'no, consider your education' and then 'I don't think it's a good idea' and then the dreaded 'it's your choice'. But now they're telling me horror stories about kids who have gotten hurt, and buying me equipment, and telling me about how half the stuff that the trainers do in movies is extremely illegal…"
"Oh yeah, like in Kanto Quest, they stow away on the freight train and it's wistful and adventuresome rather than an accident waiting to happen."
"Honestly I'm not even sure if I would get on a train anymore, lairon and magneton are always just straight up eating the steel rails and stuff."
"It won't interfere with going to university though?" Moriko asked, resuming their earlier topic.
"I think we can do six badges this summer with time to come back and get everything squared up at the end of August. Four for sure, six probably. The last two of the eight are up north and you want to do those at the beginning of the season anyway in late June, early July, so the window will be well past. I convinced the 'rents that it's all good practice, having a plant-type pokémon is a big deal for forestry engineering."
"Nice, there you go."
"What about you? Don't want to think about it?"
Moriko laughed, twirling her mouse cursor nervously. "I'll come back to the ice cream shop and we'll see after that, I don't know… what could I do with Rufus… or Tarahn, I guess work at a power plant or something."
"You never know, you might meet a wild pokémon looking to break into public television. We'll work out this summer, find our specialties."
"Nice. It'll be fun. It'll be hard, but fun, I hope."
"Are you going to grad?"
They were on voice so Russell didn't see the sneer, but he sure heard it. "So I can watch people who hate each other cry about how they'll miss each other and swear to be friends forever? Nah, I can see way more convincing performances on TV."
Russell laughed. "You should though, I think you'll be surprised. And I think people will be curious to see you dressed up."
Moriko restrained herself from spitting bile at that. "Can't afford the salon, I'd rather spend that yen on more pokéballs or food."
"Oh, well, if it's money, my mom might—"
"I really couldn't."
"Think about it!"
"Sure. Listen, I better make my lunch. See you tomorrow, okay?"
"No problem, see you."
Moriko went downstairs, but to her dismay her aunt and cousin were already in the kitchen.
"Oh hi, Mori," Angela said, syrupy. "I'm going out with Dave and them, do you want to come? You can't wear that though," she added.
It was Moriko's normal outfit; she folded her arms over her shirt and moved toward the fridge.
"See? She's grumpy, oh well. See you later, Mori! Bye Mom!"
"Have a good time, Ange. Moriko, don't make me tell you to do the dishes," Aunt Rachel said.
"I just got home!"
"You've been on the computer for a while, you need to pull your weight around here."
Moriko's eyes flicked over to the piled-up garbage and recycling, Angela's undone chore, and she went over to the sink to start running water. Her aunt hovered around the kitchen and then swooped in to criticize: don't use the brush like this, that plate is still dirty, don't bump the bowls against the sink, rack the dishes like this, rack the utensils like this—
"It sounds like you should probably do this yourself," Moriko said tightly, leaving the remaining dishes in the soapy water as she stripped off the rubber gloves.
"Finish that chore, and you can do Angela's as well since she's out," Rachel said primly, withdrawing to her office. "Or no money this week."
A hot prickle of anger ran up her spine at that but she needed her allowance, needed it to get out of this stifling house for a few precious months. She finished the dishes and hauled out the waste to the curb for pickup. She stood outside for a while, hearing the patter of the rain on her rain coat and on the bushes in the garden.
Tarahn appeared, soaking wet, and rubbed up against her legs, and she ran her hands through his wet fur. The raigar went in his pokéball for the night and she headed back inside.
Moriko started to pack her lunch and Rachel reappeared, pissed off about something and showing it by slamming the door to her office. She started tidying the still-wet dishes, throwing them into the cupboards with maximum clatter. Moriko hurried to finish and leave the room, but her aunt swooped over, snatching a bag of chips out of Moriko's hands.
"None of those, you're getting fat," her aunt said, and actually pinched her on the arm. "Look at you! In my house, gorging on my food, spending my money—"
Moriko fled into her room, the tirade following her up the stairs, gaining momentum; doors slammed and angry steps sounded on the stairs. Moriko put a chair under the door handle, but Rachel went by this time.
"What the fuck," she said, muffled by a pillow. "What the fuck."
Tarahn reappeared from his ball, totally dry, and she sat on the floor and hugged him, shaking. He patted her awkwardly with one paw.
"Five more sleeps," he said. He purred for a little while. "I could break something, scratch something."
"That would be satisfying," Moriko said, wiping her eyes.
She thought about taking scissors to the hated plastic-covered guest couches, but that would be too obvious, too escalating. A prank, like letting a street pokémon run around the house with muddy paws; she could give them an apple or a lemonade for it.
After a while Moriko sighed and dabbed at her face with a tissue. She took stock of her belongings: her pokémon training stuff was hidden at Russell's house after a previous blowup, but there were a few more things she should probably hide.
***
Moriko thought about skipping class. Their exams were over; there were a few wrap-up lectures, last-minute chances to chat with their teachers or counselors, more on the basis that someone at the school district thought they should all still be at school than for any real need for further instruction. They all had senioritis in its most vigorous form, and the school's struggling air conditioning didn't help.
Their teachers had given up lecturing by about 10 AM and they spent their classes sitting around and chatting. In Calculus, Ms. Kurogawa connected her laptop to the classroom projector and started playing a livestream of a minor summer tournament in Orre.
History was taught by Prof. Hawthorn II, a retired professor, and he gave a presentation on ancient pokémon, repeating the information they'd had drilled into their heads since kindergarten: obey pokémon rangers and police; stay with pokémon with shield techniques; keep your pokédex or phone charged.
Slides of historic photos flicked past: the ancient ho-oh torching old Saffron Town; hyper beams crisscrossing in a distant nighttime exposure as an ancient gyarados levelled Sevii 0 Island; an aerial photograph of the poison swirling in Vermillion Bay after an ancient tentacruel attack.
"An ancient pokémon destroyed the second crossing's technology and sent half of the survivors fleeing back to Terra. Only with the help of their descendants were those who made the third crossing able—" Hawthorn paused, turning toward the message his computer had projected at him and squinting at it briefly.
"Moriko," he said sharply, making her jump a little in her seat. "School counselor." He checked the clock on the computer screen. "Take your things."
A couple of people oohed half-heartedly and were immediately quelled by piercing looks from the professor.
Moriko was confused but made her way to the front office; the A/C seemed to be less labored here, which was a relief and made up for the annoyance of being singled out in class.
She was directed to the back through a series of faintly antiseptic-smelling hallways. She passed offices and desks that she knew objectively held only boring paperwork, but she couldn't help feeling an instinctive dread, Angela's fourth-grader voice coming through the years to wheedle you're in troooooouble.
Mrs. Ellis greeted her perfunctorily; she was a tall, pale woman with a collection of bracelets that jangled when she typed. Moriko vaguely remembered her from a career studies class and various club weeks.
"Your aunt gave me a call and asked me to talk to you," she said, slumping in a desk chair. "She said that you hadn't applied to any schools for next year and she wanted you to talk to someone."
Moriko shifted uncomfortably. "I applied to the Saffron Institute of Technology, but I didn't have the marks." Because Russell was going there. Stupid.
"Anywhere else?"
"No."
"What program?"
Moriko shrugged.
The counselor looked at her severely. "What's the plan for this summer?"
"I'm going to do a few gyms in the Gaiien League."
"While exciting and romantic, being a professional pokémon trainer is not a realistic career option, especially for someone who hasn't had formal training since age ten or so."
"I know, I just want to do that this summer, Russ is coming along—"
Mrs. Ellis tapped something on her tablet, her fingers flicking to call up a file. She looked impressed at what she was seeing. "He gets the luxury of a lackadaisical summer. What are you going to do in the fall?"
"I—I'll work, I work at the ice cream place on the boardwalk. Save some money."
"Are you going to do that forever? Look, I assume you have a good relationship with your pokémon? What species are they?"
"Burnox, and, uh, raigar."
She tapped the names into a search engine and looked at the results for a moment. "You kids are all wild for pokémon battling, but other jobs use pokémon, vital careers with pokémon in necessary roles, fulfilling and interesting ones. What's your email? I'm going to send you a list."
Moriko's pokédex beeped and displayed the message, which contained a map with pins floating over the Gaiien region.
"Weather stations on Sere Island, harbour traffic in Porphyry City, steelworks in Port Brac, forestry and mining in the Neck. Assuming you get that far this summer," she said, sniffing. "See these places, the people, the pokémon working there. Maybe you'll catch a water-type with more ambition than you."
Moriko studied the map. "So let's say steelworking is cool or whatever, what do you do? Is there a school for pokémon?"
"All the work I put into career week..." Mrs. Ellis muttered, pulling out a desk drawer and flipping through pamphlets, some of which she tossed at Moriko. "You're too late to apply for most of these but look at them for next year."
Moriko gathered up the pamphlets while the counselor kept talking.
"Look," Mrs. Ellis said finally, "I remember what it was like, being a teenager, being lovestruck—"
"That's not—"
"Oh of course it's not!" she threw up her hands in a cascade of bangles. "Whatever, whatever the situation is, you need some independence, and you can get that by looking realistically at your educational and financial situation, and making decisions about your, your future. You need to talk to your family and get things sorted out, your aunt was very expressive on the phone."
"My aunt—" Moriko shut her mouth, the words tangling up; there was no way to describe it, everything sounded too dramatic, too much, the truth surely not deserving those maudlin terms. "They're not… that helpful."
Mrs. Ellis watched her, her expression probing, and finally handed her another pamphlet. "It's possible for young adults to get outside support, depending on what kind of educational path they're taking," she said pointedly. "Do your pokémon journey thing and make some decisions."
"Is that everything?" Moriko said, suddenly exhausted by her questioning.
"I want to help you," Mrs. Ellis said, "and the best way to help yourself is to make a realistic plan. Just keep that in mind."
Moriko nodded and got up to leave.
"Email me if you have questions," the counselor called after her. "Talk to your pokémon professor!"
The bell was a few minutes away from ringing, so she waited outside the south exit for Russ. He came out chatting with Huynh and Sosuke, and parted with them as they headed home.
"I miss anything?"
"Some stuff from Hawthorn's life," Russell said. "He was born during the crossing war and told us about some of his memories, like the first fossil pokémon being created and the first mewtwo. He managed to participate in the Indigo League when it was basically a war between the triads and the old clan-masters. What did the counselor have to say?"
Moriko frowned. "My aunt called her, she knows about me going on a journey this summer."
Russell hissed in sympathy. "It worked while it lasted I guess." He looked at her sidelong. "Mor, maybe… don't go home. Maybe don't."
She shrugged. "Where am I gonna go?"
"My house, anytime, most of your stuff is there already. Or Prof. Willow's lab, she would let you stay no problem, there are beds for traveling trainers. The pokémon center."
"I don't wanna put you out. The pokémon center might be fine, might as well get used to that," Moriko said, considering. "She called the counselor, she wants to blow up on me again. She'll just follow me to the pokémon center or something if I don't go take it."
Russell fiddled with his bike silently, unlocking it. Finally he put his hand out and shook her a little by the shoulder. "You have Tarahn with you?"
"He's somewhere."
"Mor…"
"What, what are they going to do?"
Russell shrugged. "What are they going to do?"
They rode their bikes together in silence for a while and paused at the intersection where their paths diverged.
"I'll come with," Russ said.
Moriko shook her head. "I'll get a last couple of things and come over, alright?"
Russ looked at her, lips thin where he was biting them, and nodded.
There was an oppressive air over her aunt and uncle's house when she came up. Moriko braced herself for the fight, the last effort to stop her from leaving.
Her aunt and uncle were in the kitchen when she walked in; Kaz, ever cowardly, slunk away to sit in front of his computer with headphones on.
Rachel swooped in. "Moriko. You need a plan. No more jokes."
Moriko pressed her fingers against her eyelids; she felt herself shrinking, suddenly cowed by the attention and questioning. "Can we not—can we just—"
"What do you think you're going to do? Do you think this trainer thing is going to work out? Run the numbers!"
"I just—I want—I'm old enough for the league, so I'll do that this summer—"
"You think you can make it in this league? It's for trainers who have been working since they were ten, trainers with eight badges from a different region already. Don't waste the time."
"I've been training—"
"Two pokémon and the first gym is a ground-type gym, good luck. Get your shit together, Moriko." Her aunt sighed. "I'm sorry you're doing this. Look, just keep working for the summer, and practice with your pokémon to get into a technical school. There are plenty of jobs that need a fire- or electric-type—"
"Good, then traveling through the league will be good practice!"
"It's a totally different skill set—"
"Stop—this is—I have a plan! I have a budget! This is what I'm doing this summer! I'm taking an absence from the ice cream place—"
"You're already replaced. Idiot. I had to beg Chiyo to give you that job."
Moriko sputtered. "No—you—I got that job! You didn't even know—"
"You owe us!"
Moriko jumped as Rachel smashed a dinner plate, the ceramic shards tinkling across the countertop and falling to the floor.
"Everything we've done, everything we've put aside for you—"
A bubble of rage broke in Moriko's throat. "Why am I here then?" she yelled. "I didn't ask for this, for you to hold this over me every time I want to do the slightest thing! You want me to leave, you're always telling me to, and when I finally—"
"Ungrateful, pigheaded, wasteful, lazy—"
"Shut up! Shut up!"
"You walk out, you go—"
"You're fucking right I am!" Moriko went up the stairs, calculating what she would grab. Enough of this.
Rachel's words floated up the stairs behind her. "Don't come back here! Go out into the woods and starve in a hole in the ground! You idiot, you dumb half brat—"
"Racist now too! Classy! Classy as fuck!" Moriko yelled back.
"If only Kaz's brother had married a human being—"
The rage filling her to her fingertips, Moriko seized and hurled a chair down the stairwell to the empty landing. "Don't talk about them! Don't you fucking—"
"An animal living in my house, sneaking around with boys, useless—"
Moriko threw the last few clothes and keepsakes into her school bag, breathing hard, trying to see clearly, trying be sure that she could live without whatever was left, which would certainly be destroyed as soon as she left the house for the last time.
Seized by inspiration, she turned her desk onto its side and wedged it under the door handle, and exited her room through the window, stepping out onto the old tree and half-climbing, half-sliding to the ground.
Rachel saw her as she crossed the lawn back to her bike and came out, still hurling abuse, slurs, old-fashioned racist epithets that were more comical than stinging.
"You stupid—your parents—you're going to stay in this house and stop wasting time and money—" Rachel seized her by the arm and Moriko fought to break her surprisingly strong grip.
"Don't touch me!"
Rachel hit her in the head with the edge of her hand and Moriko sat down in the driveway heavily.
"What—what the fuck—"
"Look what you made me do, you streak of filth, you half—" Rachel screamed, jumping back as lightning cracked between them.
Tarahn was running up; he put his body between them, guarding Moriko. He snarled at her aunt, electricity crackling along his purple and yellow fur.
He wasn't a tournament pokémon whose special attacks could hurt humans, but it was the look of the thing, Moriko thought dazedly.
"I'm calling the police, I'm calling the rangers—a pokémon attacking—out-of-control—"
Tarahn growled as Moriko rose, hauled up the bike, arranged her bags. She looked past Rachel's face, spit-flecked and mottled with rage, at her uncle standing uselessly in the doorway, holding a phone in one hand.
She turned away and rode off, Tarahn loping beside her.
***
Russell let her in and didn't say anything.
Sylvia came to the door, claws clicking on the tiles, and licked Moriko's hand. She scratched the timbark behind the ears, digging her fingers deep into her mossy fur.
She added her bag to the pile in the guest room: secondhand hiking bag, tent, tarp, cooking supplies, freeze-dried trainer food, pokéballs, remedies.
"How bad was it?" Russell asked.
"It was really bad. Surprisingly bad," she said, bemused, floating. Her cheek hurt; her aunt had caught her along the cheekbone and eye orbit.
"Do you… do you want to tell anyone?"
Half brat, Moriko thought. Hafu kid runs away from home, distresses kind modern family who was fostering her.
"No," she said. "I'm eighteen. Let's let it be over."
Russ watched her, looked away. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
***
Moriko waited for the other shoe to drop and almost didn't answer when an unfamiliar number called her phone. It was from the bank.
"Ms. Sato?"
"Speaking?"
"We've detected some unusual activity on your account, did you intend to move the entire balance of your account this morning?"
Moriko went cold, her stomach dropping and turning hard and sick.
"Ms.—?"
"No. No, that wasn't me."
"I'm sorry to hear that, in the meantime we've aborted that transfer and put a hold on your account."
"So I didn't—"
"Nothing was lost."
She could breathe again. "Thank you so much…"
"You won't be able to make any transactions until you come to the bank in person, okay? I recommend going as soon as possible today."
At the bank the teller let her know that the transaction had been initiated from a familiar device and location, but the amount had been unusual and triggered their watchdog system.
From her desktop at her aunt and uncle's house? It had a password, though, and she'd backed up all her files onto a drive she'd left at Russell's house.
She thought of her uncle pecking away on his own computer.
"Sometimes malicious programs can capture computer activity and then provide passwords and such to a third party," the bank's IT girl told her.
With her help Moriko changed all her passwords and she showed her how to change the ones on her pokédex and its browser as well. The bank helped her set up a totally new account.
"The old one had a legacy connection to what looks like your aunt and uncle's joint account. They're your guardians?"
"Yes, but…" Moriko fought to keep the urgency out of her voice. "Now that I'm eighteen, I think that I should have a separate, adult account. I want to be financially independent."
"Of course. Would you like to give them access so they can deposit money when you need it?"
"No. That won't be necessary. Due to the problems I had today I want to be the only one who knows the number."
"That's a good idea, sometimes older people aren't as good with technology and they're less careful about picking up viruses and things. One thing we can do is require a password by phone if someone's calling in to make changes remotely."
"Yes," Moriko said, keeping her face still. "Definitely."
***
She rode back to Russ's house in a daze; eventually she had to stop and walk her bike or she was going to hit somebody. She made it back without incident, somehow.
Russ did a double-take when she came in. "Whoa. Hey. Hey. What happened?"
"They used my computer to transfer all of my money," she said.
He looked at her incredulously. "Who? All—have you been to the bank?"
"Yeah. Yeah. It's fine now. I should have—I should have…taken it? Destroyed it? I didn't think—" She slumped onto a chair in the kitchen.
"Who? Rachel? Kaz?" Russ frowned, color coming into his pale face. "Moriko—this is—Moriko, that's a crime. That's theft. Let's call—are you—are you going to make a police report?"
Russ was angry, he was actually angry, and her blankness turned into a swirl of dread and embarrassment. "No—no—it's all fixed—let's just—" Her vision went blurry, eyes leaking treacherously. "I can't—"
"Hey, no, it's cool, it's not your fault, don't feel bad," Russ said, sitting down with her, grasping her hand, and keeping up a stream of quiet reassurances until she got a hold of herself.
"I'm sorry, I just—"
"Mor, it's fine, you didn't do anything wrong."
She nodded, sniffling. "I—they always told me that they were going to send me away, and here I am going—"
"They just said that stuff to mess with you—they'll do, they'll say whatever to mess with you," he said.
Sylvia trotted in and pushed her head into Moriko's lap, and she scratched the timbark's head for a few moments.
"Mor, let's go to the police, okay?"
"No," she said. "No, I don't want—what would even happen—I just want to go on the journey, and they'll want to," she faltered, "if there's a, a trial?—I'll have to stay here, and I just cannot—"
Russ waved a hand. "Okay. We're still on. Whatever you decide to do, I'll help you."
"Thanks, Russ." She gripped his hand.
***
"Are you going to grad?" Russell's mom asked her, later.
She was tall, like him, and had merely titian hair where Russ's was a crimson genehan, but something about her eyes, her smile, was the same as his.
Moriko shook her head. "It's a waste of time. I don't want to be there and no one's looking to see me."
"Russ is." She pushed some paper money across the table. "A little grad present from me. You can do what you want with it; I'll make sure that you and Russ are well stocked for food and pokémon stuff before you leave, so don't worry about that."
"I… I shouldn't. You've already done—"
"It's yours. Happy graduation, Moriko."
She took the money, head spinning. Russ's mom didn't have to know what she really spent it on.
Russ wasn't—there was no reason he'd want to see her at grad. They were friends, and he'd be looking at the other guys at grad, dressed up. She racked her brain if it was something he was keeping secret from his parents and she couldn't remember, so she kept quiet.
She biked out to the trendy shops on the cliffside for something to do, and she saw some girls from school getting their makeup done, laughing together and then bundled into someone's dad's car to head home to get dressed. A frisson of something—doubt, fear, longing—ran up her arms and she found herself looking at the time on her pokédex.
Did she need a ticket? She thought it was just for the food, you could turn up at the hall for nothing.
It was going to be stupid, it wouldn't be like a real grad on TV, at the real high schools in Kalos and Hoenn, not a shitty rinkydink outregional town's community center party.
Was she actually considering this?
No. Yes. No.
***
Yes.
Moriko found something black at the gown rental place, a shapeless tube for a shapeless body, but it looked… okay. And she could move in it, the slashed sides letting her walk.
Heels? No. Flat dress sandals. She slapped the paper money onto the rental counter, saw pokéballs, potions, travel food dry up and blow away and she cursed herself, but she was doing this, somehow.
She managed to get a walk-in at a salon that the internet said wasn't too expensive, but it was trendy and the hairdressers had chic haircuts and outfits in a mishmash of styles, tartan and silk and denim stamped with ironic Terran logos and diluted clan-emblems.
Her assigned stylist had long hair slashed with expensive proprietary genehan colors and lilac iris implants, the kind of striking look that she assumed was fashionable.
He grasped Moriko's green hair, freed of its ponytail, as she sat in the barber's chair. "What a great color! Is it a genehan? Or are you second?"
"Half," Moriko said.
"That's good to know," the stylist said, turning a caddy of hair products around. "The hair structure accepts colors or perms differently than normal hair."
"I just want it styled," Moriko said nervously, noting the 'normal'. "No dyes. Please."
"Definitely, no problem. This is for your graduation?"
"Yeah, it's tonight, and there's a party, so…"
"Very nice, did you have a look in mind? Let's go through some magazines," he added, seeing Moriko's stricken look.
The hairdresser eventually produced a sleek and subtly curly style that framed her face well, applying an enhancer that made the forest green richer and shinier, hinting at blue and purple tones.
The makeup artist went to work with concealer and eyeliner, smoothing out an old scar and making her orange eyes seem pretty and glowing instead of the usual wolf-in-the-firelight gleam.
See? I can play too, I can look good, she thought.
She ignored the little pulse that said "fake" over and over.
***
Moriko set out into the evening painted and garbed for battle. No bike, because of the gown, and Russell had already left, probably joining their schoolfriends in a rented limo, so she walked.
This, regrettably, gave her time to think, and her stomach got tighter and tighter the closer she got. She made an averting gesture at a particularly ghoulish thought, and then looked around bashfully to see if anyone had seen her, as good as talking to herself.
Sunk cost, Moriko thought, checking her face in her pokédex camera to make sure the makeup was all still in place. She tucked it back into the little shoulder purse, which tapped against her leg as she walked.
She imagined striding into the hall boldly, doors crashing open and music rising in a crescendo as she appeared, everyone's attention on her.
She snuck in through the kitchen.
A couple of servers started to tell her that she wasn't supposed to be there, but turned back to their tasks when they saw her making a beeline for the hall doors anyway.
Her graduating class wasn't that big, but there was a confusion of tables and decoration to push through, and then…
She walked up to Russell and he smiled like the sun.
"Looking good," he said.
She smiled back, and her eyes dropped shyly. The tuxedo flattered his tall figure, for all that it was a generically sized rental, and he looked great with muted makeup and styled hair. She pushed away a treacherous thought, an impossible and unfair one, one that surfaced now and then at inopportune times.
No one else noticed her.
Russ was standing with their classmates: Angela, Dave, Yuki, Ahmad, all the rest—Angela flicked her eyes over Moriko and said nothing, and so no one else said anything either.
She stood around, yelling to Russell over the music occasionally when there was a break in his conversation. The music changed after Shun said something to the DJ and everyone piled closer to the stage to start dancing.
People looked at her and their eyes slid off quickly when she saw them looking.
She found herself standing alone, hovering between cheap party cutouts and whirling masses of tissue paper, hanging back with the servers clearing used plates and cups while everyone else danced and smiled and cheered.
What am I doing here? Moriko thought, and some of the numbness fell off at last, and she crushed her plastic party cup in her hands. I am trying, she thought, furious. I am trying so hard. This was supposed to be it. This was supposed to work. Why isn't it working?
You're not real, she thought. You're not real and they can smell it on you. They know. They have always known.
She slipped outside between songs.
What is real, then?
Pokémon. Battling. The road.
The night air was cool and bracing, washing away the shut-in closeness of the hall, and when she breathed it in it felt like medicine.
She started walking home. The rented sandals pinched her feet and the rented dress swished as she walked, constricting. She keyed her pokédex, the projected screen appearing in the dimness. "Taxi," she said, and she looked at the rates displayed and shook her head.
A pair of eyes appeared in the darkness and she swore quietly, but she realized it was Tarahn, and she breathed out in a rush.
Moriko bent awkwardly in the dress to scratch his cheeks, losing her fingers in his fur.
"Everything okay?" the raigar asked.
"Everything's dumb."
"Are you going home already?"
"Yeah. It was stupid."
"No one wanted to dance with you? I can, if you want," Tarahn said. "It's like this, right?" He stood up on his hind legs and put one paw on her shoulder, then swayed a little, his tail whipping around to keep his balance. "See? Human dancing."
A smile cracked onto her face, despite herself, despite everything.
"Thanks, sparky," she said, as he dropped back onto all fours. She wiped at her eyes and then swore at the smudged mascara. "Let's go. These shoes were a bad choice."
