He was a man that seemed to laugh at the world itself. He had a jump in his step I couldn’t explain, and a smile that I couldn’t ignore.

He vexed me, and captured my attention, as if I were a wild Pokemon to be trained. He was a man that I felt would someday leave me- something about him and the way he smiled so passionately made me think that there must be another that vied for his affections- but I pushed that thought farther and farther in to the back of my mind.

“I’m a Pokemon Trainer,” he said with an unreadable twinkle in his eyes.

We met at a pub on the edge of town, still quiet despite what it was. I had been alone, studying for a class that Professor Oak was teaching, lugging my textbook along with me. He bought me a drink and sat next to me, charming me without saying a word.

“A Pokemon Trainer, ne?” I wasn’t at all surprised, and I remember looking at him with a nonchalant sort of interest. After all, being a Pokemon Trainer was commonplace. And I did live in Pallet Town; I’d seen my share of aspiring Trainers, whom rise and fall with the tides. I think that’s what put me off of Pokemon Training. The cost of failure was high, and female Trainers often enough were not taken seriously.

“Yeah.”

There was a silence, and he looked over my shoulder at my book with extreme curiosity.

“What are you reading?”

“I’m not reading, I’m studying.”

“Oh… Sorry.”

He turned away and sat up straight, a look of apology on his face. It made him look dejected; I found myself feeling the same.

I stammered, blushing. He looked at me with a confused expression. “It…It’s just a textbook. Kanto District Ecology. I’m a student.”

“Ah,” he said.

And before I knew it, we had a date planned. I think we had talked for hours, about everything to the subject of my textbook to our personal lives. Well, mostly my personal life. The entire time, he rarely talked about himself.

But I did learn a little about him: He was a Trainer with a deep compassion for Pokemon. He had a vast sort of knowledge, beyond what the Professor could provide, I fervently imagined. He had hair of a burnt-wood black, and eyes like a sort of dark umber flame. And I was head over heels.

It was that feeling of infatuation that consumed me all that time. There was a point where I could think of nothing else. The only thing that crossed my mind was the black haired stranger. And, of course, how I would be meeting him again at the pub, so that we would be able to explore the nearby forests together. For most, I imagine that this would not be the most enjoyable experience. But I was an ecology student, living in the small town of Pallet all my life. I lived and breathed forest air. And he was interested in Pokemon. Thus, I was, too.

“Delia, please, this is not time for daydreaming.”

Professor Oak would often snap me from my fantasies. I immediately came back to attention, forcing myself from those wonderful thoughts. Because love might not have been worth giving up all I’d worked for.

Then again, maybe it was.

The pub was not far from the edge of town (you often saw a wild Pokemon somewhere near the pub, attracted by the enticing smell of food, and the foreign smell of alcohol.). Thus, our walk to the forest was a short one. In the bleak break of dawn, I heard the Dodrio call to the town, as it did every daybreak.

“Dooooodrio!”

He smiled at me as I walked forward, and a grin came across my face as well. A day in the forest was all we were doing; a day in the forest with him was all I wanted.

We found ourselves immersed in the world. Everything around us was bathed in droplets of light, and shaded a peaceful green. I believe that we could have remained there forever.

Forever, I think, is a very ling time. When I mentioned this to him, he placed a pensive look on his face, but then truthfully agreed, which brought a smile to my face and a blush to my cheeks. Forever…

We rested from the long walk on a log that was placed perfectly next to a pond of clear water, strewn with lily pads and Polywags. He took off his shoes- worn, scratched, and outdated- and dipped his roughened feet in to the water.

I willingly followed suit, but in a way that it was as if I were under a spell. My feet were tired, and it seemed like a good idea. Stretching my legs out, I saw a Pidgey land on his shoulder. He paid no mind to it.

The water was somewhat worn to my travel-inept feet. Looking at his feet, distorted by the water’s ripples, I mused that he must be very well traveled. For most Pokemon Trainers begin their journeys at ten to twelve years old, sometimes by receiving a starting Pokemon from the Professor, sometimes by unofficial means. He seemed to be maybe a year or two older than I was at the time. But even then, I saw two separate personalities in this person. The calm, nearly naïve man beside me, and the pensive one that I only saw when he thought I wasn’t looking. Just like the lake: serene.

He noticed me staring at him and his serious expression, and changed himself to allow a whole-hearted grin. We exchanged conversation for a while after that. I shivered when his feet left the pond: the Polywags swam away and the water felt colder. I looked in his direction as we walked, making out every detail of his face. As I always did.

Many days went on like this. We were constantly together, up to the point where he stayed in the guest room of my house (I had nearly forced him to stay when I discovered he had been sleeping in the woods every night). He still tended to avoid everyone else in the town, and I was sparing about whom I chose to tell. Thus, Professor Oak was the only who knew that I was undeniably in love.

Professor Oak asked me on more than one occasion: “So, when will I meet this mysterious Pokemon Trainer, ne?” He seemed rather curious about the man who captured my attention and never let go, having been a family friend since childhood. I knew exactly what he wanted to know: How did he train his Pokemon? What was his level of skill? Did he specialize in any particular type?

I found myself wondering the same; I realized at that point that I didn’t even know what type of Pokemon he possessed.

I had taken his word and knowledge as proof, but he had never even talked of them. When we went back to the forest a few days later, I asked him of it, in a quiet, nervous voice that was not usually my own.

He looked down at me with knowing eyes, as if he had expected it, and I’m positive my heart skipped a beat. He nodded his head and complied. Taking a deep breath of the fresh forest air, he let out an endless, melodic whistle of a single note. The forest almost held its own breath in anticipation, as I did my own. When the whistle finally ceased, I felt its absence in my ears.

The creature that emerged was indescribable.

I could see it above the trees before I could see it in the clearing, it jumped so high. And, to this day, I’m still not quite sure what it was. Other than him, next to me, the entire moment in time is blurred beyond my own recognition. To me, its entirety is just a blur of blues, greens, whites, and amazement. I sat down on the creature, sitting just behind its master, and as we sped forward I could feel the wind threaten to tear me apart. The beast let out a cry, uncharacteristically low, and my companion nodded as if he understood. Then the wind shifted from pushing me back to pushing me down, and for a brief moment, we were suspended far above the forest.

I remember perfectly. There was a sudden clarity, at the point where I couldn’t breathe and could see everything. From where we were, I could see in all directions beyond the forest, even with half my view blocked by his windswept black hair. But, perhaps, that was what made the view so beautiful, and what etched it in to my mind. Perhaps that’s why it was the only fraction of a second that I could remember perfectly: the feelings of weightlessness and endlessness that were whole and all-consuming.

Surprisingly, we landed gently on the ground. He jumped, with an athletic flourish, off the creature’s back. I slid off, the feeling of its fur rustling against my legs. There was a rush of wind behind me, and the beast ran off again, jumping in to the distance and uttering its echoing cry.

I never doubted him again.

And I think we grew closer, starting that day. Close enough that he was willing to meet Professor Oak at the Pokemon Laboratory. But I noticed that there was still a nervousness about him- something he never had when we spent time together. It was always when there was another person near, or when there was no warm sun or shady wood. Places that were homely to me were prison to him.

Which is why I told him, in a nervous voice again, that he didn’t have to if he truly didn’t want to. He replied to this by saying that he would go, as he had already said he would. “Besides,” I remember him saying. “I’m curious.”

The Pokemon Lab was nestled in Pallet’s quiet streets. The windmill at the front (providing emergency power, if needed) was always turning, even when the wind wasn’t blowing and those Pokemon that were dependant on the currents of the air couldn’t fly far. There was no separate Pokemon Center in Pallet Town; you could go to the Lab to have your Pokemon’s needs, as well as your own, tended to.

I was almost surprised at how well ha and the Professor got along, especially considering how nervous he was before. He still seemed confined to himself in that place of cold walls within an endless expanse. I sat and listened to him and the Professor talk for what seemed to be (and might have been) hours. They had a common interest, and despite his appearance, Professor Oak really is a likeable man.

But whenever the Professor brought up my companion’s Pokemon, he found a way to change the subject, nervousness quite obvious in his voice.

I remembered the sonorous voice of his Pokemon, which I would forever associate with his face, and wondered why he wouldn’t want to show the Professor such a fabulous Pokemon. Surely, as a trainer, he would want to show the world…

Those thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind as well; I’m sure he had his reasons. It was his secret to tell, not mine.

But all awkwardness was gone as soon as we reached the wide, nearly endless world just outside of the Professor’s back door. Once again, forever existed, and we journeyed through it. As we walked onward, my companion whispered to me. “Thank you for not telling,” he said. My heart made erratic bounds, and our bond grew stronger.

Thus, it was no surprise when we learnt that I was pregnant.

To the unborn child, he and I told stories. He told of so many things, partly to me and partly to the baby, about places I had never bothered to know. He told of how Viridian City was a four day journey without a bicycle or Pokemon to ride; how berries, when left in a Shuckle’s shell for a time, fermented in to a fine juice for Pokemon that fared well for humans as well when sugar was added. He recalled places he had been to…from peaceful towns to endless towers. Places I had never heard of, and would not have believed in if it had been told to me by anyone but him.

Nine months later, the child that we had nurtured on love and Pokemon looked just like his father.

Those were wonderful years. Fabulous times where the garden, the child, and the romance flourished. Pallet Town knew, now, of our relationship. They would wave to the happy, yet unmarried, couple as we walked by. Our son was fed stories of far-off places and fantastic myths; I knew that he would find himself on the long and difficult path of a Pokemon Trainer, whether I wanted him to or not. So me and my lover made sure that he knew well of the world that he was undeniably walking right in to.

Three fabulous years. Had it not ended there, I would have thought that I had found forever, which I had been looking for for so long. The one that he and I had both agreed was a very, very long time.

I awoke, knowing something was wrong. He was not at my side (which had happened on more than one occasion before- he was usually outside), and his half of the bed was icy, unlike the warmth that seemed to surround everything he touched long before my embellishments had mixed with my realities. As if he had never existed, I emerged from my bed alone.

With a groggy disposition, I walked to his favorite spot outside, a log under a large oak tree. I didn’t seem to feel the gravity of the situation until I realized that he wasn’t there, either.

Awakening my three-year-old son, we began to search the house for him. When my son called, I rushed to him, only to find that my lover remained unfound, and he only held a note in his hands. I took the note from his open palms and began to read:

His writing was sloppy, not as if he were in a hurry, but as if he were trying to find the words to write. It was written in a curved flourish, as everything he wrote was. Grabbing our son’s hand, I ran out to the front yard, hoping that the letter was written seconds ago instead of hours. But emptiness snatched my heart when I saw that the yard, too, was empty.

A gently wind blew, blowing feather, petals, and leaves in to swirls in the air. Images of our time together resurfaced. The feeling that he must be seeing another returned; that certainty that somebody must love him as much as I do. That positivity that he would someday leave me.

My son, whom looked do much like his father, clenched my limp hands. He looked out in to the woods, where we both assumed my lover had gone.

Falling in love changes someone, I think. The sadness in my heart was expelled, and the images of rejection erased; I knew that he must have a reason. I know that love changed me.

Because I still believe he will return.