Charlie held back a gag as he scrubbed the vomit off the nightclub’s bathroom. It was one of the worst parts about working in this place. Though believe it or not, he had cleaned up much worse.

A drunkard then stumbled into the bathroom, and Charlie had to step in and stop the guy before he slipped and fell on the floor. But drunkards being drunkards, he took Charlie’s meddling as a sign of aggression and punched the boy right in the face.

By the time he came to, he found himself lying on a bench in the locker room.

“Finally up, princess?”

Charlie turned his throbbing head to the side and saw one of the security guards changing by a locker.

“Gotta work out a bit more kid, clocking out after one punch? Oof! Even cardboard can take more than that.” The guard rummaged around and tossed an ice pack onto Charlie’s chest. “Here, this’ll help. Also, boss man said you ain’t getting paid for the night since you spent most of it sleeping.”

And after slamming his locker shut, the security guard bid adieu to the boy and sauntered off with a carefree whistle.

Charlie groaned and grabbed the ice pack to press against his black eye, wincing at the pain of contact.

After laying down for long enough to dispel some of his moodiness, Charlie sluggishly got up to change out of his soggy work uniform. All the while, his mind was blank despite having slept through most of his shift. He felt too numb and worn out to really care about anything.

He trudged out of the backdoor into an alleyway, mechanically saying goodbye to all his coworkers along the way, even the asshole manager who just snorted at him. Pretty sure that sleazy Snorlax of a man said something to him as well, but it all just went over his head.

“—Charlie! Hey, Arceus to Charlie! Are you there?!”

Right as he exited the alleyway and entered the main street, he heard someone calling out to him. His lethargic feet grinded to a halt as he slowly turned around to look at the person who called. Only to find a stunning looking girl glowering at him.

The girl had tanned skin that was reminiscent of his mom’s, looking to be around his age and height. She was wearing trendy clothes with a distinctive looking yellow jacket on top. And on her shoulder was a fed up looking Eevee who mirrored its trainer’s expression.

“How nice, I wish I had an Eevee too…” He mused, maybe then he would stop losing. He snorted to himself lightly. “Who am I kidding? As if I have the chops to train an expensive Pokemon like that.” He’d just end up wasting his parents’ money again.

“Oh sorry, didn’t notice there you Miss… Is there anything you need from me?” Charlie asked, with his best customer service face, only for the girl’s frown to deepen in response.

“Do you seriously not recognize me? Or did you get hit too hard by whoever gave you that black eye? It’s me, Nina!”

Charlie reeled back at that familiar name, once again scanning the girl from top to bottom. “Impossible.” He thought. Nina’s the cute, adorkable little girl who he used to be friends with back home. Not this super hot chick who looked like she could be a mermaid in the Cerulean Gym. “Wait… wasn’t Nina apprenticed at the Cerulean Gym?”

“Nina…? Is that really you?” asked the disbelieving Charlie.

The girl claiming to be his childhood friend snorted. “In the flesh, you dumbass. Maybe you’d recognize me if you picked up my calls for once!”

Charlie winced, he had indeed been dodging Nina’s calls. He didn’t have the heart to tell his childhood friend that life in the Vermilion Flame wasn’t as rosy as he thought. Or that he wasn’t as big of a deal as he thought. Thinking back on how he used to gloat about how he would conquer the school and become its number one student made him cringe in embarrassment.

Turning his gaze back to the grown up Nina, Charlie smiled in spite of himself. Only for that smile to falter at the thought of how pathetic he looked right now.

“What happened to you, Charlie?” Nina asked, her voice tinged with concern.

“It’s fine~ What are you talking about? Everything is all good!” He found himself defaulting to the usual words he used to assuage his parents, only to suddenly experience a sharp pain in his head. “Ow!”

Nina scoffed. “That’s what you get for lying to me. Now come on, let’s find a place to talk that isn’t so… urgh.” The girl averted her gaze from the nightclub entrance covered in piss, vomit, and littered with garbage

Charlie watched as Nina walked away, probably expecting him to follow. But his brain was too dull at the moment to process the signal. After noticing that he wasn’t coming, the girl turned around with an impatient look, her Eevee’s eyes glowing an eerie purple color.

“What in the Distortion are you waiting for?!” She yelled. “Hurry up! I skipped school today for you, so you better not waste my time.” She said, followed by another pang of pain in Charlie’s head.

***

They ended up in a 24 hour Munchies, since it was the only thing that was open this early in the morning.

Charlie was unabashedly tackling a burger that his friend had insisted on buying for him. He had not realized how starved he was until his stomach started growling.

Meanwhile, Nina just watched him with an undecipherable expression, while casually stroking her Eevee’s fur and occasionally feeding it some Berries.

After he was done, Charlie accepted the napkin that Nina passed to him and sheepishly wiped the ketchup stains off his mouth. “Sorry…” He muttered.

Nina narrowed her eyes. “Really? Years of ghosting me and that’s the first thing you apologized about?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Charlie’s shoulders drooped at the admonishment. “Sorry for ghosting you too. I just… I didn’t want you to see me like this.” His childhood friend had always been uncannily perceptive. It was like she could read his mind or something. He was scared that she would tell his parents that something was wrong.

Nina crossed her arms and leaned back against her seat. “So? What happened to you? If your aunt or your cousins are abusing you and extorting you for money, you can tell me.”

“What? No!” Charlie denied frantically. “That’s not… No! My aunt’s never around and my cousins are assholes but it’s not like that…”

“Then what is it? You looked so different that I nearly didn’t recognize you.” It wasn’t just his appearance, Charlie’s face hasn’t changed much aside from some acne. He had gained a bit of height, but it was mostly his gait and demeanor. Nina’s childhood friend had gone from boisterous and cheerful to being all gloomy and timid.

Charlie laughed. “You’re one to talk. I was thinking; ‘There’s no way that this hot chick would want to talk to me!’ You look like one of those pretty ladies in Misty’s gym!”

Nina scowled. “Don’t try to change the subject, kid. Answer the question!”

Charlie drooped his head once more and apologized. He knew that Nina had the habit of calling other children ‘kid’ when they were being dumb. But what was once a cute little quirk of hers now sounded condescending with Nina’s new look. He felt his stomach rebelling against the burger he just ate as a bitter taste took over his mouth.

The boy sighed. “I don’t even know what to say… It’s just… everything’s wrong. I’m not as good a trainer as I thought I was. Everything just… sucks.”

Nina breathed in to calm herself and took on a gentler tone. “Why don’t you start by telling me why you wanted to go to the Vermilion Flame in the first place. I knew you were excited about it, but it never occurred to me to ask why.”

Charlie gulped and slurped on his smoothie to wash the bitter taste out of his mouth. “There was a kid that transferred into my school at one point…” He began, somewhat reluctantly. “Name’s Ichinose, from Johto. I always just called him Ichi.”

Charlie thought back to his childhood, feeling melancholic about how much better life was back then. “Ichi and I, we weren’t exactly friends — I didn’t get along with him the same way I did with Bobby and Nobita.” The mention of his friends’ names deepened that sense of melancholy. They’ve probably forgotten about me at this point.” He sighed.

“I didn’t hate him… But Ichi, he would always go on about how Kanto trainers are weak and that he would sweep through our conference and stuff. So I always argued with him.”

“This Ichinose, he's in the Vermilion Flame now?” Nina chimed, to which Charlie nodded in response.

“Yeah… Well, I think he took a break to go on his journey now, but he was the reason why I wanted to go to school in the first place. I always thought I’d just journey straight after I come of age, you know?” He continued, after receiving an encouraging nod from Nina.

“Anyways, he said that none of us here in this ‘backwaters school’ could possibly get into VF. I took him up on the challenge and well… you know the rest.”

“So what happened after you got in then?” Nina asked.

Charlie wilted even further into his seat, reluctant to say much about his failings. “I… At first, I would keep challenging Ichi to battles 'cause you know, we always talked about how we would when we were finally allowed. It was fun at first… Even though I kept losing.”

Back then Charlie was determined, he was sure that if he kept training, he’d be able to beat Ichi one day. But instead, what happened was, his rival just kept pulling farther and father ahead.

“And at some point, Ichi just lost interest in me. He’d ignore me when I challenged him, and then his friends started calling me a loser. That name stuck… and soon, even my shitty cousins started calling me that too.” Charlie scoffed. “As if those normies knew the first thing about battling.”

‘Normie’ was a derogatory term that trainer school kids liked to use to demean kids that went to general schools. Vocational school kids would be called ‘plumbers’ since that was the one job that nobody wanted to do. Kids were mean that way.

“So you can’t win against your rival, then ignore him and find someone else. There’s literally hundreds of kids in school, I’m sure you can find someone that’s more of your match,” said Nina.

Charlie slammed his fist on the table, earning him a glare from Nina’s Eevee who jumped down onto the girl’s lap. “You don’t get it, Nina! I keep losing! Not just to Ichi, but to the others as well. And when I did win, they’d just say it was all luck. Nothing I did mattered!”

Nina frowned. “And so what? You just gave up, and decided to be a janitor in some seedy nightclub? If you’re going to quit then just quit all the way and go on your journey. Your parents are still working hard to afford your tuition and rent, you know? Do you even know how much it costs to own a Gyarados?”

“I know that!” Charlie yelled. But he was too scared of disappointing his parents. After all that he said, he still wanted to graduate at least. Otherwise this would all be for nothing.

“That’s why I’m working so hard…” Charlie was crying at this point. “I want to pay them back at some point and earn money for my journey as well. I just don’t want to disappoint mom and dad…”

“Charlie,” Nina leaned in and looked at the boy with a hard gaze. “If your parents were to see you right now, I can guarantee you they’d be more disappointed than if you’d just dropped out. You know what your mom said to me yesterday? All she ever wanted was for you to be happy. She would’ve even supported you if you wanted to move out of that shitty apartment. But you never said anything, so nothing ever got resolved.”

“Wait, you told mom about me?!”

Nina scoffed. “Your mom’s not a derpy Slowpoke, you dumbass. She could already tell that something was wrong. Who else did you think asked me to look into you?”

Charlie fell silent at the revelation. “Of course, mom’s always been able to see through my lies. It’s just one of those superpowers that all moms have.”

“Does… dad know too?” The thought of disappointing his father was even more crushing to Charlie than disappointing his mom.

Thankfully, Nina shook her head. “Stephen’s as oblivious as always. I know you look up to him but there are certain things that you shouldn’t imitate.”

Charlie sighed in relief. That was, until Nina asked about his Pokemon.

“Tell me about your team, you’re in your penultimate year. So surely you have a full team of six by now?”

Charlie clenched his teeth at telling the truth, only to cave when Nina gave him a scary looking glare. “Where is she getting this from?! It’s like I’m being interrogated by Misty here.”

“I have… well, had… three Pokemon.” He stuttered. “There’s Poliwhirl of course, then I caught a Metapod in the forest. But I felt that he just wasn’t really happy with me losing all the time. So I released him some time after he evolved. Then there’s a lost Growlithe I adopted, But I’m pretty sure she’s just sticking around ‘cause I feed her.”

Nina nodded in approval. She was thinking that the boy wasn’t entirely a lost cause if he cared enough to release an unhappy Pokemon and adopt a lost. “Show me your starter, it’s been a while since I last saw Typhoon.” Yes, Charlie did indeed name his Poliwag Typhoon when he caught her. Something that he was still cringing about to this day.

Charlie obliged and let out Typhoon in a flash of light. Nina materialized some Berries seemingly out of nowhere and lovingly called out to the Poliwhirl. “It’s good to see that some things didn’t change.”

Looking at Nina right now, Charlie was reminded of the Pokemon obsessed girl he used to hang out with. But that image was soon shattered by the angry look his friend gave him when she got a closer look at his Pokemon.

“Have you been taking proper care of Typhoon?” She asked, in a somewhat accusatory tone.

“I try my best—”

“What have you been feeding her? Tell me about her training and grooming regiment.”

Charlie faltered, unsure what to say. “I mean I feed her Pokechow… and I don’t really groom her? Training is—” But he was cut off again by the incensed Nina, looking like she’s heard enough from him.

“Typhoon is in a terrible state. Look at how dry her skin is. She’s a Water Pokemon for Arceus’s sake! And her swirls! The clarity of the swirls on her species is indicative of overall health. Look at how pale and twisted the lines are!”

Nina was furious, and Charlie could feel his self-loathing come back in full force at her admonishment.

The girl bent down and lovingly caressed the Poliwhirl, muttering apologies into her ear holes and lavishing Typhoon with kisses. For a moment, Charlie felt a pang of jealousy towards his own Pokemon.

“The whole point of you getting a Poliwag to begin with was to make use of both your parents’ expertise. Have you been asking them for any advice at all?!” Nina exclaimed.

“Well dad said I shouldn’t hang onto their thighs and that he wanted me to be a trainer that surpasses them…” Charlie replied, meekly.

“You idiot child!” Nina yelled. “That doesn’t mean you can’t rely on them! All trainers our age are fumbling around trying to find the right path. Why else do you think trainer schools exist? Even now, I still reach out to the Gym and my sponsors to ask for advice on Pokemon.”

Charlie gritted his teeth in frustration. Feeling like even more of a failure than he already was.

“Give me Typhoon’s Pokeball.” Nina demanded, with her hands stretched out towards Charlie.

“What? Why?” He questioned, only to be silenced by another glare from the girl. In the end, after another burst of pain in his brain, he complied and placed the Pokeball in Nina’s soft palm.

“I’ll hold onto Typhoon until I nurse her back to full health. In the meantime, expect a call from Kumiko. Don’t you dare ghost your mother as well!” Nina said, with a stern glare. “I’m pretty sure she already called you but you didn’t pick up.”

Charlie checked his Pokegear, and indeed his mother had called multiple times. The first time he was busy, but afterwards, he was passed out in the nightclub and couldn’t answer.

Nina returned Typhoon to her Pokeball and put on her jacket as Charlie stared at her with eyes full of longing and regret. She then slid her burger across the table to Charlie and told him to bulk up because he looked like a Duskull, whatever that means.

And just like that, Nina picked up her Eevee and left. Leaving Charlie all alone in the empty Munchies, pondering about life.