#10. Infinite [Woohyun; Gen]
Fandom: Infinite
Title: Is That a Monster in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me? (Expansion Pack Edit)
Rating: PG
Pairing(s)/Focus: Woohyun: Gen
Length: 5112
Summary: Woohyun’s going to be the next Pokemon Master, if he can just get off his front porch.
Warnings: none
Notes: Hi! I saw that you like the Pokemon manga and videogames, so I decided to choose that ficlet to remix. I had lots of fun and I really enjoyed reliving all my old Pokemon memories ORZ Thank you!
Remixee author: litre/lense at perspectives
Title of work you remixed: Untitled
Link to work you remixed: http://perspectives.livejournal.com/2425.html
“You’re awfully quiet,” his mother said, as she watched Woohyun from her rearview mirror. Woohyun was playing with his belt strap and staring out the window, but at her provocation he blinked, smiled at her, and began to recap a baseball game he had seen on TV. She smiled back, and hastily signaled a right turn.
Professor Mithra’s lab was situated in an old mansion with a semi-circular front drive and a fountain. They parked in the shade of a drooping apricorn tree. “Wow!” Woohyun said, and looked into the fountain, where two orange koi waved their fins.
“Don’t stick your hands in,” she reminded him. By the time they reached the front door, he was he was full blown chatting about the batting average of a baseball player, Kategama. They rang the bell and after a pause, they were let in by a thin man with a round face. Her son knew perfectly well that she had no interest in baseball, but she was glad that it never stopped him from trying. They entered into a large foyer with marble floors and a high ceiling. It should have been generously decorated, but it was bare, and caused her son’s voice to echo. She avoided looking up at the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling.
“And he’s still in the league this year, so I don’t know what he’s going to do now that the rules have changed,” he finished breathlessly. “Mom, what if it doesn’t like me?” He was still holding her hand.
“You’ll see,” she said, and the nurse swept them down a hall decorated with oil paintings of former patrons and landscapes by visiting artists. An architectural curriculum vitae, she thought. They turned down another hall, this one much more modestly decorated with sketches and photographs of pokemon.
“This way please,” the nurse said, and held open a door to their right. Woohyun’s hand went into his pocket where he had folded up a printout of the Pokemon he had chosen. Of course, he wouldn’t take it out, but his mother had furnished his bedroom with Howon-themed bedsheets and a little Howon-shaped nightlight. In the car, a little Howon-shaped stuffed toy was sitting shotgun, waiting for its living counterpart to make its entrance.
Dr. Mithra was waiting for them as they entered the room. His lab coat was covered in stains, and he no longer had the cheer of his younger years, but his beard lent him an air of authenticity.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, and held out his hand. She took it and shook. After letting go, she stepped back, looking around. This room was a proper lab. A row of shelves filled with poke balls lined one wall, striped red and white like a candy cane. Fireproof and shockproof cabinets and shelves lined the opposite wall. The ceiling lamps were bright and fluorescent but only one of them was working, and much of the light was natural, filtering in from a row of windows next to the ceiling. Woohyun stood in front of the shelves of poke balls.
“He’s awfully young,” his mother began.
“Oh,” Mithra said. “I started out young in my day. Woohyun’s more than ready.”
“I just worry about him, seeing as it’s so dangerous. Wasn’t the injury rate for first-year trainers more than 40% last year?” she said.
“Most settle into the rhythm,” Mithra said. They turned to watch Woohyun. “You have your pokemon picked out, right?” he asked. Woohyun nodded.
“The Howon,” he said. Mithra raised his eyebrows, his tongue between his teeth. His hands fluttered around his collar.
“Howon are preferably given to older candidates,” he said. “I don’t have many of them, and I’m sure you’ve already done your research, so you know-“
“They’re hard to control,” Woohyun finished, and stood up straight. “Howon,” he said, imitating his Pokedex. “Fire type pokemon. Its quills and spiny exterior are dangerous. Right?” he asked Mithra, grinning. Woohyun’s mother stroked his hair, brushing it back from his forehead.
“You said yourself you couldn’t stop him,” she said. “And I don’t know if you heard, but they were saying in the news that first-year trainers with bigger Pokemon had less injuries. They said it makes quite a difference.” Woohyun, reading Mithra’s hesitation, looked up at his mother.
“Yeah,” Mithra said, and tugged his beard. “It’s admirable. But you have to balance that with the trainer’s ability to control the Pokemon, too-”
“Oh, he’s more than capable,” she said. “He’s passed all his courses with flying colors,” and she took out his certificate from her purse.
“Mom,” Woohyun said, and rolled his eyes.
Mithra held out his hands. “Well! Okay. There’s no harm in trying, is there? Let’s see, then. Come this way, please.” He led them out through the door they had entered and continued down the hall. At the end, there was a door leading to a fenced-off pasture. The road here was dirt and Woohyun’s mother made sure to herd Woohyun away from the muddy edges. The grass was tall and dotted with wildflowers and the scent of manure was faint. Wooden signs were painted with the names of various pokemon.
Mithra led Woohyun over to a small pen. Woohyun peeked over the gate. There was no grass here, only sand.
“I don’t understand,” Woohyun’s mother said. It’s empty.” Just then, two eyes popped out of the sand, . “Oh,” she said, and took a step back. Woohyun grinned at her, and the Howon climbed out from the sand pit. It looked like a purple, burly armadillo with big claws like a lobster, and its ears were curiously shaped like headphones.
Professor Mithra whistled and clapped his hand, but the Howon didn’t respond. It watched them balefully and twiddled its claws together.
“C’mon, hey,” Mithra said. Woohyun dropped a quarter into a pokemon feed machine next to the pen and cupped ten pokeblocks in his hand. He threw one into the pit. The Howon’s eyes followed the marshmallow-sized block, but it remained motionless. Woohyun threw another one in. After a few seconds, the Howon lumbered towards the first block. It looked up and thumped its tail on the ground. Woohyun threw another one in, and the Howon picked up the first block in its mouth and swallowed.
“Oh no, don’t do that,” Mithra said. Woohyun leaned over the railing and shook the rest of the pokeblocks in his hand. The Howon watched him some more, and then shuffled up to the gate. Woohyun cried out as it began to nibble from his hand. Woohyun leaned in a little more, and suddenly jumped, yanking his hand back.
“It bit me!”
“Yes,” Mithra said. “Howon generally don’t keep all their young, so it’s quite lucky for us to have this specimen.”
“What are you saying?” His mother asked. She produced an alcohol wipe from her purse and Woohyun tore it open, wrapping it around the gash. Mithra wiped his glasses on his sleeve and locked the gate.
“I suggest another Pokemon, Woohyun. I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“But he’s been studying and reading all about Howon,” his mother said. Mithra shrugged and blew his nose into a handkerchief.
“If it were any other Howon, I would say yes. But not this one,” he said. Woohyun’s mother put her hands on her hips.
“You don’t have any others?”
“No.”
“Then what do you have?”
“Come around this way. I have another Pokemon.” He turned around, addressing Woohyun. “It’s similar in preferences to your Howon, but it’s a lot more docile.” He led them back into the building and down another hallway to another section marked with yellow tape and alarmed doors. “Step quick now,” he said.
“What is it?” Woohyun asked. He had to trot to keep up.
“A Soryong.” He led them through another door into a room segmented with a wall made of iron bars. On the other side was a terrarium and several lizards perched in a tree. Mithra grabbed a pole lying near the wall and pushed it through the bars. He nudged at one of the lizards. It recoiled, but then cautiously crawled onto the pole. Mithra drew the pokemon back and undid a small door in the fence. He lifted out the spotted green lizard. It was the size of a cat, and its skin was pebbly and dry. A ridge of horns snaked down its back. The Soryong crawled out of Mithra’s hands and leaped onto the floor.
“Hmmm,” Woohyun said.
He knelt down. This time he didn’t reach out, and let the Soryong come to him. Its tongue reached out first, touching his nose, his forehead, and then his shoulder. It retracted and the Soryong bobbed its head up and down.
“Neo-na,” it said, and its tail wagged. Woohyun held out a pokeblock. The Soryong looked at him, mouth open.
“Go on,” he said. The tongue inched out again, curling around one block and carrying it back to its mouth, where it was swallowed in one gulp.
“Neo-na,” it said. Woohyun held out his hand, and the Soryong carefully slithered up his arm to perch at his shoulder.
“I think-” Woohyun started, and Soryong’s tongue shot into his ear. Woohyun screamed. The tongue retreated, coated in earwax. His mother covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh, god!” she said.
“It likes me,” Woohyun said faintly.
~*~
“Hey, sport!” Boohyun said as he opened the door. Their mother swept past him, arms full of shopping bags, leaving Woohyun standing on the front porch.
“I don’t believe him,” she said. Boohyun took a closer look at the pokemon in Woohyun’s hands and stepped back.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s a Soryong,” Woohyun said, and held it out. “Soryong, this is Boohyun,” he said. He set the Soryong down on the floor and watched it creep into the house. Its eyes blinked twice at Boohyun and its tongue crept out of its mouth. Boohyun stood back and watched the pokemon, bemused.
“I thought you wanted a Howon,” he said.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said. “But Soryong are pretty cool, too.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. The look on his face was not quite triumphant.
“Uh huh.” Boohyun looked at his mother, but she only gave him a warning look. The Soryong waddled into the front hall, its tail curled up in the air behind it. “Do you know how to take care of him?”
“Professor Mithra said it’s like taking care of a Howon,” Woohyun said.
“That man,” their mother said as she walked past them. The Soryong was licking her shoes near the doorway. Boohyun nudged them away with his foot. Woohyun picked up the Soryong, kicking the shoes back into the closet.
“Where’s my cake?” he asked.
~*~
“Go, Soryong! Try tackle!” The Soryong leaped at the tree and launched itself into a rolling tackle. It hit the tree with a thud and bounced back onto the ground. “Good job!” Woohyun said. “Give me a fist bump!” He held out his hand, but the Soryong paid him no mind, wading through the grass and probing with its tongue.
“Food makes a nice reward.” Woohyun jumped and turned around. Boohyun was standing in the doorway, a stick of celery in his hand and dripping flour from his apron.
“Go away,” Woohyun said. “I’m the one who wants to be a pokemon master, not you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Boohyun walked out into the yard, holding out the celery in his hands. He squatted down next to the pokemon. The Soryong chirped and reached out with its tongue.
“Don’t give that to him,” Woohyun said, but the Soryong took it eagerly, picking at the edges with its teeth. “He’ll choke on the fiber,” Woohyun said. “I read it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Boohyun said and stroked the spiny ridges of its back. “I’m pretty sure your Soryong isn’t as dumb as those Pokemon training books make it out to be.”
“That’s my pokemon,” Woohyun snapped. When Boohyun didn’t respond, he stamped his foot. “Don’t feed him! You’ll imprint him wrong and then he’ll think you’re his master.” He picked up the Soryong. “C’mon,” he said. I’ll get you something better. Celery’s nasty, anyways.”
“You’re so cute,” Boohyun said dryly, but he followed Woohyun into the house again. He left Woohyun to the kitchen and found their mother in Woohyun’s room, changing his sheets.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s all this?”
She was tugging the edges of a Soryong-themed bedsheet over the corner of Woohyun’s mattress. Nearly all traces of Howon had been removed; the only things that remained were the books and the stuffed animal, now relegated to the bookshelf. Boohyun opened the closet, where a large plastic bag full of Howon-themed bedding and toys was hidden.
“Was that really necessary?”
“I want him to get some sleep tonight instead of staying up the whole night talking to himself. He’s got a big journey tomorrow,” she said. “Cana you make him another birthday cake? Shaped like a Soryong.”
Boohyun rolled his eyes. “No.”
“Yes. It’s his last day, please.”
Boohyun stood up. The room was unfamiliar to him now, decked in green. He wondered how Woohyun would find it once he was done practicing. “Okay,” he said. “What do I do with the other one? Nobody wants to eat a Howon cake.”
~*~
Woohyun watched the car drive away and waved. He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and clipped the straps across his chest. As soon as the car was out of sight, he frowned, and turned to face the entrance.
Paradise Forest was a dark and gloomy mass of trees that lay between him and Tasty Town, host to the first Gym along the Woollim Route. A sign painted in yellow letters pointed into the trees, emblazoned with the words PARADIES FOREST.
C’mon, he willed himself. You can do it. Just go in. He shifted from foot to foot. Stop being stupid. But he sat down and retied his shoelaces again, just to be on the safe side. It’s just a bunch of trees, he told himself.
He stood up, sucked in a deep breath, and charged into the forest. Almost immediately, he was rebuked by a swarm of mosquitos. He yelped and stumbled back, slapping at his exposed face and neck and spitting out bigs.
“Tough crowd, huh?” he asked. He quickly pulled out a can of DEET! bug spray, and began to shake it per the instructions on the label. He squeezed his eyes shut and sprayed himself liberally with the stinging vapor. This time the forest was standoffish to his entrance.
Most of the trees here were tall pines. Rust-colored bark and green pine needles coated the forest floor like a dry, slippery carpet. The sky was overcast, so the wood appeared shadowy, but not dim. He walked down the trail, absorbing the smell of pine sap, flowers, and dung.
As he walked, he chanted quietly to himself, rehearsing the script for greetings, challenges, loss, and defeat. “Hail, and well-met!” He whispered to himself. “What is your destiny? To become a Pokemon trainer!” He swung his throwing arm several times, practicing his hand-foot coordination.
As far as forests went, it was surprisingly quiet. He had intended to catch at least one Pokemon today, but it seemed the forest had other plans for him. Woohyun did not give up hope, however; he resolved to walk more quietly along the trail.
He had entered Paradise Forest at eleven AM. He was only thirty minutes down the trail when his feet began to ache, even as he took care to avoid the rocks. He regretted not wearing shoes with a thicker sole, but he didn’t stop until he was sure at least two hours had passed.
After he finally sat down, he made the mistake of taking off his shoes. When he tried to put them back on, his feet had swollen too much, and he had to undo his shoelaces (again) to put them back on. He considered using a healing patch to reduce the swelling, but he didn’t want to be a weakling. These are your hard knocks, he told himself. Hopefully the pain in his feet wouldn’t slow him down. He would learn. He would grow stronger. He would overcome. He took out a bag of granola and chewed on some dry oats. Swallowing was difficult, so he took out his water bottle and unscrewed the cap. A rustling in the trees startled him and he dropped his water bottle.
“Crap!” he said, as water spilled out onto the dirt. The rustling increased, and Woohyun picked up the bottle again, struggling to his feet. Something large and bright was moving through the trees-very large for a pokemon. He reached behind his vest for his Poke ball. A bird, disturbed from its perch, flapped away.
Paradise Forest was for beginners. There wasn’t supposed to be anything so big, but Woohyun knew there were always stories. It was not uncommon for trainers to disappear or even die while on their journey, although regulations grew more strict each year. He remembered his mother’s statistic: injuries for first-year trainers were still above 40%.
Woohyun regretted wishing for an encounter with a Pokemon so eagerly. Whatever this was, it looked big and scary. He sunk into his fighting stance, finger poised over the button of his Poke ball. He hoped he could run fast enough, if need be.
~*~
“Come on!” A voice burst through the trees. He heard the ripping sound of paper and the brightly colored shape appeared from the bushes. It was a boy wearing a cap and a shirt with a large print of a Dongwoo pokemon baring its teeth. Woohyun sighed and took his hand out from behind his back. He rose up out of his combat-ready crouch, swallowed the last of the food in his mouth, and hoped there was nothing caught between his teeth.
“Hail, fellow trainer!” The other boy took his cap off and wiped sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead. He looked to be about one or two years older, and he stuffed the pieces of paper in his pocket.
“Hail,” he said, and waved his hand half-heartedly.
“Name and destiny?” Woohyun asked.
“Kim Sunggyu, to catch the elusive and legendary Nell,” Sunggyu answered. “And you?”
“Nam Woohyun, to become a Pokemon master!” They stared at each other. The sun reappeared from behind a cloud and Sunggyu began to sweat again, wiping his hand against his neck. Woohyun rocked from foot to foot.
“Umm…” Woohyun shouldn’t have had so much trouble with this. He’d practiced Challenges to Battle every morning before breakfast for years now, and he was freezing up the very first time he got to say it. “Are you headed to Tasty Town?” he asked instead.
“Huh?” Sunggyu looked up. “Oh-yeah. Did you want to battle?”
“Sure!” Woohyun said. He reached again for his poke ball. “Wait,” he said. “Who goes first?” Sunggyu sat down and took out a water bottle from his pack. He drank half the bottle in one gulp.
“I dunno. Want to flip a coin?” Sunggyu held one out.
“I guess,” Woohyun said. They never mentioned anything about this in the trainer manual. Did that invalidate this match? “Heads or Tails?” he asked.
“Heads.”
Sunggyu flicked his thumb. The coin sparkled in the air and dropped into the dirt. He stood up and picked up the coin. “Tails,” he said.
“Aha! Aha! I win!” Woohyun said, and did a little dance. Sunggyu gave him a look.
“We haven’t even started yet,” he said.
“Whatever,” Woohyun said. He grabbed his poke ball, twisted back, and in true form, swung out, releasing it. “Go! I choose you, Soryong!”
“Okay then,” Sunggyu said. “Daeryong, go!” He unclipped his pokemon from his belt and tossed it, unleashing his pokemon in a glow of light. Woohyun squinted. Was he seeing double? He’d put in his contacts this morning, right? Sunggyu’s Daeryong looked almost exactly like his Soryong. He pulled out his Pokedex.
“Daeryong,” it read. “Twin pokemon. Older brother to Soryong. It can hardly be distinguished except for a tuft of hair that grows when mature.”
“Go,” Woohyun said. “Soryong, use tackle!” Instead Soryong wagged its tail and cocked its head to the side.
“Neo-na,” it chirped. The Daeryong mirrored his Soryong, also wagging its tail.
Ah-ra!” it answered.
“Neo-na.”
“Ah-ra!” And they began to circle around each other, until neither Sunggyu nor Woohyun could tell which was which. Woohyun pointed at the two pokemon.
“I said use tackle, Soryong!” One of them looked at him and stuck out its tongue. The other bobbed its head up and down. Sunggyu stared at them and shook his head.
“Wait, wait. We can’t do battle like this, we can’t even tell which is which. We need to separate them.”
“How?” Woohyun asked. He took out his trainer manual. There was nothing about differentiating pokemon from each other. He flipped to the section entitled Battle Protocol. “I hereby forfeit the match due to extenuating circumstances,” he read aloud. “There. Now we’re covered.”
“Uh huh,” Sunggyu said, and made a grab for one of them. He yanked one by the tail and the Pokemon screamed. “Try to get them back into their Poke balls? They should respond to that.” Woohyun stuffed the manual back in his backpack, raised his poke ball, and aimed.
“Return!” He yelled. The one in front of him danced away from the light, chattering. Sunggyu looked at him.
“Do you always say the command?” He asked.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said. “Why?” Sunggyu made a grab for one of them and earned a scratch on his arm for his effort.
“No reason,” he grunted. Woohyun cornered one against the foot of a tree, until it scampered up the trunk into the branches and used its tongue to swing away. “You’re kidding,” he said. “There has to be an easier way.”
“Neo-na!”
“Ah-ra!”
~*~
After an hour, they gave up. Sunggyu sighed and sat down. He took out a power bar out of his pack, ripping cellophane from the sticky jumble of oats, almonds, and puffed rice.
“We shouldn’t make brothers fight,” he said. Woohyun watched him eat as the pokemon scampered around the clearing and chased each other up trees. He stood there with his hands wide and empty.
“No. I can do it,” he insisted. Sunggyu gulped down another bite.
“Well, I can’t,” he said. Woohyun looked at him, and finally sat down too. They watched the two pokemon play with each other, jumping and circling in tandem. “Don’t take it personally,” Sunggyu said. “It’s not like I can tell them apart, either.”
Woohyun shook his head and laughed. “You study and prepare and you think you’ve covered all your blind spots, but then something like this happens.” Sunggyu was silent. “Sorry,” Woohyun said, and lay on his back. “I’m new to this.” He watched Sunggyu eat the rest of his bar and fold the wrapper neatly into a square that he shoved into his pockets.
“Me too,” he said.
~*~
Woohyun stirred the pot. He was using Sunggyu’s portable gas cooker to boil some noodles that Boohyun had made last night. Sunggyu sat with his feet splayed out, watching the Daeryong and the Soryong swinging around in the trees. The clouds had disappeared, leaving a reddish sunset reflected on the surface of the broth. Sunggyu looked like an old man, his eyes narrowed to slits.
Woohyun tried not to speculate too much-he didn’t want to make overt assumptions-but he didn’t Sunggyu to treat him so sternly. If he appreciated Woohyun’s cooking, that was a start. And there were other ways Woohyun could be useful, if he paid closer attention.
“Thanks for making dinner.”
“It was the least I could do,” Woohyun said. “Everyone deserves at least one hot meal each day, right? I can’t believe you were planning to live just on granola.” He couldn’t see Sunggyu’s expression because the sun was in his eyes, but he seemed to stiffen.
“I’m used to it,” Sunggyu said. He might have been glaring.
~*~
The sky was dark now, but the stars were out. They had set the burner aside and replaced it with a fat vanilla-scented candle for light.The two pokemon had calmed down somewhat, but they were still indistinguishable, lying together near the candle. One snagged a fly with its tongue and blinked. Woohyun spooned a heaping serving of noodles into a bowl, and handed it to Sunggyu.
“My brother would have known what to do,” he said apologetically. “He’s really good with Pokemon.”
“Oh. Is he a trainer too?” Sunggyu asked.
“No,” Woohyun said, and spooned out a more modest portion for himself. “He’s a chef.”
“Really? Are you sure you aren’t one too? I bet it runs in the family. Maybe you should do that instead.”
“What?”
Sunggyu picked up the bowl gingerly, blowing at the steaming soup. “I meant,” he said. “You looked happy. When you were cooking.” Woohyun laughed at that, and then he winced, because he had just spilled soup onto his lap.
“No,” he said, and tried to soak up the liquid with a rag. “My brother has to stay home and keep the shop running. I’m the lucky one. I can goof off and do my own thing.” He smiled.
“Hmm, I guess,” Sunggyu said. He picked up some of the noodles with his chopsticks and held them out to the two lizard pokemon. One reached for it, but the other snagged it first, and the two began to squabble. “It’s not like you’re doing nothing.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Woohyun continued, watching Sunggyu for his reaction. “That my brother’s a chef, but he’s a lot better with pokemon than I am.”
“What, did you want to switch?” Sunggyu asked. Woohyun didn’t have anything to say to that. He wasn’t so sure he liked Sunggyu anymore, with his blunt words in spite of his soft lisp. But he only smiled again.
“You’d think, huh?” he asked. “Nah. I’m not a copycat.”
Sunggyu gave him a strange look and spooned himself another heaping bowl. “Okay,” he said. He waited until the candle stopped flickering, before he said, “you don’t have to try so hard. You’re just starting out, right?”
Woohyun licked his lips. He reached out and stroked one of the pokemon, running his fingers along the pebbly surface of its skin. “You sound like you’ve been doing this for a while,” he said. “I’m just so new. I mean, they teach you all the common-sense things, but when you’re all on your own everything just comes at you. And this wasn’t even-“ The lizard pokemon looked up at him attentively.
The pokemon I wanted.
Sunggyu nodded. “Well, it’s not like everybody’s journey starts out perfectly,” he said. “Everyone makes mistakes.” Woohyun sucked in a deep breath and accidentally swallowed a bug.
“But that’s not the point,” he said, reaching for his water bottle and still coughing.
“Okay. Then what’s the point?”
“Forget it,” Woohyun said, but it was too late: Sunggyu had a perplexed expression on his face.
“I mean,” he said. “Yeah, everybody says they want to be the best, that training is what they’re born to do.” Woohyun drank a quarter of his remaining water.
“Then you should understand.”
It was a while before Sunggyu said, “not really,” and by the time he did, it was too late. Woohyun was busy rinsing out their two bowls, and thinking to himself that Sunggyu’s neutrality was actually quite chilling.
He walked over to the edge of the clearing and dumped the dirty water. Too bad, Woohyun said to himself, feeling smug and disliking himself for it at the same time.They were stuck together until they could identify their pokemon.
He walked back to the center of the clearing and shook out his sleeping bag. The grass here was prickly against his back, but the stars were dazzling. He could hear Sunggyu also setting up his sleeping gear, and the sound of cloth rubbing against stuffing made him drowsy.
“So,” Woohyun said. “That’s enough about me. What’s your dream?”
“Me?” Sunggyu asked. “Um. Well,” he said. He wriggled into his sleeping bag and dragged his backpack over. “Have you heard of the mysterious Nell?”
“No?” Woohyun pulled out his pokedex. The glare of the bright LCD screen stung his eyes, and he squinted as he scrolled through the index.
“Don’t bother,” Sunggyu said. “It’s not there.” Woohyun scrolled through anyway, because a pokedex wasn’t a pokedex unless it had data for all pokemon.
“Don’t lie,” he said. He turned to face Sunggyu. “Are you pulling my leg?” That would be just what he needed, somebody to make fun of him now. But Sunggyu looked a lot younger under the light of the stars.
“It exists,” he insisted. He pulled a tape deck out of his pack and set it down on the ground.
“Okay. Why do you want to catch it?”
“Because. It makes such pretty music. Listen.” He pulled out a tape, stuck it into the slot, and pressed rewind. The quiet hum of the tape deck lulled Woohyun into a trance for several minutes. He started when the tab popped up with a loud click. Sunggyu pressed play.
It was a thready sound, almost like a guitar. Not quite, because of the deep reverb of a bass drum and the undertones of something more flat-some kind of flute? The melody drifted upwards and slowly back down like fog. Woohyun found himself humming along before he could help it. He stopped when he saw Sunggyu smiling at him.
“What’s that?”
“The sound of Nell’s breathing,” Sunggyu said. It was the first time he’d smiled all day, and Woohyun could feel his own grin struggling onto his face. He had to roll over and look away because he probably looked crazy like that, half-smiling and triumphant for no reason at all, and it shouldn’t have even mattered coming from Sunggyu, but Woohyun was touched all the same.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered, but he couldn’t tell if Sunggyu heard him over the music. How odd and strangely mystical, for such a serious kid. Maybe there was something to this Kim Sunggyu after all. And him too. He looked over at Daeryong and Soryong, now sleeping. My name is Nam Woohyun, he said to himself. And my destiny is to become a Pokemon master.
Title: Is That a Monster in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me? (Expansion Pack Edit)
Rating: PG
Pairing(s)/Focus: Woohyun: Gen
Length: 5112
Summary: Woohyun’s going to be the next Pokemon Master, if he can just get off his front porch.
Warnings: none
Notes: Hi! I saw that you like the Pokemon manga and videogames, so I decided to choose that ficlet to remix. I had lots of fun and I really enjoyed reliving all my old Pokemon memories ORZ Thank you!
Remixee author: litre/lense at perspectives
Title of work you remixed: Untitled
Link to work you remixed: http://perspectives.livejournal.com/2425.html
“You’re awfully quiet,” his mother said, as she watched Woohyun from her rearview mirror. Woohyun was playing with his belt strap and staring out the window, but at her provocation he blinked, smiled at her, and began to recap a baseball game he had seen on TV. She smiled back, and hastily signaled a right turn.
Professor Mithra’s lab was situated in an old mansion with a semi-circular front drive and a fountain. They parked in the shade of a drooping apricorn tree. “Wow!” Woohyun said, and looked into the fountain, where two orange koi waved their fins.
“Don’t stick your hands in,” she reminded him. By the time they reached the front door, he was he was full blown chatting about the batting average of a baseball player, Kategama. They rang the bell and after a pause, they were let in by a thin man with a round face. Her son knew perfectly well that she had no interest in baseball, but she was glad that it never stopped him from trying. They entered into a large foyer with marble floors and a high ceiling. It should have been generously decorated, but it was bare, and caused her son’s voice to echo. She avoided looking up at the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling.
“And he’s still in the league this year, so I don’t know what he’s going to do now that the rules have changed,” he finished breathlessly. “Mom, what if it doesn’t like me?” He was still holding her hand.
“You’ll see,” she said, and the nurse swept them down a hall decorated with oil paintings of former patrons and landscapes by visiting artists. An architectural curriculum vitae, she thought. They turned down another hall, this one much more modestly decorated with sketches and photographs of pokemon.
“This way please,” the nurse said, and held open a door to their right. Woohyun’s hand went into his pocket where he had folded up a printout of the Pokemon he had chosen. Of course, he wouldn’t take it out, but his mother had furnished his bedroom with Howon-themed bedsheets and a little Howon-shaped nightlight. In the car, a little Howon-shaped stuffed toy was sitting shotgun, waiting for its living counterpart to make its entrance.
Dr. Mithra was waiting for them as they entered the room. His lab coat was covered in stains, and he no longer had the cheer of his younger years, but his beard lent him an air of authenticity.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, and held out his hand. She took it and shook. After letting go, she stepped back, looking around. This room was a proper lab. A row of shelves filled with poke balls lined one wall, striped red and white like a candy cane. Fireproof and shockproof cabinets and shelves lined the opposite wall. The ceiling lamps were bright and fluorescent but only one of them was working, and much of the light was natural, filtering in from a row of windows next to the ceiling. Woohyun stood in front of the shelves of poke balls.
“He’s awfully young,” his mother began.
“Oh,” Mithra said. “I started out young in my day. Woohyun’s more than ready.”
“I just worry about him, seeing as it’s so dangerous. Wasn’t the injury rate for first-year trainers more than 40% last year?” she said.
“Most settle into the rhythm,” Mithra said. They turned to watch Woohyun. “You have your pokemon picked out, right?” he asked. Woohyun nodded.
“The Howon,” he said. Mithra raised his eyebrows, his tongue between his teeth. His hands fluttered around his collar.
“Howon are preferably given to older candidates,” he said. “I don’t have many of them, and I’m sure you’ve already done your research, so you know-“
“They’re hard to control,” Woohyun finished, and stood up straight. “Howon,” he said, imitating his Pokedex. “Fire type pokemon. Its quills and spiny exterior are dangerous. Right?” he asked Mithra, grinning. Woohyun’s mother stroked his hair, brushing it back from his forehead.
“You said yourself you couldn’t stop him,” she said. “And I don’t know if you heard, but they were saying in the news that first-year trainers with bigger Pokemon had less injuries. They said it makes quite a difference.” Woohyun, reading Mithra’s hesitation, looked up at his mother.
“Yeah,” Mithra said, and tugged his beard. “It’s admirable. But you have to balance that with the trainer’s ability to control the Pokemon, too-”
“Oh, he’s more than capable,” she said. “He’s passed all his courses with flying colors,” and she took out his certificate from her purse.
“Mom,” Woohyun said, and rolled his eyes.
Mithra held out his hands. “Well! Okay. There’s no harm in trying, is there? Let’s see, then. Come this way, please.” He led them out through the door they had entered and continued down the hall. At the end, there was a door leading to a fenced-off pasture. The road here was dirt and Woohyun’s mother made sure to herd Woohyun away from the muddy edges. The grass was tall and dotted with wildflowers and the scent of manure was faint. Wooden signs were painted with the names of various pokemon.
Mithra led Woohyun over to a small pen. Woohyun peeked over the gate. There was no grass here, only sand.
“I don’t understand,” Woohyun’s mother said. It’s empty.” Just then, two eyes popped out of the sand, . “Oh,” she said, and took a step back. Woohyun grinned at her, and the Howon climbed out from the sand pit. It looked like a purple, burly armadillo with big claws like a lobster, and its ears were curiously shaped like headphones.
Professor Mithra whistled and clapped his hand, but the Howon didn’t respond. It watched them balefully and twiddled its claws together.
“C’mon, hey,” Mithra said. Woohyun dropped a quarter into a pokemon feed machine next to the pen and cupped ten pokeblocks in his hand. He threw one into the pit. The Howon’s eyes followed the marshmallow-sized block, but it remained motionless. Woohyun threw another one in. After a few seconds, the Howon lumbered towards the first block. It looked up and thumped its tail on the ground. Woohyun threw another one in, and the Howon picked up the first block in its mouth and swallowed.
“Oh no, don’t do that,” Mithra said. Woohyun leaned over the railing and shook the rest of the pokeblocks in his hand. The Howon watched him some more, and then shuffled up to the gate. Woohyun cried out as it began to nibble from his hand. Woohyun leaned in a little more, and suddenly jumped, yanking his hand back.
“It bit me!”
“Yes,” Mithra said. “Howon generally don’t keep all their young, so it’s quite lucky for us to have this specimen.”
“What are you saying?” His mother asked. She produced an alcohol wipe from her purse and Woohyun tore it open, wrapping it around the gash. Mithra wiped his glasses on his sleeve and locked the gate.
“I suggest another Pokemon, Woohyun. I know you’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
“But he’s been studying and reading all about Howon,” his mother said. Mithra shrugged and blew his nose into a handkerchief.
“If it were any other Howon, I would say yes. But not this one,” he said. Woohyun’s mother put her hands on her hips.
“You don’t have any others?”
“No.”
“Then what do you have?”
“Come around this way. I have another Pokemon.” He turned around, addressing Woohyun. “It’s similar in preferences to your Howon, but it’s a lot more docile.” He led them back into the building and down another hallway to another section marked with yellow tape and alarmed doors. “Step quick now,” he said.
“What is it?” Woohyun asked. He had to trot to keep up.
“A Soryong.” He led them through another door into a room segmented with a wall made of iron bars. On the other side was a terrarium and several lizards perched in a tree. Mithra grabbed a pole lying near the wall and pushed it through the bars. He nudged at one of the lizards. It recoiled, but then cautiously crawled onto the pole. Mithra drew the pokemon back and undid a small door in the fence. He lifted out the spotted green lizard. It was the size of a cat, and its skin was pebbly and dry. A ridge of horns snaked down its back. The Soryong crawled out of Mithra’s hands and leaped onto the floor.
“Hmmm,” Woohyun said.
He knelt down. This time he didn’t reach out, and let the Soryong come to him. Its tongue reached out first, touching his nose, his forehead, and then his shoulder. It retracted and the Soryong bobbed its head up and down.
“Neo-na,” it said, and its tail wagged. Woohyun held out a pokeblock. The Soryong looked at him, mouth open.
“Go on,” he said. The tongue inched out again, curling around one block and carrying it back to its mouth, where it was swallowed in one gulp.
“Neo-na,” it said. Woohyun held out his hand, and the Soryong carefully slithered up his arm to perch at his shoulder.
“I think-” Woohyun started, and Soryong’s tongue shot into his ear. Woohyun screamed. The tongue retreated, coated in earwax. His mother covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh, god!” she said.
“It likes me,” Woohyun said faintly.
~*~
“Hey, sport!” Boohyun said as he opened the door. Their mother swept past him, arms full of shopping bags, leaving Woohyun standing on the front porch.
“I don’t believe him,” she said. Boohyun took a closer look at the pokemon in Woohyun’s hands and stepped back.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s a Soryong,” Woohyun said, and held it out. “Soryong, this is Boohyun,” he said. He set the Soryong down on the floor and watched it creep into the house. Its eyes blinked twice at Boohyun and its tongue crept out of its mouth. Boohyun stood back and watched the pokemon, bemused.
“I thought you wanted a Howon,” he said.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said. “But Soryong are pretty cool, too.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. The look on his face was not quite triumphant.
“Uh huh.” Boohyun looked at his mother, but she only gave him a warning look. The Soryong waddled into the front hall, its tail curled up in the air behind it. “Do you know how to take care of him?”
“Professor Mithra said it’s like taking care of a Howon,” Woohyun said.
“That man,” their mother said as she walked past them. The Soryong was licking her shoes near the doorway. Boohyun nudged them away with his foot. Woohyun picked up the Soryong, kicking the shoes back into the closet.
“Where’s my cake?” he asked.
~*~
“Go, Soryong! Try tackle!” The Soryong leaped at the tree and launched itself into a rolling tackle. It hit the tree with a thud and bounced back onto the ground. “Good job!” Woohyun said. “Give me a fist bump!” He held out his hand, but the Soryong paid him no mind, wading through the grass and probing with its tongue.
“Food makes a nice reward.” Woohyun jumped and turned around. Boohyun was standing in the doorway, a stick of celery in his hand and dripping flour from his apron.
“Go away,” Woohyun said. “I’m the one who wants to be a pokemon master, not you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Boohyun walked out into the yard, holding out the celery in his hands. He squatted down next to the pokemon. The Soryong chirped and reached out with its tongue.
“Don’t give that to him,” Woohyun said, but the Soryong took it eagerly, picking at the edges with its teeth. “He’ll choke on the fiber,” Woohyun said. “I read it.”
“Don’t be silly,” Boohyun said and stroked the spiny ridges of its back. “I’m pretty sure your Soryong isn’t as dumb as those Pokemon training books make it out to be.”
“That’s my pokemon,” Woohyun snapped. When Boohyun didn’t respond, he stamped his foot. “Don’t feed him! You’ll imprint him wrong and then he’ll think you’re his master.” He picked up the Soryong. “C’mon,” he said. I’ll get you something better. Celery’s nasty, anyways.”
“You’re so cute,” Boohyun said dryly, but he followed Woohyun into the house again. He left Woohyun to the kitchen and found their mother in Woohyun’s room, changing his sheets.
“Okay,” he said. “What’s all this?”
She was tugging the edges of a Soryong-themed bedsheet over the corner of Woohyun’s mattress. Nearly all traces of Howon had been removed; the only things that remained were the books and the stuffed animal, now relegated to the bookshelf. Boohyun opened the closet, where a large plastic bag full of Howon-themed bedding and toys was hidden.
“Was that really necessary?”
“I want him to get some sleep tonight instead of staying up the whole night talking to himself. He’s got a big journey tomorrow,” she said. “Cana you make him another birthday cake? Shaped like a Soryong.”
Boohyun rolled his eyes. “No.”
“Yes. It’s his last day, please.”
Boohyun stood up. The room was unfamiliar to him now, decked in green. He wondered how Woohyun would find it once he was done practicing. “Okay,” he said. “What do I do with the other one? Nobody wants to eat a Howon cake.”
~*~
Woohyun watched the car drive away and waved. He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and clipped the straps across his chest. As soon as the car was out of sight, he frowned, and turned to face the entrance.
Paradise Forest was a dark and gloomy mass of trees that lay between him and Tasty Town, host to the first Gym along the Woollim Route. A sign painted in yellow letters pointed into the trees, emblazoned with the words PARADIES FOREST.
C’mon, he willed himself. You can do it. Just go in. He shifted from foot to foot. Stop being stupid. But he sat down and retied his shoelaces again, just to be on the safe side. It’s just a bunch of trees, he told himself.
He stood up, sucked in a deep breath, and charged into the forest. Almost immediately, he was rebuked by a swarm of mosquitos. He yelped and stumbled back, slapping at his exposed face and neck and spitting out bigs.
“Tough crowd, huh?” he asked. He quickly pulled out a can of DEET! bug spray, and began to shake it per the instructions on the label. He squeezed his eyes shut and sprayed himself liberally with the stinging vapor. This time the forest was standoffish to his entrance.
Most of the trees here were tall pines. Rust-colored bark and green pine needles coated the forest floor like a dry, slippery carpet. The sky was overcast, so the wood appeared shadowy, but not dim. He walked down the trail, absorbing the smell of pine sap, flowers, and dung.
As he walked, he chanted quietly to himself, rehearsing the script for greetings, challenges, loss, and defeat. “Hail, and well-met!” He whispered to himself. “What is your destiny? To become a Pokemon trainer!” He swung his throwing arm several times, practicing his hand-foot coordination.
As far as forests went, it was surprisingly quiet. He had intended to catch at least one Pokemon today, but it seemed the forest had other plans for him. Woohyun did not give up hope, however; he resolved to walk more quietly along the trail.
He had entered Paradise Forest at eleven AM. He was only thirty minutes down the trail when his feet began to ache, even as he took care to avoid the rocks. He regretted not wearing shoes with a thicker sole, but he didn’t stop until he was sure at least two hours had passed.
After he finally sat down, he made the mistake of taking off his shoes. When he tried to put them back on, his feet had swollen too much, and he had to undo his shoelaces (again) to put them back on. He considered using a healing patch to reduce the swelling, but he didn’t want to be a weakling. These are your hard knocks, he told himself. Hopefully the pain in his feet wouldn’t slow him down. He would learn. He would grow stronger. He would overcome. He took out a bag of granola and chewed on some dry oats. Swallowing was difficult, so he took out his water bottle and unscrewed the cap. A rustling in the trees startled him and he dropped his water bottle.
“Crap!” he said, as water spilled out onto the dirt. The rustling increased, and Woohyun picked up the bottle again, struggling to his feet. Something large and bright was moving through the trees-very large for a pokemon. He reached behind his vest for his Poke ball. A bird, disturbed from its perch, flapped away.
Paradise Forest was for beginners. There wasn’t supposed to be anything so big, but Woohyun knew there were always stories. It was not uncommon for trainers to disappear or even die while on their journey, although regulations grew more strict each year. He remembered his mother’s statistic: injuries for first-year trainers were still above 40%.
Woohyun regretted wishing for an encounter with a Pokemon so eagerly. Whatever this was, it looked big and scary. He sunk into his fighting stance, finger poised over the button of his Poke ball. He hoped he could run fast enough, if need be.
~*~
“Come on!” A voice burst through the trees. He heard the ripping sound of paper and the brightly colored shape appeared from the bushes. It was a boy wearing a cap and a shirt with a large print of a Dongwoo pokemon baring its teeth. Woohyun sighed and took his hand out from behind his back. He rose up out of his combat-ready crouch, swallowed the last of the food in his mouth, and hoped there was nothing caught between his teeth.
“Hail, fellow trainer!” The other boy took his cap off and wiped sweaty strands of hair away from his forehead. He looked to be about one or two years older, and he stuffed the pieces of paper in his pocket.
“Hail,” he said, and waved his hand half-heartedly.
“Name and destiny?” Woohyun asked.
“Kim Sunggyu, to catch the elusive and legendary Nell,” Sunggyu answered. “And you?”
“Nam Woohyun, to become a Pokemon master!” They stared at each other. The sun reappeared from behind a cloud and Sunggyu began to sweat again, wiping his hand against his neck. Woohyun rocked from foot to foot.
“Umm…” Woohyun shouldn’t have had so much trouble with this. He’d practiced Challenges to Battle every morning before breakfast for years now, and he was freezing up the very first time he got to say it. “Are you headed to Tasty Town?” he asked instead.
“Huh?” Sunggyu looked up. “Oh-yeah. Did you want to battle?”
“Sure!” Woohyun said. He reached again for his poke ball. “Wait,” he said. “Who goes first?” Sunggyu sat down and took out a water bottle from his pack. He drank half the bottle in one gulp.
“I dunno. Want to flip a coin?” Sunggyu held one out.
“I guess,” Woohyun said. They never mentioned anything about this in the trainer manual. Did that invalidate this match? “Heads or Tails?” he asked.
“Heads.”
Sunggyu flicked his thumb. The coin sparkled in the air and dropped into the dirt. He stood up and picked up the coin. “Tails,” he said.
“Aha! Aha! I win!” Woohyun said, and did a little dance. Sunggyu gave him a look.
“We haven’t even started yet,” he said.
“Whatever,” Woohyun said. He grabbed his poke ball, twisted back, and in true form, swung out, releasing it. “Go! I choose you, Soryong!”
“Okay then,” Sunggyu said. “Daeryong, go!” He unclipped his pokemon from his belt and tossed it, unleashing his pokemon in a glow of light. Woohyun squinted. Was he seeing double? He’d put in his contacts this morning, right? Sunggyu’s Daeryong looked almost exactly like his Soryong. He pulled out his Pokedex.
“Daeryong,” it read. “Twin pokemon. Older brother to Soryong. It can hardly be distinguished except for a tuft of hair that grows when mature.”
“Go,” Woohyun said. “Soryong, use tackle!” Instead Soryong wagged its tail and cocked its head to the side.
“Neo-na,” it chirped. The Daeryong mirrored his Soryong, also wagging its tail.
Ah-ra!” it answered.
“Neo-na.”
“Ah-ra!” And they began to circle around each other, until neither Sunggyu nor Woohyun could tell which was which. Woohyun pointed at the two pokemon.
“I said use tackle, Soryong!” One of them looked at him and stuck out its tongue. The other bobbed its head up and down. Sunggyu stared at them and shook his head.
“Wait, wait. We can’t do battle like this, we can’t even tell which is which. We need to separate them.”
“How?” Woohyun asked. He took out his trainer manual. There was nothing about differentiating pokemon from each other. He flipped to the section entitled Battle Protocol. “I hereby forfeit the match due to extenuating circumstances,” he read aloud. “There. Now we’re covered.”
“Uh huh,” Sunggyu said, and made a grab for one of them. He yanked one by the tail and the Pokemon screamed. “Try to get them back into their Poke balls? They should respond to that.” Woohyun stuffed the manual back in his backpack, raised his poke ball, and aimed.
“Return!” He yelled. The one in front of him danced away from the light, chattering. Sunggyu looked at him.
“Do you always say the command?” He asked.
“Yeah,” Woohyun said. “Why?” Sunggyu made a grab for one of them and earned a scratch on his arm for his effort.
“No reason,” he grunted. Woohyun cornered one against the foot of a tree, until it scampered up the trunk into the branches and used its tongue to swing away. “You’re kidding,” he said. “There has to be an easier way.”
“Neo-na!”
“Ah-ra!”
~*~
After an hour, they gave up. Sunggyu sighed and sat down. He took out a power bar out of his pack, ripping cellophane from the sticky jumble of oats, almonds, and puffed rice.
“We shouldn’t make brothers fight,” he said. Woohyun watched him eat as the pokemon scampered around the clearing and chased each other up trees. He stood there with his hands wide and empty.
“No. I can do it,” he insisted. Sunggyu gulped down another bite.
“Well, I can’t,” he said. Woohyun looked at him, and finally sat down too. They watched the two pokemon play with each other, jumping and circling in tandem. “Don’t take it personally,” Sunggyu said. “It’s not like I can tell them apart, either.”
Woohyun shook his head and laughed. “You study and prepare and you think you’ve covered all your blind spots, but then something like this happens.” Sunggyu was silent. “Sorry,” Woohyun said, and lay on his back. “I’m new to this.” He watched Sunggyu eat the rest of his bar and fold the wrapper neatly into a square that he shoved into his pockets.
“Me too,” he said.
~*~
Woohyun stirred the pot. He was using Sunggyu’s portable gas cooker to boil some noodles that Boohyun had made last night. Sunggyu sat with his feet splayed out, watching the Daeryong and the Soryong swinging around in the trees. The clouds had disappeared, leaving a reddish sunset reflected on the surface of the broth. Sunggyu looked like an old man, his eyes narrowed to slits.
Woohyun tried not to speculate too much-he didn’t want to make overt assumptions-but he didn’t Sunggyu to treat him so sternly. If he appreciated Woohyun’s cooking, that was a start. And there were other ways Woohyun could be useful, if he paid closer attention.
“Thanks for making dinner.”
“It was the least I could do,” Woohyun said. “Everyone deserves at least one hot meal each day, right? I can’t believe you were planning to live just on granola.” He couldn’t see Sunggyu’s expression because the sun was in his eyes, but he seemed to stiffen.
“I’m used to it,” Sunggyu said. He might have been glaring.
~*~
The sky was dark now, but the stars were out. They had set the burner aside and replaced it with a fat vanilla-scented candle for light.The two pokemon had calmed down somewhat, but they were still indistinguishable, lying together near the candle. One snagged a fly with its tongue and blinked. Woohyun spooned a heaping serving of noodles into a bowl, and handed it to Sunggyu.
“My brother would have known what to do,” he said apologetically. “He’s really good with Pokemon.”
“Oh. Is he a trainer too?” Sunggyu asked.
“No,” Woohyun said, and spooned out a more modest portion for himself. “He’s a chef.”
“Really? Are you sure you aren’t one too? I bet it runs in the family. Maybe you should do that instead.”
“What?”
Sunggyu picked up the bowl gingerly, blowing at the steaming soup. “I meant,” he said. “You looked happy. When you were cooking.” Woohyun laughed at that, and then he winced, because he had just spilled soup onto his lap.
“No,” he said, and tried to soak up the liquid with a rag. “My brother has to stay home and keep the shop running. I’m the lucky one. I can goof off and do my own thing.” He smiled.
“Hmm, I guess,” Sunggyu said. He picked up some of the noodles with his chopsticks and held them out to the two lizard pokemon. One reached for it, but the other snagged it first, and the two began to squabble. “It’s not like you’re doing nothing.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Woohyun continued, watching Sunggyu for his reaction. “That my brother’s a chef, but he’s a lot better with pokemon than I am.”
“What, did you want to switch?” Sunggyu asked. Woohyun didn’t have anything to say to that. He wasn’t so sure he liked Sunggyu anymore, with his blunt words in spite of his soft lisp. But he only smiled again.
“You’d think, huh?” he asked. “Nah. I’m not a copycat.”
Sunggyu gave him a strange look and spooned himself another heaping bowl. “Okay,” he said. He waited until the candle stopped flickering, before he said, “you don’t have to try so hard. You’re just starting out, right?”
Woohyun licked his lips. He reached out and stroked one of the pokemon, running his fingers along the pebbly surface of its skin. “You sound like you’ve been doing this for a while,” he said. “I’m just so new. I mean, they teach you all the common-sense things, but when you’re all on your own everything just comes at you. And this wasn’t even-“ The lizard pokemon looked up at him attentively.
The pokemon I wanted.
Sunggyu nodded. “Well, it’s not like everybody’s journey starts out perfectly,” he said. “Everyone makes mistakes.” Woohyun sucked in a deep breath and accidentally swallowed a bug.
“But that’s not the point,” he said, reaching for his water bottle and still coughing.
“Okay. Then what’s the point?”
“Forget it,” Woohyun said, but it was too late: Sunggyu had a perplexed expression on his face.
“I mean,” he said. “Yeah, everybody says they want to be the best, that training is what they’re born to do.” Woohyun drank a quarter of his remaining water.
“Then you should understand.”
It was a while before Sunggyu said, “not really,” and by the time he did, it was too late. Woohyun was busy rinsing out their two bowls, and thinking to himself that Sunggyu’s neutrality was actually quite chilling.
He walked over to the edge of the clearing and dumped the dirty water. Too bad, Woohyun said to himself, feeling smug and disliking himself for it at the same time.They were stuck together until they could identify their pokemon.
He walked back to the center of the clearing and shook out his sleeping bag. The grass here was prickly against his back, but the stars were dazzling. He could hear Sunggyu also setting up his sleeping gear, and the sound of cloth rubbing against stuffing made him drowsy.
“So,” Woohyun said. “That’s enough about me. What’s your dream?”
“Me?” Sunggyu asked. “Um. Well,” he said. He wriggled into his sleeping bag and dragged his backpack over. “Have you heard of the mysterious Nell?”
“No?” Woohyun pulled out his pokedex. The glare of the bright LCD screen stung his eyes, and he squinted as he scrolled through the index.
“Don’t bother,” Sunggyu said. “It’s not there.” Woohyun scrolled through anyway, because a pokedex wasn’t a pokedex unless it had data for all pokemon.
“Don’t lie,” he said. He turned to face Sunggyu. “Are you pulling my leg?” That would be just what he needed, somebody to make fun of him now. But Sunggyu looked a lot younger under the light of the stars.
“It exists,” he insisted. He pulled a tape deck out of his pack and set it down on the ground.
“Okay. Why do you want to catch it?”
“Because. It makes such pretty music. Listen.” He pulled out a tape, stuck it into the slot, and pressed rewind. The quiet hum of the tape deck lulled Woohyun into a trance for several minutes. He started when the tab popped up with a loud click. Sunggyu pressed play.
It was a thready sound, almost like a guitar. Not quite, because of the deep reverb of a bass drum and the undertones of something more flat-some kind of flute? The melody drifted upwards and slowly back down like fog. Woohyun found himself humming along before he could help it. He stopped when he saw Sunggyu smiling at him.
“What’s that?”
“The sound of Nell’s breathing,” Sunggyu said. It was the first time he’d smiled all day, and Woohyun could feel his own grin struggling onto his face. He had to roll over and look away because he probably looked crazy like that, half-smiling and triumphant for no reason at all, and it shouldn’t have even mattered coming from Sunggyu, but Woohyun was touched all the same.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered, but he couldn’t tell if Sunggyu heard him over the music. How odd and strangely mystical, for such a serious kid. Maybe there was something to this Kim Sunggyu after all. And him too. He looked over at Daeryong and Soryong, now sleeping. My name is Nam Woohyun, he said to himself. And my destiny is to become a Pokemon master.