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Bede sits on the hill behind the orphanage behind the chestnut tree, the one place where none of the other children will go. The spines hurt their hands and feet too much to play there, and he becomes a ghost in the summer shade. He pulls up blades of grass one by one, tearing them cross-ways and lets them flutter to the ground beside him, doing nothing but existing. His life is a liminal space, a waiting room, a truck stop, a bedroom with so many beds that there's hardly room to walk. He's just...waiting. He's always been waiting, will be waiting until the day he dies. He's certain of it.
When Rose comes by, the children all swarm to him like fleas, boisterous and bouncing and leaping over each other for the chance to catch his eye. That must be what a father is like, Bede thinks, eyeing his easy smile from afar, not that he has any real idea what a father ought to be like. While he's aware that he had one once, picture books and movies are all that he can reference, and Rose embodies the patient kindness he hungers for so deeply that his bones ache. The other children are there, though, so he cannot be. Fingertips tacky and bitter with sap and earth and chlorophyll, blades of grass knot up like his stomach and tumble back into his lap.
Rose is something called a "chairman", and that's something important, Rose is someone important. He comes once a week to see them as someone who gives a lot of money to the orphanage, to make sure they're being taken care of well and that the money is being used properly. Some of the children complain about the lack of personal toys or how they want him to come more often or play with them, but they have no real complaints. Bede always wanders in on the periphery, watching, longing to be part of the throng. But they don't like him and he doesn't like them and there's no way to *become* liked without going back on who he is or what he thinks. There are no moments to see that kind, fatherly smile alone, either. Rose is swarmed from the moment he arrives to the moment he leaves, and that's that.
Habitually, he studies in the cramped library stuffed floor-to-ceiling with donated and secondhand books that smells faintly of starch for some reason or another. Other orphans prefer to bicker over toys, run around the grounds getting grass-stains on their secondhand pants and skirts, skitter in and out of the kitchen pilfering snacks when the matron is too busy to guard the fridge, which is always, or lurk in the hallways talking and sniffing for gossip. None of these things suit him, and none of the others suit him either. He's best on his own. He can make his own fun. Between lessons and meals and meager sleep, he burrows into the stacks of books and finds manuals and textbooks between magazines and novels and he reads.
Memorizing theorem and factoids gives him an edge in classes that further alienates him from his peers and endears him to the instructor, a person salaried by the chairman, by Rose. He is bright, they tell him, driven. He will make an excellent trainer. His heart swells at the rare praise, but it shrinks and grows thin, pointed thorns when they rebuke him shortly after for putting so little effort into getting along with his classmates. He's smart, he should understand, they say. He won't get anywhere by avoiding everyone, by being so rude, by isolating himself. He wants to rebuke the instructor, they shut him out first, so he shut them out right back, but he can't say that or he'll get in worse trouble so he clams up tighter than a cloister and stares them right in the eyes until they give up on lecturing him and leave him to his studies. They cease complimenting him during or after lessons, and that's okay.
One day Rose comes during a lesson to observe, to make sure the instructor is doing all he was paid to and more, or maybe nothing more than what he was paid to do. Either way, they startle and drop their whiteboard pen and the entirety of the class whips around to see what caused the disturbance and erupts into laughter and cheers and chatter at the sight of their favorite visitor. He holds up his hands until they quiet down, but nobody settles back into their studies, not really. Even Bede trails him with his eyes, watching him stroll up and down the rows of little tables with his hands clasped behind his back, checking their work and smiling or tutting at the sloppy scrawls of childish notes. He pauses at Bede's section of table, crowded against the edge to avoid sharing space with the messy sprawl of chewed-on pencils and crinkled paper and broken erasers slowly spreading from his neighbor, and claps once. His smile is sun-bright and every bit as immaculate in front of his face as it seems on the old television in the common room when he appears announcing the championship.
"Splendid! You put a lot of thought into that battle strategy, didn't you? And your notes are so neat and concise!" Rose's hand lands on his shoulder, big and warm and firm and possibly the first human touch he's actually had in over a year despite living in a constant crush of bodies without so much as an inch of privacy. He'd shaken everyone else off like dirt in spite of his yearning so long ago that they might only bump him by accident like a chair. Bede is so stunned that he forgets to say anything at all, glancing between a smile that makes his heart squeeze and jump and the warm, grounding hand seeping joy into his skin through the old shirt he wears. "You're quite clever, it may be that you have a knack for tactics. You'll make a fine trainer one day."
"Thank you," Bede murmurs at last, eyes round and owlish, full of hope and disbelief. Rose, eternally kind and understanding, doesn't comment on his behavior. All he wants in that moment is to soak up that praise, that smile, that radiant energy, to take all of Rose's charity until he gets tired of Bede too.
Other children clamor for Rose's attention, Isn't mine good? I worked hard! I stayed up all night coming up with this one! Look, look! and he laughs good-naturedly and humors them with mild praise and chides them not to stay up all night. His hand slips off of Bede's shoulder, dragging his shirt with its friction, and for a second even attention being taken from him doesn't hurt at all. Acutely, after it's gone and his shoulder feels colder for not having it, he wants to be the focus of those gently narrowed blue eyes. The lesson continues after he's gone, but Bede's mind is both racing and blank and not a word the instructor says sinks in.
---
Things change when Rose sees him. Really sees him, sees potential, sees purpose. Now Bede has a goal, has ideas, has a future other than aimless wandering with bitterness at the back of his throat. Now he has stars in his eyes and sugar on the tip of his tongue. They have practice battles with borrowed pokemon at the end of each lesson unit to test the validity of the strategies they thought up over the course of the month. Rose invariably comes to watch at some point, schedule allowing, also invariably throwing whatever match he's interrupted into chaos as the children erupt into squeals of delight no matter how stealthy he's tried to be. Bede pulls his shoulders back and remains steady, employing the same strategy that Rose complimented. Splendid. He will be splendid.
Trouncing his opponent soundly, he schools his face into a neutral smile rather than the elated glee it wants to snap to. He wants to look to Rose, bounce on the balls of his feet, scream did you see?, but he won't be like the others, he will be better. Rose saw, is clapping, laughing at the exaggerated groans and complaints of his opponent, nodding like he's agreeing with something. His heart sings. Rose motions him over and he goes in spite of the throng of children clustered around him, to spite them, shouldering his way through until he's close enough to be touched.
"I see you improvised a bit, but your tactics were indeed sound," Rose says, one hand ruffling a child's hair at his right hip and the other patting the back of a clingy brat who won't get off of his trousers, though he isn't trying to remove them.
"We don't always get to pick the pokemon," Bede explains plainly, heart feeling fit to burst from such simple words. Rose remembered what the strategy was supposed to be. Confusion, attack raising, cut off all exits. It makes for a quick battle when your opponent will do half your work for you.
"Yet you adapted quickly. That's very important in battle," Rose encourages, reaching out to ruffle his hair instead of the child at his hip's, "And in life. You're very strong-willed, you could go places." The chorus of Aww! What about me?-s start before he's even done speaking, but he just pats each head within reach as though he's used to it, which he is, and continues. "What do you think of the league challenge? With some polish, you would shine."
"Me?" Bede asks, voice suddenly thin and airy, small hands coming up to touch his own hair disbelievingly, "I've never--I mean, I would--Could I?" He'd never been anything but a pain in the ass before. The adults wouldn't say it in so many words, but the other children would. He knew. Even without speaking, the avoidance and the glances they gave him in passing said as much. Feeling suddenly so light he might float away, he sways.
"With a bit of practice," Rose reiterates, unfaltering smile gut-clenchingly sweet, "Perhaps once you've found yourself a partner. With a devoted team, a sharp trainer like yourself should be able to go most anywhere."
Speechless, Bede soaks in the praise, sponge-like. A trainer, him, a league challenger. Sharp, shining, clever, splendid. The matches aren't over, so the conversation is, but it will play on repeat in his head for the next week until Rose comes by again. The next children to practice their strategies step onto the field and Rose watches politely, but their match drags on and amounts to nothing more than repetition. Rose kindly suggests diversifying their move-sets and considering type advantages. Everything is rose-pink and sparkling. Bede stands on the edge of the throng and breathes, wondering what the sudden ache between his ribs is.
---
Bede scrimps and saves and filches change until he can buy pokeballs. He's careful, quiet, as purposefully ignored as always. His blood thrums the entire time he's out, away from the orphanage, walking into the pokemart in town like a normal customer, purchasing five pokeballs like a normal customer, and leaving with his merchandise tucked into his pocket like a normal customer. The world is pink-tinted, glorious and wide open for him as he leaves the town limits and picks his way through grass that brushes the backs of his knees. His first pokemon will be a good one, a special one, one that will shine with him on the half-busted screen of the television back home--"home"--when he wins the championship.
The first few pokemon he doesn't even bother approaching, nothing worth his time, nothing bright and colorful and beautiful. Zigzagoon, pidove, a lone greedent watching from a far tree. If they notice him, they don't care, deeming him a non-threat as unworthy of their time as they are of his. Finally, though, he sees it: his pokemon. A hatenna, shy and soft and small, colorful, beautiful. He pulls a pokeball from his pocket one-handed, clicks, and takes aim. The ball sails through the air and smacks into the clump of grass beside the pokemon, rustling as it rolls away. Crap!
Hatenna startles but does not run, looking around in a panic as if all at once realizing it has been abandoned and must fend for itself. The second throw hits, pulling it inside the pokeball with a flash of light, silencing the quiet, anxious cries. The ball tilts, rolls, wiggles. Bede creeps closer, hope ballooning. It pops, showering sparks and stars and bits and bobs and a very startled hatenna. It flails, hops back up, and runs. No, no, no, his hope of a shining rose-golden dream can't slip between his fingers so quickly.
Cool dirt squeaks under his sneakers as he scrambles after the fleeing pokemon, pokeballs pinched between his thumb, first, and middle finger haphazardly as the pink of the sky fades to angry red. He stumbles, grass shredding under desperately clawing hands, knees going brown and green, pain shooting through his shins. They won't get away, he needs them, needs this. Another toss, a longshot, when he catches a flash of them between blades of grass that dance and bend in passive mockery, another failure. The hatenna yelps and scurries faster, terrified of the foreign creature intent on its pursuit, whipping its face to treetops and movement in the grass to beg for help that will not come.
The rolling hills become unfamiliar, ponds herding the pokemon into a tighter path, dusk dying the water rouge and purple. If he can just herd it up between the water and the looming cliff face... Calves aching with warnings of cramps to come, he lunges one way, another, back, forth, driving them into a corner like a seasoned yamper. They cower, jerking this way and that in an attempt to see some way out, some path to freedom. There is none. He has worn them down, tired them out, they are lost and alone and exhausted and trapped. He clicks his fourth pokeball and his aim is true, the hatenna paralyzed with fear standing with its small back to the cliff.
The ball shakes, rolls, almost dips into the water. Stills. The button glows with resignation. Bede crawls to it on his hands and knees, breath ragged and hot between his teeth. His first pokemon, his partner. He snatches the ball up and cradles it in his palms, sitting back on his heels. Doggedly, determinedly, he has seized his future. As the dark of the night swallows him up in an unfamiliar field, he imagines Rose presenting him with the champion cape, Hatterene bowed at his side with devotion.