Work Text:
The door chimes ring at the same time the great bells toll as the clock strikes six. He doesn’t have to look up to see who’s pattering into his humble hat shop in the bustling heart of Wyndon. “Two left turns past the clock tower,” reads his advertising poster by the train station.
“Welcome to Serene Hatterene,” he mumbles into the palm of his hand, eyes never leaving his portal to the outside world: the newspaper.
The answer is a familiar hum before the floorboards creak, once, twice, three times, and then silence. He knows who’s standing in front of the shelf displaying the new hats, looks at them for exactly twelve minutes, then turns on the spot and leaves again. It’s a well-rehearsed routine by now.
Someone else clears their throat. He looks up, after all, to see the confused face of his new apprentice. Right, she wouldn’t know. It’s her first day.
“There’s a customer in our shop,” she whisper-shouts. Our shop, she says.
“Stops by every day,” he says, and leaves it at that.
Ten minutes of silence, then their customer spins around again and heads for the door. The fabric of her dress sways behind her. “Jynx,” she sings and slips out of the shop.
“’Til tomorrow.” He wets a finger and turns the page. A sleeping Snorlax has blocked Route 12. Well, well.
“What was that?” his apprentice asks. Like any twenty-something, she must question everything.
“A Jynx.”
“I know that!”
“Then don’t ask.”
He peers over the paper and catches her raise an eyebrow.
Tomorrow comes and so does Jynx, the chimes match the bells, and it’s a fine melody of habit that rings through the shop as she sing-songs her way to the shelf. It repeats the day after and the day after that, and with each rehearsal his apprentice’s patience dwindles.
“What’s the matter?” he asks when she stems her fists in her sides as Jynx slips out of the door for the fifth day in a row, after exactly twelve minutes of looking at the new hats. He wets a finger and turns the page. A red Gyarados has flooded the Lake of Rage. Well, well.
“No matter what’s in your archaic paper, it can’t be any more interesting than what’s right in front of your eyes!” she says. “What do you think Jynx is doing here?”
He shrugs. “Browsing the new hats.”
“Just browsing?”
“Just browsing.”
All the world’s sorrows lie in her groan. “She wants to buy a hat!”
“So why doesn’t she?”
She slams her hand on the counter. “Because they don’t fit her!”
He stares at her. She stares back.
He makes and sells hats for Pokémon. Little ones for Rattatas, tiny ones for Cutieflies. People ask for little and tiny hats. No one ever asks for big hats.
“I’m a hatter,” he says.
“A bad one,” she adds.
They make a plan, him and his apprentice. The next day, she sneaks up behind Jynx and pretends to fetch something from the shelf. Jynx regards her with a tired glance and goes back to inspecting the hats.
He looks closer, this time. Jynx eyes one with an artificial flower attached; dramatic, big bow, round crown.
His apprentice clumsily drops a measuring tape, and it happens to wrap around Jynx’s enormous head. She apologizes about a dozen times, and even Jynx seems annoyed by her overeagerness, dismissing her with a bored wave of her hand.
He looks at the number his apprentice notes down. Why did he never consider this? Jynx’s head is monumental. It should be every hatter’s dream to hat that head. He’s a bad hatter.
He’s a good hatter. He makes the last stitch and takes in his work. It’s colossal. The bow sitting on the brim is as big as his own head, a violet satin ribbon wraps around the scarlet felt covering the hat’s bones. A rose of the finest Silcoon silk, the largest one he could find and of a fire red, rests amid a tufted bed of yellow, delicate lace. For the lining, they chose a silly leaf green. It took them an entire week to make it. It’s the best hat he’s ever made.
Chimes, bells, Jynx. The floorboards creak, once, twice. The third creak doesn’t come: the hat doesn’t fit on the shelf, so they placed it on the display table that’s usually in the bay window and now sits prominently in the middle of the room.
Jynx makes a sound. She looks at him for the first time. She points at the hat. Her hat.
It takes four hands to crown her. The hat looks good on the display table, but it looks right on Jynx’s head.
“Now twirl like the swirl on a Poliwhirl,” he says, and straightens the bow one last time.
Jynx’s lips press together in a downward curve.
“No?”
She regards him with narrowed eyes and twirls anyway. She takes over the room. Her dress sways with the motion, as do her blonde curls and knobby arms. The hat stays in place. It’s a good hat.
Jynx bobs a curtsy and sings a “Jynx.” She looks at him as if to ask something.
His apprentice elbows him in the side. He clears his throat. “It’s a gift.”
Jynx’s eyes seem wet. Or do they? Everything is a bit blurry. Jynx nods, first at him, then at his apprentice.
“You wear it well,” she says with a smile. Her voice wobbles.
Jynx nods again, proudly, turns, and dances out of the shop.
The next day, there is no chime and no Jynx when the great bells toll as the clock strikes six. He wets a finger and turns the page. A fashionable Jynx is turning heads in Wyndon. Well, well.