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One afternoon in the Kalos region, around late fall when the weather grew more miserable, a small boy ran past Giovanni, ducking under an archway for protection from the rain. Giovanni typically ignored children, sometimes preferring to deal with incompetent adults rather than a child. This one caught his attention somehow. He found himself questioning the actions of the child. Why run under an archway? Why not just return home to dry off? He curiously leaned over to see whether or not the child had indeed run off.
No. He huddled against the wall of the archway, hugging a bug Pokèmon and shivering.
Of course, his battered clothes and emaciated body confirmed his hunch. No good parent would let their child run around with such a dirty face. And in the rain, no less.
Giovanni gestured for his security to stay behind and out of view. Careful not to scare him, Giovanni moved just into the boy’s line of sight. “Would you like a warm place to dry off?”
At first the kid refused, but Giovanni pulled out a piece of bread and put it in his hand. Hungry eyes stared at the bread as if it were life itself, and he ate it in nearly a single bite. When Giovanni turned to go without another word, the boy quietly followed him, perhaps just to see if he could trust him. Or perhaps because he had nothing else.
Giovanni and his security team, and the small boy, entered a humble hotel located in the outskirts of the city. He sent someone to get new clothes and some essentials. Once they got to a room, he sent for food. The boy stood in the room and glared at them all, defensively. He looked like an angry, wet Meowth.
Giovanni addressed him again to help ease him into things, “Look at me. You can leave whenever you want. Tonight even. I ordered food, so I hope you’ll stay long enough to eat first, but I won’t make you.”
He stayed. The boy cleaned up and changed into the clothes they offered him. When the food arrived, he cautiously accepted the food offered to him. Giovanni watched the boy visibly calm down while eating.
“My name is Giovanni. I work for a big organization in the Kanto region,” he told the boy.
The boy held eye contact with him, yellow intense eyes stared him down. “My name is Karasuba.”
“Are you from here? From Lumiose?”
“No,” answered the boy.
Giovanni stopped there and let him be because the child looked exhausted. Just as he predicted, the boy fell asleep afterwards too.
But Giovanni also stopped the conversation because of the audacity of someone bringing this kid to Kalos and leaving him there with no one. Or his home life being so bad that he ran so far away from home where no one would find him. His situation, no matter the details, was unfortunate.
Regardless of any of this, he let him be and spoke with the team he brought with him about his plans for the rest of their time in Lumiose. He planned to extend his time for selfish reasons, and no one opposed the idea.
--
After some light questioning, he figured out Karasuba came from somewhere in the Johto region. He had no desire to go back. And he was delightfully talented with his little Poison-type Pokémon.
Giovanni battled him with his little Rattata and admired how easily the boy took it out with his Venipede. He switched to an Ekans and chuckled when the child stared at it with big, interested eyes. Still young, and so passionate, despite…
Well, there was hope for this one. He could take him under his wing and train him up to run some business in Kalos maybe. He could see it now: the boy with an affinity for Poison-type Pokémon running the Kalosian branch with a Kantonian flair.
After dusting off three more Pokémon from his small team, the boy grew infuriated. His yellow eyes looked venomous as he glared up at Giovanni.
“Take me seriously!” yelled the boy.
Giovanni appreciated the boy’s moxie and felt swayed to make his last one a bit harder. His Nidoking roared when it came out, followed by a deep bellow, almost laughing at his opponent. He looked over at Giovanni to confirm that this was truly his opponent.
The boy put up a good fight, losing in the end. Yet only after a powerful bout. “You’re talented, Karasuba.”
“You would’ve missed that by making me fight your pets.”
That made him laugh. Some of them were pets, but they also helped Giovanni train newer grunts. He tossed a ball to the boy, which the boy caught with his left hand.
“What’s this for?”
Giovanni put his hands in his pockets. “One of my pets. I believe it would be a valuable addition to your team.”
Ekans took to the boy quickly, just like he knew it would. From where he stood, he could almost see the path this boy could take if he only had access to the right resources.
Training the boy was easy; he was dripping with potential. He worked hard and trusted no one. Giovanni enjoyed showing him techniques, discussing his business, and seeing him slowly trust them more.
Once such training took place in Hotel Richissime where he would have him eat while they chatted about the guests around them. The lesson here would not yield immediate wisdom for such a young child, but he knew the boy needed to learn it.
“I don’t care about rich people.”
“I care about them. Business is business. If you want to be able to read adults, you have to understand their patterns.” Giovanni gestured to a man. “A successful business owner: make note of what he’s wearing.”
Giovanni pointed at another one of the guests.
“Another business owner?” guessed the boy.
“What about the one close behind?”
“Same thing?”
Giovanni hummed. “Look at how he carries himself. He’s a second-in-command at best. He isn’t representing himself. The first man holds his head high, the last one feels like he doesn’t belong here.”
Karasuba scanned the room for more people. “The guy in white?”
“A servant. That’s a uniform. Underlings usually look pretty similar when a business is run properly,” Giovanni explained. “How about him?”
The boy looked at someone walking in sporting more casual clothes, harder to identify. “Just some guy.”
“He’s an elite. Look at his shoes.”
The shoes cost more money than everything Giovanni brought to Kalos this time around. “You need the whole picture to decide what a person’s status is. You also need to display your status to be taken seriously. Someone watching you walk up to the counter should immediately recognize whether or not you can pay for a room here. Everything down to the way you walk into a room needs to announce who you are and what you’re doing there. No one’s questioned why we’re here, have you noticed that?”
The boy frowned at him.
“Children are not allowed in this hotel, but no one has said anything to us because you’re clearly with me. I’m dressed in such a way that no one would dare question me.”
“Really?”
“You can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t wear it with dignity, you’re nothing. And everyone will see you as nothing.” Giovanni met his eyes directly now. “You have a lot to learn, so don’t feel discouraged if you don’t understand it all yet. But remember the point of this: we can tell a lot about a person based on their presentation of themselves.”
After that, the boy accepted more clothes and tried on different styles of clothes to see what he could stand, even uncomfortable or impractical clothing. He questioned what made something better—was it the quality of the shirt? The origin? Did shiny shoes mean they were better? Was it all based on brands? Giovanni entertained every question he could.
“Language matters too, Karasuba. You can’t go into a business meeting with a dirty mouth unless you’re working with street products.” He put a hat on the kid and hated it immediately. “Don’t wear hats. It doesn’t suit you to hide your face.”
“You wear hats.”
“What works for me may not work for everyone. You have sharp expressions. It wouldn’t do to hide them. Remember, it’s not being unreadable, it’s about controlling the message they read off you.” He pushed dark purple hair out of the boy’s face. “When you learn what works for you, it makes you look better because you’re comfortable in your own skin. Nothing makes you look richer than being confident in your own skin.”
The boy always seemed to understand, at least to some extent. He asked more questions and demanded more of his attention. He was likable, another good quality for an entrepreneur. Even likable idiots could run a business for a short time, so a kid like that had endless possibilities.
--
It took Giovanni a few weeks to realize that Karasuba listened to everything they discussed. Not the conversations between him and the boy directly, those among Giovanni and his top brass. He made the mistake of slipping the name of their recent project, and really he thought nothing of it despite the child wrapped in blankets resting nearby.
The next day, however, Giovanni gave him a piece of a galette, and the boy asked him, “What’s Mewtwo?”
Giovanni smiled to himself and shook his head. They sat on a bench facing a busy street. He couldn’t talk about much here, but the boy was never satisfied with halfhearted answers. A smooth redirect might work, but he’d need a more interesting topic first.
“There are legends in the many regions I visit during my business trips. Would you like to hear about some? There are legendary birds in the Kanto region, actually there are also legendary birds in Johto as well. Unless you’d rather hear about the legendary weather guardians.”
“Weather guardians?” questioned the boy.
“The Hoenn weather guardians it is then.”
The legend of the Hoenn legendaries was an interesting one, so Giovanni recounted as much as he could, pausing on names to emphasize pronunciation. Karasuba absorbed information like a Lapras with Water Absorb. At some point the boy simply leaned against him and listened, and he almost thought he had fallen asleep.
That night, he found out the boy could recite nearly everything he taught him about the legendaries. If it interested him, he remembered information in extraordinary detail. All the more reason to censor what he said while the child slept so close to where Giovanni talked business.
--
Unfortunately, life often hated when he got dealt a good hand.
One morning, they sat at a cafe together, the boy with hot chocolate and Giovanni with coffee. He typically sat across from him, but the boy insisted on sitting next to him today. Giovanni told him about some of the dynamics of business, the easy to understand aspects that the boy might remember later. The business world was all about exchanges and connections. A kid could understand exchanging items for other items. Or for favors.
“So, what do you want from me? I don’t have anything.”
“You? Nothing. Children should have enough to survive, Karasuba. The adults in your life have simply failed you.”
Someone walked up to them at that point. Giovanni looked up at the towering man and turned away with a smile. Of course Lysandre would see him with a kid and go rabid on him. And he had the home advantage too. Everyone here adored Lysandre and his self righteous attitude. If he made a scene over this boy, it would compromise any future connections with Lysandre and his influence in the Kalos region.
“Listen, boy, I have to return to the Kanto region to keep my business running efficiently. But I think you’ve learned enough to make your own mark in the world.”
He stood up and looked at Lysandre. “There is plenty of food for the birds in your city to eat. Are the children of your city not worth much more than birds, Lysandre? The next man who comes for those children may come wielding a scythe.”
“That’s enough, Giovanni.” Lysandre took the seat across Karasuba and locked eyes with Giovanni so that he’d know it was time to leave.
As Giovanni walked away, he heard him warn the child, “If you see him again, promise me you won’t go to him. Don’t talk to him. He’s a bad man. Let me help you find a place to stay.”
He would take care of the boy.
Would he have ever noticed the child had Giovanni never taken an interest in him? Interesting to think that Lysandre was so blind to talent that he had to take over what Giovanni already saw.
The boy hadn’t spoken up quickly enough to say anything about Giovanni’s departure. But by the doorway, he met the kid’s eyes and knew he’d see him again. He’d survive. Even if he needed to claw his way out of the limits of his age, he’d find a way.
--
After Lysandre fell out of touch with reality with his incident in the Kalos region, Giovanni paid Lumiose City a low-profile visit, being sure to keep it discreet to just see if somehow the boy survived. It had been years already, more than a decade, so he didn’t truly know the person he was looking for.
After strolling around for a while, he decided to leave. It started to rain, he had no idea where to look, and he wasn’t sure who to ask about a child he hadn’t seen in years. Staying delayed his own work, and really he could send someone else to look into this later. This was a spontaneous idea, and an emotional one. Surely he knew better than to be doing this.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Giovanni had just turned the corner, unaware that a man was pursuing him. Now he frowned at a larger, taller man standing a respectable distance from him. The young man reached out to hand him an umbrella. “My Boss, Mr. Corbeau, said that you would be needing this.”
Giovanni quickly scanned the people around them and spotted him across the street. Intimidating aura, short but confident stance, business attire. But, more obviously, piercing, yellow eyes, recognizable even behind round glasses. The snake-like gaze filled him in immediately. Even while getting soaked by the rain, he maintained a refined air. So, Giovanni looked back up at the man who had addressed him.
“Tell me your name.”
“Philippe.”
Giovanni accepted the umbrella. “Philippe, tell your boss that I will be sure to return his umbrella.”
“No need, sir. Consider it a gift from the Rust Syndicate.” Philippe nodded to him and seemed to be almost invisibly pulled back to Corbeau’s side.
They walked off without further acknowledging Giovanni’s presence, the larger man on his heels like a trained Growlithe despite towering over him.
He was almost exactly how Giovanni envisioned he would be.