Six

“Nicholas, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, Abe, what’s up?” he said casually, eyes still locked on the little rock he was kicking down the path. The same path we walked every day to get to school.

The sun was just beginning to rise, casting long shadows and soaking the trees in a soft orange glow.

He tapped the rock again, like it was a game only he knew the rules to.

“Do you like Pokémon?”

His foot faltered. The rock shot off the trail, bouncing into the tall grass. He paused and chuckled.

“Yeah. Of course I like Pokémon.”

There was something honest in his smile. Not rehearsed. Not said to impress anyone. Just a truth he’d never had to say out loud before.

“Why is that?” I asked, but I wasn’t looking at the rock or the road anymore. Just him.

He kept walking a few steps, slower now, and slipped his hands into his pockets.

“I guess… because they try, you know?”

He glanced at me, no smile this time. Just something quiet in his eyes, like he was seeing something I couldn’t.

“They don’t always win. They mess up. They get scared. Sometimes they lose to weaker opponents. But they don’t stop. They don’t need someone to believe in them first. They fight anyway.”

He picked up another rock and tossed it softly into the trees.

“I like that. That they evolve not because someone tells them to, but because they earn it. Quietly. Without applause.”

I didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

He looked down, then laughed softly.

“Dad says I’ve got potential. That I’m destined for great things. But I don’t care about that. I don’t want to be strong because someone else expects me to be. I want to be… someone a Pokémon would choose. Someone they’d look at and say, ‘Yeah, I trust this one.’”

Then, he smiled again, lighter this time, like saying it out loud had taken weight off his shoulders.

“That’s why I like them. They remind me of who I want to be. Even if I’m not there yet.”

Then I woke up. Why was I remembering that now?

. . .

“Where’s Nicholas?”

I stepped into the dining room. Mom sat at the table, staring into her coffee like it was going to answer for her.

She stirred it slowly, round and round, the spoon clicking softly against the cup.

“Gone,” she said. “They’ve gone to Florence.”

My brain scrambled through the name Florence, Florence…

And then it clicked.

The Caelora Academy of Pokémon Studies. Essentially the Harvard for Pokémon.

“Why?” I asked, even though the answer had already started to form in my chest.

She stopped stirring and finally took a sip. I could see it in the way her eyes didn’t meet mine—you know why.

The bitterness must’ve hit her tongue. People drink it anyway. Maybe that’s just what adults do—swallow what they don’t like and call it necessary.

“He’s chosen to pursue his potential,” she said. “The resources here just don’t—”

“I understand,” I said quickly. Too quickly.

I didn’t want her to finish the sentence.

Didn’t want to hear how our home was too small for someone like him.

“I’ll head to school.”

I asked around about Caelora, piecing together what everyone already seemed to know.

It was the best Academy in the Lyric Frontier.

Our region, Lyric, isn’t like the ones from the games. It’s massive. Country-sized.

Split into six vast frontiers:

“Eden. Taewe. Emall. Gramercey. Rowena.” The teacher sighed.

“How do you not know that? You’re sixteen already. I swear, these parents coddle their kids into ignorant pieces of—”

“Sorry! Sorry! I’ll be going now.”

Definitely a mistake asking a teacher.

School passed in a blur.

The walk home was worse.

It’s beginning to dawn on me now:

I don’t have to wake anyone up anymore.

Don’t have to walk beside him, or wait for him after class.

He’s gone. And I’m still here.

I was a single child in my last life.

So technically, nothing’s changed.

But this feels worse.

Because I knew what it felt like to walk beside someone.

To laugh with someone. To have someone who waited.

And now I don’t.

People say change is constant. But what they don’t say is that some changes don’t teach you anything. They don’t make you stronger. They don’t offer you closure.

They just leave you behind.