Just a feeling

By Chienashiki Mizumi

Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies. Give me a hiding place and I will use it. What I don’t tell you, you won’t know. That’s my motto, and always has been. I mean, besides the regular Team Rocket motto. And yet…

Something has been bothering me. For a while, actually. I’ve been feeling really depressed, and I think Jess and Meowth are starting to notice. Crap! I don’t want them to know. I flounce on the bottom bunk, and fall backwards letting my head hit the wall full force. Piercing pain, I bring up my fingers to the back of my head, wincing. I’m still holding the bottle of pills I got from our first aid kit. It’s painkiller. I bring my wet fingers to my face, they’re red and smell like blood. Jessie looks at me with worry in her eyes, then makes her way over here, abandoning her ramen cup for Meowth to finish. Please Jess, just walk away, it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t…

She sits on the blankets next to me. I groan and roll over, taking the pillow and hiding my head under it. Tears fill my eyes. Great. Just great. I’m gonna cry, and then she’ll definitely know something is wrong. She pats my back, covered in scars from childhood. I flinch. I wish she would just hit me and get it done with. Then she’ll never know the secrets I’ve been hiding, the love for her I stuffed away.

“James, I know something is bothering you, it’s cutting into your performance, and I want to know what it is.” Is that concern I hear underlying her anger? No, I must be delusional. My performance? It’s not like I was ever all that good in the first place. I must really be screwing up. Just like I have for my entire life. She yanks my head up and faces me toward her, her blue eyes starting to tear my heart to pieces.

“What is it that can be bad enough to make you want to kill yourself?” She starts to scream, but it’s a whisper. Oh man, she must’ve figured out what I was trying to do. Her hands are at my chest, she’s tearing at my shirt. Her touch makes me go limp, and she lets go as if I was on fire.

I start crying again. What I did was bad enough. Why would Jessie try to make me feel better? I want things to remain as they always have. I’m breaking the rules right now, too. It’s against the rules for Team Rocket members to fall in love with each other. All right, I’ll tell her. Maybe she’ll beat the living crap out of me, and put an end to my miserable existence.

I sigh. Jessie perks, knowing I’m about to say something. She’s so sweet to me, I don’t deserve it. “I better start at the beginning,” I say. She looks at me quizzically as I pull up the bottom of my shirt, then turn around. “Remember Jesssebelle?” She nods with a horrified expression as I show her my crisscrossed network of scars. “Then you’ll know where these came from.”

“What… are all those?” she whispers, running her finger along the length of one. I shudder and grind my teeth. “Please don’t touch them,” I whimper. “They hurt like crazy.” I turn around and put my black shirt back on, then zip up my Rocket jacket, and see Jessie crying. Jessie. Crying. God, I’m an awful person.

“Meowth! This goes way beyond a Thundershock from Pikachu,” Meowth butts in. “What happened?” Jessie turns around and clobbers him, and he shuts up.

“Now, remember that festival with all the flying-type Pokemon? The Fortree City Feather Festival?”

“You mean that time when you were blubbering and whining because you lost your Chimecho, your ‘first love’?” She looks at me like I’m crazy. I blush.

“It was metaphorical romanticism,” I mumbled, the tips of my ears beginning to redden. My first love? That would be Jessie, my partner. “You abandoned me that day…” I looked at Jessie. She stared back, as if in a defiant “so?”. I sighed again.

“I left Chime at Nanny and Poppop’s house for a reason,” I continued.

“Yeah, I know. It was sick,” Jessie interrupted.

“Yes, but do you know how it got sick? Or even why it was so sick I had to leave it?”

Jessie slowly shook her head.

“You can’t imagine how much these scars hurt,” I complained. I can hear my voice starting to whine, but I can’t help it. Let’s rewind for a little bit…

I was in a trolley car, coming home from violin practice. Looking out the window, I saw something new, something weird. A wind chime…? No, a Pokemon.

It was a Chimecho. And as it sang, it produced a feeling inside me I’d never felt before: happiness. I smiled, laughed and waved at the weird Pokemon out the window as we passed by. I thanked it for the feeling it had introduced me to, something I had never felt before.

I liked that feeling. Enough to try and own one. Money wasn’t an issue here, so I had an entire Igglybuff bank filled with coins. My parents, however, were “displeased at my conduct” around Chimecho, they refused to let me have one. I wanted to feel that feeling again, I wanted it so much, I wanted to feel it everyday. So one night, I clambered out my window, and ran to where the festival was… but they were packing up.

Thinking of that sad memory, I could feel tears collecting in my eyes. You ask me what I’m whining about, why it was so wrong. I can’t help but tell you, hoping you’ll understand – but you don’t. You and Meowth leave me all alone.

Jessie lifts my chin up again, forcing me to look her in the eyes. Hers are full of – what is that? Compassion? I don’t know anymore. “Were we… mean to you?” she whispers softly.

“No, Jess,” I said, taking her hand. “It wasn’t mean, just… that’s what always happens. Why should today be any different?”

“Go on.”

When that Chimecho floated by, my greatest dream was granted, the dream of happiness. To my great joy, it wanted to come with me as much as I wanted it. Now maybe you could understand my feelings.

“I think I know what happened, James,” Jessie whispered. “I don’t think you know the difference between happiness and love, and that’s why you confused it for your ‘first love’. You also think your Growlie is your love, right?”

I looked at her, confused. I put my hand up to my face and tried to clear my lavender hair out of my face so I could see her better. “What? But love and happiness feel the same. What’s the difference between them?” I failed, my cowlick fell back in my face. Jessie sighs.

“Honestly,” she groaned. “Do I have to explain everything to you? You’re such a naïve baby.” I ignore this and go on.

One day when I was feeling especially bad, we had just failed – again. I lay in my bottom bunk.

“Come out, Chimecho,” I whispered. You rolled over above me.

“James?” You mumbled. ”What are you doing – in the middle of the night?” I panic and hit my head on the post.

“Owwww”, I groan.”Nothing, I was sleeping till you woke me up,” I lied.

“Well, get back to sleep! We have to go to work tomorrow!” she snapped. Ouch. That hurts more than my head.

“Chimecho, use Heal Bell,” I order it. This was the night that started a whole long period of use.

“<Anything for master>!” it happily chirps, not knowing I was just using it. I was never mean to Chimecho, I just used it. It was like my drug. It was a drug.

But as much as I was using my Chimecho, I also loved it too. Many happy moments were spent with it chirping happy little songs in my ear.

I woke up one morning, it was a morning like any other, my back turned to the wall, the smell of coffee in the air, my sleeping Chimecho curled in my arms, like –

I look to see if you might object to what I’m gonna say next. Your eyes are full of tears. I mentally hit myself for being so cruel.

–  like I wish you were. Except, my Chimecho… something was wrong with it! It's time to go but I don't say anything, I just recall it back into its ball, and go with you. I've been doing wrong, and I feel horrible now… because I've just hurt someone else I love. Chimecho's sickness makes me feel sick, which makes me feel angry.

"How hard is it to read a map, Meowth?" I hear myself shouting. He replies that there's nothing on the map. We need a Pokemon Center so desperately. Why can't you guys understand?

"Why not have it heal itself with Heal Bell?" you suggest. It's so crazy, it's just got to work. But it can't, because I caused its sickness. I used up its strength. Chimecho groans and turns away. I turn my head to hide the tears glistening in my eyes. You guys don't deserve this. Wobbuffet comes out like usual and my sadness turns to anger.

"Will you be quiet?" I scream, picking up Chimecho and running to the edge of the cliff to spot for - wait a second, is that what I think it is?

It is! "Nanny and Poppop!"I cry.

"I know this part," interrupts Jessie. "Why would you freak out over being married to me? I'm not like Jessebelle, you know." I shudder at that name, then blush.

"I was just plain freaking out that day," I explained. "It's nothing personal."

"Then you told this fake story about us being like a private company or something," she giggled. God, I love that sound.

"Then I told you about why you loved to go to their place so much," I spoke very fast. Why is that? I know I do that when I get nervous, but it's not like we're around anyone…

"Chimecho was absolutely exhausted," Jessie said. "I always wondered how it got like that. Hey, about that… sorry we were being, like, total jerks."

"You couldn't help it," I cried, taking her hands up, her face was very close to mine. I blushed again, swallowed and dropped her hands.

Mime Jr. ran up to me, somehow it knew my secret. I concealed my panic, but then it tells me that any good person or Pokemon going through a bad time needs help. That touches my heart and I start to cry again.

I put my head down by Chimecho's and start to sob, deep breaths wracking my body. My heart ached. Finally my shaking body was able to fall asleep.

The next day I was exhausted from preventing you guys from stealing the Pokemon. You and Meowth are waiting on the roof for me to come, but I still couldn’t forgive myself for what I had done.

“<Master, I forgive you>,”it whispers softly. “<As much as you have used me, you were also my closest friend. I love you master. So don’t cry.>”

“I’m an awful person,” I sobbed, stroking its head. “I hurt you by doing this. I don’t deserve your love.”

“You realize your Chimecho has to stay here,” said Poppop, who had just come in. “It could be dangerous for it to leave.”

“I love my Chimecho!” I cried, remembering all the good times I had with it by my side.

“It probably just needs a bit more rest,” said Nanny gently.

I started to cry again. “Goodbye Chimecho,” I said, then turned to my grandparents. “I’ll leave it here.”

Mime Jr. repeats what it had said last night. “<Any good person going through a bad time needs help!>” Then it leaped into a ball.

“You can take him as a friend to cheer you up,” they said.

I tell them the truth about what I was doing, about Team Rocket.

“But there is something that I don’t think you’re ready to hear yet,” I added. “I promise that if I come back and visit, I’ll tell you.”

They tell each other they’ll always be proud of me, because I had found some pretty good friends anyway.

“Goodbye, Chimecho! I’ll never forget you!” I cry, waving, as our balloon flies off into the sunset.

As I finish my story, Jessie pulls me into a hug, and strokes my hair. “James, you’ve grown into a handsome man, one that I’d want to be with forever, but you still act like the scared little kid I met you as.”

I look at her, puzzled. “What? How? I don’t get it.”

She slaps my face full force. “That is sadness,” she says. “Bad feeling.” Then she hugs me. “That is happiness, a good feeling.”

I lean in toward him, fear is in his eyes. But I bet he isn’t expecting what comes next. I hold him close to me, now he’s blushing, then I suddenly kiss him, full on the lips, like I’ve wanted to do ever since I’ve touched his soft hands and face. He squeaks a surprised, “Oo!” And then, all of a sudden, he hugs me back, and joins in.

His jade green eyes are looking into mine with the most gentle love I have ever encountered from a man.

“That,” I whisper, “is love.”

“I know,” he whispers back. “I know now. Thank you Jessie.”

“Now, if the one you hurt already forgave you, what should you do?” I ask him, humming the theme of Jeopardy for good measure.

“Umm, apologize again?” he asks.

“No, you idiot! You’re supposed to forgive yourself.” He smiled, and ran a finger along the edge of my face.

“How do you think my grandparents and Chime might like a visit?” he whispered in my ear. I kissed him, softly on the cheek.

“I think they might like that.”