kotolyre

[kotolyre]

That’s probably the thought that really gets to her.

“Wh—”

It’s less a stutter and more a scoff.

“—I won’t. I’m not the one who’s hurting them.”

She takes a step back, or more like a step away. There’s the sound of rain pounding in her ears, sure, but louder still is the way Gold’s words fall at her feet. Kotone lifts her foot, like she’s about to kick them away—like, for an instant, there’s something tangible there—but she stops the action partway.

The rain makes it hard to think. “You’re the one who’s hurting them—but you think you can just— ... take it back? I can’t trust you with them.” I’m not done yet, says her stance.

But forget it, says her expression.

It’s not because he asked for her help that she’s having trouble accepting it. A step back, and it’s not even that she’s having trouble accepting it—whatever it is, it’s starting to feel like she can’t trust him.

Worrying about Gold is the last thing on her mind and everything else is infinitely further away. “You’ll just keep hurting them. Is that what you’re after?”

She says it, and suddenly it sounds ten times more believable. “—Is that what you’ve been after?”

(He gives her his Pokemon, says that she needs to get as far away as possible. He says that he thought she’d understand, and all of the signs are pointing towards only one thing.)

Lightning flashes over her head and she thinks she might throw everything out into the rain. “Forget it,” she says, and his wallet falls to the ground. “I’m done,” she says, and his badge case lands neatly on top of it, skitters off to the side.

“Deal with this yourself,” she says, and his belt is out of her hands before she really has time to think.

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

“My— what?”

Her voice cracks at the end of it, peters out into a squeak high enough to brush at the poor Tangela doll’s foot, and then lands right where it started.

—Oh.

Right. “Um, yeah?”

Gold and his nicknames. It clicks soon enough, and Kotone’s already halfway to her bag and rifling through it before she stops to put together the pieces of what it is Gold’s really driving at. “— Wait.” She’s got the Pokeball cradled in her hands, but when she turns back towards Gold, she’s squinting.

“... No foul play, right?”

Like she really thinks he’d take advantage of that. No, she’s mostly kidding, but that doesn’t stop Kotone from eyeing him warily as she sets her Pokeball down next to the stopwatch. “Because, umm...”

She’s circled back around to his first question in the time it takes the suspicion to slide off of her face. “... I was thinking, like, we’d just judge ourselves. Whoever crosses the finish line first wins, that sort of thing?” Honor system, then, is basically what she’s trying to say. The subsequent look she shoots over at Gold says it all: she doesn’t really expect him to buy it, and more importantly? She’s realizing how silly it sounds when she says it out loud.

But, well. It fits somewhere in between weed-growing champion and racing for racing’s sake, and Kotone shrugs as she stands back up.

“Anything else?” She hooks her arms behind her back and towards Gold.

One of the thirteen thousand blankets spread across the cave sways ominously behind her. It’s a silent are we really doing this in the wake of Kotone stretching her arms towards the ceiling, but she’s not too rattled by it. “Last call, I guess?”

‘Uh. Yeah.’

He’s got plenty of questions.

Not about the things that matter, probably. He barely bats an eyelash at how she’s commandeered his supplies, can towers and doll totem poles the least of his worries. He follows her imaginary path with no issues, either, only growing more interested with how convoluted the whole thing’s become.

So this whole thing is pretty fucking pointless, and whoever wins, it’s not gonna change things too much. But he’s excited anyway.

There’s just a couple things. Like.

‘Who’s gonna judge us?’

Issue number one, there.

Gold moves forward, toeing the starting line like a judge appraising a contest. Some red masking tape divides the cave into start and finish, his only contribution to the cause. ‘I don’t really wanna watch you once we get going. 

‘Plus – who’s gonna keep track of the time?’ 

He digs around in his pocket and produces the stopwatch he found somewhere earlier.

Everything else is fair game. He gives the racetrack one final look over, and then he’s turning back to Kotone, rolling his shoulders for the umpteenth time. The lack of impatience on his face pretty much spells it out: he’s got things figured out already.

Basically.

‘… your Chikky can count, right?’

[kotolyre]

She doesn’t need to hear that from him.

It’s unfair, and the thought hits her all over again. Because, Gold has the upper hand, Gold’s had the upper hand, and every word he says has her shrinking further and further away, has her feeling smaller and smaller.

Is that how it always was?

It’s hard for her to remember. It's hard for her to think.

It’s hard for her to say anything. —That much, she knows, isn’t like her, but it’s hardly reassuring for its revelatory nature. She should be able to say something, she should be able to come up with something, but—

Nothing.

Silence falls when she lowers her hands (when had she first raised them? and to cover her face?), and helplessness hits her like the bricks at her back.

“... So what,” she manages, and the words fall to her feet and land hardly above a whisper. “If it’s you instead of me.”

It could have been her, running far ahead, leaving everyone else in the dust, playing hero because nobody else could keep up. But instead, it was her, always hanging back, always three, four steps behind. Always coming through to clean up the aftermath, always finding problems in the wake of their solutions.

The sound of Gold's jaw grinding cuts into her thoughts and she finds herself losing track. “—That’s just the way it is. And,”

Her voice picks itself back up but she still can't bring herself to find his gaze. “You aren't even explaining anything. You're just—”

None of it makes sense. “—saying these things, saying them like they all mean something.” Maybe he's right. “Something bigger? ... I don’t know.” Maybe she wouldn't be able to get it even if she tried. “I don’t get it.”

Maybe he’s just trying to be as awful as he can.

It would explain a lot. “You think this isn’t fair?”

A lot of things aren’t.

　　　“Then— do something about it, Gold.”

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

Perfect.

Or, well, close to perfect. Perfect aside from the whole potential-witnesses-to-a-robbery thing, perfect aside from the whole tailing-a-potentially-dangerous-criminal-with-a-complete-stranger thing— no, it’s perfect, because this girl really gets it. She really gets how to throw herself into a scenario.

If nothing else, Kotone’s steps are infinitely more eager thanks to that knowledge alone. If anything, she’s ten times more alert because of it.

So alert that she spins on one heel, walking backwards for a few steps as she addresses the other girl. “You think there might be others?” A quick glance over her shoulder renders the surrounding area predominantly streetlight/lamp post-free, and she lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I mean... I saw a bunch of people go down that alley, right? You think they’re involved, too?”

If she was remembering correctly, those other guys hadn’t come out when Mr. Briefcase had made his escape from the alley. So, then, did they have a shortcut? Were they going to meet up with Mr. Briefcase again at some mystery location?

“Or... Could it be someone completely different?” If this were a movie or a novel, it’d have to be the group from before. But this was real life, and it didn’t seem like they were walking back towards the alleyway even after all of the twists and turns that tailing this man entailed. “What do you think?”

She turns back to face forward and falls back in line next to Kido. “Keep following Mr. Briefcase for now?”

The words are hardly out of her mouth before the man in question, Mr. Briefcase, takes a corner sharper and more sudden than the rest of them, ducking past a woman holding a waffle cone and disappearing down an alleyway.

Back in the direction they’d came from.

Sure, she could do that, but Kido’s way too curious and her sense of justice too strong to let the suspicion this girl had slide and view it was anything that should be reported. She’d prefer to take matters into her own hands, and if it meant they were chasing a guy that was only suspicious but innocent then so be it. At least they wouldn’t trouble the police, would they?

Well, unless it was them who got reported in the end.

Kido raised one hand to stroke her chin, lost in thought and hardly listening to her excited companion. “I’m not so sure”, Kido said, more to herself than to Kotone, but it still worked as an answer to her questions. “— but, er, yes, I can do that”, Kido snapped out of her thoughts, at least confirming that she didn’t brag with powers that were just a lie. Starting to move to not lose sight of the man with the case and spoil their plan before they even had it, Kido nodded. “It last for about fifteen minutes, thus I suggest we save it for a little while.”

What exactly should they save it for? Kido had no idea. Maybe it’d all come down to just tackling him anyways. Just that they were not going to be seen doing it.

Unfortunately, Kido was not given much time to come up with a detailed plan. “For now, we should just tail him.” Feet moving on it’s own now, her gaze quickly wandering around ti take the surrounding in and perhaps find anything to make use of, Kido trusted the other girl to not lose sight of their target.

   "Maybe he’s working together with others, if so, it’d be great of course if we managed to catch the whole bunch.“ Someone might have watched too many movies, but in a city like Hive what happened in movies could happen for real any time.

[kotolyre]

“Um, what else would she be?”

(It takes a few chirps of disapproval from her Chikorita for her mind to fully catch up with the implications of what this guy’s said.)

“—Wait, I mean! Yes, she’s a Pokemon. ... Are you a trainer, too,  mister?”

kotolyre​

[kotolyre]

He’s not being fair.

Distantly, in the silence in between his words, something reminds her that none of this is fair, first and foremost. It��s not fair that this is happening to him. It’s not fair that he’s having to deal with this. She follows his gaze upwards for lack of anything better.

Which brings her to her next point.

“That’s not what I’m saying. You—,” she bites back the accusations and it sounds sort of like a gasp, kind of like a sob, “—you know that’s not what I mean, right? I’m not— I don’t think you’re lying...”

Her voice trails off and she sounds all the more insincere for it, all the more conflicted.

No, he couldn’t be lying. But the truth sounds farfetched and none of it makes sense to her. None of it’s fair, and none of it has a reason.

She’s losing ground and her eyes dart down, left, right. “Okay, okay. Let me just—” Let me think, but she’s out of space to think. Let me talk, but she’s out of things to say. Gold’s arm hovers above her, just out of her field of view, and it’s clouding the sky. “I’ll think of something, promise.”

The air is heavy and it makes it hard to breathe. “But how am I supposed to know?” It comes out halfway between a squeak and a whisper, gets caught between the creak and subsequent jingle of the bookstore’s door opening. A woman emerges in the wake, and in between her irritated glare for the overcast sky and her worried glance at the paper bag in her arms, she hardly notices the two kids standing beneath the awning as she digs through her purse for her umbrella.

Eventually, the woman walks away, unaffected. Kotone follows her footsteps with her gaze, waits until the clack of her sandals fades completely to look back towards Gold and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

It hardly even counts as a reprieve in between it all.

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

The words are out of her mouth before she realizes what she’s saying, before she realizes she’s taken another step away. “I—,” he could back her up against the wall and she wouldn’t realize it.

Her voice could crack and she’d be none the wiser.

“I don’t know.”

She doesn’t know what’s with him, she doesn’t know what’s with her, and she doesn’t know what she would or could do to fix it, or where to even start.

Weren’t they supposed to go at it together? Wasn’t that the point? “... I don’t get it.”

First he gets angry, runs away, tries to do everything by himself. There’s the Gold she knows, playing hero by any other name and all the more stubborn for it. She’s thinking it fits, somehow, that he’d try to solve this by himself. That he’d try to go at it alone.

So, then, what about Gold when he’s standing in front of her, asking her for help, asking her to understand, whether it’s to shut up and listen or take his Pokemon and run? Gold, when he’s waiting it out, when he hasn’t got any idea of what to do or say?

It doesn’t fit. “How is this any different from what you always do?”

She falters, but only long enough to gather her thoughts. Long enough to take another step backwards. “I— I mean, I want to help you fix things. Fix this. But—” But I don’t know what to do.

“—You aren’t making this easy for me.”

If anything, he’s doing the opposite. It’s like— it’s like he’s trying to make this difficult, it’s like he’s trying to push her into a corner. She rubs at her eyes and expects them to sting.

But when her hands come up dry, she looks up at Gold and can’t think of anything to say. “So... Can’t we just, ... try to figure it out? Together for once?”

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

A car rushes past.

Somewhere. It’s miles away for the deafening screeching on the pavement, a half-hearted warning in the back of her throat. Instead, her eyes fixate on Gold’s hat—it’s been knocked off-center this entire time, but she’s only just now noticed.

There’s lots of other things she’s just now noticing. The stormclouds hovering over the horizon, the tree-swaying wind that says now’s not the time to be outside. Now’s the time to seek shelter. Then, there’s the flickering lights of the sign hung over bookstore they’re standing outside of, blinking in and out between blue and pink and yellow. None of the letters are burnt out, making it stand out from the other shops lining the street.

It’s eyecatching. Funny she didn’t notice it earlier.

“So you’re just gonna run away?”

It keeps coming back around to that point. That point is what she settles on, the idea that Gold’s running away from his problems. Because, somehow, it fits. Somehow, it ties together all of the loose ends. “You’re not going to deal with it?”

If she’s disappointed in him, it’s hard to tell what for. Because, for all of Gold’s back and forth, all of his agony and indecision in the way he reaches for things that aren’t there—it’s not like he’s not doing anything. The realization’s saddening more than it is angering, and so she takes a step back, looks down at her hands.

It’s been hard to settle on feeling one way. “Because, there’s gotta be a better solution? I’m sure of it—we can figure something better out.” The doubt in her voice hovers in between her words and in between the way her fingers clench around his wallet.

“Why are you trying to do it all by yourself?”

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

Logic says no. Common sense, maybe, says when someone takes three steps back, you take four forward—and so she takes two steps forward, glances in the direction Gold’s vaguely indicated with his hands but snaps her gaze back towards him within seconds. It’s frantic, it’s like—

Like she’s scared he’s going to run for it the minute she takes her eyes off of him, maybe. Or duck inside of the bookstore, hide between the shelves and run off to somewhere she can’t see him.

But, 'scared' doesn’t quite match with the expression on her face. “I dunno.”

“Okay, so...” 'Skeptic', maybe, is a better word. She takes another step forward, angles her head to somewhere halfway between 'worried' and 'frustrated'. “Why do I have to go somewhere?”

It’s not so much that she’s taking the offensive, not so much that she’s confused, and not at all that she’s refusing his request outright.

It just doesn’t make sense.

The city is huge.

Weeks pass and the most she’s seen of him is a torn out sheet from a notebook here, a broken-off piece of a rock he’d dug out of one of the districts there, and all of it covered in I’ve been doing my own thing, but what have you been up to.

Bottom line? It doesn’t make sense. “And why do I—” she kicks aside a crumpled up receipt, takes a step towards him, “—have to take all of your stuff? This is— Gold, this is— seriously?”

This was serious. It had to be, she’d figured, for him to ask her for help, even if asking for help meant doing it in the most roundabout and aggressive way possible.

She digs her heels in. “At least tell me what’s going on. Or, I mean, I can just start guessing? If you want that?”

事故紹介

[kotolyre]

He did say thanks.

His badge case skitters across the concrete, but it mixes in with the rest of what’s coming out of Gold’s mouth and her hands are already full.

Sure, she’s used to checking in on him, but— this?

—This was a whole new level.

She crouches down to pick up his badge case, dusts off the scuffed edges. One thing at a time, but she’s only halfway up before she notices the way he’s got his feet pivoted and primed to cut for a dash in the opposite direction.

“Okay, —wait. Wait. Stop, hold on,” Hold it, she wants to say, shuffling the load in her hands so she’s got his belt looped around one and his wallet slotted next to his badge case in the other. Couldn’t he have just given her his whole bag?

Not that she would have felt any better taking that. Kotone sighs, and it’s marked with disbelief. “Gold, um—” It’s been so long. “I don’t know—”

I don’t know what’s going on? There’s tension in the air and even though she can’t feel it yet, even though she can’t tell what’s got Gold so wired up, not from this distance, her legs feel five, ten times heavier.

She takes a step forward, settles on something.

Calling her out like this, she doesn’t mind. Dropping his Pokemon onto her like this, she’s sure there’s a reason. Calling her out so he can tell her to take his Pokemon and run, though?

“Where are you gonna go?”

事故紹介

‘Kotone. Look, I –’

She’s barely arrived before he’s upon her.

‘Just – don’t ask, okay? Just… do what I tell you, and – here, look –’

She’s barely arrived, and already he’s demanding things of her, tossing her things from as wide a berth as he can give. His wallet flies at her – his belt, right after – and even his badge case, just for good measure.

‘Take it. I need you to take that stuff, and… go somewhere. Don’t care where – doesn’t even fucking matter – just take it all and go. Like right now.’

He shouldn’t be swearing at her. He shouldn’t be standing here like this, tension pulling his shoulders taut, pale and scratching a frenzied hand through his hair. He shouldn’t be ordering her around, or looking like such an asshole, but… he is.

The middle of the street is a weird-as-hell place to surrender all his Trainer gear. They’re standing outside some bookstore, a place with the flashiest sign he could find to get her here sooner. He’s been pacing for the last five minutes, and he’s barely noticed the stormy weather; his sleeves are rolled up, and his hat is all skewed.

‘Okay? Thanks. Great. Go. I’ll –’

Talk to you later, but no.

‘… I said thanks. Go.’

Weird place, situation, time to throw his Pokemon at her. But –

This is really fucking happening.

kotolyre

[kotolyre]

It takes her a second to realize she’s misinterpreted his meaning, and longer still for her words to catch up with this newfound realization.

People asking after Pokémon was still so weird.

“Oh! Well, um, you can still have the candy? If you want it.” It’s a tacit enough indication that she doesn’t want it, rules of giving candy to (or taking candy from) strangers be damned. “Anyways,” she dusts off her newly freed hand on the side of her shorts, “She’s a Pokémon, annnnd... She doesn’t bite.”

It was always the first question people asked. And then, “D’you wanna pet her?”

Had he startled her? He hadn’t meant to do that, but he wanted answers nonetheless. It was so incredible, so… cute.

His brow furrowed as she indicated the candy, unsure why her thoughts would jump to that first. The bar shape was strange, but wasn’t the creature stranger? Unless it was commonplace wherever she was from. That might be it…

“I did not- that was not what I meant. I will take it….? If you do not want it.”

Connor sighed, continuing,

“I meant…. the animal. What is it? I have never seen something like it.” 

[kotolyre]

“Huh?”

Polite, sure, polite, yeah—Kotone’s hardly in any place to judge, not with the way her head jolts up from whatever it was she’d been doing, fast enough to give anyone whiplash. Her hat wobbles in the wake of the movement.

She takes one look at what she’s got in her hands (the broken off half of a Hershey’s chocolate bar in one, a picky eater Chikorita in the other), and then another at the kid. And then, she holds up the candy bar. “This thing? Um, I think,”—really, she’s not sure—“It’s candy, maybe?”

Innocuous though the chocolate bar may have been, her Chikorita was having none of it. So, why not offer it to the kid, instead? “You want it?”

Wrong it.

kotolyre

[kotolyre]

Gold’s secret base looks more like it’s a cutting-edge display of interpretive blanket marketing techniques, like it’s the sort of thing she’d expect to find in the Goldenrod Department Store, front and center where shoppers could stop and admire it.

Which begets the question, which floor would it be on?—and then, the question, “Where did you get all of these blankets from, anyways?”

Not that it really matters, or has anything to do with the incentive Gold’s suggested. Kotone’s gaze travels up and across the ceiling, with all of its blanket artistry, and then, by the time she’s gotten all the way to the ground, she’s already moved on. “Okay!”

The Tangela swings from side to side in the wake of Kotone clapping her hands together. Very few things about this setup were okay, even by any stretch of the word.

“Alright, start here.” She points at where she’s got a line of pillows stacked in a row, forming the most haphazard starting line imaginable. With how the pillows’ trajectories match up to a stack of canned food she’d lined up a few feet shy, Kotone’s obstacle course looks less like an obstacle course and more like a twisted Rube Goldberg’s attempt at really causing a cave-in.

Or, whatever the equivalent would be. “We’ll race one lap, all the way around.” It sounds simple enough when she says it, but the path Kotone’s tracing with her finger is pretty convoluted with all of the loops and twists and doubling-back she’s trying to convey. Not to mention, she has to drag her words out to make it all the way around the track before she finishes her sentence.

“Any questions?”

‘You’re kidding.’

She’s not kidding.

It’s not just doubt that colours Gold’s words – it’s honest confusion, like the thought of a race for a race is just beyond his reach. It’s an idea that stands on the shores of wherever Kotone finds herself, a place that just… does things to do them, most days. He thinks he must’ve visited once, but it’s not his neighbour; it’s not even a bike ride away.

The world of Because she finds herself is a different city.

‘Whatever. I guess we could,’ he says dismissively, watching his Tangela doll sway by the one tendril keeping it aloft. It’ll be on the floor before they’re even through. ‘But that just – doesn’t that take the fun out of it? I mean… if you’re gonna win something, it’s like…’ His fingers flare out, curl into his palms a couple times. He can’t find the words.

But it’s passion, it’s drive. It’s feeling, something that keeps you awake when the rest of the day tries to pull you into sleep. It’s that undeniable instinct that every Pokemon trainer is supposed to have, and him in spades. Kotone, though…

… Kotone is Kotone.

He finds a towel on the floor somewhere, and he sends it flying.

‘Okay. You know what? Winner gets to decide what the loser has to do.’ It’s simple, and he grins with the efficacy of it; he’s also grinning to say I won’t lose. Same thing, really. ‘So are we done? Can we start? I only have, like, twelve thousand blankets…’

And there’s thirteen thousand attached to the ceiling.

[kotolyre]

She wouldn’t cheat.

That’s right—Kotone, she wouldn’t cheat. Her face lights up at that, but more like she’s thought of a neat trick than if she’s been reminded of her own personality. An empty protest—but maybe I would—dies before it can even make it halfway past the newly-retrieved bundle of blankets in her arms.

It’s pretty difficult to cheat when Gold’s involved. And it’s not only because of the way he looks at everyone like he’s expecting them to cheat, like he’s already bracing himself for the worst.

(In this case, the worst is probably just the sound of seams on a quilt tearing. Maybe that’s why Kotone’s smiling.)

“Um, do you even know where you’re throwing those?” She sounds like she can’t decide whether to be tastefully offended on behalf of whatever mental blueprints she’s cooked up for this obstacle course, or she’s quietly pleased that he’s taking an active stance on something. Even if that something happens to be property damage to his secret base.

Who’da known, right?

She throws another blanket, and it’s hard to think that she’s got anything even remotely resembling a final picture in mind. Not when they’re draped across the ceiling every which-way, looking more like sad spiderwebs than anything else.

Gold’s question hangs in the air, caught somewhere between the Tangela doll she’d pitched towards the ceiling and the corner of the Squirtle blanket.

The watering can. Right. Kotone looks over her shoulder at it, more skepticism than smiles for once. “You really want it? ‘Cause, I was just planning on leaving it...”

Loser takes the watering can. ... That’d be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? Kotone shrugs. “I mean, I kinda thought... We were just racing?”

She uses the TV as a brace for another blanket arch. “For racing’s sake?”

How’s he supposed to do that?

　　　　　Any way he wants, apparently.

Again, this is Kotone being Kotone. This is Kotone throwing herself at his mercy – like she does with everything, just hopping off the edge of any cliff she sees and trusting whatever comes. It shouldn’t really shock him, because that’s how she’s been for years. But with all these months he’s spent in her absence, lots of ways to forget her and none to remind him…

The mark she’s leaving on him now is bright red. Like a slap to the face.

Or a slap to the ceiling, as it turns out.

He blows out a sigh and picks up a couple blankets.

‘Forget it,’ Gold says – gestures – as the pile in his arms bounces with the strength behind his words. His eyes roam the ceiling for any sticky-outy-bits like the one Kotone found before. ‘You’re not gonna cheat. And if you do, it’s not like – it’s not gonna help you anyway.’

And he’s not going to do it. Not when this is the one person he trusts not to pull one over on him. He’s not going to let her be like anyone else.

An entire tapestry of Squirtles launches into the air as he throws a blanket up. It snags noisily on whatever sharp corner he found, and it sounds like something tears.

He wipes his hands like it’s a job well done anyway.

‘So what’re we playing for again? “Best Racer Ever” title?

‘… that stupid watering can you found?’

[kotolyre]

hi, I’m jade, and I sold my soul to satan for a bottle of mint green nail polish circa 2008

my aesthetic is personified disney character and my archetype is cute girls who could probably kill you? I’m also sybil (transistor), and I can’t spell her url either tbh? I ask a lot of questions apparently but please read everything I say in your best impersonation of minnie mouse’s voice and I promise it is not far off from how I sound in person

I’m bad at describing myself so I make the internet and cosmic circumstance do it for me

first and foremost my hobbies are painting my nails and crying a lot, more often than not at the same time which is always a very harrowing experience. I have a twitter where I complain about these hobbies and more but mostly I just talk about my job?

lastly if you are going to sell your soul to satan please list me as your hellspawn recommender so I can get a 66% discount the next time I need to buy nail polish xoxo

thank you and I hope you have a great night!

[kotolyre]

I refuse to be shut down do a Switcheroo for me

What makes people decide to move to Lumiose City in the first place, anyways? Are they here to see the sights, here to train, here because it’s the booming economic capitol of an unfamiliar region? If you ask him, Izaya (Isaiah? Localization sure is funky!) will give you all of those reasons and more.

Which is weird! Why would you move to see the sights, but spend most of your time in an office on the opposite side of town where the way Prism Tower lights up at night is hardly anything more than a shadow on the side of your window? Move here for the fashion, sure, and his fashion is distinct enough for it to sound genuine, but he hardly seems interested in actually keeping up with the newest trends.

So, Izaya, he must have bigger fish to fry, right? Something like that sounds believable. Question him on what, though, and it’s even harder to tell.

He’s a guy with a lot of experiences, a guy who’s been all over the place. He’s gone from a Saffron City big-name to being practically-a-native in Lilycove, so what’s made him settle down (comparatively speaking) in Lumiose?

It’s gotta be the lore.

Have you ever had that feeling like something big is about to happen? ... It’s pretty exciting, isn’t it?

[kotolyre]

Switcheroo! (if you don't already have too many. ouob)

You know Pokéstar Studios, right? Everyone knows Pokéstar Studios. It’s the drama, the glitz, the flash and flair. The killer costs for special effects. Don’t most kids dream of getting to tour the place, let alone act on those stages?

But Gale, he might know Pokéstar Studios a bit too well. There’s a lot that goes into it, behind the scenes, a lot of stuff that people don’t really see. It’s not that he minds it, per se, — because he doesn’t, not really. He’s still there, after all. So, there’s gotta be something enjoyable about working behind the scenes, something worthwhile about it all, right?

Nobody’s really quite sure how Gale got involved with show business, really. All things considered, aside from his flair for the technical, it doesn’t really seem like his ‘thing’. He’d probably do just as well with Silph Co. or Devon Corp., all things considered. Maybe it’s a favor to the owner? Or maybe he’s just always been there, and that’s the way it is.

He’s the kind of guy who likes when things make sense. So, Pokemon, those make sense. Gale gets Pokemon in a way that you might not expect from a tech crew guy, but doesn’t that just add to his work ethic in the end?

‘Corporate cog’ is probably a bit too cynical for the business, but it’s a real pitfall from time to time.