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Ash sat unmoving, quietly looking out at the sea, remembering his old life, what he had to leave behind. Just a few years ago, everything in his life was great, perfect even. He got to spend time with his father, who taught how to ride a bike and took him to a nearby lake a few times so he could learn to swim. Those days were the best. He loved being in the water, he loved swimming and it was even greater to splash around in the water with his daddy. His father even had a few of his water Pokémon for him to play with. It was so much fun chasing Squirtle around the lake only to hitch a ride back to the flatter end of the water when he grew tired of swimming around. Sometimes he could even play with a few wild Poliwag that were used to humans, they always splashed him with water and sometimes even used a bubble attack on him. All those bubbles that he could chase around. His mother, who never really liked water, and therefore, never learned how to swim, used to watch them from the shore and laughed with them.
One evening, everything changed. It came out of nowhere, at least for him. It was late already and he was supposed to be asleep, but he just couldn't stop thinking of what his father had told him while tucking him in. It was really exciting. His father, the best Pokémon Trainer in the world, at least in his five-year-old mind, told him that he would get his own Pokémon soon. His very own Pokémon. He loved playing with his dad's Pokémon whenever he got the chance to. How great would it be to finally have his own Pokémon friends to play with? The only reason he did not have one already was his mom. While she did not mind his father's Pokémon that much, she did not like Pokémon in general and she certainly did not trust them. When he asked her why, her answer was that she was attacked once. She did grow up in a small town. A few people there had Pokémon, but unlike the small city where he grew up, they were not overly present. Because of that she did not know how to behave around Pokémon that were not properly trained. One day, a wild Pokémon wandered into town, got scared by a loud noise, and in his fear, attacked the nearest target which was her. His Daddy's Pokémon, she told him, were well trained by now and knew better, but if he got his own Pokémon, they would be young and he might be hurt when playing with them. He did not mind her telling him that when she did, he was way younger then and he could understand her fear. But he was a big boy now, already 5 years old. She told him he could not have Pokémon when he was 4 years old, that is nearly a baby. In his mind, still being quite young, that was ages ago so but his daddy said he could have a Pokémon soon, so surely his mother was okay with it now.
So, with him still awake, fantasizing about finally getting his own Pokémon, he was quite surprised when he heard voices from below. Sure, his parents stayed up way later than him but he never heard them, even if he knew they were talking. He caught them a few times when he went downstairs because he could not sleep or needed a glass of water. To hear them talking, he had to stand in front of the living room door, up in his bed, he just should not able to hear them at all. At first it was too quiet for him to make out what they were saying, but soon they got louder. After a few minutes he could even hear his father shouting at his mother. “You should not baby him, he is old enough now.”, was one thing from his father that he could clearly make out. He could not figure out what it was about and he missed a bit of the shouting because he was tired and because they did not shout anything at a volume he could hear. “Just be reasonable, Delia, he is old enough, it will be a fun adventure for him.”, was another thing he heard his dad say when he finally gave up trying to understand what was going on. Having an adventure sure sounded fun. His daddy always told him stories about the adventures he had with his Pokémon when he was younger. More interested in picturing the adventure he could have with his family, he missed out on more of the conversation until he hear his mother scream back at his dad. His mother never screamed, ever. “There is no way in Hell I am letting him leave, he is still way to young. If you want to go, go! But don't think you can come back here if you do. You always fill his mind with fantasies and stories. It is dangerous out there, just because you were lucky and survived does not mean I will allow you to put my baby in danger.” He had never heard his mother sound this angry, not once. She scolded him sometimes but she never got this loud and especially not so scary. She sometimes got loud with him, but only when he wandered to far away while playing and she wanted him to play closer to her again. She told him once that that wasn't because she was angry with him, just because he would not be able to hear her otherwise. He did not know what exactly was going on down there but he was scared by all the shouting, scared because from what little he understood they were fighting about him. He had heard about parents that suddenly started fighting all the time and then one day one parent would leave. He did not want that. He liked his happy family. Those thoughts spooked him, he curled up into a ball below his bedding and started crying, quietly. There was no way in hell he wanted his parents to come in now, they sounded so scary yelling, he didn't want to see if they also looked scary now. The last thing he heard before he drifted off to sleep, being suddenly exhausted from crying, was a slamming door.
The next morning his mother came to wake him up, normally it was his father. His father always went to his room to help him get ready while his mother made breakfast downstairs. If it was a day he was supposed to take a bath his dad even woke him up a bit earlier so he had time to play with the bubbles his dad always put into his bath. Sometimes he even let Squirtle out and make even more bubbles. At first he was confused by suddenly being woken up by his mother but soon he remembered what he overheard last night. “Where is daddy?”, he asked, fearing for the worst while still hoping everything was okay. His daddy could just be ill, when Ash had a cold a while ago he felt awful so maybe his daddy was feeling awful today. That would not be good and he would feel bad for his daddy but at least it would explain his mom being in his room instead of his dad. But his mother squashed all the hope he still had left: “He left last night. He felt that being out adventuring with his Pokémon was more important than staying with us.”. “Im..por..nt?”, Ash asked. “Important”, his mother corrected, “It means he wanted to do something so badly that he did not care about everything else.”. Ash took a while to think about what his mother has said, finally he spoke: “So he went on another adventure with his Pokémon because he missed having adventures?”. His mother gave an affirmative nod. “When will he back?”. He was watching his mothers face while waiting for her to answer. She had looked sad since woke up but now started crying. “Never”, she said turning around and leaving his room. It took a while until the impact of that answer managed to get through to Ash. He would not see his daddy again, never ever. It was not even like the stories he heard from other kids. Some kids he met at the park were picked up by their daddy one week, then their mommy the next. When he asked them about that they had told him their parents just didn't want to live together anymore so they just switched the parent they stayed with every week. He would not even get that. Instead of getting up and eating breakfast he just curled up as tight as he could and started crying.
The next few weeks he spent in a haze. He slept, he ate, sometimes he was forced to eat because he just didn't feel hungry, he was dragged somewhere by his mother to play but he did not smile once. All he could think about was his daddy. He had heard one child at the playground being called a mommy's boy once. He was pretty sure it was supposed to be something bad because the boy started to cry and ran to his mother after hearing it but he did not think it was bad. He was a daddy's boy and he was proud of it. Sure, he loved his mother, she stayed home with him while his daddy was at work and played with him. She even taught him a few letters and numbers each week. But his daddy was the bestest person in the world. He had such great Pokémon, and he always understood Ash, he let him play outside, not only in the garden but wherever he wanted. His mom never let him out of her sight when playing and she never wanted to go far. It was always the garden or the playground at the park. If he took his daddy's Eevee with him he was even allowed to play in the forest. His dad understood his love for Pokémon, his wild side, the need to run around outside without a care for the world. His mother always tried to make him stay where it was safe, where she could see him, and never let him do fun things, only boring things. He remembered his dad telling him after he got his green bike for his 5 th birthday that his mother argued he could have a bike for his 20 th birthday, not sooner. He was not good at time keeping yet but if all he could remember was 5 years, then 20 years would be ages away. The biggest number he could count to was 10, so since he could not count to 20 yet it must be a really big number and 10 was already big in his mind. He saw children that were 10 at the playground sometimes, they looked like they were nearly grown up and called the smaller children babies for still playing in the sand. His daddy told him then that he was not a baby for liking to play in the sand. The big kids just were afraid of getting dirty but thry still wanted to play in the sand. Since they could not jump over their fear they tried to make others stop playing in the sand also so they would not feel sad while watching. Oh, how he missed his daddy.
His mother was always trying to get him to talk to her about daddy, if he didn't answer then she tried to explain why he left again, and that his daddy would want him to be happy even without him being there. He remembered his mother and even his daddy telling him something similar ages ago. It was when his grandma Ketchum went to heaven to join grandpa Ketchum in being an angel and watching out for all children, not only him. They also told him they could do so because they were so old. When you grow older you also grow more love and once you have so much love in you that you can't find enough people to love near you, then you get to go to heaven to love all the people still growing love. When he asked about the child he heard about in the TV that died they told him that people were born with different amounts of love so some had to much love way sooner than others. But that was back when his grandma left for heaven, his daddy didn't, he asked his mother about that when he first recognized the words. He did not want to talk to his mother at all, after all he heard her telling his daddy to leave and not come back, so it was her fault. When it got colder outside and his mother forced him into way to warm clothes before dragging him outside and he still refused to smile his mother dragged him to some strange doctor instead of the playground one day. Why was it a strange doctor? Well, normal doctors wanted to look into his mouth, put that strange round thing on his chest that always felt way to cold to listen to his heart and sometimes poked him with a needle calling it a shot and he always got a lollipop or a piece of chocolate when he was finally allowed to leave. This doctor did nothing like that at all, he didn't even have that hard, bed-like table in his room, just a desk, a few chairs and a couch. Instead of looking into his mouth after asking him how he felt this doctor started to ask more questions. Easy ones at first: “What is your favorite color?”, “Green, like the forest I love to play in.”, “What did you have for breakfast?”, “Pancakes, but I did not eat all of them.” and so on. But soon he started asking questions about his daddy, if he missed him, what he did with his daddy before he left, what he would do if his daddy suddenly came back. He did not answer even one of them, he did not like to talk about his daddy, that made him think of his daddy and that made him even sadder. His mother dragged him to that doctor 8 more times, then she told him they would move.
“Move, why? And where to?” he asked her through tears. He liked his home, his room, the forest and all the friends he had at the playground. Sure, he wasn't a good friend for them most of the time right now but he still played with them and sometimes, if he managed to not think about his daddy to much, it was even starting to be fun again. “Well Ash, your father went to work 5 days a week so we had money to get food and clothes and toys but since he left no one brings money in. We had a bit of money saved up to last us for the last few months but now it is nearly used up and we just can't afford to live in this big house and the city anymore. Living in a city means everything costs more money so we will move into my childhood home in Pallet Town. You might remember it, your grandma Ketchum lived there before she went to heaven. And if we sell this house we have enough money so that I only need to work for a few hours each day and I can still look after you.”. Ash did not like this answer one bit. He remembered that town. It was not what people on TV would call a town, it barely rated as a village and the only other kid around his age he saw when they visited grandma was the grandson of the old man who always was in that big house where Pokémon lived in the backyard. He never liked that kid, he was always telling him about his new toys and was making fun of Ash when he said that he did not have even one of those toys because his parents told him it cost to much money and he didn't need every toy that was made, his were good enough to play with still. “What about my friends? What.. what if da..dd.y comes .. ba..back?”, he asked, now sobbing. “You can make new friends there, you are a lovable child so it will be easy for you. And as for your father, I told you often enough now that he will not be back, not now, not in a year, not ever.”, his mother stated, the last part quite forcefully, “You do not have a say in it and even if I wanted to stay here, which I don't, we just can't.”. The next week his mother spent packing and he was trying to make it as hard for her as he could. Whenever she left a box open and went to another room he would partly unpack it, even hide some stuff. He knew, of course, that it would not change anything but at least he felt better doing it. It made him feel not as helpless and when his daddy came back he could tell him that he tried to stop her. And it even had a few positive effects, he found pictures of his daddy, sometimes alone, sometimes with Ash or the whole family. Even a few with grandma Ketchum and even one where Ash was really, really little that had grandpa Ketchum in it. It is not as if they did not have any pictures he could look at in the house, they had, but they were all framed and he could not take them with him wherever he went. So every picture he found, some tucked in a book as a bookmark, some between the strange black and white pictures that were little and had the colors funny, some fell out of a scrapbook his mother packed and a few he even found in the bin, he took them all and hid them in his treasure chest. He also found a few unused Pokeballs, his daddy must have forgotten them when he packed because most of his stuff was missing once he left, which he took. When his mother packed away her clothes and the few his daddy hat not taken with him he found the old traveling backpack, his daddy told him that it was what he used when he left on his very first adventure. His daddy showed to him once, it even had other stuff from when his daddy was younger in it. Since that backpack was big and his mother would notice him taking it he had to ask but after she looked through it, most likely for forgotten or hidden Pokeballs that already had a Pokémon in it, she let him have it. In it he found the cap his father had worn on his adventures, or at least on his first few, in the pictures his father showed him when he told him stories he saw him wear a few others as he grew older. From the moment he found it he refused to take it off for anything but a bath. The best find, however, was a forest green and silver Pokeball with Ash's name on it in silver letters on the green half and from the looks of it, there even was a Pokémon inside. He could not let whatever was in there out, for fear that his mother would hear it but since his father wanted him to have his own Pokémon he guessed that whatever he wanted to give him was inside. He hoped for an Eevee, he liked his fathers Eevee best. Since he did not know if his mother knew the Pokeball was even in the house he decided to just take it instead of asking. If she knew and noticed it was missing he could just tell her his name was on it so he took it, if she didn't know or didn't notice he would let his new friend out once he was somewhere his mother would not notice it.
Even with Ash doing his best to keep them from moving away the day he had to say goodbye to his friends and move away came way to soon. His mother threw a going away party in the now empty house for him and his friends but it did not feel like a party, it felt more like grandma Ketchum's funeral with all the children crying and the mothers and fathers that accompanied them looking sad and trying their best to comfort them. Back then he did not understand what a funeral was, he could not even pronounce the word but he just asked his daddy to explain. “A funeral”, his daddy told him, “is like a going away party for people that get to leave for heaven. You know that they have to leave because their love has grown to big but what we did not tell you is, that they leave their body behind. They have no use for it in heaven and they get to go to heaven because their body can't contain all their love anymore so the people left behind hold a funeral for the body to say goodbye. We all are glad for grandma Ketchum to be in heaven now but that does not stop us from feeling sad that she had to leave already.”. He remembered his daddy's words really well, even after all this time, because he then understood that he was allowed to miss his grandma. He had felt bad for missing her at first because she was in heaven now and it was a good thing to go to heaven. But all people at the funeral were sad, quite a few even cried and so he did not need to feel bad about being sad anymore. And now his party felt nearly the same, just no one left for heaven, he would just leave to a small town and most likely never see his friends again. His mother had told him that, when he asked her if they could at least visit his friends or if they could visit him. Well, she did not tell him that he would never see them again but she did tell him that they could not visit because they would live to far away to do so. Even with them all being sad and crying the party went over way to fast. Before he knew it he was told to say bye to his friends, dragged to the car and strapped in. It was getting dark already and his mother told him that they would travel until it went dark again the next day, that is, if everything worked out like she planned. He waved at his friends, crying even more than before, while driving by and didn't stop waving until they were a few streets away. Soon after he was rocked to sleep by the movement of the car.
He did not notice much of the trip to his new home, he slept through the night, being woken for a potty break and breakfast in the morning, spent a few hours just quietly watching the scenery go by before falling asleep again. He was again woken up for lunch and dinner and for the last time when they arrived. His mother had told him that they would need to take a ship to get there and he would have liked to see how a car would be put onto a ship, in his mind the ship in question was like a pirate ship with 3 masts and big, white sails, but it was in the middle of the night after the party and he was therefore asleep. If his daddy would be there he could have asked him to wake him up to see it but asking his mother, he knew, would have been no use. She did not want him missing sleep for anything, he was not allowed to see the fireworks on New Years Eve, he was not allowed to stay up to see Santa Claus, he was not even allowed to stay up for the last lesson of the Pokémon Academy which was on TV each Saturday evening, starting before dinner and going just past his bedtime so why would he be allowed to be awake to see a ship? The next few days were hell, they had all their furniture and boxes in the new house but the furniture was not even put together yet, the rooms still needed to be painted. The old floors had to be replaced and they had to live in all this chaos, sleeping in sleeping bags. After being constantly in the way of his mother and the workers she at least allowed him to leave the house on his own as long as he promised to not leave the town. Contrary to the city outskirt they lived in before she seemed to consider this town safe, not many houses, no forests to play in and old people his mother knew anywhere. Not really fun but at least he was outside. He spent most of his time on the small beach the town had, watching the waves and the ships entering or leaving the city harbor which he could see from there. When not at the beach he could be found in the backyard of the old man with the rude grandson playing with the small Pokémon waiting for a trainer. The old man, he had learned, was Professor Oak and he studied Pokémon for a living. His grandson, Ash always thought his name was Gory, turned out to be called Gary and was Ash's age but still as rude as he remembered him to be and he tried to avoid him whenever possible. Once the house was finished and his mother had to start working he started school at Professor Oaks lab, being taught reading, writing and basic maths by one of the Professors
assistants and if time permitted it the Professor himself would teach about Pokémon. School there would have been fun if not for the fact that he had to share the classes with Gary. Since Gary had those classes for longer he ended up being ahead of Ash and he always teased him about it.
After a few weeks of living in Pallet Town, Ash still being allowed out on his own, he finally found a place where no one was watching over him to let out the Pokémon his daddy left him. It was an Eevee, just like he had hoped, and it was clearly the child of his daddy's Eevee. Not only was its coat nearly completely silver, just the tip of the tail and the fur around his neck being a pure white, it also had the deep green eyes his fathers Eevee had. He knew that silver Eevees were rare but not unique but his father once told him that no other Eevee he had seen on all his travels ever had those green eyes, not even the silver ones. It was clearly intended to be a gift, wearing a big green bow around the neck was a giveaway for sure, but the bow now held a letter that, from the looks of it, was hastily shoved in the bow. It was crumpled up and shoved inside the envelope instead of being neatly folded like letters normally were. Removing the letter while patting the small Eevee he noticed his name written on the envelope. Opening the letter all he could tell with his limited knowledge of the written word was that it was a letter for him from his daddy and he could recognize a few words here and there. He seemed to have written something about his mother, someone being sorry and love. With his Eevee in tow he decided to explore his new-found secret place a bit more. Initially he found it when walking along the beach away from the town, he was allowed to do that since he could swim and promised to not go deeper than his ankles into the water, just to be save, and while the beach still stretched on for quite a bit the area next to the town along the beach was rocky and, while he was not allowed to climb the rocks, he found a hole in the rocks he could comfortably walk through after walking along for around 15 minutes. When he went through that hole he could not believe his eyes, he found small forest there. He must be quite a way behind the big backyard of Professor Oak and he knew that, if he went far enough in there, he would be stopped by the same big rocks that turned into the small mountains next to the town that he saw from his window. What he didn't realize, and his mother didn't know, he hoped, was that, between those mountains there was a small forest and someone had even build a small hut in a clearing. It was clearly abandoned but did look stable enough to not collapse. Inside the hut was a small stove that worked with wood, a table with a chair, a few shelves and a bedside table of all things. The hut even had windows, two for each wall but the one with the door, that one only had one but they were so dirty you could not even see light through them. There was a small gas lamp and quite a few cans of gas for it and tons of dust. In one corner next to a shelf he spotted a broom so he at least could clean the dust out if he chose to. Walking out of the dusty hut again he noticed the sturdy bolt intended for a lock on the outside of the door while closing it. If he could get his hands on a lock he could even lock his new hideout once he left. Behind the hut, sharing the back wall with it, was a small half open shed that still contained quite a bit of dry fire wood for the stove and an ax. The shed was clearly built after the hut because no one would build windows to look into a shed. There was a small stream flowing at the edge of the clearing coming down from the mountains most likely, the water was quite cold but looked clean and tasted great. Whoever build the hut even widened the stream into a pool of water at one point to have enough water to wash him- or herself in, let Pokémon play around it and, if he interpreted the flat stone next to the water right, wash clothes in it. His father had told him he had to wash his clothes in streams quite often and even showed him how to once. Seeing that it started to get dark and knowing he had to be home soon he cuddled his Eevee for a while, returned it to its ball and made his way home, promising himself he would learn to read soon so he could read his dads letter.
From then on he spent all the time he could at the small hut or in the forest surrounding it playing with Eevee and even learning quite a bit. Eevee instinctively knew what was eatable for Pokémon and what not and since he learned from Professor Oak that humans, in theory, can eat everything Pokémon eat, it just might not taste good, he therefore learned what he could and could not eat in the forest. Over time he also acquired quite a few useful things for his hut: a pot, a few empty glass bottles, a few glasses, fire stones, a washing line he put up between two trees, a few old, spare clothes to keep at the hut, an old but still warm sleeping bag and a saw. With what Professor Oak taught about Pokémon and sometimes survival, his fathers teachings and stories and the small booklet on survival with many pictures in it he found in his dads old bag he learned enough to be out here on his own for quite a while, at least in theory. Practically he went back home every evening, lest his mother starts to worry and forbids him to move about on his own again.
Exactly a year after his father left, not that he knew that it was exactly then, he finally decided he could read good enough to finally read his letter:
To my dear son Ash,
if you are reading this then you either found your Pokémon before your mother did or she decided to give it to you once she deemed you old enough (which, knowing her, would be when you are 100). I am really sorry that I had to leave but I just could not sit around at home any longer than I already did, working a desk job. I grew up going on adventures with my Pokémon and I spent over half my life doing so. Knowing you the way I do, I know that you will understand how I feel right now one day, at the latest after you started your own Pokémon journey. Please know, Ash, that I never intended to abandon you, I love you so much it hurts even thinking about leaving you now but I just have to. I originally only intended to leave on a small journey for about a month and take you and your new Pokémon with me but your mother forbade me from taking you, she still thinks of you as a toddler, not the growing bright child I know you are, and then told me to never come back. Even knowing I will not see you again for a very long time (I really hope it is only a long time and not never, once you are old enough to go on your own journey, even if it is after your come off age, I am sure we will meet again) I still can not stay. The longer I stay in one place, the more depressed I feel (ask your mother what that means if you do not know it) and therefore I can't stay longer. Please do not blame your mother for it, she only wants what is best for you and since she does not have many positive experiences with Pokémon, and there were quite a few times I was close to dying on my adventures which she knows about, too, it is only natural for her to be afraid for you and your safety. Not only afraid for what could happen to you on the journey I wanted to take you on, but also for what could happen to you if you start your own journey. I know you will one day, and deep down so does she, but she is still hoping that that without me and my Pokémon around you will forget about that dream someday.
If you want to blame anyone for me leaving, please place the blame onto the person it belongs to, which is me. Had I spent less time adventuring, or had I managed to hold out longer in the quiet life we had it would have turned out differently.
Before I have to leave I want to tell you a few things about your Eevee. You might have guessed it already, she (yes, your Eevee is a rare female one) is the child of my Eevee and when she hatched her dad let me know that he wanted her to be your partner. She knows the Shadow Ball attack which Eevees normally can't learn and she might be able to learn a few other attacks that aren't normal for her over the years. While she is quite young and untrained she is still strong enough to protect you but you will have to teach her quite a few things over the years.
Your mother is coming to our bedroom now so I have to finish this letter now. Please never forget that I love you
Your Daddy
After reading the letter, even though Ash still did not understand every word of it, he finally felt better about his father leaving. He still missed him, of course, but he could understand the feeling of being coped up inside for to long and slowly going crazy about it and what his dad wrote somehow sounded quite a lot like that. He also understood that his mother is not to blame, not really. Yes, she gave his father the choice but the person deciding was still his father. He still could not let go of his childish hatred of her back then, but he grew out of it pretty soon. By his 7 th birthday they had their old mother-son relationship back, it was even closer now but he still kept his hideout and his Eevee a secret from her. He never found new friends, Gary really being the only one his age around, for some reason there was a age gap of nearly 5 years between them and the next older children and they already had left on their journeys by the time they moved in. Still, whenever one of them came back home for a break they let Ash spend time with them. They talked with him about their journeys and Pokémon while he told stories of what happened in town, he just never grew close enough to them to call them friends because they were not around that often.
All in all his life in Pallet Town was not as bad as he had feared when he was told they would move but he still would give anything, okay, not his Eevee or his mother, but everything else, to have his old life with both his father and mother in his old house and with his old friends back. Now he was 10 years old, old enough to leave on his own journey. His mother had already grudgingly allowed him to leave after talking it over with Professor Oak for hours and him promising her to be careful, call often and be home for a visit after one year so she could see him. To this day no one knew about his Eevee, his hut or his survival skills. He always hid his knowledge during his lessons, at first out of fear the Professor would tell his mom and she made him be inside all day, then out of habit and because he did not want to explain it to anyone. He came out here, to the spot he sat the first day he was allowed out after moving here, to think about what he should do about his journey. Should he tell the Professor about Eevee and leave on a journey with just her, should he pick a starter and hide her until he got back, claiming he found her somewhere on the way or should he ask the Professor if he could pick a starter and still tell him about Eevee. The only thing he knew for sure was that he would never leave without Eevee. She was a gift from his father, his last gift from him, she was the daughter of his best Pokémon friend growing up and the only reason he did not call her his friend was that she was more to him, she was his sister. His mother would never understand that, she would treat her as a pet at best, a pest at worst, not as the clearly intelligent being she was. He could understand her, Pokémon had their own language. They did not speak like humans did, they communicated with sounds, tones, their whole bodies and Ash, having spent most of his time only around Eevee and the wilderness that was his forest, had learned to understand it. He was not sure if he could understand every Pokémon completely, he wasn't even sure if he could understand another Eevee like he could with his sister but with her, he could always tell exactly what she wanted to tell him.
Now it was getting dark already, he knew he had to get home. He promised his mom to spend the evening together and he had to repack everything for his journey tomorrow. His mom insisted that he would be fine with the small bag she packed him, he wanted to take his dads old bag instead. He knew it would hurt her if she saw him leaving with his dads bag instead of the one she gave him so he had stashed it at his hut and he would get it after leaving but he still had a few things at home he had to somehow squeeze into the small bag. He really did not think what his mom thought traveling on a Pokémon journey was like but he doubted that five changes of clothes and 20 pairs of underwear and socks were all he would need. Well, he had most of what he would take at his hut already, no need to worry about it at all. Once he had a bit of money and was in a bigger town or even a city he could even replace his old, worn out stuff that he fished out of the trash, found in the hut, the forest or at the beach or took from home with new things. He doubted his pot would hold much longer, and after years he was running out of gas cans for his lamp, even thought he used it sparingly and he had learned to navigate in the dark.
Suddenly he was startled out of his thoughts by the sounds of a door opening. He looked up and saw his mother waiting for him. “I was about to go look for you Ash, you promised you would be home this evening.”, she told him. He was just shaking his head. He was home, wasn't he? If she had wanted him home sooner then she would have told him so before he left. He always left in the morning and came back when it got dark after all. Only on weekends did he spend the morning at home with his mom. “I am home as you can see mom. I just was thinking about my journey and what I need for it. The clothes you packed me are nice, but do you think I could at least take something to wash them with and to hang them up to dry with me? And maybe a map?”.