"Arco 'n Weed~, that's where I'll be~," I idly sung as my sunset orange sedan rolled up to the gas pump. I shifted gears into first and quickly killed the engine, stepping out to greet the winter air nipping at my ass and Pilot gas station sign. The realization that I was not at Arco briefly crossed my mind, giving the slightest pause, but it was quickly replaced by the all-consuming desire of refueling my car.

I had time to take a look at my surroundings as I did the monotonous task. It left me quite a bit of time to think about everything. I had some time to reflect on my past actions as the tank fueled up. I sure as shit wasn't happy with the current state of things. I mean seriously, did I think that leaving my parents to find some meaning in my life was a good idea? Given that I was at this point over two thousand miles from the family compound, and in a state that I grew up despising no less, apparently I did. Part of me already knew that the true nature of this sabbatical wasn't to find myself, but to let myself disappear.

I looked over my shoulder to see the ticking number that was the price, and was immediately reminded of one of the many reasons why I hated this state so much. 40 bucks for 9 gallons and rising. I let out a groan mixed with a defeated chuckle. I am not financially recovering from visiting California again.

Well, if I'm going to ruin myself and force me into an early freelance remote job again, I might as well go have some good food. There was a great Asian-American barbeque joint up the road northward. I tried to recall what Asian-type it was, and I eventually figured it was Korean. I wasn't really interested in Korean, but the food's good enough to not just warrant eating it even when I'm not in the mood, but also good enough to justify spending 25 bucks for one person.

It wouldn't take long for the fueling to wrap up and to get there. Weed wasn't exactly a large village, despite all of the modern amenities that other villages would've been missing. The little joint turned out to be a Thai restaurant, not Korean as I was expecting. This did very little to sway my want for it however. Thai was spicier, and I knew I handled spice about as well as the average Japanese person did. None the less, I didn't let it stop me from ordering something, so I picked something that I had hoped wasn't particularly spicy. The pork belly I had ordered was very tender, and delicious with the caveat of being significantly more spicy than I was expecting. My eyes betrayed me-or perhaps it was the glasses-as they seemed larger than my stomach.

I picked at my food, but eventually started endlessly scrolling the news on my little smart phone, the first time I had in a couple days. It was cathartic to finally let go, and devastating to have relapsed so early into my attempt to detox. The endless headlines reporting transformed pets and humans into Pokemon made me scoff. I questioned if I was really that stupid looking, and was missing a massive joke, but the big names like BBC and NPR covering made me reconsider that stance. I didn't find them particularly trustworthy, but also what the fuck could they gain by convincing people of this? A lawsuit from Nintendo, that's what. I just knew that I missed the banter on 4chan over such bizarre news events.

Doing some reading, I discovered that pretty much no one knows what the hell's happening. It seemed to started happening 4 days ago-around the same time I had just stopped paying attention to the news outright to try to get away from the constant politics and the incessant attempts to incite violence on others. As it stood, various governments were taking different actions. Some, like some states in Eastern Europe, tried to pretend things were normal. China had a sudden and total media blackout-or at least, they stopped allowing internet traffic over the borders, preventing us from getting glimpses on what was going on inside. Japan viewed them as undesirable-and Nintendo had been blamed, resulting in a PR storm in Japan. Yet other countries, like San Marino, had already began panicking and predicting the total collapse of humanity.

The current US response seemed to be to treat it as an infectious disease for the time being, requesting avoidance of Pokemon when possible. People were already in an uproar over various government institutions apparently violating these guidelines that had only been in effect for less than 2 days. Unfortunately, that bit sounded about right no matter who was in power. Thankfully, the administration seemed adamant that there would not be a second shutdown if it could be remotely avoided, so I felt reasonably confident we weren't about to face down a second oncoming social and economic catastrophe from that.

With my soul thoroughly dismantled by my failure to resist, and left unsure of what to think about the situation, I packed up my food and left. I figured a selfish act of kindness would get my mind off things, so my plan was to just give this food to the first homeless guy I saw. It may be a village of just over 2,000 people, and the bitter cold made it impractical to be out for too long, but this was California. Surely there'd be some homeless around. As I made my way to the sunset orange car I had left in the parking lot, I heard a feminine voice which stopped me. I didn't quite catch what it said, but I whipped my head over to the direction of the voice-towards a snow covered brick wall.

"You," the voice cried out with a hint of exasperation. I looked down out of confusion, and saw what I had initially mistaken as some dirty snow in the parking lot had turned out to be what was very obviously an Alolan Vulpix, albeit covered in dirt and sticks. You know, it was one thing to see news articles. It was another to see images and video embedded. It's a whole different thing to see it in person-and arguably a bit cuter than I imagined, even with it being more brown than white! However, the longer I looked, the more the eyes seemed to stick out. Something was up with those eyes, and I just wasn't sure what-nor was I given a chance to figure it out.

"Japanese speak?" I barely caught the sentence, and took a moment to process things a bit further. She wasn't speaking English, she was speaking Japanese. My Japanese is shit and I haven't used it in almost a year since I left college. Fuck. Still, those twinkling eyes expected an answer I'd give them the honest one.

"Clumsily," I responded earnestly. The two syllables came out unnaturally and slowly, as if attempting to walk on one leg.

"Sufficient! I your smartphone use?" She talked much quicker than me, but I could make sense of it. Barely. I thought about the question for a second, though the expectant stare from her made the considerations short.

"Yes, phone use. Uhhh," my voice trailed off, trying to remember all of the vocabulary of Japanese. I was pretty sure phone number had a unique term, but I couldn't remember it, so I resorted to the next best thing and hoped it'd get across. "Phone number what?"

She rattled off a number without a prefix-though I gathered from how she spoke the number that it was a Japanese number, being that the area code was 47-3. It caught me off guard to hear maru for zero, and I promptly chastised myself internally for not expecting it. I'd slowly reiterate the phone number to make sure I didn't mix mistakes-including the +81 prefix.

"Yes, that is correct." I'd hum, and bend down, calling the number and leaving the phone on speaker phone, and resting it on the ground for her to speak into. The international call was going to suck in terms of my finances, but frankly, she probably needed it. She's in the middle of a forest village, speaking seemingly exclusively in Japanese, covered in mud, has found herself next to the best damn Thai barbeque place in this entire state, and currently has no opposable thumbs or clothes in sight. If anyone needed an international call, it was most likely her.

I left to the phone call, heading over to my vehicle so I had something to lean on. I did want to listen in on the exchange to satiate my curiosity, but the man she had me call spoke very quickly and she somehow spoke even quicker. I could barely catch a single word that the two were exchanging, though I could hear her voice slowly distort as she slid into distress, and I did keep hearing her call the other participant in the call "father." The phone call was over in what felt like 4 minutes, the Vulpix sitting down with a defeated expression. Oh dear...

I'd slowly approach, not sure what to really do other than nab my phone back. As I knelt down to get the phone, I switched which hand was holding my food, which reminded me, I had food I needed to give away. As I grabbed my phone, I tried to offer it. "My food want?"

"UNPLEASANT," came a snappy and fierce response. I was taken aback from getting one of the most aggressive invitation rejections possible in the "politer" end of Japanese language-especially delivered in that tone.

Despite the prompt refusal, her own body seemed to have its own demands, as I heard her stomach growl. Her ears pinned back, a frown stretching across her face. Knowing how much hunger sucked, I opened the leftovers and left it in front of her, before leaving. She didn't have to eat in front of me, especially since she seemed to not want to for her own reasons, and I could respect that.

By this point, the sun was beginning to set, and I didn't feel like night driving through a forest, especially not when I could hit a Blitzle or some shit on the road. I didn't think my car could survive something like that. I still had to do laundry though, and I could definitely take a shower. I wasn't sure what laundromats were around, but I was certain I knew where I could get a shower. I pulled out my phone, checking the Pilot app to confirm my suspicions. Just as I suspected, they had 7 showers. It'd be a small bit of backtracking, but it'd be perfect for what I need.

As I prepared to leave, I was interrupted by a loud yowl. My head snapped towards the direction-to the Vulpix, and my food on the ground. ... Oh my god, I just gave a Japanese person something that I could barely stomach! FUCKING-OOPS! The door came open quicker than I could blink my eye, as I stumbled out of the vehicle.

"I have no excuse," I repeated multiple times, bowing at a steep 90 degree angle, nearly throwing myself off balance while doing so. Was I overdoing? Yes, absolutely, and the thought immediately crossed my mind. My doubts were further intensified once I managed to catch a glimpse of the confused vixen in front of me-but a larger part of me just didn't care. The tears that were running down their face were motivation enough for that part. "Not spicy buy!"

Stifling a sniffle, she managed to say "I accept." I turned to leave, and she managed to stop me. "I too together go." I stopped for a moment, concerned.

As much as I kind of wished to indulge in the power of a Pokemon, I didn't want to lose my thumbs let alone my hands-which was a serious concern given the CDC's warnings. However, those pleading eyes, and the dazzling streams down her muzzle forced my heart into gridlock, and I had only one choice but to accept. "I... accept. Uh, car at ride do." This Japanese was throwing me for a loop. Having to convert my thoughts into subject-object-verb and then finding the words was seriously wrecking how fast I could speak, but I couldn't deny it was good practice. I desperately needed it.

I'd open the passenger door for her-and noted how not only did she keep stumbling over her own legs, but also how she failed to make the jump properly the first time and ate the floor board instead. I didn't say or do anything other than look away, to try to let her save face. Her angered huff was a little funny though. I thought about telling her to sit in the floor space between the seats for added safety, but frankly, I was struggling enough with Japanese. Saying that I wanted her centered between two seats that I barely had the means to describe would've been incredibly frustrating. Not to mention, it'd mean moving my blankets and pillow that were crammed behind the passenger seat. I wouldn't call it hard, but the entire experience of doing that just outweighed the motivation I could come up with.

Despite my lack of motivation to either of our safeties, I tried to give her a seatbelt as best as I could, but she eyed my hands with suspicion and I couldn't figure out the logistics of putting a seatbelt on her anyways, so after testing a couple of positions in my mind without actually buckling her in, I just said "caution for me, please" and left it at that.

The drive could've been uneventful, and almost was, but as we were pulling into the Pilot station, she suddenly shouted. I almost swerved into a fuel truck, instinctually avoiding a threat that wasn't there. GEE-ZUZ.

"That is for what!?"

"Mytonguewithmyselfclean!" It took me a few moments to catch up what she was trying to say. She was trying to clean herself with her tongue. I looked at her, and decided yeah, that was probably a reasonable reaction when she's that dirty. It took a few more moments before I remembered she was human at one point. It begged the question, how long had she been like this, and why was she all the way out here? I couldn't think of any reason a Japanese person would be out here, except if there was family, which wouldn't make sense given the phone number provided.

Instead of getting answers, I just said "I see," and left it at that. Those were questions I'd get tomorrow, if she was still around by then. However, given the distress, I had an idea. "Shower you?"

"Unpleasant!" She seemed to like politely telling me to fuck off with my ideas to assist her-which, I could see why. A complete stranger man offering to bathe a recently turned Japanese woman in a truck stop shower? I didn't exactly think the implications of that through.

"Sorry." With my half-hearted, dejected apology, I unbuckled and seatbelt and took a step out.

"Wait!" I turned to face her, and saw her attempt to steel herself. "Uh," she trailed, much too long to be comfortable. Finally, she rendered the verdict. "I accept."

That complicated matters for me. I could waltz in with her in tow, and just pretend she's a dirty plushie I wanted to rinse, but that probably wouldn't be very convincing. I kept it on the table as I tried to consider other options. While annoying that she kept playing games with me, I couldn't leave anyone in trouble if I could help it-and though I loathed to admit it, part of me did appreciate that I had something resembling one of my favorite Pokemon around. My mind began to wander off about how soft a Vulpix and a Ninetales would be, which was just yet more motivation to give her a rinse, but I needed a better plan than this.

I remembered that I had a small-ish backpack shoved in my trunk. I didn't know if it was big enough, but I was willing to give it a shot. I mean, it carried 30 pounds of shit in France and Spain, maybe it'd be big enough to carry a Vulpix. With this plan in mind, I popped the trunk, and headed to collect the bag. While I was there, I also grabbed a pair of swim shorts, so I would be able to give her a shower without having my junk in her face. I'm sure she'd appreciate the thought. I also grabbed some body wash, for myself. I wasn't sure it was safe for animals, and I didn't plan to test it on

I presented the bag to her, which resulted in a glare. "Unple-" she started, but ended it quickly with a growl. Though I was fully prepared to defend her getting into the bag like she was a Cosmog fugitive, she seemed to thankfully understand why I had a bag and was offering to her. She entered the bag backwards, barely fitting her bundle of tails and grumbling some gibberish I couldn't even understand.

I picked up the bag and put it on, immediately being reminded of just why I hated my trip to France and Spain so much. "God, fucking... why does it have to be so heavy?"

I marched into the Pilot, our combined grumblings being a quiet chorus in the near-empty store. My first task was to check on the hot dogs, which unfortunately turned out to be sold out. I sighed, and approached the counter. There was a young woman with piercings at the counter, chewing gum and looking disinterested.

"Excuse me, do you happen to have more hot dogs?" She snapped to attention at my question, standing up straight and robotically. The noises from my bag stopped.

"Yeah. Did we run out on the cooker?"

"Yes, you have."

"Oh, okay, I'll put some more on the heater, and they'll be ready in 15."

"Thank you so much miss."

I made my way over to the sign-in kiosk, and quickly reserved a shower with robotic efficiency. I liked to come in first and look around the store if a shower wasn't immediately available, which was why I never did it on my phone, but shower #6 was readily available today, and I made my way to the shower as swiftly as I could. The sooner I got this weight off my shoulders, the better.

Once I was in, that bag came hurtling to the floor-though I made sure that it would land softly. She leapt out the bag, casting me an accusatory glare with pent up frustration behind those eyes. I could only offer her a shrug. The actual room itself was split in two. One partition had the shower, and the other had a toilet and a sink. I wasn't quite sure why the room was made like this, but it'd give me privacy while I changed.

"Shower wait, you," I told her, motioning towards the shower.

"I will," her curt response came.

With that sorted out, I stripped. I had a routine that I stuck to whenever I did. Shoes, socks, deal with my shirt, the glasses will get caught on the shirt and then get uncomfortably propped on my head and get removed afterwards, then pants and underwear. My ugly body laid before me, and I stared down for a moment, frowning. I should lose a little weight. I wasn't super overweight or anything, but touching the upper end of healthy BMI still gives you a gut that I am not a fan of. As I reached for the swim shorts I had placed on the seat, I paused. I had this uncomfortable feeling that lured my eyes to the separating wall of the shower. However, there was nothing there, no matter how long I looked, so I just went about putting on my swim shorts.

With my teal swim shorts on, I walked right into the shower partition. She was waiting, sitting nearly against the wall, and very close to the exit. I'd get the shower rolling to rinse her off. I didn't have pet-friendly shampoo and the Pilot station only gave bar soap, which was woefully inadequate for actually giving her a proper bath. I reasoned with the majority of the dirt gone, she should be fine, and that this was totally not me half-assing it. The shower was set to as cold as it could be-being an ice type, I figured she'd appreciate that.

"Temperature how about?" I offered some of the water in front of her, rather than directly spraying her.

She would put her paw in the stream, and sat there for a moment, before nodding. "Yes, temperature is good."

With that confirmation, I got to work. I realized this was the first time I really had a moment to take the sight of her in-even if my face had to be 6 inches away to really see anything. Her eyes were closed now, so I couldn't quite catch what was up with them yet, so I let myself think of other things. Did I even know her name? I tried to recall it, but if she had told me, it fell victim to my shitty short term memory. I came to realize I didn't introduce myself either, which probably didn't help matters any. I found it weird we hadn't exchanged names or anything yet, so I as I began to wash off the dirt from her torso, I formulated an introduction.

"Nice to meet you," I spoke. It took me a moment to find my words, but I made to sure to focus on not having a drawn out filled pauses. She didn't need to hear them right now. "My name is Valentine von Matthaus." A pause. I had to construct the sentence in my head. "My age is 22. My occupation is unemployment." Good, I managed that second one without thinking. "I beg of you to treat me favorably."

She'd turn to look at me, though I couldn't tell what her expression was. My eyes were more directed at the impressive amounts of brown sloughing off of her, and my vision was too blurry to see anything clearly without shoving my face in her face. From here, her eyes weren't even really eyes that I could see, they were blended in with the rest of her fur, so all I saw was a featureless blob for a face. I began to worry that I had fucked something up. Finally, after a pregnant pause, she'd say something. "Japanese very good."

Great. I got the sarcastic seal clapping response. I knew it was bad but it still stung about as much as one could expect. I almost opened my mouth to fight back, but I held it in. It wouldn't have done anything but antagonize her and bruise my ego further. Looking for something to distract myself, I noticed how some of the dirt was stubbornly clinging on where I was washing. I touched the spot, trying to scrub out the dirt. I was immediately shocked by how cold the sensation was. The backpack had done a good job insulating me from her.

"No good. No good! NO GOOD!" She was very adamant that I do not touch her. However, the dirt wasn't coming out no matter how close I brought the shower head. It was a necessity to get it all out.

"I must do it," I tried to retort, mustering all of the finality I could in my voice.

"NO GOOD," she shouted back at me.

I knew she was going to complain later about the dirt, but I didn't exactly have a choice. I didn't want to learn whether or not she could freeze my ass, and I could already feel the contact point numbing my hand. I removed it and just did what I could with the shower nozzle, which was quite a lot, but she still an off-white color. I'd curtly apologize as I moved onto her head. Despite her pouting, she did nothing to stop me, even letting me rinse off her face without so much as a verbal complaint. I couldn't shake something was off about the color still, though I could not figure out why the color wasn't the snow white I was imagining. I guessed it was just the lighting of the room, but that explanation just did not feel right.

After a few minutes, her head was washed as thoroughly as I could manage. I moved onto the tails, even though the legs were still incredibly dirty. I figured I'd just get everything above them done first, so that any dirt that I washed off had a chance to make it to the legs before I washed those off.

"Nice to meet you," she spoke after clearing her throat. I paused for just the briefest of moments, before continuing the task at hand. "My name is Tae Matsui. My age too is 22." I waited for the end, but Matsui didn't bother ending it with any pleasantries. I wasn't really sure what that meant, to be honest, but I could imagine it as some sort of insult.

"Miss Matsui, hm?" I practiced the name a couple of times. "Your name is nice." Our conversation was left at that. I wanted to say more, to ask her why she was here and who she called, but she clearly didn't want to speak anymore, and I could and would respect that.

As I cleaned her tails, I noticed a couple of things. What I took note of initially was her tails being colder than the rest of her body. Some of the water was freezing into slush before it fell off, which was both frankly impressive, and a little terrifying. I really didn't want to be touching something that was freezing water in less than 8 seconds, even if said water was already cold enough to cause hypothermia before touching her.

The other was the sheen. Her tails seemed to be the most reflective part of her body, which created a dazzling display underneath the running water and mushy ice. Even when there wasn't running water over it, tiny flecks of frost sparkled a dim purple in the light. Purple... That color threw me off. I didn't dare to ask, but I could've sworn purple was the color of a shiny Vulpix. I wanted to look that up later to confirm for myself. I could feel myself get a little excited, but I reigned that feeling in before it could bloom. This wasn't a game, this was a Japanese woman who was desperately struggling to keep her dignity while being bathed by a complete stranger because she could no longer bathe herself without being reminded of her lack of a human body. This was nothing like going out into the deep snow and finding a cute lil' thing to bring home after an honorable battle, or whatever the fuck you wanted to classify a wild Pokemon encounter was.

The more I thought about it, the more glaringly awkward the situation became to me. I tried to focus on the task, but there wasn't much else to really think about, especially since Matsui wouldn't let me touch her to really get that really stubborn dirt out-if it was even dirt. It could've just been her shiny coloration messing with me.

It would take an extended period of awkward silence where nothing really happened before I could finally deem her clean. She opened her mouth to protest me cleaning her hind quarters and undersides, but no words were exchanged and she huffed once she made sure that I wasn't doing anything weird. Finally, once I got to a point where I was happy that she was clean, I'd turn the shower off.

"Outside, do wait please."

Matsui glanced at my face, before nodding and turning away and exiting from the shower. I asked myself what the hell I was really doing with my life anymore, before turning the shower back on-and much to my audible dismay, being blasted with water that I had somehow forgotten was as cold as the shower could go. Once the water warmed up to Miami temperatures and my balls left witness protection, I finally stripped off my swim shorts, and lathered up my hair in 5-in-1 body wash.

I let my thoughts roam for a while as I cleaned myself up, my eyes closed to prevent the water from getting to them. The subjects roamed between weird fantasies about creating bizarre wunderwaffes in WW1 and the interwar periods, to my future travel plans, to what I would've done 10 years ago during a particularly heated online argument about the definition of social justice, and unfortunately, even into the lewd territory. I tried to keep those thoughts out of my mind, but they were unfortunately here, and weren't leaving any time soon. As I thought about attending to my lust, I got the startlingly uncomfortable sensation, as if I was being watched. I turned quickly to the entryway, and wiped the water from my eyes so I could open them, however there was nothing in the opening. I frowned, before returning to my wash, though the uneasy feeling never really left, and I couldn't find myself really dealing with something so vulnerable with an audience, imagined or otherwise.

I finished up my shower some time later, reveling in the heat after being blasted by the cold all day. Fucking California ruined my cold acclimation and I'll never get it back. Yet another reason to hate this god awful shithole. In reality, I probably lost it because I got older, but that didn't matter much to me. If it were to ever be possible to fight the geopolitical concept of California in a physical brawl, I'd gladly kick its ass. I slipped on my sopping wet swim trunks and waltzed my way past my bag to grab my clothes and a towel. While I was outside of the shower, I noticed that Matsui had already entered the bag again. I couldn't quite tell-my glasses were foggy and I didn't really bother to bend down to check on her-but I assumed she was taking a nap or something.

Once I was dry, my clothes were on, and my glasses planted firmly on the top of my head, I would exit the shower and grab my bag. Matsui grumbled as she did so, but she'd just have to tolerate being tussled 'round for a bit longer. I'd make sure to minimize the movement of the bag the best I could, but there was only so much I could do.

Exiting the shower room, I made a beeline straight for the hotdogs. It was the only thing really worth buying at the moment-some food for both me and her. I'd grown hungry after the pitiful amount of food I actually ate at the barbeque place. It didn't take long to grab two. I didn't know if condiments added to the price, nor did I really care. I just needed something. I must've took a while in the shower, because when I approached counter, there was a completely different person behind the counter.

"Hey, just these two plain hotdogs."

"Certainly," he said. The cashier rung the hot dogs up slowly, blinking a few times.

"Bad sleep?"

"Was it that obvious?

"Yeaah."

"Hah, oh well. Your total will be 10-70."

I'd use my Visa card to pay. As much as I loathed the whole process, contactless pay sure as shit was easier and more secure than just swiping my card. A shame it didn't really have the same tactile feed back, but I suppose I could live without it, just this once.

"Thank you, have a nice night," the cashier cheerfully remarked.

"No, thank you. You made it."

I turned for the door, making a swift exit to avoid the ramifications of my statement. As soon as I got to my car, I practically tossed the bag into the passenger seat-and immediately regretted it upon hearing the yelp.

"You," Matsui seethed from the bag, right before popping her head out. The glare was enough to send cold daggers into my heart.

"Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" I swiftly offered the hotdog to Matsui. I couldn't really tell if she had her eyes fixed on me as she moved slightly to sniff the food.

"I accept," were her words as she attempted to take the dog out of the container, while I was still holding it. Her eyes had softened slightly, though they still held a righteous fury freezing behind them. I wasn't really enthused by the prospects of having to clean cloth seats later of whatever hotdog brine that escapes her, but I also wasn't about to bring up these concerns to her. She could have her hotdog in peace.

I sat the container down on her seat, and let her have at it, while I scarfed down my own dog. It was a bit saltier than I'd want, but it was sustenance. I'd rather this than starve. I finished my hotdog far before Matsui did. I looked over to see her struggle on just how to approach eating the wiener. She was trying out different styles of picking it up with her paws and then trying to figure out how to eat it without biting them. It was a spectacle I could certainly watch for half an hour.

Could didn't mean I would though, and soon enough, I was on my phone. I had something to sort out: Where to stay overnight. As luck would have it, there was public rest areas 7 miles north of Weed. I knew that much. However, I wasn't really sure what to do about Matsui. I figured she had a family to return to, but something tells me that earlier phone call didn't exactly go well.

Exploring if she could go home and wanted to, flights would be the easiest way to get to Japan, though the logistics of that were iffy. She probably wouldn't be allowed an airplane any time soon, and I doubted she had her documents. Sailing was another option, but I don't have any experience with boats. Also, I did not know where the hell I was going to find a boat for such a trip. I didn't even know how long of a trip that would be, so I had zero clues on how much in supplies I should pack. The logistics weren't very practical of either of the ideas, though perhaps there was an option I simply was missing.

Her staying with me was easy. I'd just have to do my freelance programming commissions more often so I could feed two mouths. But that did leave me wondering where I'd go. I had been aimlessly wandering the continental US for the last year and a half, and I didn't really resolve anything inside of me. I had long since resigned myself to rot away and be of little importance, but Matsui was very unlikely to enjoy sharing that fate. Still, I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do with my life. Everything I was ever good at, I was only vaguely mediocre at best. No matter how hard you shone that spot light on me, it was simply impossible for me to dazzle. It's why I ended up here, on this journey so that I could fade away with no chance of anyone trying to remember me beyond my immediate family.

After a period of deliberation, I realized there was a third option that I had cast away; that being that she could be dropped off somewhere and I could return to my lonely life. She'd probably have her best chances somewhere where there were a lot of Japanese speakers. Around here, that meant colleges with Japanese language programs. Those weren't terribly hard to find, and I could even drop them off at my old college and meet my old professor. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much I just didn't like the idea. Matsui might not have known me for very long, but I had already grown attached to the idea of having companionship on the ride, and someone who couldn't talk to me wasn't going to fill that hole.

Argh, why did things have to be so difficult!?

I'd need more time to sort things out, and to talk to Matsui. I needed to figure out what her own plans were, and why she was here. I started the car, and rolled away from the parking lot. It only took me about 8 minutes to get to the rest area. Matsui had more or less finished her hotdog along the way, and curled up without me even noticing. 8 minutes was quite a bit of time for events to happen, it seemed.

After I parked, I started at Matsui for a bit. It was surreal, to put it mildly. If I forgot about the fact she was human, she was adorable and very huggable. I mean, it's not like being a human didn't stop me from wanting to hug her, but it gave me a reason not to completely violate their personal space. My mind wandered to how she'd look like as a Ninetales. Would she look as cute as she did already? Eventually, I forced those thoughts die out. I had to keep reminding myself that she wasn't just some wild Pokémon when she couldn't correct me. She was Tae Matsui, not my pet and certainly not someone who's going to let me hug them.

I went to check 4chan, only to discover that the outage that had kept me from checking it for the last few days was still out. It'd been out for 4 days by this point, which was bizarre for a traffic crash. Hiroyuki must've done some downgrading of the servers, not expecting to be broadsided by the entire world wanting to be on 4chan or some shit. I wondered about world2ch and 403chan's reactions to the news, but kind of already knew that 403chan was like 6 idiots on their own board and so they wouldn't have said much. world2ch was more active, but I couldn't muster up the will to go check. I'd just check them later, though who knew when "later" was. Certainly not me. I found it a crying shame that 3chan was gone, because they definitely would've had some funny ass banter which would've been amusing to read.

I had to settle on scrolling news once more. I didn't really have social media outside of Youtube and the various boards I was apart of, and I had successfully butchered the shit out of Youtube to avoid the algorithm, so news became my doom scrolling. There were so many stories. Incidents like a Tinkaton being pulled over, or a Dragonite being seen terrorizing a town somewhere east of here. There was also Buzzfeed, weirdly lusting over one Lucario that looked exactly like how a Lucario should look. I could've sworn they were bought out and shut down, so why and how the hell were they still operating?

Looking into the international side of things, I found numerous articles trying to discuss the whole situation. Italy apparently had the most transformations of any European state, even outpacing most global states. Maybe we oughta look at the Tiber river, see if anything crashed there recently, especially anything glowing green. Morocco had the interesting headline of having absolutely zero known cases of transformations. Australia's cases of transformation seemed to most commonly affect their wildlife in the outback, with few human cases reported. Eventually, I got to Japan, and being able to vaguely read Japanese provided me a better insight than most would get. Most of it focused on the Nintendo PR blitz, as well as promises by the authorities to provide aid to the families who had lost loved ones in the situation.

One article stood out to me, ran by the NHK. This article, dated today, less than an hour ago, described an incident in Ichikawa, Chiba where a vaguely described Pokemon had freaked out while authorities tried to corral it, and teleported many of the occupants of an apartment kilometers away. Of the 38 victims, 33 had been found so far, with the majority of them being within the city, some were discovered outside of the city, fewer outside the province, and the furthest one so far being found in South Korea. A couple of these victims had seemingly transformed into Pokemon after the incident, though authorities were left unsure if there truly was a connection, or if it was simply a coincidence. They offered some names of the still missing too. Tsuyoni Imai, Mio Matsumura, I snorted at the name Gregory Edgesworth being in the list, and...

Tae Matsui.

My stomach dropped as I read her name. She had been caught up in this freak teleportation accident, and ended up some 5,000 miles from her own family. My blood joined the awful feeling of my stomach, turning to molten slag when I read the statement provided to the press by the family, claiming that it was unlikely she had survived. She called someone before this article came up, and Occam's razor dictates that it was most likely them. I thought that I had gotten unbelievably tolerant of bullshit after dealing with it for more than 10 years. State politics were a corrosive force that eroded part of my identity a long time ago from having to fight bullshit in Sacramento. I either was very, very wrong about my tolerance for bullshit, or I just found my new breaking point.

I looked over to Matsui again. I typically was very good at being able to put myself in other's shoes-or at least I let myself believe I was-but I couldn't even begin to fathom full weight the situation for her. It was hard to believe she wasn't crying the entire time, because I sure would've been crying for encountering less than half of the hardship she was going to face. Did she even understand the true nature of the situation herself? Whatever the case, I ended making a silent vow to see the best outcome that she could acquire happen.

I turned my phone off, putting it down. I couldn't charge it tonight, my engine was off, but I still plugged it in so I wouldn't get the chance to forget tomorrow. I'd lean back my seat back all the way, and look through the front window. The cloudy skies didn't give me much to focus on, but I just needed a moment of calm and quiet to decompress. God knew I needed it, even if I couldn't tell if I needed it myself in the moment.

I was informed that reading raw Japanese was going to be annoying. Looking back, yeah, not my smartest idea, I can absolutely see how that's obnoxious. For now I'm going to experiment with phrasing the Japanese dialogue in very barebones SOV to make it obvious it's in Japanese, and host a second version of this later which has the Japanese actually written. It's still good practice for me.

Honestly looking back, this plan was also very annoying, but I'm sticking to it for lack of a better option. I'm going to rewrite these untranslated lines in normal English once I have a nicer way to convey that it was spoken in Japanese. It needs to be less hamfisted. I'm taking suggestions if I ever do a chapter 2.

I think my paragraphs could use some work. They don't feel right but I can't quite tell why they're off. I think it may be because I didn't do a good job with each paragraph focusing on one subject.

Word count: 7,211
Edit: HOW DID I GET MY CAR COLOR INCONSISTENT!? I also went over and fixed some minor errors I noticed on a quick reading before bed. Please be as rough as possible when criticizing me! Pre-edit word count: 7,124