Talib, the Fraxure

It was one of those days. At night, with a rain that soaked me entirely. And yet, there I was, completely unnerved by the situation.

I was used to it, even if I really wished I wasn’t.

I sat in one of the small alleyways between buildings, leaning myself against a wall. Even if I was used to the rain, the constant tapping of the drops against my head was enough to not let me rest. I’d have to find cover sooner or later, but at that point, I was tired, so I stayed under the rain for a while more.

The alleyway was empty, thankfully, no other Pokémon around. There was a dumpster in front of me. Any other day, I would’ve taken the opportunity to scavenge and maybe find something useful. But not tonight, my psyche wasn’t doing too good, and I felt no energy nor motivation to do anything at all.

So I stood there, with my eyes half closed, a small part of me hoping that the exhaustion could finish the job.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

I turned my head to see a familiar Makuhita, approaching me and eventually sitting beside me.

“Hey, Zack.” My voice was a bit raspy, and the tiredness didn’t help much. It must have been obvious enough since he cringed a bit at hearing me.

“Bad day, huh? Something happened?”

“The usual, just me despising this lifestyle and being angry about it.”

Zack nodded understandingly. We were both in the same bullshit situation after all. No home, no jobs that would stoop low enough to hire two random guys from the streets, and of course, no money. It was already a miracle we were both alive, but we helped each other as much as we could.

“Are you cold?” Zack asked before pulling out a somewhat large piece of cloth. “The rain won’t make it that useful, but it’s better than nothing, I guess.”

He unfolded it and covered both of us with it, only our heads peeking through. I instinctively grabbed a hold of the cloth, hugging myself with it. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem, man.”

We stayed in silence for a while, my mind felt numb, a lot of thoughts going through it, and yet I couldn’t stop to pay attention to any of them. I was just tired, physically and mentally.

“So uh… do you need to talk, Talib? I know things haven’t been going that well, but… You seem to be spacing out even more than normal.”

I sighed, taking a moment to think about how I wanted to respond. “I probably need to talk, yes. But I’m not sure if I want to, it’s the thing.”

Zack frowned. “You know we’re together in this, right? I may not be able to do much, but I can listen.”

“I know… I just… I need time, I think.”

He didn’t respond back, he was either thinking about what to say, or gave up on trying. I really couldn’t bother figuring out which one it was.

The rain got the cloth soaked, as expected. I didn’t know the material, but it still kept me warmer than if I had nothing at all, so I wasn’t going to complain. Zack staying close to me also helped, body temperature and all of that stuff.

I kept staring at the rocky floor beneath me, seeing all the ripples from the raindrops that landed in the puddles. Sometimes, the view of Pokémon got reflected in them. Pokémon that crossed the entrance of the alleyway, glancing at us and frowning either from empathy or from distrust. Usually the latter.

Normally, those things wouldn’t get to me, I had been getting bad looks for years, it was something you had to learn to ignore if you wanted to survive here. And yet, tonight, every time I saw someone glance at us, the deeper I got into my own thoughts. And out of all of those thoughts, one kept resurfacing over and over, reminding me of its existence and slowly but surely making me go down a path I didn’t want to follow.

“Hey, Zack?” The Makuhita turned to me, his frown was enough proof for me, he knew there was something wrong.

“Yeah, Talib?”

I took a deep breath, I had been dealing with this for weeks, but now the sentiment was stronger than ever. “I… I don’t know if I’m making it out of this…”

“Woah, woah, hold on.” He responded, holding my claws. “What do you mean, man?”

“I mean that… I’m tired, Zack. I’m tired of worrying about where I’m going to sleep tonight, I’m tired of having to look into the trash for any piece of food I can find, I’m tired of… of the struggle that is living like this…”

“But we don’t have any other option, Talib. It’s either live like this and keep trying to change it, or not surviving.”

“That’s the point I’m trying to make… I’m starting to see the appeal of the other option more and more.”

His eyes went wide, but he didn’t say anything. He probably didn’t know what he could say to fix things, and in the fear of saying something that would hurt me more, he stayed silent.

But it was true. I didn’t see the point anymore. We had been like this for years, and while I tried to keep my hope, it wasn’t enough. There were never any changes, things only got worse and worse. Yes, I was surviving like this, but was it worth it? The only Pokémon that was there for me was Zack, and I knew from previous conversations that, even though he was trying to keep me hopeful, he was having trouble doing the same for himself.

Maybe that’s why he was keeping quiet, because he knew how I felt and knew that there was very little words could do at this point.

The sound of thunder was heard, echoing through the alleyway. With it, footsteps. A new figure entered the scene, one of the Pokémon that had walked past the alleyway before, one that glanced at us.

The Pangoro looked at us, with a somewhat saddened smile. They placed a box on the ground in front of us. “Figured I could help.” And just like that, they left again.

Zack and I looked at each other for a moment, before I went ahead and grabbed the box. It was wood, it seemed, probably so the rain couldn’t pass through it. I opened it, and saw something I didn’t expect. Food, a stack of six pastries that still had some steam coming out of them. That Pangoro made them for us.

It was… rare, to put it lightly, that anyone would help us. Even more rare when it was a day like today, where the rain threatened to give anyone who dared going under it a fever. And yet, someone did.

Zack smiled, looking at me. “It’s because of things like these that we keep going. We didn’t choose any of this, life just decided to fuck us over for no reason. But there are people out there that understand that, and that know we’re having a bad time. It’s those things that give us hope, you know? Seeing that we’re cared for. We had bad luck, but we shouldn’t cut ourselves off because of that. That’s how the two of us met, after all.”

I didn’t really get what Zack was trying to say. He was a good listener, but not that good of a speaker. But still, I smiled, the sentiment he was trying to convey stuck with me, at least.

“Talib, I know all of this is terrible. I know that we’re in pain and that we don’t deserve any of it. But it’s because of that that you should keep going, because you deserve better than this, and we’re not letting the damn universe treat us like this without fighting back.”

I snorted. Zack was always like this, trying to be serious and funny at the same time to cheer me up without ignoring what was going on. He was a good friend.

I grabbed one of the pastries and started eating it. I wasn’t expecting much, but it was delicious, a thin but crunchy crust filled with a jam made out of a mix of berries. For some others, it was probably a nice treat and that’s it. For us, it meant a lot more.

Once both of us had one of the pastries, we decided to save the others for tomorrow. It wasn’t the first time we had to skip on meals due to not finding anything, so having a buffer was a godsend.

“I guess we should look around and see where to sleep, because I doubt we can rest like this with the rain.”

“Actually, I have an idea.” I stood up and approached the dumper in front of us. It was fairly small, but I wasn’t planning on going inside. Instead, I pushed it out of the side, separating it against the wall. I opened the lid and let it rest against the building behind it. “There, we can use that as cover.”

“Dude…” Zack said. “After years of sleeping in the streets and we NEVER thought about this?!”

I laughed, it was a proper laugh, for once. As the both of us got under the lid, the lack of constant water landing on my head felt like an enormous pressure taken out of me. We’d have no problems sleeping here.

“Hey Talib?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m proud of you, bud. Don’t give up, I’m hopeful that we’ll get a chance at a new life soon.”

I smiled, thinking about it. “Yeah… I’m hopeful too.”

The both of us tried to sleep, but before that, one new thought appeared in my mind.

‘Maybe things will be okay after all.’