A.N: Some harsh curse words are used in this chapter, alongside explicit songs. (Mf'er, the F bomb, etc.)
Songs in this chapter.1: Kill Yourself - $uicideBoy$ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZHdUpTKcFQ2: Void - Pouya - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnJqb10GiAY3: Country Grammar - Nelly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbeGeFM1Npc
In the recent past.
For all of the music this human Ethan had brought to life here in the world… he wasn’t very good at playing any of the instruments he and his pokemon had. He was much better at singing though! It wasn’t like she was an expert or anything when it came to the tools of the trade, having never played any of them personally herself, but she knew music. He and his pokemon were making the sounds, yet they were off in a way that spoke to little or no practice.
They’d just finished playing a song called I Miss You. It was a good song, simplistic, and that strange pokemon that lived within his technology was very good at breaking down the individual pieces for them to play and learn from. The cohesive song clearly wasn’t made by Ethan… but she knew that the song originated here, along with all the others he played while doing work around his large home.
That was a conundrum!
It’d been about two weeks since she arrived at the ranch aptly named Berry Falls. The berries did seem to fall often enough off the over one-hundred berry trees planted by Ethan. She’d done her best to keep herself hidden, but she did need to speak to one of the locals to learn more about the place she was debating on calling home.
This was where her new friend came in!
Chatot, the colorful bird pokemon that took to music like a karp to water! She lived on the top of his wooden house in a cozy nest. When she first introduced herself, she opened up the conversation with talks of music. That had been the right choice indeed! Chatot was like a sister!
Speaking of her friend, Chatot flew up onto the roof after their little jamming session. Meloetta dropped her stealth and walked over, catching Chatot’s startled jump at her appearance, causing her to smile.
“Hello, Melody! Did you see us play?” Chatot asked, fluttering closer to her and tilting her head inquisitively.
She nodded. “I did! I also noticed that you are all very new to playing music. I like your shaky things though!”
“M-hmm! Santa gave them to me!” Chatot looked around for her shaky things, but quickly realized that she’d left them down with Ethan. Peeking over the lip of the roof, they both watched as the man cleaned up the area and began collecting the instruments they’d all left out and about.
She, and therefore both of them, could feel his exasperation at cleaning up after all of the pokemon left him alone. Chatot sank her shoulders, obviously feeling bad for forgetting to help. “We—We should probably go help him.”
Meloetta thought about it. She truly did. Revealing herself to him would… either be a blessing or a curse. All of the other humans she’d interacted with immediately wanted to catch her. While she wasn’t opposed to a trainer—from what she knew it was actually a very good thing to have— finding one that she felt like she could spend the rest of her life with was… difficult. Ethan was filling a lot of her boxes, but she had many more questions left to be answered before she made her choice.
“I don’t want him to see me yet. Humans aren’t very nice to me. They always want to catch me.” Meloetta explained. She knew that Ethan was Chatot’s trainer. Chatot was even his very first pokemon! Although, Ethan’s Pachirisu begged to differ when the two argued semantics. The electric squirrel had once heard Chatot speaking to her and came to investigate…
She did feel bad about vanishing and leaving him thinking that Chatot was talking to herself…
“No, no! Ethan is the best human. He wouldn’t catch you unless you asked! He only caught one pokemon by force and that was to take it to Joyce’s people to heal. It was a big metal called Steelix.” Chatot nodded, obviously believing herself.
“I just need more time…” Meloetta waved off the praise of Ethan. She could make her own decisions. Chatot was biased, surely. “I wouldn’t want the other humans to see me either. Are the red and blue haired ones as nice as him?”
“Ehh.” Chatot shrugged. “They’re okay. They fight a lot, but friendly fighting. You know?”
She in fact, did not know. “Hmmmm.”
“Do… Do you want to listen to some music?” Chatot’s eyes glinted in a mischievous way as she lifted her wing, showing Ethan’s phone. “Ethan has songs he won’t let me listen to much. He said they have bad words.”
“Sure!” Meloetta jumped on the opportunity. She’d heard many songs already, but broadening her knowledge base would let her determine if all of these songs were the ones that originated from the ranch.
Chatot opened her wing, dropping the phone onto the roof then nudged it over with her taloned foot. Considering that Chatot didn’t have hands like her, she took the opportunity to mess with the phone. Her friend watched over her shoulder as she fiddled with the device, guiding her to the right spots to poke and prod. “The green circle with the claw marks. That’s where the music is.”
She poked the green circle, causing the screen to shift into a completely different mode! On the left side, many lists of words sprawled out. In the other spaces of the small screen, numerous pictures depicting album covers—something she knew of beforehand—waited to be selected. “Push the words on the left. There should be one that says ‘No Chatot’.” Chatot chattered excitedly.
Meloetta gave Chatot a flat look. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea afterall.
“Ooh! Play the first one. What is it called? Can you read?” Chatot jumped up and down, unwilling to wait.
She read the first song in the list and… “Why is there a song called Kill Yourself? And why is it part three…? What happened to part one and two? Why would there even be a need for a part one and two?! Chatot, I don’t know about this…”
Chatot poked the song with the tip of her beak, playing the song.
The beginning of the song was… haunting. The voice(?) that sang over the piano was distorted in such a way that it gave her chills.
♪ They figure me a dead motherfucker but I’m just a motherfucker that want to be dead— ♪
Meloetta nearly dropped the phone in her shock as the music hit her. This was a song that thoroughly disabused the notion of subtlety. The crushing feeling of depression hit her like a Hyper Beam to the chest. This song, Kill Yourself, wasn’t for the faint of heart. It was catchy and flowed smoothly—the rhyming was actually a masterclass of storytelling in the form of poetry as well. It was just… obscenely dark. It was no wonder Ethan didn’t want Chatot to hear this.
♪ —Because when I am dead, I will be nothing decomposing in a grave. ♪
♪ I’m matter but I don’t matter. I can feel my skull shatter from the dull chatter—brain splattered on the wall. Gray stains won’t dissolve. Gonna have to paint it all. ♪
She hit the pause button and took a moment to collect herself. The song was… unpleasant, but it was also something someone made to express themselves in the ultimate medium of emotion. It would be disrespectful to disregard the song solely because of what it conveyed. This was a good song, just unpleasant to hear raw.
This was also a song that came to be at the ranch… and she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Ethan had this song and liked it enough to keep it. She was unsure how to feel about that.
“Next! Next song! I liked the rhymes of that one! Maybe the others will be just as good!” Chatot wasn’t put off by the words at all, but she knew that her friend couldn’t feel the weight of the emotion like she herself did with music. That might be to her benefit, at this time.
The next song was called Void. It wasn’t as emotionally devastating as the last, but… She could see why Ethan didn’t want Chatot to listen to it. It was… raunchy. It was catchy though! Poetry and structured rhymes in musical form was a very interesting application of lyrical pursuits.
The third song in the list was a song called Country Grammar.
“Turn it up! Turn it up!” Chatot insisted, head tilted to shove her ear-hole into the speaker.
Before she listened to the request, Meloetta peaked over the edge of the roof. Ethan wasn’t around. With a slide of her hand, she turned the song up.
♪ I’m goin’ down, down baby, yo’ street in a Range Rover ♪
This song wasn’t nearly as bad as the other two. It was very clearly a shout out to the place called St. Louis. She’d never heard of it, but the song did have some vulgar words people used when they were often angry.
About a minute into the song, the harsh clang of a metal ladder slamming the side of the roof caused them to jerk in surprise. Meloetta dropped the phone and faded from view as heavy footsteps hurried up the ladder. She could feel Ethan’s panic and disappointment as he climbed, without even seeing to know it was him.
How did he sneak up on them?
Ethan clambered up onto the roof with a haste unwarranted for the song in question. The other two were worse, in her opinion. He shuffled over, scrambling for the phone.
♪ Fuck bionic it’s ironic, slammin’--- ♪
He paused the song, released a shaky breath filled with relief, then instantly swung to Chatot with a look that caused her colorful sister to wilt under the gaze. The man took a few seconds before he spoke. “You knew what you were doing.” He stated.
Chatot, capable of speaking the human language, answered back meekly. “Yes, Ethan…”
“You knew that you were not allowed to listen to these songs and you did it anyway?” He asked, much too calmly. His emotions were a deluge of anger, disappointment, and betrayal. A devastating combination to feel. She herself wilted a bit, having been an accomplice in this… betrayal.
Chatot didn’t answer back. She shifted uncomfortably under his harsh glare. Seeing as she wasn’t going to answer, Ethan turned around and situated himself on the ladder to go back down to the ground. He looked over Chatot as he began to lower himself, then shook his head. He put his elbows on the roof to steady himself, whipped out his phone, then tapped a bunch of times. “There,” he began. “Now all of those songs no longer exist. Now you won’t feel the need to steal and go behind my back. You lose your shoulder privileges for the next three days. I expected better from you, Chatot. I know you’re better than this.”
And that was true. They both felt that he believed what he said. That made the words hit harder than they normally would.
She also felt the love for Chatot radiating out of him, and his dislike of punishing her for this breach of trust. It was then that Meloetta realized that he didn’t see her as just a pokemon. Ethan saw Chatot was a member of his family—and vice versa, if Chatot’s teary eyes had anything to say about it.
It was then that she vowed to learn more about Ethan instead of the music of this place.