“Hey, little one.
Are you here by yourself?
Where are your parents?”
Naoki walked over and crouched down in front of her, bringing himself to eye level to seem less imposing.
The girl’s face was guarded.
She looked at him, pressed her lips together, and said nothing.
“It’s alright.
You don’t have to be scared.
I’m not a bad person.
I live right here.” Naoki kept his voice calm and pointed at the apartment building behind him.
“That’s my place.”
The girl followed his finger and looked up briefly.
Naoki pressed on.
“Did you get lost?
I can contact Officer Jenny and ask her to help find your parents.”
The girl still did not speak.
Her eyes, however, drifted to the bag of snacks hanging from Naoki’s hand.
He had bought them on his way to the Nurseries, intending to use them to warm up to whatever Pokémon he caught first.
“Are you hungry?” Naoki noticed where she was looking and felt a quiet resignation settle over him.
Fortunately the bag held things like bread and sweets, food that worked equally well for Pokémon and people.
He opened the bag and held it out to her.
The girl took the food with both hands and ate with the single-minded urgency of someone who had not had a meal in a very long time.
Poor kid, Naoki thought, watching her.
She must have been out here for hours.
She worked through two bread rolls and a bottle of Moomoo Milk before she stopped.
When she looked at him again, the wariness from before had softened considerably.
Naoki checked the time.
Ten past ten.
By any reasonable standard he should take her to the police station and hand her over to Officer Jenny.
Or at least find a phone and call it in.
The problem was that he had no idea where the police station was, being entirely new to this city, and he had no phone on him.
Worth noting as well was that smartphones had not yet been developed in this world.
Communication relied on the large visual telephone terminals housed in Pokémon Centers, exactly as they appeared in the anime.
“It’s late,” Naoki said.
“Do you want to come back with me tonight?
I’ll take you to find your parents first thing tomorrow morning.”
He heard himself say it and immediately felt the awkwardness of it.
That sounded exactly like something a suspicious stranger would say to lure a child somewhere.
“If you don’t say anything I’ll take it as a yes,” Naoki said carefully.
“If you agree, just follow behind me.”
He turned to go.
The girl hesitated for a moment, glanced once more at the bag of snacks in his hand, then quietly fell into step behind him.
Naoki couldn’t help a faint smile at that.
Quite the appetite on her.
“You know, you shouldn’t do this,” he said, walking.
“Didn’t your parents tell you not to take food from strangers or go anywhere with people you don’t know?”
The girl looked at him with an expression of complete blankness.
“Forget I said anything about me specifically,” he added.
“Just remember it for next time, alright?”
The girl tilted her head slightly, looking puzzled.
They reached the apartment soon after.
Naoki gave her the bedroom and took the sofa in the living room for himself.
It had been a relentless day from the moment he arrived in this world, and after washing up he was asleep almost before he finished lying down.
Before long, quiet snoring drifted through the living room.
A soft click came from the direction of the bedroom.
Then the bedroom door opened from the inside.
Pale moonlight fell through the window as a small figure slipped soundlessly out from the room.
It was a Pokémon, shaped like a young fox.
Its fur was a dark charcoal grey, and its pale blue eyes caught the moonlight and held a quiet, luminous glow.
It padded lightly onto the table, and in the silver light looked toward the figure sleeping on the sofa.
After a moment it jumped down, crossed to the sofa, and curled up against Naoki’s side.
It tucked itself small, closed its eyes, and was still.
The night passed without a word.
When Naoki opened his eyes the following morning, the girl from the night before was already awake and standing directly in front of the sofa, watching him with wide, patient eyes.
He blinked, then came back to himself.
“Morning.”
Naoki greeted the girl and got up, washing his face and talking to her at the same time.
“After breakfast I’ll take you to Officer Jenny.
Don’t worry.
She’ll have you back with your parents in no time.”
As expected, the girl said nothing.
The fridge had some basics left in it.
Naoki fried an egg, put two slices of bread through the toaster, and called it breakfast.
When they were done he still had a little time before work, so he took the girl downstairs with him.
He stopped a passerby to ask where the nearest police station was, then headed straight there.
It did not take long.
A building marked with a police emblem appeared ahead of him, and inside the front hall stood the familiar sharp-featured face of Officer Jenny.
The girl seemed to have never been anywhere like this before. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
She pressed close behind Naoki and would not budge from his shadow.
“It’s alright.
Officer Jenny will help you find your family,” Naoki said.
He turned to Officer Jenny and walked her through everything that had happened the previous night in as much detail as he could.
Officer Jenny listened, then gave him a crisp salute.
“Thank you very much, Mr.
Naoki.
We will do everything we can to find this child’s family.”
“I’ll leave her in your hands then.” Naoki felt the tension in his chest ease.
He looked briefly at the girl, said, “Right.
I’m off to work,” and turned to leave.
The girl watched his retreating back with something close to alarm on her face.
“It’s alright now, there’s nothing to worry about,” Officer Jenny said, and guided her toward the rest room.
She left a female officer to keep the girl company, then sat down at her desk to check whether anyone had filed a missing persons report recently.
She was still searching when a startled cry came from the direction of the rest room.
The female officer came running out a moment later.
“Officer Jenny, the girl is gone!”
“Gone?” Officer Jenny’s brow snapped together.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know!” The officer looked flustered.
“I just stepped out for a moment to get some water.
When I went back in she had vanished.”
Officer Jenny reacted quickly, pulling up the rest room security footage on her monitor.
Both women went still when they saw what was on screen.
A small Pokémon, slight and fox-like, stood in the middle of the rest room.
“That’s a…
Pokémon?” the female officer said slowly.
“A Zorua,” Officer Jenny said, and after a moment she smiled.
“I see.”
Zorua was a peculiar Pokémon.
It possessed the ability to take on the appearance of other creatures entirely.
By nature timid and cautious, some Zorua ventured into towns disguised as humans in search of food.
There was an old story passed around about them: Zorua was said to disguise itself as a silent child.
If a child who normally talked freely suddenly stopped speaking, people whispered, it meant a Zorua had taken their place.
“Should we just leave it, Officer Jenny?” the female officer asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” Officer Jenny glanced at the screen one more time.
“From the way it was behaving, it seems quite attached to Mr.
Naoki.
I expect it has already gone to find him.”