Looking back, these years explain more about how I became a trainer than any battle ever could.
When I was three, I learned something most people didn't expect from a child that age: being small didn't mean my thoughts were small. Adults assumed I noticed things by accident, like I stumbled into the right answer without knowing why.
That part always amused me.
I usually knew why.
I just didn't always know what to do with it yet.
That year, my father started letting me help in ways that didn't look like helping at all. An extra bowl placed in my hands. A door left open a little longer. A pause before he acted, long enough for him to glance at me and silently ask what I thought.
I liked that pause.
My mother noticed too. She never stopped it outright, but sometimes she watched me with an expression I didn't fully understand yet not fear, exactly, but concern that I might grow up without realizing it.
At three, I didn't think about that. I just felt useful.
That spring, a Chingling stayed with us for several days.
It had been found tangled in old string near the edge of the city and panicked the moment anyone reached toward it. Its chiming filled the room high, sharp, desperate.
"It doesn't believe you," I said, watching the way its eyes tracked my father's hands instead of his face.
My parents both looked at me.
My father didn't argue. He never did. He only asked, "Why?"
"It thinks hands mean grabbing," I replied. "It can't tell the difference yet."
After a moment, my father pulled his hands back and placed the wrap on the floor instead. He didn't move.
The Chingling's chiming slowed.
When it finally touched the wrap on its own, my mother let out a quiet breath, like she'd been holding it without noticing.
That worked—but what stayed with me wasn't pride. It was the realization that being right once made people expect you to be right again.
I didn't like that part.
A few days later, a Kricketot proved me wrong in the best way possible.
It chirped endlessly at night, and I assumed it was lonely. I stayed nearby, tried to comfort it, talked softly until my throat hurt.
It only got worse.
"Arin," my father said gently at last. "Step away."
The moment I did, the chirping stopped.
I stared at the floor, embarrassed. "It wanted quiet."
My father nodded. "You weren't wrong that it needed something. You were wrong about what."
I didn't argue. I just remembered it.
That lesson mattered more than the success with Chingling ever did.
As I grew older, Pokémon continued to come and go. Some were scared. Some were angry. Some were just tired. I wasn't always right, and I stopped trying to be. Instead, I focused on something simpler: knowing when to step forward, and when to stay out of the way.
By four, I didn't need to be told the rules anymore. I knew which rooms were safe, which weren't, and when my father was watching closely or deliberately wasn't. Dusknoir was always somewhere nearby, quiet and unmoving, a presence I took for granted.
My mother still worried, but less than before.
"Do you ever just want to play?" she asked me one evening.
I thought about it. Then I grinned. "I do. I just like this kind of playing too."
She sighed, then smiled despite herself. "Fine. But tomorrow, you're climbing that tree with me."
I agreed, already planning how far I could get before needing help.
By the end of that year, the forest no longer felt like a boundary. It felt closer. Not threatening. Not inviting either.
Just… there.
Waiting.