“Ah, yeah,” Red replied without thinking, more focused on the malcontent rodent in his arms. “It’s fine, it’ll calm down soon enough.” (If you spark, I’ll keep you in the ball for the rest of the day.) Thankfully for him, Pikachu sighed and let its body hang somewhat limply in Red’s arms, defeated and deflated, though its eyes were still focused distinctly on the stranger. Red wasn’t sure what to make of it; excitement, or agitation? Curiosity, or emergency? Pika’s body language was stranger than usual, and Red just couldn’t read it.
Red’s own mind, though, was definitely on the contraption strapped to the other (so it appeared) that glinted in the sun. In a failure of self-control, he said, “Oh, is that the new Pokéwalker?” though it seemed almost too clunky to be a fitness device, and he knew it. Then the thought struck him– (So that’s what it was.) “Maybe Pikachu was attracted by its electricity– sometimes Electric-types like to, ah, feed on the current from a device.”
(Though aren’t most devices Pokemon-safe?) The thought bothered him, but not enough to keep pressing. It would certainly consume his thoughts for the rest of the afternoon, until he forgot or something else occupied his curiosity, but the impulse telling him to (keep your mouth shut about that) finally hit his brain’s circuit.
↳ ❂ ↰ The weather warmed up too quickly for his taste; while he wasn’t required to wear his dressier clothes, it felt weird without them, so he settled for rolling the sleeves up because he didn’t want to spend every second in his running clothes. One day–one day!–he’d find (or develop) clothes that were both formal and breathable. He could probably make a lot of money from that idea. Either way, when he rolled up his sleeves, it revealed the limiter that otherwise would have remained hidden from nosy people. He hated when he got comments on it.
“No, it’s just a normal fitness tracker.” It looked enough like one to pass, and if anyone questioned further, he could always just add that his friend was an engineer and made it herself as a bit of a test. That usually worked. “Yeah, that’s probably it then.” The limiter ran on the energy from Kaeto’s body rather than on electricity; otherwise, he could just wait for the battery to die and deactivate it that way.
Maybe if he agreed with whatever the person said, he’d give up and leave. The teen already dealt with enough strange things, and he was not interested in whatever nonsense was being spewed out before him. If someone had decided to screw with his head by making him hallucinate all this, he wanted no part in it.
