Music in media: Beautiful Day by Rude-α

Everyone knows the significance of starter Pokémon. They are meant to be your first friend on turning ten, a symbol of your independence and your first responsibility (excluding yourself) which is often seen as a fun opportunity rather than a burden. You'll then embark on the most spectacular journey in your life.

Meeting Meta the Ditto at the age of seventeen, on the other hand, makes me a tour guide for my doppelgänger.

I really hope Rae's first Pokémon partner wouldn't be a Ditto, or she'll have a hard time deciphering if she received a blessing or a curse. When that happens, she might get a headache just from coming up with nicknames. Everything else that comes after will be smooth like butter. Meaning to say, she's going to have a meltdown no matter what. As her older brother, I must prevent that from occurring.

Being in the last year of Pokémon School hits different, though. To sum it up in one word: bittersweet. It's a portmanteau, which is cheating, but I've graduated long ago and it really shouldn't be the focus now. Truthfully, anything is better than seeing your cash pouring milk and honey into your doppelgänger's cup, complete with crushed strawberry sweets and Ganlon Berry bits. Not only that, he's got the legs of a dried Octillery jutting out of his mouth, the suction cups pale yellow like its skin, and an anko dango in his other hand.

"What's next, Aomine-kun?" As he speaks, morsels of dried Octillery drop onto the pavement. I'd appreciate it if he doesn't swing the dango stick around too. It's just skewered dumplings made from rice flour mixed with uruchi and glutinous rice flour. Maybe it's because of the azuki bean paste covering the white balls that leaves him tempted, or the plain fact that he's actually not seen this snack before.

"Slow down." I shove my hands into my pockets and shake my head. If not for Matsuba spreading the news about Meta, people would question my twin. Scratch that, they still would. He's donned in the kimono from before, as if it's Tsukimi or something like that. I only wear them on special occasions, and I guess it is a special occasion to someone who's not seen the world beyond the Ivory Tower.

The Octillery legs enter the vaccum of a mouth, immediately followed by the dango and his warm drink. "The buildings aren't what I expected. But food so good!"

I snicker and take him to the next stall which sells dorayaki pancakes. Business isn't booming compared to spring season, but who says you can't eat dorayaki in autumn? In our short walk, Meta sweeps his gaze across the city, awestruck by the gap between expectation and reality. He complains at length about the short buildings that go to a maximum height of merely three storeys, about their wooden architecture that give off a faint and foreign smell, about the ecru-coloured roofs, a dark greyish-yellow inferior to shiny ivory if the elegance exuded can be sidelined. His mouth runs on even as we reach the stall. Out of curiosity, he swipes at the teru teru bōzu hanging outside the window by a string. Then he mocks it for trying to mimick his expression, emphasising on how a small doll made of white cloth can never beat the original when it comes to facial features.

"This is dorayaki." I point at the golden-brown gong-shaped buns rising on a black pan. However, he's more interested in the tub of reddish-black substance with tiny aiyu jellies resembling the fallen vermilion leaves beneath our feet mixed into it. "That's sweet bean paste."

"Sweet bean paste?" Meta drums his fingers on his chin. "Aomine-kun likey-likey?"

After ordering two dorayakis, warm out of the pan, I turn to him. "I just thought you might like it. You seem to have a sweet tooth."

His hand flies to his mouth. "Sweet tooth..." I can't tell if he's patting or slapping himself, so I will go with the latter. He soon arrives at a satisfactory conclusion. "I don't have teeth."

"You want teeth?" I reveal my pearlie whites and sink them into the soft, fluffy dessert. Chewing with my mouth open isn't very respectful when you consider the prized etiquette everyone has to follow. I just have a feeling Meta would giggle at my antics.

He doesn't. With his blank face, he says, "How do you get teeth."

"Dentures might work for you." I restrain myself and get to thoroughly savouring my dorayaki. "How's it?"

"Cooling. Sweet. The jellies make it a little sour. I like how aromatic it is." The thin line on his face seems to curl up a little, or maybe it doesn't. "I famous here?"

I blink. We continue strolling about the city streets. "What makes you say that?"

Meta combs his hair sideways with his hands, his eyes glistening in the sunlight. What a handsome fella. Why do I need a doppelgänger to let me know how good-looking I am? That is, till he shivers and hugs himself, his hands sliding up and down from his shoulders to elbows, breaking me out of my trance. "Wherever we go, people wanna know. People gimme those weird looks. They know me. We patronise a place, they smile big at me. People too nice. People sus."

"And how does that translate to being famous?" We take a sharp turn and stop before a store with barrels and lavenders adorning its façade. It's plain and simple. Near the corners, bags of rice stack themselves in an attempt to look into the window, to see their comrades in the onsen of fermentation.

Meta nudges me and I follow his gaze to the eaves. He pouts and releases his grip on himself. "That doll here, there, nowhere, everywhere. Must I be whitewashed so I can famous? How could people tie me up and hang me uppu there? Y'all sus. Y'all hypocrites."

"Hypocrites?" I tilt my head a little and smile. "That's a teru teru bōzu, a rain doll. They help stop the rain and guarantee sunny tomorrows. It rained this morning and will rain this evening, so everyone's putting them up to hope tomorrow will be different."

"So no one's treating me like boss while blatantly wishing for die me?" He taps his mouth. "Aomine-kun, what happens to doll tomorrow?"

"You'll find out when tomorrow comes." I slide open the door, feeling the paper with my fingertips. "Come in."

In my peripheral vision, Meta reads the signboard aloud with a lilt. "Aoi Yoake."

I nod and backtrack a little. "Blue Dawn. It's a brewery."

As I close the door behind him, the rich scent of saké wafts into my nostrils. Meta earns the stares of all the workers in the deeper end of the brewery who simultaneously pretend to keep their confusion behind their towels. A few seconds later, they return to work on either the large elm basins or the grains of rice piled on top of a short and long table.

"Is this made of sweet bean too?" Meta browses a row of bottles shining a light amber on the shelf near the counter before proceeding to space out in front of another row that's transparent except for a cloudy bottom.

Light footfalls echo. "No, saké's made by fermenting rice. The ones you're looking at is what we call nigori. It's milky and sweet and has a creamy texture."

"Nigori." Meta digests the word as we whirl around to see a well-built man in a blue kimono with a white headband wrapped around a saucegao. Even Meta agrees in a whisper that his face looks more Galarian than Johtonese due to his clear-cut facial features.

"Meta, eh? I'm Asahi." The man grabs my doppelgänger's hand and squeezes it tightly. "Welcome to the Aomine fam."

Feeling Meta's intense gaze on my cheeks, I mumble an "Otousan." He gives me a look of surprise. Sure, sure, I get that I have a shouyugao thanks to my long, narrow eyes, straight nose, and small, thin face, but it doesn't deserve such a reaction.

"He's your father," Meta breathes.

"Ah, everyone says that, even my wife Himari." My father pauses, perhaps realising Meta's origins from hearsay. "Would you like a short tour?"

"Is that alright, Aomine-san?" Meta's eyes sparkle.

"Of course," my father says. "And it's Asahi for you."

We start off at a machine that has a roll dressed with emery and covered with a casing. Rice grains are milled between the roll and casing as the roll makes high revolutions about the axle. Meta can hardly take his eyes off it. My father clasps his hands and explains the workings of the emery roll machine to the attentive Pokémon, though it's hard to discern whether he's really listening. Not only does the machine allow for large mill capacity, but less pressure is also placed on the grains, making them less likely to break, even for the long grain variety. The emery, unlike in other regions, isn't fresh, but hardened by baking after dressing.

"Watch how gentle the milling is," he says and crouches beside Meta. "This prevents over-generation of heat which lowers water absorption to the end. And the rice kernels looking fine, eh? If any are cracked, good luck to fermentation." Then, he pats Meta's shoulder. "Shall we move on?"

"Chotto chotto, Asahi! What's the white thing there?"

"Keen eye, Meta. That powder on the rice is called nuka, which brings us to the next step: wash and soak."

Meta nods. Almost immediately, we are observing a Machoke stirring a thick, white liquid as a worker pours thoroughly-washed rice into the cylindrical, ceramic-lined tank.

"During polishing, the nuka removes themselves from the rice. We're strict about it. This can greatly affect the final quality of steamed rice." Otousan checks in on his workers before returning to run through the process with us.

Apparently, soaking rice requires precision. The more a rice has been polished, the faster it absorbs water and the shorter the soaking time. A stopwatch has to be used to ensure optimal performance, though the process may go on overnight too.

Thereafter, the rice is laid atop a koshiki, a steaming vat, where steam hikes up the air to the rice instead of the typical tossing of rice into water to boil for table rice. The resultant firmer consistency, together with a slightly harder exterior and softer centre, is a significant texture.

"Now, we'll divide them into two groups. Some rice will enter the fermentation vat, the rest will have koji mould sprinkled over once they are cooled."

Meta steps forward and checks out the dark, fine powder cultivated in small trays. Otousan then leads us into a room separated by a curtain. The moment we get inside, the moist air and increasing heat is enough to make Meta submit. He'd better not melt or it'll be a different kind of second-hand embarrassment.

"Over the next 36 to 45 hours, my friends here will constantly check, mix and re-arrange the developing koji." Otousan picks up a completed batch and hands a grain to Meta who puts it in his palm gingerly before sniffing. "Well?"

The grain appears to sport a slight frosting and gives off the faint smell of sweet Chesto Berries.

"Likey-likey," Meta mumbles and puts it back. "Why are the colours and smells different across the trays?"

"Each tray goes through seigiku—koji-making—at least four times. They should be different at different stages."

"Why your son so quiet?"

I frown. "What do you want me to say?"

"Something, anything. Don't be like yūrei. You skeleton me."

I slap my forehead. For a Normal-type Pokémon, he has no business to fear ghosts.

"Sorry for letting you down." I yawn and sidestep a pillar. "Look at the moto there."

"The black bin?" Meta rolls his eyes. "You will puke in there, Aomine-kun?"

"It's a shubo yeast starter, kind of a seed mash." The best defence is offence. One has to be tactical too, to know where to strike. In this case, Meta's curiosity provides a good opening. "Mix finished koji, plain steamed white rice, water and some pure yeast cells. In two weeks, up to a hundred million cells in a teaspoon."

"What's with the sentence fragments?" Meta hisses.

I quicken my pace to the larger tanks beside the moto. "Someone wants me to talk."

Otousan scratches his head and bursts into laughter. "What a harmonious friendship."

"Totally not!" Meta and I say in unison and cross our arms.

Otousan coughs and introduces the moromi to us. More rice, koji and water lurk inside in three successive stages over four days, roughly doubling the batch size each time. As the main mash, it's fermented over the next 18 to 32 days. Temperature, humidity and other factors are measured and adjusted accordingly to ensure a precise flavour profile.

The seventh step falls into place when everything's just right. A horde of Machoke put the moromi into canvas bags and squeeze the fresh saké out. One or two of them simply let the saké drip out instead. Here, unfermented solids and white lees known as kasu are pressed away. After this joso process, the bags are left alone so more solids could be let out.

Then comes filtration, or roka, in which a charcoal filter is used to adjust the colour and flavour of the saké. Afterwards, the saké is pasteurised once. Smoke billows as the saké flows through a pipe immersed in hot water for quick heating. This is where we bid farewell to pesky bacteria and enzymes, though a few batches are usually singled out of the process to become unpasteurised saké. This namazake maintains a particular freshness of flavour, and are stored in the refrigerator. Otousan is awfully ambivalent about it. Today, he presents this emotion as a scowl, though, just two days before, he was sighing.

At last, we reach the ageing stage, which takes about half a year, to round out the flavour. A second pasteurisation also takes place here.

"Of course, this is the basic explanation." Otousan winks. "We're done with the tour. Wanna grab some saké to go?"

"Meta is a Pokémon," I say.

Meta, however, seems offended by my words and demands a bottle of good saké. For some incomprehensible reason, my father plays along and brags about the drinking ability of the Machoke in the brewery.

"Humanoid Pokémon are just built different." I snatch the bottle and Otousan gives him another one. "This isn't right."

"Meta looks very human to me," my father says and opens the bottle for him.

Yeah, yeah. Arceus be damned if Meta doesn't look human. He even acts like one as he chucks the bottle down in seconds. Model human. Honestly, though, he has to wait for three more years till he's at the legal drinking age, if he really wants to replace me in this cold, cold world.

"I'm heading home," I say and swivel. "Sayonara, Otousan. Sayonara, Meta."

And I wonder who let who down.

They are too busy drinking and conversing with each other, and it so seems that Meta holds his liquor well. Maybe he has some experience back in the Ivory Tower. He might have stolen some wine from the guards or gotten away by treating them to laxatives shaped like vitamin pills.

Typically, the one who storms away is the one who loses. It doesn't matter here, because I'm not throwing a tantrum. I just have to rush home to watch the next episode of The Paper Magician. If I don't get back in time, I won't be able to find out what happened after that cliffhanger ending when the main character, August, becomes the suspect of a murder thanks to coincidental evidence. That's only episode six. Today's episode, based on the teaser, will get more intense. After finishing it, I have to pick Rae up from Pokémon School...

Simply put, Aomine Kyo, the homebody, is a very busy man. He has a packed schedule to follow. If Aomine Asahi wants to turn his brewery into a childcare for Meta, Kyo is more than happy with it. See? He's jumping into puddles and kicking leaves off the pavement like the carefree human he is, unconcerned with the glares passing around the street. He's dancing in circles around an unlit streetlight and singing in falsetto. Kyo is the one who constantly breaks etiquette, and the people are the ones who chide him afterwards. Today, however, no one stops him.

The reason is simple: Aomine Kyo is drunk on himself. At least, that's the gossip that goes around whenever he does such unbecoming deeds.

He's howling and dancing hip-hop. He's wagging his booty at a traffic junction. Cars stop and create a chain of thuds just to watch him. Pedestrians drop their snacks or spill their drinks. Enju City blacks out. Make no mistake, Aomine Kyo is an entertainer since birth. That is his purpose in life.

Until Meta the Ditto comes along, still taking the form of his twin, and piggybacks him home. Where is home? Ahem, I'll answer that.

Home is a two-storey minka at the edge of Enju City, some ways down the entrance to the Bellchime Trail, overseeing the Enju Lake. Home is warm with its ecru-coloured roof and authentic cedar walls, cold with its milky white door, rough like the rope dangling above the door, full of separation like the ornaments hanging from the rope, and last but not least, private. No one ever goes in and out of the Aomine house because most of the time, no one's home. As a result, it's quieter than other homes in this friendly and traditional community.

"Home sweet home," I mumble as Meta pushes the door open using his shoulder. I scream when he hurls me onto the tatami mat flooring. "How do you know the way home?"

While I hiss and rub my back, Meta waves a town map before my eyes. Then, he says, "Sorry for letting you down."

"I... That's not—"

"I know." He lowers his voice. "You wanted to see Hābu, but she not there."

What has my father's Meganium got to do with me visiting Aoi Yoake? Of course I know that Hābu would be out carrying paddy to and fro.

"I know how to comfort sad human." Meta takes the remote, as if he's read my mind. "We watch TV."

"Right. That's why I rushed home." I sit on the grey sofa and beckon Meta to come over.

The squarish television buzzes to life. A row of text announces that the next episode of The Paper Magician will be air tonight instead, giving way for a new series.

"You know, Meta, this rarely happens." I grapple the remote out of his hand and turn up the volume. A ballad rings into the living room as a blushing Matsuba appears on-screen.
He gives a thumbs-up at the camera and claps twice.

"Is Matsuba getting a special series on Ghost-types?" I turn to Meta and he shrugs.

Matsuba clears his throat. "Kyo, sorry for letting you down, but they left me with no other choice."

I blink. What's this supposed to mean?

He licks his lips and stares intensely at the camera. His gaze penetrates the screen and pierces my heart.

"Everyone, starting today, Kyo and I will be in a series called Show Me Your Smile. I hope you can give us your fullest support!" Matsuba wields his finger guns. "And there's something else."

I gulp. What in the Distortion World is going on here?

"We're dating."

I dig my ears. Meta looks between me and the digital Matsuba.

"This is great, Aomine-san." He slaps my wrist. "You're not single anymore!"

I laugh drily.

Matsuba continues with the biggest smile I've ever seen him wear. "Here's the first episode of our show!"

My confession enters the scene. Matsuba's kabedon in the elevator airs. The mishaps in the Ivory Tower are revealed one by one. Meta's existence comes to light.

Meta has to hold my eyelids in place and lay his legs on my hands to keep my eyes glued to the screen. But I can't take it anymore when the credit rolls.

As expected, Matsuba, Meta and I are listed in the main cast list. The director is Aomine Himari.

I drop dead.