victory_road

[By now, you've probably seen it. It started on a teenager's Instantlergram, and then migrated over to Chatter, Timbr, and you might have even seen a video or two on your For You Page on Joltiktok about it. The Daily Dottler ran an article about it sourced by no one.

About what? About how the hot new band Chicken Choice Judy was recently "caught in the wild" at a child's birthday party dressed head to toe as giant torchics.

And the internet, as it often does, has been having a field day with it:

"guess there's one entertaining thing at my brother's dumb party. #chickenchoicejudy #torchic #canileavenow" - Original Poster MimiKissyKyuutie

"cake is very bad for torchics this is completely irresponsible" - Chatter user badbreedertipsonly, famed meme account.

"what the heck is a chicken anyway" - Timbr user newgearhoothootdis, followed by hundreds of replies of increasingly bad guesses.

"this isn't news, call me when the torchics kiss" - Joltiktok user luvdisco, with a filter that adds sparkles to the picture and a music clip that seems to be Celine Brionne's My Heart Ball Will Go On played badly on a Pokéflute.

And so on and so forth. So it probably isn't a surprise when Ryan pops up after a day or so of this.]

hey so

i get how things go on the internet but how do you take them off

like forever

is just deleting the whole internet an option, or...?

you know, for no reason whatsoever.

[Except you know exactly what reason it's for. Because everyone in all of Johto and Kanto has seen it somewhere recently.]

[ooc: Thank you to

knuxiechan, who Joey commissioned this art from!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[This all sounds about right to Ryan, right down to Min having to remake the whole thing and his dad being instantly over it. But then--]

Oh no...I'm so sorry dude, that sucks. Did you get in trouble or anything?

[Because he knows Min's parents and he also knows his dad and he has a feeling he knows how that conversation went. His dad has never once considered the consequences of his actions, ever.]

...It does sound totally worth it though.

[He can't help it; even knowing Min might have gotten in trouble it's still the funniest thing he's heard in a while. It might even be the funniest Dumpty's story ever.]

[Min shrugs, making a non-committed noise. He hadn't exactly got in trouble, but then he's never needed to be in trouble to feel bad about things. Disapproval is usually enough to dissuade him from repeating his mistakes.]

You know my parents. They were disappointed.

[But...]

It was still so worth it. They believed me when I said it was a mistake, so it could've been worse.

[This story would have been way different if he had felt terrible about it, so Ryan's glad it didn't turn out too badly.]

That's good. But wow man, I can't believe you actually did that! That's amazing.

[He's still amused, but it comes out with such awe. Amazing. It's truly amazing.]

Let me guess - not a single follow up question from my dad, right?

[He sort of already knows the answer though. Not that his family had any way to contact him, but if he's right they didn't exactly try either.]

Pfft. Figures.

[He likes the feeling he gets from impressing Ryan. Usually the only exciting way he can do it is when they're working on music together, so he's pleased he's succeeded through other means.

Though at question of his dad... he has to shrug, making a small noise as though to brush it off. He wants to keep it light, but at the end of the day a story about Ryan's dad was always going to be loaded.]

Not really. He tried to make it into an in joke, I guess. It's amazing I ever got employee of the month when he brought it up literally every time he came in.

[Thankfully it wasn't like he was a regular regular. Often enough to make it annoying, but not often enough it was unbearable or anything.]

[It's a good direction to twist it in, because Ryan snickers.]

You should've just kept burning it.

[He knows Min couldn't, not without risking his job, but it still would have been pretty great. Ryan can't imagine having to be nice to customers making the same shitty jokes day after day after day.]

Honestly, you probably deserved employee of the month for putting up with him. Not even all the other customers, just my dad. Or like, a special "You Put Up With Mr. Akagi's Bullshit" award.

No way.

[It's not even worth considering as a joke. If one time got him this much teasing, he dreads to think what would happen next time. The way he'd acted was almost like he thought they were friends. Any time he'd been tempted he'd been haunted by visions of him forcing his way into the kitchen "to show him how it's done" or something.]

Besides, I wasn't the one who lived with him for 18 years. Maybe you should get that award.

[Ryan just echoes that answer right back at him.]

No way, man. It's more impressive to put up with it when you didn't have to live with him. Plus, it's not like he was even around a ton anyway. And I left, so, you know. I'm probably out of practice by now!

[He's here trying to compliment Min; he doesn't want this award he completely made up explicitly for the purposes of complimenting Min.]

I left too!

[You know. Eventually. After being kidnapped by a weird train, then again after being forced to do a lot of soul searching.]

I guess we'd both be pretty out of practice by now.

[Min's absolutely right, but Ryan still chuckles anyway. It was kind of a dumb way to put it and he deserved that call out.]

Yeah, guess so. But hey, that's something I'm super glad to be out of practice with.

[It's a skill he doesn't need anymore that can be thrown straight in the garbage.]

Good.

[It's difficult for him to understand how Ryan feels about his parents, and he doesn't like to ask. His own parents are overbearing and it feels like a miracle they even let him go off with Ryan after he disappeared for so long. They make him feel smothered sometimes, even when they're hundreds of miles away, but when they find themselves trapped in worlds where there's no way to contact home he misses them. He doesn't like to think about Ryan regretting the loss of contact.]

He never deserved the effort anyway.

[Ryan's feelings about his parents are...complicated, and he doesn't usually like to talk about complicated feelings. He's taken every chance to avoid the subject, because indifference is easier than taking a hard stance.

There's a lot they've done wrong and none of them erase the happier memories fully. He doesn't want to go back, but there's still an empty space in his heart where a family should be. Sometimes he catches himself wondering about them, even though he's sure they never wonder about him. Regret might be too strong a word, but he does feel some sort of indescribable way about the loss.

Did his dad deserve the effort? It's a difficult question for Ryan to answer. But Min saying never with such certainty brings a smile to Ryan's face.]

...Thanks, man.

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