Friends without Benefits

"So Ash, how's life treating you?"

Tracey Sketchit had brazenly asked Professor Oak for Friday afternoon off and if he said so himself, he had pulled off the whole overworked speech with aplomb. One might say his boss fell for it hook, line, and sinker but the truth happened to be that Tracey was due for some time off- even if it was just half a Friday. The Pokémon watcher decided to phone his old friend Ash Ketchum and have lunch with him- just to catch up, relax, and enjoy some sushi.

"Not much, I decided to move out of my mom's house, so I just got an apartment with a friend," Ash, who was covertly constructing a makeshift soccer goal out of two saltshakers, said.

"What's his name?" Tracey asked.

"Oh no, it's my friend Dawn." Ash explained, while trying to mask the disappointment that there was nothing satisfactory he could use as pseudo soccer ball.

"You're living with a girl and her name is Dawn?"Tracey asked, now ostensibly intrigued at the new direction of this conversation.

"Yeah. Why is that weird or something?" Ash questioned, putting away the saltshakers as he was suddenly interested at Tracey's unexpected authentic curiosity.

"Wait," Tracey exclaimed, "do you mean Dawn Berlitz the famous fashion model and coordinator? Dawn Berlitz, the girl who was on the cover page of the fashion magazine Rising Stars?"

"Yeah," Ash said debonairly. "We've been friends for a while and she told me that she needed a roommate. I wanted to move out and I thought that it was a perfect situation."

"Ash," Tracey said with a boyish enthusiasm that was usually reserved for times when he found something extraordinary to sketch. "She is so hot; you are super lucky to have her as a roommate."

Ash wasn't sure what the fuss was about but Tracey certainly was excited. Besides, in his mind Dawn was just treating like him a friend. It's not like they were making out or anything like that; although he definitely wouldn't mind it if the opportunity arose. Unfortunately, he felt that Dawn like to tip-toe around issues of love and that left Ash completely flustered.

"So I bet she has a boyfriend," Tracey asked.

"No," Ash informed the Pokémon watcher.

"Ash, why don't you make a move?" Tracey inquired, now more nonplussed than ever at his friend's passiveness.

"Well I don't know if she's interested. I like her and all but to be honest she is kind of, well, hostile toward me," Ash sighed.

Tracey didn't answer but he looked at his friend inquisitively, his eyes skillfully probing information more effectively than words could.

"Like yesterday for instance, we were having a pillow fight," Ash continued.

"Wait you guys were having a pillow fight." Tracey laughed, seemingly abandoning any aura of temporary seriousness that he had just a moment ago. "How did it start?"

"Well every night she just comes in my room and starts hitting me with a pillow," Ash stated in a matter of fact voice.

"You guys have pillow fights every night?" Tracey asked incredulously.

"Yeah," The hazel eyed boy said. "But the thing is she is so competitive; I mean, even more than me. Like, one time I took her pillow and then she jumped on top of me and stole back her pillow and mine. Then she hit me mercilessly until I cried surrender.

Tracey was completely unconvinced that these pillow fights were for "competitive" reasons and started to wonder if he friend was a little too naïve in matters of the heart. He decided to hint that these gratuitous pillow fights could be a signal of deeper feelings from Dawn.

"Ash, I think Dawn might be flirting with you."

Ash looked uncertain as if someone a career test told him he should be a Pokémon researcher instead of a Pokémon trainer. He never was a guy for field work, written reports, or for that matter romance but the last one was a natural and necessary part of growing up. If only love could be as a straight forward as a Pokémon battle, Ash thought wistfully.

"Look I hear you, but I'm not sure she likes me." Ash explained. "She's always getting mad at me for the weirdest reasons. That doesn't sound like infatuation, does it?"

"Well it depends," Tracey noted. "Give me an example of when she gets mad at you."

"Well," Ash started to explain, "Generally she goes to the gym in the morning to workout. A little bit later, I usually go out with my Pokémon to train. She almost always gets back before me and takes a nap. The problem is that she always falls asleep on my bed."

"What?" Tracey exclaimed, utterly absorbed with the retelling of Dawn's strange behavior.

"Yeah, so one time I woke her up and told her that she fell asleep on the wrong bed. Then she waspishly attacked me and told me to never disturb her beauty sleep ever again unless I wanted to be kicked out of the apartment."

"Well why don't you just go in her room?" Tracey, who was becoming more and more enthralled with the story by the moment, asked.

"I do and I manage to fall asleep. Her room actually smells pretty good, like strawberries or something, so I don't mind taking a nap in there. Anyway, I almost always wake up later than her because she gets back before me. However, one time I woke up before early from a nap and she was sleeping besides me, cradling me snugly like a plush Teddiursa.

"What! She totally likes you. That's unmistakable evidence," Tracey demanded.

"I'm not sure. She says that she sleepwalks to her room and doesn't remember how she got there," Ash continued seemingly undeterred by the skeptical look on Tracey's face.

"And that explains how her arms are tightly wrapped around you."

"Well, she has a giant plush Piplup in her room that she always sleeps with. I usually take it off the bed, so maybe she gets me confused with that. I mean it's hard to know what is what when you're sleepwalking and in a half conscious state," Ash reasoned, increasingly more as if he was trying to convince himself than Tracey.

Tracey was about to yell at Ash but at that moment his sushi arrived and he decided an outburst would be rude in front of the waitress. The pleasant aroma of the sushi had a sort of calming effect on the Pokémon watcher and Tracey decided to proceed in an unruffled manner- although his sudden passion for what he saw as a monochromatic issue was swallowing his usual common sense.

"She embarrassed," the Pokémon watcher insisted. "She's giving you the most obvious signals in the world and they are going over your head."

In spite of everything, Ash wasn't entirely assured of Tracey's assertions. He was the type of guy who, for better or worse, believed in directness and he was perplexed at the notions of ulterior motives, especially in something as simple as sleeping arrangements.

"I'm not entirely convinced. She's kind of rude to me." Ash said after a pregnant pause.

"What do you mean rude?" Tracey said, and he didn't even try to mask the skepticism his facial expression was oozing. However, Ash didn't notice or rather he did notice but was convinced that his story would make the Pokémon watcher reconsider his position.

Well Friday night we were watching a movie together on the couch.

"Friday night?" Tracey repeated while glowering.

"You don't have to mimic what I'm saying." Ash said. "When did you get so rude? You're almost as bad as Dawn."

"No you idiot. You were watching a movie with a girl on Friday night. That's like a date."

"We didn't go out or anything" Ash added. "We just stayed at home and watched a movie on her couch.

"What did she do?" Tracey asked, in a fresh voice that represented as little of his exasperation and perhaps even jealousy, of Ash as possible.

"She kept rubbing her foot against mine. It was so distracting that I couldn't watch the movie. I tried to move my foot away but she was relentless. At first I thought that she wanted me to move over so I did. But there's only so far to go and after a while I was smashed against the corner of the couch. At that point, she was attacking my feet with hers, daring me to reclaim the couch space that I lost. Then, as if to brag about her victory, she had the audacity to put her head against my shoulder and stretch out on the couch for the duration of the movie, while I was pushed in the corner. I mean talk about rude and…

"She was playing footsies with you." Tracey, who had heard enough, interrupted.

"Footsies?"

"Yeah it's a game that couples play together to show affection. Then she was lying on your shoulder. I mean that's what girlfriends and boyfriends do together" Tracey said, clearly exacerbated as evidenced by his rising voice.

"Oh" Ash said tentatively. The Pokémon trainer from Pallet was becoming more and more aware of his ostensible naivety and it was uncomfortable to say the least.

"Do you know how hard I have to work to earn Daisy's affection?" Tracey began.

"Daisy Waterflower? You mean Misty's sister."

"Yes," Tracey said. "I know the friend zone and let me tell you one thing: there is no spooning in the friend zone."

"She was in a sleep-induced state and mistook me for a plush," Ash added sheepishly, realizing that Dawn's story did seem a little farfetched.

Tracey wasn't very receptive to the feeble rationalization.

Do you know how many times, I've cleaned the Cerulean pool, went out to get her groceries, or cleaned the gutters on the roof," Tracey continued. "Well, it's more times than I would like to admit. And do I get to pillow fights, spooning, or footsies. No. I get the joy of listening to her talk for two hours about she would like to stop dating bad boys. But does she ever stop dating bad boys. No!"

Somewhere during Tracey's tirade, his voice got inappropriately loud and the whole restaurant was staring at him, intently focusing on the impassioned speech that obviously stemmed from sexual frustration. Ash noticed the reactions of the other patrons long before Tracey did and attempted to cover his face with his right arm because he was sure he saw Sakura, Misty's friend from Ecurteak City and she was eating a salad on the other side of the restaurant.

Come to think of, this outburst might get back to Daisy. He could imagine Sakura telling Misty a story about a crazy guy in a lime green shirt who was in despair over his unrequited love for her sister. Ash hoped that Daisy knew a lot of guys who carried a sketchbook and sported a lime green T-shirt. Somehow, he just didn't think so.

After Tracey noticed that the whole restaurant was staring at him, he gave a brief, sheepish apology to the masses and lowered his voice.

"Look Ash, I'm sure that she likes you, Tracey whispered, his almost inaudible voice overcompensating for the earlier outburst. Just tell her you like her because I am sure that she feels the same way."

"Ok," Ash reasoned, "I can do that, no problem."

As they were leaving the restaurant, Ash started to feel a little bit uncertain about his promise with Tracey. He still was unsure about one more hostile behavior that Dawn was engaging in.

"I have a question?" Ash asked.

"Anything Ash" Tracey smiled. He figured that he should be more understanding of Ash because this was almost certainly a classic case of how the grass is always greener on the other side.

Well, Dawn and I split the household chores quite evenly. You know stuff like the dishes, vacuuming, and the laundry. The only caveat is that she cleans the Jacuzzi.

"Hold the phone," Tracey said. "You have a Jacuzzi."

"It's a community thing." Ash offhandedly explained. Anyway, Dawn used to clean Jacuzzi's at her Aunt's house and she convinced the landlord to deduct 50 dollars a month rent if she would clean the common area Jacuzzi once a week."

"Oh I see", Tracey said, secretly wishing that he could get some type of discount on his rent by putting to use the pool cleaning skills that he had developed in the last couple of years in his futile attempt to win Daisy's heart.

"Anyway," Ash continued, Dawn says that the chores are unbalanced so that means I have to do something extra to pull my weight. I offered to do an extra load of laundry every week, but Dawn refused and said that the two jobs weren't comparable or something.

"So what do you have to do?" Tracey asked.

"Well, Dawn insisted that I give her a massage every week. You know, she gets in her bikini, provides fruity lotions, and insists on a full body rub.

"The fiend," Tracey deadpanned.

"It's not that bad," Ash continued; the blatant sarcasm flying over his head. "Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy massaging her but she is so tough to please. Sometimes I wonder why she is so critical of my technique- I am completely new to massaging after all."

"Critical?" Tracey questioned while retaining hope- albeit fading hope- for the grass is always greener theory.

"Well", Yeah Ash said. "For instance, she is always saying harder or faster. Then I go harder and faster and she tells me I'm too rough. And then she giggles to herself, probably because I'm a terrible masseuse. This rigmarole goes on during the whole massage. I'm just a beginner Tracey and I don't think it's very nice of her to laugh at me when I'm trying my best," Ash pouted.

It was a wonder what was more miraculous: a certain Pokémon trainer's naivety or Tracey's stunning willpower to resist the urge to fall down Anime style.

I kind of feel bad for Tracey. I'll have to make it up to him by throwing him a bone in another fic.

It's fun to imagine what would happen if people lost their ability to understand indirect communication in dating. But then again no one really understands it in the first place.

Reviews and comments are always appreciated.