There was a boy in class who lived half inside reality and half inside Pallet Town.

  His name was Desmond, but nobody called him that anymore. To us, he was “Charmander.”

  Every recess, he would hold up an empty red plastic bead he claimed was a Poké Ball and whisper dramatically, “I choose you.”

  Back then, in my original childhood, I believed him.

  I truly thought one day a small orange lizard with a flaming tail would burst out from his hands and scorch the sandpit.

  I waited for weeks.

  Nothing happened.

  This time, I decided to intervene.

  The night before school, I prepared something carefully at my desk. A square piece of orange paper. Fold. Rotate. Fold again. Reverse crease. Tuck the corners in. Years of adult motor control made origami far easier than it had any right to be for someone my size.

  Slowly, a tiny lizard shape emerged.

  I added details with colored pencils. Big blue eyes. A rounded snout. A small flame at the tip of its tail, shaded red and yellow. I even added a tiny black outline for definition.

  It was small enough to hide completely inside my cupped hands.

  When I finished, I stared at it for a while.

  There was something deeply amusing about a grown man meticulously crafting paper Pokémon for kindergarten politics.

  COVID was years away.

  Market crashes were distant.

  Asset allocation could wait.

  For now, I had recess.

  The next morning, I slipped the paper Charmander into my pocket.

  During break time, Desmond was once again crouched near the playground steps, whispering to his imaginary creature.

  “I’m training it,” he told another boy seriously. “It only listens to me.”

  Perfect.

  I approached him with deliberate gravity.

  “Your Charmander,” I said quietly, “it doesn’t like being inside the Poké Ball all the time.”

  He froze.

  “What?”

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  “It told me.”

  Children accept absurd premises instantly if delivered with confidence.

  “You can hear it?” he asked.

  I nodded slowly. “But only sometimes.”

  He leaned closer.

  “Close your eyes,” I instructed. “And hold out your hands.”

  He obeyed without hesitation.

  I made a show of scanning the air, as if sensing invisible energy. Then I brought my cupped hands together, pretending to pull something from thin space.

  When I placed the origami Charmander into his palms and told him to open his eyes, the silence lasted a full three seconds.

  Then he gasped.

  “It came out,” he whispered.

  He held it like something sacred.

  “It trusts you,” I said solemnly. “That’s why it showed itself.”

  His face lit up in a way no market rally ever could.

  Within minutes, three other children gathered around. Word spreads fast in ecosystems fueled by imagination.

  “Is that real?”

  “It’s his Pokémon.”

  “Can it fight?”

  Desmond looked at me, uncertain how far to take the narrative.

  “It’s small now,” I added calmly. “It grows stronger if you take care of it.”

  That sealed it.

  He nodded fiercely. “I’ll train it.”

  Watching him cradle that paper creature, I felt something unexpected.

  In my first life, I had chased popularity by asking for it.

  Now, I was manufacturing it indirectly.

  By recess end, I had a new title.

  “Magic Boy” evolved into something else.

  “Pokémon Master.”

  Ridiculous.

  Effective.

  Of course, I did not forget Payne.

  If Desmond received a Charmander, she deserved something different.

  That evening, I crafted another piece. Smaller. More delicate. A tiny paper butterfly with soft pink and blue wings. Not from the Pokémon universe. Just something pretty.

  The next day after class, I approached her near the shoe racks.

  “Magic works twice this week,” I said quietly.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Only because someone believed properly.”

  She stood very still as I performed a softer version of the trick, making the butterfly appear from behind her shoulder.

  She didn’t gasp like Desmond.

  She smiled.

  Different reaction. More contained. More aware.

  “For me?” she asked.

  “For you.”

  She held it gently between her fingers.

  “You make things appear,” she said.

  “Sometimes.”

  She studied my face with unusual focus for someone our age.

  And for a split second, something about her expression triggered a memory.

  Lynn.

  The name surfaced abruptly.

  My thirty one year old girlfriend. The woman I had planned to marry next year. Years of shared routines. Shared meals. Shared quiet evenings discussing financial projections and holiday plans.

  Where is she now?

  Right now, in this timeline, she would be a child somewhere. Maybe in another school. Maybe in another state. Maybe not even someone I have met yet.

  Does she still exist in the same way?

  If I change too much, will our paths even cross?

  Payne tilted her head.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  The question felt too sharp.

  “Nothing,” I said quickly.

  But that was a lie.

  I was thinking about how fragile connections are.

  In my previous life, I assumed certain milestones were fixed. Meet Lynn. Date for years. Plan marriage. Build toward stability.

  Now, everything is fluid.

  If I become someone entirely different at five years old, will I even be the version of myself she fell in love with?

  Or will that future dissolve quietly, like a newspaper headline that never prints?

  Payne stepped closer.

  “Tomorrow more magic?” she asked.

  I looked at the butterfly in her hand.

  At Desmond proudly showing his Charmander to anyone who would look.

  At the children orbiting slightly nearer than before.

  Popularity is easier when you control perception.

  But identity is harder when you control time.

  “Maybe,” I said softly.

  As school ended and I walked toward the gate, one thought lingered heavier than the rest.

  I had regained my father.

  I was reshaping my childhood.

  I was optimizing my future.

  But somewhere out there was a girl named Lynn who had no idea her fiancé had vanished from his own timeline.

  And for the first time since regressing, the cost of starting over did not feel purely strategic.

  It felt personal.