"My friend committed suicide yesterday. He loved Pokémon, and had planned on getting into Pokémon GO."

#PokemonGO: His name was Pika* (pie-ka / pee-ka), after his favorite Pokémon, Pikachu.I learned on Facebook that he killed himself yesterday. To say it was sudden, unexpected, and a complete shock is an understatement.When I went to private high school, I didn't know Pika very well. However, he was always kind, compassionate, and caring towards myself and others, and an all-around good person. As the theater program teacher would say, "He was a good egg."More recently, in the past several weeks, Pika had invited me join to his online Discord support group. I wasn't sure about it was first, but I figured it could be a great opporuntity to reach out, and connect with other people. Thanks to Pika's encouragement, I opened up about some of the difficulties I had gone through in past relationships with others.Pika and I connected almost off the bat over our shared interest, and love of, Pokémon. He talked to me about his passion for playing Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow versions, and even named his Articuno in Pokémon Yellow after my gaming / online handle, Obversa: https://ift.tt/2y85OPZ also talked about a lot of things: his job / work life, biking, his excitement over being able to get housing assistance and his moving-in, dating / love life, our love of reading, hobbies, etc...everything from Star Wars, to Harry Potter, to ASOIAF / Games of Thrones, and more. Pika mentioned wanting to "revisit" Harry Potter, and I linked him my Quora account with some of my Harry Potter online writings, as well as my Star Wars content, so he could read.Above all, we talked about Pika's interest in getting into Pokémon GO (I shared with him information about shinies and Community Day, and he expressed a desire to start playing the game), and even talked about meeting up to play the app together in the future, presumably at the next Community Day ("Beldum Day") on October 21, 2018.He informed me he was working 55 hour weeks at his job in the kitchen, and not getting much sleep. I expressed concern over this, but he reassured me that it was "just a part of his personality [to get addicted to work]", and that everything was fine. Even then, he cared more about my concern, as opposed to concern over himself.However, Pika unfortunately stopped responding to my direct / private messages on Discord after September 23. I didn't really think much of it at the time, and sent him some Pokémon Gen. 3 sprite artwork on the 25th. I saw him around on Discord, but he gradually seemed to stop, or taper off, with talking in general.I sincerely hope that Pika is playing a Golden GameBoy + PSP up in heaven, and catching shiny Pokémon to his heart's delight.Rest in peace, my friend. via /r/pokemongo https://ift.tt/2QIbwii