Chapter Text
(story proper - first draft, nov. 29, 2021)
- x -
There was a time when you took so much and gave so little.
It's not something you've always been aware of but so many people have pointed it out for you.
Why is it always about you, at the park playground where all the other happy kids are circled around to figure out what game to play. You snap back asking why no one ever says what they want to say. It's been too many minutes, they should be playing already not just standing around. It's not your fault you have so little time and want so many things.
Leave some for the rest of us, at school during homeroom discussing simple tasks the whole class has to fulfill but nobody would raise their hand for. You don't bother answering, for your own temper's sake more than anything. When you're back at home, you greet Daisy with complaints. It's not your fault that everyone is just so much lesser, coming by at such a slower pace, life isn't gonna stop for anyone, sis, you have to be pushing forward.
No one is out to get you, Blue, if you could just relax, whispered sympathetically in the quiet corners of Leaf's bedroom where she tried her best to understand you just a bit better after calming you down from a panic attack. In a way, she's right, not everything is about you. Some people are just better than you and not necessarily out to sabotage you. But it's so hard not to believe that when you have so much on the line, when failing to meet expectations could possibly mean longer "trips" to other family relatives and never coming back. She wouldn't understand so you swallow your words. It's not your fault no one cares how much it means to you.
You were always the kind of person to only think about yourself, indirectly but equally venomous, at the champion's throne of the Indigo Plateau, your eyes glued to the shining marble floor where you're expecting to see yourself crumble to pieces at any moment. And is that so bad, you want to ask but find that you can't as your throat hardens into dry stone. You can't when the answer is clear - with all six of your Pokemon beaten and retrieved into their ball. You try to withstand the scorching, electrifying, gut-wrenching, skin-peeling gaze of a man whose undivided attention you've worked so hard for. But shame and grief rise to your head and move your legs towards home. It's not your fault you only ever long for one thing.
You ask too much of me, silently, almost going unheard among the biting winds of the mountaintop. You don't know what to say anymore. You've done so much to beg and to bargain. But you're the one who always takes so much and gives so little, you don't know how to do anything else. You close your eyes and breathe, and you let the numbing feeling overcome you, let it put out every flame and spark left in your body. And you give up. Someone else will find him here and take him home. You're not the only one with the skills to scale this ravenous mountain, you're not the one he wants to listen to, and you're not the one who is worth the sacrifice. You can't find it in yourself to be surprised either. It's not your fault...
- x -
You're not sure when you started to believe what everyone else has been saying about you. There are days when you sit in a cold, uncaring, empty room and notice just how much it truly hurts to yearn. You don't want to continue bleeding open, so you stand up ready to chase after something you can't quite see yet.
- x -
You've been trying to be better, kinder. More self-aware and more patient.
That's why when the tension you've stirred up at home between yourself and your grandfather, with your poor sister stuck helplessly in the middle, boils over to blister everyone involved - you bless them with the kindest act you can do and leave for Kalos. Bags packed, poke balls securely harnessed, and an unsealed envelope containing Sycamore's invitation and a check of your championship winnings left on the foyer table. You say your goodbye to Kanto, knowing you'll never want to be back here again. You can't make things worse if you're not even there.
That's why when the Kalos League approached you, bringing an extended offer turned bargain to the table - please, you've beaten our League before and we don't have a reigning champion to represent us for this tournament, we'll be more than happy to make a generous donation to Sycamore Labs - you happily announce a month off from laboratory work as you wave a diamond priced check in front of your wide-eyed colleagues. You let pride fill your chest as you watch the people who have supported you through your lowest of lows laugh and drink with one another, the rewarding sensation of finally giving back provides you the same amount of buzz as the sloshing wine in your hand. You won't be around when the project starts, but everyone else who deserved to be there will be. It's enough, you decide.
That's why when Red meets your gaze across the common lounge outside the Driftveil battle arena, years after he asked you to leave for the final time, you bite your tongue and let him explain himself to you. All earnest tears and apologies. You find that there's not an ounce of you that fights and burns to say anything more, to reprimand him. So you stay quiet and unfeeling. The kindest thing you can do is to forgive. You let him lead the way into this new path forward.
- x -