Normality defined

(why does he call her when he doesn't have anything to say?)

(Ethan/Lyra)

Disclaimer: I don't own pokémon or the characters.

A/N: I like this pairing! It's so cute! Still, I also like Silver/Lyra but I can't seem to write about them. Agh! anyway, I kind of like this story and hope you do to! Thank you for reading! :)

They promised to keep contact. It was too big to die, too big to root, too big to be consumed by time, too big to disappear (fly away and soar in the sky with its own wings.) When she got her first pokémon from Prof. Elm (a Chikorita) and he said that he was going to leave with his Marill, it seemed like a start, not an end. He was her best friend, he was more than she ever could explain, was like a brother, sturdy as a wall who could back her up when she fell. His smiles was a source of her own, his chocolate brown eyes sparkled when he saw her came running down the hill, always threw with his head so that his black (black but inside he was white, pure, peace defined) fringe hung in front of his right eye. The jokes, the laughers (everything that he did, unintentionally or not) it made her stuck. She was too young to love but not too young to not appreciate it. They traded phone numbers that day when she was going to leave, with her bag hanging over her shoulder, Chikorita's pokéball in the right hand, he smiled, she would always remember that smile, so sweet, voluptuously sweet and so him , and then hugged her, whispered in her ear.

Sweet words, low voice, how could she not fall for him?

"See you around, Lyra, and promise me that you don't let anything happen to you when I'm not there to save you."

She threw a glare at his direction, but inside she foamed, burned, with happiness. She was happy, she was always happy, when she knew that she could reach him. "I'm not a five-year-old, Ethan. I can take care of myself."

He grinned. "Really? Nah, just kidding. I know. Bye!" He then hugged her one more time before she left; moved on the road ahead, saw his fading figure mixed with the sky behind him.

(He had never been the fighter, maybe that was why he didn't even fight for their friendship.)

She met him again three month later, too long, she had no idea that they were taking so different path, but then again, they didn't want the same thing. He wanted to run around and make friends; she wanted to shove down Lance from the champion's throne. When he remained in a city for weeks, just to befriend, create that smile that made every victim melt like butter in the boiling sun because it was just so real and perfect, she came to the city, defeated the Gym Leader and then moved on. She liked to run fast, he stood still like the waves on a windless day, and that was okay, really, because there were best friends, and best friends could part and still find each other when the thunder crashed into the hill. And she was so sure that she knew him, that she knew everything and that he trusted her as much to believe in their friendship and actually do something to keep it above the surface.

He would remain the same, she thought, wrapping a brown strand of hair around her finger. Really. There just couldn't be in another way.

(Past is something solid, present is something changeable and future is unknown, wrapped in the cloth, breaking dreams stronger than life itself.)

When she saw him again all the things (memories, preconceptions) seemed to fall over her like a broken tower. Three months shouldn't do that to you, change you into something that felt different, unusual. But he did.

His hair were longer, his eyes smaller, more narrowed in a sense that made him look more sexy than cute, more man than a child (more mature than her.) He grinned at her in his usually carefree manners but she couldn't relax, drown in his eyes as she used to do in his present, because something was not normal, she missed something and she wanted to know what it was.

"Missed me?" he asked, blinked and put his whole weight on the right leg which he put forward. Even his voice seemed different, or was she just imaging things? No, she was sure something was different. Maybe not in a wrong, or insulting way, just different. What had he been up to, to influence him to hurry his step to adulthood? She didn't know.

"A little", she snorted, clenching harder to one of her pokéballs in her belt, just to engage them. 'A little' was a meiosis and he probably knew that too (she saw it in his grin, which seemed to grow wider as the seconds grew old and died.)

He snorted back and grabbed his bag. "A little? What do you mean by that?"

"I'm teasing you. You know what that means?"

He smiled, but it did still not feel like his smile, his was easy, only filled with happiness for her to soak up, but this, it was so wrapped with unknown meanings (it was way too handsome to state it 'safe') that she didn't know how to react, do, anything. She could just hope that he saw her confusion and maybe show glimpse of the Ethan that was hers. Throwing jokes back and forth didn't imply that it was normal, like it should.

(The problem was that the old Ethan was gone, and it felt much harder than it should because the new one wasn't worse, far from. But it wasn't him.)

He ran a hand through his hair, lips separated when he threw her another glance, his brown eyes now filled with concern (which almost made her cry.) "You're awfully quiet, Lyra. Is something wrong?"

She shook her head (ignoring the obvious) and she bit her lip, hard, just to create another pain that would sulk up the first. "No", she whispered, blinked, blinked and continued to blink just to shut the tears in her eyes, they didn't need to be shared, not with a useless and selfish reason like the fact that he had just matured (like fruit, sooner or later it was necessary.) She wanted him to be the same, she wanted to look in his eyes and see the boy she laughed with, talked with, ate sandwiches topped with cheese with, cried with, smiled with, and she couldn't see him in those mature eyes that glowed with the determination he always had lacked anymore. She didn't want him to grow, because it was so clear that she couldn't keep up with him. Badge after badge couldn't change the fact that she remained the girl, and wanted him to remain the boy so that their story could continue. But she understood that that was over.

(Maybe he fought after all but never for her)

"I don't want you to change", she mumbled, bit her lip and looked down at her toes. The wet grass soaked down her shoes and she shivered, sat down, and then tried to look him straight in the eyes (failed when she saw the confusion diming like a cumulus.)

"Are you worried about that?" he asked, sat down as well and touched her fingers with his own, they were warm, she looked up with the cap shadowing her eyes, that was normal, that was perfect, that was Ethan.

She nodded. He smiled.

"Stop doing that", he ordered her with a fake, mature voice and she laughed. "I mean it, I will remain the same for you. I'm way too good to be changed!"

She boxed him on the arm. "I should've thought about that."

(The graveness wasn't gone, only alleviated. And she was happily unaware of that.)

More weeks passed and she walked forward on her road of determination. And she wondered if everything he told her that day, that moment, was it a lie or was it just she that couldn't handle the fact that even best friends faded away by the ravage called time.

(And a simple phone-call couldn't change the upcoming and frightening reality.)

"Lyra, My Marill refuses to evolve. And I think that's pretty cute and I don't use it for battling so it doesn't really matter to me."

"Yeah."

And it never seemed to be anything more than that simple yeah that flew in the phone, out to him, and nothing more. She liked pokémon as much as he, but pokémon couldn't replace the Lyra/Ethan thing she shared. She wanted to tell him that, but the words disappeared and she stumbled, wanted (but couldn't.)

That was the way the car was driving.

"And you? How does it go for you? How many badges?"

"Five."

"Five? Are you crazy? Do you never sleep?"

She frowned and touched her brown pigtail between her fingers and clutched the phone between ear and shoulder.

"I don't waste time chatting like a Chatot like you do", she snapped, and hated herself for being so rude and incapable of remaining sane.

He laughed, but it had a nervous undertone. "Chill out, Lyra. I'm joking."

"You always joke, don't you?" she muttered and hung up.

And then she knew that what had begun had ended, the creation of the ideal (eternal) friend faded away and left was the blurred image of the little boy in too small trousers that she lost and loved.

(Because he aged, grew and broadened his visage, she only saw him.)

"Lyra! Do you understand how cute Sunkern is in the morning?" The voice was eager, he had forgiven her. He always did even though she didn't deserve it.

"Don't they always look the same?" she muttered with the angry, stubborn voice that came when he called her to spit out junk that she found unimportant (because it didn't imply that he missed the past as much as she.)

"No", he said with an awfully slow voice, as if she was too young to understand the obvious. "But the morning sun enhances the effect. They use to flock around the National Park in the morning! Have you been there? Have you noticed?"

No, Ethan, I haven't noticed, because it isn't important for me.

She moved so fast, she didn't notice the details. She moved so fast, she didn't saw the cute appeals of the pokémon that Ethan took to his heart. She only saw power, even though she cared for them, she saw their skills, their moves, their will to cooperate with her in order to reach Lance and his beefcaked Dragonites.

"Not really. I've only been there once and it wasn't a long visit."

"You move too fast, Lyra! You don't get to see anything! Is that what you want?"

I want you to be there for me, be the one I knew. "I see things. But I want to become Champion. That's my goal and you have yours."

"I don't have a dream. I want to be happy. That's all. But you, you…"

"Ethan", she whispered with tears in her eyes. She blinked and stretched out her legs, and understood that he and she weren't united anymore. If they ever been. "Are we even friends?"

He stumbled on the words. Excuses. She hated him for that. "Of course we are."

"Childhood-friends", she mumbled and then hung up (again).

That was all she seemed to do with him, wasn't it?

(Childhood-friends weren't eternal, weren't bonded by blood. And her heart broke every moment she was reminded.)

"Lyra! Where are you? Have your Pokémon evolved yet?"

Your Pokémon. Not her. Since when was "Pokémon" the topic, the leach dragging the conversation forward? Since when was it impossible to make the log float in timing with the globing waves. She smiled sadly.

He was wonderful. He really was. But he wasn't right for her. There wasn't love. He wasn't obsessed by her. Not like she was.

"They have", she said, not sounding very specific. "Ethan. Can I tell you something?"

"Go on!"

"Since when did pokémon become more important than me?"

He was mute. Inhaled. And the rapid lack of reply made her understand where the end was heading.

"There not more important than you, how can you say that?"

"They are. Just admit the truth."

"…"

"It doesn't work. We're not friends as before. I'm sorry."

"So am I. I love you, Lyra. but…"

"I know. You don't have to say anything."

"Forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive. Good-bye, Ethan."

"G-Good-bye."

And she cried. Because Ethan was gone.

And it was her fault.

It was both faults.

It was normality defined.

It was over.

(Since she just couldn't acept that he was growing up and she wanted the only thing he couldn't give her.)

fin