2 Years
'I could never let you go…'
The amount of times Barry bumped into Lucas, the things that Barry was so immature about and the amount of things that are so temporary but lingering in the hurtful way, it hurts to miss him with these feelings. It hurts to miss him when he left so suddenly in the middle of a fight. One that is so painful, it stays like the constant sun and moon, day and night that looms all.
He'd stay so frequently at the lake, talking to some mystical being that seemed too ethereal to exist. Too in-existent, too fake. But he stays there anyway, constantly running his hands over his messy blonde hair out of frustration, out of sadness, out of regret.
But after a while he'd stop. It was just getting too much, and nothing was happening.
Why did he have to leave? Was the only thing that roamed his mind, which latches on like a bug caught in a Spinarak's web.
Occasionally, Barry would talk to Dawn whenever she would take the time out of schedule; of course, Barry couldn't blame her. She is a master coordinator anyway. She's nice and yeah, great friends with him, but the fact that Lucas wasn't here, it felt so empty without the spare space he just left behind.
But that was two years ago.
And now, things are different.
Like every other day, Barry woke up in a state so depressed and so unmotivated, he didn't care about anything anymore. It didn't cross this mind that two years ago, he used to be this bubbly, happy-go-lucky, determined person – but it's not the same two years later. It took two years for such a person to go through such a troubled state, in such a way that seemed so sad.
He looked through his room, untidy, un-motivating, and… well, messy.
There was a Wii U that is half-hidden when he looked around with his half-lidded eyes. Of course, clothes that were just thrown around or worn for Arceus-knows-what, half-covered the cold, timber floor.
He didn't give a crap in this world. He didn't even want to be in this singular place.
After Lucas had left so suddenly, Barry fell into a deep void in his mind. And frankly, he fell back at home, alone, unwanted. His parents tried to do whatever they could, but it all went to waste. All of it. They took him to the therapist. But anti-depressants could only do nothing but numb his mind even more, and stay life-less on the top of the mahogany nightstand in within the inside of his top drawer. Pills of blue, white, green, yellow, circle, capsule, oval – all just pile around everywhere on the top and beneath, sometimes nudge themselves whenever Barry hits the table rarely.
Sometimes, the euphoria kicked in, and sent him on a lovely high that just took him away from the negative reality.
He could never eat downstairs, it just sickens him. He'd rather starve himself upstairs instead of eat downstairs with his parents. This caused his skin to pale, to lose their natural glow, and his frame became more fragile and skinny.
The anger of thinking that his parents are just irrelevant people that just ruined his thoughts more and more with external things, just fueled him even more to his rage, sadness and regret.
For once in a few months, he decided to go to the lake. In which he did. So he changed his bed clothing into winter clothing, including a black trench coat that went down to his weak knees, and with four gold, dull buttons, and black skinny jeans. Well, all black is what he loves unlike back then.
But, he wore the spring-green scarf that Lucas gave to him on his ninth birthday.
It was worn out.
He didn't bother telling his parents where he is going. What's the point? He thought. I don't care about any of them.
From when Lucas left two years ago, felt like to Barry, a millennia. A millennia of darkness, a path gone lost. A light gone dark. A hope then lost.
The last time Dawn visited Twinleaf was about a year or so ago. They are best friends, but Dawn is travelling and visiting other regions and contest and being one of the most famous coordinators in history. Johanna must be so proud.
Fresh air, Barry contemplated as he inhaled the winter's air, and his eyes, his baggy, hazelnut eyes, as lifeless as the withering grass on the blackest days, feel so new and alive, even as the falling snowflake touched his cheek.
Pokemon just flutter around, and fly, and just mingle with each other. Barry felt jealous, but he knew better than that. He couldn't see his Pokemon after those two years. He'd never battled, he'd never took them out, he just didn't want to. It's been too long, how would they be like? How are they coping with my regret and hiatus?
When he turned left at that fork in the road, he spots the little route sign that showed the three ways you could go. Route 202, Lake Verity and of course, Twinleaf town. The snow was up to his ankles, but the white blanket just seemed to disappear, and there it was, the summer three years ago. He looks behind and sees himself with Lucas, with eyes as wide as that 'gate' that led into the distortion world.
Arceus, that was horrible, Barry thought, as the motion begun in his mind of Team Galactic and him and Lucas. That place, never to be heard of ever again.
But all that aside, it was weird how it all disappeared, except that persuasive talk about how they should both run into the wild grass. But that was before they went into Lake Verity together.
At that moment, it disappeared, as Barry finds himself trying to piece it back together, waving his hands forward. He could feel his eyes tear up heavily in that moment, the first time he'd cried in two years.
Then it hit him.
He'd never cry about his absence.
He didn't
He just couldn't
It was all rage
It is all just anger
And sadness
And regret.
He looked at himself embarrassingly, and shook it off. He felt the tears, flooding down his face a steady river, of emotions that all seemed to just let go bit by bit, and freeze into ice, like the snowflakes that hit the ground, out of billions, trillions, even more, to compose of the snowy blankets.
Pacing himself to the entrance, he could see the mirage of Lucas and Barry, the two figures walking inside of those gap of trees, leading to the lake.
Following, he was astonished as he arrived.
The lake is frozen.
The water, now one big flat surface. The waves, non-existent.
His heart pounded heavily. When he walked forward, Professor Rowan was there, his white moustache unaffected by the falling snow that dangles down through the illusion, to the floor, the tall grass he stood on. Barry could see their mouths talked, but are inaudible, incomprehensible to even evaluate, not even coherent at all. Until they would all vanish, like the singular flakes that fall to the ground.
'Each snowflake,' Barry looks up, thought. 'Is different. I wonder if all people are. Is this how unique all of us can be? Yet, be so the same thing, and make the same things that make up everything in this world?
Lucas was different.'
A few snowflakes landed on his tired skin, melted into droplets. Melted and flowed, like the tears on his face fell to the ground and crystallized. One particular snowflake fell on his right eye and he blinked a few times straight after. More tears fell. He was on the verge of sobbing.
But before he knew it, he did and he fell to the ground in distraught on his two knees. It made a little soft, crunched noise, like the plastic bag-cover that wraps itself around fresh clothing.
When he punched his hands through the snow, the amount of cold that went through that was shocking to his perspective. In forever, of what was actually only two years, the feeling of little, tiny snowflakes that made up so many things, melts little in his warm hands, are eventually cold. His hands, weak, his fingers, bony and littered with snow, shook.
As he lifted himself up, white, now decorated his black clothing in a dusted fashion. The white would disappear eventually though, but he dusted himself off nonetheless. He glanced about, spotting a invisible shape of a Pokemon that materialized itself like solid air.
Mesprit.
He did not speak at that point, he just looked. Looked with eyes of complete thought, with wonder. The figure, the solid transparent figure, flew itself at ease over to Barry. The solid, see-through lines make up the eyes, make up the shape, and body; but the colors are only everything behind.
Though, a little red oval did gleam a bit brightly above the eyes and in the middle of where the forehead is. It's iridescent and beautiful.
A spark flew through his mind like a thin streak of lightning.'Hey, did you know,' Lucas said to Barry in the spot next to him three years ago. 'That if anyone touches Mesprit probably at least once, all of their emotions are drained away. Amazing right?'
'Buuuuut,' Barry interjects, as Lucas cocks an eyebrow after that first word, 'to be fair, who needs that sort of thing?'
'Who knows, something might happen to you and you might cry full-on,' he laughs, earning an agitated remark from the blonde haired boy.
~Now~
Barry shakes it off, and internally insults himself for saying that reply a thousand times. But as he reaches out his hand and fingertips to that red gem that shone dimly, yet saturated. As the middle finger's tip-
'DARE NOT TOUCH THE POKEMON'S BODY IN BUT THREE SHORT DAYS ALL EMOTIONS WILL GO AWAY'
But of course, he had to have known. ALL emotions. Including those little strands of leftover, unsound hope, including those signs of forgiveness. He'd remember the part of the tale that was shown in a book back at Canalave City's Library. For two years, he'd forget the one little thing that makes the people, people. Barry could only believe one thing though;
Was this a risk?
He wouldn't waste three days, on everything he went through.
He wouldn't waste three days, from the two years he'd waited through.
Now he realized.
He just needs to forgive. Both himself and Lucas.
Pulled away, he stood up on his two feet, the snow seeps through his black and tight jeans. "I'm sorry," he apologizes, and runs away from the frozen lake, as Mesprit's transparent figure floats back to that little cave in the middle of the lake.
Barry ran back, and with salvation in hand, he ran with determination, back to the house.
But he collides with someone as he turned, both fell in two different directions. Barry instantly knows this kind of event, but hits the snow, cushioning the impact like a fluffy pillow. "O-oww… Sorry about that-"Pausing himself, he took a second glance at the person he crashes into.
Denim black pants, a white scarf like Dawn's, a dark-red shirt within a dark blue and jacket over… and a little dimmed-red hat with a little half Poke-Ball…
It's Lucas.
"B-Barry?" He asked with a few stutters, and instantly, Barry lunged himself over to Lucas, in an act of relief and joy. Lucas fell over on his back, sinking a bit into the white ground. Barry held him embraced in a tight hug, and Lucas could only do the same. Barry's head is on his shoulder, and the other boy did the same.
"Oh my Arceus, I'm so sorry about two years ago…" Barry started to cry more tears. He'd felt so guilty, so arrogant and so… un-everything. But now, when he heard his answer and all, everything changes, for the greater good.
"I'm really sorry… for leaving you two years ago." Lucas elevates both himself and Barry up, and they both reconcile as they stand in that little entrance that connects their hometown, to the route where they had their very first battle against and with each other. But that is the past, and Barry knows now that he should learn from it, not live in it as it affects both the present and the future he would eventually not have.
Pulling each other away, but hands now interlocked, Barry finally feels human touch after two years. And it, is such a nostalgic and a wonderful experience to relive. "You've grown a bit," Lucas points up, and Barry blushes a bit.
"You're still wearing the same clothes. When are you going to change those?" Oh no, the arrogant side came out. But nonetheless, Lucas laughs and replies back with, "Eventually. Two years' time, two days, two months, we'd never know. But let's live this moment, and forget about the bad things back then." He pulls in with a hug, and Barry wraps his arm around his waist and the other arm on his upper back area.
For the first time in two years, that smile comes back better and happier than ever, the snow drifting down like that same faithful day when their journey first started.
-Fin-
A/N: I remembered I made this story a month ago ~-~
So I hoped you all liked it! This story sort of dragged me out of my comfort zone, and whilst I was writing this, I lost motivation because of school work *brb dying* and my class is so annoying and boring at the same time. Should I make more of these one-shots, or should I just make lemons orrrrrrrrr
And yes, I made an undertale reference (BUT THIS WWAS WRITTEN WHEN I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT UNDERTALE OKAY), but nonetheless, have a lovely day (or night, I don't know maybe you should go to sleep if it is this late tbh).