She is pretty. Everything about her is pretty, from her pretty blue eyes to her pretty pink mouth. She's like a porcelain doll, that's what Steven thinks, the dolls with long hair and perfect skin. But, but, the difference is that she is not lifeless in any way. She's as alive as she is as pretty (in other words, very, very alive).
She's the essence of alive right now as well, with her spill of pretty blonde hair cascading down her proud shoulders—they are always held up high, square and military, and it seems sometimes like she can never let them loose.
One thing that is different then usual right now, though, are her shaking fists. And her teary eyes, and also her cheeks (a perfect shade of rose), and her breath, which comes out in constant little gasps. But they seem to make her more real, more there.
"Why?" she says in her pretty voice at last, and the word sounds like the crystal echo of glass shattering. He stares at her blankly, entranced with her voice and, well. Just—her. Her candy-pink mouth opens again, to say that same word. Whywhywhywhywhywhy?
He shrugs.
"You can't," she says, in that melodious, lovely voice. He could drink it if it forever was liquid (and if it was, he'd be addicted to it, seeing how it would be the most delicious thing to touch earth—but it would be like beer, too, make him drunk to the point where his knees would weaken and he would see things that weren't really there). "Don't you love me?"
He smiles, because that is a silly little question. Of course he does. "Yes. More then anything else in the world." This is true. It is. And it always has been, because she is all he has left, and that makes her his most precious treasure.
"If you love me," she hisses, grasping the folds of his comfortable jacket and bringing him closerr,"you wouldn't leave me." Her eyes are wild, desperate, pleading, hoping this is a joke. It isn't.
"But," he says, "Its calling my name. You know I've wanted to go there, always, go and see—there's more mountains, more rocks, better places for my dreams." And he's leaving her because she is not his dream. She is his reality. This is why he decided to leave her for the time being. "Its a once in a lifetime chance, you know. I can become Champion, I can travel around Hoenn, I can become strong." He smiles at her, trying to make her realize what a break this was. "Don't you understand?"
Her white-fist grip loosens on her jacket. "No," she says finally, voice meek yet strong, and she stares at him defiantly. Her eyes spill over, but he is silent, unable to do anything about it. "I don't." And then she lets go, draping her slender arms bedecked with jewelry to her sides, turning away, and he knows the clack of her heels walking away are the last thing he will hear from her for a long, long time.
But he also knows he will see her again, because he is Steven Stone and she is Cynthia Shiro. And they belong to each other. Him, the down-to-earth boy with sturdy looks, and her, the pretty, alive doll. And people who belong to each other will always find each other again, even if they are opposites like a earth boy and an alive doll.
He likes the sound of that. He wonders if she will.
.
.
.
She doesn't.