Here is another one-shot, but this one is implied MasqueradexAlice. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Cocoacharm15 does not own any of the charcters or references in this fic.

Untouched

How many secrets can you hide from yourself?

It's a question that I can never seem to answer or disprove. The subconscious is powerful, I've come to realize. How else can I explain how I seem to know myself so poorly?

The secrets are never ending.

It's troublesome.

More than that, though, it's disturbing.

I thought I had it all figured out, that I knew who I was.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I'd been a host. A host to an entity so different from me that I felt used, soiled, violated.

I'd become everything I'd tried to stay away from, deceiving, manipulative. Heartless. The dreams haunted me for nights on end, and I fought with all my being to resist the onslaught of memories you'd created. The destruction, the cold laughs, the self-centered aura.

I'd betrayed myself without knowing it.

Then something changed.

Suddenly it wasn't just in my mind.

I'd look in the mirror, and I'd see your face instead of mine. I'd speak, and I'd hear your voice. I'd stop to think, and I'd feel your thoughts overshadowing my own.

I began to talk to you.

Inside and out, you were here.

The mask lay broken.

It didn't take you with it.

I craved to be like you again.

You were strong, fearless, but most of all, you were confident.

Battles frightened me. I couldn't put on the show you orchestrated so effortlessly. I couldn't back up my Bakugan the way you did. I failed them. Brawl after brawl, I didn't have what was necessary–didn't have what you had–to win.

That was when I first realized I missed you, when I first admitted to myself that it'd been true for some time now. It was secret number two.

Secret three revealed itself weeks later when I turned on myself and wondered why your presence kept coming back. It was me. I wouldn't let you leave, and it was me dragging you back. I was never going to let you leave me.

The pattern repeats itself over and over. I fantasized about you being real, about us being two separate people. I attributed it to how useful you were while I was not. If we were two separate people, you could teach me to be more like you.

Weirdly enough, the fourth secret was although I pretended to be repulsed from such thoughts, I wasn't.

The fifth and final secret, the most traitorous of all.

I need you so much.

Remember to drop me a line and review!

Cocoacharm15