The brainchild of both my feels for the Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Wait For It" and my feels after re-reading the FRLG arc. Set in the last scene of Volume 25, when Red asked Deoxys to send both Yellow and Mewtwo out of the airship.
-...-
He takes a deep breath, and he lets the smile break for a minute.
Just a minute… All he needed was just a minute to take it all in.
Yellow's eyes connoted fear. Mewtwo's uproar deemed him absurd.
They both wanted him to either come with, or let them stay.
And either way, he wouldn't like it. He's had enough.
How many times in the span of a few days has he allowed someone precious to him battle by his side?
One too many times.
And how many times did he find himself watching them fall beside him while he survives?
One too many times.
It has become a vicious cycle that it was enough for someone as fast-paced and forward-visioned as he was to notice. It has come to a point when it was the only thing he could see.
And it made him shudder.
Since when did he stop being the hero and started being the plague?
He promised his friends that he was over it-that he understood the pain of others and the reason why they drove them-him-away, and that he wouldn't take it to heart anymore. That he'd continue fighting for the very same people who claimed they didn't need him.
But there was still a small flame of hatred and regret and pain that surged within him. And no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that it was nothing, fire was still fire.
And fire grows.
And it burns.
And it takes.
And it takes.
And it takes.
And before he knows it, he was already an empty and hollow shell with nothing to stand for, thus nothing to fall into.
All he had now was fear.
Fear of what could be. Fear of what has been.
Fear of what is.
He takes a moment to wonder if the flame just started when this whole disaster began, or if it was already there way before?
Oh, if only his younger self could see him now… What would he say?
He remembers that boy vaguely nowadays, but his image, no matter how blurred, is still pasted somewhere within his subconscious, and it resurfaces at indefinite moments.
But the memory progressively turns obscure the more he tries to retrieve it.
The more he tries to remember, he forgets.
Where was that boy who always faced an endless uphill climb? The boy with something to prove, and nothing to lose?
The boy who doesn't hesitate?
The boy who recognized no restraints?
The boy who takes, yet keeps winning anyway?
What was it like to be in his shoes again?
And if there's a reason that boy was able to thrive when he right now couldn't seem to survive, then damn it...
Red takes another deep breath.
The minute was up.
The smile veers back to his face as he eyes Yellow and Mewtwo one last time.
Don't worry. I'll come back for sure!
… he's willing to wait for it.
-FIN-
...I… I was just looking for an excuse to write. Sorry.
