A/N:

Edit (13/2/19): Just a few minor changes


(17)

"Chosen One, huh?"

His body jolts when she mentions it.

(He can hear it, almost, the sound of his few remaining wishes crumbling and shattering, like all the rest, the feeling of losing the one thing had been so desperately clinging onto.)

The air suddenly tastes like venom to Ash, and he wonders if it's his own.

He turns to her, his smile carved from plastic, and he nods in acknowledgement. "Yup!" The word slides off his tongue with easy, energetic fluency, and for a brief moment, Ash wonders since when he has been so good at pretending.

Yet Misty isn't convinced.

"What happened to "Pokémon Master"?" She sips on her coffee (it's always coffee), and Ash adds on more layers of plastic to his smile until it glistens (it's a revolting, manufactured shine).

"I'm working on it," he assures her, but his visage darkens and his voice is tinged with a poignancy that arouses Misty's suspicion as he says, "But I'm a hero now, too."

Misty is about to say something, but she, on accident, consumes too much coffee in one go, and it burns her tongue (it's too frequent an occurrence that Misty debates whether she should give up coffee altogether, since she hasn't the patience to actually let it cool).

Ash, whilst suspending the cup from the red-head, laughs a little, saying, "Don't burn yourself!"

It's funny, Misty thinks, because she wants to say the same thing to him.