i have nothing to say for myself. i am so sadistically in love with touya and touko screwing up nate and rosa that it's not even funny anymore. i blame all of the authors who have written the characters as such (myself included goddammit) and i hate (love) all of you. thanks, guys.

i don't own pokemon.

note: this is 6am writing after an all nighter. don't be too harsh.

When she meets him, she is in awe. She doesn't quite know what to say to him, nor does she know how to truly feel around him. He's broken and corrupted and just a lost, cynical man that is so different from the hero of the story. The hero in that story was charismatic and happy and... heroic. This certainly isn't that same hero that children hear bedtime tales about and Rosa begins to wonder if those stories were ever true.

"The stories are true."

She purses her lips, "But you -"

"I'm much different, right?"

She nods. He's powerful and dangerous and charming and she can't do anything but nod. It's so silly how she can barely answer his question.

"That's because I've changed. I saved the world a long, long time ago, and it hardly matters."

Rosa wants to bring up that it was only two years ago and that's not a long time (and that it matters a helluva lot more than he leads on), but she decides against it. The way he says it makes it seem much longer than it was, like he was an old man with memories of weighted regret on things he never did, or recalling a time in an old, obscure war that never mattered because it didn't change a thing.

And so she just believes him. That it was a long time ago. Because to him it was forever and a day ago, and who is Rosa to disagree with Touya, the great, great hero?

She smiles, then, soft and sweet and so innocent that Touya wants to hurl on the spot. He used to be that innocent, even longer ago than when he saved the world.

"A friend of mine saved the world, too."

Touya nods, obviously not caring, but Rosa is determined to keep his attention on her. She has to, because she's never met a godlike figure before, let alone one she has wanted to get to know and meet for so many years.

But he walks off anyway, despite her gazes into his eyes, blinking them in that pretty, girlish way of hers. He's not Nate or Hugh, and he doesn't fall for it. So, with a pout, the girl follows him, in hopes that he will one day pay attention to her.

From just that one meeting with him, her whole demeanor changes. Nate and Hugh worry since Rosa seems so different, so hellbent on finding the disappearing hero who she knows nothing about, save for the fact that he has morphed into a cold, cynical asshole.

They try to get her to forget it, because it's not good for her. The way she's changed is so noticeable - eating and sleeping less and becoming angrier, sadder and prone to accessing these emotions more than she should - that it's so painful to watch. She doesn't listen to them at all, and continues on.

Until one day she meets a girl who looks a lot like Touya's other half, holding a cigarette and staring at her from across the street.

The girl makes her way over and Rosa glances curiously at her. When the girl - more like woman, now that Rosa gets a better look at her - elicits a laugh, Rosa is left far too confused.

"So you're that girl... Funny, you don't seem a thing like the one he described," she says, dropping the cigarette to the floor and crushing it underneath her combat boots.

"I'm sorry?" Rosa says in a sweet soprano tone, staring up at the woman.

"Touya. He talked a bit about you."

Rosa blinks, not believing she could be so stupid. This was Touko! The other hero! "Really? Do you know where he is?" Her words are hopeful and almost happy sounding, and Touko chokes back a groan of frustration.

Instead, she laughs a broken, disgusting laugh, and bends down to stare Rosa right in the eyes. "Let him go, honey. He's not the kind of guy you should be chasing. He is far from your type, and you are far from his."

The smile on her face mocks her cruel words.

Rosa doesn't know what to say. So she stands there in silence, staring at the disheveled goddess.

There is a point in time when she finally finds him. He looks more roughed up than normal, and Rosa runs straight to him. She doesn't care how desperate she seems, because, honestly, she is that desperate.

And besides, she's finally found him.

It's not a happy reunion.

His smile is crooked and when he sees her, it turns into a shit-eating grin. She has nothing to say, save for "Hi, Touya!" with a big, bright smile on her face.

Touya wants to sneer. Disgusting. How can someone have that much innocence left? He's almost jealous, in a way, but he has seen the horrors of the world, while she hasn't, and he has become a horror of the world, and, again, she hasn't, so she clearly doesn't know how to be anything but innocent.

The laugh that leaves him is almost the same as Touko's - broken and disgusting.

"I know what you want," he says, a wicked, smug smirk forming on his lips.

He kisses her then and there and Rosa is left a blushing mess. She blinks her blue eyes, quickly and in an intense amount of shock. She smiles at him, but he's still smirking, and it looks quite evil.

It's only when he turns away from her that Rosa touches her lips and notices the faint residue of bright red lipstick on her fingers. It's unmistakably Touko's lipstick (because who else wears that bright red color), and just when Rosa had a hint of hope that Touya actually felt something for her, it all comes crashing down on her new realization.

Her eyes follow him as he walks away. Her final breaking point is when he curls his arm around Touko's waist and they walk away into oblivion.