Pairing: Hints of Lance/Kotone.
Note(s): I've been wanting to do something in second person for a while… and I've finally gotten around to it, although this is a tad bit darker than most things I write. Please give me some proper critique; I would very much so appreciate it. Thanks, and please enjoy!

Shackled Chains
she's genuinely happy while you are fake as plastic skin.

Static. Wondrous static. It hesitates for a moment until a tattered laugh can be heard. The static takes over again. Was it just your imagination? Was it just a hallucination? An overdose on day-late dreams?

You don't know, and quite frankly, you don't care.

Your lungs fill with gas, with an infamous smoke, and your eyes take in the starry night sky. The window above your head – in front of your bed – is quite large, giving leeway to see the unknown; the pixie dusted gossamer chains of darkness. White and black correlate together, creating such a mystical thing. It's too bad; you realize that no one takes the time to admire the simplest things.

Your crowd smile breaks through as you hear the television go off. Another challenger sent home packing by the Elite Four.

Good, you feel proud, but alone at the same time. Why is that so?

Is it because you have no family to call your own – except Clair? Is it because you gave up a chance at happiness? Or is it because you're just too stubborn to admit your wrong?

You scoff and turn on your side. You are not stubborn.

(Maybe just a little bit.)

Another announcement spits out of the speakers. Newest champion of Kanto seen with boyfriend at the PTV awards. She was all smiles and glimmer, toting the newest-

-your hearing runs away.

She was gone and you are alone, wallowing. You suppose that she should wallow in unhappiness too, but champions, those with strength, courage, do not just lay in despair. They rid themselves of it and keep going.

You've must have forgotten about your title, champion of Johto, dragon tamer extraordinaire.

The sudden announcement – one that your ears refused to continue hearing – had caused a feeling to bubble. You never really expected it to come again. It brought back so many memories, so many lovely fateful nights, and you wonder how this induces into your melancholic emotions. What do you feel now? Hate? Despair? Insanity? Happiness? You can already tell that just by thinking about it puts a heavily drugged effect on your mind.

Things have changed, you notice. Wavelengths that you have never felt before occur. You wonder where they came from, where they belong. You wish to dissect them from your brain, to pull a switchblade on them and send them away. You do not wish to feel this way, to yearn to feel her hands on your skin, so hot, so boisterous. You do not wish for anything except aloneness.

And that's what you'd get if you weren't so concerned, so dictated, on your fellow leaders. But you were, and that was a brilliant wonder in disguise.

You glance cautiously at the clock. Eleven o'clock with eleven minutes on the dot. You realize that at this time you're supposed to wish. But there are no shooting stars and there is nothing to wish for. Nothing to hope for, nothing to dream of.

Your eyes close and you pray, with all of your marred core, that she finds happiness in everyone she meets.

end.