Do you like me?
(no you don't)
Dawn/Kenny, Dawn/Paul
Anime-based.
A/N: Kenny is older in this fic, more like sixteen. And they maybe is a little OoC in this but I wanted to enhance the emotion and put them on front. Sorry about that. I don't own Pokémon and I hope you like this. It's not my best but I kind of like it. Thanks! :D
"Hi Dawn", Kenny says with an origin tone, nervous, maybe something more that she will never notice, hence she's blind, deaf, ignorant to his complements because she's sure that she doesn't like him, not in that way, he's the friend, the nice and funny and silly friend and nothing more. He looks at her round, pole-eyes, colored in grey-blue particles reminding him of crashing waves and amassed nimbuses and blushes – she looks at him and pleasantly smiles. And that isn't the same.
And it's too bad that he loves her.
Loves her dashing grins and pink boots traces in the sand. Loves her sweet nativity and rolling money-eyes.
"Hi", she greets back with an unsure tone that doesn't suit her girly and straightforward attitude and he wonders if she knows that she's ignoring the obvious and if she is okay with that.
"H-how are you?" he asks, stumbling on the words, as usual, she has that effect on him. She looks at him with a look he can't read, she signs, flicking with his pink skirt; too short, how can she expect that he won't fall for her when she does like that, exposing her legs, dressing herself in clothes that makes him dream and soars in the sky, because she's that perfect and so stunningly cute and dashing? She knows what she's doing, he's sure of it, and it's just a big, fat mystery how she can continue without any grief or bad conscience. Doesn't he mean anything, more than dirt under her boots, he's a guy and guys shouldn't care about unfulfilled fairy-tales, but that isn't true. He cares but she obviously doesn't.
She once said that he was feminine. And maybe he is. And maybe just maybe he's a feminine guy in love with the damsel that doesn't need the knight to reach her dreams.
"Fine", she answers, stamping with her feet, wants to go away, wants to leave the past with him and her and fly away – in her contest-dress, with her ribbons and dreams of love that don't include him. He finds this sad but there is nothing he can do about it. Just watch. And wait.
And die.
"Listen, Dawn, I really like you", he says when she's turned her spine against him, leaves the sturdy ground and soars away with pinion wings. He wants her to look at her, actually look, and wants her to understand that what has happen in the past doesn't have to affect the future. Didn't told her back there in Twinleaf – the town with chimneys and grass and high-top trees, that he liked her but he does now, isn't that enough, doesn't he prove that she's the girl for him?
He does. He sure does. But her heart beats but not for him, it beats for a man with purple hair and pitch-black eyes. At least that's what she says.
"Thank you, Kenny. I'm glad you do", she smiles, but it's a distant smile, a smile to disarm further questions and remarking. She plays stupid on purpose, because she finds his mentions awkward and hilarous and absolutely dumb.
"I don't mean it like that. You know it. I like you more."
She blinks, signs, he copulates hence she never gives him a response that increases his dreams of a future with a thin, petit girl with a big, sugar-rush smile. "I'm sorry… I really am but I don't like you that way. I like him."
"Him." He angrily knots his tongue, clenches his fists and feels the malodorous, festering jealously burning in his mouth, corroding him apart to the little five-year-old boy with tears in his eyes. "How can you like him instead of me?"
"I just do. I'm sorry."
You're not sorry, Dawn, you're happy. And I hate myself that I can't appreciate that.
And it's just too bad that she doesn't love him.
What does she see in him? He's rude, he's awful, he never smiles, never ever cracks that line up to his ears, he treats his Pokémon as scum, as filthy machines to increase his lingering for power, he's a loner, he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't look good, his eyes are cold, he's the description of the devil that turns the light off in this cheery world of butterflies and flowerbeds and sunsets, just because he can.
And it's just too bad that Dawn is in love with the devil instead of the god.
Dawn has always been cute and he has a hard time choosing when exactly he fell in love with her. If it started as they played with toys, with the swings, when she forced him to wear make-up as they walked to the local food-story down the coast, when she started wear short skirts of if it just has been there all the time, lying like a recessive disease that now has spread out to his organs, makes him mute, deaf and completely enthralled.
They're childhood friends and he wants to state her as best friend, but he isn't hers, no, because Ash has taken that place and he doesn't know where he has her anymore. There is nothing wrong with Ash, he's okay, he's honest and he knows what he wants, but Kenny can't help but to think that he has ruined the thing they had before, the 'we'-thing, but more so because Ash reminds him that maybe he didn't treat Dawn right back then and that's why she doesn't want to bond with him now. He can accept that, but that doesn't explain why she thinks Paul is the replacement – is Paul any better, is there anything good with cold scoffing and serious, alone training where only the best will be taken to his hand? Kenny doesn't think so.
And it's just too bad that Dawn does.
"Dawn, are you finished yet?" he scoffs and pants and wonders if this is a part of the daily-girl scheme that he has to get used to if he wants to know this pretty heroine's wants and dreams. Probably. Sometimes he wishes that he may understand this more because there is a point in what she's saying when she declares that clothing is a part of the impression. It's true, it's worth understanding, and it's she that says it. But that doesn't seem to work, he thinks and signs, hanging up the garments she has tested and brings her a smaller-size pantyhose since he's the slave and she's the master. Because he still finds this boring as hell, hence she never seems to get finished – it's like new dresses plop out from nowhere just to irritate him and delight her. And that makes him sad because he knows that she likes this and if she likes something he should like the same thing because that's what a gentleman do.
And it's just too bad that he isn't a gentleman.
"No", she exclaims in the clothing boots, he could hear her zip down her jacket and hangs it on a hamulus. He doesn't remember which dress she's gonna test and in reality he doesn't really care either. Sits down on a chair with chin in hand and wonders why she brought him of all people to be the dummy to state the obvious and say "you look good in that", because she does, and he can't find any flaws in her appearance even if she should have worn a plastic bag. So, the question remains; what exactly would she gain from him, that doesn't understand the true content of the term 'fashion?' It makes no sense and when he feels awkward and out of place like a wilted sprout nourished in lava, he starts to doubt her true intension and lacks the ability to delight the situation when he gets time to be with her.
And he hates himself for it. That he doesn't appreciate free-time with the most wonderful girl in the universe, doesn't appreciate that he's able to drown in those deep, content-filled portals and melt when she smiles with those strawberry-lips.
"Dawn!" he pleads, looking down at his wristwatch as his patience runs through his fingers, to the beach-shore. He always complains, he knows, but the problem is that it's hard to stop and he complains because he likes her and she doesn't and that a marching in the clothing booth doesn't change a damn thing. "I don't want to be here forever!"
"You agreed to go shopping with me", she mutters, fumbling with her dress, he notices as he peeks over the fabric sheet. "Don't complain."
"But you're slow! I've other things to attend." He really doesn't but it sounds better being occupied. Don't girls like that? Or is it the opposite? Or is he just fumbling around in the dark as usual?
"Like what?"
"S-something!"
"You're a fool."
"And you're slow."
"That doesn't have to be a bad thing."
"No. And it doesn't matter because I like you anyways."
"Good for you."
And then does the discussion dies out like always when he brings the "I like you" term up. She can't handle that. And he can't handle that she can't handle it. He likes her, he really does, but he has left the silent attraction state where looks and smiles and conversations are enough, he wants more, he wants declaration, confessions, anything that can assure him with the proper verification that maybe there's a change for this to evolve into something bigger, stronger (and more passionate.) But no. She never acts like that, she's innocent and pure and nice, but still behaves like she's… not scared, more insecure… of their friendship. But he will not abandoned her again (if she thought it was like that), never ever again because she's wonderful and he only wants to be with her.
She turns her spin against him (as she wants to insult him) and he turns his visage away, let it wander across the hall filled with exaggerated dresses and formality-drenched suits. Wonders if he should bought something for the upcoming event – a new suit perhaps, something that cuts from the usually cute-boy-material, but the next contest doesn't seem that present, it isn't everything anymore and later he hates himself for that insulting thought; how could he? Give up his childhood dream and wander around on the clouds edging to everywhere and nowhere at all? He clenches his hand around Empoleon's pokéball and wonders when life turned out like this; his old dreams getting soaked and covered by dust and new one birthed and only circled around her. He wants to become one top-coordinator but more because it's something they share; he wants to be good for her, hence he needs that smile and laugh and everything with the headline 'Dawn.'
"I'm ready", she finally exclaims, with than genuinely bubbly, cheery voice that makes his blood run, and when she removes the sheet and walks out in that white dress and high-heel shoes he realizes that you have to be a fool, an idiot and everything that means if you could escape that dazzling, pretty face of hers surrounded by blue, princess curls. The dress' hem is wide and fluffy and it enhances the princess-look, it's only the fairy-wings and star-rod that're missing. The neckline exposes a small bust that he never has noticed before and when she turns around like a fairy he notices that it's open in the back, exposing suntanned skin from countless hours jogging on the beach. He sighs; he misses jogging with her. There is so much he misses with her, but more so the things they can become if she walks away from the 'Kenny's not attractive-platform' and into his embrace. He blushes at the thought and feels even more like the idiot he is. He's childish. But it can change, he wants to scream to the voices in his head, with icky sentences swaying back and forth, repeating his own idiocy and meaningless dreams, because he's not eleven anymore, he's fifteen and sure, he's still young but not a child and doesn't have to act all innocent anymore.
"What do you think?" she asks, a completely pointless question because his rosy cheeks tells the answer for him and the blood rushes around even more in his face when she teasingly wobbles her hips and smiles and laughs and he smiles back and laughs (and cries.)
"It's a wonderful dress", he murmurs and looks down at his feet, jogging shoes with a too big size for his overall shortness. "It really suits you. But any dress does. Any clothes. You would be pretty in a plastic bag."
And it's just too bad that her reaction brings tears in his eyes instead of smiles and laugher and everything he wants.
He wonders why life has to be this complicated. Why does the thing called one-side love, divorcees and broken heart exist? Why couldn't the world be a happy place with chipping Starlys and sunsets and smiles and ice-creams melting on the palm? Why can't tears and sorrow and lingering and sin be banned from the earth, banned from the universe and banned from him and her and everyone?
Why?
And it's just too bad that he knows the answer to that one.
"Stop doing this to her", Ash later remarks, with his mouth in a sturdy, irritated line and brown eyes narrowed at his own while Kenny hears the sound of the bonfire and Brock's pleasantly humming when he prepares the dinner.
And Kenny knows he's not invited to share with them. Not today.
He's not scared of Ash's personally; he's scared of the situation, of the fact that he maybe just maybe isn't good for her and that his craved longing suffocates her as much as it suffocates him. And when Ash is serious, the situation is serious and he doesn't like that at all.
"What do you mean?" he asks, sounding more stupid than ever, probably qualifying to the stupidest-trainer-alive competition.
"Dawn has told me that you like her and that she doesn't feel the same. She has told you this, hasn't she and you still go on telling her how cute and wonderful she is and she feels so bad because it can't be equal. I know this is hard for you. But so is it for her and you have to respect that she's not immune towards your feelings."
Kenny stares. To be honest he hasn't thought that way. And to be honest he has to admit that Ash's probably right. But it still hurts.
"Why do you tell me this?"
"Because I like Dawn."
"As a friend?"
"As a friend."
"Well, sorry that I like her more than that."
Ash signs and rolls with his eyes, Kenny feels the urge to smack him in the face for acting to calm and oblivious when Kenny stands in the middle of the storm, pictorially screaming and fainting and dying in the consuming void of pain and agony. "That doesn't matter; she doesn't like you that way."
"She likes Paul."
Ash blinks. "What?"
"Paul! You know who! And I wonder how the hell she could choose him instead of me. Paul is evil. Dawn isn't. And I don't understand how she could want to be with him when he treats both her and his Pokémon as scum. He hates everything! And I don't want her to be with him!"
The tears are foaming in his eyes and he blinks, blinks, blinks and knows that it will not go away because it's born to stay and nourish and flourish (and die.)
"Listen, Kenny, I don't like Paul either, but you can't judge him. He may be a good person on the inside. You can't know."
Kenny grits and clenches his teeth, that's a big fat lie and Ash knows it, because Paul can't change, he's born and created in this robotic body and will act like Hitler because that's the only way he knows.
"I love her!" he exclaims and cries and Ash can do nothing besides from awkwardly patting him on the shoulder, whispering lies like it will be okay and I know it's hard that don't mean anything. Because he, Kenny, is in love with the princess and she, Dawn, is in love with the evil, evil man with red eyes and sharp teeth and a empty heart.
Love. What is love? Is it the pleasant, absorbing flutter or the deep, consuming emptiness? He doesn't know. He thought that it was the first in the beginning, when he met Dawn and company and he (falsely) assured himself that she didn't like anyone else. It was fun, it was easy and it was worthwhile. But not now, he understands while tears fall like the free-fall-ride, with desperation as his only friend since Ash doesn't agree with him either. No one does. Not Dawn. Not Ash. Probably not Brock. No one, no one, no one at all.
"I don't know what to do", he murmurs with the new, icky, tear-filled voice he doesn't like. "I don't want to lose her. I like her so much. I… I…"
You…You want the only thing you can't have.
And it's just too bad that she's the biggest treasure of all and you're not a treasure-hunter.
He walks around in circles and maybe he starts to realize that the moments before, when the blushes, and smiles and everything was genuine and exciting, are gone. Left like the leaves falling down the branches, disappearing into the ground, where everything are born to end one day. He's ridiculous, that's the only thing he has learned from all this – that he believes in fairytales that don't exist, children's stories that always will remain stories, they're sweet, they're wonderful but they're not real.
Kenny sits down in the grass and lays his face in his hands. He hates love. Hates, hates, hates that he loves her but hates love and the fact that he can't be with her when love tears him apart and removes the happy and tranquility faces of meeting her. But it's hard to forget, to move on and not lingering in the past, because love is that way; it hurts, it kills, and it doesn't matter that he's a kid that acts too young for his age, doesn't matter that he's childish with selfish opinions about love and not-love, it just doesn't matter that she's wonderful and he will always love her and he can't treat her like a friend anymore. She isn't his friend, she'll always be more. The past is over, he knows, pulling out straw of grass out the soil, entertaining his fingers with meaningless exercising.
He wonders when it will end. When it will be over. If he can love someone else. Not instead of her but too. But probably not. Life isn't like that, you can't share love (not real love), you have to tan it. Tan and cover and delete. It's that simple.
And it's just too bad that he doesn't know how to do it.
"Piplup! Go!" she exclaims and jumps in the air; spins around like a lady on the ball while her cute, little penguin spits out bubbles that pops near her face, covering her in a smooth touch of sparkles. He sits on the altar, hidden in the crowd, and looks. His eyes can't turn away, even though he promised himself yesterday that watching her only increases the pain in his chest. But not seeing her does too. And she's so brilliant on the stage; it's like she's born to own it, being watched, drowned in the audience big smiles and applause and whistles. Her battle style isn't spectacular or not even very good but it's honest and her eager to win and stand behind her Pokémon outruns even the strongest opponent.
Kenny didn't even get past the appeal round. He understands why; his mind is too far away, he can't focus, the only thing he sees is the dancing fireflies in her eyes. And he's disappointed, because he gave up before the contest even started and a real coordinator would never ever do that and that's the sign that he's no real coordinator. He sucks. This isn't his Pokémon fault. He planned to try a new strategy with Empoleon but his mind was so fuzzy and blurry and completely out of place that Empoleon didn't even know what to do. The command went under the floor and the judges looked at him with pitying faces, faces he hates, that feels worse than a knife through the rips because he can never ever look them in the face again and remain solid. He's angry that he failed Empoleon, failed his whole dream and in that way failed her. When he left the stage with eyes in the ground; she gave him a look. It was not pity, it was not anger, it was sadness. She was sad because he failed. He ashamed himself because he couldn't have her. He's a moron. He drowns her because he's jealous, angry, because she doesn't return his feelings, but maybe she can't, maybe she doesn't mean to do this, and then he is as wrong as she. And that's even worth, because there is a small point of affection knowing that he's the unlucky one, drowning in self-pity and abjectness of reality.
But he understands now that maybe maybe he is wrong and she's right and then he's back at the beginning with zero lives and no clue of the future lying like a sheet over everything. He's also to blame, because he started the cannon without aiming and now he has to wait and watch and see when the cannonball flies right to the tower. He hurts her when he does like this, he sees it, understands it, this isn't easy for her either. When he acts like this, losing on purpose when it comes to the biggest sport in his life, because he's too distracted by her, by the fact that he can't gave her, it births her pain and agony because he gives up everything for her. And she can't do anything about it. So, the question remains, how could he?
But now, when she entered the arena with Piplup's Pokéball in hand, he's glad (and somewhat disappointed) that she seems to have forgotten his failure and only wants to focus on the road of claiming another one of those ribbons. And she probably will. No one can escape those big, blue eyes and bright smile and he knows that she will win the competition. She has it in her and no onesided love from him will ever change that. He should be glad. Should. Because this is for the best, like Ash would've said. She has moved on and so would he, eventually. They think. But he never will. Dawn will always have this special place in his heart, a memory that will never fade away, not completely, it will be there.
When Piplup lands on the floor and the audience bursts out into screams of joy and delight he notices that she lets her visage wander up the crowds, and in his stupidity and naivety he hopes that she looks for him. But when they eyes meet she continues and stops higher up. She smiles, a small, almost unnoticeable smile that only he sees, hence he's the only one that completely knows her.
And it's just too bad that she doesn't smile for him. No. She smiles for two red, red eyes and the person he hates because he doesn't appreciate the fact that he has snared the prettiest sheep in the farm.
The one Kenny will never forget. Because love is that way. You just can't. Not when it looks like this.
Time goes on. He knows. Life moves on. He knows. But that doesn't make it easier to accept. He knows that too.
He spots her some weeks later, when sprouts have come out of the soft soil and sun remains sturdy in the baby-blue daylight sky, around two benches near Oreburgh City. He stops, inhales, the feeling is back, stronger than ever, he wonders if it will ever disappear or is it there to remain, does she have that effect on him? Yes, she does. The short hem of the pink dress is flapping in the soft breeze and he hears, hears, and hears that she laughs, that load, girly laughter that pains him, kills him because it's so common and real and absolutely wonderful. He also sees the sturdy back of a tall, muscular eighteen-year-old with purple hair that makes Kenny knots his fists hence he hates, hates, hates that man and the terror he created from the very, very start.
But then he says something that makes Kenny mute, frozen and absolutely dumbfounded. "Dawn, you have amazing contest-skills."
Kenny gasps and inhales and feels like a straggled fish. Neither Dawn or Paul see him thought but he sees that she smiles and grabs Paul's hands with her own, from behind. Paul doesn't really react to this, just stands firm but doesn't let go of his hands and then Kenny understands that maybe Paul isn't unable to feel and that he, may, may, may be in love with Dawn. Or maybe not 'in love' but something similar.
He walks away with the pain bigger than before, consuming, festering.
And it's just too bad that he cries. When he knows that it's too late.
And the wave is rolling over him, over, over again and he can't do anything about it.
fin
Thank you for reading! I'm sorry if Im lazy with replying, school is eating me up -_-