Whispers in the Dark「Pokemon Fanfiction」

Tᴡᴇɴᴛʏ﹣Tʜʀᴇᴇ • Pɪᴇʀʀᴏᴛ's Gᴀᴍᴇ

Chapter Twenty-Three: Pierrot's Game

The silver-haired boy glanced down.

Quinn was walking beside him, her gaze on the ground and away from the trainer next to her. It wasn't that he minded—as opposed to what most thought, he did enjoy silence—almost as much as he liked noise.

It was twisted how he liked it, though—it swallowed up every inch of sunny thoughts and the quiet would leave him to drown in the thoughts and fears that he loved to place on himself like a masochist; leave him to force his vision into something achromatic.

He had no reason to smile now—Celeana was absent, and Quinn wasn't even paying attention. He had no one that would see him, and besides, it was tiring wearing that wretched grin for hours on end. It was oddly comforting having that dull expression back on his face; yet, he felt vulnerable without the previous curve to his lips.

Yes, he thought to himself, this is my rightful expression. The one that's truly mine.

After a few moments of fretful decisions—all in his mind, of course, he didn't want to sound like someone insane—he settled for keeping his facial muscles in a tense, ready position. He had to be prepared when the occasion came. Though now silent, the child next to him was unpredictable.

His theory was proved right as he felt a pair of eyes graze his presence, and almost at once, the smile bloomed once again, his stony gaze softening as he looked down at the shorter girl, hazel irises unamused and staring at his own violet ones.

"What's wrong?" he asked, making sure to keep his tone level as he spoke. Quinn wasn't quite a normal child, and he couldn't use that false tone most would use when speaking to young children.

The girl narrowed her eyes, and Ryou halted as her feet slowed to a stop in front of him. Her voice was firm and unwavering, and it was deep for a nine-year-old like her—it was amusing how she seemed to be the adult out of the three of them. "That girl. What's her name?"

"Who do you mean?" he replied in a light tone, feigning innocence and sticking to teasing her. He didn't know why—he wasn't familiar with her, after all, and he could have just told her straight out. He pretended to think for a while. "Oh, her? Ah, I almost forgot about that girl...her name's Celeana. I think."

His subconscious mirrored her speech pattern as well, using shorter sentences than he preferred and keeping his dialogue fragmented. That, coupled with his instinctive facade of a joking, teasing front, were irreplaceable habits—he couldn't get rid of them.

"Yes, her." The child gave a small nod to herself before speaking once again. "That one with the Meowstic. Blue hair, purple eyes. Right?"

The trainer responded with a tilt of his head, recalling the cold, amethyst-hued gaze that his friend had displayed in that particular timeline—the confusing one which involved that Meowstic and what looked like an alternate version of her. "Amber, actually. Why?"

"I saw her." Noticing her companion's exaggerated actions of looking around in a bemused manner, she let out an annoyed sigh from between her teeth. "No. Not here. In the future; that one. The one that Celebi got us into."

Her cold analysis was met with a laugh, and she looked up to see a sly smile on the boy's face. The teenager had yet again forced out that sound from his throat, no matter how sick it made him—it seemed like the most appropriate action to take, and he hoped that the nervousness in his voice wouldn't slip through. "Uh, yeah. We all did. Both the psycho and the one on our side."

Quinn shook her head in disapproval. "Not what I meant!" she breathed in frustration. "I saw her. More than once. Thrice? No, too little..."

Ryou froze, the jesting remark in his throat forgotten for a moment.. He'd thought that there was some deeper meaning to the girl's words at first, but he had brushed it off as him overthinking—he tended to do that sometimes.