❝ adrift, bygone, but always near. still loved, still missed, and still dear. ❞
⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬⠀⠀
⠀ ⠀Wherein Ash and Serena reunite with the latter by an unseen stroke of fate. With a history l...
❝ (n.) frustration or anger directed inward, toward onself and one's way of living.❞
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And it wasn't like witnessing them fight was new to me, but lord, how I wished it to be the last time. Keeping Gladion and Ash under one roof equalled to invoking a fatal typhoon, and when such disaster occurs, goods were meant to fall off and crack into pieces.
And in this case it was Gladion's teethframe that the latter landed a punch on.
My eyes doubled the size as he stumbled back and almost hit the pebbled ground, until my disquiet bubble popped, and I scooped him in time. My chest heaved at the uncalled events, and after making sure that Gladion wasn't bleeding anywhere else other except for the jaw, I had to do a second check to make sure whether the attacker really was Ash or not. And right in front of me stood a so-so embodiment of him, No, it couldn't be him.
Ash was a puppet to his gradually swelling rage, acting however the threads manipulated him to. I agree that his eyes were set on fire like they are on any other day - but what burnt within them weren't stars or some other celestial bodies. It rather was an inextinguishable holocaust of dried-up autumn leaves and brokenness that the two windows of his soul reflected, and I can bet it on my life that he was yet again misdirecting his anger due to some surplus reason. In any way probable - he wasn't himself at all.
"What the heck was that for?" Gladion stirred in my hold and said to Ash with gritted teeth, while he clamped fists and averted his gaze from where we sat.
When Ash didn't answer, the blonde stood up from his position, wiping the blood leaking from his lips and rolling eyes.
"You know what Ash, you're an MF unapologetic brat who first performs some foolish act and then blames the next person for all the mess caused. And when you feel like you can't handle their outlash, you turn into a runaway bride and just leave everything else behind. Have you ever, in your entire being, given your deeds a single rethought?"
Ash had his intense gaze hovering in the sky as he pretended not to listen, and when Gladion couldn't hold back from biting back, he venomously added, "Don't tell me your mom never even bothered to teach what morals actually are."
Ash rose his palm to plant it on Gladion, his eyes bloodshot and shoulders shaking. But this time around I couldn't have just watched the nonsense reel out and stand there with my dumb face, so I leaped in, between the two of them, getting my fingers on his wrist and twisting it.
"I've had ENOUGH of your clownery now!" I spat at him, feeling my nerves throbbing in the throat.
Ash had his eyes dilated and confusion swirled in them when I let go of his hand - but not even loitered my glare an inch from his face.
"I don't even know who you are anymore," I shook my head, pruning my lips in distaste as we stubbornly maintained eye contact. "But in comparison to what you were months ago -- in the forest nonchalantly eating snowcones, at the mansion showing me how to use a telescope, at the school just loafing around and genuinely having fun while rehearsals happened, But above of it all was the fact that you were YOU. Meanwhile now --"
