Chapter Text
It starts the way most things do.
With whispers.
They follow him through the halls, curl around the corners of the kingdom, slip between conversations that weren’t meant for him but never bother to quiet when he’s near.
*Have you heard?*
*It’s finally happening.*
*Pure Vanilla Cookie is getting married.*
Shadow Milk doesn’t stop walking. Doesn’t react. Doesn’t even *look* like he hears.
He always hears.
“The whole town is talking,” he murmurs under his breath, voice so quiet it barely exists, “about how you’ve fallen in love.”
The words taste strange.
Wrong.
He tilts his head slightly as another pair of cookies pass, their voices hushed but bright with excitement.
“I read in the papers,” he continues, softer now, almost thoughtful, “he’s someone that girls dream about.”
A faint smile tugs at his lips.
“Some kind of ruler on top of a kingdom.”
His gaze flickers upward, distant—golden light through tall windows, polished floors, a throne that never quite suited the one who sat on it.
“…Pure Vanilla.”
The name settles heavy in his chest.
He exhales through his nose, a quiet, humorless breath.
“I’m just a jester,” he adds lightly, though there’s no one there to hear it. “I’ll never be him.”
The thought lingers longer than it should.
Last night.
He shouldn’t think about last night.
He does anyway.
—
It had been late. Quiet. The kind of quiet that presses in too close, like the world is holding its breath.
Shadow Milk hadn’t meant to stay.
Hadn’t meant to *listen*.
But then—
“Shadow Milk?”
His name.
Soft. Uncertain.
It had rooted him to the spot.
“Last night you called to me,” he mutters now, slower, like he’s piecing it back together one fragment at a time. “It almost killed me…”
His fingers twitch at his side.
There had been something in Pure Vanilla’s voice. Something fragile. Something *real*.
And then—
A break.
A crack in that perfect composure.
“To hear you scream my name…”
His eyes squeeze shut, just for a second.
“Your smile still kills the same.”
It had come so easily to him. That smile. Even then.
Even *like that.*
Shadow Milk huffs out a quiet breath, shaking his head faintly.
“I almost turned around,” he admits.
He remembers it too clearly—the instinct, the pull, the almost.
The *almost* is what stays.
“You chased me to the ground.”
Not literally.
But it had felt like it.
Like something had grabbed hold of him and refused to let go, dragging him back into a moment he’d spent so long avoiding.
“You asked me how I’ve been…”
His voice dips, softer now, something slipping through the cracks.
“But how do I begin?”
How do you answer that?
How do you stand in front of someone you—
He cuts the thought off.
Too late.
“To tell you I should’ve chased you,” he breathes, the words barely there, “’cross every single state.”
A bitter smile flickers.
“I lay down my sword for fate.”
Of course he did.
Of course he chose the easy way out. The detached way. The way where nothing *touches* him.
“Because it’s too little,” he murmurs, “way too late.”
The silence that follows is heavier than anything he’s said.
He keeps walking.
—
“I didn’t need the reminder,” he says after a while, quieter now, “of things I’ve done wrong.”
His reflection stares back at him from a passing window—warped, stretched, barely recognizable.
“Of promises broken.”
He lets out a small laugh.
“Fragility hidden in song.”
That part almost amuses him.
Almost.
“Guess that we’re soulmates in different lifetimes,” he adds, like it’s a joke. Like it doesn’t settle somewhere deep and unmoving inside him.
His gaze drifts, unfocused.
“What if you leave him?” he wonders aloud, though the thought doesn’t carry any real weight. “Throw me a lifeline.”
He already knows the answer.
“I know that you’re happy.”
That’s the worst part.
That’s the part that *sticks.*
“But it just killed me.”
The words land flat. Honest in a way he never lets them be.
—
“To hear you scream my name…”
It echoes again, uninvited.
A memory that refuses to dull.
“A clear—” he pauses, searching, then exhales softly, “—a clear X-ray.”
Of everything.
Of what could’ve been.
“Of if I’d stuck around.”
His jaw tightens, just slightly.
“I swear to God, I almost drowned.”
Not in water.
In it.
In *him.*
“You asked me how I’ve been…”
Again.
Always that question.
“So simple,” he murmurs. “So cruel.”
Because there’s no answer that fits.
“But how could I begin,” he continues, voice thinning, “to tell you I should’ve chased you—”
The next part catches.
For the first time, it doesn’t come easily.
It drags.
**“I should be who you’re engaged to.”**
The thought lands harder than anything before it.
It sits there.
Unmoving.
Unchangeable.
Shadow Milk goes still.
For a moment, there’s no smirk, no amusement, no performance to hide behind.
Just that.
Just the truth of it.
Then he exhales.
And it’s gone.
—
“Lost my fight with fate,” he says, tone lighter again, like he’s already stepping away from it. “A tug-of-war of leave and stay.”
He’d already made his choice.
Long before any of this.
“I give in,” he shrugs faintly. “I abdicate.”
The word feels fitting.
Even if it isn’t his throne.
“I lay my sword down anyway.”
What’s the point of holding onto something you never tried to win?
“I’ll see you at Heaven’s gate,” he adds, almost playfully.
But there’s no one there to catch the joke.
“Because it’s too little,” he repeats softly, “way too late.”
—
The kingdom is louder now.
Brighter.
Decorations already starting to appear—soft whites, pale golds, something delicate and carefully chosen.
*Her* colors.
Shadow Milk slows, just slightly, as he passes.
He doesn’t stop.
“I’ll toast outside your wedding day…” he murmurs, almost absent.
He can picture it.
Not inside.
Never inside.
Just out of sight. Out of mind.
Exactly where he belongs.
A beat passes.
“Whisper vows I’ll never say to you…”
The words barely form.
They don’t need to.
He’s already let them go.
Or at least—
He tells himself he has.
“Because it’s too little,” he says one last time, quieter than before, “all too late.”
And this time—
He keeps walking.