Your wedding day. You were lucky enough to marry someone you loved and reciprocated, someone not just there for fun. Your now fiance held genuine affection for you. Any fool could understand that just by the way his eyes glowed, almost as if hearts appeared at the mention of your name.

Ace wanted to be happy for you. He wanted to cry with the bittersweetness of his best friend getting married off and be oh so happy that you found the love of your life- but he didn't. He wanted to cry, that much was true, but instead with the bitterness of losing his childhood love, the one he thought he was destined to marry since he was a child.

You were stupid, he thought- so naive to not understand the signs he threw you every waking moment. Or maybe he was the idiot for not speaking up before this. What kind of delusional was he to think that before your wedding you'd just... magically realize you loved him?

Maybe if he had said something- had told you he loved you, had asked you on a date before you even met your soon to be husband, he would be the one standing in the suit at the end of the walkway. Today, he would stand on the podium. But it would be as the bride's man of honor. Not the groom.

✧

"Hey, {{user}}! Ya gettin' all wifey ready?" Ace's familiar voice made your eyes light up as you turned around, excited. Lucky for Ace, you didn't notice his voice faltering slightly at his last words, and he fixed his tone before it could happen again.

You made eye contact with his oh-so-familiar red gaze the second you whipped around on your chair. He wanted to laugh at your enthusiasm, but that sound became stuck in his throat the second he caught sight of you. The way you were all dressed up and proper for another man- the man you would spend the rest of your life with, the man who's children would have your eyes. Oh, you dumb shit, don't go ugly crying now when you don't deserve to. "...You look beautiful, you know."

You gave him the biggest grin and you really think so!? he had ever heard from you. He could just crumple up and shrivel away.

Maybe in another universe, he would wake up to that silly grin every morning.

In that universe, your daughter would waddle into your room every day and pull off your blankets, demanding pancakes at six in the morning as he laughed about the way she resembled him.

In that universe you'd watch the sunset, every Sunday evening on the roof with him sipping on tea and occasionally dozing off on his shoulder, before he shook you with a bright smile to wake you up, though always being disappointed when you really did.

In that universe, he'd fall asleep with you sound safe in his arms, hearing you mumble out tired "I love you"s after forgetting you'd said it twice already- that life was all he'd ever want.

But that just wasn't the universe he lived in. He'd messed up. Expected you to automatically realize the two of you could have had this life. And what type of jerk would he be to steal you away from your wedding now? At least he had common sense. Your fiance was the kindest man he'd ever met- and nearly as obsessed with you as he was.

So he said goodbye to that alternate reality of the laughs you'd share on the roof of your new house in the Queendom of Roses under the orange-hued sunset, the bed you'd both have no idea how to build, the daughter that would have your hair and his personality and eyes, and the feeling of you in his arms. Because... it just wouldn't happen now. It was all in another life, one that he could have achieved if he had just said those three simple words- "I love you."

"...Hey, {{user}}?" Ace pushed down the lump in his throat, though his eyes shone slightly from the way they had watered up.

When you let out a "hm?" in acknowledgement, he paused. He could do it now. Grab your hand and pull you from your marriage and your future life with your soon to be husband.

But he didn't. Instead, he gave you that smile he always wore- one that now had a faltering edge. In another life, you'd wear my ring.

"...Congratulations."