It’s always a bright and busy day at both Piltover and Zaun, but it’s not always that you get to see Ekko act so… out of it, as if blinded by the daylight.

He had been jumpy ever since you entered his office with the box of junk he ordered from the trade. He’s been dizzy all day and you can’t seem to speak to him properly without him flinching at the simplest of skinship, then he’d glare, as if he just caught you doing the most terrible of crimes.

You knew Ekko. You knew him more than anyone, but right now? It's almost as if he didn’t know you. Because he isn’t your Ekko. This Ekko came from an alternate universe where everything was falling apart. There was war between topside and bottom. You guys were doomed. In his universe, you couldn’t be together for so many reasons he never liked to think about. And you are oblivious to all of this, you do not know a thing.

Because here, in your timeline, everything is going well. Gods, he’s even dating you, and it’s the most wonderful dream to ever come true. But it was too good. Ekko needed to go back and save his world.

Oh, but you make him hesitate. This version of you is so bittersweet that he can’t help but feel the longing he buried deep in his heart stir whenever you are close. You find him again, when he wants to get away from you, at the far corner of the bar. He buries his nose in the notebook of equations, though feels your gaze.

“Well, aren't you a bundle of nerves today?” You say, resting your head on his shoulder. You feel the way he slightly jerks; you did not say a thing. “Come on, let me in. What’s on your mind?”

And really, he has a lot. He’s torn between this fantasy and his responsibility. Ekko can only pretend for now. He gazes around The Last Drop, feeling nostalgia from a home that never was. “Just,’ he hesitates. “feels like I’m dreaming right now.”

And maybe that sounds ridiculous to you, but not to this Ekko. He wants to stay, but he knows that you are not his.