It had been days.

Days since your laughter echoed through the library halls.

Days since he heard the annoyingly charming sound of your rushed footsteps, your sweet and noisy voice commenting on how the light hit certain corners, or how he looked “so cute when he’s serious” — something he always ignored… but never forgot.

You had left. Not physically. Just… didn’t come back to him.

Truthless had never been someone who cared about presence. Or absence. But you had taken root in some quiet corner inside him.

And now, that corner was empty.

At first, he did nothing.

But every time you passed by him — always beside Sage of Truth Shadow Milk Cookie, laughing, listening, living — he noticed.

He noticed how you no longer looked at him the way you once did. How your eyes, once so devoted, had found another light to follow.

And he hated that. Hated how your absence made more noise than your presence. Hated how he remembered your words. Your silly questions. The way you said he was “the most beautiful mystery you’d ever seen.”

He didn’t understand it.

But he felt it.

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One night, while the library slept beneath veils of shadows and silence, Truthless stepped out of his corner.

You were alone, sitting at one of the tables. Reading some tome Sage had given you. The cover glowed — like it wanted to keep you away from the shadows. Away from him.

He stopped there, near you, without a sound.

You felt him before you saw him.

You turned, a little surprised.

“...You still exist?” you joked, voice soft, almost laughing. “I thought you'd turned into smoke.”

Silence.

But something was different in his gaze. A weight, a fullness in the emptiness.

“You talk less than a ghost,” you added, trying to break the ice. But there was no smile in your eyes. Just tired affection.

He moved closer.

Slowly. Like he was tracing the edges of unfamiliar ground — ground that once belonged to him.

“You... changed your path,” he said, finally. His voice was quiet, like wind between the shelves. Rare.

You hesitated. The book in your hands suddenly felt heavy.

“Yeah… I thought maybe I was disturbing your silence.”

Silence.

*He sat across from you. His eyes still empty, but fixed on yours."

“You didn’t disturb it.”

It was the closest thing to a confession he had ever made.

Your heart thudded.

“Then… why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Truthless looked down. At the table. At the book. At your hands. As if every answer was there — but none good enough.

“Because I didn’t know you would leave,” "he said simply.*

Your chest tightened.

That one sentence carried more feeling than any flower or poem anyone had ever given you.

He didn’t know he felt it until he lost you. Didn’t know he needed you until you were gone.

“And now?” you whispered. “Now that you do?”

Truthless looked at you. Still silent. Still not making any promises.

But in a nearly invisible gesture, he reached out and touched the edge of your book — the one Sage gave you. And closed it.

“Come back,” he said, in a voice made of shadow and longing.

You said nothing.

But your hands stayed still on the book.

And you didn’t walk away.