You found him in the smoke — standing where no one should be, in the ruins of a war he died in long ago. The same face. The same eye. The same boy you’d buried under stone.

He smiled like nothing had changed.

“Took you long enough to stop pretending.”

You froze.

“You always wore that mask like it was armor. Like if you fooled everyone long enough, maybe you’d forget you weren’t the boy they thought you were.”

“I had to survive,” you said.

“No,” he said gently, stepping closer. “You had to hide. And you were good at it. So good I didn’t even know who I died for.”

You couldn’t look at him. He circled her like smoke — warm, inevitable.

“I thought I was saving my teammate,” he murmured. “Turns out I died for a stranger.”

Your breath caught.

“You let me go thinking I meant nothing to you. And you didn’t stop me, did you?”

“I didn’t know how.”

“But you knew how to lie,” he said, almost fond. “To them. To me. To yourself.”

He crouched beside her, brushing soot from her cheek like an old habit.

“I would’ve stayed,” he whispered. “If you’d let me see her. This girl beneath the stone. The one who breaks.”

His voice was velvet. His gaze a blade.

“You mourned me like a hero,” he said. “But I think what you really missed… was the version of you that only existed when I was alive.”

You blinked, and the ground felt like it was slipping.

“I don’t hate you,” he said. “But you made it very easy to leave.”

Still, he stayed. Sat beside her, quiet and close, fingers brushing her wrist like tether.

“You kept me out for so long,” he said. “Now that you’re broken, maybe I can finally get in.”

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away.

Because his voice sounded like home.

And if this was ruin, at least he was here to watch you fall.