Work Text:
It wasn’t Shang Chao.
It wore the same clothes that he did when he was still alive, it spoke with the same mannerisms, the same tone of voice. It even smiled at Yang Cheng with the same dimple and crinkle of the eyes.
It even shared the same wounds Shang Chao did, sometimes. When it felt like scaring Yang Cheng. Like manipulating him.
It got some things wrong though. It sat a little too close to Yang Cheng, it touched him a little too much. It’s jokes bordering on flirting and it’s smiles tipping over to loving.
Yang Cheng never said anything about it though.
His floor of the hero tower was quiet, lonely even. Though Yang Cheng didn’t feel lonely, not in the way he used to when he was younger.
It was nice to pretend, sometimes, that the fake was real. That Shang Chao had never been buried under dirt and grass. That he was still alive, living in the hero tower with Yang Cheng. That they had confessed their feelings for each other and lived happily ever after.
The illusion would break, every now and again. The fake would ask Yang Cheng to do something strange, or it would act pointedly not like Shang Chao. Once it asked him to kill Rock, to take revenge.
It wasn’t a thought Yang Cheng entertained, even if it was Shang Chao’s voice begging. Even if it was his mouth pouting and his eyelashes batting. Things like that would make the illusion of a perfect life fade away, and Yang Cheng’s reality would settle in like a first layer of snow.
It got some things wrong, because Shang Chao wasn’t a vengeful person. Yang Cheng had already made the mistake of thinking that once.
One day, the fake disappeared. Yang Cheng woke up, went about his daily routine only to realize there was no shadow following him through it.
Something about its loss brought tears to his eyes.